Last year an Egyptian girl wrote a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama from a Coptic Christian  website.

She told the president that Muslims in the United States are treated much better than Copts in Egypt, Compass Direct News (CDN) reported.

Dina Maher Ahmad Mo’otahssem and her father have been on the run for two years due to religious persecution in Egypt.

Dina Maher Ahmad Mo’otahssem, 16, has been in hiding since 2008 with her father, Maher Ahmad El-Mo’otahssem Bellah El-Gohary.  They have suffered constant persecution whenever people discover their identities, CDN said.

Dina asked Obama to pressure the Egyptian government to ensure religious rights, and expressed hope that she and her father could migrate to the United States, CDN reported.

Last week Dina and her father lived in a tiny, two-bedroom apartment in an unidentified city in Egypt.  The floor was littered with grime and trash. Clumps of dust and used water bottles were everywhere.  El-Gohary had taped over the locks and the inside of windows and doors to guard against eavesdroppers and intruders.

He taped over all the drain holes of the sinks and the shower so no one could pump in natural gas at night.  When the neighbors learned he was a Christian, they threw rocks and pebbles at his home, enough to litter the porch.  El-Gohary couldn’t open a window because rocks might get thrown in, according to CDN.

Whenever he leaves, he padlocks the door, wraps it with a small plastic bag and melts the bag to the lock with a match.  But he rarely leaves the place because it is not safe to go out.

Last month while walking to a market with Dina, someone poured acid over her jacket.  When El-Gohary saw it sizzle and dissolve he immediately ripped it off of her and threw it away before she was hurt, CDN said.

He can’t work and relies on other Christians to bring him food, water and the occasional donation. He cannot count on his own family for help.  When the food runs out, he has to brave going outside.

El-Gohary can’t attend a church more than once, nor can they go to a supermarket more than once.  He has been a Christian for 36 years, but he was forced to go into hiding after August 2008, because he sued the national government to allow him to change the religion listed on his state-issued ID from Islam to Christianity, according to CDN.

El-Gohary didn’t want his daughter to be forced to take Islamic education classes or have her declared an “apostate” by Egyptian Islamic authorities if she decided to stay a Christian into adulthood.  This is why he asked for the ID change.

Dina is required by law to possess an ID card, which is used for everything from opening a bank account to receiving medical care. The ID also determines whether Egyptians are subject to Islamic civil courts.  Dina is considered to be a Muslim because her father was born a Muslim, CDN said.

Conversion

El-Gohary became a Christian after he read the account of Jesus meeting a woman caught committing adultery.  He was touched by the level of mercy that Jesus showed her, CDN said.

El-Gohary said. “The basis of Christianity is love and forgiveness, unlike Islam, where it is based on revenge, fighting and war.”  He also said of the two religions’ versions of heaven, that the Islamic heaven is about physical pleasure, while for Christians it is about being with God, CDN reported.

El-Gohary was forced to hide because the State Council, a consultative body of Egypt’s Administrative Court, charged him with apostasy, the penalty for which is death, CDN said.  The case is still ongoing.

El-Gohary believes that he and his daughter are being used to set an example to other Muslims who want to convert.  Also, he thinks they fear that if he is allowed to leave the country, he will talk about how Egypt persecutes Copts.

He said, “We are trapped in our own country without even the rights that animals have.”  When the mosque across the street learned of his identity and of his case, they began to blast messages from their minaret megaphones on how to deal with Christians, CDN reported.

The imam shouted, “Do not shake their hands. Do not go into their homes. Do not eat their food.”  Since he has become a Christian, El-Gohary has been beaten, forcibly detained, endured death threats and poverty.

Still, he and Dina have no regrets about having become Christian, and they have no dreams to become Muslim again, the CDN said.

The Texas State Board of Education approved recently a new social studies curriculum that has angered leftists and liberals.

The new standards came into consideration after the board appointed a panel of experts last year to make recommendations.  The 15-member board voted 9-5 in favor of the new standards for textbooks and teaching history, economics and other civics classes that will take effect in August 2011.

The new curriculum will teach free market principles, explain how government taxation and regulation can restrict private enterprise, emphasize the achievements of Republican leaders such as President Ronald Reagan, and lend more focus on the biblical and Christian traditions of the country’s founding fathers, among others.

Other changes:  The U.S. government will be called a “Constitutional Republic” rather than a “Democratic society.”  There will also be a “Celebrate Freedom Week” where Texas students learn the importance of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Critics charge that the standards are a blatant attempt to insert an ideological and political agenda into Texas classrooms.  Among the readers’ comments to the article posted on ABC News, one person compared the board members to the Taliban “by imposing their distorted beliefs on the majority.”

However in Nightline’s Daily line, another reader’s comment said, “At last a state that has the guts to teach their children the true history of this country.  Way to go, Texas!”

The curriculum has earned controversy because Texas has 4.7 million public school students.  As a result, textbook publishers often tailor their curriculum according that of the Lone Star state.

Board member Don McLeroy said, “It’s imperative that our children be taught the original direction of our country.  All we’re doing is …completing the story. We’re restoring the balance,” he said.

The Catholic Church issued recently a cautionary warning on the first synthetic cell, noting that correctly used, it could be a positive development—but only God can create life.

The Vatican issued the warning after an announcement from the United States that researchers had produced a living cell containing manmade DNA.

The scientist, genome-mapping pioneer J. Craig Venter, said this opens a path for designing organisms that may work differently from how nature intended, according to The Herald, Scotland.

The Church warned scientists of the ethical responsibility of scientific progress and said that the manner in which the innovation is applied in the future will be crucial, according to the Associated Press.

“If …it is for the good of all, of the environment and man..we’ll keep the same judgment (that it is a great scientific discovery),” said Monsignor Rino Fisichella.

“If, on the other hand, the use of this discovery should turn against the dignity of and respect for human life, then our judgment would change,” the AP reported.

Fisichella, who heads Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life, stressed there is no necessary clash between science and faith.  “But we think above all about the meaning that must be given to life,” Fisichella said.  “We need God, the origin of life,” the AP reported.

Venter’s synthetic cell is actually Mycoplasma mycoides, a type of living bacteria that is commonly associated with mastitis in goats, according to The Herald, Scotland.

Venter’s Mycoplasma mycoides are synthetic because it was made with synthetic chemicals, transplanted and activated into a cell with manmade genetic instructions.  Venter’s team is now considering creating algae that can capture carbon dioxide from the air and produce hydrocarbon fuels, according to SiliconIndia.

Naysayers however doubt that making Mycoplasma mycoides is tantamount to the creation of “artificial life.”

On the other hand, Julian Savulescu, Professor of Practical Ethics at Oxford, said “We need new standards of safety evaluation for this kind of radical research, and protection from military or terrorist misuse and abuse,” according to SiliconIndia.

The Catholic Church teaching holds that human life is God’s gift, created through natural procreation between a man and woman.  The Vatican said the first synthetic cell “must have rules, like all the things that touch on the heart of life,” according to the AP.

U.S. President Barack Obama asked that the commission develop recommendations about any actions the government should take “to ensure that America reaps the benefits of this developing field of science while identifying appropriate ethical boundaries and minimizing identified risks,” SiliconIndia reported.

Meanwhile Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, said “Any form of intelligence and any scientific acquisition must always be measured against the ethical dimension, which has at its heart the true dignity of every person.”

A videographer of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was fired recently for asking two women volunteers to change their faith based t-shirts into something more secular, the AP reported.

According to the AP, Angelia Lott and Pamela Wedgeworth, volunteers in a tornado cleanup in Mississippi, were asked by a FEMA videographer to change their t-shirts before doing an on-camera interview.  The women wore t-shirts with Salvation Army logos.

The incident happened in the small town of Ebenezer.  When Lott asked why, the videographer said “We’ve done that hundreds of times.”  The women changed their shirts because they wanted to recruit other volunteers to help in the cause, according to the Baptist Press.

First the women changed into Crossgates Baptist T-shirts, but they were told to change again.  Finally, they were allowed to wear Southern Belle shirts, according to the Baptist Press.

FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate decried the incident in a statement and apologized to Crossgates Baptist and to the Salvation Army.  The activity, “Caring for Mississippi-Community Work Day” was co-sponsored by FEMA, the Salvation Army and Jackson television station WJTV, according to the AP.

Volunteers of “Caring for Mississippi — Community Work Day” helped remove tree limbs and clean up other debris from an April 24 tornado that left a 149-mile path of destruction through the state, the AP reported.

Fugate said “FEMA is not the team, FEMA is only part of the team, and critical members of that team are the voluntary and faith-based organizations we work with every day,” according to the AP.

U.S. Rep. Gregg Harper, R-Miss., who is a member of Crossgates Baptist said he was distressed to hear volunteers had been asked to hide expressions of their faith.

“I shared with him that we just didn’t want to have a situation where the government would take the position that volunteers from churches had to be something different from what they were, which was faith-based groups coming to help people in need,” Harper said Tuesday night.

Harper said Fugate called to assure him that FEMA does not discriminate against religious groups.  He also said Fugate told him the videographer had been fired.

Two weeks after the Supreme Court ruled to protect the Mojave Desert War Memorial, thieves stole the Sunrise Rock cross. 

On May 10, a Park employee noticed the cross was missing and said it was probably removed during the night, according to CityWatch (CW).  

An anonymous caller who clamed to know who stole the cross sent an email to a reporter saying the cross was “lovingly” removed and would be returned after a non-sectarian memorial is placed on the site, CW reported.

CW cited US Reps Buck McKeon, Ken Calvert and Congressman Jerry Lewis who condemned the theft of the cross.  Calvert called it an act of vandals and an insult to anyone who had served in the US Armed Forces. 

Calvert also promised that he, Congressmen Lewis, McKeon, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Liberty Institute will work with all involved entities to recover the cross and replace it on its rightful place on Sunrise Rock, CW reported.

Wanda Sandoz, who with her husband Henry were longtime caretakers of the cross said, “Whoever did this either cut it off or put a chain around it a dragged it off with their vehicle,” according to CW.

The memorial was first set up in 1934 by a group of World War I veterans.  It has been torn down and replaced twice, and 10 years ago received the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), according to The Press Enterprise.

The Park Service has collected some physical evidence from where the cross was located, and investigators are reviewing messages left on a tip hot line that was set up after the theft, The Press Enterprise said.

Liberty Institute is also offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons who vandalized the area and stole the cross, according to CityWatch.

In 1999, the ACLU sued to have the cross removed after a former employee of the park, Frank Buono, retired and moved to Oregon, then claimed that it offended him to see the cross on public land, according to the Tulsa Beacon.

In 2002, the U.S. District Court in Riverside, California ruled in favor of the ACLU case.  An appeal was immediately filed to forestall the cross’ removal, but it was covered by a wooden box, the Tulsa Beacon reported.

Congressman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), helped the Legionnaires get the cross legally designated as the “National WWI Veterans Memorial” and worked in Congress to transfer a one-acre tract of land containing the cross to private ownership through a land swap deal, the Tulsa Beacon reported.

The ACLU complained that this was done solely to evade the District Court’s order for the cross to be removed. In the appeal, the 9th Circuit Court upheld the lower court’s decision and invalidated the congressional act in transferring the land to private ownership, according to the Tulsa Beacon.

However when the case was raised to the U. S. Supreme Court, the decisions of both lower courts were overturned by a 5-4 vote, and the SC refused to order the removal of the cross, the Tulsa Beacon noted.

Justice Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, said “The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement (of religion) does not require the eradication of all religions’ symbols in the public realm.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited the Bible recently to justify the Jewish state’s contested claim on the city before a parliamentary session.

According to Reuters, Netanyahu said “Jerusalem” and its Hebrew name “Zion” appear 850 times in the Old Testament, Judaism’s core canon.

In the Christian New Testament, Jerusalem is mentioned 142 times, Netanyahu said. He noted that none of the 16 Arabic names for Jerusalem is mentioned in the Koran.

However, in an expanded interpretation of the Koran from the 12th century, one passage is said to refer to Jerusalem, Reuters reported.

Netanyahu’s comments came on Jerusalem Day, an Israeli national holiday marked by tens of thousands of Israelis marching through the city singing, dancing and waving Israeli flags.

Jerusalem Day commemorates Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem in June 1967, marking the unification of their ancient capital.

However the Palestinians consider the annexation of East Jerusalem illegal. They anticipate East Jerusalem to be the capital city of a future Palestinian state. Israel has pledged that Jerusalem will remain united as their capital city.

Jerusalem lies within Israel’s boundaries.  Mayor Nir Barkat added that the city’s boundaries are “nonnegotiable” according to Aol.News.

Holy sites

Jerusalem is holy to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  For the Jews, the Western Wall, which is part of Solomon’s Temple that was destroyed in 70 AD, is the holiest site in Jerusalem.

For Christians the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the traditional burial place of Jesus and a regular pilgrimage place.
For Muslims, the gold-topped dome of the Rock, is believed by them to be where Muhammad ascended to heaven, Aol News reported.

Also, the Al-Aqsa mosque makes Jerusalem the third holiest site after Mecca and Medina.

However, the Al-Aqsa mosque stands on a plaza that Jews revere as the vestige of two biblical Jewish temples, according to Reuters.

In the international community a united Jerusalem under Israel is not recognized.

Many countries agree that East Jerusalem should be the future capital of a future Palestinian state.

Indirect peace negotiations with the Palestinians resumed this month after one to one and a half years of U.S. trouble-shooting.

However, the Israel and Palestine remain at odds over the issue of Israel which Palestine refuses to formally recognize as a Jewish state, Reuters reported.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said of Netanyahu’s recent comments, “I find it very distasteful, this use of religion.

East Jerusalem is an occupied Palestinian town, and East Jerusalem cannot continue to be occupied if there is to be peace,” according to Reuters.

Netanyahu promised that while Israel would retain control over all of Jerusalem, they would ensure freedom of worship at its holy sites.

However, Palestinians over the last decade have had limited access to al-Aqsa.  Christians in the West Bank also note similar problems in Jerusalem churches, Reuters reported.

There are 750,000 people in Jerusalem, two in three of them Jews with the remainder mostly Muslim Palestinians.

Some Palestinians are aligned with the Islamist Hamas, while those who would like peace blame Israel for sabotaging peace prospects because they insist East Jerusalem is a Jewish birthright, Reuters reported.

Human trafficking. Sex slaves. Child slavery.

It’s something Americans associate with a few European or third world countries. But the U.S. State Department’s 2009 “Trafficking in Humans” Report documents problems in 175 nations.

Girls, women, children and even teen boys are being deceived, kidnapped, trapped and shipped everywhere from America to Africa.

And it could be happening at our neighborhood mini-market.

The wholesale trafficking of humans

From California to New England, the problem is spreading within the United States. It’s becoming as uncontrollable as the drug war that has raged for decades, despite the government’s best efforts.

The estimated FBI numbers from sources as varied as ABC Primetime in 2006 to Christianity Today in 2010 show 100,000-300,000 teens and children under the age of 18 have been trafficked within the states per year.

It is harder to obtain statistics for adult victims, because of a finer line between “voluntary” and forced prostitution or sexual slavery.

In April 2010, the U.S. Attorney’s office brought sex trafficking charges against the Gambino family, notoriously reputed to be part of the elusive “mob” in America.

With the arrest of 14 people, the charges include trapping girls to sell for sex at high stakes poker games in the middle of busy Manhattan.

Engaging in human trafficking is a new low even for the mob, U.S. Attorney’s office representatives stated in a press conference covered by MSNBC.

Also in April, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement reported that human trafficking has become the biggest “invisible” crime in the state. Florida House Bill 633 and Senate Bill 966 are currently being proposed to help law enforcement push back against the sex slavery trade.

How can this happen in America?
The massive amounts of money to be made through human trafficking is a powerful aphrodisiac that has enticed more people, even women, to deal in such crimes. In the Gambino case, one of the people arrested was a woman known to be involved in luring the victims.

The process of obtaining victims for human trafficking:
For most teen girls and women, if they are not outright kidnapped, they’re being enticed by the possibility of modeling or acting jobs. The Hollywood dream of obtaining fame and fortune at a young age through television and movies has become an obsession.

When they get to their destination, they are thrown into vehicles or locked in back bedrooms and sold to countless customers for sex acts, sexual abuse, and to appear in pornographic movies against their will.

They may be starved, drugged, verbally abused to the point of having no self-esteem, and threatened with death if they attempt to escape.

For girls and boys who do run away from home, criminals recognize their vulnerability, hunger and brokenness and are able to entice them into prostitution and porn films with the promise of money. The victim may receive tiny payments to keep them involved.

For children, it often starts with simple nabbing from neighborhoods.

A U.S. Government grant helped reveal the child trafficking problem:
In 2008, an organization called Shared Hope International (SHI) applied for and received a government grant to study the suspected nationwide crisis of child trafficking between states. Their resulting survey revealed that many of the children were often being misidentified as delinquents, and  punished for crimes when they were actually victims.

Since then, the FBI and agencies such as the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children & Families have started training personnel to recognize when a person is a human trafficking victim instead of a runaway or criminal themselves (HHS Fact Sheet here).

See the Underground’s previous report, “Sex + Money,” about the ongoing production of a new movie aimed at exposing the U.S. sex slave industry.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) failed to find mutual ground at a recently held meeting in Chicago regarding ELCA’s stand on ordaining partnered gays.

ELCA’s Rev. Marcus R. Kunz denied they have abandoned scriptural authority in so doing.

Rather, he said “We seek to be faithful to the evangelical purpose that God intends with the Scriptures” according to Christian Today.

LCMS President Dr. Gerald B. Kieschnick called it a difference in understanding of scriptural authority and interpretation.

Last month the LCMS presented ELCA with the document, “Theological Implications of the 2009 ELCA Decisions” which stated, “A church body‘s acceptance of homosexual activity promotes a false security about behavior and conduct which God has forbidden and from which He longs to redeem us.”

ELCA is the largest Lutheran church body, seconded by the LCMS.  According to ELCA’s website, they are a 20 year old assembly with 4.8 million members and some 10,500 congregations across the US and the Caribbean.

Because of this theological point of disagreement, LCMS expressed the possibility of severance from mutual projects the two groups are engaged in.

ELCA Rev. Mark Hanson however expressed hopes that relationships would not be severed but rather that they could engage in deeper conversation, according to Christian Today.

Christian Today also reported that hundreds of ELCA congregations have already taken steps to leave the denomination, with some forming a new Lutheran body, and others joining LCMS.

ELCA’s Rev. Rebecca Larson complained that the LCMS document gave the false impression that ELCA’s recognition of same gender relationships is the sole position of the whole church.

Larson said that same gender relationships are not central to determining salvation, hence ELCA believes they can live together with different practices, respecting the bound consciences of each other.

LCMS President Dr. Gerald B. Kieschnick/Credit: lcms.org

ELCA’s website cites, for example, how Paul felt it was okay to eat meat that was sacrificed to idols.  Paul also felt that rituals of holy days were issues where salvation was not at stake.

“This social statement draws upon this rich understanding of the role of conscience and calls upon this church, when in disagreement concerning matters around which salvation is not at stake, including human sexuality, to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), honor the conscience, and seek the well-being of the neighbor,”  according to ELCA’s website.

In the LCMS document they stated that they will not encourage discord in ELCA, but neither will they turn their backs on ELCA members who choose to leave their denomination to join the LCMS, Christian Today reported.

Two bombs were set off within minutes of each other in a Christian populated area in Iraq recently, killing one and injuring 80 others, the Associated Press reported.

The explosions took place in the northern city of Mosul, where a large Christian community resides.

There have been attacks by Sunni Muslim insurgents against the Christian minority in Iraq, especially in Mosul.

Some extremist Sunnis view Christians as nonbelievers and believe that Christians support the Shiite-led government, which they oppose.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch warned that minorities including Christians could be caught in the crossfire of longstanding feuds between Arabs and minority Kurds for the area’s oil-rich resources and land, Radio Free Europe reported..

Wisam Jarji, a student who was wounded in the blast said, “I could see blood stains and hear screams all over the place.”

The U.S.-based National Council of Churches sent a letter last week to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asking her to lobby for more protection for Iraq’s Christian community from the government.

They were particularly worried in the aftermath of the March 7 parliamentary elections as various political forces still vie for power, the AP said.

Human trafficking claims 100,000 girls annually in the U.S. alone. Photo credit: iStockphoto.

Human trafficking: it’s not a fictional plot device created by talented scriptwriters for Hollywood action flicks like Taken and TV dramas like 24.

It is a real, modern-day form of slavery in which individuals (women and young girls in particular) are taken hostage and forced and coerced into performing sexual acts for commercial profit, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

And it’s something more and more filmmakers are addressing.

Since September 2009, the five young directors, writers and producers behind “Sex and Money: A National Search for Human Worth” have traveled across the U.S. to investigate and expose one of the most illegal underground industries in the world.

While the group’s last television series primarily focused on human trafficking in other parts of the world, their new documentary will strictly investigate the U.S. sex slave trade.

Besides conducting research in Washington D.C., they have interviewed porn stars, former prostitutes, political leaders and authors in an effort to raise awareness and encourage social awakening.

Photojournalist Tim Dyk told Christianity Today’s Elissa Cooper that as Christians, “We need to be willing to go to these areas, be willing to have conversations about sex, about prostitution, about helping people who are coming out of prostitution, because even Jesus wants to [reach out to] prostitutes. He recognized that they are needy people just like anyone else, just like we are.”

Although producers are not marketing the documentary as a “Christian” film, many people who working on the project are outspoken believers. In conjunction with photogenX, a ministry of Youth With A Mission, they are striving to expose the hard truths about prostitution in America, including the “the sexual exploitation of children,” according to the film’s official web site.

“There are so many different ways that we can work [against trafficking],” said Dyk. “I just think a lot of this requires the church, as followers of Christ, to walk out in what he’s calling us to do, [and] it can look different for each person. I think people just need to see how the Spirit leads and see how they can use their gifts.”

You can find out more about “Sex + Money: A National Search for Human Worth” at their official web site: www.sexandmoneyfilm.com. You can also watch trailers and webisodes on the group’s YouTube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/sexandmoneyglobal.

The documentary is tentatively scheduled for a fall 2010 release date.