REFORMED PASTOR ACQUITTED OF ANTI SEMITISM
Controversial ruling condemned by minister and Jewish people
based on reports by Stefan J. Bos
Special Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
The Right to be Wrong
Disagreement with "Politically Correct"
news story
REFORMED PASTOR ACQUITTED OF CHARGES OF
"ANTI-SEMITISM"
Saturday, November 8, 2003
REFORMED PASTOR ACQUITTED OF ANTI SEMITISM
Controversial ruling condemned by minister and Jewish people
based on reports by Stefan J. Bos
Special Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (ANS) -- Hungary's foreign
minister and Jewish officials have condemned an appeals court decision to
acquit a reformed pastor of anti-Semitism, overturning his 18-month
suspended prison sentence, local media reported Friday, Nov. 7.
Pastor Lorant Hegedus, who was also a former vice president of the Hungarian
Justice and Life Party (MIEP) was initially sentenced over perceived anti-Jewish
statements in his party's newsletter in 2001.
In it he suggested to segregate Jews from "the Hungarian Christian
nation" saying that "if we do not they will take our places." The
synod of Hungarian Reformed Church later declared the article irreconcilable
with the Gospel and the Christian faith.
"FASCIST METHODS"
"Since not all Palestinians can be smoked out of the banks of the Jordan
river by using Fascist methods that shame even the Nazis, they are now coming
again here, to the banks of the Danube river, sometimes as internationalists,
sometimes by showing off their national sentiments, sometimes as cosmopolitans,
to kick once more into the Hungarians," Hegedus wrote.
"Hungarians, based on the heritage and legal continuity of 1,000 years,
listen to the only life-offering message of the 1,000th Christian Hungarian
year: Exclude them, because if you do not do so, they will do it to you!",
he added.
While acknowledging that the remarks "may have been offensive, shocking and
alarming" the Budapest Court of Appeal said it had overturned the lower
Metropolitan Court's 2002 ruling on Thursday, Nov. 6, as the Hegedus writings
did "not constitute a crime."
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
"Restraining the freedom of expression by means of the criminal law was
necessary only as the last resort; if the expression in question is specifically
and directly endangering public order, the social system and peace," the
court said.
Hegedus, the first Hungarian politician to be found initially guilty in a case
of anti-Semitism, was carried out of the appeals court room on the shoulders of
his celebrating supporters, Hungarian television reported.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Laszlo Kovacs told Hungarian TV2 television that he
"was shocked by the acquittal." Kovacs, who is also the chairman of
the main governing Hungarian Socialist Party, said the ruling "had
demonstrated that the government's bill on hate speech" currently under
debate "must be adopted at the earliest."
WARNING ABOUT IMAGE
The minister warned that the verdict "will harm Hungary's reputation abroad
and will affect domestic politics". Jewish rights groups - often
on the Far Left and working against Free Speech - have threatened to take
the case to international courts if Hegedus went unpunished in Hungary.
"We demand that the Hungarian government and legal system ensure the
protection of Jews to the same extent as other citizens," Gusztav Zoltai,
president of the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Parishes (Mazsihisz), told
Hungarian News Agency, MTI.
"If our legal possibilities are exhausted in Hungary, we will be forced to
take the case to international forums," he said. Anti-semitism remains a
sensitive issue in a country that was a close ally of Nazi Germany during most
of World War Two. At least 600,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
Please Note: The Organization whose pages you are now reading strongly disagrees with those who are anti-semitic. However, we believe the solution is to fight for the right of all ethnic groups on the merits of the arguments themselves, and NOT on attempts to Ban Speech that we disagree with.
Honest Intellectuals and truth-seekers have nothing to fear. Repressive Hate Speech laws do far more to harm the causes they wrongly "claim" to help. We will continue to try to stand for the rights of all individuals, and for the Free Speech Rights of all people, whether we agree with them or not.
Anti Defamation League's
growing Bias against
Christians & Christianity
FrontPageMagazine
- The Anti-Defamation League ostensibly exists to oppose anti-Semitism. And it does – on occasion – when it isn’t too busy bashing evangelicals, fighting Christianity and creating double standards.
Despite its reputation, the Anti Defamation League is not a Jewish organization. There’s nothing distinctly Jewish (i.e., grounded in Jewish law) about its operations. It’s really just another left-wing group, with a leftist agenda. Politically, it is virtually indistinguishable from the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the American Way, or Americans United for the (so-called) Separation of Church and State.
As a conservative Jewish activist told me recently of the Anti Defamation League’s National Director and principal spokesman,
"Abe Foxman has a problem with Christianity"
{We] wish Foxman would explain why it’s appropriate for socialists to base their votes on socialist principles, why isolationists can vote for isolationist principles, and why African-Americans can cast their ballots based on the perceived interests of their race, but it’s somehow wicked for Christians to vote their values.
Full
Story Here
The Rising Jewish Anti-Christian League
By Don Feder
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 13, 2005
FPM
- A group of reputed Jewish leaders met in New York last week to devise a strategy to deal with what the
Anti Defamation League’s Abraham Foxman see as the emerging threat of the Religious Right.
If Christian conservatives are the menace Foxman and Friends believe, the problem is much worse than they imagine.
According to a late November FOX News poll, most Americans are what Foxman and Reform Jewish leader Eric Yoffie would call a clear and present danger to democracy and pluralism.
To wit:
59 percent of Americans think Christianity is under attack here;
81 percent disagree with the statement that religion should be “excluded from public life”;
93 percent want “in God we trust” to remain on our currency and coinage;
90 percent are for keeping “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Alliance;
76 percent say public display of the Ten Commandments should be legal;
82 percent favor voluntary school prayer; and
77 percent believe “the courts have gone too far in taking religion out of public life.”
As for opposition to same-sex marriage, which Rabbi Yoffie considers the hallmark of irrationality and bigotry, more than two dozen states have passed constitutional amendments defining marriage a la
Genesis, and always by lopsided margins.
"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."
--Article 18 of the Universal
Declaration of
Human
Rights--
Christian Conversions - According to the Bible - Can NEVER be forced.
Any Conversion to Christianity which would be "Forced" would NOT be recognized by God. It is in
His True and KIND nature, that those who come to Him and choose to believe in Him, must come to Him OF
THEIR OWN FREE WILL.
Don't Let anyone tell you that Christians support Forced Conversions.
That is False. True Christianity is NEVER forced.
Core Universal Rights
The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one's belief or religion
The right to join together and express one's belief