An Article..

[Guest guest]

Pranam. An article Iread at another group. Pls read and also ur comments, pls.

 

With Love

 

Shankaree

 

*American Hindu couple face religious intolerance

**[ Sunday, January 15, 2006 **09:27:48 am** **IANS ]*

 

 

 

 

 

NEW YORK: An American Hindu couple in a village near New York is fighting

for their religious rights over treatment of cows on their farm.

 

Linda and Stephen Voith, followers of the Hindu bhakti tradition, made

Angelica, the picturesque village in western New York, their home, intending

to follow a Brahmanical way of life, protecting the cows they owned and

treating them as they would fellow humans.

 

However, their neighbours, finding this a ludicrous situation, decided the

cows wouldn't stay.

 

The family's attorney, Ross Scott, told IANS that the Voiths were denied due

process and their right to a fair trial in 2003 when the state Supreme Court

Judge Michael Nenno refused to allow them a first amendment defence and

dismissed the family's claims that the village deprived them of religious

rights. The judge did not allow even a mention of the word religion at the

hearing.

 

"The village of Angelica has no objection when the Amish (a religious sect)

are going through the town on their buggies or tying up their horses and

stopping, but the Voiths were harassed for their oxen cart crossing a

10-foot lane," said Scott.

 

 

 

Local law says that if "your property comprises 10 acres or more, you can

have as many farm animals as you like". Scott stands as pro bono lawyer

since he believes that the values that he had helped to defend from foreign

enemies were at risk within home.

 

For the Voiths, this is a battle for their religious rights, not just a

reassertion of their compliance with local laws.

 

Believing their practice was only meant to show a "humane, responsible

example of cow protection", Steven Voith said, "The village allows a beef

farm to operate right across the street from our home. If they allow cows

for secular reasons within the village, they should allow religiously

revered cows too."

 

Incidentally, the village had been a contentious battlefield even earlier

for religious groups such as the Amish, the Mormons and the Jehovah

Witnesses.

 

 

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1372522,curpg-2.cms

 

 

 

Let my every word be a prayer to Thee,

Every movement of my hands a ritual gesture to Thee,

Every step I take a circumambulation of Thy image,

Every morsel I eat a rite of sacrifice to Thee,

Every time I lay down a prostration at Thy feet;

Every act of personal pleasure and all else that I do,

Let it all be a form of worshiping Thee."

>From Verse 27 of Shri Aadi Shankara's Saundaryalahari

 

 

 

 

CarsNEW - sell your car and browse thousands of new and used cars online

search now