SCITUATE NO-HATE PROGRAM MAY BE DROPPED
By Jennifer Mann
The Patriot Ledger, MA
Sept 26 2007
SCITUATE – A Scituate selectman has called for the town to withdraw
from the Anti-Defamation League’s No Place for Hate program because
of the group’s position on the Armenian genocide.
If a majority of the selectmen agree, Scituate will become the latest
local community to pull out of the No Place program to rebuke the
ADL, which has not explicitly denounced as genocide the killing of
1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks. That killing began during
World War I.
Last week, Newton became the fourth Massachusetts community to sever
ties with the league.
Scituate Selectman John Danehey raised the issue during the selectmen’s
meeting Tuesday night. Because it was not an agenda item, selectmen
limited the discussion and decided to vote on the matter in two weeks.
Danehey, whose children are part-Armenian and whose wife’s Armenian
grandmother survived the genocide, said sending a message was
important.
Scituate joined the No Place for Hate program within the last two
years. The program asks local communities to take steps against hate
crimes and bias.
"I’m not saying we should not have a No Place for Hate program,
but I think we should continue it in our own way," Danehey said.
Armenian leaders have called on communities to separate themselves
from the ADL until the organization recognizes the mass killings.
Under mounting public pressure in recent weeks, the league’s
national director, Abraham Foxman, called the massacre "tantamount
to genocide." The group stopped short of endorsing a congressional
resolution calling it genocide.