Blog
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. The opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” - Elie Wiesel
MEDIA & ETHICS
Freedom of speech is a precious gift bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers. Anti-Scientologists routinely abuse that right. I could now proclaim that even though I detest what the haters say about my church, I will defend their right to say it. But I won’t. It would be a lie. Why on earth would I want to defend the abuse of this precious right by for-profit hatemongers?
TOLERANCE
Beginning in 1999, Gilley wrote hundreds of letters to, as he puts it, “everybody,” ultimately getting the attention and interest of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, Nobel Peace Prize winner Óscar Arias and United Nations Secretary General Kofi A. Annan. Within two years, the first United Nations International Day of Peace, September 21, 2001, was submitted to the General Assembly by Costa Rica and the British government with 54 cosponsors, and unanimously adopted by the 189 member nations.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
In keeping with the spirit of the day, I engaged in a bit of reflection on what the Constitution means to me personally. Certainly as a lifelong Scientologist, a religion that emerged in the 20th century, the promise of religious freedom, combined with the prohibition of any official state religion, stand out. Although the forward progress of Scientology has not been without challenges, I’ve personally observed the strong commitment of many Americans to the ideal of religious freedom which has helped it thrive.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Politics is a zero-sum game. It is a game of power and control, and for one party to win, another party has to lose. (There has never been an election where both parties won.) Religion, on the other hand, is a win-win game. When a Hindu worshipper strives for freedom from the endless cycle of life, death and rebirth, he does not impinge on a Muslim’s relationship with Allah, or a Christian’s worship of Christ, or any of the other myriad ways that believers manifest their beliefs.
TOLERANCE
When Pope Francis talks, 1.3 billion people listen. Thus, it is significant that on his recent trip to Hungary, the Pope called for an embrace of religious diversity.
RELIGIOUS LITERACY
The lesson of Yom Kippur is that all of us—no exceptions, no excuses—can change for the better.
RELIGIOUS LITERACY
A friend of mine who is not a Scientologist recently asked me to explain the Scientology symbol. It reminded me of my childhood growing up as a Christian in the Methodist church and everything the Christian cross represented to me and so many others—a symbol of God’s love and the personal sacrifice of Jesus for all mankind, the suffering that is a part of the human experience, but also the redemption that is possible for every individual.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
Suppose a rock crashed through your window slamming into the wall of your living room, narrowly missing the sofa where your grandchild sits. Then suppose the tires were slashed on your car and truck, with hate messages and swastikas scrawled on those vehicles.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
Since that time, nearly 140,000 other individuals have been the targets of hate crime in the United States. 140,000, many losing their lives, many others their livelihoods, their family members, and whatever hope and color their existence possessed prior to the crime—all of them, in a very real sense, victims of 9/11.
