Government needs to step out of center debate - by Judge Jim Gray

So should the Muslim community be "allowed" to build a mosque or religious center two blocks away from the former World Trade Center site? Actually President Obama gave us the answer. Numbers of times in these pages I have been critical about some of Obama's comments and policies, mostly dealing with economic issues, but this time he got it exactly right!

Obama said that the government should not interfere in this decision because it is a question of religious freedom. But he also said that, under the circumstances, building a mosque or religious center in that place would be insensitive, and the Muslim community should show the grace to decide to put it somewhere else. This may be a subtle distinction, but it is a critically important one.

First of all, this issue presents a wonderful teaching opportunity to show the world that we really do have religious freedom in the United States — and make no mistake, the world is watching! Because the Muslims own the land and the zoning is in their favor, they have the clear legal and constitutional right to build the center on this site, and that should end the government's involvement. The idea of "I support religious freedom, but not in my back yard" is not what the Bill of Rights stands for.

But secondly, and even more importantly, if we persist in looking to the government every time decisions like this have to be made, we will lose the ability to deal with each other as people. For example, years ago when I moved into a new house in San Clemente, the homeowner's association was contemplating installing a system of fines for virtually every activity one could imagine. So if people left their trash cans on the street for too many hours after the trash was collected, they would receive a fine. Or if your neighbors mowed their lawns on a Sunday morning, you could call the "association police" and have a fine assessed. I attended a meeting and recommended that the whole system be scrapped.

Instead I suggested that if your neighbors were playing their music too loud, etc., simply go across the street, introduce yourself (if you have to) and politely ask them to turn the volume down. That would give everyone the opportunity to act in a "neighborly" fashion, which is what most of us would do if given the chance. Those in attendance agreed with that approach, and voted down the program. (And then they proceeded to draft me to be a member of the board of directors.)

It is the same thing with the question of the Muslim center. Having the government step in puts the Muslim community immediately on the defensive and deprives it of the opportunity to choose to be sensitive. Instead the situation evolves into a legal or political event, where if the Muslim leaders graciously decided to build the center somewhere else, it will look like they are capitulating or "giving in." As a result, they are almost forced into taking a more hard line position. In addition, if they do decide to build the center there anyway, that might also reduce the chances that they would, as a compromise measure and gesture of good will, include a memorial to all of the people on the ground who lost their lives.

As another case in point, remember when the Catholic Church decided to remove a 26-foot cross erected at a Carmelite convent within view of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination site in Poland, and also move the nuns to a different location? This was done without governmental fiat, but instead as a gracious accommodation to Jewish sensibilities not to have a cross easily visible from the site of this tragedy for the Jewish people (and tens of thousands of non-Jews). The Polish government not being involved gave the Catholic Church this opportunity to be gracious, and our government not being involved in this matter in Lower Manhattan will give the Muslim community the same opportunity.

Furthermore, even aside from the critically important constitutional protections of religious freedoms, how could a government possibly draft regulations or laws dealing with situations like this? The practical problems are significant. For example, just what constitutes "hallowed" ground? Yes, the destruction of the World Trade Center was a catastrophe, but how big a catastrophe must there be? What about the site where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into the ground near Stonycreek Township in Pennsylvania, despite the heroic attempt of passengers and crew to thwart the terrorists' further plans? Why not include the sites of other airplane crashes where large numbers of people have died? Or how about the site of the federal building in Oklahoma City that was destroyed with much loss of life by Timothy McVeigh? All of the loved ones of those who lost their lives grieved just as much!

Or, for that matter, why should hallowed ground only come from catastrophes? What about other hallowed grounds, like Gettysburg, Cape Canaveral, Yellowstone National Park, or even Woodstock in Bethel, N.Y., or Fenway Park in Boston? Who gets to decide? And how far away should these edicts be enforced? Two blocks? Three? Ten miles? Only where visible? (That would exclude this proposed Muslim center.) And should the laws just apply to Muslim religious centers? How about Christian centers, or those of the YMCA? These are almost impossible situations for laws to cover — or to enforce — and trying to draft or implement them will only result in additional and almost irresolvable emotional confrontations.

Finally, and just as importantly, in many regards what we are seeing with this issue are many radical people with an agenda using it as a political opportunity for their own purposes. They include some Christians and others fanning the flames of Islamophobia, and some Muslims and others using the opportunity to show their paranoia. Let's try to take away these types of opportunities by using our efforts to tone down all of the rhetoric.

The first place to start in this and so many other situations is to get the government out of the equation. This will foster a situation that will more greatly promote people treating each other in a humanitarian manner, and also get us further away from being outcome oriented and instead back to understandable process and principles.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "Wearing the Robe: the Art and Responsibility of Judging in Today's Courts" (Square One Publishers, 2010), Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It, A Voter's Handbook, Effective Solutions To America's Problems and can be reached at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or http://www.judgejimgray.com. Judge Jim Gray is also currently offering his 25 years of experience on the bench to ADR Services in Orange County for Arbitration and Mediation services.

Obamas were mindful of the Constitution - by Judge Jim Gray

For one reason or another, I receive large numbers of e-mails from lots of different sources. One I received recently was from the blog of a man named Stephen Frank, who promotes himself as providing a “frank” discussion for conservatives. This particular edition was sent out under the heading “Barack and Michelle Obama Ignore Christmas.”

The thrust of Frank’s message was that the Obamas’ holiday card, which was paid for by the Democratic National Committee, makes no religious reference whatsoever. What it did say was “May your family have a joyous holiday season, and a new year blessed with hope and happiness.”

Then Frank went on to say that about 58% of Democrats, 70% of independents and 91% of Republicans prefer to be wished a “Merry Christmas” instead of being greeted with things like “Happy Holidays.”

So, from all of that, he infers that the Obamas are ignoring Christmas, and are out of the mainstream of a majority of Americans. I disagree with Frank’s criticism.

Preliminarily, and so that there is no confusion, I was raised as a Christian in a Christian home. I have been a member of the Methodist Church all of my adult life, and I will compare my religious values to anyone’s. Furthermore, and as I have said before in this column, I did not vote for Obama. But having said all of this, I believe that the Obamas are taking the right approach in this matter for two important reasons.

First, Barack Obama is the president of the United States and everyone in it, and that fact must be present inextricably in everything he does. Therefore, publicly to wish all of his card’s recipients a Merry Christmas would be to show presidential favoritism toward Christians, as opposed to other people in our country who hold other religious beliefs. As such, Frank, that would be inappropriate.

To be consistent, but on a matter of insignificant importance, I do criticize the president for having publicly rooted for the Chicago White Sox when they played the Boston Red Sox in a major league baseball game last summer. I know that Obama resided in Chicago for a long time, but does that mean that people from Boston should be concerned that he will take sides against them in other things merely because of geography?

Traditionally presidents have upheld the philosophy of neutrality in the annual Army/Navy football game, by ceremoniously changing sides of the stadium during halftime. This shows symbolically that the president is the commander-in-chief of the Army and the Navy, and is therefore neutral in contests of one against the other. Obama should learn a lesson from that tradition.

The second reason is even more critical. And that is the fundamental importance of honoring the separation of church and state. Going back to the Thomas Jefferson, one of the main principles of our government has been to maintain this separation. This is also true for two important reasons.

In the first place, we want to protect government from the influence of the church. Many times throughout history when various religions have been involved in government, some truly terrible things have happened. Some examples of these are the Salem Witch Trials, as well as the Spanish Inquisition, and religious human sacrifices by the Aztecs, Incas and other societies around the world. Indeed, today we are seeing first-hand the tragic results that happen when religions have taken command of governments in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and also with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Actually, on balance, probably the largest threat to peace in the world today comes from the merging of church and state in countries like that. And, although I am not saying that we would resort to things like human sacrifices, to some degree the same types of things could happen here in our country as well. How could this happen? To paraphrase Congressman Ron Paul, even if you agree with the ideas and dictates of our government, some day different people will be in charge and will use government for their own agendas. So the wisdom of the constitution is that it keeps government out of these issues altogether, regardless of who is in charge.

Of course, that is not at all to say that the values of religion should not have an influence in government. Our great country was founded in many ways upon Christian values, and the concept of us publicly being “One Nation Under God,” and having “In God We Trust” on our currency, etc., should be recognized and supported. Those mottoes display that we have important religious values.

But if the message on our currency instead were to be “In Jesus We Trust,” or “In The Buddha We Trust,” etc., this would and should be a constitutional violation, and must be avoided. Why? Because then our government would be favoring one religion over another. The Obamas’ holiday card implicitly recognizes that fact.

Yes, Christmas is a national holiday, and, yes, Jesus’ name is certainly an important part of the title of that meaningful day of celebration and reflection. But although the mottoes we use show that we are a country of Christian values, they do not mean that we are actually a Christian nation. That can be a subtle distinction, but it is enormously important. Otherwise we could not be a nation with religious freedom!

The second reason for the separation is that we want to protect religion from the influence of government. Several years ago, my wife and I took a wonderful trip to Turkey.

While we were there, we learned that the Turkish government actually pays the salaries of the Muslim imams. When we asked why this was done, we were told that this was the best way for the government to keep track of what these religious leaders were doing, and to “keep the lid on.”

Actually this is quite an effective tool that the Turkish government is using, but I hope you can see that it can be truly corruptive and controlling for the religions involved.

Why? Because whenever government becomes involved in anything, it almost unfailingly works to control it.

So the best way to protect the freedom of religion is to have the government scrupulously kept away.

Our country would face similar issues by allowing our government to funnel money to do charitable work through religious organizations.

This practice has been suggested both by President George W. Bush and by Obama. But this would be dangerous, because if we allow government to fund religions in any way, government will soon be in a position to control those religions.

Nevertheless, Frank, none of this means that you or I as private citizens cannot and should not wish other people a Merry Christmas. In fact, when I hear Christians wishing other Christians a “Happy Holidays,” I commonly respond that it is OK to wish people a Merry Christmas. And it is.

So may I take this opportunity to wish each of my fellow Christians a truly Merry Christmas.

And for those of you of different religious beliefs, I wish you a Merry Spirit of Christmas.



JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of Wearing the Robe – the Art and Responsibilities of Judging in Today’s Courts (Square One Press, 2008), and can be contacted at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or via his website at www.judgejimgray.com .

How to combat terrorism successfully - by Judge Jim Gray

Recently, as I was going through airport security screening at Los Angeles International Airport, the issue of how we can best keep terrorist attacks on civilians to a minimum once again went through my mind.

Fortunately, there has not really been a successful attack by foreigners since Sept. 11, 2001. Has that been due at least in part to airport screenings? Should this screening be increased, decreased or maintained as it is?

Preliminarily, we must recognize that the pressure on our president, whether it is George W. Bush, Barack Obama, or anyone else, to keep such an attack from re-occurring must be crushing! Consequently, the incentives to continue or even strengthen actions to keep us safe understandably cannot be minimized. Why? Because if perceived protections were to be decreased and an attack were to occur, the political recriminations would be enormous and unrelenting — even if the absence of particular safety measures would not have made any difference. This once again reinforces the fact that in politics, reality itself is irrelevant. It is only the appearance of reality that matters!

But do any of these airport security measures actually do anything more than appear to keep us safer? Of course, I do not have any particular access to information to help us answer that question. But most knowledgeable people in the area of aircraft security said that the most effective thing we could do after 9/11 was to strengthen the cockpit doors to make it impossible to force them open — and then to state publicly that the doors would be kept locked while in flight regardless of anything going on in the cabin. This has already been done, and has probably contributed a great deal to aircraft safety.

Otherwise, the government bureaucracy always seems to be fighting yesterday’s battles — and sometimes in a stupid fashion.

I remember a few years ago going through airport security twice before boarding an airplane to come home from a trip to Turkey in which the security personnel seized fingernail clippers and small pocket knives from passengers. Then once the plane took off and reached altitude, the flight crew handed out stainless steel forks and knives to use for dinner that were far more dangerous than anything that had been confiscated.

I also once observed airport security personnel require an elderly lady to get out of her wheelchair and walk through a metal detector, while her attendant was allowed to push her wheelchair completely around the metal detector so that neither the wheelchair nor the attendant were screened at all. That is government bureaucracy in action.

I also noted with dismay that once when my elderly and frail mother, who was the widow of a federal judge and literally a “little old lady from Pasadena,” flew with me to go north to see my sister, she was forced to spread her legs and arms for additional security screening. As a result of the indignity, hassle and physical ordeal of this experience, she chose never to fly again.

A good friend of mine says that since 9/11, he believes that hundreds of thousands of Americans have actually been killed by terrorists. What does he mean by that? The man-hours lost waiting to board airplanes, which become man-years, and man-lives. Those idly waiting to board are losing parts of their lives.

So in a cost-benefit analysis, does taking our shoes off as a requirement for us to board an airplane really make us safer? I truly doubt it.

Should we have an “express lane” at airports for people who have been previously screened to be truly low security risks? This would reduce wasted time and money for everyone. Actually there is such a program available in concept, but it has not really been put into effect. We spend lots of money to slow people down, but very little to speed things up.

And how much does this “cottage industry” of airport security screening actually cost? It adds about a $10 charge to every airplane ticket.

When I boarded my plane recently, I counted 21 Transportation Security Administration personnel just at the American Airlines Terminal alone who were involved with the screening process. This has to be really expensive. Are we getting our money’s worth? It’s hard to believe that we are.

In that regard, everyone must understand that there is no such thing as absolute safety in a free society, or anywhere else. If someone really wants to engage in wanton or terrorist acts, it would not be too hard to be successful. So what I am about to say may get my name on a list somewhere, or even get me investigated, but I anticipate that any semi-intelligent and creative mind could think up at least 10 viable ways to bring down a civilian airplane that do not include shoes or boxcutters. They might very well die themselves along the way, but it could be done. These people may be radicals and extremists, but most of their leaders are not dumb.

And that is only addressing the vulnerability of civilian airplanes, which actually are probably yesterday’s tragedies. How can we possible protect against such wanton acts in every train or bus station, theater, or sports stadium?

So we and our government must not naively think, much less say, that our safety in today’s world can be guaranteed. That is not at all to say we should let down our guard. But instead of taking off our shoes, we should spend our preventive resources on things that actually work, and fewer upon those that just appear to work, like airport security. So when we ask the government to protect us from potential terrorist acts, “just helping us to feel safer” is not an effective usage of resources.

What are the things that have the best chance to be successful? In addition to a strong military, the most effective are intelligence and undercover activities that allow us to learn in advance who are our biggest threats and what those people are doing. Second is to use insights to anticipate society’s biggest vulnerabilities, and employing monitors, safety measures and procedures that can best reduce the chances of harm.



JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of Wearing the Robe – the Art and Responsibilities of Judging in Today’s Courts (Square One Press, 2008), and can be contacted at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or via his website at www.judgejimgray.com .