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COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
When I was a kid in the 70’s, I went to Sunday school at my synagogue. We did arts, crafts, sang songs and learned about Judaism. But the lessons weren’t always fun and games. We studied Jewish history, which was often wrought with persecution.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
It was 1938. Adolph Hitler (Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year”) had begun dropping in on his neighbors without an invitation. It was also the year that a 23 year old genius actor-director named Orson Welles, had a bright idea. He decided to punch up the drama on the radio show The Mercury Theatre on the Air, which did dramatizations of classic novels.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
We as Scientologists have worked hard to demonstrate our values to the world. We help. We are first responders to world disasters. We are mothers and fathers, neighbors and tutors. Nice people, moral people. We have faces and names. We have rights. And one of them is the right to practice our religion.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
I met Christians, Buddhists, Bahá’ís, Sikhs and Muslims. They were all united in their belief that fundamental human rights belong to every single person on earth and that teaching others the value of these rights is one of the most important things we could be doing.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
Ortega was the chief editor of the Village Voice when it harbored Backpage.com, which, according to numerous media reports, was the nation’s leading facilitator for the sale of children for sex. Its three owners have been under U.S. Senate Subcommittee investigation.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
I know a lot about hate. Unfortunately, I’ve had way too much experience with intolerance and bigotry. I’m an expert in it. You’d think that perhaps I grew up in the Jim Crow South or some war-torn nation in the Middle East.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
“Stay away from that,” warned my history professor, glaring at the book in my bag. “I’m serious.” “It’s… dangerous!” These long forgotten words came back to me recently while reading about the discovery of the oldest known map to depict Mundus Novus, the New World.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Under cover of a January blizzard, Roger Williams left his wife and children, slipping away to avoid the men sent to arrest and deport him for what Puritan leaders in Massachusetts had called “dangerous” religious beliefs.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
Using apostates to spread religious intolerance is not a new tactic, but in the age of the internet and life-as-entertainment, it’s taken on a new face. By definition, an apostate is not just a person who wanders away from a faith. It’s a bit more serious than that.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
During the modern age, regardless of how that is defined, unquestionably few groups have done more to advance the cause of freedom of religion than has my church, the Church of Scientology. Even an ardent critic could not deny this fact.
