Nov 27^th

Chicago is in turmoil; protesters are parading down the Magnificent Mile. This will limit the enthusiasm of shoppers on this Black Friday and that might upset the business community. The protest is the result of a video of a policeman shooting Loquan McDonald, a black teen aged kid waving a three inch pen knife. He was shot sixteen times in fifteen seconds. A large part of the issue here is why it took the Chicago cops 400 days to release this video. Could it have been a desire to avoid a problem for Mayor Rahm Emanuel who had to deal with re-election during that time? It’s true that the victim had PCP in his system and that he had used his knife to slash a police cruiser’s tire but it appears that we once again, as in Ferguson Missouri, have a cop who panicked. At least this time the officer who did the shooting is in jail on a second degree murder charge.

We have no idea how this will play out. The cop’s attorney, as usual, claims that the video doesn’t show everything and, of course the cop was in fear of his life. This same cop had had many previous complaints lodged against him but all were dismissed. Again, the union attorney earned his money.

 

On another matter: Texas seems to have a problem with religious freedom. Ted Cruz, the junior Senator from Texas is a strong supporter of religious freedom, but apparently only for Christians. He wants very much to exclude all non-Christian Syrian refugees from entering this country. His curious notion of religious freedom allows those of a fundamentalist persuasion to refuse to accept perfectly legal actions of their fellow citizens on the grounds of religious freedom. Thus, if you are opposed to gay marriage you can, by appealing to religious freedom, refuse to rent to a gay couple. It wasn’t all that long ago that religion was used to justify segregation and before that to justify slavery.

Now Texas has a problem: their insistence on religious freedom has come full circle. Governor Greg Abbott has instructed the state’s Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) to require all state agencies and volunteer community groups to stop any plans they might have underway to settle Syrian refugees.

This edict does not sit at all well with the Catholic Charities of Dallas. This group has said, “We are called by the Gospel to reach out to all those in need. Catholic Charities of Dallas will continue to serve all refugees.” Many other religious communities feel exactly the same way and have said so. So if religious freedom doesn’t necessarily mean supporting a conservative agenda will Cruz and his friends still support it?