Merry Christmas!

Picture taken from http://communityoflife.net/bel.html

For unto us a Child is born,

Unto us a Son is given;

And the government will be upon His shoulder.

And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of His government and peace.

There will be no end,

Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,

To order it and establish it with judgment and justice

From that time forward, even forever.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

Isaiah 9:6-7 NKJV

Christopher Hitchens Has Died, Doug Wilson Reflects

How to think about the death of the outspoken atheist.

Douglas Wilson | posted 12/16/2011 12:00AM

Photo by Peter King

Editor's Note: Christopher Hitchens has died at the age of 62. A statement from Vanity Fair said that he died Thursday night at cancer center in Houston of pneumonia, a complication of his esophageal cancer. CT asked Douglas Wilson to weigh in on the life and death of the prominent atheist. (The image on our homepage features Wilson, left, and Hitchens in a mock arm wrestling match.)

Christopher Hitchens was a celebrity intellectual, and, as such, the basic outlines of his life are generally well known. But for those just joining us, Christopher Hitchens was the older of two sons, born to Eric and Yvonne in April 1949. He discovered as a schoolboy that probing questions about the veracity of the Christian faith were part of a discussion that he "liked having." His younger brother, Peter, followed him in unbelief. But unlike Christopher, Peter publicly returned to the Church of England, the communion where they had both been baptized.

Christopher spent some time in the 1960s as a radical leftist, but of course that was what everybody was doing back then. Somehow Christopher managed to do this and march to a different drummer, doing his radical stint as part of a post–Trotskyite Luxemburgist sect. He graduated from Balliol at Oxford, and soon became established as a writer, the vocation of his life, one in which he excelled. As a writer and thinker, he was greatly influenced by (and wrote about) men like George Orwell and Thomas Jefferson, while as the same time reserving the right to attack any sacred cow of his choosing—and the more sacred, the better. He is widely known for his scathing attack on Mother Teresa, and when Jerry Falwell passed away, he spent a good deal of time on television chortling about it.

But this was all part of Christopher's very public rhetorical strategy, not a function of an inability to domesticate a surly temperament. He was actually an affable and pleasant dinner companion, and fully capable of being the perfect gentleman. He was fully aware of the authority an enfant terrible could have, provided he played his cards right, and this was a strategy that Hitchens employed very well indeed. One man who delivers a terrible insult is banned from television for life, and another man, who does the same thing, has people lining up with invitations and microphones. In case anyone is wondering, Christopher was that second man.

A defining characteristic of his life was a willingness to break with the last group he was identified with. Whenever Orwell's "smelly little orthodoxies" began to develop, Christopher would be down the road. One of his books was Letters to a Young Contrarian, and that wordcontrarian appears to describe Christopher's approach to the desirability of not quite fitting in. After the attacks of September 11, he surprised a number of people with his full-throated support of the Iraq war, and he became a vigorous defender of the Western response to what he identified as "fascism with an Islamic face." As a result, he soon became identified with neoconservatives (who also supported the war), but he vigorously denied being a conservative of any stripe. At the same time, he found himself on the same side of a significant issue with George W. Bush, for example, while his former fellow leftists were most emphatically not.

I came to know Christopher during the promotion tour for his atheist encyclical, God Is Not Great. True to form, Christopher did not want to write a book attacking God and his minions only to have the release be a wine and cheese party in Manhattan with a bunch of fellow unbelievers, where they could all laugh knowingly about the rubes and cornpones down in the Bible Belt. So he told his publicist that he wanted to debate with any and all comers, and in the course of promoting his book, he did exactly that. I believe his book tour began in Arkansas, and the range of his debate partners included Al Sharpton, Dinesh D'Souza, and numerous others. In response to this general defiance he delivered to the armies of Israel, my agent Aaron Rench contacted Christianity Today to see if they would be willing to host a written exchange. They were, and when Christopher was contacted, he quickly agreed as well. That online exchange attracted some attention, and the debate was made into a small book (Is Christianity Good for the World?). The short promotion tour for the release of thebook was a series of debates that Christopher and I held in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, which were filmed for the documentary Collision.

As a result of all this, we were thrown together in a number of situations. One time we shared a panel in Dallas, and I told the crowd there that if Christopher and I were not careful, we were in danger of becoming friends. During the time we spent together, he never said an unkind thing to me—except on stage, up in front of everybody. After doing this, he didn't wink at me, but he might as well have.

So we got on well with each other, because each of us knew where the other one stood. Eugene Genovese, before he became a believer, once commented on the tendency that some have to try to garner respect by giving away portions, big or small, of what they profess to believe. "If other religions offer equally valid ways to salvation and if Christianity itself may be understood solely as a code of morals and ethics, then we may as well all become Buddhists or, better, atheists. I intend no offense, but it takes one to know one. And when I read much Protestant theology and religious history today, I have the warm feeling that I am in the company of fellow unbelievers" (The Southern Front, pp. 9–10). Ironically, the branch of the faith most interested in getting the "cultured despisers" to pay us some respect is really not that effective, and this is a strategy that can frequently be found on the pointed end of its own petard. Respectability depends on not caring too much about respectability. Unbelievers can smell accommodation, and when someone like Christopher meets someone who actually believes all the articles in the Creed, including that part about Jesus coming back from the dead, it delights him. Here is someone actually willing to defend what is being attacked. Militant atheists are often exasperated with opponents whose strategy appears to be "surrender slowly."

G. K. Chesterton once pointed to the salutary effect that the great agnostics had on him—that effect being that of "arousing doubts deeper than their own." Christopher was an heir of the Enlightenment tradition, and would have felt right at home in the 18th-century salons of Paris. He wanted to carry on the grand tradition of doubting what had been inherited from Christendom, and to take great delight in doubting it. This worked well, or appeared to, for a time. But skepticism is a universal solvent, and once applied, it does not stop just because Christendom is gone. "I think, therefore I am. I think." We pulled out the stopper of faith, and the bathwater of reason appeared undisturbed for a time. But modernism slowly receded and now postmodernism is circling the drain. Our intelligentsia needs to figure out how to do more than sit in an empty tub and reminisce about the days when Voltaire knew how to keep the water hot.

Christopher knew that faithful Christians believe that it is appointed to man once to die, and after that the Judgment. He knew that we believe what Jesus taught about the reality of damnation. He also knew that we believe—for I told him—that in this life, the door of repentance is always open. A wise Puritan once noted what we learn from the last-minute conversion of the thief on the cross—one, that no one might despair, but only one, that no one might presume. We have no indication that Christopher ever called on the Lord before he died, and if he did not, then Scriptures plainly teach that he is lost forever. But we do have every indication that Christ died for sinners, men and women just like Christopher. We know that the Lord has more than once hired workers for his vineyard when the sun was almost down (Matt. 20:6).

We also know that Christopher was worried about this, and was afraid of letting down the infidel team. In a number of interviews during the course of his cancer treatments, he discussed the prospect of a "death bed" conversion, and it was clear that he was concerned about the prospect. But, he assured interviewers, if anything like that ever happened, we should all be certain that the cancer or the chemo orsomething had gotten to his brain. If he confessed faith, then he, the Christopher Hitchens that we all knew, should be counted as already dead. In short, he was preparing a narrative for us, just in case. But it is interesting that the narrative he prepped us with did not involve some ethically challenged evangelical nurses on the late shift who were ready to claim that they had heard him cry out to God, thus misrepresenting another great infidel into heaven. It has been done with Einstein, and with Darwin. Why not Hitchens? But Christopher actually prepared us by saying that if he said anything like this, then he did not know what he was saying.

This is interesting, not so much because of what it says about what he did or did not do as death approached him, and as he at the same time approached death. It is interesting because, when he gave these interviews, he was manifestly in his right mind, and the thought had clearly occurred to him that he might not feel in just a few months the way he did at present. The subject came up repeatedly, and was plainly a concern to him. Christopher Hitchens was baptized in his infancy, and his name means "Christ-bearer." This created an enormous burden that he tried to shake off his entire life. No creature can ever succeed in doing this. But sometimes, in the kindness of God, such failures can have a gracious twist at the end. We therefore commend Christopher to the Judge of the whole earth, who will certainly do right. Christopher Eric Hitchens (1949-2011). R.I.P.

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today.

For Malaysian Christians, an Anxious Holiday Season

By LIZ GOOCH. Published by The New York Times on 12 December 2011.

KUALA LUMPUR — Beneath windows framed with forest-green wreaths studded with red and gold baubles, worshipers at St. Mary’s Anglican Cathedral, one of the oldest churches in Malaysia, knelt and clasped their hands in prayer. As part of the Advent service, they celebrated a baptism and sang their way through a series of hymns including “Child in the Manger.”

But their voices masked the unease many Christians in Malaysia are feeling this season, following accusations that they are trying to “Christianize” this Muslim-majority country by converting Muslims, which is illegal.

“It’s unfortunate that the authorities don’t take the relevant action against those making such wild allegations,” said Bishop Jason Selvaraj, who led the service at St. Mary’s. “We are upset about that. There’s a sense of justice is not done. We have not done anything wrong.”

The Malaysian Constitution both guarantees freedom of religion and designates Islam as the official religion — ethnic Malays are automatically considered Muslims. While Muslims are free to proselytize to others, most states have laws that prohibit members of other religions from proselytizing to Muslims. In Selangor State, the penalties can include a year’s imprisonment and a fine of up to 10,000 ringgit, or almost $3,200.

While the central government’s Department of Islamic Development says no one has ever been formally charged with trying to convert Muslims, recent statements by Muslim politicians and groups promoting Islam have left many Christians, who make up just 9 percent of the population, feeling victimized. Many are convinced that they are being used as political pawns to win support among Muslim voters in advance of the next general election, widely expected to be held next year.

“I think Christians are generally feeling that there is kind of a Christian-bashing going on,” said the Rev. Thomas Philips, a Syrian Orthodox priest and vice president of the Council of Churches of Malaysia, a group that represents Protestant and Orthodox churches.

While Christians, for the most part, work and live peacefully alongside Muslims in Malaysia, several incidents have heightened tensions in recent years, including the firebombing of churches in 2010.

The latest round of religious tensions was set off in August, when Selangor religious officials interrupted a church dinner outside of Kuala Lumpur, saying they had information that these Christians were proselytizing to Muslims.

Although the sultan of Selangor eventually concluded that there was “insufficient” evidence to take further legal action, Muslim politicians and leaders of Himpun, a new organization that has pledged to protect Islam, have continued to charge that there is a plot by some opposition political parties and Christian organizations to “Christianize” the country.

On Nov. 29, Ahmad Maslan, a deputy minister from the United Malays National Organization, or UMNO, the dominant party in the governing coalition, asserted that Islam would be “lost” if the opposition gained seats in the next election, according to a report by The Malaysian Insider, a news Web site.

“Say goodbye to Islam, because they are agents of Christianization,” he said, referring to the Democratic Action Party, a member of the opposition alliance.

The governing coalition, which has led Malaysia since independence from Britain in 1957, suffered its biggest loss in the 2008 elections, losing its two-thirds parliamentary majority for the first time. Some analysts say UMNO is trying to play on religious sensitivities to win back support from Malay Muslims.

Meanwhile, Himpun is planning a series of rallies around the country to “save and protect” Islam. The group, which held a rally in Kuala Lumpur in October that attracted 5,000 people, complains that the government is not enforcing laws that prohibit trying to convert Muslims.

“If we have a law which is not enforced, then it’s a mockery on the part of the religious authorities,” said Mohammad Azmi Abdul Hamid, Himpun’s chairman.

Christian leaders deny that they are part of a plot to “Christianize” the country. They say recent comments about “Christianization” by UMNO members indicate that the party is trying to shore up its support among Muslims, its traditional support base, before the election.

“The present climate and mood is more political than anything else,” said the Rev. Lawrence Andrew, editor of The Herald, the Roman Catholic Church’s weekly newspaper in Kuala Lumpur. Father Philips, who is also vice president of the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism, said he believed that UMNO was seeking to portray itself as the “savior of Muslims.”

“They are thinking that it will unite the Muslims together, but I don’t think that any Malaysians buy it,” he said. “It’s a political game.”

Farish Ahmad Noor, a political science professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, agrees.

While Prime Minister Najib Razak has been seeking to present Malaysia as a moderate Muslim nation and has opened diplomatic relations with the Vatican and spearheaded a “1Malaysia” policy to promote national unity and inclusiveness, Mr. Farish said his efforts were being undermined by conservatives within his party who were trying to appeal to Muslims. These elements, he said, threatened to alienate non-Muslims affiliated with other parties in the governing coalition, which includes the Malaysian Chinese Association and the Malaysian Indian Congress.

“It may prove to be counterproductive in the long run,” Mr. Farish said.

“If this fringe in UMNO thinks this is the only way they can secure the Malay vote, they have to understand that the coalition as a whole has to secure the votes of as many Malaysians as they can, and that includes Christians.”

Mr. Farish said while groups like Himpun say they are independent, “in the minds of Malaysians they are seen as another front” for the governing coalition.

Ng Kam Weng, director of the Kairos Research Center, which studies issues related to Malaysian Christianity, said that UMNO politicians may also be trying to intimidate Christians who were becoming more politically active and playing a greater role in civil society groups.

He said churches were careful not to proselytize to Muslims precisely because this could provoke a “backlash from authorities.”

“I think if the Christian community is clear in its conscience that it has maintained its integrity in how it practices its faith, I suppose we trust in God that he will override human mischief,” he said.

Bishop Selvaraj said the recent controversies would not dampen celebrations at St. Mary’s in the days leading up to Christmas. He has discussed the allegations in his sermons and urged the congregation — Malaysians of Chinese and Indian ethnicity, Africans, Indonesians and Europeans — to pray for peace. He said he has been encouraged by messages of support from Muslim friends.

“The majority of Muslims are good people,” he said.

International Anti-Corruption Day 9 December 2011

"On this International Anti-Corruption Day, let us pledge to do our part by cracking down on corruption, shaming those who practice it and engendering a culture that values ethical behaviour."

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Message on International Anti-Corruption Day

Message of the Secretary-General for 2011

Corruption afflicts all countries, undermining social progress and breeding inequality and injustice.

When desperately needed development funds are stolen by corrupt individuals and institutions, poor and vulnerable people are robbed of the education, health care and other essential services.

Although the poor may be marginalized by corruption, they will not be silenced. In events across the Arab world and beyond this year, ordinary people have joined their voices in denouncing corruption and demanding that governments combat this crime against democracy. Their protests have triggered changes on the international scene that could barely have been imagined just months previously.

All of us have a responsibility to take action against the cancer of corruption.

The United Nations is helping countries combat corruption as part of our broader, system-wide campaign to help bolster democracy and good governance.

The United Nations Convention Against Corruption is a powerful tool in the fight. I urge all governments that have not yet ratified it to do so without delay. I also call on governments to include anti-corruption measures in all national programmes that support sustainable development.

The private sector, too, stands to gain enormously from effective action. Corruption distorts markets, increases costs for companies and ultimately punishes consumers. Companies can create a more transparent global economy through anti-corruption initiatives, including the work of the United Nations Global Compact.

On this International Anti-Corruption Day, let us pledge to do our part by cracking down on corruption, shaming those who practice it and engendering a culture that values ethical behaviour.

Resolution adopted by the General Assembly: http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/58/4

Freedom carries responsibility

Published by The Star Online on 30 November 2011.

DECEMBER 10 marks the 63rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 (UDHR).

The first Article of the Declaration contains the stirring proclamation that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”.

Many important moral ideals can be derived from this simple but eloquent statement.

Universality: All human beings are entitled to some core human rights. These rights transcend time, territory, race, religion, colour, caste, creed, gender or nationality. Human rights represent universal standards for evaluating national laws and institutions.

Born free: Human rights are inherent. They belong to us by virtue of our birth as a human being. They do not depend on the existence of a state or a constitution. They enjoy authority superior to and independent of government.

Fundamental rights are individual as well as collective in their nature. They belong to human beings as individuals as well as to nations and human groups as collective entities.

Human rights are essential conditions for a free and democratic society. They are principles of liberty and justice without which a fair and enlightened system of government would be impossible.

Equality: Though inequalities are a fact of life, the law must hitch itself to stars. It must peg its provisions to ideals distilled from philosophy and morality.

The law must ban religious, racial, tribal and gender discrimination and call for equality before the law and equal protection of the law.

Indeed, over the last few centuries, the struggle for equality has reached many important milestones.

Religious persecution has been outlawed. Racial discrimination has collapsed in South Africa and the United States. Many strides have been made in gender equality.

However, other goals still beckon. Poverty is pervasive and remains the biggest threat to human dignity.

In the area of employment and work, hierarchies exist and glaring income disparities are widespread. Globalisation is creating vast disparities between the rich North and the impoverished South. Colonialism, built on a racist assumption of the superiority of some people over others, rears its ugly head again.

Rights and dignities: The UDHR talks of “dignity” and “rights”. Both are important but it is necessary to distinguish between the two.

A right is a legitimate authority to be, to do or to have. Most rights are necessary and supportable. But the exercise or abuse of some rights may be incompatible with the preservation of human dignity.

For instance, if a person by his/her own volition chooses to lead the life of a beggar and to sleep on the pavements or to become a sex worker, that may be his/her right. But it diminishes the worth and dignity of the human personality. For this reason many philosophers emphasise that dignity is more important than rights.

The notion of dignity implies that an individual owes a duty to himself not to compromise his self-esteem and destroy his worth.

Right to dignity also requires that the state must take vigorous affirmative action to preserve human dignity by eradicating poverty, starvation and illiteracy.

The state must be actively invol-ved in efforts to stamp out all legal, social, economic and cultural conditions (like caste system, female circumcision) that destroy human dignity.

Thus, slaves, sex workers, circus dwarfs, and surrogate mothers can be restrained by the law from sacrificing their dignity even if they have a personal right to compromise their rights.

Reason and conscience: In the pursuit of our rights and our vision of a good life, we must maintain a sense of balance, moderation and equilibrium. We must avoid the temptation to conform to non-conformity.

We must know when to say “no” to drugs, cigarettes, free sex and advertisements which tempt us to shop till we drop in an excessively consumerist society.

Rights must be exercised with responsibility. Responsibility is the inevitable consequence of freedom.

We must accept the limitations of our freedom. Freedom is not an end in itself. Freedom per se has no value. It is what freedom is for. It is the use to which it is put and the sense of responsibility with which it is exercised.

If liberty is exercised without concern for the consequences to oneself and to society, then the line between liberty and anarchy is crossed. P eople are not always right about the exercise of their rights.

Rights must go hand in hand with duties. Free speech, for example, carries with it a duty to listen.

Our personal rights carry with them duties to oneself, to one’s family, to one’s community, to one’s country and to the larger world we inhabit.

Everyone who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefits received.

Unfortunately, too often duty is seen as the thing we expect from others.

Brotherhood: We should treat all other human beings as our brothers. We should give a little bit of ourselves, our time, talent and resources to others. We have a moral duty to help those less fortunate than us.

We should do to others what we wish to be done to us. In all areas of discord, we should put ourselves in the shoes of others, identify with their pain and problems and try to see issues through their eyes.

To be truly objective, we should be prepared to be subjective from another person’s point of view.

We should look for the best in others. We should avoid stereotypes and shun extremism. Extremism reflects awareness of only one narrow perspective.

The first function of freedom should be to free somebody else. We should protect and cherish not only our rights but the rights of others.

Regrettably this is not what happens around the world.

Decent human beings must stand up and be counted and struggle to throw off the chains that bind their fellow beings.

When that happens, when a just cause reaches its floodtide, whatever stands in the way falls before its overwhelming force.

There is in this world no such force as the force of a human being determined to rise. The human soul cannot be permanently chained.

This is the lesson of history and the implicit message of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Shad Saleem Faruqi is Emeritus Professor of Law at UiTM & Visiting Professor at USM.

Walk For Freedom 2011

Lawyers end march, say to keep up pressure on assembly law

The Bar Council warned the Najib administration today it will “continue knocking on the doors of Parliament” if the Peaceful Assembly Bill is passed without public consultation.

Malaysian Bar President Lim Chee Wee urged the government to consider the council’s proposed alternative to the government’s original Bill, which he described as an “unjust law made in haste ... which will impose unreasonable and disproportionate fetters on freedom of assembly”.

“The Bar will continue knocking on the doors of Parliament if the Bill makes it to the statute books in its current form. We will not give up hope,” he vowed during a brief press conference in Parliament here.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/lawyers-end-march-say-to-keep-up-pressure-on-assembly-law

Bar Council presents alternative assembly bill

The Bar Council has made public its alternative to the controversial Peaceful Assembly Bill, saying it takes “significantly different approaches” from the one the Dewan Rakyat passed today.

The council said in a media statement that its draft, also called the Peaceful Assembly Bill, complied with international conventions. It gives every person, regardless of age, the right to assemble peacefully.

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2011/11/29/bar-council-presents-alternative-assembly-bill/

More than 2,000 lawyers gather to protest Assembly Bill

More than 2,000 lawyers from the 14,000-strong Bar Council turned up for the much-anticipated protest despite the short notice given. They began begin their 2.5km 'Walk for Freedom' to Parliament at around 12.30pm.

On reaching the august House, president of the Bar Lim Chee Wee and 9 others were allowed into the lobby. They handed over a copy of the Bar's alternative Bill to Deputy Minister Liew Vui Kong, plus a letter reiterating their call to MPs to vote wisely on the Bill.

“We are not anti-government or pro-opposition. We are anti-injustice and anti-unconstitutionality. We are pro-justice and pro-rule of law. We have always worked closely with the government,” Lim said.

http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=23657:more-than-2000-lawyers-gather-to-protest-assembly-bill-walk-to-begin-soon&Itemid=2

Lawyers march against Assembly Bill

More than 1,000 members of the Bar Council marched to the Dewan Rakyat today to protest the proposed the Peaceful Assembly Bill 2011.

Led by their president Lim Chee Wee, they asked MPs not to pass the controversial Bill, claiming that it would curtail the right to peaceful assembly.

Lim said that Malaysia was founded on public demonstrations, citing founding father Onn Jaafar’s leading of the Malayan Union against the British.

He also pleaded to the MPs not to rid Malaysians the right to assemble peacefully “with the stroke of a pen”.

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2011/11/29/lawyers-march-against-assembly-bill/

Malaysia passes ban on street protests

Malaysian and international rights groups describe it as repressive because it bans street rallies and imposes tough restrictions and penalties for demonstrators.

The law was announced only last week, and some critics say the vote was rushed without proper public consultation.

About 500 lawyers and their supporters marched to parliament hours before the vote, urging lawmakers to reject the bill and chanting "freedom to the people'' before police stopped most of them from entering the complex.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2011/11/201111299054994173.html?utm_content=automateplus&utm_campaign=Trial6&utm_source=SocialFlow&utm_term=tweets&utm_medium=MasterAccount#.TtTR3pmqa6A.facebook

Malaysia’s ruling coalition advances ban on street protests criticized as repressive

Prime Minister Najib Razak’s ruling coalition says the Peaceful Assembly Act is intended to strike a balance between public order and the right to peaceful assembly. The act passed easily in Parliament’s lower house after the boycott, and the law is expected to be enforced after Parliament’s upper house, also dominated by the National Front coalition, approves it as early as next month.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/500-malaysian-lawyers-activists-stage-protest-march-against-govt-plan-to-ban-street-ralllies/2011/11/29/gIQA2il36N_story.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

Opposition MPs walk out, refuse to vote on Peaceful Assembly Bill

Opposition MPs staged a walkout during the debate on the Peaceful Assembly Bill 2011 on Tuesday, claiming that the Government was rushing the bill through.

The entire bench stood and left the House at around 3pm after the Speaker allowed the debate to continue despite calls for it to be suspended and for the bill to be referred to a Parliamentary Select Committee.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/11/29/nation/20111129153616&sec=nation

Peaceful Assembly Bill passed

KUALA LUMPUR: The Peaceful Assembly Bill 2011 was passed by Parliament Tuesday after six amendments were made to the bill.

The bill was passed with no dissenting votes after the Opposition refused to take part in the debate and staged a walkout.

The walk-out was staged before Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Nazri tabled six amendments to the bill.

The bill was passed before Deputy Speaker Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar.

Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia had allowed just three Opposition MPs to debate the proposed law.

The Opposition had asked for it to be retracted and put before a Parliamentary Select Committee for review.

The six changes include Sub-Clause 9 (1), where the 30-day notice period required to be given to the police was changed to 10 days.

Under Clause 12 (b), objections against a proposed assembly must be lodged with the police in writing within 48 hours, instead of five days.

For Clause 14, the change included the provision for police to give a reply to organisers within five days instead of 12.

In Clause 16(a), appeal against the rejection of an application or the exercise of police discretionary orders to organisers can be done within 48 hours of receipt, instead of four days while under Clause 16(b), the Home Minister is to answer any appeals within 48 hours of receipt instead of six days.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/11/29/nation/20111129164017&sec=nation

Hello MP, kami sedang perhatikan cara awak undi

Meminjam konsep bekas presiden Majlis Peguam, Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan yang mahu setiap ahli parlimen "bertanggungjawab kepada pengundi mereka", warga maya melancarkan kempen mengingatkan wakil rakyat mereka bahawa corak pengundian mereka berhubung rang undang-undang kontroversi itu akan juga ditentukan pada pilihan raya akan datang.

Melalui kempen yang dikenali sebagai '#HelloMP' warga maya memuat-naikkan gambar mereka memegang sehelai kertas dengan nama kawasan pilihan raya dan wakil rakyat, menggesa mereka menolak rang undang-undang itu di Facebook.

http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/182714

Govt paranoid, says Ambiga

BERSIH chairman Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan claims the Peaceful Assembly Bill 2011 is a "paranoid" Bill.

Asked if the proposed legislation was a retaliation against Bersih 2.0, she said: "I do not know whether it is a direct retaliation.

"I think it is a paranoid Bill. I think the government seems to fear the idea of the rakyat expressing themselves."

Ambiga said this before the Bar Council organised walk from Lake Gardens to Parliament building yesterday.

http://www.mmail.com.my/content/86739-bar-courting-trouble

A Christian Response to Gay Bullying

Published by Christianity Today on 12 October 2011.

A few weeks ago, Jamey Rodemeyer was found dead by his parents in their Buffalo, New York, home. But Rodemeyer’s death was different. The 14-year-old was one of many young people who have committed suicide over bullying and taunting over sexuality. Last year, Tyler Clementijumped off the George Washington Bridge in New York after a roommate secretly filmed him in a sexual encounter with another male student and posted it online. Asher Brown and Seth Walsh committed suicide after facing relentless taunting for being gay. And Sladjana Vidovicwas one of five students from an Ohio high school to commit suicide in the course of a year.

The suicides of teenagers due to bullying, especially over homosexuality, have led to an outcry in the media, fueling many efforts to fight bullying on all fronts. Ellen Degeneres has taken up the fight; nearly every week, it seems, the comedian tackles the subject on her show. Her website has a page devoted to fighting bullying in schools, including everything from celebrity videos about bullying to messages about the importance of equality in the fight against bullying. A few weeks ago, in an interview with Chaz Bono, she compared the outcry over his participation inDancing With the Stars to bullying that goes on in schools. Kids learn from their parents, Ellen said,

. . . until adults take responsibility for how we treat one another, until we see that we are doing the same thing we are asking kids not to do at school — politicians do it, adults do it — to say that he [Bono] is different and he is wrong and to make something of it, shame on us for doing that and being an example for kids.

After the suicides of Clementi, Brown, and Walsh, Degeneres posted a video in which she expressed grief and outrage that anyone would feel so alone that suicide seemed their only option. She said intolerance of homosexuality is the foundation for today’s bullying: “There are messages everywhere that validate this kind of bullying and taunting and we have to make it stop. We can’t let intolerance and ignorance take another kid’s life.” She concluded that “things will get easier, peoples’ minds will change, and you should be alive to see it.”

Degeneres’s comments give Christians much to think about. When any person commits suicide, it’s a tragedy, one Christians especially should grieve, given the person’s God-given dignity and irreplaceable presence in others’ lives. Bullying, taunting, and physical or emotional abuse is not to be tolerated by believers who see it happening, regardless of who is being bullied. Nevertheless, Ellen’s comments present some troubling assertions — namely, that bullying is simply any moral judgment about another person’s behavior.

It’s a fine line between bullying and tolerance, and Christians have made blunders on both sides. Some have seemed to put homosexuality into its own category of sinfulness, as if it takes a special kind of atonement to make clean. This has only added fuel to the pro-tolerance fire. In an effort to reverse these effects, some Christians have swung the pendulum too far, ignoring Scripture’s prohibitions against homosexual behavior in favor of a widely embracing, culturally acceptable sexual ethic.

Christians must bridge the gap between bullying and the cry for tolerance. We cannot turn a blind eye to sinful behavior of any sort, whether it’s homosexual behavior or hateful bullying. And we also must clearly define bullying, focusing on physical and verbal abuse rather than simple disagreement with another’s actions.

After Clementi’s death, Albert Mohler wrote an article lamenting that four young men had committed suicide in one month. He wrote, “Tyler joined Billy, Seth, and Asher as tragic evidence of the dangerous intersection of sexual confusion, hateful classmates, and the wide-open world of social media. These boys simply ran out of the emotional ability to face life, crushed by the burden of secrets and the bullying of their peers.” What was once a fight in the hallway or a rumor passed in a classroom note has become an online epidemic. A girl who sends a text message to a boy at school can be an internet sensation by the end of the day. A young man who has a sexual encounter with another young man can be broadcast unbeknownst to him by a cruel college roommate. This is a problem and a tragedy, especially when it leads to death.

Yet the answer is not a ceasefire on all moral pronouncements in the public square. Degeneres’s definition of bullying, like many in the LGBT community, assumes that if we simply normalize homosexuality, bullying over sexual orientation will cease. As Christians, it’s more complicated than that. In order to be faithful to what God says, we must resist the notion that “tolerance” will solve the bullying problem. Living outside God’s design for sexuality, no matter the specifics, has implications for this life and for eternity.

Christians should be the first to offer a healing hope for the victim of senseless bullying of any kind. As Mohler asked, “Was there no one to step between Tyler Clementi and that bridge? Was there no friend, classmate, or trusted adult who had the courage and compassion to reach into his life and offer hope?”

Yet as Christians, we must have the heart of Jesus, who was willing to do the unpopular in order to free them from eternal judgment for their sin. We must never resort to hateful tactics and unkind words to prove our point, simply mimicking the meanness that permeates our schools. When Christians offer a counter voice to the actions of their peers, maybe then will our bullied friends and neighbors see an alternative to the seeming only option of a desperate suicide.

Courtney Reissig is a pastor's wife and freelance writer/blogger. She has written for the Gospel Coalition's book review site, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. She blogs regularly at In View of God's Mercy.