Religious Freedom News Roundup

1. Breaking News Venezuela: Chavez's supporters seize church

   A church located southeast of Caracas in "Barrio El Winche" of Fila de Mariches and attended by the congregation of Laura Sisters and the Salesian Fathers has been invaded and taken over by supporters of Hugo Chavez, El Universal reports today. Members of Endogenous Battle Units (Unidades de Batalla Endogenas or UBE) -a Chavez invention to create a new democratic model of popular support- expressed that the action was taken in order to establish, in the church, a post of military security that shall be manned by Venezuela's National Guard.

2. Pastor is Hauled Before Tribunal Over Gay Comments

   Politically incorrect in Canada? You'll get arrested. The end of free speech.

   The London Fog is not sympathetic and apparently values the right to not be offended over the right to free political and religious speech.


3. "MUSLIM RAGE" TARGETS TAIBA CHRISTIANS

   At least 14 houses belonging to residents of the Arab Christian town of Taiba northeast of Ramallah, were torched by Muslims from neighboring Deir Jarir on Sunday, to avenge what they termed the dishonor of a Muslim woman.
   . . . . .
   A security sources said the rampage was triggered by an incident last week in which a 30-year-old woman was made to drink poison by her relatives because they suspected her of carrying on a romance with a Christian man from the village - thought by scholars to be the city of Ephraim to which Jesus and his disciples went in John chapter 11.
   
   The woman was quickly buried, but last Tuesday, the Palestinian Authority police exhumed the body for an autopsy angering relatives. So-called Muslim 'honor killings' are common throughout the Middle East but attract only minimal sentences due to their widespread cultural acceptance as an integral part of Islamic 'Sharia' law.

   If this makes absolutely no sense to you, then please consult the Muslim Mind Map. (Hat tip to The Belmont Club.)