4 The Hampton Roads Messenger Editorial


Supreme Court's Decision Shows Lack of Respect for Women


It was reported that Green gave


a $10.5 million gift to Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in 2004. Falwell is living proof that even Christians do not always follow biblical principles. So, why should a corporation, even one which claims to follow biblical principles, be protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993?


If Hobby Lobby failed to comply


with the new healthcare law mandate, it could have faced $475 million in annual fines. A company making that kind of money did not make it on the backs of only Christian customers and employees. Hobby Lobby will stand by its biblical principles as long as it does not impact their almighty bottom line.


BY ANGELA JONES The Supreme Court recently


decided in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. that the mandate included in the Affordable Care Act, requiring “closely held corporations,” such as Hobby Lobby, to provide their female employees with no-cost access to contraception violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, a United States federal law intended to prevent laws that substantially burden a person's free exercise of religion. According to irs.gov, a closely held corporation is generally “A corporation that has more than 50 percent of the value of its outstanding stock owned (directly or indirectly) by five or fewer individuals at any time during the last half of the tax year; and is not a personal service corporation.”


I believe there is some confusion


as to the definition of what a corporation is. Although a corporation can act as an individual, it is not an individual. It can not hold religious beliefs because each member of the corporation has his own heart and mind, which can change at any given moment; therefore, a corporation should not expect religious freedom.


In order to understand the motives


of Hobby Lobby one can look at the companies beginnings. David Green originally started a business in his garage assembling and selling miniature picture frames. According to Green, the American billionaire who founded Hobby Lobby, the company operates on biblical principles. That is admirable; however, it is still a company made up of individuals with varying views.


Whether Hobby Lobby is a


“closely held” corporation or not, it is not an individual and, as a corporation, it receives the benefits of a corporation but does not want to accept the responsibilities of a corporation. A corporation


expect religious freedom because it is not an individual.


Only a Supreme Court which is


made up of a majority of men could have rendered such an opinion. This opinion will adversely affect women; a woman’s life could be at risk if she becomes pregnant. On the other hand, if a “homosexual” man was fired from his job because he was gay and he decided to file a lawsuit against the “closely held corporation,” which claims to operate on biblical principles, that fired him, would the supreme court rule in favor of the “closely held” corporation? Probably not...and for these two reason: first, because it would be a man filing the lawsuit and secondly, because he is homosexual and homosexual men, as a group, contribute greatly to political campaigns. Politicians appoint and confirm judges to the supreme court.


Women are too busy taking care


of children conceived because of a lack of contraception, to be able to fight a legal system that places the rights of fictitious individuals, closely held corporations, over the rights of women, many of whom may be abandoned by the fathers of the very children that will be affected by this supreme court decision. Perhaps Hobby Lobby and some Supreme Court Justices prefer to see women barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen rather than competing with them in the boardroom and in the courtroom.


Volume 8 Number 11 Your Opinion Matters


The New Face of Faith: Few Catholic Latinos


July 2014


BY LEONEL MARTÍNEZ I must have been in third grade


at Lamont School when our teacher scolded us for being Catholic.


The cafeteria served oven-fried cannot


chicken for lunch that day, and when the kids carried their trays back to be washed, most of them were empty. Except for the chicken, much of which hadn’t been touched.


It was Friday. It was Lent. Most of the students were Catholic.


I still remember my classmates


and I squirming in our seats that afternoon as our teacher gave us a tongue-lashing, saying that it was “a bigger sin to waste food” than to eat meat on Friday.


The school district should have


known better. About half the school or more was Hispanic. If you were a Latino kid growing up in Lamont in the mid-1960s, you were almost always Catholic (the few Protestant Hispanic pupils were considered oddities). That oven-fried chicken was destined for the trash bin.


But for American Latinos, faith


has a new face, and that face is less Catholic.


That’s one of the main findings in


a study released last month by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan think tank that focuses on Latino issues, attitudes and trends.


Researchers surveyed more than


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5,000 Hispanics nationwide and found that although most are still Catholic, that amount has fallen from 67 percent to 55 percent in the last four years. About 22 percent identified themselves as Protestant, with 16 percent saying they are born again or evangelical, and 18 percent stating they are religiously unaffiliated.


In fact, in a statistic that would


make Sister Ann Theresa wince, almost one in four U.S. Hispanic adults described themselves as former Catholics.


Tune in to any television show


with Hispanic characters, and you would think every Latino listens to salsa music, munches on spicy dishes, and has a life-size statue of the Virgin Mary at home. But the Pew study’s findings came as no surprise to those who actually watch demographic trends. The share of Hispanics who are Catholic has probably been in decline for decades.


The publication, “The Shifting


Religious Identity of Latinos in the United States,” speculates that the decrease mirrors trends in historically Catholic Latin America. In those countries, the proportion of Catholics has fallen from 90 percent in 1910 to 72 percent in 2010, according to a Pew Research analysis and estimates from the World Christian Database, which provides comprehensive statistical information on religions.


Take a drive through Lamont, with


a population of about 15,000 according to the chamber of commerce, and it’s hard to miss the increasing religious diversity among Hispanics. Although it’s usually standing-room only at the 9 a.m. Spanish-language Catholic Mass at St. Augustine Church, other places of worship nearby bear names like Centro Hispano de Lamont and Iglesia Adventista del Septimo Dia.


Many of these small Protestant


churches didn’t exist a few years ago. Yet the transformation of religion


in Lamont isn’t restricted to Latinos or Christianity. Several years ago, I was serving myself at a buffet dinner here in Lamont, wondering what I could eat as a main dish instead of the chicken fajitas.


It was Friday. It was Lent. I’m Catholic. Behind me in line stood some


turbaned Sikhs, plates in hand, probably wondering the same thing since many of them are vegetarian. The Guru Nanak Temple is just a few miles away on Weedpatch Highway.


In Lamont and in the rest of America, it’s the new face of faith.


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