Mike Huckabee

Read excerpts from Kim Lawton’s August 15, 2008 interview in Washington, DC, with former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee about the McCain campaign, Republican platform issues, and the convictions of the candidate:

I think the Republicans are going to see increasing numbers of people rally around John McCain. They’re comfortable with his own depth of personal character, his faith, his honor, and they know that his positions really do reflect more of what they believe to be important, on the issue of life and traditional marriage, and he’s not been mean about it. He’s been very clear about it. And I remember seeing Senator McCain even going on the Ellen show and, with great respect and with even great admiration for her as a person, take a principled stand on what he believed marriage was, and it wasn’t confrontational, but it was spoken out of real conviction.

Mike Huckabee

I know that some people would like to see the political process like a buffet where you go and put exactly on your plate what you want. Doesn’t work like that. You have a process, and that process ends up resulting in a nominee, and then you rally around that nominee. You support him. And when you look at the nominee of our party versus the nominee of the other party, I think for most of us it’s real, real easy to get enthusiastically behind Senator McCain because he so much more accurately represents and reflects things that are important to me-lower taxes, a commitment to life, a commitment to traditional marriage, and a commitment to national security and a knowledge of the world stage. Those are all issues, I think, that people who are Republican are going to have to say the choice is real clear.

I think certainly the party platform needs to reflect what we have historically held, and that is that life is precious, begins at conception. It ought to be protected. I think any attempt to weaken or water that down would be met with extraordinary resistance, and it would be a big mistake, but I don’t hear any talk whatsoever that there would be some type of diminishing of the Republican platform on those key issues.

Parts of [the religion and politics discourse] have been healthy; some of it hasn’t. I think there’s been a healthy portion when we’re actually open about saying let’s talk about faith and how it influences our values system and what kind of judgment we have. It’s unhealthy when we start wanting to delve into every little doctrinal quirk of a person’s faith, because that may not be relevant to that person’s service in public office. If the question is whether we should talk about faith or not, yes, we absolutely should. Should faith be the only criteria by which we decide whether we vote for somebody? Of course not. We want competence, too. If I’m going to have an operation, I’d like for that doctor to be a person who prays and is in touch with the Creator of my body and my future. But if the choice is between an incompetent surgeon who’s a wonderful Christian or, you know, a great surgeon with very skillful hands and lots of experience who hadn’t been to church in thirty years, my attitude is I’ll do the praying and you do the cutting and maybe between the two of us this thing will turn out okay.

[McCain] can’t be phony. He can’t come out and start saying something that he’s not comfortable with. I just happen to know that there’s a comfort within his own soul and heart. He is a person who has deep, spiritual, faith convictions. This is not a man who has run away from God or is afraid to embrace his own faith and who he is. But, you know, there are many Americans, not just John McCain, who don’t necessarily want to talk about it as blatantly and openly. Some of it has to do with the way that we were brought up. But it doesn’t in any way diminish the authenticity of his faith, and frankly I’d rather have a person who lives faith and doesn’t talk about it than somebody who talks about it and doesn’t live it. And I think John McCain is a person-if you look at his voting record-is consistent with what he does, in fact, does profess.

Pastor Rick Warren

Read excerpts from Kim Lawton’s August 17, 2008 interview with Pastor Rick Warren at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California:

On the August 16 forum with Obama and McCain:


Rick Warren

I think it fulfilled the goal that I wanted and the goal was to prove that you could have another model of civil discourse besides the antagonistic debate format. This had never been done before, where you put the two guys on the same stage but have an hour discussion each with the exact identical questions. That’s what allowed them to do apples to apples, you know, comparison, and the amazing thing about it is they both presented their full differences without ever attacking the other person. And I think that was one of the things I wanted to prove, was that we can have returned civility to the civil discourse. We don’t have to be rude. We can disagree without demonizing, caricaturing each other. Both of these men are good men. They love America. They want it to be a good country. They just have vastly different visions on how it will be-how it should be done.

They’re both friends of mine and I know their personality. I know their background. I know-I wasn’t surprised by their stance. In fact, I know-I intentionally limited my follow-up questions so we could-we went broad rather than deep on a couple of issues. And, of course, as a journalist you know this. There are so many times I want to say, “Well, what about …but what about?” And I wanted to go back into the follow-up questions. And I could have with both those guys. I could’ve gone half an hour on each of the questions. But I wanted to give an overview of each of these four big areas: The stewardship of the presidency. What are the responsibilities of the presidency domestically? Personal leadership issues. Of course, the worldview issues of faith and worldview, and then international issues, which are the ones I care about-poverty, disease, illiteracy. There were a number of questions I didn’t get to ask.

On abortion and evangelicals:

I still think for most evangelicals it’s the number one issue, because it’s a life issue. If you literally believe, literally what Psalm 139 says, that “I formed you in your mother’s womb,” I planned your days before you were born, then you believe abortion short-circuits the will of God, that God planned each baby. I talk about this in chapter one of THE PURPOSE-DRIVEN LIFE, that nobody’s an accident. There are accidental parents but no accidental kids; illegitimate parents but no illegitimate kids. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. And so I don’t believe in accidental births. I believe that God knew what he was doing even in the sin of other people, even that God can bring good out of a rape. I believe that. But if you have a hierarchy, it depends on your worldview. What’s going to be at the top? There’s no doubt about it that if you don’t have that as a value then that’s not going to be at the top and it may be one of a number of different issues. The interesting thing is that every poll shows that the young evangelicals are actually more pro-life than their parents. They’re anti-religious right, but they’re more pro-life, which means they’re saying, “I don’t like the tenor of the argument, and I don’t like some of the other things that they’re saying.” But it doesn’t mean that they’re dropping their commitment to unborn babies.

On evangelical voters:

I’m not a prophet, I’m a pastor, so I can’t predict the future and I can’t predict how people are going to vote. It will be interesting to see how many of them choose to say, “Well, I choose these other issues above the issue of life.” On that particular thing, well, we’ll just have to find out. What I’m hearing is not lock-step in Republicanism. That’s what I’m hearing. I’m not hearing people saying, “Well, I’m going to move away from life,” but I am hearing people saying, “I’m moving away from just pulling a lever in Republicanism.” And, of course, in the last two years, many of the Democrats who got elected were actually pro-life Democrats, and so that’s an interesting combination that we’ll see what happens.

On Democrats, Republicans, and the language of faith:

It’s really interesting because after the 2004 election, a lot of Democratic pundits said they lost-Democrats lost that election because they didn’t speak the language of faith. Well, actually, that’s kind of patronizing, because just because you know the lingo doesn’t mean you have the worldview. And just because somebody can say “Jesus” or “God” or “salvation” doesn’t mean you have the worldview. So what happened, I think, is that everybody went overboard. It was interesting because all of a sudden in the primary season, all the Democrats were talking about God, Jesus, and faith, and all the Republicans were quiet, and they weren’t really wanting to talk about it. They were kind of trying to move away from it, and we’ve actually had more talk about it, obviously, this year than even four years ago. So it’s going to be-it’s just a fascinating season.

I really do think it’s going to come down to not the window dressing of the wording, the faith, the prayers, things like this. It’s going to come down to worldview, and it’s going to come down to individuals saying, “Do I value these particular issues above these particular issues?” I don’t think it’s going to have that big of an effect. I really don’t.

On faith and worldviews:

We must always keep in mind that America’s built on two twin pillars-majority rule and minority rights, and we must believe deeply in both. We believe in majority rule. The minority doesn’t get to make all the rules, and that means the majority wins. That means sometimes I lose. I lost on abortion. Okay. Abortion is the law in our land right now. I don’t agree with it, but my minority wasn’t strong enough to overturn that. On the other hand, we don’t just believe in ignoring minority rights, and so I think it’s very important that the candidates not only express their faith and express their worldview, if they have a worldview or have a faith, everybody’s got a worldview, but it’s also they have to make people feel comfortable to understand, “I am the president of everybody.” That’s extremely important. When I go to the doctor, I don’t ask a surgeon, “Are you an evangelical?” I say, “Are you a good doctor?” And the same is true with the president. It’s trite to say it but he’s not the pastor of the United States; he’s the president. And so I think it’s important for Christians, evangelicals, and people of faith to stand up and say, “Yes, we don’t have any problem with faith being at the table. What we have a problem with is a theocracy. I don’t believe in theocracy. I don’t believe in state church. I believe the reason Christianity has flourished in America is because it’s a free-market society and may the best idea win. I think everybody-I think a Muslim ought to have the right to try to persuade me to accept that faith as much as a Hindu or a Jew or anybody else, and likewise. I believe in persuasion. I do not believe in coercion.

On church-going voters:

Well, it is an interest group. Sorry to say that, but it is an interest group, and it happens to be probably the largest interest group. Unions are an interest group. Teachers are an interest group. Gays are an interest group. So should only other interest groups be allowed to have the candidates come to their venues? Now the candidates will go to gay venues, they’ll go to union venues, they’ll meet with teacher’s unions. They’ll do all different kinds of things. So a large portion of America goes to church. I mean, you know, this weekend about 140 million people will be in a church. Now more people will go in a church in one weekend than attend all professional sporting events in a year. I’m not talking about television. I’m talking about going to a tennis match, a ball game, baseball, football. So we have a sports page in the paper every day of the week, and only a tiny fraction of America pays attention to sports. There are far more people who are paying attention to what is going on in their church than pay attention to sports. So, as they’ve said before, we don’t believe in the naked public square. We believe in everybody being there at the table, and so I think it’s entirely appropriate as long as you don’t create a religious test.

On pro-life issues:

I’m certainly pro-life. There’s no doubt about that. But I’m also pro-whole-life, as they say, and I want to see commitments to-it’s why I challenged both of the candidates at the forum the other night about a challenge to do for orphans what President Bush had done for PEPFAR [President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief]. There are 30 million people in the world with AIDS right now who need ARVs [antiretroviral treatments] and things like that. But there are 143 million orphans in the world who are growing up without parents.

On issues at stake in the 2008 election:

We’ve got a number of things at stake. We cannot forget that we really still are at war. There are people in this world who want to destroy America. They’re not a significant part of the world, but they are a dedicated and radical part of the world, and they are bent on the destruction of America. So the war on terrorism is a hard war, because terrorism is actually a tool. You can’t have a war on a tool. In the past we had a war on an enemy, and we knew who the enemy was. You might be able to have a war on terrorists, but terrorism is actually a tool, and how do you defeat a tool? But that’s going to be a constant issue. I mentioned this the other night in the forum-there’s this collision between personal rights and the need for security, and that is not an easy answer. Now which takes precedence in the freedom that we’ve enjoyed for so long? I mean, every time I go through an airport I think, one guy changed my life. You know, I have to take off my shoes and my belt because of one guy, and that’s the power of terrorism. So the security issue is a big deal. The rebuilding of our inner cities is a big deal. Infrastructure is a big deal. I mean, I could go on and on and start sounding like a politician. So I would say that I’m more pleased about the two candidates this year than we’ve had in a number of years. I think they’re both genuinely competent people, and I would not agree, if either of them got elected, would not agree with everything they did. But they are both competent.

New Life Center

FRED DE SAM LAZARO, guest anchor: Hundreds of government officials and activists wrapped up a meeting in Bangkok this week by calling for more efforts to curb the exploitation of children. East Asia and the Pacific region have been especially afflicted by the problem, and the remote, so-called hill tribe populations who number in the tens of millions are particularly vulnerable.

I traveled recently to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand to visit the New Life Center, a faith-based group working to help young women escape or avoid victimization.

This dress rehearsal for a soap opera is full of drama: drug abuse, rape, guns, and prostitution. But for the performers acting out the scenes, this stuff is not necessarily fiction.

These performers reside in a shelter for girls in northern Thailand. Most are at risk for, or actual victims of, human trafficking. The skit is aimed at tribal communities in the surrounding mountains. That message will come in one of six languages spoken by different hill tribes that inhabit the vast region where Burma, China, Laos, and Thailand converge. This shelter was founded in 1987 to serve as a safe haven for tribal girls who’d been exploited. Since then, the New Life Center has housed about 1,500 girls.

Karen Smith

KAREN SMITH (Director, New Life Center): The New Life Center was opened by missionaries who were also anthropologists — Paul and Elaine Lewis. They saw countless women coming down out of their villages into the cities and being stuck in exploitative labor, and the needs were so great for education, for training, for knowledge for these tribal women, and they saw such great suffering. They saw women working in fish factories for 18 hours a day, and they saw the women who were getting forced into prostitution.

DE SAM LAZARO: The trouble for hill tribe communities begins with their isolation. Faye Wimon, a member of the Lahu community, works at the New Life Center.

Faye Wimon

FAYE WIMON (New Life Center): The road is not developed yet. That’s why there’s no school. So many of the hill tribe people — and also they didn’t get put into good schools and also the young people, especially the young women. So they have to stay home. They have to help their parents to take care of their younger brother and sister when their parents work in the field. And also the other problem is about citizenship.

DE SAM LAZARO: In Thailand, which has seen impressive economic growth in recent decades, half of the three million hill tribe people are not recognized as full citizens. That means many cannot buy land, vote, travel freely, or work legally.

Ms. SMITH: The citizenship issue in Thailand is a complicated one. If you are a tribal mother for whom the nearest hospital is five hours away, you are not able to go down to that hospital to give birth, and when a child doesn’t have birth registration, that starts the cycle.

DE SAM LAZARO: Many young women fall prey to traffickers and the underground economy.

Ms. SMITH: They might find a situation where they’re promised a particular job, and they end up moving to a particular place, and the job they end up with is not what they were promised, and they end up being a victim of human trafficking.


Girls at New Life Center

DE SAM LAZARO: That’s what happened to Mali who left her village and by age 13 began working in one of Bangkok’s notorious sex trades.

MALI (Former Victim, through translator): I didn’t know what kind of work it was, but she said it was a good salary, and I didn’t have to work too hard. I went to work in the show bar, and they wouldn’t let me leave. They beat me. It was very hard work. One day the owners forced me to go with a guest. The guests were usually foreigners, and I usually went with two or three guests a night.

DE SAM LAZARO: After five years in prostitution at the bar, Mali was approached by a faith-based anti-trafficking group that offers to help women who work in the sex industry.

MALI: They came like regular customers. They watched my dance show, and when my dance was finished they came up and started talking to me. I told them that I didn’t want to be here, that some people did want to be here, but I didn’t. I felt that it was shameful. Even though I made a lot of money, I thought there were other things I could do.

DE SAM LAZARO: Each day the young women spend time with activities like music lessons and homework. There’s also training in cooking, sewing, and cosmetology, skills that could land them a job when they leave the center.

MALI (through translator): When I was at the New Life Center I studied, I went to school, I learned a lot of things: how to sew, read, and write. I became a different person, and I have a new future.

DE SAM LAZARO: In the evening they’re off to night school, a program set up by the government to teach young adults with little formal education. Along with education and job skills, some 20 to 40 percent of residents here also acquire a new faith, converting to Christianity from traditional tribal religions in which they were raised.

Ms. SMITH: Every other year we have a baptism ceremony for the girls who do become followers of Jesus, and this past November there were 24 girls who were part of that baptism ceremony.

DE SAM LAZARO: But she and the resident chaplain insist the young women reach that decision on their own.

Rev. Kit Ripley

Reverend KIT RIPLEY (Resident Chaplain, New Life Center): Our residents have come from situations where they have experienced — many of them have experienced tremendous coercion and manipulation. So they know what that’s like, and they can put their finger on it pretty quickly. They’re very savvy when someone is trying to manipulate or force them to make a decision or to do anything with their life and often very resistant to that. So I feel like it’s just important be open to where they are spiritually, and a lot of that is waiting until they ask questions. I pray for residents at home and pray for their healing and their growth, and at that point I believe it’s up to God to work in their lives throughout their spiritual development.

DE SAM LAZARO: Spiritual development, sexual abuse counseling, education and job training are all part of the healing process, but so is legal advocacy. The center employs a full-time staff member to work on obtaining citizenship for the girls. That process takes between two and 10 years.

MALI (through translator): I’ve had lots of job offers, people asking me to work in different places, but I don’t have citizenship, so I can’t work anywhere legally.

Ms. SMITH: The situation if very, very complicated. In fact, right now in Thailand the Thai government has 23 different levels of status for its ethnic minorities.

DE SAM LAZARO: One major complication is the widely disparate economic and human rights conditions between Thailand and less prosperous neighbors like Burma and Laos. It prompts tribes’ people from those nations to travel across the mountain borders into Thailand. Long term, things could get even more complicated in the larger region.

Ms. SMITH: Just recently, new roads were opened between China, Laos, and Thailand, and they are huge eight-lane highways, and we know that whenever new roads are built that opens up an opportunity for business and the exchange of goods, but it also opens up the opportunity for the exchange of humans, and so I think there are still lots of risks for ethnic minorities.

DE SAM LAZARO: But for a hundred or so of these vulnerable young women, the New Life Center will continue to be a refuge.

Leah Daughtry

Read more of Kim Lawton’s interview with Leah Daughtry, chief executive of the 2008 Democratic Convention:

Q: Tell us a little bit about the many ways religion and faith-based ideas and people will be incorporated into the convention this year.

Leah Daughtry

A: Well, we’re very excited about what we’re planning for the convention this year. It’s really an outgrowth of all the work that we’ve been doing over the last several years to ensure that people of faith, Democrats who are people of faith, have a voice that is respected inside of the party, that’s heard inside of the party. So you’ll see a lot of that coming to fruition at this year’s convention. We’ve got two specific things that we’re planning. One, there will be an interfaith gathering on Sunday (August 24) before the convention. It’s actually the first official event of the convention weekend. It’s Sunday at 2:00, and we’ll be bringing people of faith together, people of values together, to come in one place in fellowship with one another to celebrate our accomplishments this year — to be with one another as we look forward into the future, to ask the blessings of the Creator as we embark upon the important work that we’ll do during convention week. And then the other thing that we’re going to do, another first for the convention, is a people of faith caucus. If you’ve been to a convention before you know that during the course of convention week there are any number of caucus meetings for our various communities. Whether you’re Asian-Pacific Islander or African-American or Latino or women or youth or seniors or veterans, there’s a caucus meeting for you. So what we decided this time is to have a people of faith caucus. There are millions of Democrats who are people of faith, and we wanted to honor that commitment that they have to their faith and to the party by having a designated, set time that they would come together as a group, in much the same way as the other caucus meetings. So they’ll meet just like every other caucus twice during the convention week for a couple of hours to talk about the issues that are of concern to most people of faith.

Q: What message do you hope all of this sends to voters?

A: I think it’s important, you know, we’re the big-tent party, which means we have — we pride ourselves on having great diversity of thought, great diversity of opinion inside of our party, all of which is respected and honored, and so this is just another way for us to respect and honor the traditions, the values that some of our voters have. All of us have values. We all come to our lives with a certain set of values. For many of us, those values spring from a place of faith. So what we want people to walk away with is understanding that this is just another part of the Democratic Party, that we’ve got millions of people who are people of faith, and we want them to feel at home here, although some of us, like me, have always been part of the party. And so to actually have a place where I know that I can go, and other people who are like minded, to discuss political issues, to discuss societal issues with people whose values spring from the place as mine, is very important. And that’s what we want people to walk away with. To really — the sense that there is a place for you inside of the Democratic Party whatever your belief system is, whatever your geographic background, your ethnic background. You can find a home in the Democratic Party, because although we are diverse, we really come together around core issues, and we understand that those issues that really bring us together and unite us are much stronger than those things that may divide us.

Q: Some people felt, especially four years ago, that the Democratic Party wasn’t open to religion, and polls showed that when people were asked which party is more open to faith, the Republican Party was seen as being more open. Why was that, and is this a change for the Democrats now?

A: You know, I don’t know. I mean, you’re speaking to someone who’s always been a Democrat, who’s always been a person of faith. I’m a fifth-generation pastor, so I’ve always had a place for faith in my life. It’s always been very important to me, and I’ve always voted Democrat, and so it was a puzzling phenomenon to me to see the party that I’ve always been a member of labeled as a party that doesn’t have people of faith or isn’t open to people of faith. So I think for me it was really more about us as a party saying, no, wait a minute. We are people of faith. There are millions of us, and we’re Democrats, and we become Democrats because of the values of our faith, because we believe that our Creator leads us in this direction, that we see the values of our faith mirrored in the values of the Democratic Party. So I think for some of us it’s just a matter of being more vocal, being more open about it, talking about it more, and not assuming that everybody in the larger society understood why I’m a Democrat. I’m not a Democrat because I’m from Brooklyn, New York, although that’s pretty much what we have in Brooklyn. But I’m a Democrat because the values of my faith, my biblical teachings, the foundations under which I guide my life are best exemplified in society in the Democratic Party. So I think, for us, we became more vocal. We decided to stand up. We decided to stand up for what we believe and to say this is who I am. I’m inside the party. I’m a person of faith, and I’m glad to be here, and I’m proud of it, and really to take back the conversation and to take back what had become this flag that we were painted under, to say this doesn’t represent me. I don’t know who you’re talking about, but you’re not talking about me as a person of faith. I’m a Democrat, and I’m glad to be here. So I think it also meant that we had to be more proactive inside communities of faith, to find the others like us and to encourage them to also speak up, and then to do some outreach into communities of faith that may not have been Democratically leaning and to encourage them and to help them see themselves inside the party — to find the values that we share in common and to help them to come over to the blue side of the ledger, and I think we’ve been very successful at that. Really just changing the dialogue and changing the conversation to a values-based message and helping the American voter really understand not the specific legislation, not the specific program that we’re advocating, but really what are the values underlying that? Why do we believe in children’s health insurance? Why do we believe that our social security system should be solvent? Why do we believe that health care is important? It’s not the health care itself, but it’s the value that drives us to that and to fight for those things for all Americans, and that’s what we’ve been doing a very good job of talking about over the last several years.

Q: So taking back territory? Did the religious right cause the Republicans to have the corner on some of this?

A: I think the religious right became very vocal and became very active inside the Republican Party and, you know, really made a name for themselves and suddenly became a force that the party infrastructure had to deal with, because they became so vocal and so strident and so forceful about their belief system, and I don’t fault them for that. I think they see that party, or they see the political system as a way for them to bring goods and services and help people live abundant lives on earth, and they went that way. I think for us in the Democratic Party, we had to do the same thing [and] say wait, you know, we’ve got to stand up and talk about what we believe, and all of us who are people of faith are not in the Republican Party. There are great millions of us who are on the other side, and we’ve just got to do a better job of talking about that.

Q: You mentioned it’s not just the policies of health care but the values that underlie it. What are some of those values that you think especially resonate with people of faith? What are those bigger, deeper issues that are at stake in some of these specific policies?

A: Well, you know, I believe — I’m a Christian, I’m a pastor, and for me it’s about the teaching of what I find in the biblical text, and everyone has their own holy text upon which they rely. But for me it’s about how we care for one another, that the God that I believe in is not singularly concerned only about the individual, but also there is an abiding concern about the community that we live in and that we are not islands unto ourselves, but that we live in relationship with each other and that our relationship with each other is as important as our relationship with the Creator himself, and so God invests a lot of time in the holy texts in issues of community, in issues of how we love each other and serve each other and respond to each other and care for each other, and when you have that sort of foundational understanding of your faith, then it leads you to be concerned not just for my own economic welfare, but how’s my community doing? It’s not okay that some people are homeless and some people live in 15-bedroom mansions. There’s something wrong with that, and I have to believe that God is concerned about that. It’s not okay for me to have great health benefits, and some people can’t afford them. It’s not okay. I think God is concerned when families aren’t able to take care of their children. The Bible says children are inheritance from the Lord. So if they come from God, and they’re God’s gift to you, then you should have the resources that you need to take care of your children, to provide them with safe and healthy living environments so that they can grow up to be abundant, God-fearing citizens themselves. So when you have that kind of foundational understanding of the texts, a foundational understanding of your faith, then it leads you to advocate for legislation programs that will allow your fellow sister and brother, not just your fellow man and woman, but your sister and your brother to live full and abundant lives here on earth. That’s why I’m a Democrat, because I believe the values of our party help us to live in community with one another, and not just next door to some guy I don’t know, but who’s my neighbor. How are they living? It’s not just about me; it’s about those who I’m in relationship with.

Q: A key base within the Democratic Party and a growing base are people who call themselves secular and unaffiliated voters. Is there a backlash from some of them? Is there discomfort from some of them as the party structures do more to accommodate faith? Do you hear people saying they’re worried that you’re going to start sounding like the Republicans?

A: No, you know, I think the wonderful thing about the Democratic Party is that you have so many different kinds of people inside of the party, and we do a really good job, and we work very hard at respecting all of the diversities of opinion. And so if your values come from your grandmother’s porch that you spent your summers on, that’s fine and that’s great and that’s what leads you to care for other people and leads you to get up every day and work hard and pay your taxes and do the right thing, that is important and as valuable as the person whose values come from a holy text. And I think inside our party both things are honored, and both things are respected, and as long as, I think, we are respecting everyone, I think that’s really at base what everybody wants, as a human being, is to be respected and to be loved for their opinions, whatever they may be, even if you don’t agree, and I think in the Democratic Party you find that, that people are able to be respected for whatever their belief systems are, so we really haven’t had, you know, blowback from people who are afraid we are going to make this the church of the Democratic Party. But it’s a recognition that there are people whose values come from a place of faith, and they are as welcome and have always been as welcome as people whose values come from grandma, or whose values come from their teachers, or whose values come from their parents. It’s all a value system. We’re not basing our values as Democrats on a holy text. We’re basing it on a value system of how we love and treat and care for each other in community.

Q: On the other hand, are you hearing from people who say thank God you’re finally doing this, we’ve been waiting for this?

A: Yes, we do. We hear it all the time and, you know, and that’s very gratifying. I was in South Carolina for a Democratic debate last year and I went a couple days early and was just walking around town meeting people. Every store I go in people would say, “Thank God, you’re another Democrat. I’m the only one.” And you go to the next store, and somebody else would say the same: “I’m the only one.” I said, “No, you’re not the only one, ’cause the woman in the store next door to you, she’s a Democrat, too. You should meet each other.” And I think at the base of this you find people of faith saying, “I thought I was the only one” or “I knew where me and my church members or me and the members of my synagogue were Democrats, but I didn’t know there were all these other people.” So in the outreach work we’re doing, you’re finding a lot of people saying, “Thank goodness. I knew there were some of us, but now I know there are many of us, and it’s good to know and to be in community and fellowship with people who are like-minded.

Q: How do you balance being in politics and being a pastor?

A: You know, for me it is two sides of the same coin, really. Being a pastor is really about shepherding people, about being entrusted with the care of another human being and God giving you this person to care for and to love, and my job as a pastor is to shepherd them, to nurture them, to recognize gifts and talents, and help them, to mold those and shape those to become everything that God intended them to be. And my role inside the party is much the same, is, you know, coming into organizations, seeing what’s there, recognizing talent, recognizing ability, recognizing skill. In church we call it gifts and talents. In business we call it skills and ability. It’s the same sort of thing, and helping people, then, to maximize what they have so that they can help to make the change that America needs, or help to make America be all that they would like it to be. So it’s sort of the same sort of thing on both sides. So when you think about it that way, it’s not that much of a balance. It’s carrying out what I think my mission is.

Q: Is there ever a time you feel a conflict between the two roles?

A: No, it’s not very often. Not very often. For me, the challenge is more balancing the time than balancing the issues. I think, because of my value system, you know, I’m called to love and to respect and to honor other people. I believe in a God that loves and respects and honors and expects us to be accurate reflections of him, and as long as I go into any situation understanding that, then it’s very easy for me to try to find common ground with anyone, so that the challenge always, for me, is how to balance the time and get out of the office in time to teach Bible study and make sure I have time for sermon preparation. I don’t work on Sundays. It’s the Sabbath. But I try to use that time for my church family. So that’s the big thing for me is just juggling the time. But other than that it’s not been that big a challenge.

Q: This campaign season especially we’ve seen a lot of controversy surrounding religion. Both candidates have had issues with pastors, and that’s been a point of controversy. Why do you think things have been so much more heightened this time around than they were in the past?

A: I think, you know, we got down to the home stretch and you had two candidates who are very deeply involved and driven by their own faith, and people know that, and so, when you have — you know, we’re living in a time where everybody wants to know everything about everyone. You know, look at the newsstands. You’ve got more, you know, exposes, and people looking for information. They just — people want to know everything about you. Everything. It’s the information age that we live in. And when you have two candidates who have such deeply held beliefs, I think people want to know where they come from. Where do those beliefs come from? What drove them? What fed them? What led them in the way to this path that you would spent two years running for president? Everybody’s not going to do that. It’s a very rare and special person that invests that kind of time and love in their country. And when you have two candidates who are faithful and claim that as part of their value system, then I think people want to know more about that as part of understanding who they are and what makes them tick.

Q: Some people say the controversy shows that religion shouldn’t be involved in politics, that politics gets ugly and so therefore it’s damaging if religion delves into politics. What do you say to those people? You’re a pastor, and you’re into politics.

A: Politics is practiced by people, and people bring their whole selves to the process, and you can’t say to a person of faith “leave your faith at the door” anymore than you can say to a mother or a doctor, “Don’t think about your kids when you’re at work” or “Separate the motherhood side of your personality from the rest of what you have to do.” It’s part of you. It’s part of what drives you. It’s part of what informs you. It’s part of what makes you do the things that you do. I think it’s very naive for people to say, “Check the religion at the door.” If you’re a person of faith, you know, that’s not possible. It’s part of what feeds you and guides you and directs you and informs you, and nine times out of ten I’d say it’s why you’re in public service in the first place, because of your deeply held values and beliefs. So I don’t know that that’s really possible, to say check it at the door. Now, you know, whether we should be having conversations about sermons on Sundays and who, you know, who gets Communion and whether those sorts of things, the rites and the rituals of the church, should be driven by political considerations, I don’t know that that’s appropriate. We are fortunate to live in a country where we have this freedom of religion, or freedom of no religion. You’re free to do what you want to do, and I think all of us want to preserve that. None of us want to become a country where we’re forced to worship any one particular way or not worship any one particular way, and to the extent that religion remains separate in that regard, I think that’s a very a good thing, and it’s part of the essence of who we are as Americans.

Q: Do you think we’re at a point in our country where we’re renegotiating, though, where some of those boundaries might be, where some of the lines are?

A: I think we’re in a time now where people are more comfortable talking about their faith — some people, not everyone. There are many traditions where you don’t talk about your faith, and I think that’s okay, too, and people shouldn’t be forced to talk about their faith if that’s not what they’re comfortable with. But I think as people are comfortable with it, and they inject that into the public sphere, into the public discourse, then I think Americans, particularly if they’re voting for you, have a right to know more about that and, you know, should feel free to ask those kind of questions. If that is part of who you are and part of what you’re saying is driving you to do the kind of work that you’re doing, then, by all means, you should be open to it. You have to be open to it, I think, in this particular time, in this information age, to talk about what that means for you and why that’s important.

Q: Barack Obama has been comfortable talking about his faith so openly, despite some controversies. As the presumptive nominee, what does that symbolize for the party and for faith?

A: You know, I think for all of us in the party, we are so very excited about him as a nominee, one, because of the message of change that he’s bringing to the country, for the millions of new people that have become excited and invigorated and enthusiastic about being part of the process, the number of first-time participants that he’s inspired. I think it’s just really overwhelming, for someone who’s been in this business now 25 years or so, it just absolutely amazing to me the kind of energy that his candidacy has infused into this race. As a person of faith it is inspiring as well, because he’s also a person of faith, and it says to me — for the seventeen odd million votes that he’s gotten, that for some people that was an important bench mark, and some people said, “You know, I understand him better, or I understand his values better, because of the way that he’s engaged with his faith, and the honesty with which he’s engaged in his faith.” In his own biography, he talks about — unlike me, I’ve been in church my entire life — he’s someone who had to come to the faith, and who wrestled with it the way that many people do, wrestle with values and wrestle with the notion of God, and who God is, and what they believe, and that’s a personal struggle that he had that he’s freely, openly shared, and I think it mirrors the experience of so many Americans, but really so many people around the world who have that same kind of struggle and come to a place in, you know, the midpoint of their lives where they decide what they believe, and they have to still wrestle with it. There are no absolutes with God, and to have someone who’s honest about that and says, “You know, I’m struggling with this. I struggle with it still. But I believe something in the core of my being resonates with this notion of God, even though I don’t have all the answers, I believe this deeply in the core of my soul.” And that so many Americans could see that and say, “I believe in Barack Obama. I believe in the change that he’s going to bring. I’m going to sign up. I’m going to go on the Internet. I’m going to send my five dollars. I’m going to run for a delegate. I’m going to get involved. I’m going to go vote for the first time.” It’s absolutely a wonderful and, of course, historic experience for our country, and so I think he’s done wonders in several ways — some very obvious, but also some very subtle, for the advancement of the conversation in our faith, in the public sphere.

Q: Tell me about some of the Democratic projects beyond the convention.

A: We began Faith in Action in 2005 when Governor Dean became chair [of the Democratic National Committee]. It was something that was personally important to me to create Faith in Action or a faith outreach program for the party, and Governor Dean was a willing, enthusiastic participant, and so what we’ve done over the past three years is really concretize and formalize our outreach to faith communities to a variety of different communities, to those who are cornerstones of the Democratic Party, so whether they are Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Protestant, Catholic, to really be very authentic in our outreach to them, so what that has meant really is a three-pronged approach, one around national visibility and engaging faith leaders who are nationally known, theologians, clergy people, men and women, to help us be authentic in our faith outreach. So we’ve got a wonderful faith advisory council of 60 or so people with well-known names who come together three or four times a year, and we talk to every month, kind of help us work through authentic faith outreach. Also to help, the second part is to help our state parties all across the country to develop their own faith outreach programs, because we recognize that faith outreach in Alabama looks a whole lot different than faith outreach in Pennsylvania, and so we want to help them develop a program that is authentic for that community and responsive to that community. And the third thing is really around training and mobilization around our message and our values. How do we talk about the programs, the legislation that we are proposing, the change that we are proposing for America in a way that resonates with people’s values, that’s more values driven than laundry list driven? And so that’s what we’ve been focused on for the last three years. We’ve done a number of outreach programs, we’ve trained people all across the country in all 50 states how to do faith outreach, how to be sensitive to the various demands and requirements of the various faith communities, so if you’re in a Jewish community you’re not knocking on doors on Saturday — how to be sensitive to those sorts of things. We’ve trained people all across the country. We’ve trained elected officials and some others on how to talk about their faith to the extent that they want to and how to really talk to voters about values-driven legislation, about the things that drive them into public service. So we’ve been very fortunate, and it’s been a very gratifying experience for us over the last three years, and it all really culminates now at the convention and the activities that we’ll have going on there.

2008 Campaign: Conventions Preview

FRED DE SAM LAZARO, guest anchor: The election season moves into high gear this week with the Democratic National Convention in Denver, followed by the Republican gathering in St. Paul. Religion continues to play an unusually prominent role in the campaigns, but not everyone is happy about that. According to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, a narrow majority of Americans – 52 percent -now say that churches and other houses of worship should keep out of politics. In 2004, only 44 percent thought that.

And while Republicans are most often seen as the party friendly toward religion, the Democrats have made some gains. Nearly four-in-10 Americans now say the Democrats are friendly toward religion, up from just 26 percent two years ago.

Meanwhile, religious groups continue trying to have an influence. A large rally of evangelical Christians was held on the National Mall in Washington last week. Organizers say more than 50,000 people gathered to pray for the nation and highlight moral issues they consider critical in the election. Among other things, there were calls for bans on abortions and same sex marriage.

At the conventions, and in coming weeks, both political parties have a lot at stake as they try to mobilize religious voters. Kim Lawton has our report.

KIM LAWTON: Every weekend, more than 20,000 people come to services at the evangelical Saddleback Church in southern California. Last Sunday (August 17), pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren urged his massive flock to carefully consider who to vote for in November.

Rick Warren

Reverend RICK WARREN (Pastor, Saddleback Church, during sermon): What we need in America more than visionaries, more than smart leaders, is we need leaders with character.

LAWTON: On the previous evening, both Barack Obama and John McCain were at Saddleback making their case to be the next president. As part of the discussion, Warren asked them to describe what their Christian faith means to them.

Senator BARACK OBAMA (Democratic Presidential Candidate at Saddleback Forum): It means I believe in – that Jesus Christ died for my sins and that I am redeemed through him. That is a source of strength and sustenance on a daily basis.

Senator JOHN MCCAIN (Republican Presidential Candidate, at Saddleback Forum): Means I’m saved and forgiven. And we’re talking about the world. Our faith encompasses not just the United States of America, but the world.

LAWTON: Georgetown University professor of government Clyde Wilcox says faith can tell voters a lot about a potential president.

Clyde Wilcox

Professor CLYDE WILCOX (Government Department, Georgetown University): How will we know how anyone will behave in a crisis? Well, we can look at past behavior, but we can also think, what is it that are their bedrock values, that they don’t want to change? And for most Americans those values would be religious.

LAWTON: As Democrats and Republicans head to their national conventions, both camps are actively competing for religious voters. The candidates are talking about their personal faith, and the campaigns are developing wide-ranging strategies for faith-based outreach.

It’s somewhat unfamiliar territory for the Democrats who’ve been criticized in recent presidential elections for appearing not friendly toward religion. This time around, Democrats promise things will be different.

The chief executive officer of the Democratic National Convention in Denver is Leah Daughtry, a fifth-generation Pentecostal pastor. As part of the convention, Daughtry has planned an interfaith prayer gathering and other faith-related events.

Leah Daughtry

Reverend LEAH DAUGHTRY (CEO, Democratic National Convention): All of us have values. We all come to our lives with a certain set of values. For many of us, those values spring from a place of faith. So what we want people to walk away with is understanding that this is just another part of the Democratic Party.

LAWTON: She acknowledges that hasn’t always been the Democratic image in recent years.

Rev. DAUGHTRY: It was a puzzling phenomenon to me to see the party that I’ve always been a member of labeled as a party that doesn’t have people of faith or isn’t open to people of faith. So I think for me it was really more about us as a party saying, “No, wait a minute. We are people of faith. There are millions of us.” We became more vocal. We decided to stand up. We decided to stand up for what we believe and to say, “This is who I am. I’m inside the party. I’m a person of faith.”

LAWTON: One key part of the new Democratic strategy has been reaching out to evangelicals, a longtime constituency of the GOP. Obama has been appealing to those voters using God-talk and biblical references.

Sen. OBAMA (at Saddleback Forum): We still don’t abide by that basic precept in Matthew that whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.

Joshua Dubois

JOSHUA DUBOIS (Director, Religious Affairs, Obama Campaign): We’re very humble in our approach to the outreach. We’re certainly not hoping to win outright the evangelical vote, but we are certainly going to make a serious effort to introduce Senator Obama and his values to the nation, and I think a lot of folks are going to respond to that.

LAWTON: Growing numbers of evangelicals want to expand their agenda beyond abortion to also include issues like poverty, AIDS, and the environment.

Rev. WARREN: What I’m hearing is, you know, not lock-step in Republicanism. That’s what I’m hearing. I’m not hearing people saying, “Well, I’m going to move away from life.” But I am hearing people saying, “I’m moving away from just pulling a lever.”

LAWTON: Evangelicals are the single largest bloc of religious voters. In 2004, 40 percent of George Bush’s total vote came from social conservatives. New polls show the majority of those voters are supporting John McCain, but not with the same level of enthusiasm they gave George Bush. And there are still significant numbers of undecided evangelical voters. If the Obama campaign can siphon off some of those evangelicals, it could make a big difference, especially in a close election.

John McCain has had a rocky relationship with evangelicals, including some highly publicized rifts with religious right leaders going back to the 2000 elections. Many conservative evangelicals have been frustrated that McCain has not spoken more about his faith or emphasized their key social issues, such as abortion and gay marriage.

Political observers say McCain can’t automatically rely on the faith outreach strategy that worked so well for George W. Bush.

Prof. WILCOX: By the issues, social conservatives should still support him. But a generation of Christian right leaders has been increasingly ineffective and older. And I think the McCain campaign is not really geared up for that yet, so I think they’ll have a little bit more problem.

LAWTON: At a news conference last week, social conservatives urged the McCain campaign to do more to mobilize their movement.

TONY PERKINS (President, Family Research Council, speaking at news conference): It’s not an issue of whether most evangelicals are going to vote for John McCain. It’s an issue of intensity. It’s an issue of excitement. It’s an issue of passion.

Sen. MCCAIN (at Saddleback Forum): I will be a pro-life president and this presidency will have pro-life policies.

LAWTON: Many evangelicals hope McCain will expand his Saddleback forum comments at the Republican convention and beyond.


Mike Huckabee

Governor MIKE HUCKABEE (Former Republican Presidential Candidate): I think the Republicans are going to see increasing numbers of people rally around John McCain. They’re comfortable with his own depth of personal character, his faith, his honor, and they know that his positions really do reflect more of what they believe to be important.

LAWTON: While evangelical voters have been getting most of the attention, Roman Catholics will also be crucial in this election. In 2004, a slight majority of Catholics voted for Bush, but then in the mid-term elections in 2006 a slight majority swung back to the Democratic side. Both candidates are still refining their Catholic outreach strategies.

Prof. WILCOX: Older Catholics if they are more religious tend to vote more Democratic. Younger Catholics if they are more religious tend to vote more Republican. And so this has been, this will be a really key constituency.

LAWTON: Another challenge will be reaching out to communities of faith while not alienating other voters. This is an especially complex question for the Democrats.

Prof. WILCOX: They do have a secular part of their voting bloc, maybe 20 percent of Americans are seculars, another 10 percent are religious but don’t like to hear religion and politics mixing. Some are Jews who don’t want to hear Christian politics mentioned so much.

LAWTON: Daughtry says this hasn’t been an issue for them so far.

Rev. DAUGHTRY: We really haven’t had, you know, blowback from people who are afraid we going to make this the church of the Democratic Party. It’s all a value system. We’re not basing our values as Democrats on a holy text. We’re basing it on a value system of how we love and treat and care for each other in community.

LAWTON: As the campaign outreach strategies move forward, some observers worry about the potential impact on religious communities.

Prof. WILCOX: The mission of a church is not really to elect a candidate. The mission of a church or a synagogue or a mosque or whatever is to, you know, reach out to their congregants and provide them with guidance and advice, and oftentimes politics can interfere with that.

LAWTON: Rick Warren doesn’t endorse candidates, but I asked him if he was worried about religious voters becoming another special interest group.

Rev. WARREN: Well, it is an interest group. Sorry to say that, but it is an interest group. And it happens to be probably the largest interest group. I mean, unions are an interest group. Teachers are an interest group. Gays are an interest group. So should only other interest groups be allowed to have the candidates come to their venues?

LAWTON: He says people of faith should – and will – be a factor at the polls this fall.

Rev. Warren (during sermon): And I don’t understand when people say, “I don’t like any of the candidates so I’m not going to vote.” Oh come on! Then you need to move to another country, really, and you need to see what it’s like to not have real freedoms and not to be able to have a voice.

LAWTON: Both campaigns plan to work overtime to capture those votes. I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

Listen Now / Read the Transcript

Listen to this episode now:
[powerpress]
TRANSCRIPT:
Episode no. 1151

FRED DE SAM LAZARO , guest anchor: Coming up – Democrats and soon the Republicans hold their national conventions.

What are the challenges as the candidates reach out to people of faith?

And in Thailand, a shelter that offers new life for girls vulnerable to human trafficking.

Plus, the colorful Hindu festival that celebrates the birth of the deity Krishna.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

FRED DE SAM LAZARO : Welcome. I’m Fred de Sam Lazaro sitting in for Bob Abernethy. Thank you for joining us.

The election season moves into high gear this week with the Democratic National Convention in Denver, followed by the Republican gathering in St. Paul. Religion continues to play an unusually prominent role in the campaigns. But not everyone is happy about that. According to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, a narrow majority of Americans – 52 percent -now say that churches and other houses of worship should keep out of politics. In 2004, only 44 percent thought that.

And while Republicans are most often seen as the party friendly toward religion, the Democrats have made some gains. Nearly four-in-10 Americans now say the Democrats are friendly toward religion – up from just 26 percent two years ago.

Meanwhile, religious groups continue trying to have an influence. A large rally of evangelical Christians was held on the National Mall in Washington last week. Organizers say more than 50,000 people gathered to pray for the nation and highlight moral issues they consider critical in the election. Among other things, there were calls for bans on abortions and same sex marriage.

At the conventions, and in coming weeks, both political parties have a lot at stake as they try to mobilize religious voters. Kim Lawton has our report.

KIM LAWTON : Every weekend, more than 20,000 people come to services at the evangelical Saddleback Church in southern California. Last Sunday, pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren urged his massive flock to carefully consider who to vote for in November.

Reverend RICK WARREN (Pastor, Saddleback Church, during sermon): What we need in America more than visionaries, more than smart leaders, is we need leaders with character.

LAWTON : On the previous evening, both Barack Obama and John McCain were at Saddleback making their case to be the next president. As part of the discussion, Warren asked them to describe what their Christian faith means to them.

Senator BARACK OBAMA (Democratic Presidential Candidate at Saddleback Forum): It means I believe in – that Jesus Christ died for my sins and that I am redeemed through him. That is a source of strength and sustenance on a daily basis.

Senator JOHN MCCAIN (Republican Presidential Candidate, at Saddleback Forum): Means I’m saved and forgiven. And we’re talking about the world. Our faith encompasses not just the United States of America, but the world.

LAWTON : Georgetown University Professor of Government Clyde Wilcox says faith can tell voters a lot about a potential president.

Professor CLYDE WILCOX (Government Department, Georgetown University): How will we know how anyone will behave in a crisis? Well, we can look at past behavior, but we can also think, “What is it that are their bedrock values that they don’t want to change?” And for most Americans those values would be religious.

LAWTON : As Democrats and Republicans head to their national conventions, both camps are actively competing for religious voters. The candidates are talking about their personal faith, and the campaigns are developing wide-ranging strategies for faith-based outreach.

It’s somewhat unfamiliar territory for the Democrats who’ve been criticized in recent presidential elections for appearing not friendly toward religion. This time around, Democrats promise things will be different.

The chief executive officer of the Democratic National Convention in Denver is Leah Daughtry, a fifth-generation Pentecostal pastor. As part of the convention, Daughtry has planned an interfaith prayer gathering and other faith-related events.

Reverend LEAH DAUGHTRY (CEO, Democratic National Convention): All of us have values. We all come to our lives with a certain set of values. For many of us, those values spring from a place of faith. So, what we want people to walk away with is understanding that this is just another part of the Democratic Party.

LAWTON : She acknowledges that hasn’t always been the Democratic image in recent years.

Rev. DAUGHTRY : It was a puzzling phenomenon to me to see the party that I’ve always been a member of labeled as a party that doesn’t have people of faith or isn’t open to people of faith. So, I think for me it was really more about us as a party saying, “No, wait a minute. We are people of faith. There are millions of us.” We became more vocal. We decided to stand up. We decided to stand up for what we believe and to say, “This is who I am. I’m inside the party. I’m a person of faith.”

LAWTON : One key part of the new Democratic strategy has been reaching out to evangelicals, a longtime constituency of the GOP. Obama has been appealing to those voters using God-talk and biblical references.

Sen. OBAMA (at Saddleback Forum): We still don’t abide by that basic precept in Matthew that whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.

JOSHUA DUBOIS (Director, Religious Affairs, Obama Campaign): We’re very humble in our approach to the outreach. We’re certainly not hoping to win outright the evangelical vote, but we are certainly going to make a serious effort to introduce Senator Obama and his values to the nation. And I think a lot of folks are going to respond to that.

LAWTON : Growing numbers of evangelicals want to expand their agenda beyond abortion to also include issues like poverty, AIDS and the environment.

Rev. WARREN : What I’m hearing is, you know, not lock-step in Republicanism. That’s what I’m hearing. I’m not hearing people saying, “Well, I’m going to move away from life.” But I am hearing people saying, “I’m moving away from just pulling a lever.”

LAWTON : Evangelicals are the single largest bloc of religious voters. In 2004, 40 percent of George Bush’s total vote came from social conservatives. New polls show the majority of those voters are supporting John McCain, but not with the same level of enthusiasm they gave George Bush. And there are still significant numbers of undecided evangelical voters. If the Obama campaign can siphon off some of those evangelicals, it could make a big difference, especially in a close election.

John McCain has had a rocky relationship with evangelicals, including some highly-publicized rifts with Religious Right leaders going back to the 2000 elections. Many conservative evangelicals have been frustrated that McCain has not spoken more about his faith or emphasized their key social issues, such as abortion and gay marriage.

Political observers say McCain can’t automatically rely on the faith outreach strategy that worked so well for George W. Bush.

Prof. WILCOX : By the issues, social conservatives should still support him. But a generation of Christian right leaders has been increasingly ineffective and older. And, I think the McCain campaign is not really geared up for that yet so I think they’ll have a little bit more problem.

LAWTON : At a news conference last week, social conservatives urged the McCain campaign to do more to mobilize their movement.

TONY PERKINS (President, Family Research Council, speaking at news conference): It’s not an issue of whether most evangelicals are going to vote for John McCain. It’s an issue of intensity. It’s an issue of excitement. It’s an issue of passion.

Sen. MCCAIN (at Saddleback Forum): I will be a pro-life president and this presidency will have pro-life policies.

LAWTON : Many evangelicals hope McCain will expand his Saddleback forum comments at the Republican convention and beyond.

Governor MIKE HUCKABEE (Former Republican Presidential Candidate): I think the Republicans are going to see increasing numbers of people rally around John McCain. They’re comfortable with his own depth of personal character, his faith, his honor. And they know that his positions really do reflect more of what they believe to be important.

LAWTON : While evangelical voters have been getting most of the attention, Roman Catholics will also be crucial in this election. In 2004, a slight majority of Catholics voted for Bush, but then in the mid-term elections in 2006, a slight majority swung back to the Democratic side. Both candidates are still refining their Catholic outreach strategies.

Prof. WILCOX : Older Catholics if they are more religious tend to vote more Democratic. Younger Catholics if they are more religious tend to vote more Republican. And so this has been, this will be, a really key constituency.

LAWTON : Another challenge will be reaching out to communities of faith while not alienating other voters. This is an especially complex question for the Democrats.

Prof. WILCOX : They do have a secular part of their voting bloc, maybe 20 percent of Americans are seculars, another 10 percent are religious but don’t like to hear religion and politics mixing. Some are Jews who don’t want to hear Christian politics mentioned so much.

LAWTON : Daughtry says this hasn’t been an issue for them so far.

Rev. DAUGHTRY : We really haven’t had, you know, blowback from people who are afraid we going to make this the church of the Democratic Party. It’s all a value system. We’re not basing our values as Democrats on a holy text. We’re basing it on a value system of how we love and treat and care for each other in community.

LAWTON : As the campaign outreach strategies move forward, some observers worry about the potential impact on religious communities.

Prof. WILCOX : The mission of a church is not really to elect a candidate. The mission of a church or a synagogue or a mosque or whatever is to, you know, reach out to their congregants and provide them with guidance and advice. And oftentimes politics can interfere with that.

LAWTON : Rick Warren doesn’t endorse candidates, but I asked him if he was worried about religious voters becoming another special interest group.

Rev. WARREN : Well, it is an interest group. Sorry to say that, but it is an interest group. And it happens to be, probably the largest interest group. I mean, unions are an interest group. Teachers are an interest group. Gays are an interest group. So should only other interest groups be allowed to have the candidates come to their venues?

LAWTON : He says people of faith should – and will – be a factor at the polls this fall.

Rev. Warren (during sermon): And I don’t understand when people say, “I don’t like any of the candidates so I’m not going to vote.” Oh come on! Then you need to move to another country – really. And you need to see what it’s like to not have real freedoms and not to be able to have a voice.

LAWTON : Both campaigns plan to work overtime to capture those votes. I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO : Kim will have on-the-scene reports from both conventions, beginning with the Democrats next week. We’ll also have lots of additional ongoing coverage on the “One Nation” page of our Web site, including blogs and special dispatches from the conventions and analysis from a panel of experts. Join us at pbs.org

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FRED DE SAM LAZARO : Three months after striking down a ban on same-sex marriage, California’s high court delivered another decision favoring gay and lesbian plaintiffs. The court ruled that doctors cannot deny care to gays and lesbians for religious reasons. The case involved a patient who had sought to have a child by artificial insemination. Doctors at a San Diego clinic, who are Christian, refused to offer services, asserting their own freedom of religion, although they said their decision was based on the patient’s unmarried status, not her sexual orientation.

The debate over doctors’ freedom of religion was also refueled in Washington this week. The Bush administration has proposed stronger protections for medical providers who refuse to perform abortions because of religious objections. The new rules, which would take effect after a 30-day comment period, apply to more than half a million mostly health-care facilities that receive federal funds.

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FRED DE SAM LAZARO : Pope Benedict XVI added his voice to concerns for the people displaced by the conflict between Russia and Georgia. The Pontiff called for opening humanitarian corridors between the disputed region of South Ossetia and the rest of Georgia in order to allow burials for the dead, treatment for those wounded and the return of an estimated 128,000 people who fled their homes. Benedict expressed hope for a stable peace and respect for the rights of ethnic minorities in the conflict.

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FRED DE SAM LAZARO : After years of delays, greater numbers of refugees from the Iraq war are finding safe haven in the U.S. A report by the UN High Commission for Refugees says about 9,000 Iraqis have been resettled here, almost a quarter of them in the past month. The U.S. government had promised to accept a total of 12,000 Iraqi refugees by the end of September. An additional 5,000 with ties to the U.S military will also be admitted. Some two million Iraqi refugees still live in Syria and Jordan.

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FRED DE SAM LAZARO : Hundreds of government officials and activists wrapped up a meeting in Bangkok this week by calling for more efforts to curb the exploitation of children. East Asia and the Pacific Region have been especially afflicted by the problem, and the remote, so-called hill tribe populations who number in the tens of millions are particularly vulnerable. I traveled recently to Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand to visit the new life center, a faith-based group working to help young women escape or avoid victimization.

This dress rehearsal for a soap opera is full of drama: drug abuse, rape, guns and prostitution. But for the performers acting out the scenes, this stuff is not necessarily fiction.

These performers reside in a shelter for girls in northern Thailand. Most are at risk for, or actual victims of, human trafficking. The skit is aimed at tribal communities in the surrounding mountains. That message will come in one of six languages spoken by different hill tribes that inhabit the vast region where Burma, China, Laos and Thailand converge.

This shelter was founded in 1987 to serve as a safe haven for tribal girls who’d been exploited. Since then, the New Life Center has housed about 1,500 girls.

KAREN SMITH (Director, New Life Center): The New Life Center was opened by missionaries who were also anthropologists – Paul and Elaine Lewis. They saw countless women coming down out of their villages into the cities and being stuck in exploitative labor. And the needs were so great for education, for training, for knowledge for these tribal women. And they saw such great suffering. They saw women working in fish factories for 18 hours a day, and they saw the women who were getting forced into prostitution.

DE SAM LAZARO : The trouble for hill tribe communities begins with their isolation. Faye Wimon, a member of the Lahu community, works at the New Life Center.

FAYE WIMON (New Life Center): The road is not developed yet – that’s why there’s no school. So many of the hill tribe people and also they didn’t get put into good schools – and also the young people, especially the young women. So they have to stay home. They have to help their parents to take care of their younger brother and sister when their parents work in the field. And also, the other problem is about citizenship.

DE SAM LAZARO : In Thailand, which has seen impressive economic growth in recent decades, half of the three million hill tribe people are not recognized as full citizens. That means many cannot buy land, vote, travel freely or work legally.

Ms. SMITH : The citizenship issue in Thailand is a complicated one. If you are a tribal mother for whom the nearest hospital is five hours away, you are not able to go down to that hospital to give birth. And when a child doesn’t have birth registration, that starts the cycle.

DE SAM LAZARO : Many young women fall prey to traffickers and the underground economy.

Ms. SMITH : They might find a situation where they’re promised a particular job and they end up moving to a particular place and the job they end up with is not what they were promised. And they end up being a victim of human trafficking.

DE SAM LAZARO : That’s what happened to Mali who left her village, and by age 13, began working in one of Bangkok’s notorious sex trades.

MALI (Former Victim, through translator): I didn’t know what kind of work it was but she said it was a good salary and I didn’t have to work too hard. I went to work in the show bar, and they wouldn’t let me leave. They beat me. It was very hard work. One day the owners forced me to go with a guest. The guests were usually foreigners and I usually went with two or three guests a night.

DE SAM LAZARO : After five years in prostitution at the bar, Mali was approached by a faith based anti-trafficking group that offers to help women who work in the sex industry.

MALI : They came like regular customers. They watched my dance show and when my dance was finished they came up and started talking to me. I told them that I didn’t want to be here, that some people did want to be here but I didn’t. I felt that it was shameful. Even though I made a lot of money, I thought there were other things I could do.

DE SAM LAZARO : Each day the young women spend time with activities like music lessons and homework. There’s also training in cooking, sewing and cosmetology, skills that could land them a job when they leave the center.

MALI (through translator): When I was at the New Life Center, I studied, I went to school. I learned a lot of things: how to sew, read and write. I became a different person and I have a new future.

DE SAM LAZARO : In the evening they’re off to night school, a program set up by the government to teach young adults with little formal education.

Along with education and job skills, some 20 to 40 percent of residents here also acquire a new faith, converting to Christianity from traditional tribal religions in which they were raised.

Ms. SMITH : Every other year, we have a baptism ceremony for the girls who do become followers of Jesus. And this past November, there were 24 girls who were part of that baptism ceremony.

DE SAM LAZARO : But she and the resident chaplain insist the young women reach that decision on their own.

Reverend KIT RIPLEY (Resident Chaplain, New Life Center): Our residents have come from situations where they have experienced, many of them have experienced, tremendous coercion and manipulation. So they know what that’s like and they can put their finger on it pretty quickly. They’re very savvy when someone is trying to manipulate or force them to make a decision or to do anything with their life and often very resistance to that. So I feel like it’s just important be open to where they are spiritually. And a lot of that is waiting until they ask questions. I pray for residents at home and pray for their healing and their growth. And at that point I believe it’s up to God to work in their lives throughout their spiritual development.

DE SAM LAZARO : Spiritual development, sexual abuse counseling, education and job training are all part of the healing process, but so is legal advocacy. The center employs a full-time staff member to work on obtaining citizenship for the girls. That process takes between two and 10 years.

MALI (through translator): I’ve had lots of job offers, people asking me to work in different places but I don’t have citizenship so I can’t work anywhere legally.

Ms. SMITH : The situation if very, very complicated. In fact, right now in Thailand, the Thai government has 23 different levels of status for its ethnic minorities.

DE SAM LAZARO : One major complication is the widely disparate economic and human rights conditions between Thailand and less prosperous neighbors like Burma and Laos. It prompts tribes’ people from those nations to travel across the mountain borders into Thailand. Long term, things could get even more complicated in the larger region.

Ms. SMITH : Just recently, new roads were opened between China, Lao and Thailand and they are huge eight-lane highways. And we know that whenever new roads are built that opens up an opportunity for business and the exchange of goods, but it also opens up the opportunity for the exchange of humans. And so I think there are still lots of risks for ethnic minorities.

DE SAM LAZARO : But for a hundred or so of these vulnerable young women, the New Life Center will continue to be a refuge.

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FRED DE SAM LAZARO : On our calendar, this week marks the holiest time of year for members of the Jain faith. They are celebrating the 18-day-long festival of Paryushana. It’s a time for Jains to restore friendship and ask for forgiveness.

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FRED DE SAM LAZARO : Also this week, the major Hindu festival, Janmashtami, celebrates the birth of the popular deity Krishna – and with a real baby. Nidhi Singh was our guide at a celebration in Chantilly, Virginia.

NIDHI SINGH (Rajdhani Mandir Temple, Chantilly, Virginia): In Hinduism, we believe in one God. However, our one God has several forms – Brahma, who’s the creator, Vishnu, who is the preserver and Shiva, who’s the destructor of all evil.

Lord Krishna is a reincarnation of Lord Vishnu.

The teachings that Lord Kirshna imparted in the “Gita,” I can take from that and incorporate into my life and find hope, guidance, spirituality, peace, comfort, many different things.

The devotees come here to participate and celebrate Lord Krishna’s birth.

When we celebrate Lord Krishna – and there’s a lot of singing and dancing because that’s what he used to do when he as younger.

There’s loud chanting and people are singing and getting very excited about the midnight hour. And we’re getting ready to welcome Krishna.

As the midnight hour approaches, we dim the lights.

The priest comes out and actually brings a live baby in a cradle, carrying him on his head, depicting how it truly happened with Lord Krishna. Lord Krishna was carried in a cradle by his father on his head to safety, to keep him safe from the evil king.

What we do is called “ardi” – in which means we take a flame rotate it clockwise around the God, and worship him with that flame. And then that flame is offered to the congregation to take the blessings.

The priest start handing out “prasad,” which is God’s offerings – food items typically milk-based products, because Lord Krishna was very fond of milk and butter.

I come with all my worries, my thoughts from the outside world, everything that’s on my mind. I’m giving up my ego. I’m leaving behind my worries and being reminded of God’s love – of not feeling defeated by any hardship that I might be facing and getting strength to continue to do my dharma as Krishna taught – continuing to do the right things – not questioning why or what I’m going to get in return for it.

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FRED DE SAM LAZARO: That’s our program for now. I’m Fred de Sam Lazaro. There is much more on our Web site. On the “One Nation” page you can find video excerpts from the presidential candidates forum at Saddleback Church, as well as interviews with Rick Warren and supporters of the two candidates. Audio and video podcasts of our program are also available. Join us at pbs.org.

As we leave you, music from last week’s evangelical rally in Washington.

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TRANSCRIPT:
Episode no. 1150

TIM O’BRIEN, guest anchor: Coming up – violence against researchers involved in experiments on animals. Activists call the experiments torture. Researchers call their work essential.

And a movement called slow medicine – alternatives to surgery and treatments that may, or may not, prolong life.

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TIM O’BRIEN: Welcome, I’m Tim O’Brien sitting in for Bob Abernethy. Thanks for joining us.

Republicans and Democrats alike are gearing up for their party conventions, which begin next week with the Democratic National Convention in Denver. The Democrats’ proposed platform maintains the party’s support for abortion rights, but this time it also includes a call for measures to reduce the number of abortions. A coalition of moderate Catholics and evangelicals praised the new language.

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TIM O’BRIEN: Meanwhile, both presumed presidential candidates are hoping to woo evangelical voters with a joint appearance this weekend at best-selling author Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Southern California. We’ll have a series of special reports on the conventions beginning next week.

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TIM O’BRIEN: In Iraq, Shiite Muslim pilgrims have been targeted by terrorists this week. In separate attacks, a number of pilgrims were killed. They were on their way to the holy city of Karbala for the holiday marking the birth of Mohammed al-Mahdi, a ninth-century imam. Mahdi disappeared and, many believe, will eventually return to restore peace.

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TIM O’BRIEN: Humanitarian and faith-based groups are working to bring emergency aid to Georgia. Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced by fighting between Georgians and Russians triggered by the breakaway region South Ossetia. The International Committee of the Red Cross is appealing to military forces for safe passage to distribute aid and assess needs. At the same time, major religious voices, including the World Council of Churches and Pope Benedict, are calling for a peaceful resolution.

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TIM O’BRIEN: At the Vatican, officials have issued new directives emphasizing that Catholics must not use the Hebrew name of God, Yahweh, in songs or prayers during worship. Vatican officials say the directives reflect the historic Jewish and Christian practice of not saying the name of God out loud. Several songs and prayers currently used in American churches will have to be edited to take out the word “Yahweh.” The words “Lord” and “Adonai,” the Hebrew word for God, are permissible.

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TIM O’BRIEN: In Chicago, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese has settled several abuse cases, agreeing to give 16 victims of sex abuse by priests more than $12 million. The Archdiocese also made public files related to the settlement, including the deposition of Cardinal Francis George. In it, George, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he had ignored the advice of his lay advisers to remove an accused priest from the ministry. Attorneys said it was the first time such a candid deposition from one of the Church’s top officials has been made public.

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TIM O’BRIEN: The Progressive National Baptist Convention is calling for government action to halt home foreclosures. The historically black denomination met in Atlanta last week. Members said they are addressing the housing crisis because foreclosures are disproportionately affecting low-income communities and African Americans.

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TIM O’BRIEN: Animal research has long been controversial. The medical benefits can be significant, although not always. And opponents argue the benefits are often outweighed by the pain and suffering inflicted on the animal. In California, there’s been an escalation in the conflict. In Santa Cruz last week, fire bombs were tossed at the home and car of two University of California researchers. Although no one was seriously hurt, city officials have posted a $30,000 dollar reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible – 2,500 of that contributed by the Humane Society of the U.S.

Researchers at UCLA have also been targeted and federal officials say violence, and threats of violence, are up nationally. Saul Gonzalez has more on the story.

PAMELA FERDIN (Animal Rights Activist): Excuse me, can I give you a leaflet about the torture and murder of primates going inside the laboratories of UCLA?

SAUL GONZALEZ: On a recent afternoon, a group of activists gathered outside the University of California, Los Angeles, to protest the use of animals in laboratory research at the school.

Ms. FERDIN: It’s immoral. It’s unethical and evil to take non-consenting animals and, against their will, do these horrific things.

GONZALEZ: These demonstrators are peaceful. But in the last few years, more militant animal rights activists have waged a campaign of harassment and intimidation against UCLA scientists involved in animal experimentation, such as using primates to investigate methamphetamine and nicotine addiction. The activists’ tactics have ranged from publishing researchers’ home addresses on Web sites to leaving threatening telephone messages.

VOICE OF UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Quit working on animals. Quit torturing and abusing animals. We can cause more economic damage in one night than you can earn in a year.

GONZALEZ: UCLA faculty members even have had pipe bombs planted at their homes. These episodes have created a climate of fear among researchers on campus.

JOHN HUESTON (Attorney, UCLA): The point of boiling really began happening when people realized that they couldn’t live in their homes any longer, And that they began having to check under their cars for bombs – that they could not leave their kids home alone at night for fear people would show up, pound on the doors, break things, maybe enter the house.

GONZALEZ: Federal law enforcement authorities say such incidents are on the rise nationally and reflect some activists’ increased willingness to use more extreme methods in their struggle to fight animal experimentation. UCLA, which declined our requests to shoot its research facilities, has successfully fought for a restraining order prohibiting animal rights activists from harassing researchers.

Nationally, a larger debate continues over the morality of using animals in laboratory experimentation, like these scenes captured by activists’ hidden cameras. Although exact numbers don’t exist, it’s believed millions of animals – from primates to pigs to rats – are used as test subjects in more than 1,000 laboratories in the United States.

Central to the controversy over the use of animals in scientific and medical research is this question: When, if ever, should the pain and discomfort inflicted on animals in laboratory experimentation outweigh the possible benefits the research might create for human beings?

Dr. JOHN YOUNG (Director, Comparative Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles and Chairman, Americans for Medical Progress): The use of animals is a vital cornerstone to medical progress. And I would submit to you that if you would abolish the use of animals in medical research today, medical progress would slow, stop and reverse.

GONZALEZ: Doctor John Young is director of comparative medicine at Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and chairman of Americans for Medical Progress, a pro-animal testing group. He says animal experimentation is vital to finding treatments for such illnesses as cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s and heart disease in human beings.

Cedars-Sinai and Doctor Young gave us unusual access to facilities in the hospital where animals used in medical and scientific research are kept, such as these pigs used to test human heart implant devices. Dr. YOUNG: The cardiovascular system of a pig is almost identical to that of a human being, okay – the coronary arteries, the heart muscle, virtually identical. So pigs are a favorite model for cardiovascular disease.

GONZALEZ: The human ramifications of this research would be what?

Dr. YOUNG: Improved care of cardiac patients.

GONZALEZ: But many animal rights groups say such research ignores the rights and interests of the test subjects.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: It is my pleasure to introduce Professor Peter Singer.

GONZALEZ: Ethicist and writer Peter Singer is one of the founders of the modern animal rights movement. He believes that in the western world, religion has played a partial but key role in justifying humans’ exploitation of animals, including in scientific research.

Dr. PETER SINGER (Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, University Center for Human Values, Princeton University): This idea that so much of our ethics flows out of that Judeo-Christian tradition, which, of course, separates us from animals, puts this gulf between us, tells us that we alone were made in the image of God and they are not, that we have an immortal soul and they don’t. So it puts a sharp division between us, which, if we understand evolutionary theory correctly, there isn’t really that sharp division.

GONZALEZ: Although Singer says he supports very limited animal research that could lead to medical breakthroughs, he believes scientists and doctors too often conduct experiments that are unnecessary and ignore the distress inflicted on animals.

Dr. SINGER: Why is it that being a member of our species is morally important, is morally significant? Whereas being a fellow sentient being, a fellow animal if you like, why is that not important? And if it’s useful or beneficial or useful to us in some way to do something that might cause pain and suffering to the animal, that’s okay because they’re not members of our species. And I refer to this as “speciesism.” I think it is a parallel phenomenon, in some ways, to racism or sexism in just saying, “Well we are the dominant group. We are the ones that matter and those outside beyond this boundary of our species just really don’t matter.”

Dr. YOUNG (showing off cancer mice in cages): So if you look under the skin of this mouse right here, that’s human prostrate cancer.

GONZALEZ: Dr. Young says that researchers involved in animal experimentation take all possible precautions to reduce pain and suffering in their test subjects.

Dr. YOUNG: We watch these animals very, very closely. And when they begin to exhibit clinical signs indicating that the cancer is adversely affecting their health, we put them to sleep.

GONZALEZ: However Doctor Young does argue that the benefits animal research creates for human beings should always be of paramount importance.

Dr. YOUNG: People will ask me, “How can you possibly do what you do?” I can answer that question very easily. I walk them over to the pediatric cancer ward and show them children with bald heads with glio blastoma, brave children who will tell you, “I am terminal.” We are curing rats with the same disease at a 70 percent cure rate. I am excited about that. It would be immoral, in my opinion, not to have done what we’ve done in the rats.

GONZALEZ: But federal research institutions, such as the National Institutes of Health, have pledged to reduce the number of animals in laboratory testing. They’re exploring alternative research methods, such as experimenting on human cell cultures and using computer simulations to test treatments. But Peter Singer says efforts to remove animals from experimentation have been too slow and half-hearted in the scientific community.

Dr. SINGER: I think the whole institution is set up at the moment with a bias towards experimenting on animals and using them as subjects because that’s what we have don’t for decades now.

GONZALEZ: As the controversy over animal research continues, so too does the debate over how human beings should balance their self-interest with their concern for the health and welfare of other living creatures.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Saul Gonzalez in Los Angeles.

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TIM O’BRIEN: Growing old, most feel, is better than the alternative. But although some of us will age gracefully, some surely will not. Advances in medical care don’t always help, and treatment can be expensive and have debilitating side effects. Some doctors are now proposing that their patients consider what’s being called, “slow medicine” – that is, trying to let nature take its course rather than aggressively fighting the ravages that sometimes accompany old age. Lucky Severson reports.

LUCKY SEVERSON: Edie Gieg looks and acts a lot younger than her age. When she’s not watering her flowers or playing tennis, she works at her home business producing video biographies. She may be healthy, but the 85-year-old has given a lot of thought to what lies ahead.

EDIE GIEG (Kendal at Hanover Resident, New Hampshire): There’s a huge amount of denial of what goes on at the end of life. And most of us don’t even want to face it. We’d be lucky if we died of a heart attack -“bang” – like that.

SEVERSON: She knows that many elderly people aren’t lucky enough to die suddenly, that it is often a slow painful progression from one illness or disease to another, one operation or hospital stay after another.

Ms. GIEG: I had had enough experience watching people go through end-of-life situations which were highly undesirable. Not the way, certainly, I wanted to end my life.

SEVERSON: That’s why Edie is a b supporter of a fledging movement in the U.S. called “slow medicine,” a phrase coined by Dr. Dennis McCullough who has written a book about what it means.

Dr. DENNIS MCCULLOUGH (Author, “My Mother, Your Mother” and Faculty Member, Department of Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School): I had to write through my anger at the beginning of this book.

SEVERSON: Dr. McCullough is a respected geriatrician at Dartmouth Medical School. His anger and frustration grew out of years of watching elderly patients undergo surgery and treatments that may or may not prolong life and often dehumanizes dying.

Dr. MCCULLOUGH: If a good death is being with your friends and family and in the comfort of your home, you need to preserve a certain amount of energy left for that. But if you give it all to fighting the side effects of these, some of these treatments, you don’t have any energy left for dying. You just sort of drop off the cliff in the hospital.

SEVERSON: Edie resides in a retirement community called Kendal at Hanover which is affiliated with the Dartmouth Medical School and has become a kind of laboratory for slow medicine. She and her husband Charley were living here when Charley, who was 86 at the time, faced several serious health problems, including throat cancer.

Ms. GIEG: The question then came up, do we operate, remove the vocal cords, so forth, so forth? “Just keep me comfortable,” Charlie said. “I’m ready.”

SEVERSON: Dr. James Bernat is a neurologist who heads the ethics program at Dartmouth. He says there’s a gradual change in geriatric medicine from where the doctors make all the decisions, to where the course of treatment is up to the patient or the patient’s family.

Dr. JAMES BERNAT (Professor of Neurology, Dartmouth Medical School): I can tell you from my experience as a physician for the last 35 years, most people when they reach a certain age prefer something that is akin to slow medicine. Not everyone.

SEVERSON: Not Jinx Eisen, at least not now. She’s a Kendal resident, 81 years old, who recently underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatments for pancreatic cancer.

JINX EISEN (Kendal at Hanover Resident, New Hampshire): I feel healthy. I feel comfortable. I’m enjoying life. I’m very busy on various committees. You know I’m here to live. I’m not here to die.

Dr. MCCULLOUGH: Some people want to go out fighting and some people want to go out in the comfort of their family. Slow medicine doesn’t say you have to take one or the other. It just says you should choose.

BRAD DEWEY (Kendal at Hanover Resident, New Hampshire): I think the best thing is to make that decision while you got your marbles.

SEVERSON: Brad Dewey says he still has his marbles. He and his wife Jane live in an apartment at Kendal. They decided to move here years ago because they didn’t want to lose control as they lost their health.

Dr. MCCULLOUGH: As families came in and saw and heard that this was working for other people – this idea of not doing everything right away and being more careful, reflective, getting more people involved in the decision making – it became a culture.

SEVERSON: Dr. McCullough says aging patients are often caught by American’s expensive, flashy medical technology.

Dr. MCCULLOUGH: The faster we can run the machine, the more revenue is there and that’s guiding doctors.

SEVERSON: A Dartmouth study found that slow medicine can actually reduce escalating hospital costs.

Dr. MCCULLOUGH: If you practice this kind of medicine, people have fewer emergency room visits, less time in the hospital, less time in the Intensive Care Unit.

SEVERSON: But the bottom line in Dr. McCullough’s view should be America’s moral obligation to take better care of its aging citizens.

Dr. MCCULLOUGH: I think the ethical answer is to return to this idea that we need to commit to being with people for that part of the journey – to be with them, to stay with them and to not pass people around to different things.

SEVERSON: Not everyone agrees with slow medicine or thinks it’s practical. At its best slow medicine requires a total family commitment. And not every family has the time or the money to care for their loved one the way they’d like to.

Residents of Kendal get all the medical care they need, but it costs them. Each of the 400 residents had to pay an entry fee starting at $120,000 and a monthly rent of $2,000 and up. Many aging Americans can’t afford extended health care. And since nine out of 10 who live into their 80s end up unable to care for themselves, family support is important. But many families are tied up with work or can’t afford help. So sending their loved ones to the emergency room is often the only way to get medical care.

Dr. BERNAT: That’s an unfortunate circumstance. It’s an abuse really of, of that type of treatment because it’s being done not because it’s what the patient would have wanted, but for a logistical reason.

SEVERSON: Dr. Bernat says although increasing numbers of physicians are converting to slow medicine, there are some who worry that the movement could grow into a discriminatory public policy where more aggressive care is withheld.

Dr. BERNAT: It’s important when you consider any type of medical system that doesn’t give every single treatment that they could, that there is that risk that it could be abused by an insurance company whose interest is to reduce outputs.

SEVERSON: Brad Dewey thinks that despite his 92 years, he’s entitled to all the care he can get if it means he can live well a little longer.

Mr. DEWEY: If I fell and hit my head I don’t want to be treated with slow medicine. I want to be treated to recover if I can. I might be a slow medicine person tomorrow. But today I am not ready.

SEVERSON: Edie Gieg has five kids, nine grandchildren and four great grandkids. She says if slow medicine is going to work, you have to talk to your family early before you get too infirm to let them know what you want.

Ms. GIEG: Some of the most difficult situations occur when somebody like myself would say to their doctor, “Look, I don’t want to drag on for years and years.” But that person hasn’t really discussed with their children what they want at the end of life. It’s selfish. We should be taking care and being responsible for our end-of-life situation.

SEVERSON: If you took a vote at Kendal, slow medicine would win in a landslide. But if you asked how many are ready to opt for it today, the answer would likely be quite different.

Ms. EISEN: Some of the women play bridge, for instance, for the afternoons. That’s their life. Don’t talk to them about slow medicine as long as they can set up and play.

SEVERSON: Jinx says she’ll think about it maybe when she’s 95. Edie looks as if she’ll live beyond 95, but she’s not taking any chances.

Ms. GIEG: I’m at the point now where I am about to get a bracelet that has on it, “DNR”: do not resuscitate. So if I collapse in the middle of the street with a heart attack when in town in Hanover, I do not want to be hauled off in an ambulance with a lot of tubes and so forth. It’s just it’s my time.

SEVERSON: And, like many elderly Americans, she wants to be in control of her time.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Lucky Severson in Hanover, New Hampshire.

O’BRIEN: We have an excerpt from Dr. McCullough’s book and an exclusive online interview with him about religion, ethics and slow medicine on our Web site at pbs.org.

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TIM O’BRIEN: A birth, a marriage, a death – these events are often surrounded by religious ritual and tradition. But how are those passages in life observed by those who do not believe in a God? We went to a baby-naming ceremony sponsored by the Atheist Alliance International. Its president, Margaret Downey, explains.

MARGARET DOWNEY (Secular Officiant and President, Atheist Alliance International): Our ceremonies are based on real things such as love and honesty and commitment and the beauty of nature.

We conduct “Welcome to the World” ceremonies, and they focus on appreciation of the birth of a child. In our case we had two children to appreciate.

We officially announce their names to friends and family.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE OF WOMAN: For in Greek, Sophia means wisdom, and Lyra refers to music and lyrics.

Ms. DOWNEY: We also give our promises to be mentors and “Guideparents.” We don’t have Godparents, so we use the terminology “Guideparents.”

PARENTS (speaking in unison): We accept this responsibility.

Ms. DOWNEY: Some people bring gifts. Gifts can range from anything from a thought to a scholarship.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Look to this day for it is life.

Ms. DOWNEY: Sometimes we do readings. We typically research so that we make sure the poems and the prose do not contain religious jargon.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: They learn justice.

Ms. DOWNEY: We have libraries filled with beautiful works.

RICHARD DAWKINS (reading): Of all the experiences of our lives though, surely no event is more inspiring than the birth of a child.

Ms. DOWNEY: Some parents try to find people that serve as good role models for the child. I mean Richard Dawkins, what better role model could you have than him?

Today the naming ceremony’s theme is “stardust.” And what we did was we put stars around the tables, we put stars on the stage.

We like ceremonies because it reinforces the fact that we have family and friends. It reinforces a date, a time, a marking in someone’s life, a special event, and atheists need that too.

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TIM O’BRIEN: Last week we reported on a controversy in Tennessee where a Tyson food plant exchanged a Muslim holiday for Labor Day as one of its paid holidays. Conservative activists were angry about that and threatened a boycott. This week, an update: Tyson has agreed to reinstate Labor Day as a paid holiday. The plant will also allow Muslim employees, at least 25 percent of their workforce, to use a paid personal day to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the Islamic festival that concludes the holy month of Ramadan.

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TIM O’BRIEN: That’s our program for now. I’m Tim O’Brien. There’s much more on our Web site, including more on religion and politics on our “One Nation” page. Audio and video podcasts of the program are also available. Join us at pbs.org.

As we leave you, music from Professor Wilbur Belton and The LADWEC Music Mass Choir at a recent concert to celebrate their new CD.

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2008 WNET-TV. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Prepared by Burrelle’s Information Services, which takes sole responsibility for accuracy of transcription. No license is granted to the user of this material other than for research. User may not reproduce any copy of the material except for user’s personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be reproduced, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any manner that may infringe upon WNET-TV’s copyright or proprietary interests in the material.

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TRANSCRIPT:
Episode no. 1149

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Coming up – what happens when a hospital has to ration health care? Will some have to be left out? Who should they be?

Dr. AVI MARKOWITZ (Chief of Oncology & Hematology, UTMB): I don’t have a problem saying that it’s okay to turn away undocumented patients and treat U.S. citizens.

Dr. KIRK SMITH (Founder, Frontera de Salud, UTMB): We actually stand up, raise our hands, and you actually stand up, raise your hands and take an oath to be here for the health of all.

ABERNETHY: And a coach for whom soccer is much more than a game.

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BOB ABERNETHY: Welcome. I’m Bob Abernethy. It’s good to have you with us.

The Olympics kicked off in Beijing Friday. Opening ceremonies drew leaders and protests. Activists used the games to highlight China’s repression of human rights and religious freedom. Thousands gathered on China’s border in Nepal for mass demonstrations. Within China several protesters broke through government security, among them Christian activists who prayed publicly in Tiananmen Square before police dragged them away.

Just before President Bush arrived, he delivered a speech in Thailand criticizing China’s rights record.

President GEORGE W. BUSH: So America stands in firm opposition to China’s detention of political dissidents and human rights advocates and religious activists.

ABERNETHY: Chinese authorities responded coldly, asserting that the Chinese people already enjoy basic rights and religious freedom.

Pope Benedict also weighed in. While visiting the birthplace in Italy of a Catholic saint who had been a missionary in China, the pope said China should open itself up to the Gospel.

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BOB ABERNETHY: The presiding bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church says the worldwide Anglican Communion is holding together despite deep divisions over homosexuality interpretation of Scripture. Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori returned home from England this week after attending the once-every-10-year Lambeth meeting of Anglican bishops. In a Web cast Thursday, she said the diverse group of bishops built a great understanding of one another.

Presiding Bishop KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI (U.S Episcopal Church): We got quite quickly into very significant and deep conversations. We certainly didn’t all agree with each other about various issues, but we listened respectfully.

ABERNETHY: About 650 Anglican bishops from around the world were at the meeting, but more than 230 others stayed away. The bishops didn’t vote on any resolutions, but instead held a series of small group discussions about the many issues that divide them. Our managing editor Kim Lawton covered the meeting. Kim, welcome home. What happened, or perhaps, didn’t happen?

KIM LAWTON (Managing Editor, RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY): Well, I think the big news from the meeting was that there wasn’t any big news. A lot of people feared that there might be some kind of an actual split at this meeting. That didn’t happen. About a third of the bishops boycotted. That did have an impact. But there wasn’t any big explosion. They’re still hanging together, but this sort of uneasy stalemate continues.

ABERNETHY: And what does the stalemate mean for the typical American Episcopal parish?

LAWTON: Well, not much in the short term. There are – the majority of the worldwide Anglican Communion is upset that the U.S. elected a gay bishop; that same sex blessings occur inside some Episcopal churches. The Communion would like that to stop. But the bishops that are doing that in the U.S. say, “We’re not going to stop.” The majority of the Communion is not happy that some Americans have said, “We don’t want to be part of the Episcopal Church.” And so they’re affiliating with these African churches in some cases. The Communion says, “Well, we don’t like that, that isn’t done in the Anglican Communion. That should stop.” But it probably will continue. And so the question is can all of this still happen within one Anglican umbrella?

ABERNETHY: You had the feeling, I think – one had the feeling – that the American Episcopal Church was very much in the minority. You felt that sense of it’s being in a minority – at least I did from here.

LAWTON: Well, indeed, the U.S. – and there are a few other member churches – Canada, some places in England that would agree with the U.S. But, by and large many of the members are concerned with what’s happening here in the U.S.

ABERNETHY: Kim Lawton, many thanks.

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BOB ABERNETHY: In Tennessee, a company that tried to accommodate religious diversity has found itself on the defensive. A Tyson Foods poultry plant agreed to let workers have a paid day off on the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Fitr rather than on Labor Day. Eid-al-Fitr marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Hundreds of workers at the plant are Somali Muslims, and the workers’ union had asked for the switch. But once news of the decision circulated outside the plant, several conservative activists criticized it as un-American and threatened a boycott.

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BOB ABERNETHY: In Mexico City, thousands of humanitarian workers, religious leaders and political figures gathered for the annual International AIDS Conference. The UN reported that the number of people worldwide who died from AIDS last year went down slightly, but the disease still killed an estimated two million people.

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BOB ABERNETHY: The Commonwealth Fund in New York this week released results of a new survey on the U.S. health care system. Eighty-two percent of Americans said the system should be fundamentally changed or completely rebuilt. But how to do it? One of the toughest questions in the national debate, an ethical question, is should healthcare be rationed? If so, which patients in need should be denied care?

We have a story today about doctors and medical students at a famous Texas hospital who are facing those questions and their painful answers. Lucky Severson reports.

LUCKY SEVERSON: Baptist Pastor Kevin McBryde knew something was very wrong when he got such a debilitating headache he was bedridden for several days.

Pastor KEVIN MCBRYDE: I laid in the dark and I groaned and griped. And finally my wife talked me into getting up and going to the hospital when my face went numb.

SEVERSON: Because he had a pre-existing condition, Hodgkin’s disease, when he was a teenager, the pastor was rejected by three health insurance companies. So he ended up here at the UTMB, the University of Texas Medical Branch. Now, with no insurance and no money, he’s receiving very costly treatments at no charge for an aggressive form of lymphoma.

Dr. AVI MARKOWITZ (Chief of Oncology & Hematology, UTMB, speaking to Pastor McBryde): And it’s the five days of Pregnazone, the one day of the Rytoxin and chemotherapy, and then we will repeat that for three or four cycles.

SEVERSON: UTMB is legendary in Texas. It’s the oldest teaching hospital west of the Mississippi – a huge 795-bed complex centered in Galveston. The bulk of UTMB’s funding comes from Medicare, Medicaid and the Texas legislature. The hospital attracts doctors and medical students for whom treating everyone, regardless of their ability to pay, is a solemn duty.

Dr. KIRK SMITH (Founder, Frontera de Salud, UTMB): We take an oath. We actually stand up, raise our hands and take an oath to be here for the health of all. Are we going to live up to that or not?

SEVERSON: If Doctor Smith seems upset, he’s not alone. UTMB finds itself in an untenable position. Because of dwindling funding and ever more patients who can’t pay, the hospital has been forced to ration health care. It’s a situation that has left doctors and students here deeply conflicted.

This was a meeting to debate the morality and justice of the latest rationing plan to deny treatment to cancer patients who are illegal or undocumented immigrants.

LAURA HERMER (Attorney, UTMB): We cannot ration, for example, based on someone’s race, someone’s ethnicity, someone’s gender, someone’s religion.

KATRINA LEONARD (Second Year Medical Student, UTMB, speaking at hearing): We are convinced that it is unjust and immoral to exclude a population of patients on the basis of their citizenship status.

Dr. JOHN STOBO (Former President, UTMB, speaking at hearing): It’s been a painful process and nobody has liked it. Many of the people who came to UTMB because of our mission were very upset when we had to do it this.

SEVERSON: Dr. John Stobo is the former president of UTMB. He says, like public hospitals nationwide, UTMB has been caught in a perfect storm.

Dr. STOBO: You had several things happening: an increase in the uninsured; decreasing in the rolls of people covered by federal and state programs; and closure of emergency rooms. So, it became a real challenge to UTMB to take on the health care of an increasing number of people with the cost of health care continuing to increase.

SEVERSON: To reduce costs, the hospital system laid off almost 400 employees and curtailed some costly procedures altogether like Cochlear ear implants, as well as some expensive high- tech drugs. Two years ago, the hospital simply ran out of funding for indigent care and was forced to turn patients away.

Dr. MARKOWITZ: That in fact was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me in my career.

SEVERSON: Dr Avi Markowitz is the chief of Oncology & Hematology at UTMB. He is convinced that denying cancer treatment to undocumented patients is the most ethical way, under the circumstances, to ration care.

Dr. MARKOWITZ: Shortly after I got here, because we had run out of money, I was forced to close the medical oncology clinic to all unfunded patients for over four months. And that was a horrible situation to be put in. We can’t simply say we’ll go ahead without any forethought and treat until the money runs out and then close the doors. That, to me, that’s the least ethical way to take care of people with cancer.

SEVERSON: If James Halbert had come to UTMB when the hospital was forced to withhold care for patients without the means to pay, he might not have survived. Halbert has acute myeloid leukemia and he lost his insurance when the mortgage company he worked for went broke. He says no one at UTMB has talked to him about money, and he’s grateful. But he wonders why such a rich country can’t take care of its own?

JAMES HALBERT (Patient, UTMB): When are you going to start taking care of the people of the United States and quit worrying about everybody else? You know, why aren’t we spending money on us?

SEVERSON: Of all the states, Texas has the highest percentage of residents without insurance – about one in four. Eighty percent of them are employed by small companies that don’t have to offer health insurance. It’s one of the reasons that students and doctors here are being forced to make painful human calculations.

Dr. Kirk Smith is the founder of Frontera de Salud, which offers free health care along the Mexican border. Volunteer students and doctors work out of a privately funded clinic, and when the patients can’t come to them, they go to the patients. Dr. Smith is extremely proud of Frontera’s work and bly opposed to limiting health care for undocumented patients.

Dr. SMITH: We’re taking a segment of the population – of the human community – and saying because you have this attribute, in this case you are undocumented, you don’t count.

SEVERSON: They are not even citizens,

Dr. SMITH: I’m a physician. I don’t look at citizens. I look at human beings.

Dr. MARKOWITZ: I have had that discussion with Dr. Smith and I respectfully disagree with both his characterization and his conclusions. Personally, I don’t have a problem saying that it’s OK to turn away undocumented patients and treat U.S. citizens. I have said to Dr. Smith and to the students who take umbrage with that, “That that’s OK. If you want me to do that then you are going to have to come down and look at the 10 U.S. citizens or more who are gong to be denied access to care for each one of those undocumented patients that you treat.”

SEVERSON: Dr. Markowitz says of the 190 patients he’s turned away in the last 18 months, about 14 percent – no more than 25 – have been undocumented. Even at that, he says, the savings in costly cancer treatments like chemotherapy can be substantial.

Dr. MARKOWITZ: We have patients who are often getting drug treatments that cost us – costs not charge us – but costs us in excess of $30,000 a month. You don’t need too many of those patients to drain your entire resources program and then you are turning away everybody else.

SEVERSON: Facing the hard reality of health care has come as a jolt to students like Katrina Leonard, a second year Med student who came here full of idealism.

Ms. LEONARD: I look at the reasons why we were turning away the 14 percent. And if it’s something that’s unethical or unjust or immoral, then regardless of how many people that you are able to serve at the expense of that 14 percent, it shouldn’t be done.

Dr. SMITH: We’ve told them you’re unique, your profession stands aside because of this high moral relationship you stand in with regard to the patient. And then they get into the reality of practice and find its often profit-driven or the willingness with which we deny some patients some access to care. And we have to lay this at the feet of the citizens. It’s a decision we’ve made as a society.

SEVERSON: Dr. Smith says he is not opposed to rationing. He simply wants a more equitable distribution.

Dr. SMITH: Before you put together whatever the rationing plan is, you make sure that you’re blinded to who that rationing plan is going to apply to. That’s how you can ensure that it’s going to be fair, unbiased, ethical. You make sure that ahead of the game, you don’t know whether it’s going to apply to your worst enemy or your mother.

SEVERSON: He says that one problem is that patients want the best care money can buy – tests, for instance, they may not need like MRIs and CAT scans. Dr. Markowitz agrees that hospitals and doctors need to rethink the tradeoffs of prescribing expensive tests and drugs.

Dr. MARKOWITZ: We see patients referred to us with very advanced disease, who in fact are likely to only live a few weeks or perhaps a few months and it will be an enormous drain on the resources. And then you have to ask yourself, is it reasonable to do that when you know you’re not going to accomplish anything good, or take that same amount of money and be able to help a half of dozen women with newly diagnosed with early stage breast cancer and offer them curative therapy?

SEVERSON: Pastor McBryde believes the compassionate care he has received at UTMB underscores one of Christianity’s greatest commandments: to love your neighbor as yourself. But he draws a line if the neighbor is undocumented.

Pastor MCBRYDE: They’re breaking the law when they come into this country. I don’t know. It’s just a big part of me that has real problem with someone who breaks the law, knowingly breaks the law and then demands privileges.

SEVERSON: Calculating the cost versus the benefit of patient care has taken a toll not only on patients, but on the doctors who make the hard choices, none more than Dr. John Stobo.

Dr. STOBO: It’s time for this country to take this issue on and seriously take it on. We’ve got a health care system which denies health care to 47 million Americans simply and solely because they don’t have health insurance and can’t afford to pay for the health care. So this is an abomination. And we as a country have got to say, “”This is totally irresponsible.” We’ve got to do something about it.

SEVERSON: Doing something about it, of course, means increased funding from the federal government and the Texas legislature, and that’s a challenge. President Bush has proposed budget cuts in both Medicaid and Medicare, and the Texas legislature has yet to fully reinstate $50 million dollars that was cut from UTMB’s budget.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Lucky Severson in Galveston, Texas.

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BOB ABERNETHY: Now, a profile of a devout man of apparently boundless energy who teaches children how to play soccer – and a lot more. He is Spencer Rockman, director of the Rovers International Soccer Camp in New Jersey. The story was produced by Dena Seidel, an independent filmmaker who also teaches at Rutgers University. Coach Rockman tells his story.

Coach SPENCER ROCKMAN (Rovers International Soccer Camp, New Jersey): I’m Spencer Rockman of Edison, New Jersey.

(coaching kids): The game is on!

I am a soccer coach. I am also an observant Jew. It was God’s plan for me to be a soccer coach. Soccer is a metaphor for every other discipline.

(speaking to kids): Da da da da da. Da da da da da. Who has the ball, has the ball? Spencer has the ball!

Soccer becomes a vehicle for all the values that we stand for in all other aspects of our life.

(speaking to kids): What are the attributes from above? Do we have giving?

CHILDREN (responding): Yes.

Coach ROCKMAN: Do we have a lot of kindness?

CHILDREN (responding): Yes.

Coach ROCKMAN: So if that is given to us, therefore do you think we should do the same thing and give to one another and be kind?

CHILDREN (responding): Yes.

Coach ROCKMAN (speaking to kids): If we take those values and we incorporate them not only into our soccer, but into everything that we do . . .

I have directed Rovers International Soccer camps for more than 30 years and I’ve worked with more than 10,000 children, youth and adults.

(coaching kids): Simon, Simon, Simon says knee, knee, foot. Simon says give yourself a big hug. Simon says wiggle those wings. Simon says wiggle those fingers. Simon says, “belly on the ball before Spencer.” Now what? Wait for me!

The Rovers’ philosophy transcends all races and all cultures. Our mission is “unity through soccer.” And we live in one of the most diverse areas of the country. Every segment of society is here in Central Jersey. And when we do our camps in this area, you just see the unity of mankind.

When I look at the children, I see that spark of divinity in each one. Everyone is made in God’s image which means we are all united by one soul. That is what I keep trying to do, to bring people together through the game of soccer.

(coaching kids): Nice shot Billy. Beautiful.

(pointing to the first word of a sign): Rovers . . .

CHILDREN (repeating word): Rovers. . .

Coach ROCKMAN (pointing to the second word of a sign): Kiosk . . .

CHILDREN (repeating word): Kiosk . . .

Coach ROCKMAN (pointing to the third word of a sign): For . . .

CHILDREN (repeating word): For . . .

Coach ROCKMAN (pointing to the second word of a sign): Kindness.

CHILDREN (repeating word): Kindness.

Coach ROCKMAN (speaking to kids): We all woke up in the beautiful, beautiful world which is God’s garden. If we put our trash on the ground, what is that saying?

ARIANNA: If you don’t pick up after yourself and throw everything away, you don’t respect the land.

Coach ROCKMAN: You don’t respect the land. Beautiful. Yes Arianna.

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: We’re not respecting God.

Coach ROCKMAN. We don’t respect God. Wow.

UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER #1: He teaches great values. Having a child come to camp for fun and get that as a bonus is amazing.

UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER #2: I think it’s very important that a kid knows values when learning a game because I think it is very important when you learn a sport. My daughter is nine years old and this is the first year she is attending the camp but she loves it a lot. Spencer makes the kids feel very special and very important.

Mr. ROCKMAN (speaking to kids): Did anyone have breakfast this morning? If you had breakfast, raise your hand. Many of our peers had a rough time finding breakfast. Each of your coaches will have one of the boxes for our brothers and sisters who don’t get their breakfast or lunch or dinner that easily.

UNIDENTIFIED FATHER: While they’re learning about sports they are also learning about growing as people. And Spencer brings the enthusiasm of soccer into life in general, charity, making them feel empowered to help out in those situations.

Coach ROCKMAN: Judaism is my path. Other people have their own paths to God. I know I’ve been selected for a mission and my existential angst is based on my feeling and knowledge and inability to see all of our oneness as it sources with our creator. I pray three times a day: “Lord, may the health, wealth and strength you have provided me serve as a platform in order to fulfill the mission that you have assigned me.”

AUDREY ROCKMAN: My name is Audrey Rockman and my husband and I love working with children. Since our own daughter was little, we’ve had 16 foster children come and live with us.

Ms. ROCKMAN: It’s very sad to think of a child having to ask for a family. Most of the foster children come from DYFS, the New Jersey Department of Youth and Family Services.

Coach ROCKMAN: A little boy by the name of Joseph, we called him “Yosef,” came to us at 11 o’clock at night. He came down in the morning with a soccer shirt.

Ms. ROCKMAN: He’s holding this shirt and saying, “Look Mom, look what I found in my drawer.”

Coach ROCKMAN: He had bounded that quickly. And when he left, we all cried.

Ms. ROCKMAN: We’ve had a few children that we thought might have been available for adoption but it just hasn’t worked. But we remain open to the possibility.

Coach ROCKMAN: In July of 2007, we had the blessing of bringing the Rovers’ philosophy to Israel. We felt called by God to work with the underserved populations, particularly our Ethiopian brothers and sisters.

Whether it made sense or it didn’t make sense, the Lord sent me there to do these clinics. And then, people are people, kids are kids. But you realize there are societal factors. That’s something that’s not always in our control.

CHILDREN (holding hands and chanting): Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate? Rovers, Rovers, yeah Rovers!

Coach ROCKMAN: Our basic essence is one of unity. There is no physical separation for anyone. It doesn’t matter what religion you are. We’re really from one source. We really are unified souls. But it gets fragmented in our daily lives because everybody’s like fighting for their little piece of this, their little piece of that. What has to happen is that we develop that cooperation amongst our fellow beings so that we truly become who we really are – unified souls.

I’m humbled and hope that I can be worthy of the mission that God has given me.

(chanting with kids): Unity! Unity! Unity! Unity!

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BOB ABERNETHY: On our calendar, Jews commemorate Tisha B’Av Sunday. The solemn holiday marks the destruction of the first and second temples in Jerusalem and other calamities.

In Israel, many Jews observe the day with prayers at the Western Wall, a remnant of the second temple, destroyed nearly 2,000 years ago.

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BOB ABERNETHY: The Russian writer and dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died this week at the age of 89. In “The Gulag Archipeligo” and other exposes of the Soviet prison system, Solzhenitsyn helped bring down communist rule. He won a Nobel Prize, but was also exiled from Russia for many years. Solzhenitsyn was a devout Russian Orthodox Christian. He was buried at a 16th century monastery in Moscow.

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BOB ABERNETHY: When he was in Thailand this past week, President Bush visited a faith-based ministry we did a story on a few years ago. In the worst slums of Bangkok, where he has lived for more than 30 years, Father Joe Meier, a Catholic priest, runs a kindergarten where kids learn to read and write, a center for orphaned kids, many of them with AIDS, and much more. Our reporter asked Father Joe why he lived there.

Father JOE MEIER: Because that’s where Jesus would be.

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BOB ABERNETHY: That’s our program for now. I’m Bob Abernethy. There’s much more on our Web site, including more on religion and politics on our “One Nation” page. Audio and video podcasts of the program are also available. Join us at pbs.org.

As we leave you, members of the Anglican Order of Melanesian Brothers and Sisters of the Solomon Islands, performing at the Lambeth Conference.

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2008 WNET-TV. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Prepared by Burrelle’s Information Services, which takes sole responsibility for accuracy of transcription. No license is granted to the user of this material other than for research. User may not reproduce any copy of the material except for user’s personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be reproduced, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any manner that may infringe upon WNET-TV’s copyright or proprietary interests in the material.

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