To me, Cinco de Mayo has always represented the right to live free. So I thought I’d post a video that expresses that concept far better than I could blog about it.
Scientologists Mobilize in Support of Un International Day Against Racial Discrimination
March 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment
In cities around the world today, Scientologists organize or participate in round tables, petition drives, seminars and marches in support of the United Nations International Day against Racial Discrimination.
The UN General Assembly selected March 21 to commemorate the day in 1960 in Sharpeville, South Africa, when police opened fire on thousands peacefully demonstrating against apartheid, killing 69.
The first article of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Yet 64 years after the document’s 1948 adoption, headlines still feature racially and ethnically motivated violence.
As announced today, a grand jury in Florida will look into racism as the cause of the February 26 shooting death of 17-year-old African American Trayvon Martin. Four died Monday when a gunman opened fire on parents and children at an Orthodox Jewish school in Toulouse, France. Two Senegalese vendors were shot to death in Florence three months ago by an author known for his far-right extremism.
In his message today, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, “Racism and racial discrimination have been used as weapons to engender fear and hatred. In extreme cases, ruthless leaders instigate prejudice to incite genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said, “Leaving the dangerous societal problems of prejudice and racism to simmer on the back burner creates a real risk of explosive conflicts erupting, years or decades later.”
The human rights initiative of the Church of Scientology promotes education as the key to remedying these and other human rights abuse. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins with the injunction to “strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.”
Since its inception, the Church of Scientology championed human rights. The Creed of the Church, written in 1954 by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard, begins with the statement that Man is an immortal spiritual being and that all people of any race, color or creed are created with equal and inalienable rights.
“It is vital that all thinking men urge upon their governments (for the governments’ own sake if no other) sweeping reforms in the field of human rights,” stated Mr. Hubbard in 1969. To that end, today the Church sponsors one of the world’s largest nongovernmental human rights information campaigns, aimed at raising awareness and calling for governments to meaningfully support and ensure human rights.
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The Scientology religion was founded by author and philosopher L. Ron Hubbard. The first Church of Scientology was formed in the United States in 1954 and has grown to more than 10,000 Churches, Missions and affiliated groups and millions of members in 167 nations.
Why I am Proud to Support the International Association of Scientologists
January 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment
“WHAT IS THE IAS?”
There’s a question I get asked quite often when I’m wearing my shirts that state I’m a member of the International Association of Scientologists, one I’m bound to get asked all the more often now that my family are all Patrons of the Association.
“What’s that?”
One fellow that I did web engineering with saw me wearing a shirt with a torch on it that said, “Crusader” and said, “Crusader – I think I’ve heard of those guys.” – thinking it was a vendor we worked with.
No, folks, I proudly sport those shirts because I’m a contributing member of theInternational Association of Scientologists – something I’m extremely proud of.
The IAS is the official membership organization of the Scientology religion, being made up of individual Scientologists who truly want to change conditions on this planet for the better. The purpose of the International Association of Scientologists is:
To unite, advance, support and protect the Scientology religion and Scientologists in all parts of the world, so as to achieve the aims of Scientology as originated by L. Ron Hubbard.
Now, in practical terms, here’s what IAS members do, and what the IAS as a whole accomplishes, which I’m very much a supporter of:
THE VOLUNTEER MINISTER PROGRAM:
Scientology Volunteer Ministers
One program that the IAS supports that I’ve been intimately involved in is the Scientology Volunteer Minister program. I’ve worked personally to get volunteers out to disaster sites like after the earthquakes in Haiti, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Chinese earthquakes, Hurricane Katrina, and others. Volunteer Ministers are known for their ability to calm down & bring order to disorderly surroundings, and to also thereby work hand in hand with disaster response forces to clean up these major disaster sites. But also, those same principles that make Scientology Volunteer Ministers effective in major upheavals also make them effective in smaller disasters – like kids with bonked heads, parents with upsets, or children needing to study better. It’s such an effective program that gets such excellent results, that I love supporting it.
TRUTH ABOUT DRUGS EDUCATION CAMPAIGN
The IAS also backs the Truth About Drugs education campaign, something that this world so vitally needs. No matter what your religious background or ethnic background, drugs are ravaging every culture and every society. So, of course a big reason I back up the IAS is to also back up this campaign which happens to be the planet’s largest non-government anti-drug education campaign. Name another anti-drug campaign that is on every continent and is translated into over 20 languages?
IDEAL CHURCHES OF SCIENTOLOGY
Another rather encompassing reason why I support the IAS has to do with the fact that the International Association of Scientologists also helps in the establishment of key Churches of Scientology around the world, such as the Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, DC.
Ideal Churches of Scientology (also known as “Ideal Orgs”) are specifically constructed to be able to push forward all of the social betterment programs that the IAS supports – including the Volunteer Ministers and Truth About Drugs campaign above, but also our Human Rights Education Campaign, our campaign for imbuing morality in the Way to Happiness Campaign, our campaign to bring ethics and decency to mental health in the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, as well as all of the wonderful things that come from training individuals in Scientology itself.
The video above on the Grand Opening of my home church here in Washington, DC demonstrates a bit of the bandwidth such an organization cam provide, and I hope, sheds a bit of light on why I’m so proud to then back up the IAS.
Church of Scientology Advances Human Rights Education in Tennessee
December 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The United for Human Rights materials provide educators, government and community groups with effective education tools.
Nashville, TN, December 28, 2011 –(PR.com)– It is time human rights be made a fact. An estimated 27 million people are held in slavery worldwide today, according to the United Nations. After drug trafficking, human trafficking is tied with the illegal arms trade as the second largest criminal industry in the world, and it is the fastest growing. Of those trafficked, 80 percent are women and 50 percent are children.
Recognizing the global need for human rights education, Scientology Churches around the world sponsored the United for Human Rights (UHR) program. The Church’s human rights initiative sponsors groups and activities and provides its materials to individuals, groups and government agencies in 82 nations. Since December of 2010, the Church of Scientology has reached hundreds of millions of people with humans rights information, distributing more than 2 million publications and providing educational materials to more than 45,000 human rights organizations and 4,500 educators and educational institutions.
In Middle Tennessee, the Tennessee Chapter of UHR joined forces with the local and state government as well as non-profit organizations from across Tennessee to plan the state celebration of International Human Rights Day, which occurs every year on December 10th. The Tennessee celebration was held on December 7th at the Downtown Public Library on Church Street.
The event featured an array of speakers on human rights issues including education, human trafficking and religious freedom. Mr. Avi Poster who is a community activist and former principal spoke on the need for better education, and education for everyone. Ms. Cecilia Gomez with Free for Life International spoke on the facts and figures of human trafficking in our world today and the need for a higher awareness that trafficking occurs right in our own backyard. Dr. Amir Arain of the Islamic Center of Nashville spoke about religious freedom, and the right everyone has to a religion and belief system of their own choosing.
The celebration centered around Human Rights Lifetime Achievement awards. Awardees this year were Dr. Sheila Peters who has worked with numerous human rights organizations over several decades and is now a professor at Fisk University, and Mr. Jerry Lee who served as President of the Tennessee AFL-CIO for over ten years, and is among the first to initiate this celebration in Tennessee.
A new tradition was born this year. “We introduced the Rising Advocate award, which was given to two remarkable individuals we’re counting on to continue the fight for human rights,” says Co-Chair of the planning committee, Rev. Brian Fesler. The Rising Advocates this year included Remziya Suleyman, formerly of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition and MarQo Patton, a graduate of Fisk University who is now a corps member of Teach for America.
This event reached well beyond the 120 people who attended, as the entire event was filmed and is now being broadcast to thousands weekly on Metro Nashville’s Channel 3.
The Church of Scientology sponsors the world’s largest nongovernmental human rights education campaign. To learn more about this human rights initiative or to participate, visit www.scientology.org. To read about United for Human Rights, visit www.humanrights.com.
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