On the eve of the 203rd anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday, lawmakers in at least four states are taking steps to hinder the teaching of evolution in public schools, while other bills would do the same without naming evolution outright.

One of the bills, New Hampshire‘s House Bill 1148, not only singles out evolution, but would require teachers to discuss its proponents’ “political and ideological viewpoints and their position on the concept of atheism.” It is scheduled for a hearing in early February.

The author of the bill, Republican state Rep. Jerry Bergevin, has linked the teaching of evolution to the 1999 Columbine High School massacre and Hitler’s atrocities and associates it with atheism.

“I want the full portrait of evolution and the people who came up with the ideas to be presented,” Bergevin told the Concord Monitor. “It’s a worldview and it’s godless. Atheism has been tried in various societies, and they’ve been pretty criminal domestically and internationally. The Soviet Union, Cuba, the Nazis, China today: They don’t respect human rights.”

In many ways, the debate over evolution mirrors strategies adopted by opponents in the battle over abortion: If it can’t be outlawed outright, critics will at least try to make it more difficult.

Several atheist organizations have called for the withdrawal of all the bills, but are keeping an especially close eye on Bergevin’s. David Silverman, president of American Atheists, has called it “ignorant, infuriating bigotry.”

Ahead of Darwin’s birthday on Feb. 12, other current anti-evolution bills include:

– In the Indiana Senate, a bill would allow school districts to “require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life within the school corporation.” That bill has already passed a statehouse committee and was scheduled for a vote on Jan 31.

– The “Missouri Standard Science Act” would require the equal treatment of evolution and “intelligent design,” an idea that the universe was created by an unnamed “designer.” A second bill would require teachers to encourage students “to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about controversial issues, including biological and chemical evolution.”

– A bill in the Oklahoma Senate would require the state’s board of education to help teachers promote “critical thinking, logical analysis, open and objective discussion of scientific theories including, but not limited to, evolution, the origin of life, global warming, and human cloning” if a local school district makes that request.

– A second bill in the New Hampshire House would require science teachers to instruct students that  “proper scientific inquir(y) results from not committing to any one theory or hypothesis, no matter how firmly it appears to be established.”

– A bill in Virginia would make it illegal for state colleges to require a class that conflicts with a student’s religious views. Critics say that would enable a student to receive a biology degree, for example, without studying evolution if he or she objected to it.

– A second bill in Indiana would require the state board of education to draft rules about the teaching of ideas in science class that cannot be proven by evidence — a clear doorway for the teaching of creationism and intelligent design, critics say.

While all the bills have drawn the attention of several large atheist groups including the Center for Inquiry and the National Atheist Party, Bergevin’s bill in New Hampshire has raised the most eyebrows.

“Evolution is not just for atheists, and has been accepted as fact by many religious institutions, including the Catholic Church,” Silverman said. “It is clearly an attempt to create religious discussion in science class, and to somehow make science ‘not for believers.’”

Even if the bill were to become law, some expect it to be short-lived.

“In the unlikely event it would pass, it would quickly be struck down by the courts as unconstitutional,” said Rob Boston, a senior policy analyst at the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

“It is just warmed-over creationism, which the Supreme Court has already said is unconstitutional, and the government cannot require anyone to stand up and explain where they stand on a religion or a philosophy.”

If the bills stand little chance of surviving, why do they get proposed?

Josh Rosenau, a programs and policy director at the National Center for Science Education, chalks it up to the high number of rookie legislators.

In 2010, he said, “A lot of very conservative legislators got elected who did not necessarily know we have debated these bills before and they did not pass,” he said. “You had people elected as ideologues and they are fulfilling their campaign promises.”

Indeed, Bergevin is a first-time legislator who had wide support from the Tea Party. Still, Rosenau said, Bergevin’s bill is unusual for requiring teachers to discuss a scientist’s religious views.

“Just on its face, I think a court would look askance at it,” he said. “You can’t say, ‘On behalf of the state of New Hampshire I endorse theism over atheism.’”

The bigger picture, Boston said, is the strategy of the bills that do not name evolution per se, like the two in Virginia and Indiana.

“They are smart enough to know that a direct attack on evolution is not likely to survive, so they instead put some kind of penalty on teaching it to make (educators) afraid,” he said.

Christian workers are fleeing India’s Kashmir Valley after a sharia(Islamic law) court issued a “guilty verdict” against three Christian leaders, issued a fatwa against Christian schools and allegedly launched a door-to-door campaign to bring converts back to Islam.

The court, which has no legal authority, found the Rev. Chander Mani Khanna, pastor of All Saints Church in Srinagar, Dutch Catholic missionary Jim Borst and Christian worker Gayoor Messah guilty of “luring the valley Muslims to Christianity,” The Times of India daily reported on Dec. 19.

The three had already left the region apparently due to rising tensions.

Headed by Kashmir Grand Mufti Bashir-ud-din Ahmad, the sharia court also “directed” the state government to take over the management of all Christian schools in the region, the daily added.

“I fled with my wife and children, as I was not feeling safe in Srinagar,” a Christian worker from Kashmir told Compass on condition of anonymity. “A group of Muslims visited my house twice, threatening my parents with a social boycott if they failed to produce me.”

The source said he and some of his friends left Srinagar, the summer capital of northern India’s Jammu and Kashmir state, a few days before the sharia court ordered three Christian workers to leave Kashmir Valley, in the Muslim-majority region of the state.

Another source told Compass that some men had visited his family and those of his friends in Srinagar asking for their whereabouts.

“They had the names of all my local Christian friends when they came to my parents’ house, and they asked for the names of more Christians in the area,” he said. “Muslim men are going to every believer’s home and asking their families to ensure that their children return to Islam. They are using Islamic scriptures to persuade the families, warning that if their members do not reconvert their households will face ostracism.”

The source added that those who have fled may not be able to return to their homes for at least a year.

“We have our family with children – where should we send our kids to school?” he said. “Where should we stay? We don’t have any answers.”

He said the men who are visiting Christians’ homes are sent from the many committees the sharia court has formed to prevent conversions. The mufti could not be contacted for comment.

Separately, well-known Muslim clergyman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq recently launched a website, www.tahafuzeiman.org, entitled “Council for Protection of Faith,” for a committee formed in November 2011, “after numerous cases of apostasy came into light” and “to thwart nefarious designs of pervasive forces and the deep-rooted conspiracy of making youth apostate and defectors by giving them concessions and benefits secretly.”

Besides the “guilty verdict” against Pastor Khanna, Borst and Messa, mufti deputy Nasir-ul-Islam reportedly said an investigation against Parvez Samuel Kaul, principal of a local Christian missionary school, was underway.

The court also ordered all Christian schools to teach Islam and other faiths.

“Given the Muslim majority character of the valley, the Muslim students should be taught Islam, and daily prayer written by Syed Mohammad Iqbal should also be sung in the morning prayers,” Nasir-ul-Islam told The Times of India.

Muslim leaders began to rally against Christians after a video posted on YouTube last October showed Muslim youth being baptized at the All Saints Church. Soon thereafter, the sharia court “summoned” Pastor Khanna to explain why Muslim youth were converted and whether they were offered money.

State police arrested Pastor Khanna on Nov. 19 on charges of hurting religious sentiments of Muslims by “converting” their youth. He was released on bail on Dec. 1. The court later summoned Borst, but he asked the mufti to meet him at his church site. The mufti declined. The court found Christian worker Messah “guilty” because he was also seen with Pastor Khanna in the video.

The All India Christian Council warned that the sharia court’s verdict could encourage extremist elements to indulge in violence.

“The church does not accept as genuine any conversion brought about by fraud or force,” Dr. John Dayal, the group’s secretary general, said in a statement.

He pointed out that a fact-finding team that went to Srinagar late last year found no evidence of force or fraud in baptisms. “Each baptism has been proven to be voluntary.”

There are only about 400 Christians in the Kashmir region, with 300 of them living in Srinagar, according to the fact-finding team.

The council also said the Christian community did not accept the jurisdiction of the sharia courts anywhere in India.

The sharia court was careful in its “verdict,” one of the area sources observed, noting that the three who were ordered to leave are not permanent residents of Kashmir. He questioned the fatwa against Christian schools.

“The court issued a fatwa against Christian schools because some business-minded Muslims want greater control over these schools, which are known for providing quality education,” he said.

Local residents saw an element of politics behind the tensions. The fact-finding team, which visited Kashmir from Nov. 29 to Dec. 2, learned from local people that some extremist groups and other vested interests had been seeking to use the issue of conversion in their confrontation with the state government, political parties and moderate Islamic groups.

They were “looking to score political points against each other, and any excuse was good enough to foment trouble,” one resident said. The state government apparently sided with the extremists to preempt any unrest, local residents told the fact-finding team.

While most Muslims in Kashmir are peaceful adherents of Sufi Islam, some are influenced by Wahhabism and are extremists.

The California Supreme Court handed conservatives a big victory on Thursday (Nov. 17) by allowing them to defend a statewide ban on gay marriage that a federal judge struck down as unconstitutional last year.

The court’s 7-0 ruling is a victory for conservative and evangelical backers of Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot initiative that ended same-sex marriage in California. State officials have declined to defend the measure in a federal appeals court.

“When an initiative measure is challenged in court, the integrity and effectiveness of the judicial process require that a competent and spirited defense be presented,” Justice Joyce Kennard wrote in a concurring opinion.

“If public officials refuse to provide that defense, the ability of the initiative proponents to intervene in the pending litigation, and to appeal an adverse judgment, is inherent in, and essential to the effective exercise of, the constitutional initiative power.”

Prop 8 supporters have been working on the case with the Alliance Defense Fund, a leading Christian law firm. Mormon and Roman Catholic churches also lent strong support to the proposition though the various court challenges.

Andrew Pugno, an attorney for ProtectMarriage.com, told a San Francisco radio station that the state court’s ruling “really is a huge disaster for the homosexual marriage extremists.”

Attorney Kate Kendell of the San Francisco-based National Center for Lesbian Rights said only state officials should be able to defend the initiative in court, even if they chose not to.

“We disagree profoundly … that a handful of unelected initiative sponsors have the power to represent the interests of the entire public and to override the decisions of the state’s elected executive officers,” she said.

Church groups in New Mexico scored a minor victory recently for illegal immigrants when a district judge set limitations on an investigation by the state’s governor into the residency of foreigners holding a driver’s license.

Judge Sarah Singleton ruled that Governor Susana Martinez can continue to investigate the residency of foreigners with a driver’s license, but only, as per the state motor vehicle code, if there is indication that the person has committed fraud.

Singleton expressed misgivings by a New Mexico administration move requiring up to 10,000 foreigners with driver’s licenses to personally verify their place of residence, expressing misgivings about doing this simply because the individual was born in another country.

Singleton prohibited the state from sending more of these letters to foreigners with driver’s licenses. Neither can the New Mexico government follow up some 4,200 who did not respond to the letters.

Singleton also put on hold a plan by the administration by Martinez to certify the licenses of up to tens of thousands of foreigners, including illegal immigrants in the country.

The injunction on the program will be maintained dependent on the outcome of a lawsuit that was filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Singleton ruled that an investigation that is conducted merely on the grounds of one’s nationality is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause which applies to both citizens and non-citizens.

Christian opposition

Meanwhile, Christian opposition to Martinez’ plan to repeal the 2003 law which allows illegal immigrants drivers licenses continues to gather speed, with the Albuquerque Interfaith, along with the New Mexico Catholic Conference of Bishops, among protesters in recent rallies.

Martinez has stated that the 2003 law poses risks to public safety, opens the door to license fraud, and draws in illegal immigrants who go to New Mexico for licenses and then leave the state.

New Mexico is one of three states that issue licenses to illegal immigrants, the other two being Washington and Utah. In New Mexico, over 80,000 licenses were issued to foreigners. It is not known how many of them are illegal immigrants.

Illegal immigrants can get licenses in these states because there is no requirement to produce a proof of immigration or Social Security number. However, Utah introduced a new law this year that requires a background check and fingerprinting of immigrants.

Washington has also experienced a drop in the number of foreigners applying for licenses because of stricter rules that require proof of residency in the absence of a Social Security number.

New Mexico has experienced a drop in the number of licenses issued to immigrants, down by 57 percent in the first seven months of Martinez’ administration, largely due to a requirement that foreigners make an appointment at the Motor Vehicle Division office if they wish to apply for a driver’s license.

Christian vigils

Christians have held vigils to challenge the more stringent requirements, citing the moral side of the issue. Nancy Phillips of New Mexico Faith Coalition for Immigrant Justice told AP, “We draw our inspiration from scripture. The Hebrew prophets in the Old Testament said if you wanted to get right with God, you have to help the poor, you have to help the stranger. That’s what we’re doing.”

The Christian tradition goes a long way back. In the 1980s, churches were at the forefront in aiding refugees from Central America during the war. Jewish groups and synagogues have long assisted refugees from the former Soviet Union and Asia.

Christine Sierra, political science professor ofUniversityofNew Mexicotold the AP

“They frame the issue as a social justice issue, and that’s powerful,” Sierra told the AP, “They have the power to mobilize immigrants and get them to join in.”

Christian leaders are going beyond lobbying among lawmakers. Kip Bobroff of Albuquerque Interfaith told AP that faith leaders are educating their church members on immigration issues during Sunday sermons and at Sunday school classes.

Bobroff told the AP, “Immigrants are part of our institutions, our communities and our congregations. All you have to do is read the New Testament and the Hebrew scripture to know we have to welcome our neighbor.”

The lawyer of one of four church bishops who filed a lawsuit against the enforcement of Alabama’s new immigration law said recently that she felt upbeat after the first court hearing.

Augusta Dowd, attorney for Alabama Episcopal bishop Henry Parsley, told Montgomery Advertiser that she would be pleased if U.S. district judge, Sharon Blackburn, determines that the state’s immigration law does not apply to churches.

Parsley is one of four Alabama bishops who sued the state against the new immigration law. The other bishops participating in the lawsuit come from the United Methodist Church and the Roman Catholic Church.

The clergy leaders have aligned themselves with other groups who filed similar lawsuits against Alabama’s immigration law, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Department of Justice.

First amendment

The church leaders expressed concern that some provisions in the law violate First Amendment religious rights, especially by rendering illegal certain religious sacraments and services that might be ministered to undocumented aliens.

In response, Blackburn said she doubts that the law bans religious services, and said that the administration of religious sacraments does not fall under the purview of contract law.

Dowd noted, however, that the law is not specific enough in its definition of harboring, and might provide an opening to broad interpretations. To this, Blackburn replied, “This statute in my view does not violate the constitutional rights of the bishops on the grounds you allege,” Montgomery Advertiser reported.

Blackburn did not rule yet on the request for injunction against the immigration law. It is expected that a decision will be reached before Sept. 1, when the immigration law is calendared to go into effect.

Preemption issues

The U.S. Justice Department also sued the state on the grounds of “field preemption,” noting that immigration enforcement falls under the purview of the federal government, not individual states.

William Orrick, of the U.S. Justice Department said during the hearing, “Once the field is established a state can’t enter into that area.” He added that if each state creates its own immigration laws, it could result in a harmful “patchwork” of laws that delivers a wrong message to other nations.

“It hinders the ability of the government to engage foreign governments on human rights,” Orrick said. “It corrodes the United States’ reputation of openness. It makes it hard for other countries to see the United States speak with one voice,” Montgomery Advertiser reported.

Expansive measures

A lawyer representing the Southern Poverty Law Center took issue against a more expansive measure of Alabama’s immigration law, which requires the state to investigate the immigration status of students who are enrolled in public schools. To do so, the SPLC lawyer argued, is unconstitutional.

Fourth Amendment protections

The American Civil Liberties Union raised the issue of Fourth Amendment protections, noting that the law does not clearly state how long a person can be detained under the new immigration law.

Attorneys for the state of Alabama said that under the new law, individuals could be detained, even if the Immigration and Naturalization Service is not looking for them. The INS does not seek out all undocumented aliens, some of whom are in the process of gaining legal status.

Under the new immigration law, it is a state crime if:

• A person is working without documents.
• A person without documents attends a post-secondary institution.

Citizens can also be punished for:

• Harboring an undocumented alien.
• Renting property to undocumented aliens.
• Bringing an undocumented alien to work.
• Making contracts with undocumented aliens.
• Knowingly hiring undocumented aliens.

Christian leaders filed recently a lawsuit challenging Alabama’s new law on immigration, which they fear may affect their freedom to exercise their religion by being Good Samaritans.

Rev. Mitchell Williams,First United Methodist Church (Cullman, Ala.), Roman Catholic Archbishop Thomas Rodi of Mobile, and Andy Heis, pastor of Desperation Church (a new, nondenominational church) in Cullman, filed a lawsuit against HB-56, Alabama’s new anti-immigration law, saying it is mean spirited and inconsistent with Christian ministry values.

“The law,” Archbishop Thomas Rodi of Mobile told the New York Times, “attacks our core understanding of what it means to be a church.”

Andy Heis, pastor of the nondenominational Desperation Church told New York Times, “I understand legally where they’re coming from. But spiritually, I have to do what God calls me to do.”

The law has gathered much ire. The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit earlier in the month challenging the Alabama law and stating that it is in conflict with federal immigration policy.

Education groups, civil rights groups and women’s rights groups have also challenged the law through an amicus brief in support of the federal lawsuit challenging the state’s anti-immigrant law which was passed in June.

The measure was signed into law by Republican Gov. Robert Bentley. It is the most recent among a number of anti-immigrant laws passed in other states that were patterned after Arizona’s SB 1070.

The other states with similar laws are Georgia, Utah, Indiana and South Carolina. However, it is only in Alabama where organized opposition was raised against the state by high ranking church leaders.

Harshest in the nation

The Alabama law, deemed by many to be the harshest in the nation, empowers local police officers to investigate non-criminals for their immigration status, including people they have pulled aside for traffic violations.

School officials are required under the law to gather information on the citizenship of students. The law further deems illegal the transport, harboring and rental of property to people who are known to be illegal immigrants. Any contracts with such will be rendered null under the new law.

Church leaders say this will put them at risk if they offer rides to people, invite them to church or perform baptisms and marriages. In this way, it criminalizes basic facets of a Christian ministry’s practice.

Rev. Andrew Dawkins, Montgomery Improvement Association, told People’s World, “We’re totally against this bill because it’s an abuse of political power. It’s even more dehumanizing than the segregation laws under the Jim Crow era. It’s a hateful law and doesn’t respect people. In fact, it’s a ploy to undermine the Obama administration.”

Defenders of the new law say that the provisions apply more to human traffickers and employers trying to get around the law, rather than to churches.

“It’s not as explicit as the churches would obviously like,” state Sen. Bryan Taylor, a Republican, told New York Times. “But I do not think that any church or any clergyman is subject to prosecution for doing their Christian mission.”

A Nigerian archbishop slammed recently the Nigerian federal government for failing to pay due attention to a warning that predicted violence by Boko Haram insurgents along north-eastern states.

Archbishop Ola Makinde said this amid a bomb blast in Borno state directed at a police vehicle which injured seven people, three of them policemen who suffered critical injuries. There were also bomb blasts in Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria, and other states in the north.

“Shortly after Abdul Muttalab was arrested (in the U.S. for alleged terror) and there were links to Yemen and Nigeria, the Christian Association of Nigeria raised the alarm that some extremist groups were being trained in some camps in the north,” Makinde told Sunday Vanguard.

“That was not treated seriously until they began to unleash terror on innocent people,” Makinde, who is prelate of Methodist Church of Nigeria, said to Sunday Vanguard.

The archbishop told Sunday Vanguard, “It would be recalled also that, several times, I raised concerns about the rising threat of home grown terrorism, given the pattern which the series of attacks that took place within that period were taking.”

Borno state assault

In Borno state, three people who are suspected members of Boko Haram assaulted a police car at the Bulunkutu roundabout that leads into a heavily populated area in the vicinity.

“The blast was targeted at members of the Joint Task Force and three of our men sustained injuries, but we made some arrests and investigation is ongoing on the matter to bring those culprits to book,” JTF spokesman Col. Victor Ebhaleme said to the Nigerian Tribune.

Need for serious intelligence

Makinde stressed to Sunday Vanguard that serious intelligence work is needed to address the Boko Haram. “[Serious] intelligence gathering, processing and action, and the federal government must do everything seriously possible to empower, strengthen and equip all agencies relevant to this assignment.”

The archbishop’s sentiments were echoed by a former governor of Bendel State, Chief Samuel Ogbemudia, a retired brigadier-general who agreed that the Boko Haram crisis can be blamed on poor intelligence.

Ogbemudia told Sunday Vanguard, “I think the inspector-general of police has been let down by his intelligence service. I also believe that [he] was not properly briefed when he took over … he ought to have been given a full briefing so that he could make a plan on how to arrest the ugly situation.”

No compensation for Christians

In a separate development, Rev. Yuguda Ndurvwa, CAN Borno State chairman, condemned Borno’s governor Kashim Shettima for failing to compensate Christian victims of Boko Haram.

Ndurvwa noted that 33 Muslim victims had already received 11 vehicles, cash, and homes. However, Christian victims of the sect had not received any help. He said CAN’s executive council will meet to discuss the matter.

Ndurvwa told the Nigerian Tribune, “[This] is a very privileged piece of information with which we are not happy, but [I am] sad on how the governor could segregate or exclude Christians killed and injured in the Boko Haram attacks, killings and bombings of our members and their churches and houses.”

The Vatican excommunicated recently a bishop who was ordained by the Chinese government-controlled Three Self Church without papal approval.

The Vatican excommunicated Paul Lei Shiyinrecently after he was ordained in Sichuan province last week despite objections from the Holy See. Seven bishops attended the ordination.

In a statement the Holy See said Lei Shiyin “has no authority to govern the diocesan Catholic community, and the Holy See does not recognize him.”

The excommunication is expected to further aggravate the already tenuous relations between China’s Communist Party and the Holy See.

Meanwhile, the country’s state run church has threatened to continue to defy the Vatican. There are some 5.7 million Catholics in China who attend either the state recognized church or house churches.

A statement from the Vatican expressed deep sadness on the part of Pope Benedict XVI at the latest move by China’s Three Self Church, which the Vatican said “sows division and unfortunately produces rifts and tensions in the Catholic community in China.”

The Vatican also said in the statement that those bishops who took part in the ordination of Lei Shiyin “exposed themselves to serious canonical sanctions,” and, in the absence of mitigating circumstances, may possibly be excommunicated as well.

The statement noted, “an episcopal ordination without papal mandate is directly opposed to the spiritual role of the Supreme Pontiff and damages the unity of the Church. If the church in China wants to be Catholic, it must respect the doctrine and discipline of the Church.”

Expression of regret

A statement issued by China’s state run church expressed regret at the decision of the Holy See and said, “It will bring more disputes to all churches and will affect the spread of the Gospel and church development.”

Despite the statement, there are rumors that another priest may be illicitly ordained on July 14 in Shantou diocese.

China ended relations with the Vaticanin 1951 when the Communists took over the country.

In 2007, the Vatican reached out to China when the country opened up its economy, in hopes that the government would protect religious freedom.