Arizona's tough new immigration law. Maria Guinand conducts Venezuela's La Schola Catorum as part of the LA Phil's Americas and Americans Festival. Offensive South Park episode raises questions of free speech. Later, are all religions ultimately the same?
What's next for Arizona's controversial immigration law?
Now that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has signed SB 1070 into law, the action will move to the courts. MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund, condemned the aggressive anti-immigrant bill as unconstitutional and vowed to pursue all legal avenues to challenge it. The measure, authored by State Senator Russell Pearce, puts cops on the frontline of immigration enforcement, by requiring them to ask anyone they suspect of being undocumented to show proof of immigration status. Will Arizona’s new immigration mandate stand? What will its passage mean for the national immigration reform debate?
Guests:
Joe Arpaio, Maricopa County Sheriff
Tom Saenz, President and General Counsel, MALDEF
Russell Pearce, Arizona State Senator, and author of immigration bill SB1070
Alfredo Gutierrez, former Arizona State Senator (from 1972-1986), and editor of La Frontera Times.com, which advocates for immigration reform
LA Phil's Americas and Americans Festival celebrates the music of Venezuela
Maria Guinand joins Larry to talk about the Schola Cantorum, one of the most important choral societies belonging to the growing choral movement in Venezuela. Schola Cantorum performs as part of Gustavo Dudamel's Americas LA Phil Festival. This three-part a capella program includes sacred, secular and popular music of South America, Venezuelan madrigals, and choral songs.
Guest:
Maria Guinand, conductor of Schola Cantorum of Venezuela. She leads the chorus in a three-part a capella program tonight at 7:30 at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica as part of the Americas and Americans Festival
South Park episode challenges the right to offend
After a recent episode of South Park depicted the Prophet Muhammad in a bear costume, last week Comedy Central censored the cartoon show's follow-up episode by bleeping out all mentions of the prophet and obscuring his body with a black box. The cable channel was responding to outcry from Muslim groups, as physical depictions of Muhammad are considered blasphemous in Islam. In the past, South Park has offended other groups including Christians, Jews, and Scientologists, but was not censored. Was the network right to censor the show in this instance?
Why religions are not the same and why it matters
Religious thinkers like Gandhi and the Dalai Lama have said that all religions are different paths to the same God. But scholar Stephen Prothero says that the world's religions aim at very different goals, and to claim they are all the same is foolish. In his book God Is Not One, Prothero details the unique beliefs and histories of eight global religious traditions, and explains why they matter politically and socially.
Guest:
Stephen Prothero, author of God Is Not One: Eight Rival Religions That Run the World- and Why Their Differences Matter (HarperOne). He is a professor of religion at Boston University, whose other books include the bestselling "Religious Literacy"