AFA says it's OK to order a Big Mac. The American Family Association has dropped its boycott of McDonald's after learning a representative of the restaurant chain no longer serves on the board of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. The Mississippi-based conservative Christian organization called for the boycott last May. William Whitman, a vice president of McDonald's, said Richard Ellis, a former McDonald's USA vice president, “made a personal decision to step down” from the board of the Washington-based gay organization after accepting a position with the Canadian branch of the restaurant chain. In a statement announcing the end of its boycott, the AFA said Ellis' seat on the board would not be taken by another McDonald's representative and said the company did not have plans to renew its membership, which expires in December. A representative of McDonald's did not immediately respond to a request to confirm AFA's understanding of its future role with the chamber.
Court declines case about Bible reading in jury room. The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from a Texas death row inmate who says a jury foreman improperly read the Bible to fellow jurors during deliberations. The justices declined to comment on the appeal, letting stand the death sentence of Jimmie Lucero of Amarillo, who was convicted of murdering three neighbors in 2003. During the penalty phase of Lucero's trial in 2005, the jury foreman read a passage from Romans 13, in which St. Paul writes that a servant of God is “an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” Lucero's lawyers argued the Bible reading violated his Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals called the Bible reading a “harmless error.” Lower courts have been split on whether introducing the Bible into jury deliberations violates a defendant's constitutional rights.
b>Religious leaders urge civility in campaign. In the final days of the presidential campaign, two top U.S. faith leaders are calling Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain to return to civility. Gregory Palmer, president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, and Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, sent open statements to McCain and Obama urging a “focus on the critical challenges that threaten the future of our nation and the world.”
Rastafarian files suit against UPS. After being hired as a driver for UPS Freight, Nieland Bynoe, a Rastafarian, attended an orientation meeting last year and was told he would have to shave his beard and cut off his dreadlocks to comply with the company's grooming policy. Bynoe told company officials the next day that he was prohibited by his religion from doing what the company asked and requested some accommodation, but the company immediately fired him, according to a recent lawsuit filed on his behalf by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. UPS Freight officials did not return repeated calls for comment. A federal judge is being asked to settle the dispute.
Compiled from Religion News Service