SELECTMEN TO CONSIDER LEAVING ADL PROGRAM
Ryan Bray
Scituate Mariner, MA
rnment/x698776074
Oct 3 2007
There’s no place for hate in Scituate, but selectmen are having doubts
about the town’s association with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Selectman John Danehey asked his fellow board members last week if
they would support a motion to break its ties with the league, citing
the organization’s reluctance to acknowledge the Armenian genocide
as an official act of genocide.
"My understanding is they saw it as being tantamount to genocide,"
Danehey told selectmen.
>From 1915 to 1917, more than 1 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
were killed under the rule of the Ottoman Turks in what became known
as the Armenian genocide. According to a BBC News report in 2006,
21 countries worldwide have recognized the killings as genocide.
Danehey, whose wife and children are part-Armenian, said he has trouble
standing behind the ADL if it chooses not to acknowledge the genocide,
and asked for support from his fellow selectmen to remove the town
of Scituate from the league’s "No Place for Hate" program.
"It’s insulting," Danehey said. "They should be more open-minded."
Other selectmen shared Danehey’s frustration and spoke in support of
the potential for leaving the program.
"I just don’t see the logic," Selectman Paul Reidy said.
According to the ADL charter, the goal of the League is to "secure
justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end
forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of
any sect or body of citizens."
Selectmen said they would bring the issue up for discussion at their
meeting Oct. 9. If selectmen choose to support Danehey’s motion to
sever ties with the league, Scituate would be the fourth town in
the state to break away from the ADL, following Newton, Watertown
and Belmont.