By Rod Dreher. The New York Post. April 21, 2000
WHAT did the Cuban exiles gathered outside Elian Gonzalez's Miami home do when the good news came down from the 11th Circuit Court panel?
They prayed. They sang hymns. They thanked God.
In public.
That kind of thing could get them thrown in jail in Cuba.
Maybe you're observing Good Friday in your own chosen way today, or have been celebrating Passover as you see fit. Congratulations, amigo, on not being in Cuba.
In the ruling, the judges clearly saw what eludes most Americans: that this case is not simply a matter of a father who wants his son back. Other rights must be considered before final adjudication of Elian's status.
Among them is the boy's right to worship freely - something that would be denied him under Castro.
According to a forthcoming study of religious rights around the globe from the independent monitoring group Freedom House, no regime in the Americas has been as vicious toward religion as revolutionary Cuba.
Should Elian be sent back to Cuba, he will be indoctrinated in state-sponsored atheism, and taught to view Christians with suspicion and scorn. If he should later choose to practice the Christian faith in a way disapproved of by Castro's government, he could face daunting persecution.
Christianity is growing in Cuba, in part because the regime loosened restrictions a bit after the 1998 papal visit. But Human Rights Watch's most recent report said, "the government still maintain[s] tight control on religious institutions, affiliated groups, and individual believers."
Attending a non-approved Bible study with three or more people in a private house could land Elian in jail.
The residence could be confiscated, as happened to a Baptist congregation in 1998, whose church was grabbed by the government and turned over to the local Union of Young Communists.
Elian could be denied education and job opportunities, and would risk constant monitoring and harassment. The U.S. State Department's 1999 human-rights report says Cuba "systematically discriminate[s] and marginalize[s] persons who openly profess their faith."
If his faith motivated him to stand up for the oppressed, he could face the same fate as Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet.
Biscet, a Catholic human-rights activist, was arrested two years ago on his way to a peaceful gathering marking the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
He was punched in the face by a policeman, and when he told the cop "God loves you," another officer put out a lighted cigarette on his elbow.
Should Elian be imprisoned for practicing his religion, he could be held before trial with convicted criminals. Some of these thugs are prodded by prison officials to rape prisoners of conscience, report independent human-rights organizations.
Don't be misled by the sanctimonious cover the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell and her National Council of Churches colleagues have been giving Castro in this matter. The NCC is untrustworthy when it comes to communist persecution of religion.
Says Freedom House's Nina Shea: "The NCC has always taken a consistent position on behalf of religious persecutors."
The NCC Web site says the organization "would never work to repatriate a child who would face persecution on his or her return." Elian is in no danger of this, it says.
Maybe not now, but only because Castro plans to make him a privileged poster child for totalitarianism. And if adult Elian ever chose to exercise the same rights NCC member churches here take for granted, he'd be at best an outcast.
Campbell tires of people who point out such things.
"Religious persecution must not become a recurring issue in [U.S.] politics," she said while visiting China, a notoriously grim place for believers of all faiths. The NCC, which she led until her retirement in December, blames America for creating conditions that forced Elian's mother
to flee.
Ignore these fools.
Many Miami Cubans know from experience how soul-killing life is under the bearded Pharaoh of the Caribbean. How dare the rest of us Americans, whose country was founded upon the principle of religious freedom, ignore their testimony.
e-mail: dreher@nypost.com
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