Well, that is the easiest way to view this case -- either that, or the court has ruled that Muslims are not human beings and therefore do not have human rights that must be respected.

Malaysia's top civil court Wednesday rejected a woman's appeal to be recognized as a Christian, in a landmark case that tested the limits of religious freedom in this moderate Islamic country.

Lina Joy, who was born Azlina Jailani, had applied for a name change on her government identity card. The National Registration Department obliged but refused to drop Muslim from the religion column.

She appealed the decision to a civil court but was told she must take it to Islamic Shariah courts. Joy, 43, argued that she should not be bound by Shariah law because she is a Christian.

A three-judge Federal Court panel ruled by a 2-1 majority that only the Islamic Shariah Court has the power to allow her to remove the word "Islam" from the religion category on her government identity card.

In other words, in order to exercise her human rights, Lina Joy must get permission from religious authorities whose own religious legal code forbids leaving the faith -- and imposes the death penalty on those who try. Incredible!

And here is what Lina Joy faces when she approaches that religious court.

In practice, Mr. Teoh said, Ms. Joy, who was born Azlina Jailani, will have a very difficult time getting the Islamic authorities to allow her to leave Islam. No one in recent years has done it in the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur, where Ms. Joy is registered, he said. Those who have tried have been “threatened and cajoled,” Mr. Teoh said.

Indeed, part of what has happened to those who try is that they are imprisoned in religious prisons where they are subjected to great pressure to renounce their new faith as a condition of release. But maybe -- after several years of imprisonment for her faith -- the court will let her go. But we know what the public demands of apostates in the Muslim world -- we've sen it too many times.

Perhaps most distressing is this quote from the judge who wrote this abominable decision.

"You can't at whim and fancy convert from one religion to another," Federal Court Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim said in delivering judgment in the case, which has stirred religious tensions in the mainly Muslim nation.

A pity that this pathetic excuse for a jurist is not familiar with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Article 18.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

This principle is a fundamental, essential human right. Will the international community speak out against this atrocity against religious freedom? Will the American government act in defense of this fundamental human right? Or will the world, once again, kow-tow to the barbarism that is Islam?

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An important case concerning the human rights of those who do not wish to follow Islam will be decided on Wednesday by a court in Malaysia. It involves Lina Joy, a convert to Catholicism who I've blogged about in the past.

Lina Joy has been disowned by her family, shunned by friends and forced into hiding - all because she renounced Islam and embraced Christianity in Muslim-majority Malaysia.

Now, after a seven-year legal struggle, Malaysia's highest court will decide on Wednesday whether her constitutional right to choose her religion overrides an Islamic law that prohibits Malay Muslims from leaving Islam.

Either way, the verdict will have profound implications on society in a country where Islam is increasingly conflicting with minority religions, challenging Malaysia's reputation as a moderate Muslim and multicultural nation that guarantees freedom of worship.

So it is very simple -- do basic norms of human rights recognized repeatedly under international law apply to those who have the misfortune of being born and raised Muslim? Or does forced submission to Islam trump the right to accept freedom in Christ?

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And did those present stone him? No, they applauded him -- which proves two things that I've always known:

1) Christians reject the sort of violence promoted by Islam, because Farrakhan was not stoned to death or beheaded.

2) St. Sabina Catholic Church and its pastor have long since strayed from faith in Christ and into some fuzzy spirituality.

"Even though I am a Muslim -- I don't apologize for that -- I'm also a Christian," he told the crowd at 1210 W. 78th Pl. "Islam considers the Bible a sacred book."

"A good Muslim is a Christian, and a good Christian is a Muslim," he added later, stressing the common aspects of the faiths. "Whenever Christ's name is mentioned, I feel at home."

Calypso Louie lies here -- a good Muslim accepts blasphemy against the divinity of Christ, while a good Christian must reject the blasphemous teachings of Islam.

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Here’s a great idea – though the Muslim suggesting it has been labeled as "the latest weapon in the Islamophobe arsenal" for speaking out against Islamist violence and Islamic barbarities contained in sharia law.

We Muslims should publicly show our strong disapproval for the growing number of attacks by Muslims against other faiths and against other Muslims. Let us not even dwell on 9/11, Madrid, London, Bali and countless other scenes of carnage. It has been estimated that of the two million refugees fleeing Islamic terror in Iraq, 40% are Christian, and many of them seek a haven in Lebanon, where the Christian population itself has declined by 60%. Even in Turkey, Islamists recently found it necessary to slit the throats of three Christians for publishing Bibles.

Of course, Islamist attacks are not limited to Christians and Jews. Why do we hear no Muslim condemnation of the ongoing slaughter of Buddhists in Thailand by Islamic groups? Why was there silence over the Mumbai train bombings which took the lives of over 200 Hindus in 2006? We must not forget that innocent Muslims, too, are suffering. Indeed, the most common murderers of Muslims are, and have always been, other Muslims. Where is the Muslim outcry over the Sunni-Shiite violence in Iraq?

Islamophobia could end when masses of Muslims demonstrate in the streets against videos displaying innocent people being beheaded with the same vigor we employ against airlines, Israel and cartoons of Muhammad. It might cease when Muslims unambiguously and publicly insist that Shariah law should have no binding legal status in free, democratic societies.

It is well past time that Muslims cease using the charge of "Islamophobia" as a tool to intimidate and blackmail those who speak up against suspicious passengers and against those who rightly criticize current Islamic practices and preachings. Instead, Muslims must engage in honest and humble introspection. Muslims should--must--develop strategies to rescue our religion by combating the tyranny of Salafi Islam and its dreadful consequences. Among more important outcomes, this will also put an end to so-called Islamophobia.

In other words, when Islam joins the civilized world, there will be no reason for others to think ill of it. Until that happens, Muslims are not victims of irrational fear by those who believe in human rights and freedom.

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It has been rumored for some time that Tony Blair would likely convert to Catholicism after his time as prime Minister came to an end. I’d figured it had something to do with the established nature of the Anglican Church in Great Britain – but certainly not this.

He is widely considered to have remained an Anglican because of the potential complexities of conversion while in office.

Some lawyers believe the 1829 Emancipation Act, which gave Roman Catholics full civil rights, may still prevent a Catholic from becoming Prime Minister.

Clauses in the Act state that no Catholic adviser to the monarch can hold civil or military office.

It does raise an interesting issue – and one would hope that it would also raise calls for that limit on religious liberty to be changed.

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Is the Dalai Lama going to retire?

The Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, said on Wednesday he was ready to retire in a few years but will keep championing causes to help the Tibetan people, culture and environment.

Speaking at Smith College in Massachusetts to about 5,000 students, faculty and invited guests of the Tibetan community, Tibet's exiled and revered spiritual leader said he already sees himself semi-retired.

"Within a few years' time, I will retire completely," the 71-year-old monk and Nobel Peace Prize winner said.

The Dalai Lama has lived in Dharamsala, India, in the outer Himalayas, since 1959. He was active in establishing there the Central Tibetan Administration, Tibet's government in exile. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

Wearing a yellow-and-maroon robe, he said he was honored to have been recognized in the world for his "small contribution to the welfare of humanity," and suggested the elected Tibetan leadership in exile can soon carry on his mission.

The Dalai Lama says he wants greater autonomy, not independence, for his predominantly Buddhist homeland, but China considers him a separatist and accuses him of continuing to promote Tibetan independence.

Unfortunately, the article brings out the problem with such a retirement. The Dalai Lama appointed a new Panchen Lama several years ago, and the Red Chinese promptly jailed him and selected a false claimant to the office to serve as a puppet. No doubt they will try the same thing with the Dalai lama's successor.

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When you start getting favorable write-ups in the NY Times, it is fair to say that your religion is going mainstream.

Above the womanÂ’s fireplace hangs her wedding picture, taken in a Lutheran church years ago. Below it, on the mantelpiece, is a small Wiccan altar: two candles, a tiny cauldron, four stones to represent the elements of nature and a small amethyst representing her spirit.

The wedding portrait is always there. But whenever someone comes to visit, the woman sweeps the altar away. Raised Southern Baptist in Virginia and now a stay-at-home mother of two in this Washington suburb, she has told almost no one — not her relatives, her friends or the other mothers in her children’s playgroups — that she is Wiccan.

Among the most popular religions to have flowered since the 1960s, Wicca — a form of paganism — still faces a struggle for acceptance, experts on the religion and Wiccans themselves said. In April, Wiccans won an important victory when the Department of Veterans Affairs settled a lawsuit and agreed to add the Wiccan pentacle to a list of approved religious symbols that it will engrave on veterans’ headstones.

But Wicca in the civilian world is largely a religion in hiding. Wiccans fear losing their friends and jobs if people find out about their faith.

I'm not a Wiccan, and I don't agree with their theology. That said, I don't have a problem with the practice of the faith and respect those friends who are open practitioners (which include at least one colleague and one student). I appreciate the interesting article.

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Well, is there any question now that Al Sharpton was engaged in a full frontal assault on Mormonism the other day? What other conclusion can one draw now that Sharpton has injected race into the mix -- and set himself up as Grand Inquisitor with his demand that Romney respond to questions about LDS religious beliefs?

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and civil rights activist Al Sharpton traded angry, racially charged accusations yesterday, with Romney alleging that Sharpton had uttered "bigoted" comments about Mormonism.

* * *

"Attacking me, not Hitchens, shows [Romney] is playing politics," Sharpton said. "What is bigoted about asking . . . about a denomination based on racism?"

Sharpton called on Romney to address whether the Mormon Church ever supported segregation. "He needs to clarify the truth or non-truth of what I was presented," Sharpton said.

No, he does not, Al -- and you need to crawl back under the rock from which you slithered. But not until you have been called to account for your history of racism and anti-Semitism -- Tawana Brawley, Yankel Rosenbaum, Freddy's Fashion Mart, and the Duke Lacrosse case, for starters.

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Or maybe that should be the “Juan Kerry Question”.

Pope Benedict on Wednesday warned Catholic politicians they risked excommunication from the Church and should not receive communion if they support abortion.

It was the first time that the Pope, speaking to reporters aboard the plane taking him on a trip to Brazil, dealt in depth with a controversial topic that has come up in many countries, including the United States, Mexico, and Italy.

The Pope was asked whether he supported Mexican Church leaders threatening to excommunicate leftist parliamentarians who last month voted to legalize abortion in Mexico City.

"Yes, this excommunication was not an arbitrary one but is allowed by Canon (church) law which says that the killing of an innocent child is incompatible with receiving communion, which is receiving the body of Christ," he said.

"They (Mexican Church leaders) did nothing new, surprising or arbitrary. They simply announced publicly what is contained in the law of the Church... which expresses our appreciation for life and that human individuality, human personality is present from the first moment (of life)".

Under Church law, someone who knowingly does or backs something which the Church considers a grave sin, such as abortion, inflicts what is known as "automatic excommunication" on themselves.

You can be for and facilitate abortions, or you can be Catholic. You cannot be both. I applaud Pope Benedict XVI for having the courage to say so – and I hope that America’s bishops will have the integrity to follow his lead.

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Or maybe that should be the “Juan Kerry Question”.

Pope Benedict on Wednesday warned Catholic politicians they risked excommunication from the Church and should not receive communion if they support abortion.

It was the first time that the Pope, speaking to reporters aboard the plane taking him on a trip to Brazil, dealt in depth with a controversial topic that has come up in many countries, including the United States, Mexico, and Italy.

The Pope was asked whether he supported Mexican Church leaders threatening to excommunicate leftist parliamentarians who last month voted to legalize abortion in Mexico City.

"Yes, this excommunication was not an arbitrary one but is allowed by Canon (church) law which says that the killing of an innocent child is incompatible with receiving communion, which is receiving the body of Christ," he said.

"They (Mexican Church leaders) did nothing new, surprising or arbitrary. They simply announced publicly what is contained in the law of the Church... which expresses our appreciation for life and that human individuality, human personality is present from the first moment (of life)".

Under Church law, someone who knowingly does or backs something which the Church considers a grave sin, such as abortion, inflicts what is known as "automatic excommunication" on themselves.

You can be for and facilitate abortions, or you can be Catholic. You cannot be both. I applaud Pope Benedict XVI for having the courage to say so – and I hope that America’s bishops will have the integrity to follow his lead.

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And I thought we kept being told that it was the evangelical Right that would be questioning Romney's religious beliefs and spouting anti-Mormon rhetoric. It isn't -- it is Al Sharpton!

"As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don't worry about that; that's a temporary situation," Sharpton said Monday during a debate with Hitchens at the New York Public Library's Beaux-Arts headquarters.

So -- will the sensitivity police get after the so-called civil rights leader? or does he get a pass on this, like he does on anti-white, anti-Jew, anti-Asian comments in his past?

This is not to say that disagreeing with Mormon beliefs/theology is an act of bigotry -- it isn't, and I do (including in a conversation with a dear Mormon friend yesterday). However, the sort of marginalization of Mormons Sharpton is talking about seems to cross more lines than skepticism about that faith. Would such a statement stand unchallenged if it wer made about a Muslim candidate by a conservative Christian leader?

MORE AT My Man Mitt (including video), Jawa Report, Free Constitution, Blog-o-Fascists

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I guess they will only tolerate opinions that they agree with -- call it the tolerance of the graveyard.

A court in Azerbaijan has jailed two journalists for writing and printing a newspaper article that was critical of the Islamic religion and the Prophet Muhammad.

Samir Sadagatoglu, chief editor of the Senet weekly newspaper, was sentenced to four years in prison on Friday, while Rafik Tagi, a journalist at the paper, was given three years.

The court ruled that their article 'Europe and us' was insulting to Islam and Muslims for saying that European societies were more successful than Muslim ones because Christian teachings were based on peace and tolerance while Islamic values, based on the teachings and actions of Muhammad, were not.

And so to prove the peaceful, tolerant nature of Islam, the journalists are going to jail. Where, of course, they might find themselves subjected to this tolerant fatwa from an authrotitative Islamic source.

Last November, Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Muhammad Fazel Lankarani, a senior Shia scholar from Tabriz, a mainly Azeri city in northern Iran, ruled that the two journalists should be killed for writing and publishing the article.

"Such a person is an apostate in view of his confessions, if he is a Muslim," Lankarani ruled in a fatwa - or religious ruling - published on his website.

"If he had been an unbeliever (Kafir), he is considered as someone who has insulted the Prophet and in any case, given his confessions, it is necessary for every individual who has an access to him to kill him.

"The person in charge of the said newspaper, who published such thoughts and beliefs consciously and knowingly, should be dealt with in the same manner. We pray to Almighty Allah to grant Muslims and Islam protection from the evils of their enemies."

And if this is the true face of Islam, I pray that God will protect the rest of the world from it.

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I guess that some folks are so desperate for faith that they will believe just about anything.

A controversial religious figure who claims he is Jesus Christ incarnate with a following of millions with "666" tattoos on their bodies, filled an amphitheater in Orlando this weekend, and promised joy, peace and prosperity.

Orlando police officers stood guard around the Lake Eola amphitheater as Dr. Jose Luis De Jesus Miranda, 61, arrived in the city Saturday.

Miranda, who has been banned from three countries, told Local 6 News cameras and a cheering crowd that he was Jesus Christ reincarnated.

His followers believe that Miranda's life and his teachings replace those of Jesus of Nazareth, Local 6's Jamie Guirola said.

Miranda is a recovering heroin addict from Puerto Rico. Am i the only one who wonders about lingering after effects of his drug use?

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The scary part is that she probably said this with a straight face.

Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is confronting Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola head-on with a new demand that he not install Truro Church rector Martyn Minns as head of a parallel denomination this coming weekend.

* * *

"Such action would violate the ancient customs of the church" in terms of the sacrosanct boundaries of individual bishops, the presiding bishop wrote in a letter released yesterday.

Excuse me, but the Episcopal Church has been jettisoning the ancient customs and teachings of the church and of Scripture for decades, and has only accelerated the process in recent years. As such, I can’t decide whether “laughable” or “hypocritical” is the best adjective to describe her demand.

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Bravo to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for publishing this column by Colleen Carroll Campbell reminding folks of that fact, in light of bigoted criticism of St. Louis Archbishop Raymond BurkeÂ’s decision to resign from the board of Cardinal Glennon ChildrenÂ’s Hospital in a dispute over the hospitalÂ’s decision to sponsor a fundraiser featuring scandalously pro-abortion singer Sheryl Crow.

Crow has the right to her opinions. But it makes no more sense for Burke and the Catholic institutions he oversees to lend Crow a platform than for Planned Parenthood to appoint Burke emcee of its next Gala for Choice.

Some critics have argued that Burke had no business objecting to Crow because many Catholics disagree with his views on these issues. Yet Burke's stance reflects more than his private opinion; it is also the official teaching of the Catholic Church. The Church holds that abortion is a serious moral evil because it destroys innocent human life, and it opposes embryonic stem cell research and cloning for the same reason. Church teaching insists that one must never cooperate in these acts or give even tacit approval to them. There are no exceptions allowed — not for socially conscious rock stars, not for fiscally conscious charity organizers, not even for bishops operating under the glare of media scrutiny.

* * *

Burke's resignation from the foundation board clarified how seriously the Catholic Church takes its teaching about the sanctity of human life from its earliest stages. That teaching may not be popular or politically correct, but Burke has the right to defend it. To vilify him for speaking out because he wears a bishop's mitre is the epitome of religious intolerance. Such intolerance should frighten religious believers and free speech defenders of all political persuasions.

I wrote a much shorter letter to the editor in Chicago back during my seminary days, defending Joseph Cardinal Bernardin against charges that his statements in defense of unborn human life were unAmerican. I'm glad to see this much more complete defense of Archbishop Burke in a major daily.

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Faith is making a comeback on college campuses, as students take a deeper interest in religion and spirituality.

Across the country, on secular campuses as varied as Colgate University, the University of Wisconsin and the University of California, Berkeley, chaplains, professors and administrators say students are drawn to religion and spirituality with more fervor than at any time they can remember.

More students are enrolling in religion courses, even majoring in religion; more are living in dormitories or houses where matters of faith and spirituality are a part of daily conversation; and discussion groups are being created for students to grapple with questions like what happens after death, dozens of university officials said in interviews.

A survey on the spiritual lives of college students, the first of its kind, showed in 2004 that more than two-thirds of 112,000 freshmen surveyed said they prayed, and that almost 80 percent believed in God. Nearly half of the freshmen said they were seeking opportunities to grow spiritually, according to the survey by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Compared with 10 or 15 years ago, “there is a greater interest in religion on campus, both intellectually and spiritually,” said Charles L. Cohen, a professor of history and religious studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who for a number of years ran an interdisciplinary major in religious studies. The program was created seven years ago and has 70 to 75 majors each year.

University officials explained the surge of interest in religion as partly a result of the rise of the religious right in politics, which they said has made questions of faith more talked about generally. In addition, they said, the attacks of Sept. 11 underscored for many the influence of religion on world affairs. And an influx of evangelical students at secular universities, along with an increasing number of international students, means students arrive with a broader array of religious experiences.

Interestingly enough, the New York Times doesn't spend any time about efforts of colleges and universities to squelch the autonomy and religious expression of conservative religious groups -- something that can be documented by the number of successful lawsuits against schools by such groups and their student members.

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