Hot Buttons: Talk show topics

DOES CHRISTIANITY HURT ANIMALS?

Animal rights advocate Peter Singer says Christianity is harmful to animals, The Washington Times reports.

"One of the things that cause a problem for the animal movement is the strong strain of fundamentalist Christianity that makes a huge gulf between humans and animals, saying humans have souls but animals do not," says Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton.

The Australian-born scholar says "that kind of attitude is a problem in getting people to think of animals as objects of moral value."

He challenges the position all human life is sacred and says it is morally acceptable to euthanize severely disabled infants. His views have sparked such vehement opposition Princeton has given him a scanner to check his mail for bombs.

Singer says fundamentalist Christians in this country take the Bible too literally and promote "speciesism," which he defined as a belief by humans they are "superior to any other being."

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission denounced the claim Singer made in his book, "Practical Ethics," that parents of a severely disabled baby should be able to kill the child if they think it is better the child not live.

"Human beings come first and we have an obligation to put humans above animals," he says.

-- Does an animal have to have a soul to considered an object of moral value?

-- Is there anything wrong with putting humans above animals?

SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS FOR PUBLIC PLACES

Surveillance cameras used to monitor Fourth of July festivities on the Mall in Washington, D.C., have sparked controversy, the Washington Times reports.

Rep. Constance A. Morella, R-Md., says National Park Service officials "have forgotten the submission of formal regulations on how they intend to control the use of surveillance cameras."

The officials had promised to deliver those regulations to Morella's House subcommittee before any use of the cameras.

Park Police coordinated security among various agencies for the July 4 celebrations on the Mall and used the Metropolitan Police Department's surveillance camera system, as well as its own temporary system.

Faced with further demands from Morella and D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Interior Department, which oversees the Park Police, faxed a policy statement to the House Government Reform subcommittee on the District Wednesday.

The congresswomen says the policy statement was not good enough because it would not be legally binding on such matters as who can see the surveillance tapes and how long they will be stored. The two promised hearings on the matter after the holiday.

-- Is it acceptable for Park Police to use camera surveillance to watch over citizens peaceably assembling on the National Mall?

-- Would you feel more safe or would you feel your privacy was violated if surveillance cameras monitored most public places?

BRITISH NATIONAL ID CARD PROPOSED

The British government is considering controversial proposals to introduce compulsory identity cards for the first time since World War II to combat illegal immigration and to clamp down on benefit fraud.

Home Secretary David Blunkett told Parliament he envisioned a universal entitlement card everyone in Britain would register for to gain rights to social services, benefits and employment. Blunkett says he is launching a six-month consultative exercise to gauge public reaction.

A source in Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said, "We wouldn't be putting the idea forward if we did not think there was a positive reason to look at it."

The home secretary has been working on a national identity card ever since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington but says national security should not be the sole reason for issuing such cards.

Britain introduced compulsory ID cards as a security measure during World War II but they were axed in 1952 after a judge questioned their value in peacetime.

The national ID card is seen as a major weapon in the British government's battle against illegal immigration via Europe, most notably through the underwater Channel Tunnel rail link from France.

-- Would Americans accept a national ID card?

-- Should a U.S. national ID card be used for those accepting government social services?

(Thanks to UPI's AL Webb)