In Brief
In Brief

Saturday, June 10, 2006

In Poll, Most Muslim Women Play Down Gender Inequality

Muslim women should be allowed to vote, drive and work outside the home, but gender inequality is not a primary problem, a majority of Muslim women said in a new Gallup poll.

The 2005 poll, released Tuesday, questioned 8,000 women about their perceptions of life in Muslim and Western countries. Women were polled in Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

A majority said women should be allowed to vote, ranging from 68 percent in Pakistan to 95 percent in Egypt. A majority also said women should be allowed to work at any job they are qualified for, serve in high levels of government and drive unaccompanied. Most of these countries allow women to conduct these activities, said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

A vast majority of Muslim women surveyed most admired their society's adherence to Islamic values.

Those sampled said lack of unity, extremism and political corruption were the main problems with their societies. Inequality between the sexes, criticized by many in the West, barely registered with Muslim women. No more than 2 percent of women in Egypt and Morocco said it was an issue. In the more-westernized countries of Lebanon and Turkey, 11 percent said gender inequality was a problem.

The survey was conducted in the women's homes, in rural and urban areas, between August and October.

-- Religion News Service

United Methodists to Confront Gay Issues at 2008 Conference

The United Methodist Church is facing a showdown on gay-policy decisions in 2008, similar to those that the Episcopal Church and Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will be dealing with in coming weeks.

That is because the annual meeting of Minnesota Methodists approved several petitions to the denomination's next general conference that endorse openly gay clergy and same-sex marriage.

The closest vote, 358 to 356, backed a proposal to define marriage as between "two adult persons" rather than "a man and a woman" and cease supporting civil laws that require heterosexual definitions of marriage.

A separate bill encouraged secular laws to "ensure full civil and economic rights for persons in civil unions and marriages without regard to the gender of the partners."

Other measures would delete a Methodist rule that bars "self-avowed practicing homosexual" clergy and prohibits church blessings for homosexual unions, and would delete a policy statement that homosexual practice is incompatible with Christian teaching.

Each quadrennial Methodist conference since 1972 has debated gay issues.

-- Associated Press

Mission Study Identifies 'Least-Reached' People

Research released Tuesday by Mission Aviation Fellowship analyzes 364 isolated areas whose inhabitants are considered the hardest to reach for evangelistic work and social services.

Of the world's 20 "least-reached" ethnic groups, 15 were in Asia, including five each in Afghanistan (Hazara, Pashtun, Tajik, Turkman, Uzbek) and China (Han, Han-Gan, Kham, Salar, Tu) and two in Nepal (Magar, Rai). Other groups were located in Djibouti, Guinea, India, Iraq, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Pakistan.

A broader index of the most difficult areas for Christian missionaries to reach showed 173 in Africa, 97 in Latin America and 94 in Asia. In all, two-thirds of the regions had little or no Christian ministry in place.

The Operation Access report had been in preparation since 2000. It focuses on "pockets of people who are either forgotten or unreached" and on the problems that "prevent or impede peoples' access to the Gospel," such as inaccessible locations, language barriers, economic factors, laws and religious opposition. It also lists any Christian agencies with contacts in each area.

The Protestant fellowship provides 40,000 flights a year, as well as communications and other support for missionaries and nongovernment organizations in remote areas. It conducted the study to set its own plans for the next 15 to 20 years and help other evangelical groups with strategy.

-- Religion News Service