Who's behind 'religious freedom' push? The answer is hard to find

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Arizona's divisive SB1026 -- which supporters claim protected religious freedom, and critics say served as cover for businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians -- didn't come from nowhere.

It took time to hash out among both state lawmakers and interest groups. In this case, advocates from the Arizona Center for Policy and Alliance Defending Freedom -- whose website says it "coordinates legal efforts (for) Christian legal and policy organizations" all across the United States and in 31 countries -- were among those who played a part in crafting the legislation.

But from where, or from whom, did the impetus come? And who paid for the Arizona push and similar ones in a host of other states?

America may never know.

The reason has to do partly with the often collaborative, coordinated way that legislation takes shape. Numerous players inside and outside government, and based inside and outside of Arizona, helped make it happen. Some of them spoke publicly; others worked behind the scenes.

Plus, it takes money to coordinate and spread such a message and legislative proposals nationwide. Good luck tracking such funds, given the ways that groups -- known as 501c4s -- can pop up overnight, spend money on causes and campaigns (without disclosing their donors), then disappear.

"Because there are holes in the disclosure regime," said Ian Vandewalker from New York University law school's Brennan Center for Justice, "there are things that we just don't know."

Efforts under way in at least 14 states

Other states have proposed legislation aimed at protecting what their authors call "religious freedom." Some essentially use identical language.

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Who's behind 'religious freedom' push? The answer is hard to find

Who's behind 'religious freedom' push?

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Arizona's divisive SB1026 -- which supporters claim protected religious freedom, and critics say served as cover for businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians -- didn't come from nowhere.

It took time to hash out among both state lawmakers and interest groups. In this case, advocates from the Arizona Center for Policy and Alliance Defending Freedom -- whose website says it "coordinates legal efforts (for) Christian legal and policy organizations" all across the United States and in 31 countries -- were among those who played a part in crafting the legislation.

But from where, or from whom, did the impetus come? And who paid for the Arizona push and similar ones in a host of other states?

America may never know.

The reason has to do partly with the often collaborative, coordinated way that legislation takes shape. Numerous players inside and outside government, and based inside and outside of Arizona, helped make it happen. Some of them spoke publicly; others worked behind the scenes.

Plus, it takes money to coordinate and spread such a message and legislative proposals nationwide. Good luck tracking such funds, given the ways that groups -- known as 501c4s -- can pop up overnight, spend money on causes and campaigns (without disclosing their donors), then disappear.

"Because there are holes in the disclosure regime," said Ian Vandewalker from New York University law school's Brennan Center for Justice, "there are things that we just don't know."

Efforts under way in at least 14 states

Other states have proposed legislation aimed at protecting what their authors call "religious freedom." Some essentially use identical language.

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Who's behind 'religious freedom' push?

A fresh look at Freedom Wall

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(Editor's note: The current episode of Curious City's podcast includes the interview portion of this story about Freedom Wall. That interview begins at 4 minutes, 55 seconds. Also, we're taking your suggestions about who should be included in a contemporary, digital Freedom Wall.)

If you ride the Brown Line or the Purple Line through Chicagos River North neighborhood, youve probably seen this list of names. Its on the side of a brick building on Huron Street, where the Nacional 27 restaurant is located. The black banner stretches 72 feet high. Martin Luther King is at the top. Farther down, youll see Harriet Tubman, the Dalai Lama, Frank Zappa, Ayn Rand and more.

Dominique Lewis caught glimpses of those 69 names in white letters as well as one mysterious blank line as she rode the Purple Line to work every day. I thought, Thats weird. Why is Rush Limbaugh on a list with Martin Luther King Jr.? she says. So she asked Curious City to investigate the list's history and whether there's a common theme that connects those names.

Well, its called Freedom Wall, and all of the names represent freedom ... or someones idea of freedom, anyway. The artist who created it Adam Brooks, a Columbia College professor who grew up in London says he didnt have a partisan political agenda when he put up the list 20 years ago this August. In fact, he went out of his way to include conservative as well as liberal opinions about who represents freedom. And he avoided spelling out the word freedom on the banner because he wanted to make people think. He certainly got Lewis thinking.

Brooks acknowledges that Freedom Wall prompts some people to ask, Wait, thats supposed to be art? But he appears to have very little ego about his artwork, not even bothering to sign it. Brooks is trying to engage the public with his public art, not to dazzle people with his artistic prowess.

We invited Brooks to the WBEZ studios to discuss Freedom Wall. Lewis joined us for the conversation and added some questions of her own. Heres an edited transcript of our discussion.

Why did you create Freedom Wall?

Brooks: In 1992 and the lead-up to the presidential election that year, I heard the candidates really ramping up the idea of freedom. Of course, whos going to be against freedom? America is the land of the free. I was interested in exploring that word a little bit further.

Why did you seek other peoples opinions?

Brooks: It wouldve been very easy for me to sit down and draw up a list of names of people that I felt embodied the idea of freedom, but that wouldve been rather boring. And so what I did was essentially ask the question, Give me the names of up to three people that you feel embody the concept of freedom, whatever that means to you.

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A fresh look at Freedom Wall

Arizona veto likely to chill other religious freedom bills

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The uproar over the religious freedom bill vetoed Wednesday by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is expected to have a chilling effect on the handful of similar bills making their way through other state legislatures.

Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union said they were cheered by the veto during a telephone press briefing Thursday, calling it a thrilling day for equality, but said that theyre keeping an eye on bills in other states, including Georgia, Mississippi and Missouri.

SEE ALSO: Rush Limbaugh: Arizonas Jan Brewers bullied by the homosexual lobby

These proposals would create a license to discriminate, said Rose Saxe, senior staff attorney with the ACLUs LGBT Project. A significant majority of them are not about cakes and wedding services, as the other side would have us think, but are actually about all aspects of LGBT peoples lives.

At least seven other states have seen similar bills either killed or withdrawn this year. The most prominent was a Kansas bill that would have allowed business owners to refuse service to customers based on their religious beliefs, which stalled in the state Senate after a similar outcry from gay rights groups.

Many of those defeats, culminating in the Arizona veto, came after gay rights groups successfully defined the bills as pro-discrimination, declaring they would allow businesses to return to the days of Jim Crow laws in the South. The bill was also vociferously opposed by the states leading business groups and corporations.

Proponents of the measures insisted that the bills would do nothing of the sort. The measures were originally proposed to protect business owners from being forced to violate their religious beliefs by catering to gay weddings or risk losing their licenses.

Joe La Rue, legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom in Scottsdale, said that argument has been largely drowned out by the media outcry.

[W]hen they started talking about, This bill is going to turn us back to the days of Jim Crow, and youre going to have people kicked out of restaurants, and youre going to have people dying in the streets because doctors wont treat them nobody wants that, said Mr. La Rue. Frankly, the supporters of the bill dont want that, and they would never do that.

Once that message took root, however, the bill was doomed, he said.

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Arizona veto likely to chill other religious freedom bills

FDA considers 3-parent embryos

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By Matt Smith, CNN

updated 7:06 PM EST, Thu February 27, 2014

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- A promising way to stop a deadly disease, or an uncomfortable step toward what one leading ethicist called eugenics?

U.S. health officials are weighing whether to approve trials of a pioneering in vitro fertilization technique using DNA from three people in an attempt to prevent illnesses like muscular dystrophy and respiratory problems. The proposed treatment would allow a woman to have a baby without passing on diseases of the mitochondria, the "powerhouses" that drive cells.

The procedure is "not without its risks, but it's treating a disease," medical ethicist Art Caplan told CNN's "New Day" on Wednesday. Preventing a disease that can be passed down for generations would be ethical "as long as it proves to be safe," he said.

"These little embryos, these are people born with a disease, they can't make power. You're giving them a new battery. That's a therapy. I think that's a humane ethical thing to do," said Caplan, the director of medical ethics at New York University's Langone Medical Center.

"Where we get into the sticky part is, what if you get past transplanting batteries and start to say, 'While we're at it, why don't we make you taller, stronger, faster or smarter?' "

But Susan Solomon, the director of the New York Stem Cell Foundation, said there are no changes to existing genes involved.

"There is no genetic engineering. It isn't a slippery slope. It's a way to allow these families to have healthy children," said Solomon, whose organization developed the technique along with Columbia University researchers.

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FDA considers 3-parent embryos

FDA considering 3-parent embryos

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By Matt Smith, CNN

updated 7:06 PM EST, Thu February 27, 2014

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- A promising way to stop a deadly disease, or an uncomfortable step toward what one leading ethicist called eugenics?

U.S. health officials are weighing whether to approve trials of a pioneering in vitro fertilization technique using DNA from three people in an attempt to prevent illnesses like muscular dystrophy and respiratory problems. The proposed treatment would allow a woman to have a baby without passing on diseases of the mitochondria, the "powerhouses" that drive cells.

The procedure is "not without its risks, but it's treating a disease," medical ethicist Art Caplan told CNN's "New Day" on Wednesday. Preventing a disease that can be passed down for generations would be ethical "as long as it proves to be safe," he said.

"These little embryos, these are people born with a disease, they can't make power. You're giving them a new battery. That's a therapy. I think that's a humane ethical thing to do," said Caplan, the director of medical ethics at New York University's Langone Medical Center.

"Where we get into the sticky part is, what if you get past transplanting batteries and start to say, 'While we're at it, why don't we make you taller, stronger, faster or smarter?' "

But Susan Solomon, the director of the New York Stem Cell Foundation, said there are no changes to existing genes involved.

"There is no genetic engineering. It isn't a slippery slope. It's a way to allow these families to have healthy children," said Solomon, whose organization developed the technique along with Columbia University researchers.

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FDA considering 3-parent embryos

Petition objects to British IVF plans for three-parent babies

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Genetic fix: scientists hope that mothers at risk of giving their children hereditary illnesses could have healthy children as a result of the controversial technique. Photo: AP

London: Allowing the creation of babies with DNA from three biological parents in Britain is "incompatible with human dignity" and tantamount to eugenics, members of the Council of Europe have claimed.

A group of 34 European politicians, including eight British MPs and peers, has signed a declaration attacking plans which will make Britain the first country in the world to permit the new IVF technique.

Under legislation being drawn up by ministers, the treatment will be offered to a handful of parents at high risk of having children with conditions such as muscular dystrophy, as early as next year.

The therapy can dramatically reduce the risk of children inheriting disorders of the heart, brain and muscle which are caused by faults in the mothers mitochondria, structures which supply power to cells.

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But it has proved controversial because it involves substituting a small fraction of the mothers damaged DNA with that of a healthy female donor.

Because the swap takes place at the germ line, the third partys DNA would not only be passed on to the child, but also to any future generations down the female line.

The therapy was recommended to government by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) earlier this year after a public consultation revealed general support.

Doctors developing the treatment have emphasised that the DNA in question lies outside the nucleus of the cell and will have no bearing on the childs personality or appearance.

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Petition objects to British IVF plans for three-parent babies

Mazarrn beaches and Cartagena canons promo filmed and edited by VisioAero.com – Video

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Mazarrn beaches and Cartagena canons promo filmed and edited by VisioAero.com
Take a look at the magnificent beaches of Mazarrn starting with the Cartagena canons, all the way down past Bolnuevo, enjoy! Filmed and edited by VisioAero.

By: Ben Van Nimmen

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Mazarrn beaches and Cartagena canons promo filmed and edited by VisioAero.com - Video