‘Take a gun to church’ law passed in Louisiana: The Church of England Newspaper, July 23, 2010 p 5. July 23, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Louisiana.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Louisiana clergy may have an incentive to improve the quality of their sermons, for beginning on Aug 15 a new state law will allow parishioners to carry concealed handguns to church.
On July 12, Governor Bobby Jindal signed into law House Bill 1272, the church gun law. Under the terms of the new law, authorized individuals may carry concealed weapons in houses of worship as part of a church security team.
The law requires ministers to inform their congregations that armed individuals are worshiping amongst them, either in a written statement in the service leaflet or in an announcement from the pulpit. Members of God’s security squad in Louisiana must undergo eight hours a year of training and be licensed by their minister as a church security officer.
State representative Henry Burns proposed the bill in the Louisiana legislature arguing that churches in crime-ridden or “declining” neighborhoods need armed protection from thieves. The bill also allows churches to hire uniformed off-duty policemen to serve as security guards during services. The law does not apply, however, to churches who also have schools on their parish grounds.
Louisiana is believed to be the first state to specifically authorized the carrying of concealed weapons in church. Earlier this year, Georgia passed a law that allows churchgoers to carry concealed weapons in the parking lots of churches.
The Louisiana law follows a June 28 decision by the US Supreme Court that overturned local government gun-control laws. In a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court held the US Constitution’s Second Amendment provision that grants the right to bear arms to Americans extends to all states and local governments. It struck down a 28-year old Chicago city ordinance banning the possession of handguns.
The Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana has not seen the need to arm its members, however. A spokesman for Bishop Morris Thompson told The Church of England Newspaper the bishop was “disappointed some believe there is a need to carry guns into a house of worship”
In a statement released after the Bill was passed by the legislature on June 20, Bishop Thompson said the diocese believed the “need to carry weapons into worship seems inappropriate.”
“However, we have not seen the final bill that has been passed and we will need time to study this piece of legislation before we can respond further.”
Bush attacked over Katrina response: CEN 9.07.07 p 9 September 7, 2007
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Louisiana.comments closed
issued a stinging rebuke to President George W. Bush, saying two years on from Hurricane Katrina, the government has failed the people of New Orleans.
The “grief, guilt, anger, and frustration of a nation is gathering” in New Orleans, the Rt. Rev. Charles Jenkins wrote on the first day of the president’s tour of restoration projects in the city, and urged the government to mount a “serious” effort towards rebuilding the devastated city.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams and the US House of Bishops will also meet in New Orleans on Sept 20-21, and on the 22nd the Bishops will join in rebuilding homes damaged by the storm.
Bishop Jenkins, whose own home was destroyed by the August 2005 Hurricane that ravaged the Mississippi and Louisiana Gulf Coast and flooded the city of New Orleans, called upon the American president “to clearly demonstrate his calculation of our people’s worth and his government’s commitment to our safety? The question is one that Providence has put to this President, and it is one of those tests all human beings dread – the kind that determines who you really are.”
Much hard work had been done by religious and civic groups to restore the city, he said. “The volunteers of this country are still coming in larger numbers than ever to help heal the lives of their fellow Americans,” Bishop Jenkins.
A “huge number of Americans love their neighbor as themselves. Not in words alone but in actions,” he said, and had come to the assistance of the people of New Orleans.
However, government policies have not matched private Christian initiative, Bishop Jenkins argued. Government inefficiency and corporate greed had failed the city. Two years after the storm almost “30% of the children in this city are homeless,” he said, with many of their teachers living “living in shacks without running water.”
“Faith-based organizations” had been “advancing their meager funds to families for the purchase of building materials” while the government’s reconstruction programme “has yet to come through with any funds,” he said.
“We can be reconciled, Mr. President,” Bishop Jenkins wrote. “New Orleanians are a long-suffering and forgiving people. But to be so you must show us that you see and value our humanity before it is too late.”
Conger 