State Dept. seeks to broaden religious reach

[rug]

By Elizabeth Tenety, Published: July 26

The State Department announced this week the creation of its first office dedicated to outreach to the global faith community and religious leaders.

The project, born in part of recommendations by its working group on religion and foreign policy, will be headed by Shaun Casey, a United Methodist member and professor at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington.

Casey, an activist and scholar on religion and politics, said he expects the office to focus on three areas: religion and development, international religious freedom, and conflict prevention and resolution.

“I’m not naive,” Casey said. “I understand that this territory is fraught. But having said that, I think we ignore the political impact of religion at our peril.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/2013/07/26/79eeada8-f643-11e2-9434-60440856fadf_story.html

[cbayer]

1. Sounds good, but their areas of focus are so vague.

I would like to see them focus on the impact on girls/women, GLBT rights, religious bigotry, theocracy, education and increased communication. And I would like to see them broaden this to include non-believers.

I can't open the article, so they may speak to these things.

[rug]

3. This is how they outline their goals:

Melissa Rogers, the new director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, said in a statement: “Shaun’s appointment is part of a larger State Department strategy to deepen its engagement with faith and other community leaders. These leaders play key roles in promoting sustainable development, providing humanitarian assistance, advancing pluralism, protecting human rights like the right to religious freedom, and countering violent extremism. Shaun’s background and abilities make him a great selection for this post, and I’m looking forward to working with him in the days ahead.”

[cbayer]

5. Still pretty vague and open to interpretation, and perhaps purposefully so.

At the very least I think they could expand this part

protecting human rights like the right to religious freedom

to specifically include girls/women and GLBT people.

Or maybe that's too provocative.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. Outreach to homophobes and genocidal bigots should not be framed as being

outreach to the 'faith community'. Is this Casey going to play patsy cake with Zimbabwe while they threaten to execute gay people? I'm sure he will, that's 'faith' when they say they want to murder, that's part of 'the faith community' and Casey will excuse it, defend it, attempt to mitigate it, he will then say 'it is terrible but we must respect that culture and send them billions'.
I have zero trust in religious Americans. That Wallis guy was on Real Time and he was a slimy asshole who evaded all questions about his intolerant attitudes toward LGBT people. A direct question and his answer was avoidance and spin, disrespectful and utterly filled with contempt.

[rug]

4. It's not.

How do you propose dealing with religion in foreign relations? Ignore it or fight it?

[Bluenorthwest]

6. Not by glad handing genocidal regimes that couch their hate in religious terms.

Are the choices really to soft soap murderous hate or do nothing? I sure don't think so. This guy's words are vague and intentionally so.
I'd bet they intend to pump cash to the most homophobic nations and call them Christians in the process. Is it not an insult to a group to say that being part of that group excuses genocidal desires and extreme bigotry?
This will be large gifts to horrific hate mongers, all done in the name of God. Zimbabwe, which just announced they want to murder all gay people, says they are Christian and that's why they want to kill us. This group of 'outreachers' does not even mention that nor state how they intend to deal with such atrocities.
I'm not going to call genocidists 'members of the faith community' to please the US government which is also bigoted to the core. I expect only the worst from those who have done only the worst.