I am an independent film maker. I am planning a documentary exposing the ACLU’s actions and how they contradict the constitution and their plan to abolish religion as we know it. There action for all intents and purposes is the true violation of our inalienable rights.

I am looking for assistance from legal experts willing to help with the project.

ACLU Religious case media articles

Judge: Holiday display O-K, but mayor's oversight hinders free speech (ACLU Loses)
AP Wires | 11-16-2004 | AP Wire

Posted on 11/16/2004 11:16:12 AM CST by Thanatos

Judge: Holiday display O-K, but mayor's oversight hinders free speech

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- A federal judge says a holiday display in Rhode Island didn't violate the constitutional separation of church and state. But the restrictions the mayor put on it did hinder free speech. The ruling involves a display on the front of City Hall in Cranston last year. Mayor Stephen Laffey had encouraged residents to put up seasonal displays as long as he deemed them appropriate. What resulted was a display with a menorah, an inflatable snowman and Santa Claus, a Nativity scene and a flock of plastic flamingos wearing Santa hats. The American Civil Liberties Union claimed the display violated the First Amendment. A judge yesterday declared the display O-K on religious grounds, but said the mayor's oversight amounted to a restriction on free speech.

ACLU loses Christmas case: City hall can have religious displays...
WorldNetDaily.com ^ | 11/16/04 | WorldNetDaily.com

Posted on 11/16/2004 12:55:00 AM CST by coffeebreak

The Constitution allows a Rhode Island city to have private religious holiday displays on its front lawn, a federal judge ruled yesterday in a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

"The ACLU long ago decided it wanted to be Uncle Scrooge and expend its energies saying 'bah humbug' to public Christmas displays, but they are out of touch with the 96 percent of Americans that celebrate Christmas," said Gary McCaleb, senior counsel for the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund.

McCaleb said the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island "ruled consistently with the law," noting that "time after time the courts have ruled such displays to be perfectly constitutional."

The ACLU claimed the city of Cranston, R.I., erected religious displays along with secular displays in violation of the so-called "separation of church and state."

But the court said the city can continue to open such forums to the public as long as it revises its policy to establish objective criteria for allowing the public to set up the holiday displays.

In his opinion, Judge William Smith wrote that nothing in the city’s public statements or in its implementation of the policy for its Christmas displays "reveals or even remotely supports an inference that a religious purpose was behind the creation of the limited public forum," as the lawsuit alleged.

The case centered on Cranston's 2003 opening of its city hall front lawn to private "seasonal and holiday displays," which resulted in various citizens making contributions, both religious and secular.

The city clearly posted disclaimers stating, "The public displays are strictly from private citizens or groups. They in no way represent an official view of the City of Cranston, nor are they endorsed by the city."

The Alliance Defense Fund has a "Christmas Project" featuring more than 700 trained attorneys "ready to combat continuing efforts to censor Christmas."

PENTAGON AGREES TO WARN BASES AGAINST SPONSORING BOY SCOUT TROOPS
KSDK ^ | 11/15/04

Posted on 11/15/2004 2:58:49 PM CST by areafiftyone

CHICAGO (AP) -- The U.S. Defense Department has agreed to warn military bases worldwide that they shouldn't directly sponsor Boy Scout troops.

The settlement announced in Chicago Monday partly resolves claims that the government has improperly supported a group that requires members to believe in God.

Still to be settled by U.S. District Judge Blanche Manning, though, is whether the government can continue to allocate some money for the benefit of the Boy Scouts.

Monday's settlement came in a five-year-old lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.

The Pentagon says it has long had a rule against sponsoring non-federal organizations.

But the ACLU has copies of Boy Scout charters granted to the U.S. Transportation Command at Scott Air Force Base near Belleville and other units.

Court challenge begins in Georgia on evolution
AP ^ | Nov. 7, 2004

Posted on 11/07/2004 5:16:34 PM CST by Ahriman

School officials in suburban Cobb County go to court Monday to defend themselves against a lawsuit accusing the district of promoting religion by requiring that science textbooks warn students evolution is "a theory, not a fact."

The trial in U.S. District Court is expected to last four days.

The lawsuit argues that the disclaimer restricts the teaching of evolution, promotes the teaching of creationism and discriminates against particular religions.

County school officials said their warning, in the form of stickers inserted in science books, simply encourages students to keep an open mind.

The stickers read: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."

The lawsuit was filed by six parents and the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

"I'm a strong advocate for the separation of church and state," said one of the parents, Jeffrey Selman. "I have no problem with anybody's religious beliefs. I just want an adequate educational system."

Monson Vote Ends Prayers at[Municipal]Meetings(Small Maine Town Can't Afford MCLU Lawsuit)
BangorDailyNews ^ | September 21, 2004 | Diana Bowley

Posted on 09/23/2004 11:17:31 PM CDT by fight_truth_decay

Maine Civil Liberties Union prompts council's change

MONSON - It has long been a tradition in March for residents in this small Piscataquis County town to bow their heads in prayer before they act on the town's budget for the year. That tradition is no longer. Monson selectmen voted last week to discontinue the practice of including prayer in municipal meetings. The move was prompted by a request from the Maine Civil Liberties Union for the town to cease including sectarian prayer in its public meetings.

The MCLU said it had received complaints from Monson residents who felt discouraged from attending and participating in their town meeting because of overtly sectarian references to "Jesus Christ" and "God, the Father."

Monson selectmen "lamented a long time" over the issue in executive session last week before they decided to stop the practice of prayer at the annual town meetings, Monson Town Manager Judy Doore said Monday.

The selectmen thought they were facing a lawsuit and discussed the opinions of their town attorney before voting, the town manager said."They [selectmen] felt they had an obligation to the folks who had historically enjoyed prayer," Doore said.

On the other hand, the board could not justify the expense of fighting the issue through a lawsuit, especially when the costs would be borne by those same folks, she said. It was not the intent of the town to offend anyone, she said.

The prayers usually are offered by local clergy, who use their own prayers.

The MCLU advised town officials in an Aug. 18 letter that official prayers that include references to the doctrines or deities of one particular faith or belief said at municipal public meetings are unconstitutional.

"When towns show a preference for particular religious denominations, it threatens the tradition of religious liberty that has played such an important role in this country since its founding," MCLU attorney Zachary Heiden said in a prepared press release issued Monday. "The constitution guarantees all Americans the right to be free from government endorsement of particular religions. This means that cities and towns cannot give particular religions an official role."

Monson is not the only Maine community that offers a prayer before government meetings. The Dexter Town Council opens its monthly meetings with a prayer given by local clergy.

"We're going to keep having a prayer until I'm directed not to do it again," Dexter Town Manager Robert Simpson said Monday. "In this day and age with all the issues we're dealing with, this seems rather insignificant."

In Guilford where prayers are conducted before the annual town meeting, Town Clerk Michelle Nichols said no one has ever challenged the activity in her community.

"This has always been a tradition in our town," she said.

The Maine House and Senate both open their sessions with prayer and invite clergy from all denominations to participate, said state Rep. James Annis, R-Dover-Foxcroft.

"I have not heard anyone express displeasure with the opening programs," he said Monday.

Asked Monday how the prayers said at municipal functions in Maine were any different from prayers said before the opening of U.S. Senate and U.S. Congress sessions, Heiden replied, "It's tough to say." His guess was that the prayers said at those sessions are not overtly sectarian.

MCLU volunteer attorney Angus Ferguson, who worked on the Monson case, wrote that the use of the words "Jesus" or "Allah" in an official prayer that opens a town meeting implies government preference or sponsorship of a particular religion, which is clearly prohibited by the U.S. and Maine constitutions.

ACLU Files Religious Liberty Lawsuit on Behalf of Native American Who Refuses to Cut Hair
aclu.org ^

Posted on 03/31/2004 9:01:45 PM CST by chance33_98

ACLU Files Religious Liberty Lawsuit on Behalf of Native American Who Refuses to Cut Hair

March 31, 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ADELANTO, CA -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California today filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a Native American inmate who has faced serious disciplinary sanctions -- including the loss of all visitation rights -- for his refusal to comply with a California Department of Corrections grooming policy requiring all male inmates to maintain hair no longer than three inches in length.

Billy Soza Warsoldier is a Cahuilla Native American whose religious beliefs prohibit him from cutting his hair except upon the death of a loved one.

"Punishing Warsoldier for practicing his religion is both unnecessary and illegal," said Ben Wizner, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California. "A prison inmate shouldn't have to choose between remaining faithful to his religion and maintaining contact with his children and grandchildren."

Warsoldier is currently incarcerated at the Adelanto Community Correctional Facility. Both the Cahuilla tribe and the federal government have recognized his status as a Cahuilla. According to Warsoldier's faith, his long hair embodies the strength and wisdom he has acquired over his lifetime, and he would lose that strength and wisdom, and jeopardize his status in the afterlife, if he were to cut it. Therefore, since 1971, Warsoldier has cut his hair only once, upon his father's death in 1980.

"I don't understand why I'm being punished for practicing my faith," said Warsoldier, who is serving time for a non-violent offense. "My tradition tells me that if I cut my hair, I may face taunting and ridicule from deceased members of my tribe. I would prefer to take the state's punishment than violate my faith."

As a result of his refusal to cut his hair, Warsoldier has lost visitation rights, has been removed from prison vocational courses, and is prohibited from receiving quarterly packages, among other sanctions.

The ACLU of Southern California and cooperating attorneys with the law firm of Bingham McCutchen are asking the court to prohibit prison officials from enforcing the grooming policy against Warsoldier. In addition, all disciplinary sanctions imposed on Warsoldier as a consequence of his non-compliance with the grooming policy should be rescinded.

"Bingham McCutchen has a long history of providing pro bono representation to California prison inmates in such areas as health care, disability accommodations, and systemic due process violations," said Nora Cregan, a partner in Bingham McCutchen's San Francisco office and chair of the firm’s pro bono committee.

"Warsoldier's case extends that commitment to the area of religious freedom, and we are proud to team with the ACLU to represent Warsoldier in his effort to vindicate his right to practice his religion," she added. "There is no reason why prison officials cannot accommodate Warsoldier's sincere religious beliefs that require him not to cut his hair."

ACLU Seeks Probe Into Prayer at School
Associated Press ^ | March 18, 2004 | Associated Press

Posted on 03/18/2004 9:20:53 PM CST by tomball

NEW ORLEANS -- A middle school principal has been told it was inappropriate to have teachers give students a prayer asking God to help vanquish their "enemies" -- the standardized tests they were about to take.

School officials will decide whether to reprimand Principal Paulette Walker after investigating her distribution of the prayer this year and another prayer notice to teachers last year, Assistant Superintendent Matt George said Thursday.

Because of the prayers, the American Civil Liberties Union called Thursday for an investigation of religion in district schools.

George said he met with Walker before hearing about the ACLU's statement. "The minute it was reported to us, we told her to stop," said George.

He supervises the district which includes Samuel J. Green Middle School, where the prayer was given out Monday with test booklets for two standardized tests.

Green is one of dozens of failing schools which could be taken over by the state unless scores improve significantly on two tests being taken this week. Fourth- and eighth-graders take the LEAP test, which can keep them from being promoted, and students in other grades take the nationally standardized Iowa Test.

The prayer, which had errors in grammar and punctuation, states: "I receive your help faith, knowing that through you I shall do valiantly, for you are the one who treads down my enemies.(LEAP, Iowa)".

Justice Department Intervenes on Behalf of Scouts Over Lease in San Diego Park
AP ^ | Mar. 4, 2004

Posted on 03/04/2004 10:52:26 PM CST by nuconvert

Justice Department Intervenes on Behalf of Scouts Over Lease in San Diego Park

Mar 4, 2004

By Seth Hettena / Associated Press Writer

SAN DIEGO (AP) - The government intervened Thursday on behalf of the Boy Scouts of America in a federal lawsuit over whether the Scouts should be evicted from a San Diego park because they discriminate against atheists and gays. The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division submitted a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the Scouts in a 4-year-old court fight over the Scouts' lease on Fiesta Island, a public park where the organization runs a youth aquatic center.

"Quite simply, the Boy Scouts of America is not a church, and canoeing, kayaking and swimming are not religious activities," said R. Alexander Acosta, assistant attorney general for the division. "Boy Scouts should not be prohibited from using public lands on an equal basis with other youth groups."

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Scouts' local council and the city of San Diego, contending the Scouts should be evicted.

"It is sadly ironic that the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice - which in the '50s and '60s fought on behalf of civil rights for African-Americans - has today come in on the side of an organization that proudly and openly discriminates against people on the basis of their religious non-belief or their sexual orientation," ACLU attorney M. Andrew Woodmansee said.

Both sides are scheduled to present arguments in the case next month.

A San Diego-area Boy Scouts spokeswoman, Merrilee Boyack, welcomed the government's intervention.

"They consider this a case of nationwide importance," Boyack said. "This is a case where a city government is trying to single out the Boy Scouts because we are a group of people that believe in God."

In January, the city agreed to pay the ACLU $950,000 in court costs and to ask a federal judge to void another park lease held by the Boy Scouts.

ACLU accuses Salvation Army of religious discrimination
World Net Daily ^ | Posted on 2/25/04 | LARRY NEUMEISTER

Posted on 02/26/2004 1:45:57 AM CST by PurVirgo

ACLU accuses Salvation Army of religious discrimination

By LARRY NEUMEISTER

Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK -- Current and former Salvation Army employees sued the organization famous for its red Christmas kettles Tuesday, alleging the government-funded group preached religious and sexual intolerance to its staff.

The workers accused the Salvation Army of creating a hostile work environment for about 600 employees who provide social services for more than 2,000 children in New York state.

The charitable organization required employees to pledge to preach the Gospel, to identify their church affiliation and to authorize their religious leaders to reveal private information to the Salvation Army, according to the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union's New York chapter.

The Salvation Army did not immediately return a telephone message for comment.

Martin Garbus, a lawyer for 18 plaintiffs, said the case exposes how President Bush's faith-based initiative program blurs the Constitutionally mandated separation of church and state.

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the Salvation Army may have a right promote its religion, but not with government money.

The organization receives $89 million, the bulk of its funding for child care, from the government.

One plaintiff, Margaret Geissman, said she quit her job as a human resources manager last year after she was harassed by her bosses for refusing to reveal staffers' religions and sexual orientations.

"As a Christian, I deeply resent the use of discriminatory employment practices in the name of Christianity," she said.

Another plaintiff, Mary Jane Dessables also said she objected to being forced to declare her religion.

"I feel it is my duty as a taxpayer to insist that the Salvation Army not be allowed to collect this information that may be used to discriminate against their employees," Dessables said. She is the management information systems director for the Salvation Army's Social Services for Children.

Garbus said the Salvation Army was requiring all employees to fill out statements revealing their religious histories by the end of February.

ACLU files Suit in TN to Kill Specialty License Plates over "Choose Life" Plate
LifeNews.com ^ | February 23, 2004 | Paul Nowak

Posted on 02/23/2004 6:09:30 PM CST by WildReeling

Nashville, TN (LifeNews.com) -- In an attempt to halt the sales of "Choose Life" specialty license plates, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit that would shut down the entire specialty plate program in Tennessee and cut off $11.5 million in funding to non-profit organizations statewide. Their actions have upset numerous nonprofit groups in the state whose plates, and the donations they generate, are possibly in jeopardy.

One of those organizations, the Tennessee Arts Commission, receives about $3.3 million annually from specialty plates, which accounts for three-quarters of its grant budget – money used to fund arts programs statewide.

"It would be devastating to the non-profit arts community in Tennessee," Rich Boyd, executive director of the Arts Commission told LifeNews.com. Boyd added that his organization appreciates the funding from the plates, as "no one makes anyone buy a plate," unlike state sales, income, or property taxes.

Other groups don't appreciate the pro-abortion lawsuit either.

"It is a shame they chose to include the entire system when they have an issue with one plate," added Jim Hart, executive director of Friends of Great Smokey Mountains National Park, an organization that could lose as much as $600,000 in annual funding. "[The lawsuit] punishes several organizations that benefit from the program."

Excerpted - click for full article ^
Source: http://www.lifenews.com/state397.html

When Blue States Attack
anncoulter.org ^ | 12/25/03 | metalboy

Posted on 12/25/2003 7:05:58 AM CST by metalboy
Edited on 12/25/2003 7:15:24 AM CST by Admin Moderator. [history]

UTTERING the standard liberal cliche a few years ago, Richard Reeves described "representatives of the new South" as "Republicans of old puritan definition, righteous folk afraid that someone, somewhere, is having fun." (I'll skip the context of Reeves' insight, except to note that apparently aging liberals view sodomy with a chubby intern in the back office as "having fun.")

Like all beliefs universally held by liberals, Reeves' aphorism is the precise opposite of the truth.

It's the blue states that are constantly sending lawyers to the red states to bother everyone. Americans in the red states look at a place like New York City – where, this year, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade featured a gay transvestite as Mrs. Claus – and say, Well, I guess some people like it, but it's not for me.

Meanwhile, liberals in New York and Washington are consumed with what people are doing in Alabama and Nebraska. Nadine Strossen and Barry Lynn cannot sleep at night knowing that someone, somewhere, is gazing upon something that could be construed as a religious symbol.

It's never Jerry Falwell flying to Manhattan to review high-school graduation speeches, or James Dobson making sure New York City schools give as much time to God as to Mother Earth, or Pat Robertson demanding a creche next to the schools' Kwanzaa displays. (Is it just me, or is Kwanzaa becoming way too commercialized?)

But when four schools in southern Ohio have displays of the Ten Commandments, sirens go off in Nadine Strossen's Upper West Side apartment. It will surprise no one to learn that the American Civil Liberties Union promptly sued and the schools are now Ten Commandments-free. (At least students in the Ten Commandments schools, as opposed to schools in New York, Washington and Los Angeles, might reasonably be expected to know how to count up to 10.)

From the Chelsea section of Manhattan, the gay, Bronx-born Puerto Rican executive director of the ACLU, Anthony Romero, tossed and turned all night thinking about the Ten Commandments display on the Elkhart, Ind., municipal building, which had been there, without incident, since 1958. The ACLU sued and the monument was hauled off.

In Ohio, Richland County Common Pleas Judge James DeWeese had a framed poster of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. The ACLU sued and the Ten Commandments came down. Compare that to the late New York judge Elliott Wilk, who famously displayed a portrait of communist revolutionary Che Guevara on his office wall. (Che, Castro, Hussein – evidently the only bearded revolutionary these people don't like is Jesus Christ.) And yet, no one from Ohio ever sued Wilk.

The ACLU got word of a Ten Commandments monument in a public park in Plattsmouth, Neb. (pop. 7,000), and immediately swooped in to demand that the offensive symbol be removed. Not being from New York, Plattsmouth didn't want to litigate. Soon cranes were in the park ripping out a monument that had sat there, not bothering anyone, for 40 years.

ACLU busybodies sued Johnson County, Iowa, demanding that it remove a Ten Commandments monument that had been in a public courtyard a since 1964. Within a year, the 2,500-pound granite monument was gone.

Mail-order minister Barry Lynn's Americans United for Separation of Church and State – a group curiously devoid of both Americans and churchgoers – sued little Chester County, Pa., demanding that it remove a Ten Commandments plaque that has hung on the courthouse wall since 1920.

"The Upper West Side and Malibu United" also sued the city of Everett, Wash., demanding the removal of a Ten Commandments monument in front of the police station. AU legal director Ayesha Khan explained they had nothing like that back in Pakistan and look how well things turned out there.

(Perhaps in addition to the usual processing requirements for new immigrants, there should be a form that says: Welcome to America! You will no longer have to live in a mud hut, earn 32 cents a year, and have members of your family periodically dragged off and shot. However, you may, on occasion, have to see people praying.)

The alleged legal basis for removing all of these Ten Commandments monuments is the establishment clause of the First Amendment. That clause provides: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." The vigilant observer will note instantly that none of the monuments cases involves Congress, a law or an establishment of religion.

Monuments are not "laws," the Plattsmouth, Neb., public park is not "Congress," and the Ten Commandments are not a religion. To the contrary, all three major religions believe in Moses and the Ten Commandments. Liberals might as well say the establishment clause prohibits Republicans from breathing, as that it prohibits a Ten Commandments display. But over the past few years, courts have ordered the removal of dozens and dozens of Ten Commandments displays.

How a local judge acknowledging a higher power with a symbol used by all three major religions is the same as Congress establishing a national religion remains a legal mystery – like, how the University of Michigan can use one admissions standard for blacks and another for whites and yet it's not race discrimination.

How about a truce? The intolerant religious fanatics in the red states will continue not complaining about high taxes, secular education and gay-rights parades in the blue states, and the proponents of tolerance in the blue states will stop bothering everyone in the red states.

Judge warns those who make threats over Commandments
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | 12/12/03 | BILL RANKIN

Posted on 12/11/2003 11:13:44 PM CST by yonif

A federal judge sent a message Thursday to anyone who tries to intimidate those challenging public Ten Commandments displays: Do it and you can be sent to prison.

Senior U.S. District Judge William O'Kelley said his office in Gainesville received threatening phone calls after he ruled last month that Habersham County's displays were unconstitutional and must be removed.

O'Kelley, a federal judge for 33 years, said he was raised by a "very Christian family." As for the language used on messages left on his office answering machine, "it wasn't very Christian, I can tell you that."

O'Kelley, 73, made his remarks during a hearing on a lawsuit challenging another Ten Commandments display, this one at the Barrow County Courthouse in Winder.

"All I need to have are enough facts" about threats against or intimidation of plaintiffs or witnesses, O'Kelley said. If provided such information, O'Kelley promised, he will forward it to the U.S. Attorney's Office. "We've got a place in the south of Atlanta" for such offenders, O'Kelley said, referring to the federal prison.

As for the threats that reached his office, O'Kelley said with a satisfied grin, "The marshals have talked to him. We know who it was."

Thursday's hearing on the Barrow case was held to hear arguments on whether the person who sued the county can be allowed to proceed as an anonymous plaintiff because he fears for his safety.

O'Kelley said he had "real difficulty" with allowing such a proposition and noted this was not a problem in the Habersham case.

But attorney Frank Derrickson, who with the American Civil Liberties Union represents plaintiff "John Doe," said he would provide the plaintiff's name to O'Kelley and the county's attorneys. The plaintiff, who is a county taxpayer, also would provide testimony, under court seal, Derrickson said.

Derrickson provided O'Kelley with a sworn statement from a Barrow County woman who said she was confronted by supporters of the commandments display after speaking out against the display at a County Commission meeting. The framed display has hung at the courthouse for about 18 months after being donated by an unknown benefactor.

Herbert Titus, a lawyer representing the Barrow County Commission, argued it will be hard to determine the credibility of the plaintiff's "injury" to being subjected to the Ten Commandments display if he remains anonymous.

After the hearing, county spokeswoman Lane Downs said she knows the woman who spoke out at the commission meeting but said she had never heard any complaints from her about the confrontation. "I think one or two people said something to her," Downs said. "I think she was afraid from that. But people also spoke out to let her speak."

O'Kelley said he would decide this issue "as quickly as possible."

Ten Commandments: Some local officials more reluctant to enter judicial fray
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1866&dept_id=135446&newsid=10592266&PAG=461&rfi=9 ^ | November 30, 2003 | Daniel Farrow

Posted on 12/03/2003 6:24 PM CST by Federalist 78

Area delegates to the Georgia Legislature may wade into the Ten Commandments fray in January, but local government officials may be reluctant to follow. State Rep. Jack White, R-Blue Ridge, is planning to introduce or co-sponsor legislation encouraging city and county governments to display the Ten Commandments in public buildings.

Federal courts recently ordered that a monument of the commandments be removed from the Alabama Supreme Court building, and chief justice Roy More, who placed the monument, was suspended, then removed from the bench for refusing to comply with the order. The monument has been removed.

Several local governments in Georgia are currently engaged in legal battles over displays of the commandments. The American Civil Liberties Union and other political groups have sued local governments around the nation to force removal of such displays.

White said removing the commandments from government buildings is an attempt to remove God from government, which shouldn't be done.

"Our national motto is 'In God We Trust,'" White said. "The president is inaugurated with his hand on the Bible and his oath ends with 'so help me God.'

"The Supreme Court has three depictions of the commandments," he said. "Yet we have federal judges telling us that to merely post the commandments on the wall of a courthouse or a schoolhouse is somehow an establishment of religion and must not be allowed."

Other lawmakers said they will support White's efforts.

"I don't think we should cave in to the liberal agenda," Sen. Don Thomas, R-Dalton, said. "Really, I think the Georgia laws agree with the display of the Ten Commandments."

Thomas said the ACLU is pushing for "freedom from religion rather than freedom of religion."

"That is certainly not what the framers of our constitution meant," he said.

State Rep. Ron Forster, who shares with White a district that includes sections of north Whitfield and Murray counties, said he is "absolutely" in favor of passing a law saying local governments may display the commandments. "The Constitution only says the government shall not sponsor a religion," Forster, R-Ringgold, said. Asked about opponents' argument that atheists or those who practice other religions feel they will be discriminated against when they see the commandments in government buildings, he said it "carries no weight."

If a judge or public official doesn't believe in God, "then that person is more likely to be corrupt," Forster said.

But top officials in Dalton and Whitfield and Murray counties said they won't display the commandments without more than state law on their side.

"I think the courts and the rulings and what just happened in Alabama with judge Moore tells us we would just be asking for litigation and spending money on court if we put them up," Mike Babb, chairman of the Whitfield County Board of Commissioners, said.

"The county has lots of issues to address without going out looking for new issues," Babb, said. He noted he personally wouldn't be bothered by placing the commandments in county buildings. Commissioner Odell Cochran, who is also an ordained minister, said he would like to display the commandments, but he is also reluctant to do anything that might draw lawsuits.

"It's really something that needs to be resolved in Congress, maybe with a Constitutional Amendment," he said. Cochran said he may ask the other commissioners to approve putting up a display of the Ten Commandments somewhere on the grounds of the renovated county courthouse, once it is complete.

But he said he would also seek to sell a small piece of land for the display to a non-profit group so it wouldn't be on "county property."

Babb isn't sure about that idea. "If the point is to display the commandments, then there are two churches within a few blocks of the courthouse on Thornton Avenue where they could display the Ten Commandments and nobody could complain," he said. Murray County sole commissioner Tyson Haynes said he supports the idea of displaying the commandments, but he isn't going to spend any of the county's sparse funds in order to do so.

A poster of the commandments already hangs in the lobby of the Murray County Jail, and Haynes said he is happy to let it stay there as long as no one objects. "Most of the cases that have been adjudicated, they (local governments displaying the commandments ) have lost," Haynes said. "As long as they are up and there is no litigation brought against them, I am not going to take them down," he said. "But I don't think I would want to defend that in court." Dalton Mayor Ray Elrod said he and the city council have not discussed putting up the commandments, but he doubts the city will put them up at City Hall.

"I wouldn't be opposed to it, but we wouldn't do anything knowing it was illegal," Elrod said, citing the recent court cases. City Council member Mike Robinson said he thinks it is "irrelevant" whether the Ten Commandments are placed in public buildings. "Nailing it to the courthouse wall doesn't make it true for people who don't believe it," Robinson said. "I would rather try to practice them than hang them on a wall."

Complaint says Santa unconstitutionally told kids the meaning of Christmas
KFVS ^ | December 3, 2003 | AP

Posted on 12/03/2003 5:52 PM CST by yonif

Baldwin City, Kansas-AP -- The American Civil Liberties Union is complaining about a minister dressed as Santa Claus who talked to public school kids about the meaning of Christmas.

The A-C-L-U has asked officials to investigate whether elementary schools in Baldwin City, Kansas, allowed a Santa Claus impersonator to discuss Christmas and refer students who seemed to need guidance to Christian resources.

School officials are divided over whether that made him a bad Santa, but the A-C-L-U says he clearly violated the separation of church and state.

Just to be safe, Superintendent Jim White says Santa probably won't be invited back.

School carol beef interests ACLU, religious group
Denver Post ^ | Monday, November 24, 2003 | J. Sebastian Sinisi

Posted on 11/24/2003 1:15 PM CST by yonif

The Elbert County Charter School's Christmas program will go on, despite a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union asking the school to "take immediate steps to comply with the constitutional separation of church and state."

A Nov. 10 letter from the Anti- Defamation League and the ACLU to Elbert Charter principal Les Gray charged that a pro- Christian climate at the school causes Jewish students to "no longer feel safe or welcome there."

On Oct. 29, parents Alex and Sydney Rubin demanded that Gray take all the traditional Christmas songs - including secular songs such as "Frosty the Snowman" and "Jingle Bells" - out of the upcoming holiday program, according to Denver attorney Barry Arrington.

Arrington works with the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which has taken an interest in the case. The 10-year-old alliance deals with "the legal battle for religious liberty and traditional family values," according to a press release.

When Gray refused to change the program, the Rubins withdrew their two daughters from the school, which is attended by 327 students from kindergarten through eighth grade. The Rubins enrolled their daughters in another public school.

The ACLU letter also said the school showed a creationism video last year that said "the only way to be saved from the next flood is to accept Jesus Christ as your savior."

Gray said the creation video was shown to demonstrate that evolution is one theory among many. A substitute teacher did not stop the video as she was supposed to before the pro-Christian message, he said.

"We acknowledged our error and have not shown that video again," said Gray.

Arrington said the ACLU and the Anti-Defamation League are trying to bully the school into "censoring Christmas." He also charged both groups with having an "anti-religion agenda."

The groups deny that.

"To say we're anti-religion is so counter to what the ACLU and ADL stand for that it's ridiculous," said Bruce DeBoski, regional director for the Mountain States office of the Anti-Defamation League in Denver.

"We're not trying to censor anybody," DeBoski said. "We support religious liberty for everyone. But we don't want tax money used to promote any one religion. If this were a private school, they'd never hear from us."

Sydney Rubin, the girls' mother, said "the ADL version is correct," and declined to comment further.

Arrington said the Rubins wanted the holiday program, scheduled for Dec. 11, to be inclusive.

"I'm disturbed by the allegation that their children didn't feel safe, because it carries a veiled threat of anti-Semitism in the school," he said.

The Christmas program, to be presented in the Elizabeth Middle School auditorium, will include at least two Hanukkah songs in a mix of about a dozen secular Christmas songs of the "Rudolf" and "Jingle Bells" variety, Gray said, along with six traditional religious carols.

"The parents are nice people and I respect their decision," said Gray. "My beef is with big groups that throw their weight around and step on other peoples' constitutional rights."

Holiday decor at a crossroads
The Daily Tribune ^ | November 12, 2003 | MICHAEL P. McCONNELL

Posted on 11/15/2003 11:31 PM CST by stage left

Ferndale weighs wisdom of annual Christmas display in front of City Hall

FERNDALE - Faced with budget constraints and the possibility of lawsuits, the city is considering whether to drop its annual Christmas display which features a Nativity scene and other religious icons and a Santa. The holiday decorations, with a central representation of Jesus Christ in the manger, have been part of Ferndale for more than four decades.

"We're putting all the religious symbols on hold for the holidays, pending a legal analysis," said City Manager Tom Barwin.

City Attorney Daniel Christ told the City Council that it should hold off deciding what to do about this year's decorations until he determines whether the decorations constitute an "excessive entanglement" between government and religion.

The city decorations include a nativity scene, Star of David, a Hanukkah menorah, a Kwanzaa symbol, and secular representations of Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman. They were put up annually in front of City Hall for more than a decade until last year when they were relocated to Kulick Community Center on Livernois.

The city of New Jersey lost a lawsuit in federal court six years ago for having holiday decorations almost identical to Ferndale's, Barwin said.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued Birmingham and Clawson over religious decorations more than 10 years ago.

Barwin said Ferndale's decorations were moved last year to what he calls the "more pastoral" setting of the Community Center where there are trees and more space. City Hall was decorated with only garland and lights.

"We last had (religious icons) in front of City Hall in 2001," Barwin said. "We got several calls that the decorations looked tacky all pushed together on a 20-by-20-foot section of property."

But resident Patricia Cissell wants the decorations, especially the Nativity scene, returned to City Hall.

"The Community Center is not centrally located," Cissell said. "If the city is going to promote the holiday season, the Nativity scene is part of the holiday because it represents Christmas."

The holiday decorations with religious icons in front of the Community Center generated no complaints last year, according to Marsha Mellert, head of the city recreation department.

Court rulings on a number of challenges to displays of religious symbols on governmental property vary according to the different federal courts that have considered the issue in the past, said attorney Christ.

The question is as old as the U.S. Constitution. Thomas Jefferson stated that the First Amendment erected a wall between church and state. In spite of that, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1971 that such displays were permissible if they included a secular representation, neither advanced nor inhibited a particular religion, and did not foster governmental entanglement with religion, according to the city's legal research so far, Barwin said.

"I really don't want to bait anybody and get us involved in costly litigation when our legal adviser has already told us our holiday scene is over the line," he said.

Cissell believes that the city has accommodated private political messages on city property before without incident, such as last June when officials allowed rainbow flags symbolizing gay pride to be attached to city light poles for a gay festival. She added that the city holiday scene with multiple religious icons and secular Christmas representations of Santa meets the Supreme Court test.

"As Christians, there are many rights that we have that are being taken away," she said. "We have a right to a display on city property in a decent manner."

Mayor Robert Porter said the city almost ended up in court more than a decade ago when it had Christmas decorations of only the Nativity scene. The city was able to head off a lawsuit by including other religious icons in the decorations, he said.

"It's a shame we even have to worry about this stuff," Porter said. "We want to have some decorations to enhance the community, but then we've got to be careful. The city has enough on its plate. We don't need to be dipping into city coffers to defend ourselves in court over where we place a Santa or a Nativity scene."

Contact Michael P. McConnell at mike.mcconnell@dailytribune.com or 248-591-2571.

| November 15, 2003 | staff

Posted on 11/15/2003 1:20 AM CST by

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LAW OF THE LAND Judge: Witches can pray at county meeting - ACLU hails federal decision as victory for non-majority religions

Witches, or practitioners of the Wicca religion, can pray at a county's board meeting, a federal judge ruled.

Officials in Chesterfield County, Virginia, discriminated against Cyndi Simpson, a Wiccan, when they barred her from being on a list of clergy who can open the board of supervisors meetings with prayer, said U.S. District Court Judge Dennis W. Dohnal, according to the Chesterfield Progress-Index newspaper.

The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Wicca is regarded as a natural religion, "grounded in the earth." Followers of its many different forms generally believe all living things, as well as stars, planets, and rocks, have a spirit.

In a letter of explanation to Simpson, County Attorney Steven L. Micas said, "Chesterfield's nonsectarian invocations are traditionally made to a divinity that is consistent with the Judeo-Christian tradition," the paper reported.

But the judge ruled the board violated Simpson's constitutional right of equal and free expression of her religious beliefs.

Meanwhile, Dohnal argued, Christians are allowed to express their religious beliefs by delivering the "legislative prayer" allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Expressing delight with the outcome, Simpson, 47, said she believed the decision would bring credibility to witchcraft as a religion, the paper reported.

The ruling was a victory for non-majority religions, said Kent Willis, executive director of the ACLU.

It demonstrated why church and state should remain separate institutions, he contended.

"As the framers of the Constitution understood from their own experiences, when the state uses its vast power to endorse religious activity, it will always make losers of some faiths and winners of others," said Willis, according to the Chesterfield daily. "That jeopardizes religious freedom."

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Ten Commandments battle may move to Cherokee (County, GA)
Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | 10.30.03 | Christopher Quinn

Posted on 10/30/2003 10:07 PM CST by mhking

Daniel Becker is tired of seeing "liberals" and a "runaway court system" shove all references to God and Christianity out of the public square.

So he's shoving back.

Becker and a group of county pastors and supporters will rally on the Cherokee County courthouse steps Friday to generate backing for his effort to place two granite tablets with the Ten Commandments chiseled into them on display in the public building.

"We were founded as a Christian nation," he said.

His effort puts Cherokee County commissioners in a difficult spot.

It comes after the American Civil Liberties Union sued Barrow and Habersham counties over displaying the Ten Commandments in their courthouses. The displays are equal to state sponsorship of a religion, which is barred by the Constitution, the ACLU argues. Neither case has been resolved.

Also, a federal judge ordered Alabama's Chief Justice Roy Moore to remove a Ten Commandments display from the Alabama Judicial Building last summer. Moore refused, was suspended, and is facing judicial hearings that could strip him of his seat.

Maggie Garrett, a staff attorney with the ACLU in Atlanta, said they will be keeping an eye on what Cherokee County does.

The cases in Georgia and Alabama attracted crowds of pro-Commandment protesters and has helped spark a national move to get the Commandments into public spaces, including Jackson County, where the commissioners hung a copy this month.

Some unlikely allies joined the Barrow County movement, including members of the Ku Klux Klan and the House of Prayer, a black Atlanta congregation.

In September, a Commandments rally at the state Capitol had Gov. Sonny Perdue and national and state leaders, both Democratic and Republican, announcing their support for posting the Commandments in public places.

The Cherokee commissioners believe they can walk the tightrope between Commandment supporters and a lawsuit. All five commissioners say they favor displaying the Commandments, given the right context and within the parameters of a little known Georgia law.

The law establishes the purposes of the Georgia Archives, and says the study of historical documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Ten Commandments and the Constitution, should be encouraged.

Commissioner Derek Good said "You look at those documents as a whole, and I believe it's what makes us the American people."

They will discuss and probably vote on displaying the Commandments and other documents at a commission meeting next Tuesday.

Garrett of the ACLU warned that displaying other documents is not a shield. Habersham County also displayed the Commandments with other documents.

Cherokee County's commissioners "... should consider the effects it has on their citizens," Garrett said. "When government supports one creed, it makes others feel like outsiders."

Becker counters that trying to unravel the thread of Christianity from the nation's history is unfair. He wants the Commandments displayed "in a way so we can appreciate our contribution," he said.

Handicapping religion in political wars
Washington Times ^ | Tuesday, October 28, 2003 | By Bruce Fein

Posted on 10/28/2003 1:21 AM CST by JohnHuang2

Religious adherents risk diluted political rights in a landmark case pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah. In Utah Gospel Mission, et al vs. Salt Lake City Corporation, et al., filed on Aug. 7, 2003, the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah and the national ACLU are insisting the sale of a downtown easement by Salt Lake City to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS Church) violates the First Amendment's separation of church and state.
    The muscular political mobilization by Mormons to champion the easement sale for religious objectives of the LDS Church is constitutionally challenged. But if success in the political arena occasioned by religiously motivated lobbying is taboo, then believers would be handcuffed in exercising their First Amendment right to petition government for redress of grievances. A broad array of laws that have been politically engineered by religious organizations would be under a cloud, such as restrictions on abortion, homosexual marriages or the right to die.
    In 1999, Salt Lake City sold to the LDS Church a portion of Main Street that connected a residential neighborhood with a business district. On adjacent blocks owned by the LDS Church were the Mormon Tabernacle, the Salt Lake Temple, and church administration buildings, making Temple Square a prime tourist attraction.
    The city retained an easement for pedestrian access and passage, but excluded First Amendment activities — for example, distributing literature or picketing against Mormon practices or precepts. At its own expense, the church reconstructed Main Street and sidewalks into an attractive plaza, which fits seamlessly into its downtown campus.
    The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals held the speech limitations in the city's easement unconstitutional in First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City vs. Salt Lake City Corp. (2002). The court of appeals explained: "If it wants an easement, the city must permit speech on the easement. Otherwise, it must relinquish the easement so the parcel becomes entirely private."
    Mormons then launched a tireless political campaign with Salt Lake City voters and leaders to effectuate a purchase of the easement by the LDS Church. A major objective was to restrict Main Street plaza speech and activities to advancing rather than foiling the church mission. In the past, for instance, Utah National Organization for Women had actively demonstrated there against the church's positions on equal rights for women and abortion.
    The Mormons employed untroublesome tactics that are staples of political life to work through the City Council and grass-roots lobbying to obtain the support of Mayor Ross C. Anderson for an unrestricted easement sale. According to the complaint in Utah Gospel Mission: "Through the intercession of senior LDS Church officials and the influence of LDS Church-owned media, the [Salt Lake City] mayor's decision [to comply with the 10th Circuit] decision was widely criticized and came under attack from many different quarters." During an Oct. 21, 2002, advisory group meeting, Presiding Bishop Burton formally requested the mayor to relinquish the city's easement to reinstate speech, conduct and dress restrictions. The mayor proposed an alternative, which provoked an aggressive counter by Mormons.
    The complaint alleges: "LDS officials widely distributed corporate portfolio report-quality information packets to leaders of other faiths, business leaders, community council members, and many others in Salt Lake and Davis Counties." Church leaders preached a religious-like duty to support an easement sale, and insinuated political reprisals if the mayor continued in opposition.
    The all-LDS seven-member City Council was sparked by the Mormon lobbying campaign and otherwise to take up cudgels against Mayor Andersen. The latter retorted by accusing council members of bias in favor of Mormons; declaring he would not yield for the sake of expediency; and maintaining that to do so would be illegal, unethical and cynical.
     But on Dec. 16, 2002, the mayor ultimately capitulated to an easement sale in exchange for 2.17 acres of LDS Church-owned land on the City's Westside and other consideration. The church was endowed with the absolute right to control freedom of expression there.
    The ACLU lawyers seek to void the sale as contrary to the establishment clause: "By giving into the church's demands in a way that so directly advances the interests of the church... the city's actions 'cross[ ] the line between permissible accommodation [of religion] and impermissible establishment [of religion]... .' The mayor's decision to abandon the easement is directly attributable to the pressure applied by the LDS Church and the divisiveness the church threatened the community with if the Mayor did not accede to its demands."
    But religious adherents and organizations enjoy the same right under the First Amendment to lobby for government action without constitutional taint as does the ACLU. Laws are not suspect simply because they accord with a religious canon, like the Sunday closing laws sustained by the Supreme Court in McGowan vs. Maryland (1961), or restrictions on publicly funded abortions blessed in Harris vs. McRae (1980). Nor are constitutional eyebrows raised by facilitating religion through legal exemptions, such as property taxes, employment discrimination prohibitions, or anti-drug or alcohol restrictions. All Salt Lake City has similarly done with the sale of its easement is to accommodate the LDS Church mission to obtain municipal property and a community center.
    If the ACLU lawyers succeed in Utah Gospel Mission, time-honored church-state precedents will be shaken and the voice of religion in politics will become inaudible.

ACLU Sues Over Prayer at School-Related Events in Louisiana
Shreveport, LA, Times ^ | 10-16-03 | Staff

Posted on 10/16/2003 7:55 AM CDT by Theodore R.

ACLU sues over prayer at school-related events Staff and Wire Reports Posted on October 16, 2003

The Tangipahoa Parish school system is being sued for the third time in nine years because it allegedly violated constitutional restrictions on government-backed religious activities.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court earlier this week by the American Civil Liberties Union, alleges that the school system broke the law by endorsing public prayer at Loranger High School football games, at school functions and at School Board meetings.

Prayers are read over the public address system at Loranger games, while football coach Sammy Messina instructs players to bow their heads, touch someone, and commence saying the Lord's Prayer just before kickoff, the lawsuit states.

Also, prayers have been broadcast over the school intercom, at assemblies during the school day and even said before parish School Board meetings, the lawsuit claims.

Caddo and Bossier Parish School Boards both have regular prayers before their school board meetings.

Last year, Rep. Jane Smith, R-Bossier City, attempted to pass a bill that would allow student prayer in Bossier Parish, but it was vetoed by the governor.

Joe Cook, president of the ACLU's Louisiana chapter, said the school-sponsored prayer "dishonors the Constitution and the rule of law, while infringing on parents' right to choose the religious tradition in which to raise their children.

"At times, the Tangipahoa School Board meetings resemble a revival or prayer meeting more than a place to conduct the business of a secular public school system," Cook said. "Parents, children and members of the community should not have to pay the price of religious indoctrination in order to attend a school board meeting."

House of Prayer joins KKK in Ten Commandments rally (Black church & Klan rally together!?)
Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | 9.26.03 | Ernie Suggs

Posted on 09/26/2003 5:10 PM CDT by mhking

More than 200 people gathered in front of the Barrow County Courthouse this afternoon to support the county's decision not to remove the Ten Commandments from the government building.

The rally was organized by J.J. Harper, the self-proclaimed imperial wizard of the American White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and members of the controversial African-American church, the House of Prayer.

The groups were protesting against the American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed a lawsuit to force the removal of a framed poster of the Ten Commandments from the courthouse. Barrow County commissioners voted in June to fight the ACLU over the poster, and county officials have said there are no plans to take it down.

Both groups -- at least for one day -- seemed to disregard issues of race in favor of supporting what they viewed as an attack of Christianity.

"Did somebody say they were black?" Harper, of Cordele, asked rhetorically. "I thought they were Christians, who have done nothing more than study the word of God."

About 100 House of Prayer members, including 50 children, attended the rally. The Atlanta-based House of Prayer is led by the jailed Rev. Arthur Allen, who is serving a two-year prison sentence for violating probation on a child cruelty conviction.

"This is not a Ku Klux Klan, House of Prayer, black or white issue, but a human issue," said House of Prayer member Vickie Hightower.

After the speeches, children with the House of Prayer sang songs such as "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands" in support of the imprisoned Allen.

Barrow County Commission Chairman Eddie Elder, who strongly opposes taking down the Ten Commandments poster, apparently didn't mind that a Klan member was leading the rally.

County spokeswoman Lane Downs said, "He appreciates all the help he can get." Lane also said Elder doesn't mind the Klan rally as long as it stays peaceful.

Some protesters were more wary of the KlanÕs involvement.

"We started not to come," said Ten Commandments supporter Angela Woodall, who says she opposes the Klan but felt compelled to attend the Barrow rally for religious reasons.

Friday's rally is not the first -- or last -- public demonstration over Barrow County case.

Earlier this month, hundreds attended a rally led by Alan Keyes, a 2000 Republican presidential candidate and a former U.S. representative at the United Nations.

On Monday, the Christian Coalition of Georgia plans its own press conference and rally at the courthouse, the same day the Council for Secular Humanism and the Atlanta Freethought Society will protest against the religious display at the state capitol.

Another Ten Commandments Monument Is Moved
http://www.cnsnews.com ^ | 9-25-03 | unknown

Posted on 09/25/2003 9:48 AM CDT by OXENinFLA

Another Ten Commandments Monument Is Moved

(CNSNews.com) - The American Civil Liberties Union can chalk up another victory in its effort to remove the Ten Commandments from the public arena. Wire reports said a Ten Commandments monument was removed from a courthouse lawn in Miles City, Montana, on Wednesday. Workers took it to a nearby museum, which is privately run. The American Civil Liberties Union insists the Ten Commandments constitute a religious display that has no place on public property. According to press reports, the stone bearing the Commandments was given to Custer County, Montana, in 1968 by the Fraternal Order of Eagles. In 1997 - 29 years later - someone complained, and the legal wrangling started in 1999.

ACLU Sues Over Ten Commandments Display in Georgia
Reuters ^ | 09-16-03

Posted on 09/16/2003 11:13 AM CDT by Brian S

Tue September 16, 2003 12:04 PM ET By Paul Simao

ATLANTA (Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union said on Tuesday it was filing a federal lawsuit to force officials in Georgia to remove a parchment inscription of the Ten Commandments from a rural courthouse.

In the suit, which was expected to be filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Gainesville, Georgia, the group said the display in the hallway of the Barrow County courthouse in Winder violated the constitutional ban on government promotion of religion.

Winder is about 35 miles east of Atlanta.

"We had tried to work with the county and we weren't able to come to a resolution, so we had to file a lawsuit," said Maggie Garrett, an ACLU lawyer.

Officials in Barrow County have vowed to keep the 3-by-4-foot framed display in the courthouse, where it has hung for 18 months. They say they have the support of residents.

Last week, about 1,000 Christians, including former presidential candidate Alan Keyes, held a rally in Winder to support Barrow County's stand.

"The lawsuit is not a surprise. We've been expecting it," said Lane Downs, a county spokeswoman. Downs said county commissioners likely would decide this week how to respond to the ACLU action.

The dispute over the Georgia display comes just weeks after civil liberties activists and Christians clashed in neighboring Alabama over the constitutionality of a monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments.

Last month, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore triggered heated debate when he refused to comply with a federal court order to remove the 5,000 pound (2.3-tonne) granite monument from the state's judicial building in Montgomery.

Moore, who had the display surreptitiously placed in the building in the summer of 2001, was suspended from his duties by a judicial review board shortly after authorities removed the marker from public view.

Mojave Cross gains support of state American Legion (The Anti-Cross Litigation Ukase)
Desert Dispatch ^ | July 1, 2003 | KELLY DONOVAN

Posted on 09/14/2003 12:58 PM CDT by RobertJames

Tuesday, July 1, 2003

Mojave Cross gains support of state American Legion

By KELLY DONOVAN/Staff Writer

The American Legion of California will seek support for the Mojave Cross from its counterparts across the country, Legion officials said Monday.

Willy Wilkin, who represents California on the American Legion's executive committee, said he will urge his colleagues to pass a resolution in favor of U.S. Rep. Jerry Lewis' efforts to save the cross.

The executive committee, which has one member from each state, will meet in August in St. Louis.

Wilkin said the Mojave Cross, bolted on top of a rock outcropping in the Mojave National Preserve, is important to the California veterans in his group.

"Opponents call it a cross," he said. "But it really is a memorial to World War I veterans."

Although supporters contend the cross is not a religious symbol, a federal judge ruled it unconstitutional in July 2002, saying it violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment because it is on federal land.

The judge's ruling was in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which had sued the federal government over the cross. The case is now on appeal in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Meanwhile, Lewis has been trying to introduce legislation that would save the cross through a land swap deal. The ACLU and a coalition of other groups emerged this spring to voice opposition to the land swap.

Rees Lloyd, commander of the San Gorgonio Pass post of the American Legion, drafted a resolution in favor of the land swap and had it passed by his post, then the American Legion's regional district and finally the statewide group.

The American Legion of California approved the resolution at its conference in Riverside about a week ago.

Lloyd said he decided to write the resolution because he supports the cross and was upset when he heard about the ACLU fighting Lewis' proposal.

"Why are they fighting it?" said Lloyd, a civil rights attorney who worked for the ACLU years ago, but is outraged with the group's stance on crosses.

The ACLU attorney who won the Mojave Cross case has said he is opposed to the land swap because he wants the constitutional matter to be resolved by the courts, not Congress.

Five groups, including the ACLU of Southern California, sent a letter opposing the land swap about two months ago to California's Congressional delegation.

The cross is one of a handful of replacements of a cross a veterans group erected on Sunrise Rock in 1934 as a veterans memorial.

Salt Lake Officials: We shalt not move tablet (Ten Commandments gets support)
Salt Lake Tribune ^ | 9/12/03 | Mark Eddington

Posted on 09/13/2003 4:59 PM CDT by Liz

The Ten Commandments stone is across the street from City Hall. (Joshua Brown/Special to The Tribune) By Mark Eddington The Salt Lake Tribune

PLEASANT GROVE -- While their resolve is not set in stone, Pleasant Grove leaders are firm about their intent to keep a Ten Commandments monument on city property.

Even if Salt Lake City attorney Brian Barnard sues the Utah County city, community leaders say they would rather fight than switch locations -- provided they have legal grounds and financial backing.

"At this point, we are looking to fight," said Pleasant Grove Mayor Jim Danklef. "I think it's good to stand up and say you are not going to move [the monument] off just because someone says you have to."

Barnard, legal counsel for the Society of Separationists, has threatened legal action against Pleasant Grove unless the monument is removed from a city park at 100 North and 100 East, where it has stood ever since the Fraternal Order of Eagles gave it to the city in 1971.

City Attorney Christine Petersen says several "public-interest" law firms have offered to do pro bono work on behalf of Pleasant Grove. One of the firms, the Thomas More Law Center in Michigan, has faxed an offer to represent the city in court free of charge.

The Ann Arbor company's offer, however, would not cover any monetary damages a judge might assess if the city lost a court fight.

Petersen says Salt Lake City attorney Frank Myler, affiliated with the American Center for Law and Justice, has also offered legal assistance. The City Council has authorized legal staff to contact both organizations.

"We haven't had time to get in touch with both of them" to learn the details about the offers, Petersen said Thursday.

Neither Myler nor the Thomas More Center could be reached for comment.

Barnard, who has worked with the American Civil Liberties Union to get Decalogue -- 10 Commandments -- monuments moved from public property in seven locations, scoffs at the offers Pleasant Grove is fielding.

He noted his legal bills in Ten Commandment cases against Salt Lake City and Ogden totalled $80,000, and wonders if Pleasant Grove is willing to risk a similar amount if the proffered aid is less substantial than promised.

"If the city loses, and gets stuck with the attorney's bill . . . are those organizations going to pony up the money to pay it?" Barnard asked.

Danklef concedes that might be a problem. Still, the mayor and city administrators are heartened by the offers and by the "overwhelming support" they are receiving from Utahns and residents of other states.

The city recently received a $25 money order from the senior Sunday school of a small Baptist church in Alabama, the mayor said.

Moreover, city administrators believe their monument may fare better than the one a federal court ordered removed from a state judicial building in Alabama. Petersen said the Eagles donated Pleasant Grove's monument for secular instead of sacred reasons. Its purpose is to honor the Vietnam veterans, she said.

Barnard, however, insists the monument is a clear violation of church and state outlined in the Constitution and upheld by the courts. He asks why Decalogues need to be on public property in the first place.

"Is the meaning of the Ten Commandments enhanced because it is on government property? Does the public take it more seriously?" he asked. "God does not need the support of the Pleasant Grove government. The Ten Commandments doesn't need that support."

Pleasant Grove's monument is in an obscure location, nestled behind an antique shop and between a blue-spruce tree and a shed that served as the city's first fire station in 1906. Barnard argues Pleasant Grove should follow the example set by Provo, which voluntarily moved its Decalogue last year from city-owned Memorial Park to a much more visible spot at LDS Church-owned Tabernacle Park on the corner of Center Street and University Avenue.

Provo spokesman Michael Mower said the move, done with the consent of the Eagles and LDS Church, has worked out well.

"We were able to facilitate putting the Ten Commandments on the most prominent corner in Provo while avoiding the contention that would have surrounded an almost certain lawsuit." "America was founded on Christian ideals," she said. "If we won't stand up for God, how can we expect him to stand by us when we need him most?"

meddington@sltrib.com

© Copyright 2003, The Salt Lake Tribune. All material found on Utah OnLine is copyrighted The Salt Lake Tribune and associated news services. No material may be reproduced or reused without explicit permission from The Salt Lake Tribune.

ACLU set to target another Decalogue?
County unveils monument including it with historical documents

Posted: September 13, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

The American Civil Liberties Union is deciding whether to challenge placement of a Ten Commandments monument in the lobby of a county administration building in Florida Thursday.

The Decalogue is in the lower left hand corner of one of the four sides of the monument, which has 18 other historical documents, the Tampa Tribune reported.

Florida county unveils monument bearing 10 Commandments (Courtesy Tampa Tribune)

The decision to design the monument that way – following advice of the Christian Law Association – was made before the controversy erupted last month over a 10 Commandments monument in Alabama's judicial building. Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore defied a judge's order to remove the memorial, which prominently features the Decalogue (with several other statements of historical significance sharing its 4 sides), resulting in his suspension.

But the ACLU has warned Polk County, Florida's monument could violate the Constitution's prohibition against government establishing a religion.

Darlene Williams, president of the Tampa chapter of the ACLU, said the intent of placing the 10 Commandments on the monument and the finished product are among factors her group will consider in deciding whether to file a legal challenge, the Tampa paper said.

She said, however, her first impression was "it is very obviously different than the situation in Alabama with Judge Moore's monument."

``We feel it's very defendable,'' said the Rev. Mickey Carter, who proposed the Polk monument nearly two years ago with County Commissioner Randy Wilkinson, the Tribune reported.

About 500 people attended a ceremony Thursday night unveiling the monument on the second anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The monument's supporters argue, unlike Moore's memorial, the 10 Commandments represents only 8 percent of the writings on the rock, and the $150,000 cost was financed privately, not by a government official, the Tampa paper said.

The monument, which is 7 feet tall and weighs more than 5,000 pounds, was on the agenda of a special meeting held by the Tampa ACLU Thursday night, but Williams said it would not make a quick decision about any legal action.

ACLU member Don Micklewright, 83, believes the display violates the First Amendment. "They're claiming it's a historical document," he told the Tribune. "That's just a subterfuge."

The Tampa paper noted the Polk County ceremony had religious overtones, and many in attendance heard about the unveiling through their church. But Carter contends the display has a secular purpose that overrides any religious purpose.

"The idea came forward as a result of a new spirit of patriotism that arose from the ashes of 9-11," he told the crowd, according to the paper.

Meanwhile, the ACLU in Pennsylvania decided yesterday not to appeal its lawsuit challenging a 10 Commandments plaque at the Chester County courthouse.

The suit was brought on behalf of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia which had contended the 83-year-old bronze plaque violated the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in June the plaque's age and historical status - not its religious content - was the county commissioners' prime motive when they refused to remove it in 2001, the paper said.

Polk Unveils Monument Despite ACLU Warning
Tampa Bay Online ^ | 9/12/03 | Bill Heery

Posted on 09/12/2003 2:47 PM CDT by =Intervention=

BARTOW - People applauded, joined a soloist in the National Anthem without being asked and carried small American flags as Polk County's American Heritage Foundation Rock was unveiled on Thursday.

Joining in the patriotic applause was Darlene Williams of Winter Haven, president of the Tampa chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which will decide whether to challenge the placement of The Ten Commandments in the county's administration building lobby.

Heeding the advice of lawyers representing the Christian Law Association, the Ten Commandments was placed in the lower left hand corner of one of the four sides of the monument, which contains 18 other historical documents and quotations. That was decided months ago, before a firestorm of controversy over a monument in Alabama that bore the biblical list of principles and admonitions against sin.

``We feel its very defendable,'' said the Rev. Mickey Carter, who along with County Commissioner Randy Wilkinson proposed the rock 23 months ago. Carter spoke at a press conference following the unveiling ceremony. The event was attended by about 500 people and marked the second anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The ACLU has warned that Polk's rock could violate the Constitution's prohibition against government establishing a religion - often referred to as the separation of church and state doctrine.

Two weeks ago a monument bearing the Ten Commandments was removed from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery by a federal court order. Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, who had that rock installed, has been suspended from office for defying the federal court order.

Supporters of Polk's rock say there is a major difference between the two monuments. The Ten Commandments represents only eight percent of the writings on Polk's rock, whereas the commandments consumed the Alabama monument with some other historical documents at the bottom of the rock. Also, Polk's rock, which cost about $150,000, was financed through private donations, they say, not by a government official.

At least one Polk commissioner, Don Gifford, donated money for the rock.

``My first impression was it is very obviously different than the situation in Alabama with Judge Moore's monument,'' Williams said after viewing Polk's rock.

The intent of placing the Ten Commandments on the monument and the finished product are among factors the ACLU will consider in deciding on a legal challenge, she said.

The Tampa chapter of the ACLU, which encompasses Polk, was holding a special meeting in Polk on Thursday night, with the rock as an item on the agenda. But Williams said no decision would be quickly made on a legal challenge.

There were some religious overtones during the ceremony. Many of those present said they had heard about the unveiling at their church.

Carter maintains that the secular purpose of the display, which stands over 7 feet tall and weighs more than 5,000 pounds, will override any religious purpose. ``The idea came forward as a result of a new spirit of patriotism that arose from the ashes of 9/11,'' he told the crowd.

Don Micklewright of Lakeland, an 83-year-old member of the ACLU, said Thursday he believes the rock is a violation of the separation of church and state. ``They're claiming it's a historical document. That's just a subterfuge.''

The Gibbs Law Firm of Seminole, general counsel for the Christian Law Association, has offered to represent the county for free against any legal challenges.

ACLU Renewal Request (Major barf and sitting-duck alert)
ACLU mail-out ^ | 9-01-03 | Anthony D. Romero

Posted on 09/07/2003 2:13 PM CDT by atomic conspiracy

Anthoney D. Romero

Executive Director

Dear ACLU Member,

The separation between church and state has been chipped away at by religious extremists for years. Now, our elected officials are taking sledgehammers to its very foundation.

That's one reason why I am so concerned that your ACLU membership has lapsed.

Most civil libertarians consider the ACLU to be the last line of defense against opponents determined not only to force prayer into our public school, but also to make religious doctrine---THEIR religious doctrine---the law of the land.

But ACLU supporters like you and other freedom-loving Americans aren't the only ones who know it. Our opponents know it too.

That's why undermining the ACLU's ability to defend the First Amendment--- by public attacks on our motives, even our patriotism---is so essential to the religious right's schemes to destroy church-state separation.

It's a fight we are ready and willing to take on. At the same time, we dare not ignore other attacks on constitutional rights that range from John Ashcroft's plans for further invading your privacy though government snooping to draconian restrictions on free speech.

Our ability to turn back these unprecedented assaults on civil liberties depends on your response to this letter. That's why I'm asking you to renew your ACLU membership by returning the enclosed reply form with the most generous contributions you can make.

Your prompt renewal will help ensure that religious liberty, freedom of expression, privacy rights, and other constitutional principles remain intact.

Because ACLU is now engaged in a wide variety of battles to preserve and advance civil liberties, it's difficult for me to say which of these fights is most important. but maintaining church-state separation as we know it---and as the framers of our Constitution intended---is certainly near the top of our priority list at this moment.

We must defeat plans to amend the Constitution that would allow school-sponsored prayer in our public schools while opposing the Bush Administration’s attempts to fund religious-based social services with taxpayer money.

We faced such challenges in the past, but bolstered by President Bush's public declaration that "faith in the Almighty" can cure America's social ills, radical religious right forces are now escalating their attacks on the wall of separation between church and state.

Passing a school prayer amendment and grabbing millions more taxpayer dollars under the Administration's so-called "faith-based" initiative are only the religious right's first objectives. Next will come the mandating of government-approved prayer in our public schools, social services gutted and replaced by religion-based programs, and widespread diversion of taxpayer support from schools to private religious ones.

In short, if far-right forces succeed in amending our Constitution, religious liberty in America will be irreparably damaged. That's why we have reactivated the coalition we formed to defeat their last push for a school prayer amendment. This diverse coalition of religious leaders of varied faiths and influential people from across the political spectrum can help the public understand how vital the separation of church and state really is.

But the vast public education efforts needed to get out the message to the American people---via the airwaves, the Internet, op-ed columns and newspaper editorials---require a major financial commitment on our part.

And even as devote more ACLU resources to protecting religious freedom, we must expand our nationwide Keep America Safe and Free Campaign that has already proven so effective in slowing government plans for spying on innocent Americans, tracking our every movement and building a massive Defense Department database that would treat us all as suspects.

I have described only a few of the reasons your renewed support is so very important this year. But I hope you can see why I'm urging you to renew your ACLU membership today with the most generous donation possible.

Our Constitution desperately needs your support...so does everyone here at the ACLU.

Sincerely,

Anthony D. Romero

Executive Director

P.S. I am writing again only because your renewed support is so essential to preserving the wall of separation between church and state. Please don't allow the enemies of liberty and tolerance to weaken your ACLU during this time of crisis.

[All underlining, bold type, and italics appear in original mail out]

Latest Commandments battleground reaches NE Georgia
AccessNorthGa.com ^ | Thursday, September 11 at 10:36 AM | Jeff Hart

Posted on 09/11/2003 4:09 PM CDT by yonif

WINDER - Barrow County Commission Chairman Eddie Elder says one day the U.S. Congress is going to have to decide the fate of the Ten Commandments.

"It may take 10 or 20 years but one day Congress is going to have to pass a law that says (the Ten Commandments) are either legal or illegal," Elder said Thursday as a rally was being planned in support of an embattled display between the old and new courthouses.

The ACLU has threatened a lawsuit if the county does not comply.

Elder said it's shame its come to this in America.

"It really is. But I think the silent majority in this country has been about as silent as they're going to be," Elder said. "I think you ought to be able to hang it anywhere. It's for everybody - not just one person or religion, but everyone."

Elder said the parchment was placed there "by an unknown person" and that the commission did not endorse or discouraged it being placed.

"We were approached that someone might want to do it and the Commission did not take any action either way," he said. "I don't know how they would feel if an actual lawsuit is filed, but I guess we'll find out if and when we get there."

'Ten Commandments Monument Hunt' ends in Brigham
Deseret Morning News ^ | Sept. 11, 2003 | Angie Welling

Posted on 09/11/2003 4:18 PM CDT by bruinbirdman

The scavenger hunt is officially over, and Brigham City is the winner.

While shopping at the northern Utah town's fruit and vegetable stands two weeks ago, a staff member from civil-rights attorney Brian Barnard's office spotted the elusive Ten Commandments monument in front of the Brigham City lodge of the Fraternal Order of Eagles.

Of the nine monuments that were donated to Utah cities by the Fraternal Order of Eagles during the 1950s, '60s and '70s, the Brigham City tablet is the last to be located.

Last month, the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah called on people to look for the monument in a listing of cities posted on the organization's Web site. Brigham City was among the cities listed.

The ACLU and Barnard suspected the 5-foot-tall, 2 1/2-foot-wide marble monument was at one time located on government property, which many believe to be a violation of the separation of church and state.

Barnard has successfully challenged the public placement of monuments in Murray, Ogden, Roy, Salt Lake and Tooele. He has also sent letters to Pleasant Grove officials demanding that city's marker be moved from its location in a public park.

The other tablets — in Provo and West Valley City — have always been on private property.

Because the Brigham City monument also sits on private property, there will be no objection to its location.

"The good that comes from displaying the Ten Commandments is strong, if not stronger, when done without government support," Barnard said. "The Eagles are displaying it on private property in a very prominent place so that everyone driving by gets an opportunity to see it."

The Eagles lodge is located at the north end of Brigham City, at 912 N. Main St. The monument was a gift from the Fraternal Order of Eagles to Brigham City and Box Elder County and was dedicated in 1965.

Victorious in Alabama, ACLU Targets Another Bible-Belt Judge
AgapePress ^ | September 11, 200 | Fred Jackson

Posted on 09/11/2003 12:42 PM CDT by Vindiciae Contra TyrannoSCOTUS

It appears the American Civil Liberties Union has a new target in its campaign to eradicate the nation of public displays of the Ten Commandments. This time it involves a judge in Arkansas.

District Court Judge David Pake has had a framed copy of the Ten Commandments in his suburban Little Rock courtroom since 1994. According to Cybercast News, the 11-by-14-inch copy of the Decalogue hangs near the judge's bench, away from the area where most court participants sit.

But suddenly, after almost ten years of the display being on Pake's wall, the Arkansas chapter of the ACLU has decided the display must go, insisting it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. There is speculation that the Roy Moore case in Alabama had a lot to do with the timing.

Judge Pake says religion had nothing to do with his decision to put the Ten Commandments display in his courtroom. He says it is there for strictly historical reasons -- and to back that contention, he recently placed copies of other historical documents, such as the Bill of Rights, nearby.

A conservative legal group, The Rutherford Institute, says it has been working with Pake and stands ready to help him in his legal battle. John Whitehead, the Institute's president and founder, says the Ten Commandments are undeniably one of the foundations on which America's legal system is based.

"Their display in a context that emphasizes their historical role has been clearly endorsed by the U.S. Supreme Court, both in its decisions and in the decision to include the Ten Commandments in the frieze in the Supreme Court chamber itself," the attorney explains.

Whitehead says he figured the ACLU would use the Moore case to pursue similar action in other areas, and that is exactly what is happening.

The ACLU and the WTC Cross
The Trentonian

Posted on 09/09/2003 9:46 AM CDT by Simplemines

I'm sure most of you saw the AP story on the atheists suing to get rid of the WTC cross. That AP wire copy was from a story that appeared in the Trentonian. What the AP left OUT was that the ACLU doesn't want anything to do with the WTC cross - not because they think it's okay, but they're afraid of another Skokie-type debacle that would kill their donations. The original story with the ACLU stuff in it follows:

By DEBORAH CANNONIE

Staff Writer

NEW YORK, NY — Since a few days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, a 20-foot high cross, fashioned from the destruction of the Twin Towers, has stood as an inspiration on the site for thousands of New Yorkers and visitors.

For others, the “Ground Zero Cross” has been a religious symbol as well, a sign that the hand of God had stopped tens of thousands of more people from being killed on that fateful day. But some think the cross has no business being there at all.

Almost two years later, the cross remains mounted over “the pit,” the site where the Twin Towers and buildings once stood.

But as the second anniversary approaches, some who have been quiet about the World Trade Center site being situated on land owned by a governmental agency are starting to speak out about the cross.

The World Trade Center land is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a bi-state governmental agency charged with operating and administering the jointly-owned bridges, tunnels, and other property of the two neighboring states.

To Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists based in New Jersey, the Ground Zero cross represents “an establishment of religion by the government.”

She and her group, founded by the late atheist, Madelyn Murray O’Hare, is considering filing a lawsuit to stop the cross from becoming part of any permanent memorial to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“This is insane. Many people who died on Sept. 11 weren’t Christian. There were Jews, Muslims, and atheists who died,” Johnson said. “This is a Christian religious advertisement, and allowing it to stay there is an insult to everyone who doesn’t believe in that particular religion.”

The cross was found two days after the terrorist attacks by Frank Silecchia, a laborer who was a born-again Christian. The cross beams of the North Tower formed a perfect cross shape when the tower collapsed onto World Trade Building Six and destroyed it. The cross was found by Silecchia in the debris of that building and hailed by many as being a sign from God in the midst of the chaos and tragedy.

Since its discovery, the cross has been mounted by construction workers over the WTC site. It has been blessed with holy water by a Franciscan priest, and numerous masses have been held at the base of it.

While Johnson is more than willing to speak out about the cross, the American Civil Liberties Union, which often takes on controversial cases they see as governmental promotion of religion, has been curiously silent.

Both Johnson’s group and the ACLU work together on projects of mutual interest, but this time around, the ACLU’s New York chapter seems to be avoiding the Ground Zero Cross issue.

“They are very selective on how they pick their cases. They are dependent upon funding and donations from all kinds of groups, and some of them are religious,” Johnson explained. “We can be consistent with our philosophy. They can’t afford to be.”

When asked about the Ground Zero cross, NY-ACLU executive director Donna Lieberman denied that the cross was still at the World Trade Center site.

“I just drove past there the other day. I didn’t see it,” Lieberman said.

After she was assured that the 20-foot cross was still in place, Lieberman said, “I’ll have to research it,” and hung up.

She did not return repeated phone calls.

Getting rid of religious symbolism at publicly-owned land hasn’t been a new experience for the ACLU. Just last month, the group sued and won to force the removal of two granite pillars engraved with the Ten Commandments that had been on display at an Alabama courthouse.

Last July, the Southern California ACLU had launched a lawsuit to have a historic cross removed from public land in the Mojave Desert. The ACLU’s website applauded the federal judge who decided the issue, calling the Mojave Desert cross “a religious symbol.”

“Government should not be in the business of advancing one religion over another, or denigrating one religion over another,” said Peter Eliasberg, the attorney in the case, adding that the cross “violated the principles of religious freedom.”

An unnamed ACLU spokesman from the Southern California branch said he “didn’t think the Mojave Desert cross and Ground Zero crosses were the same thing.” Eliasberg could not be reached for comment.

David Horowitz, a social commentator and former leftist activist, said he wasn’t surprised by the ACLU’s reluctance to challenge the Ground Zero cross.

“They don’t want to pick this fight. They know what will happen,” said Horowitz. “All the nostalgia and patriotic feeling bound up in the World Trade Center site, and in that cross, which has been an inspiration to so many people, would come out and they would be exposed for what they are.”

“The last thing they need is to challenge a symbol that is at the heart of a deeply-felt patriotic monument. They know this is one battle they’ll lose,” he said.

Horowitz noted that the ACLU had taken a huge financial hit in the late 1970s, when the group decided to defend the rights of a group of Nazis to march in a suburb of Skokie, Illinois. The suburb was the home to a large number of Jews, many of whom were Holocaust survivors.

“They lost some initial donations, but they got a huge amount of publicity,” Horowitz said.

According to the ACLU, their membership had stagnated at 275,000 since the Skokie debacle.

But ironically, it was the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that caused a huge 20 percent surge in the ACLU’s membership.

That, they said, was because of the fear of some Americans of the Patriot Act and of being targeted by the government in its efforts to find and root out terrorists in the United States.

“They know what will happen if they try to challenge [the Ground Zero cross],” Horowitz said. “They aren’t stupid.”

Meanwhile, Johnson is ready to forge on without the ACLU’s legal help if the cross becomes part of the site’s permanent memorial.

“You can’t create a memorial that people will resent. People will throw eggs at a sectarian, religious memorial,” Johnson said. “They’ll have to put it behind glass to protect it.”

The people's judge: Justice Roy Moore. Joseph Farah on why Moore is genuine national hero
WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Friday, August 22, 2003 | Joseph Farah

Posted on 08/22/2003 4:22 AM CDT by JohnHuang2

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments."

– James Madison

Alabama's Chief Justice Roy Moore is a national hero.

He became one in 1995 when, as a circuit-court judge in the state, he placed a hand-carved wooden plaque of the Ten Commandments on his courtroom wall.

That act set off legal challenges that led to him becoming known as "The Ten Commandments Judge" and eventually his election by the people of the state to the top judicial position in Alabama.

It should have surprised no one when, upon assuming his new position as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, he installed a two-ton, washing-machine-sized granite monument of the Ten Commandments in the courthouse.

Predictably, the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed suits against Moore, charging his action violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Last month, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Moore and ordered him to remove the monument. Moore vowed once again to fight the ruling.

Is there any validity to the charge that positioning the Ten Commandments in a state courthouse violates the First Amendment?

The First Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

For starters, Congress never entered the equation when Moore made his decision to erect the monument. Secondly, and most importantly, which religion is established by the posting of the Ten Commandments?

The Ten Commandments are not only revered by all believing Christians and Jews, they are the very basis of Western civilization and, more specifically, the cornerstone of American self-government.

Just ask James Madison, the author of the U.S. Constitution. He said the founders staked their entire experiment – and it remains an experiment more than 200 years later – of self-government. The only alternative to a free society of individuals governing themselves under the simple yet profound precepts of the Ten Commandments, he understood, was a society coerced to behave by the power of government.

That's what the debate is all about in Alabama today. Do we wish to live in a society of self-governing individuals who behave themselves because of a consensus around some eternal truths, an absolute morality, a simple code of right and wrong uniting people of many faiths? Or, do we prefer to live under the rule of men and a system of ever-changing, always-evolving morality and subject to the whims of unaccountable judges and the fads and fashions of democracy?

That's the choice. We can argue whether Judge Moore made the right tactical or strategic legal choices, as one Southern Baptist leader has done. But this fight and this choice is much more important than that. There's a much bigger issue at stake – that issue is what kind of a country we want.

I want the kind of a country James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and our founders envisioned for us. That's what Judge Roy Moore wants, too.

It's time for Americans to rally around this man, his cause and tell the ACLU to take its meddling to some other country.

America was founded on the principle of self-government. We can't have self-government without the Ten Commandments, without biblical principles of right and wrong, without a basic code of morality.

This is not a question of separation of church and state. No church is being established in Alabama or the U.S. when we acknowledge the power and principality of the Ten Commandments in our lives and in the life of our country.

Ten Commandments Judge Will Not Budge: Saturday Rally Attracting Supporters to Alabama's Capital
Associated Press ^ | August 15, 2003 | Allie Martin, Bill Fancher, and Jody Brown

Posted on 08/15/2003 1:05 PM CDT by Vindiciae Contra TyrannoSCOTUS

Saturday Rally Attracting Supporters to Alabama's Capital

"It is the battle of the century as the ACLU and others face-off against this one man,
defending religious freedom on behalf of all of us."
Sandy Rios, President of Concerned Women for America

Thousands of Christians are expected to peacefully protest at Alabama's state capitol Saturday as part of a monumental showdown over the public display of the Ten Commandments. The stage was set Thursday afternoon when the state's chief justice, Roy Moore, said he has no intention of removing a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the state judicial building -- in direct defiance of a federal judge's order to do so.

Appearing at a news conference Thursday, Moore took direct aim at the decision handed down by Federal Judge Myron Thompson who maintains that the monument violates the U.S. Constitution's ban on government promotion of religion.

"We have a federal judge saying we can't recognize who God is, yet that's the basis of our justice system," Moore said. "They have the audacity to come into our court and say we have to remove the foundation of our law, which is the Ten Commandments.

"I have no intention of removing the monument. This I cannot and will not do," he said.

Moore addressed the argument that the monument constitutes government endorsement of religion, saying that separation of church and state was never meant to separate God from the government or from the law.

"Even the First Amendment [was meant] to allow us freedom to worship Almighty God," he says. "But today that freedom is being taken from us by federal courts who misuse the First Amendment as a sword to take away our rights instead of a shield to preserve them for us."

Judge Thompson recently lifted his stay on an earlier ruling that called for removal of the 5,300-pound granite monument that was installed two years ago under the direction of Judge Moore. When he lifted the stay, Thompson imposed a deadline of August 20, adding that he may impose fines up to $5,000 a day. But Moore reminded people that the motto of the State of Alabama is "We Dare Defend Our Rights."

"We should never allow the threat of financial penalty to deter us from the defense of an inalienable right," Moore said. "Alabama will never give up its right to acknowledge God."

But Ayesha Khan of Americans United for Separation of Church and State -- one of the groups that originally challenged the monument's presence in the state judicial building -- says Moore's refusal to abide by Thompson's ruling will make the people of Alabama pay for what she calls "Chief Justice Moore's shenanigans."

Moore, she says, is making a mockery of the Ten Commandments. "What he's doing is turning the Ten Commandments into the star attraction in a three-ring circus," Khan says. "If he cares so much about the Ten Commandments, he would recognize that they are holy, they are sacred, and they deserve far more than his shenanigans and his exploitation of them for his political agenda."

Khan says Moore's defiance of a federal court order is "outrageous," and predicts Judge Thompson will punish the Alabama chief justice for his non-compliance.

Moore stated he plans to file papers taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. He has asked the high court to temporarily block the federal order to remove the monument.

Rally Round the Rotunda
In a show of support for Judge Moore and his efforts to publicly display the Ten Commandments, a host of Christian and conservative groups are planning a Saturday morning rally in Montgomery. Tom Smith, a spokesman for rally sponsor Vision America, says for too many years now, Christians have slumbered as federal judges have taken God out of American public life.

Listen to the Rally Live on American Family Radio
(Saturday, 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Central Time)

"As Anne Graham Lotz said, 'We need God now.' Well, where is He going to be if we take Him out of every institution in the nation?" Smith asks. "It's anti-American, it's contrary to the founding principles of the republic, and it must stop here."

The cause, Smith says, is righteous -- and the stakes are high. "Apparently the courts in our land ... have become the prayer police for the agnostics and the atheists. They've gone beyond their constitutional charter, and that's what they've done in this case -- and that's why Chief Justice Moore is taking a stand."

He says it is important that the courts hear from people across America that God should not be removed from the public schools and the Ten Commandments should not be removed from America's system of law.

Dr. Jerry Falwell will be at the rally on Saturday along with former ambassador Alan Keyes, Howard Phillips of Conservative Caucus, and Vision American founder Rick Scarborough. Falwell says it is important to stand for the public display of the Ten Commandments.

"I, for one, believe that Judge Moore is a national treasure. He is a constitutional scholar [and] he is doing the right thing," Falwell says. "Anyone who knows American history knows that America was built on the Judeo-Christian ethic -- the principles [found] in the Old and New Testaments, particularly the Ten Commandments."

And like Smith, Falwell says the battle is an important one. "Someone has to pay the price. Judge Moore has already paid a severe price," he says. "If every judge in America would stand up for our religious heritage and things like this Ten Commandments issue, we could put it to rest."

An orthodox Jewish rabbi plans to be among those gathering in Montgomery. Rabbi Yehuda Levin of Jews for Morality also opposes the order to remove the monument. The rabbi says he wants Christian dissenters to know that the traditional Jewish community is gratified and honored to stand with Moore and millions of Christians who support what the chief justice is doing.

But Levin has another message -- this one for President Bush. "Respectfully, where are you? Why do you have to weigh in on things at the very last minute? Shouldn't this be enough for [you] to come out without being begged, implored, and called for?"

Rabbi Levin says he wants President Bush to become actively involved in defending the faith he articulates.

ACLU tracking elusive tablets
The Deseret News ^ | 8/5/2003 | Angie Welling

Posted on 08/05/2003 10:39 PM CDT by Utah Girl

Call it a scavenger hunt for a most unusual prize.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah has called on people to help it track down what is believed to be the final, elusive Ten Commandments monument that is likely located on government property.

In an "Action Alert" posted on the ACLU's Web site, www.acluutah.org, the group asks readers to visit local parks and city buildings in search of the monument. Of particular interest, the alert states, are locales in Logan, Brigham City, Hurricane, Midvale, Midway and Tremonton.

The nine monuments were donated to the Utah cities, and many others nationwide, by the Fraternal Order of Eagles during the 1950s, '60s and '70s. Civil-rights attorney Brian Barnard, who is in the process of negotiating removal of the

eighth monument from a Pleasant Grove park, said the monuments were donated each year at annual statewide conventions in various cities with an Eagles Aeries Lodge.

Barnard and the ACLU believes "elusive number nine" is in one of the cities listed on the Web site because each has an Aeries Lodge.

When news hit early last month that Barnard had challenged the Pleasant Grove monument, as he has successfully done in Roy, Tooele and Ogden, an officer with that city's Fraternal Order of Eagles is rumored to have told a news reporter that members know where the final monument sits but will not tell Barnard where it is.

Terry Carlson, past president of the Pleasant Grove Eagles, said it's entirely possible the comment was made.

"There is a ninth one out there, (but) we would at this point rather not disclose where it's at," he said.

Carlson confirmed that the ninth monument is on government property and said the ACLU's list of possible cities is a pretty good one. He said there is only one city on the list where the monument couldn't be, Hurricane, and three others that are left off where it may be — Layton, Nephi and Vernal.

Carlson disputes the ACLU's contention that having the monuments on government property violates the separation of church and state.

"It is not meant as a religious monument from the Eagles; that's not how we intended it," he said. "Those are just regular, normal laws. Everybody could find something in the Ten Commandments that they should apply to their life."

Of the other Utah cities that have the monuments, Salt Lake City removed its Ten Commandments monument from public property after a federal appeals court ruled that it could remain only if the religious group Summum was allowed to erect a similar monument denoting its Egyptian beliefs. Murray moved its upon the threat of litigation; Provo moved its monument to private property on its own initiative. West Valley City's monument sits on private property in front of that town's Aeries Lodge.

In the Pleasant Grove case, Barnard sent Mayor Jim Danklef a rough draft of a lawsuit late last week. Barnard said the city failed to respond to his original letter threatening litigation if the monument is not moved from the public park.

Anyone who spots the reddish gray marble monument, formed to look like two tablets standing side by side, is asked to call the ACLU at 1-801-521-9862 Ext. 103 or Barnard at 1-801-328-9531.

Destroying Scouting the ACLU Way
CNSNews.com ^ | 8/05/03 | Hans Zeiger

Posted on 08/05/2003 11:43 AM CDT by DPB101

As hundreds of Boy Scouts were enjoying summer camp at Camp Balboa in San Diego last week, the ACLU was handed a U.S. District Court ruling condemning the Scouts for occupying the camp on leased public land. Soon, the Scouts could be kicked out of their historic 16-acre camp and council headquarters building.

With "overwhelming and uncontradicted evidence," Judge Napoleon Jones found that the Boy Scouts are a religious organization and they were given preferential treatment when the City of San Diego first agreed to let the Boy Scouts utilize public land in Balboa Park nearly nine decades ago.

In 2000, a lesbian couple and an agnostic couple joined with the ACLU to file the lawsuit against the City of San Diego. They claimed to feel excluded by the Boy Scouts' religious policies in particular.

''Belief in God is and always has been central to BSA's principles and purposes,'' Judge Jones wrote. ''Adult leaders are expected to reinforce in Scouts the values of duty to God and reverence.''

If there is "overwhelming and uncontradicted evidence" for the presence of God in the life of a Boy Scout, there is evidence of a similar nature for God's role in the public square on Main Street USA.

Religious mottoes, preambles and texts were not an afterthought to the people who wrote them. "In God We Trust." "Endowed by their Creator." "One Nation Under God." The ACLU is working to get rid of those things too.

While less storied than these and other mottoes, the Boy Scouts have been a part of Balboa Park for decades - way before the ACLU had even been hatched.

After the 1915 San Diego World's Fair in Balboa Park, the Santa Fe Railroad donated its Pueblo Indian Village to local Boy Scouts with approval by the city council. For 25 years, the Scouts used the Indian Village as a headquarters and recreation site free of charge.

During World War II, the military took possession of Balboa Park and the Boy Scouts launched their volunteer campaigns to help the war effort from a makeshift headquarters in a local theater.

At the end of the war, the San Diego City Council passed a resolution authorizing the Boy Scouts to take charge of several acres of land in Balboa Park. Through fundraising and volunteer work, a state-of-the-art swimming pool and 600-seat outdoor amphitheater were constructed. In 1949, the Boy Scouts Desert Pacific Council headquarters building was completed.

In 1957, parts of Balboa Park remained undeveloped, so the city council agreed to transfer additional property to the Boy Scouts for maintenance and operations. A 50-year lease was signed with a rental fee of one dollar per year. With nearly 16 acres of leased land, the Boy Scouts soon launched Camp Balboa.

Today, Camp Balboa accommodates up to 300 campers at a time, and it offers a variety of year-round programs. Each year, 12,000 Boy Scouts take part in day camps, weekend camps, and merit badge classes.

According to David Hodges, field director for the Desert Pacific Boy Scout Council, "The park is used by everybody. We run this portion of the park. We reserve it for outside groups and anybody's welcome to use it. We do all the upkeep of the property here, and we lease it from the city. All the maintenance, all the expenses, the landscaping, everything we take care of."

Groups other than the Boy Scouts utilize Camp Balboa and Balboa Park. Last week for example, the two-day San Diego Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Festival was held at Balboa Park. The Boy Scouts have spent millions of dollars developing and maintaining Balboa Park over the years, without burden to the city and its taxpayers.

Even if San Diego had given preferential treatment to the Boy Scouts, what harm does that do to society? Once upon a time, working with the Boy Scouts in city hall was a common courtesy. Today, such treatment is viewed by the ACLU and judges like Napoleon Jones as though the city had given special privileges to the KKK or the Taliban.

The Boy Scouts have contributed to our communities and improved our way of life. It is ironic that the ACLU is questioning the Scouts for practicing character and moral virtue on public lands, while the ACLU is occupying public courthouses around America, pulling down every vestige of decency in sight.

One might say there is "overwhelming and uncontradicted evidence" that the ACLU is destroying America, one Boy Scout camp at a time.

A grand victory at the grand canyon
TownHall.com ^ | Tuesday, August 5, 2003 | Dennis Prager

Posted on 08/05/2003 3:28 AM CDT by JohnHuang2

On July 14, 2003, the following news item appeared:

"PHOENIX (Reuters) -- After more than three decades at the Grand Canyon, three bronze plaques inscribed with biblical passages have been removed by U.S. park officials. . . .

"Officials said they had no choice but to remove the plaques from three popular spots at the majestic canyon's busy South Rim after an inquiry was made by the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

"'They are religious plaques on federal buildings and that's not allowed based on the law,' said Maureen Oltrogge, a Grand Canyon National Park spokeswoman. . . . "

Normally, such an item would elicit little public interest. But for one American, this obscure news item was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

This country is in the midst of its second civil war. It only differs from the first civil war in that it is, thank God, non-violent. But the passions are as deep, and the stakes are just as high.

Among the stakes is whether America will remain a Judeo-Christian country with a secular government or become a secular country with a secular government. Organizations such as the ACLU (and your local university) devote massive funds and effort to changing the nature of this country; and with the help of like-minded judges, often prevail.

That the ACLU would write a letter protesting three little plaques at the Grand Canyon with verses from the book of Psalms provides a clear example of how intent the organization is on destroying the Judeo-Christian moral foundations of this society. This, after all, is the same ACLU that went to court in Florida to protect a Muslim woman's right to be photographed for her driver's license ID wearing a veil! If it ain't Judeo-Christian, the ACLU is a big fan of religion.

The story also reveals another typical problem: the fear organizations, including governmental ones, have of taking on the ACLU. Given the amount of money and manpower it would take to fight the ACLU, and given the likelihood of facing a judge with ACLU-like values, why bother fighting? So the National Park Service just lay down and surrendered.

And that is how things would have remained.

But I was incensed that the National Park Service of the United States of America would remove plaques acknowledging God as the author of natural beauty ("How varied are your works, Lord! In wisdom you have wrought them all; the earth is full of your creatures" was the subversive inscription on one of the plaques). I therefore devoted an hour of my radio show to this subject on the day the news item appeared, and asked my listeners (especially those who hear me on KKNT in Phoenix and KVOI in Tucson) to send me an e-mail if they were prepared to join me on a march to the Grand Canyon. I also urged all my listeners to call the Park Service in Washington, D.C.

I also contacted Arizona State Sen. Robert Blendu, an influential figure in Arizona politics, who had introduced himself to me as a listener to my radio show. He told my listeners to write him (written letters, he said, are more effective than e-mail among politicians) and he would pass these letters onto Washington. They did, and he and I have been overwhelmed by the response -- from secular as well as religious Americans. You don't have to be religious to worry about the consequences of destroying the Judeo-Christian foundations of America.

And we have overcome.

"PHOENIX, July 23 (AP) -- Bronze plaques displaying Bible verses removed from Grand Canyon National Park after a query from the American Civil Liberties Union were returned to the Park Wednesday."

The article notes that this is not necessarily permanent. The Park Service is still awaiting rulings from higher authorities. Further calls to the Park Service and e-mails to me (through www.dennisprager.com) are therefore still critical.

But it is clear that the Grand Canyon can become a turning point in this, the second American civil war. When we fight back, we can win. If plaques quoting the most esteemed work of this civilization are deemed illegal at the Grand Canyon, we are doomed.

It is worth noting that no Jewish or Christian organization has ever protested the Hindu names of some of the peaks in the Grand Canyon, and no religious group would ever oppose posting American Indian sayings at such a place. Once again, the secular left shows itself to be far more intolerant than the religious right.

The left will win and America will lose only if we do not fight them. Let the Grand Canyon plaques be our rallying cry.

Scouts' Balboa Park lease ruled unconstitutional
San Diego Union Tribune ^ | By Ray Huard and Marisa Taylor

Posted on 08/01/2003 1:17 PM CDT by joltinjoe

August 1, 2003

The Boy Scouts' lease of public land in Balboa Park violates constitutional separation of church and state, a federal judge ruled yesterday.

U.S. District Judge Napoleon Jones Jr. said the city gave preferential treatment to the Scouts when it leased the 18-acre Camp Balboa, even though there is "overwhelming and uncontradicted evidence" showing that the Boy Scouts are a religious organization.

"The city handpicked as the preferred lessee an organization that describes religious belief and practice as fundamental to the services it provides," Jones wrote.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the city and the Boy Scouts of America over the lease in August 2000 on behalf of a lesbian couple and an agnostic couple. Each couple has a son.

It was unclear what the immediate impact of the ruling would be because the city and the Scouts could appeal.

The city and the Boy Scouts have defended the lease, saying other groups are allowed to use the camp.

Deputy City Attorney John Mullen said the City Attorney's Office will seek direction from the City Council, which is to review the ruling in a closed session Tuesday.

The Scouts have used the park since 1920 and have been on their current site, at the northwest corner of the park near the San Diego Zoo, since 1940. They have had a lease since 1957.

Jordan Budd, legal director for the ACLU's San Diego office, said the City Council should cancel its lease with the Scouts. The only other solution, Budd said, is for the Scouts to change their policies barring homosexuals and requiring members to express a belief in God.

"We believe it is long past time for the City Council to end its affiliation with this discriminatory organization and to keep open this public park land for the use of all citizens of San Diego on a fair and equal basis and not just those citizens preferred by the Boy Scouts," he said.

Jones' ruling comes three years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that, under the First Amendment, the Boy Scouts have a constitutionally protected right of "expressive association," which allows the organization to exclude gay members.

The dispute over the lease was "predictable fallout" from the high court's decision, Jones said.

"Those protected, private viewpoints include an anti-homosexual, anti-agnostic and anti-atheist stance," he wrote. "After (the Supreme Court ruling), it is clear that the Boy Scouts of America's strongly held private, discriminatory beliefs are at odds with values requiring tolerance and inclusion in the public realm."

Jesse Choper, a professor with UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, said Jones' decision demonstrates that organizations like the Boy Scouts are "entitled to express their views and associate in any way they wish, but they're not entitled to preference."

Other legal experts were surprised by Jones' conclusion that the Scouts are a religious organization because they require members to profess a belief in God.

"It's not to say that it's wrong. There must have been a factual record that supported the ruling," said Vik Amar, a constitutional law professor with Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. "But it does sound like something that a lot of people would disagree with."

The decision is the city's second constitutional loss involving a dispute with the ACLU in less than a year.

In April, city officials lost their bid to argue the Mount Soledad cross case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court let stand an earlier decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the sale of land under the cross to a veterans group violated the article of the California Constitution that prohibits governments from financing religion.

The Boy Scouts' 50-year, $1-a-year lease expires in 2007. The City Council in December renewed the lease at the Scouts' request for 25 years, with the city having the option to extend the lease an additional 15 years.

Under terms of the lease, the Scouts must spend $1.7 million over the next seven years to upgrade Camp Balboa. The Scouts also are required to pay the city an annual administrative fee initially set at $2,500.

The Desert Pacific Council, which represents Scouts in San Diego and Imperial counties, said in a news release they are disappointed with the judge's ruling. Boy Scouts representative Thyme Osborne declined to elaborate.

"We're not doing any interviews," Osborne said.

Mayor Dick Murphy also declined to discuss the ruling.

In a statement issued by his deputy press secretary, David Hicks, Murphy said: "Having been a Boy Scout as a child, I've always supported the Boy Scouts here in San Diego. However, because this is pending litigation, all questions should be referred to the City Attorney."

Councilwoman Toni Atkins, whose district includes Balboa Park, said the city should cancel its park lease with the Boy Scouts unless the Scouts change their policies.

"It's time for the city to get on the right side of this discussion and work to abolish discrimination wherever it can," said Atkins, who is lesbian.

The land the Boy Scouts use "should be turned over to an organization that allows everyone use of public land – and I know there are enough good groups out there," she said.

The city also gives the Scouts free use of a half-acre for an aquatic center on Fiesta Island in Mission Bay. That lease expires in 2012 and has not been extended.

Jones refused to rule on the Fiesta Island lease, saying he hadn't seen enough evidence to make a ruling.

Budd said the dispute over the Fiesta lease could be heard by Jones before any appeal is decided on the park lease. The Scouts' news release said the Desert Pacific Council spent $2 million to build the aquatic center on an unused landfill.

A practical issue that remains unresolved is what will happen to the facilities the Scouts have built in Balboa Park.

Osborne said the Scouts have made extensive improvements at the park, planting trees, installing water and power lines, and building nine campsites. Also added were a swimming pool, a parking lot, restrooms and showers, a residence and office for a camp ranger, and meeting rooms.

Budd said the fate of those facilities could be decided in a final court order, which typically would include requirements the city must meet to comply.

"The fact that they've invested a substantial amount of money in the park is not a justification for them to occupy park land for free," Budd said. " . . . If they want a public subsidy and free access for years upon years to public park land, they have to do what virtually every other youth organization has done. The Girl Scouts, the Campfire Girls, the YMCA, the YWCA – every other youth organization has abandoned exclusive membership policies."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ray Huard: (619) 542-4597; ray.huard@uniontrib.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marisa Taylor: (619) 293-1020; marisa.taylor@uniontrib.com

Bible verses back up at Grand Canyon (Temporarily - ACLU aggressively fighting reinstatement)
Reuters Net - ALERT! ^ | 24 Jul 2003 20:07:59 GMT | Editorial Staff

Posted on 07/24/2003 4:04 PM CDT by vannrox

PHOENIX, July 24 (Reuters) - The bible is back at the Grand Canyon - at least for now.

Three bronze plaques inscribed with biblical passages that were removed this month from scenic overlooks at the canyon's South Rim have been reinstalled pending legal advice, David Barna, a National Park Service spokesman, said on Thursday.

The plaques were pulled from Hermit's Rest, Lookout Studio and Desert View overlooks earlier this month after the Arizona chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union concluded that they violated the U.S. Constitution's precepts on separation of church and state. As a national park, the Grand Canyon is run by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

"We need to take a step back and look at this," said Barna. "We'll need some help." It was not known when a final decision would be made.

The plaques, belonging to the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, were placed at popular spots on the busy South Rim 33 years ago to honor God for creating the majestic, crimson-hued canyon in northern Arizona.

They contain passages from the Book of Psalms and a verse from the King James version of the Bible which reads, "O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches."

"We are very happy they are back up and giving glory back to God again," said Sister Pinea Zarkos, a spokeswoman for the Sisterhood of Mary in Phoenix. "We are all praying now that they will remain up."

$1 lawsuit filed over Everett's Ten Commandments
Seattle Times ^ | July 24,2003 | Jennifer Sullivan

Posted on 07/24/2003 2:31 PM CDT by microgood

A national group that has spent the past decade battling to have a 6-foot-tall granite monument bearing the Ten Commandments removed from Everett city property yesterday filed a lawsuit against Mayor Frank Anderson and the city.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed the lawsuit on behalf of Everett resident Jesse Card.

Card, 20, is "offended by the Ten Commandments display in front of the old City Hall," according to the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

"Everett's display of the Ten Commandments on public property is a blatant endorsement of religion," the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said in a news release.

The lawsuit seeks to have the monument deemed unconstitutional and a permanent injunction forbidding its relocation to another public property. Card is seeking $1 in damages.

Card declined to comment yesterday on the suit or the monument, which sits in a flower bed in front of the Everett Police Department. The Everett Goodwill employee referred all calls to the Washington, D.C.-based group.

Everett City Attorney Mark Soine said he was reviewing the lawsuit.

"It's a historical monument; it's not there to promote religion, nor has it ever been our intent to promote religion," Soine said. "In our view, it was not put up to promote religion."

In July 1993, Everett resident James Hamilton, at the time a member of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union, lodged a series of complaints about the tablet.

One of those complaints was delivered in emotional testimony during an Everett City Council meeting.

After listening to Hamilton, Anderson, then a city councilman, replied that he wished "everyone would stop by and read (the Commandments), because then we could do away with 90 percent of our police-department budget."

The monument was donated to the city by the local branch of the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1959. Throughout the 1950s, the organization had acted upon an idea hatched by famed movie producer Cecil B. DeMille and a juvenile-court judge in Minnesota and donated Ten Commandments displays to cities around the country.

DeMille produced the 1956 film "The Ten Commandments."

In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a federal-court ruling that ordered the town of Elkhart, Ind., to remove a Ten Commandments monument it received from the Eagles.

In that case, Justice John Paul Stevens noted that the display, which referred to "Lord" and "God," was "rather hard to square with the proposition that the monument expresses no particular religious preference."

Staff reporters Rachel Tuinstra and Diane Brooks and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Wiccan sues for prayer inclusion (ACLU defends the Wiccan)
Washington Times ^ | 7.23.03 | Larry O'Dell

Posted on 07/23/2003 9:42 PM CDT by mhking

RICHMOND — The Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors is violating the U.S. Constitution by refusing to allow a self-proclaimed witch to open meetings with a prayer, the woman's attorney told a federal magistrate yesterday.

A lawyer for the county disagreed, arguing that a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court ruling gives the government wide latitude in offering legislative invocations that reflect the traditional values of a majority of its citizens.

Cynthia Simpson, 47, sued the board in December for refusing to add her name to a list of clergy invited to give the invocation at meetings. Miss Simpson practices Wicca, a religion based on respect for the earth, nature and the cycle of the seasons. Wiccans consider themselves witches, pagans or neo-pagans.

County Attorney Steven L. Micas told U.S. Magistrate Dennis W. Dohnal that the board is within its rights in requiring invocations to reflect "a monotheistic faith consistent with Judeo-Christian tradition." If stripped of all control, he suggested, the board would have to allow invocations by the white-supremacist World Church of the Creator and other fringe groups.

The county is basing much of its case on the 20-year-old Supreme Court ruling that upheld the Nebraska Legislature's session-opening invocations. Mr. Micas described that ruling as "an island in the sea of establishment of religion" case law.

Mr. Micas said the county's policy passes constitutional muster as long as the government does not control the specific content of the prayers, and as long as the person giving the invocation does not proselytize or disparage another religion.

Miss Simpson's attorney, Rebecca Glenberg of the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that her client's exclusion from the list amounted to a disparagement of her religion.

"The policy on its face demonstrates a use of the prayer program that advances certain faiths and disparages others," she said. "The core fact is Ms. Simpson was denied the opportunity to participate in this forum because of her religion."

Magistrate Dohnal did not indicate when he would rule.

Miss Simpson said after the hearing that she filed the lawsuit after county officials refused to return her phone calls and made public comments ridiculing Wicca.

"This is my own local government discriminating against me on the basis of my religion. It's not a private club or neighborhood association," Miss Simpson said.

She said Wicca is a peaceful faith with some of the same elements as traditional American Indian religions.

"We're strong as a nation because of our diversity," she said. "There are pagans fighting for you at this moment in Iraq."

| By HOWARD FISCHER

Posted on 07/22/2003 5:29 PM CDT by

Ten Commandments stay in plaza for now

PHOENIX -- Gov. Janet Napolitano will not order the removal of the Ten Commandments from a state-owned park, paving the way for a court battle. Napolitano acknowledged Monday that most courts which have looked at the issue have concluded that identical or similar displays cannot be located on public property. But Napolitano, who as attorney general banned religious symbols from public areas of that agency's office, said she has no intention of banning the six-foot granite monument.

"What I understand is there is some discussion of moving the plaque to private land,'' she said, a reference to an offer by the Fraternal Order of Eagles, which donated it to the state in 1964, to take it back.

But Ray Spencer, who is representing the Phoenix chapter in talks with the state, said that offer was made only as a contingency if the state orders the monument removed.

He said the Eagles are not voluntarily seeking its return.

The other option, said Napolitano, is the issue "will be resolved in court.''

That stance disappointed Eleanor Eisenberg, executive director of the Arizona Civil Liberties Union, which has said if the statue is not removed from Wesley Bolin Park, across the street from the state Capitol, the AzCLU will file suit.

"We can do this without any rancor and without spending taxpayer money for court battles,'' said Eisenberg -- court battles her organization said the state will lose.

Napolitano acknowledged that is a possibility.

"The bulk of the law would be in favor of moving the Ten Commandments from a public place,'' the governor said. That includes the refusal two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court to disturb a federal appellate court ruling ordering the removal of an identical monument from the front of the municipal building which houses the local courts and local prosecutor's office.

"There are some other cases that would suggest that, since it's been there so long, it can remain,'' Napolitano noted. The governor said, though, she will not intercede.

"That's an argument for the courts or a settlement between the parties,'' she said

| 7/3/03 | ALAN SAYRE

Posted on 07/03/2003 3:27 PM CDT by

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- A federal appeals court is being asked to take a second look at a suit challenging Louisiana's sales tax exemption for churches and other nonprofit religious organizations.

On June 11, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed the suit, saying it does not belong in federal court because the dispute boils down to a state tax issue.

The panel did not delve into the constitutionality of the exemptions.

On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union asked the full 5th Circuit for a rehearing. The ACLU says the case belongs in federal court because it raises questions about the separation of church and state.

"If these laws stand, the state Legislature could pick and choose to aid religion over irreligion or one religion over another contrary to the First Amendment," said Louisiana ACLU executive director Joe Cook.

There was no indication of whether the full 5th Circuit would review the case.

U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan struck down the exemptions a year ago, saying they were given for a religious purpose, breaking the constitutionally required separation of church and state.

On appeal, the state argued successfully that the suit does not belong in federal court because a federal law bars federal judges from hearing suits involving state tax disputes.

In its request for a rehearing, the ACLU said the three-judge panel misapplied that law. The ACLU contends that previous court decisions have held that federal courts can hear lawsuits "that do not interrupt or impede the flow of a state's tax revenue."

Three sets of sales tax exemptions are in question.

The first is a 1996 law exempting all churches and synagogues from paying sales taxes on the purchases of Bibles, song books or literature used for religious instruction classes.

In 1998, the Legislature made two other sales tax exemptions: one to nonprofit religious groups that own and operate camps and retreats and use the revenue for religious purposes, and another on all purchases by the Catholic Church-affiliated Society of the Little Sisters of the Poor in New Orleans.

In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that governments in church-state separation cases must show that their actions serve a secular purpose that neither advances nor inhibits religion, and do not encourage excessive government entanglement with religion.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court relied on that decision in 1999 when it threw out state sales tax exemptions for religious publications. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up an appeal and, as a result, the suit did not set a national legal precedent.

| June 27, 2003

Posted on 06/29/2003 12:20 PM CDT by

Parade Treatment Irks Gay Groups

Activists Preparing To Clash With Christian Coalition

POSTED: 8:28 p.m. HST June 27, 2003

UPDATED: 8:37 a.m. HST June 28, 2003

HONOLULU, Hawaii -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii is suing Honolulu city and county officials for excluding gay groups from a parade next week.

The ACLU filed suit Friday in U.S. District Court.

According to the complaint, the city and the Hawaii Christian Coalition promoted the July 5 "Family Day Parade" as co-sponsors.

But after gay groups repeatedly tried to join, the suit says the organizers claimed the event was privately sponsored only by the Christian Coalition.

Gay groups say over the years they have had to fight to put on their own gay pride parade and they can't understand why the city has pumped taxpayer money into promoting the Christian Coalition event.

"The city is jumping though hoops to help them with the parade," said gay rights advocate Ken Miller. "What kind of equality is that?"

City spokeswoman Carol Costa says the event is not organized by city and county officials and the rules are up to the Christian Coalition.

Hawaii Christian Coalition representative Garrett Hashimoto says as the main sponsor of the family parade, the Coalition can legally exclude who it wants.

"We don't want (a) political or personal organization's agenda in this parade," he said.

Hashimoto says it would be inappropriate for a group promoting a gay lifeystyle to march in what is essentially a children's parade.

A hearing in federal court is set for July 1 at 3 p.m.

Court: Ten Commandments plaque can stay
Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | 6/26/2003 | Joseph A. Slobodzian and Nancy Petersen

Posted on 06/26/2003 11:45 AM CDT by sjersey

A federal appeals court this morning ruled that the 83-year-old bronze plaque of the Ten Commandments may remain on the wall of the historic Chester County Courthouse.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that the plaque's age - rather than its religious content - was the prime motivation behind the Chester County Commissioners' refusal to remove the plaque. Pocopson atheist Sally Flynn and the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia had sued to have it taken down.

The decision is likely to again confront the U.S. Supreme Court with a demand to define the boundary separating religion and government.

"The reasonable observer would not believe that the county's inaction was motivated by a desire to endorse religion, or some religious practice such as Sabbatarianism," wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Edward R. Becker, "but rather by a desire to preserve a longstanding plaque."

"As such," the judge added," the overall effect of the display, when viewed in the context of its history, does not appear to be an endorsement of religion."

The appeals ruling reversed the March 6, 2002, decision by U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell, who had ordered the plaque removed for violating the First Amendment's establishment clause requiring a separation between church and state.

Since then, the 50- by 39-inch plaque has been covered with a stone-colored screen while the county pursued an appeal.

"Obviously, this is disappointing," said Stefan Presser, legal director of the Philadelphia office of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Flynn and the Freethought Society in the lawsuit.

Presser said he would meet soon with Flynn and the society's president, Margaret Downey, about taking an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"We now have four Circuit Courts of Appeals ruling on this issue, three on one side and ours on the other and it will be up to the Supreme Court to resolve this," Presser said.

Since the plaque has been on the courthouse wall for more than 80 years, Chester County Commissioner Andrew Dinniman said the issue was one of historic preservation rather than the separation of church and state.

"What do you do with historic artifacts that are part of your past?" he said. "This was a case in which we were arguing that it was constitutional when it went up and you can't use a different standard 80 years later."

He said the historic question attracted friends of the court briefs from the Chester County Historic Preservation Network and the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.

"This will affect hundreds of courthouses around the nation, many of which are historic sites," he said.

He said that he expects that the metal plate that has been covering the plaque for the past several months will be removed this afternoon during a 2 p.m. press conference on the courthouse steps in West Chester.

The ruling by the three-judge panel - Becker, the Third Circuit's former chief, and Judges Maryanne Trump Barry, also of the Third Circuit, and Myron H. Bright, visiting from the St. Louis-based Eighth Circuit - is binding on federal trial courts in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Today's decision followed a packed two-hour oral argument April 7 before the three judges. Lawyers for Chester County argued for an "historic exemption" for the plaque and the ACLU maintained that its presence on the courthouse wall was impossible to reconcile with the First Amendment's establishment clause.

Increasingly over the last decade, civil libertarians and conservative Christians have come into public conflict over the role of faith and religion in the nation's official, public life.

Supporters of retaining such expressions of faith as the Chester County Decalogue plaque maintain that they are an extension of a Christian tradition among the nation's founders that includes invocation of the deity before opening sessions of court and Congress and on U.S. currency and coins.

Chester County is not alone in its display of the Decalogue. During April's argument before the Third Circuit, Judge Barry noted that an estimated 4,000 similar displays - many like Chester's dating to the 1920s - are on courthouses and public buildings nationwide.

On June 9, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, sitting in Montgomery, Ala., heard oral arguments in a challenge by three lawyers to the decision by Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore to pay for and install a 2-1/2 ton granite monument in the rotunda of the state court building. The monument contains the Decalogue and 14 quotations referring to the primacy of God or "divine law."

Opponents contend that such sectarian expressions should not be part of public buildings, particularly in the increasingly multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-faith 21st-century United States.

The conflict came home to Chester County in 1991 when Flynn, 73, an atheist and veteran civil rights activist, decided to sue to force the county to remove the plaque donated and stalled in 1920 by the Council of Religious Education of the Federated Churches of West Chester.

"Society knows about not murdering and not stealing but the rest of it there promotes a belief in God," Flynn testified during the March 2002 trial before Judge Dalzell.

At trial, Chester County officials defended the plaque by arguing that the Decalogue is so commonly known today that it has lost the purely religious significance it had when it was donated in 1920. Later, before the Third Circuit, county lawyers argued for an historic exemption because the plaque was more than 50 years old.

Dalzell rejected the county's argument, writing that the text and wording of the Ten Commandments on the courthouse plaque was clearly a Protestant Christian interpretation - the King James text augmented by New Testament commentary - that might offend some Jews, other Christians, Muslims and Buddhists.

Legally, the case has reawakened the debate about what the Supreme Court really believes about the separation of church and state.

Officially, the high court's precedent is a 32-year-old decision in a case that originated in Philadelphia, Lemon v. Kurtzman.

The decision, which outlined a three-part test that judges use to decide if a law or policy improperly entangles church and state, has never been overruled by the Supreme Court.

But legal experts say the high court is just waiting for the right appeal to come its way, noting that five of the nine sitting justices have publicly, and sometimes harshly, criticized the Lemon decision.

| 5/30/03 | WND

Posted on 05/30/2003 7:47 PM CDT by

Group says display of book near courthouse could offend those practicing other religions

The American Civil Liberties Union is asking that a Bible be removed from a granite memorial that sits in front of a Texas courthouse because it might offend non-Christians, reports the Houston Chronicle.

County Judge Robert Eckels told the Houston Chronicle he would review the request but doesn't think the memorial is a "violation of the separation of church and state or sponsorship of a religious activity."

The memorial has been in front of the Harris County Civil Courts Building for 47 years, according to the Chronicle, and was built in 1956 to honor a business owner who helped the poor. It is maintained by a local mission group.

Randall Kallinen, an attorney with the ACLU, says he thinks the presence of the Bible sends a message that those practicing other faiths aren't welcome in the courthouse.

What about all the other religions who see that Bible? Does that mean they're not welcome or their religion is not respected?" he asked, according to the Houston paper. "Civil courts are supposed to be fair and nonprejudicial. Putting one religion ahead of the other doesn't seem to be fair or nonprejudicial."

Activists from American Gay Atheists vandalized the memorial in the late 1980s, according to the Chronicle, breaking the glass case housing the Bible and replacing it with a pornographic magazine.

The ACLU has been involved in many attempts to remove any hint of religious symbols from public property and buildings, including several displays of the Ten Commandments.

In January, the group lost a battle to have a display of the Ten Commandments removed from a Kentucky courthouse.

ACLU wants Florida to recall AIDS brochure Biblical references called inappropriate
SF Gate ^ | 4/4/03 | Dana Canedy - NY Times

Posted on 04/04/2003 2:25 PM CST by NormsRevenge

Miami -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida is asking the Florida Department of Health to recall an AIDS information brochure that includes biblical references and tells people to "answer Jesus' call" by reaching out to people with HIV.

The brochure, "A Christian Response to AIDS," carries the department logo and includes quotations of Scripture and images of Jesus healing the sick. It refers to biblical passages for people seeking more information on "human suffering and its relationship to God."

The ACLU said the brochure was inappropriate for distribution by a public health agency and should be recalled immediately. The same brochure was recently distributed in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., but was removed from circulation because of similar complaints.

"From the point of view of addressing a public health crisis that the spread of the AIDS virus represents," said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, "the state has to restrict its message to what is medical, to what is scientific, and not embrace what is contained in a 16-page pamphlet as a theological perspective on this.

"One of the most striking things may be that there is not a single word about prevention," Simon said of the brochure. "What is the point of the Health Department purchasing and distributing this if not to stem the spread of the illness?"

A spokesman for the Bureau of HIV at the department said the agency had paid for and distributed the brochure and was reviewing it after receiving the ACLU complaint Thursday.

"I believe that most people using it are minority, community faith-based organizations trying to reach out to people in our state," said Tom Liberti, chief of the Bureau of HIV. "We're going to look at it for the next seven to 10 days and make a decision. We'll look at the information on the letter and decide whether it should be removed from our approved list."

Liberti said he did not know how the department decided to endorse the brochure but that it was probably the result of a request by a religious organization. The information in the pamphlet, however, was approved by a department review panel before it was distributed, he said.

Liberti said he did not have details on how much the state had spent or how many brochures were in circulation.

Simon said a document his office obtained from the state showed that the Health Department bought 13,482 brochures for $4,500 and distributed them from January 2000 to April 2001.

The ACLU sent a letter Thursday to Dr. John Agwunobi, secretary of the Florida Department of Health, and Beth Swisher of the Bureau of HIV outlining its concerns and requesting that the brochure be recalled.

Last month, the Pennsylvania Department of Health removed the brochure from a list of educational brochures on its Web site after an online state government news service asked about it. The department bought about 10,000 brochures in 2002 for $2,000 and distributed about 6,000 brochures, mostly in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

In 2001, the District of Columbia Department of Health distributed the brochure but stopped after AIDS activists accused the agency of using taxpayer money to promote religion. That department spent $380 for 1,000 copies.

Some of the material in the brochure is educational, like information about how HIV is contracted and opposition to discrimination against people with AIDS, but Simon said a public health agency was not the proper messenger for most of the message in the pamphlet.

"There is no hostility here toward the content of this pamphlet," Simon said. "It may be an appropriate pamphlet to be circulated by some churches, but not everything that can be circulated by churches is appropriate or constitutionally permitted to be purchased and circulated by governments."

The brochure also excludes people of other faiths, Simon noted.

"The state did not purchase an Islamic response to AIDS or a Jewish response to AIDS," he said. "I don't think the appropriate response is for the state Department of Health to run out and create, write or purchase those pamphlets."

| April 3, 2003 | Diana Lynne

Posted on 04/04/2003 2:58 PM CST by

FAITH UNDER FIRE State Senate bars Christian prayer Jewish lawmakers threaten walk-out over reference to Jesus

Posted: April 3, 2003 6:30 p.m. Eastern

A Maryland minister was barred from giving the opening prayer in the state Senate after he refused to drop a reference to Jesus.

The Rev. David N. Hughes of the Trinity and Evangelical Church of Adamstown, Md., intended to round out his invocation yesterday with the line, "In Jesus' name, Amen." But the sergeant at arms – on the orders of Senate President Thomas Mike Miller Jr. – shut the reverend out of the body's chambers.

Miller issued the orders after two Jewish lawmakers threatened to stage a boycott of the legislative session if the phrase was not removed.

"I'm shocked by the response. I've never had this happen in 26 years," Hughes told the Frederick News-Post. "It just makes me feel that they've taken away my right as an American to pray, and this is the seat of government, and that's scary."

The pastor – a Vietnam veteran – was invited to give the prayer by Republican Sen. Alex Mooney. Hughes was Mooney's fourth guest. The other three were Jewish rabbis.

Opening up legislative sessions with prayer is a longstanding tradition in Maryland, as it is in states across the country. Mooney told WorldNetDaily no one had been barred from giving an invocation before. He sees irony in yesterday's "censorship."

"We were the first state to address religious tolerance in our state charter," he told WorldNetDaily. "This just shows a lack of tolerance for peoples' religious views."

Mooney recalled numerous instances of invocations referencing Jesus throughout the four years that he has been in office.

But at the beginning of the session this year, a string of invocations by Baptist preachers invoking the name Jesus Christ sparked debate on the issue. Miller appealed to lawmakers for tolerance and urged they stick to guidelines that call for invocations to be of an ecumenical nature and respectful of all faiths.

Webster's New World Dictionary defines ecumenical as "promoting cooperation or better understanding among differing religious faiths."

Since the debate, the Senate clerk screens prayers ahead of time and flagged the written text submitted by Hughes.

When Sens. Ida Ruben and Paula Colodny Hollinger – both of whom are Jewish – heard of the reference, they asked Mooney to strike it.

"I said, 'Hey, I'll let him pray however he wants to pray. I'm not going to censor him and tell him how he needs to pray,'" Mooney told WND.

Ruben told the Frederick News-Post she then urged Hughes to substitute "messiah" for Jesus, telling him the reference could offend non-Christians and goes against the guidelines.

Neither Ruben nor Miller returned calls seeking comment.

"This is part of my faith," Hughes responded, according to Mooney. "The Gospel says when you pray, pray in Jesus' name."

The senators next asked to be excused from the floor during the prayer.

Paradoxically, a walk-out over a Muslim cleric's prayer opening a Washington state legislative session last month backfired on one Christian lawmaker.

As WorldNetDaily reported, Rep. Lois McMahan, a Republican from Gig Harbor, Wash., refused to participate in the prayer and declared, "My god is not Muhammed."

"The Islamic religion is so ... part and parcel with the attack on America. I just didn't want to be there, be a part of that," she said in an interview with the Seattle Post Intelligencer. "Even though the mainstream Islamic religion doesn't profess to hate America, nonetheless it spawns the groups that hate America."

But a day later, McMahan apologized on the floor of the state House of Representatives amid mounting furor over her stance.

Debate over invocations is raging elsewhere in the country. As WorldNetDaily reported, several Southern California cities are grappling with threats from both sides of the issue.

Under pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union to quit using the name Jesus Christ in invocations, the city of Lake Elsinore, in Riverside County, decided to eliminate mention of "religious figures." The decree subsequently had the apparent effect of eliminating the prayer altogether, as no local pastors would accept invitations to deliver the prayer, and city councilors adopted moments of silence instead.

The ACLU contends that praying at the request of a government entity is a violation of the First Amendment's prohibition against the establishment of religion.

But the nonprofit United States Justice Foundation, which threatened to sue the city if it failed to reverse its decision, maintains telling a pastor what to pray is a violation of his First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion.

The notion of "separation of church and state" is derived from the dissenting opinion of the 1946 Supreme Court case Everson vs. Board of Education, which upheld a program allowing parents to be repaid from state funds for the costs of transportation to private religious schools. The court required only that the state maintain neutrality in its relations with various groups of religious believers.

"The decision in Everson does not rise to the level of being a battle cry for those who would wish to remove every vestige of religion from the public forum," USJF litigation counsel Richard Ackerman asserts.

"There's a push in this country to remove religion from society," Mooney echoed, "from the Supreme Court's decision on the Pledge to the ACLU going after all the Ten Commandments posted across the country. ... Nothing in the church-state relationship allows censorship and the removal of religious values from society."

Lawmaker sorry for snubbing imam's prayer

Lawmakers snub imam's opening prayer

City council bars prayers to Jesus

Court rejects ACLU lawsuit over Ten Commandments
Washington Times ^ | 1/25/03 | Joyce Howard Price
Posted on 01/25/2003 0:43 AM CST by kattracks

A federal court in Kentucky has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the ACLU that challenged the constitutionality of a county courthouse display that included the Ten Commandments among a series of historical and legal texts.

     "The court is extremely clear that the display [in the Mercer County, Ky., courthouse] does not violate the Constitution and merely acknowledges the role that the Ten Commandments has played in the formation of our nation's heritage and history," said Francis J. Manion, senior counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, which defended Mercer County in the case.
     "This decision is an important victory underscoring the fact that such a display is an acknowledgement of history, not an endorsement of religion," Mr. Manion added.
     At issue was the Foundations of American Law and Government exhibit in the courthouse, which includes framed copies of the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Ten Commandments, the Magna Carta, "The Star-Spangled Banner," the national motto "In God We Trust," the Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
     In a ruling released Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Karl S. Forester in Lexington wrote that the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky "initiated this controversy on Nov. 27, 2001, by filing a complaint ... alleging that a display in the Mercer County Courthouse violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment."
     The ACLU held that the inclusion of the Ten Commandments in the display "constitutes the establishment [or endorsement] of religion by Mercer County." It sought a preliminary injunction, which, if approved, would have required the immediate removal of the public exhibit.
     Judge Forester rejected the ACLU's request, but gave the group an additional four months to come up with other reasons to justify its claim that the display is unconstitutional.
     When the ACLU failed to respond to the extended deadline, the Virginia-based ACLJ filed a motion for a summary judgment to dismiss the plaintiff's suit.
     Judge Forester approved the ACLJ's motion in a six-page opinion he filed with the court Wednesday.
     The federal judge concluded: "The display clearly has a legitimate purpose of, including but not limited to, acknowledging the historical influence of the Commandments on the development of this country's laws, and the record is devoid of any evidence indicating a religious purpose by the government.
     "In addition, for the reasons previously stated, the primary purpose or effect of the display is not to endorse religion as a matter of law," Judge Forester added.
     Mr. Manion said the ruling is a "tremendous affirmation that the legal attack aimed at removing the Ten Commandments from places like the Mercer County courthouse is legally flawed and without merit."
     "This is a way government can put the Ten Commandments up and survive a constitutional challenge," he said in a telephone interview.
     But David Friedman, the ACLU's general counsel in Kentucky, yesterday strongly disagreed with that assessment.
     "And we'll be arguing our case before the appeals court," meaning the U.S. 6th District Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Mr. Friedman added.
     He noted that "two other district courts [in Kentucky] have gone our way" in cases debating the constitutionality of displays featuring the Ten Commandments with texts of other historical documents on public property.

Suit settled; no religion in program
The Advocate ^ | 11/14/02 | Joe Gyan Jr.

Posted on 11/14/2002 12:48 PM CST by zingzang

By JOE GYAN JR. jgyan@theadvocate.com New Orleans bureau

NEW ORLEANS -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana and Gov. Mike Foster have settled an ACLU lawsuit that claimed the governor's federally funded sexual abstinence program was using tax dollars to promote religion.

The settlement comes 31/2 months after U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. of New Orleans ruled that the Governor's Program on Abstinence had illegally used some funds "to convey religious messages and advance religion."

Under the settlement agreement approved Friday by Porteous and disclosed Wednesday by the ACLU, the Governor's Program on Abstinence has agreed to closely monitor the activities of all GPA-funded programs.

The agreement requires recipients of program funds to submit monthly reporting forms to the governor's office certifying that "no activity, event or material created or supported in whole or in part with GPA funds has included religious content," and that "no GPA funds have been used to advocate or promote, through prayer or otherwise, religion or religious messages."

Program personnel also will conduct quarterly in-person reviews of funded programs and examine lesson plans and curricula before the beginning of instruction, according to the settlement.

Any programs found to be promoting religion must correct the violation within a prescribed period of time. Under the terms of the agreement, the Governor's Program on Abstinence will neither renew nor consider new funding requests in the next contract period from programs or individuals that persist in preaching or teaching religion.

"This settlement recognizes that preaching should not be a taxpayer-funded activity," said Joe Cook, executive director of the Louisiana ACLU. Cook said the promotion of religion belongs "in the hands of parents and in private places of worship."

Catherine Weiss, director of the national ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said the court-approved settlement "should put other states on notice that using taxpayer money to promote religious beliefs violates the basic principle of religious freedom and will not be tolerated. "We are gratified that the governor's office has agreed to keep religion out of state-sponsored sex education programs," she added.

Foster, who had no comment Wednesday on the settlement, said previously that "there never has been any intention to fund religious activities."

Porteous acknowledged in his July 24 ruling that the Governor's Program on Abstinence was motivated by a "legitimate secular purpose" -- reducing teenage pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases through abstinence from sexual activity.

The judge, however, ordered the Governor's Program on Abstinence to stop giving money to groups or people who convey religious messages "or otherwise advance religion in any way in the course of any event supported in whole or in part by GPA funds ..."

The state had appealed Porteous' ruling in the case to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In his order Friday, the judge said he will dismiss the case but "retain jurisdiction to enforce the terms and conditions of the settlement agreement of the parties." Money for the Governor's Program on Abstinence comes from the federal government under an "abstinence-only" education program approved as part of 1996 welfare legislation. The program, created by Foster in 1998, also is funded by state dollars.

Gay bias uproar puts school board on spot (Homo Mob Alert)
Atlanta Journal Constitution | 11-5-02 | JEN SANSBURY

Posted on 11/05/2002 7:44 AM CST by Lance Romance

Gay bias uproar puts school board on spot

By JEN SANSBURY
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer

Appeals Monday night on behalf of a popular black youth motivator -- and counterdemands to end harassment of gay students -- underscored DeKalb County schools' ongoing struggle with diversity.

Avondale High football legend Danny Buggs sat quietly in the audience at a school board work session at Avondale Middle School as eight speakers rose to defend him. It was the first public meeting since system officials suspended and reprimanded Buggs for making anti-gay religious remarks recently to a captive audience of about 500 male students at Stone Mountain High.

Kevin Oliveira, a former DeKalb teacher, said he has just finished a documentary film about Buggs called "Attitude of Gratitude." He called Buggs a "man of impeccable integrity" and criticized the condemnation of Buggs and the notion of keeping religion out of schools.

"Two women do not make a child. Two men do not make a child. . . . I'm talking straight biology," he said. "We can talk about Harry Potter and . . . Halloween, but we can't talk about the righteousness of God."

Buggs' supporters were followed by four speakers representing a coalition -- including the ACLU, Enlight Atlanta and the Anti-Defamation League -- that is asking the district to revisit its policy on bullying to address verbal as well as physical force and intimidation.

Audrey Galex, a Shamrock Middle and Oak Grove Elementary parent said the district gave Buggs a "bully pulpit."

"What are you going to do to enforce the harassment policy when it is not enforced when it comes to homophobia?" she asked district officials. "We need to enforce the code of conduct that you made me and my children sign."

Lakeside High teacher Nicole Wilson, who sponsors the school's Gay-Straight Alliance, said she has heard nothing from the superintendent or any board members in response to another recent case of discrimination against homosexuals.

Her club's posters for National Coming Out Day were torn off the walls at the school, although the ones taken down by the principal were hung back up within an hour.

"I think it's time for DeKalb County to make this a top priority for all of our students," Wilson said. "All of our students deserve defending and protecting."

Board Chairman Brad Bryant said he did not know what the district's response should be.

"We have got more work as a school district to try to figure out how to work with all of the different types of diversity we have in DeKalb," he said.

Buggs has worked for the district for 21 years, trying to keep youth out of trouble through motivational speeches and his program, the Winning Circle.

Chike Akua was among several speakers who said the district should be thanking Buggs, not punishing him, for his efforts, which also include taking students on college trips and visiting with incarcerated and homeless students.

"It did not seem he's received the amount of support from the county that is proportionate to what he's done," Akua said. "He is responsible for the transformation of literally thousands of young people in DeKalb County and throughout America."

Church faces barriers in lease-The ACLU Backs a Church!

The Daily Camera | 3-15-02 | Justin George

Posted on 3/15/02 2:48 PM Pacific by Glasser

LAFAYETTE — A 1,700-member church has signed a five-year lease to rent a former store building, which the city would rather see reserved for another retail store.

The Flatirons Community Church now faces two barriers before it can call the 28,000-square-foot building home:

The church's plans must be reviewed by the city Planning Commission, and church officials plan to file a request today that could get them an April 22 hearing.

Even if it wins approval, lurking still is a warning sent by the Lafayette administration a few months ago that the city might condemn the site for another business — if the church moves in.

The structure, in the Clear Creek strip mall near U.S. 287 and South Boulder Road, formerly housed the Country General Store.

Seeing a possibly contentious fight looming, church officials said they have sought and received help from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington, D.C., public-interest group that helps religious institutions facing land-use problems.

Flatirons meets in a 9,000-square-foot space in the Clear Creek strip mall. But because the church has grown so fast, leaders targeted the Country General Store building when the retailer went out of business late last year.

But the city says the site is at its busiest intersection and has produced at least $100,000 in sales-tax revenue each year — money it can't afford to lose. On Feb. 5, the Lafayette City Council changed zoning regulations, forcing churches to get permission from the Planning Commission before they can move into prime commercial areas.

Before the revision, churches could move without restrictions.

Many of the 200 anxious churchgoers who attended the Feb. 5 meeting were dismayed at the decision. City officials contend that they had considered the change months before and did not target Flatirons.

City Administrator Gary Klaphake said city officials have toured available unbuilt sites with church leaders and introduced them to landowners who may want to develop property for a church.

Regardless of the Planning Commission's decision, he said, the city is against the church's staying in the building for more than three years.

"We need to keep retail in there in the long-term," Klaphake said.

Louisville attorney Jim Tienken, who represents Flatirons, said the mall's landlord will not accept a lease shorter than five years. He said there are no available sites in Lafayette that fit the church's seating and parking requirements.

Tienken said the church plans to make sure the city does not violate the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which was passed by Congress in July 2000. The act forbids local governments from imposing land-use regulations that put substantial burdens on the religious exercises of people or assemblies.

Tienken said the city is in a position of control. But the church believes it has the legal right to move into the space, he said, and also has the backing of the Becket Fund and the Boulder chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is monitoring the proceedings.

"We got a lot of cards," he said. "We'll keep pulling them out of our sleeves."

Contact Justin George at (303) 473-1359 or georgej@thedailycamera.com.

ACLU suit targets Ten Commandments voted by lawmakers for Ky. capitol

By Art Toalston

FRANKFORT, Ky. (BP)--A lawsuit to block a 7-foot-tall Ten Commandments monument from the Kentucky capitol grounds has been filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The July 10 ACLU filing takes aim at a resolution passed by the Kentucky legislature slated to take effect July 15 to permanently display the monument just behind the capitol building in Frankfort.

An ordained Southern Baptist minister, Democratic Rep. Tom Riner of Louisville, authored the amended version of the legislation that eventually was passed in April by state lawmakers.

Meanwhile, a minister identified by the ACLU as James Jerrell Greenlee, with credentials in both the Southern Baptist and American Baptist conventions, was one of three Protestant ministers (the others being a United Methodist and a Presbyterian) and a rabbi who are plaintiffs for the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Frankfort.

Riner described the ACLU lawsuit as "part of their systematic campaign over the course of 30 years to denigrate God in the classroom and public life," in comments quoted by the Louisville Courier-Journal.

"They [the ACLU] are going to continue in the courtroom, basically, until they succeed in the emasculation of any heritage that has spiritual roots," Riner told the newspaper.

Courts in four states have upheld Ten Commandments postings in public places, Riner told the Lexington Herald-Leader, predicting that Kentucky's law can also withstand a court challenge.

Kentucky has been a Ten Commandments battleground since 1980, when the U.S. Supreme Court's Stone v. Graham decision invalidated state legislation requiring Ten Commandments postings in public schools.

"This [legislation] is not an attempt to promote religion. It's an attempt to educate people as to the origins of our laws," Riner told the Lexington newspaper. "We want our children and our children's children to know that these laws didn't just come from thin air."

The legislation, Senate Joint Resolution 57, calls for the Ten Commandment monument's placement at the capitol "in order to remind Kentuckians of the Biblical foundations of the laws of the Commonwealth."

Greenlee, the Baptist plaintiff, was not quoted by either of the newspapers nor in an ACLU news release about the lawsuit.

The ACLU news release called the legislative action a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which forbids government from endorsing or favoring religion. The suit seeks an order to prevent the monument's placement at the statehouse.

"The placement of the Ten Commandments monument at a central location on the capitol grounds is no accident," Kathleen Flynn, one of the volunteer ACLU lawyers handling the case, said in the news release. "The legislature chose to place religious text next to the Floral Clock as a way of endorsing that text."

"This legislation must be viewed in context," David Friedman, the ACLU of Kentucky's general counsel, said in the news release. "It was enacted after the ACLU of Kentucky sued local governments to prevent them from placing the Ten Commandments on courthouse and school walls. The legislature clearly was taking sides in that debate, choosing the endorsement of religious texts over American principles forbidding government from doing so."

In a May 5 ruling on an ACLU lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Jennifer Coffman ordered Ten Commandments displays removed from public sites in three southeastern Kentucky counties. The counties didn't take the documents down until May 17. The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati refused to grant a stay of Coffman's ruling on May 18.

Empty frames were put up in Harlan County schools in response to Coffman's ruling, which also affected Ten Commandments displays in the courthouses of McCreary and Pulaski counties.

The Lexington paper quoted Hershael York, a professor of preaching at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, as saying that the clergymen and rabbi in the ACLU lawsuit don't represent typical Kentucky churchgoers.

"There's no question that the average grassroots Southern Baptist would be in favor of posting the Ten Commandments," York told the newspaper.

The rabbi involved in the lawsuit, Jonathan Adland, of Temple Adath Israel in Louisville, meanwhile told the newspaper, "Religion is a matter of the heart and soul and it should be celebrated and observed in religious institutions and in the home. The state has no business being involved in this."

The rabbi also stated, "The Ten Commandments are not universal," saying they are not revered by Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims.

The monument was a gift from the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1971 and has been in storage since the late 1980s.

In other Ten Commandments-type controversies around the country:

-- The U.S. House, in a 333-27 vote June 27 with 66 other congressmen voting "present," registered support for Ohio's state motto, "With God, all things are possible," which a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled in violation of the Constitution by a 2-1 vote in April in response to an ACLU lawsuit. Ohio has appealed the ruling to the full court.

"Political correctness has run rampant," Rep. Mike Oxley, R.-Ohio, chief sponsor of the nonbinding resolution, H.Res. 494, said of the federal panel's decision. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, meanwhile complained, "This is shameless political grandstanding." The motto, adopted in 1959, became an issue in 1997 when then-Gov. George Voinovich decided to etch it on a bronze plaque at the front of the statehouse.

-- Colorado's Board of Education voted July 6 to recommend the posting of "In God We Trust," the motto on U.S. currency since 1864, in the state's schools. "How long can we remain a free nation if our youth don't have civic virtue?" board chairman Clair Orr was quoted by the Associated Press as saying. The motto was adopted in a 5-1 vote in a board meeting that began with a prayer. Sue Armstrong, executive director of the ACLU of Colorado, told the AP she will wait until the motto is posted in schools before deciding on legal action.

-- The ACLU filed suit June 22 against a newly enacted Virginia law requiring public schools to begin each day with a minute of silence for students to "meditate, pray or engage in other silent activity."

"Every Virginia legislator knows the purpose of this law," Kent Willis, executive director of ACLU of Virginia, charged in a news release. "It is an attempt to put state-sanctioned prayer back in our public schools, and that is both shameful and unconstitutional."

Virginia law tested by U.S. high court's school prayer ruling

WASHINGTON, D.C., 7 July 2000 (Newsroom) -- On the heels of the United States Supreme Court's first school prayer decision since 1992, the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) Virginia affiliate has filed suit in federal district court over recently passed moment-of-silence legislation.

Some legal observers say the Virginia suit may mark a number of cases seeking to apply the high court's June 19 opinion in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe to religious expression in public schools. The Supreme Court struck down the Texas school district's policy of permitting student-led, public prayer before football games.

The Virginia law, originally to take effect July 1, requires public schools to set aside one minute during the school day for students to "meditate, pray, or engage in any other silent activity." The law amends a 1976 statute merely permitting moments of silence. The Virginia ACLU argues the new law violates the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, which forbids the state from establishing religion.

ACLU Virginia plans to base its case largely on the motivation of legislators who supported the law, as demonstrated by the public record, according to the group's executive director Kent Willis. Willis claimed the timing of the suit, which was filed June 22, had nothing to do with the Supreme Court's Santa Fe ruling. "We actually filed the suit several weeks later than anticipated," he said. "It was a nice coincidence, but only a coincidence."

Nevertheless, the 6-3 Santa Fe ruling seems particularly fortuitous for the ACLU's case, according to Elliot Mincberg, vice president and legal director for People for the American Way, which collaborated on an amicus brief in favor of the ACLU-sponsored plaintiffs. Santa Fe "underlines the viability" of the claim that the intent behind a particular law or policy carries significant weight, he said.

In its majority opinion, authored by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Supreme Court struck down the Santa Fe policy allowing the student body to elect a student to deliver an invocation at home football games. The final draft of the evolving district policy eliminated the word prayer and included "messages" and "statements" along with "invocations" as types of speech the elected student representative might offer. The high court pointed to the evolution of the policy and Santa Fe High School's "history of regular delivery of a student-led prayer at athletic events" to support its argument that "it is reasonable to infer that the specific purpose of the policy was to preserve a popular state-sponsored religious practice."

The ACLU's Willis said the Supreme Court's opinion undergirds his organization's strategy: "We are keenly aware of the legislative history behind the minute of silence law" in Virginia, he said. "We know the law's purpose, but we must be able to convince a court ... . The (Santa Fe) opinion shows the court will look through sham explanations of policies and laws -- that it will not just look at the wording of a policy, or just defer to disingenuous explanations of the law or policy; but it will look at the facts thoroughly."

Carl Esbeck, director of the Center for Law and Religious Freedom at the Christian Legal Society in Washington, D.C., argued, however, that Santa Fe had "no implications" for the moment-of-silence issue. The Supreme Court ruled on moments of silence in 1985 in Wallace v. Jaffree, he points out. That case considered an amendment to an existing Alabama law in which legislators added "voluntary prayer" as one of the exercises a student might engage in during a minute of silence. The court determined the law had been changed "for the sole purpose of expressing the state's endorsement of prayer activities for one minute at the beginning of each school day" and struck it down. Virginia, on the other hand, said Esbeck, "has just passed one law which says you can have a moment of silence to meditate or pray. The ACLU will lose."

Willis conceded the Virginia law, passed during the most recent legislative session, "came out of nowhere." In his 12 years of closely following Virginia's legislative activity, this session was the first in which a moment-of-silence bill had come up, he said. Virginia Attorney General Mark Earley's office has not been served formally with the suit yet, but spokesman David Botkins argued the statute's purpose was not to promote religion in public schools. "There are a number of items that students can engage in during a moment of silence" according to the statue, Botkins said. "Prayer is just one of those items."

Perhaps more immediately apparent than its impact on moment-of-silence laws, the Santa Fe ruling "fills in a couple, though not all, of the blanks concerning how student prayer ought to be handled in front of captive audiences and at school sponsored events," said Charles Haynes, senior scholar at Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center. Consistently over the last several decades the Supreme Court has ruled against "state-sponsored or endorsed prayer in a school setting," explained Haynes, who is based near Washington, D.C. During the 1960s, the courts dealt with the involvement of state officials in religious exercises; in 1992, the court ruled in Lee v. Weisman against clergy-led prayer at graduation ceremonies. Santa Fe is the first case in which the court has taken up student prayer, which the defense -- undertaken by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) -- contended was private, not government, speech.

The high court, however, determined the invocations at issue in the Texas school district were rightly viewed as state-sponsored even though created and delivered by a student. Of particular concern was the election process by which the student body decided, first, whether to have invocations at home football games and, if so, which student would have the year-long responsibility of delivering them. The court argued the school district was entangled in the process, pointing out that the "elections take place at all only because the school board has chosen to permit students to deliver a brief invocation and/or message." The elections also were problematic, the court argued, because "the majoritarian process implemented by the district guarantees, by definition, that minority candidates will never prevail and that their views will be effectively silenced."

"Many justices saw in the elections ... the specter of students campaigning for or against various prayers, which is what the Establishment Clause was meant to prevent," Haynes offered. "The First Amendment is a barrier against the worst danger of democracy -- majoritarianism."

If the court's opinion does anything, argued University of Texas law professor Douglas Laycock, who worked with attorneys for the plaintiffs, it "settles the issue of election schemes, calling them a form of school sponsorship." He contended that under the ruling "schools can't have prayer as part of a program at school-sponsored events." This applies to graduations and sporting events, he said. "Broadcasting prayer over a microphone is over with. Prayer at graduations -- with respect to a student elected to give a prayer or message -- is over with."

Walter Weber, senior litigation counsel for the ACLJ, acknowledged "the court seemed to be saying that the Santa Fe school district was attempting to evade Lee v. Weisman and its implications by setting up a device (through student elections) to ensure prayer would still be there. The court seemed convinced it was seeing through that ruse." Weber agreed that student-led graduation prayer as prompted by student vote would likely be deemed impermissible under the Santa Fe ruling.

The Christian Legal Society's Esbeck said he anticipates a "flurry of rulings back in the circuits" to sort out the issue of student prayer at public school graduation ceremonies. The Supreme Court declined to take up a graduation prayer portion of the Santa Fe case, electing to consider only the practice of student-led prayer at public school football games.

People for the American Way's Mincberg said it was "unfortunate" the high court decided not to address student-led graduation prayer. "It will probably lead to more litigation than needs to have occurred," he said.

The Supreme Court has asked the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider one of its own graduation prayer rulings in light of Santa Fe. A second such case also is being reconsidered by the full court of appeals in the Eleventh Circuit.

Library Removes 'Christian' Labels
by Dave Clark, correspondent

The heavy hand of the ACLU has squashed a public-service effort by a Kansas library. This, after a patron objected to labels identifying certain books as Christian.

As director of the Olathe (Kan.) Public Library, Emily Baker looks for ways to make browsing easier for her patrons, many of whom enjoy Christian fiction.

"We had decided to, a couple of years ago, mark those books with a label so when people were browsing our regular fiction shelves, they would find those more easily," Baker said. "It was a customer-service effort on our part."

But one patron took issue with the labeling. However, rather than confront the librarian or her board, the complainant went directly to Dick Kurtenbach, of the ACLU.

"(The complainant) felt that it was up to her to decide whether or not a book that she wanted to check out was religious in nature and it was not up to the librarian to make that decision," Kurtenbach said.

He said the labels — which contained a cross and the word "Christian"— could be grounds for a lawsuit and promptly fired off a letter to librarian Baker.

Dick Carpenter, education policy analyst with Focus on the Family, called the reaction by the ACLU and its client reactionary.

"This librarian in Olathe is trying to do something good for her patrons and the ACLU comes down on her with a sledgehammer," Carpenter said.

Baker said she was simply trying to help.

"People liked the labels because it made it easy," she said. "You know, something as simple as that."

Nevertheless, the labels many found so helpful are now history. A day after receiving the ACLU's threat, the library board voted to end the practice.

ACLU DEFENDS PEDOPHILE GROUP

A 10-year-old Massachusetts boy is raped, murdered and tossed in a river. Two men are convicted-both members of the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). The parents sue the group, claiming NAMBLA's Web site encouraged the crime. Now the American Civil Liberties Union has stepped in, defending NAMBLA's "right to free speech."

The ACLU declined an interview with Citizen or its Internet affiliate, CitizenLink, and the ACLU Web site, which usually trumpets court cases, has no mention of this one. It did explain to The New York Times, however.

"Regardless of whether people agree with or abhor NAMBLA's views, holding the organization responsible for crimes committed by others who read their material would gravely endanger our important First Amendment freedoms," an ACLU statement said. "We join with all others in deploring the heinous crimes committed against Jeffrey Curley . . . But the expression of even offensive ideas is protected by the Constitution."

Jordan Lorence, a constitutional attorney in Washington, D.C., said the ACLU may be seeking to appear as a protector of the First Amendment at any cost.

"They're against censorship of speech in public schools, unless it teaches creationism, and then it must be censored," Lorence said. "They're not always consistent."

There's a twist in the Curley case: The ACLU once represented the dead boy's father in a workplace controversy. Robert Curley, a Cambridge, Mass., firefighter, sued when he was required to attend diversity training. Boston attorney Harvey Silverglate, an ACLU member, represented Curley in court, and the city backed down.

Silverglate calls diversity training "a national plague," but he defends the ACLU's support of NAMBLA against Curley's $200 million lawsuit. Even so, Curley is grateful to the ACLU.

"I really do have a lot of respect for [the ACLU]," he told The Boston Globe. "They are very consistent in who they defend."

What outrages Curley is his community's contorted views on diversity.

"What bothers me is when I see the Cambridge people who have a bumper sticker on one side of their car saying 'Celebrate Diversity' and one on the other side saying 'Protect Your Family from the Christian Coalition.' How diverse is that?"

Religious Liberty

by Perry L. Glanzer

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ... First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

Focus on the Family is deeply concerned about the ways the religion clauses of the First Amendment are being interpreted so that they threaten to deny religious persons their rights or to exclude religion and religiously grounded values from public expression and debate. The following statement highlights our particular concerns.

The Free Exercise of Religion

Traditionally, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that in order for a law to prevail over an individual’s free exercise of religion it must have a compelling state interest. However, in 1990 the Court rejected this traditional interpretation and essentially placed the burden on individuals to prove why their free exercise rights had been violated. Seven years later in Boerne v. Flores, the Court threw out Congress’s attempt to remedy the Supreme Court’s trampling of religious liberty. As a result, the religious liberty of Americans is more unprotected than ever.

Focus on the Family calls for the Supreme Court to recover the high vision of religious freedom envisioned by the founders. In light of the Court’s low view of religious freedom, we endorse state-level RFRA’s that do not include prisoner exemptions as needed remedies to assure persons of their religious liberties. These acts would reaffirm that government does not grant religious liberty and that it should not burden the free exercise of religion without a compelling state interest.

The Establishment of Religion

The “Wall Of Separation Between Church And State”

Current interpretations of the Establishment Clause (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...”) are also undermining the rights of religious individuals and groups. The primary reason concerns the phrase “the wall of separation between church and state.” The phrase is not found in the Constitution. It came from a personal letter from Thomas Jefferson to some Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut. However, the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and other organizations have used this phrase to promote a dogmatic interpretation of the First Amendment that discriminates against or disadvantages traditional religious believers in three major ways.

1. Excluding Religiously Grounded Moral Positions From Informing Law

From the acts of the founders through the work of the abolitionists to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, religious citizens have played an important role in agitating for beneficial social change. Through the leadership of people like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., the Christian ethic has motivated important legislative change and reform in America. Yet, a strict separationist interpretation would inhibit a person with traditional religiously based moral positions from influencing the nation’s laws while allowing secular philosophies free reign over our legal system.

For example, the California branch of the ACLU wrote in a letter: “It is our position that teaching that monogamous, heterosexual intercourse within marriage is a traditional American value is an unconstitutional establishment of a religious value in public schools.” ¹Simply because a moral insight has a religious origin is no reason at all to exclude it from the public square.

2. Denying Religious Persons The Equal Rights Of Expression In The Public Square

Second, a strict separationist interpretation denies religious persons equal rights of expression. For instance, recent lower court cases have taken the following actions:

· Upheld a principal’s decision to prohibit a class valedictorian from speaking who was planning to devote a portion of her speech to the importance of Jesus Christ in her life.
· Upheld a teacher’s refusal to allow a student to write a research paper on “The Life of Jesus Christ” even when other papers on “Spiritualism” and “Reincarnation” were approved.
· Upheld a principal’s order asking a fifth grade public school teacher to refrain from reading the Bible during a class silent reading period and to remove a Bible from the top of his desk.

All of these decisions uphold the erroneous assumption that the public sphere, especially publicly funded education, must be secular. This radical interpretation of the First Amendment, which would exclude religion from public life, is a far cry from the framers' intent. As John Adams stated (1798): “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

3. Denying Benefits Because Of Religion

Third, a strict separationist interpretation of the Establishment Clause denies government benefits to religious persons or institutions solely because of their religion character. For example, the courts have often used a strict separationist view to prohibit parents from receiving financial relief for choosing religious educational options. The government should not be allowed to use the power of the purse to favor secular over traditional religious perspectives and choices.

Establishment Clause Reinterpretation

Focus on the Family calls for the courts to recover the original vision of pluralism envisioned by the founders that does not discriminate against religion but affirms its importance in our public life. We suggest it follow the advice offered by legal scholar Michael McConnell:

"The beginning of wisdom in this contentious area of law is to recognize that neutrality and secularism are not the same thing. In the marketplace of ideas, secular viewpoints and ideologies are in competition with religious viewpoints and ideologies. It is no more neutral to favor the secular over the religious than to favor the religious over the secular.

It is time for a reorientation of constitutional law: away from the false neutrality of the secular state, toward a genuine equality of rights. . . . The Establishment Clause . . . may not be used as a sword to justify repression of religion or its adherents from any aspect of public life.” ²

We call on judges and lawyers to recognize that what is currently considered neutrality actually ends up supporting a secular public square free of religion. We call on them to return the interpretation of Establishment Clause to its rightful and original place as a protector of equality for all religions in public square and not as a weapon to shield public life from religion.

Endnotes
¹ James Dobson and Gary Bauer, Children at Risk (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1990), p. 315.
²Michael McConnell, Testimony on Religious Liberty and the Bill of Rights, Submitted to the Congress of the U.S. House of Representative Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, 7 June 1995.

Religious Liberty
By Perry L. Glanzer

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ... First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

The Free Exercise of Religion

Traditionally, the U.S. Supreme

The Christian ethic has motivated important legislative change and reform in America.

Court has ruled that in order for a law to prevail over an individual’s free exercise of religion it must have a compelling state interest. However, in 1990 the Court rejected this traditional interpretation and essentially placed the burden on individuals to prove why their free exercise rights had been violated. Seven years later in Boerne v. Flores, the Court threw out Congress’s attempt to remedy the Supreme Court’s trampling of religious liberty. As a result, the religious liberty of Americans is more unprotected than ever.

The Establishment of Religion

The “Wall Of Separation Between Church And State”

1. Excluding Religiously Grounded Moral Positions From Informing Law

2. Denying Religious Persons The Equal Rights Of Expression In The Public Square

Second, a strict separationist interpretation denies religious persons equal rights of expression. For instance, recent lower court cases have taken the following actions:

· Upheld a principal’s decision to prohibit a class valedictorian from speaking who was planning to devote a portion of her speech to the importance of Jesus Christ in her life. · Upheld a teacher’s refusal to allow a student to write a research paper on “The Life of Jesus Christ” even when other papers on “Spiritualism” and “Reincarnation” were approved. · Upheld a principal’s order asking a fifth grade public school teacher to refrain from reading the Bible during a class silent reading period and to remove a Bible from the top of his desk.

3. Denying Benefits Because Of Religion

Establishment Clause Reinterpretation

The government should not be allowed to use the power of the purse to favor secular over traditional religious perspectives and choices.

Endnotes
¹James Dobson and Gary Bauer, Children at Risk (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1990), p. 315.
²Michael McConnell, Testimony on Religious Liberty and the Bill of Rights, Submitted to the Congress of the U.S. House of Representative Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, 7 June 1995.

ACLU CHIDES SCHOOL

A Louisiana school, traumatized by a double shooting last month, sought the aid of local pastors, only to be warned by the American Civil Liberties Union that their actions were in violation of the separation of church and state.

Carter G. Woodson Middle School in New Orleans was closed down last month for three days following the shooting in which two teen-age boys were seriously injured. Community leaders joined with school staff to provide a solution to worried parents who threatened to keep their children away if there were no improvements in safety. Their inclusion of clergy members has been credited by the principal for bringing school attendance back to 80%. Regular prayer time in a nearby park and other off-campus events were involved.

But Joe Cook, state chapter leader of the Louisiana ACLU, objected, "School officials and outsiders cannot get involved in sponsoring, encouraging, promoting or participating in any religious activity during a school-related function." According to school officials, on-campus activities did not include prayer services.

Will libraries defy the ACLU? * G-rated films pay * Another botched abortion

COURT DEFEAT WON'T STOP OTHER LIBRARIES FROM PROTECTING KIDS

Do public libraries have the right to prevent patrons from accessing pornographic Internet sites? The American Civil Liberties Union says no, and points as evidence to a recent court ruling in Loudoun County, Va. But the author of the Loudon County policy says the fight has just begun.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema sided with the ACLU in December in striking down the Loudoun County library board's policy of placing pornography-filtering software on all public-use Internet terminals. Brinkema ruled that the board's policy violated First Amendment freedoms because it would prevent all patrons--not just minors--from accessing sexually explicit material online.

"Any library opposing any material on the Internet will have to think very hard whether this is acceptable in light of [Brinkema's] opinion," said Chris Hansen, senior staff attorney for the ACLU.

Libraries in Texas and Mississippi have already begun reviewing their Internet-filtering plans or policies in light of the Loudoun County ruling. Yet Dick Black, author of the Loudoun County policy, said other libraries need not worry.

"This decision only applies to the eastern region of Virginia and it would probably be overturned if the county would appeal," said Black, who added that Brinkema is frequently reversed by higher courts. (The library's board reportedly is leaning against an appeal.)

Black, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and former Loudoun County library board member, explained that his policy had less to do with the First Amendment than it did with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act--a provision dealing with hostile work environments.

Black said federal cases have demonstrated that a Playboy calendar in a workplace cubicle can create a hostile work environment. The Loudoun County policy used similar logic, reasoning that pornographic displays on a library Internet terminal "would transform the library environment from one of reading and scholarship to one which invites unwelcome sexual advances and sexual harassment."

Black encouraged other communities to pass similar library policies and to stand firm in the face of court challenges. At least one district is pressing ahead. The Englewood, Colo., public library announced late last year that beginning April 1 it will shield children under age 18 from Internet porn sites.

Steve Watters

ACLU and Friends Block Enforcement of Child Online Protection Law

Conservatives Wonder if Justice Department Will Mount a Strong Defense

The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) would have been the law of the land today, but the ACLU, along with a variety of other libertarian groups, filed a motion that blocked the law from being enforced. On February 1, U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed, Jr. granted a preliminary injunction, barring enforcement and prosecution of the law.

The Justice Department has still not determined if they will appeal or request a full trial.

The law was specifically designed to target commercial online pornographers, but the ACLU warns that it threatens a "wide range of speakers" on the Internet. Despite the ACLU's claims, however, the law focuses on producers of commercial material appealing to a "prurient interest in nudity" and lacking "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors." Nevertheless, the ACLU and its co-counsel argue that the law will be used by "ultra-conservative groups to shut down Web sites that deal with a host of hot-button issues ranging from homosexuality to women's reproductive rights."

Monique Nelson, of the non-profit organization, Enough is Enough, believes that the ACLU is using fear-mongering to argue against the new law. She says, "The ACLU--whose Policy 4 says that children have a right to pornography--is exaggerating the reach of the law, to foist their agenda on the rest of us."

"All the conservative groups I've spoken to are more interested in seeing the law enforced against the Web areas that it specifically targets--commercial porn sites," said Steve Watters, Internet Research Analyst at Focus on the Family. "Based on the track record of the Department of Justice, however, we can't even be sure those sites will be targeted."

Although the Justice Department is responsible for defending and enforcing the laws of the United States, it has shown little support for this particular law. David Burt, president of Filtering Facts, bemoaned the lack of preparation and enthusiasm shown by Justice Department attorney Karen Stewart as early as the initial hearing last November 19th. He points out that Stewart did not call any rebuttal witnesses and had only limited questions during cross-examination. Burt believes this lack of enthusiasm "probably handed the ACLU an easy victory."

Senator Coats, author of the bill, responded to the November 19th court decision with a defense for the bill and a congenial challenge to the Justice Department. "It is our greatest hope that the Clinton Justice Department will vigorously defend this statute, designed to protect our kids from graphic pornography on the Web," said Coats. He added that his legislation was "carefully tailored" to address concerns the Supreme Court raised when considering the Communications Decency Act last year.

Despite the fact that COPA was passed overwhelmingly by the House and Senate and then signed by the President, its trek through the courts will be an uphill battle. "As far as I'm concerned," says Bruce Watson, president of the Internet safety group Enough is Enough, "we are fighting as underdogs here--despite the constitutionality of the law and its congressional support."

Shielding our First Freedom

by Gary Bauer

I have great news. Before the end of this Congress, there may be a solution in place for some of the worst examples of judicial tyranny facing our nation. The Family Research Council has crafted a new piece of legislation, called the "Federalism Shield," which is designed to protect the posting of the Ten Commandments and safeguard individual religious expression in the public arena.

This legislative initiative will help counter a disturbing trend in America today. The forces of militant secularism have made a concerted effort to stamp out religion in the public square. One by one they have attacked small-town courthouses, schools and city halls.

Listen to these stories: In Alabama, a district court judge is sued for posting the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. A small town in Indiana agrees not to display the Ten Commandments after being threatened with an ACLU suit. An Arkansas judge prohibits a sheriff from posting a modified version of the Ten Commandments in the jail booking area because it reads: "Remember the Sabbath day is a holy day for some detainees."

The list goes on and on: A cross placed on the exterior of a Tulsa fire station as a Christmas decoration is removed. The state of Ohio is sued because its motto says, "With God all things are possible." Annual legal battles are waged against nativity scenes across the country (most recently in New Jersey and Missouri).

America was founded by fervently religious people who left their native countries to escape religious oppression. They were not allowed to speak of their religious beliefs or practice these beliefs in public or even in their homes. In fact, in some countries any evidence of these activities could have led to death. It is for this reason that our founding fathers created America.

Ours is a country that allows for both the free expression and free exercise of religious belief. Most importantly, it acknowledges that all gifts on earth have one origin: God, our Creator and Judge to whom all human beings and governments are accountable.

This truth has always been at the heart of public life in America. In his 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln called upon the American people to reverently thank their Father in heaven for the gifts He has bestowed upon us. The freedom to issue such a proclamation, and the freedom of the people to respond to it, even in their public institutions, has always been recognized--until now.

Today there is a concerted effort by elements of our culture to diminish this freedom. Anything identified with religious expression and institutions is viewed with disdain. State and local officials are hesitant to allow any religious speech or symbols out of fear of being bullied by certain segments of society.

This trend is worsened by judges who refuse to protect religious liberties. As Americans, we have proudly and vigorously protected the rights of minority faiths and even those who look down upon all religious faith. Now, those individuals whose rights we have always sought to protect (however unpopular their views may be) are using the judicial system to silence people of faith. In Alabama, federal Judge Ira DeMent went so far as to prescribe what kind of acknowledgment of God could be included in a valedictorian's speech. DeMent conveniently ignored the obvious fact that religious speech is, after all, speech.

Judges and city officials need to be reminded that religious expression is not only protected under the First Amendment, but also that the First Amendment was written in such a way as to ensure that such expression flourished. Our founders envisioned a country in which cultural and political debate was enriched and guided by religious conviction.

I believe that Congress must act to protect the liberties God has bestowed upon us. That's why the Family Research Council developed the Federalism Shield. This legislation will allow cities, towns and states to acknowledge God without living in constant fear of lawsuits. This Federalism Shield will return to the American people their right to thank God, through our governmental institutions, for the bounty of His blessings and grace.

Our religious liberties are among the most fundamental rights we exercise. If we continue to allow them to be forced further and further into the shadows of American life, what will we lose next? As Americans, we have the right and the responsibility to ensure that the government protects these liberties.

North Carolina County to Defend Cross From Civil Libertarians

Seal's symbol is latest battleground over separation of church and state

by Andy Butcher
A rural county's official seal is set to become the latest flashpoint in the battle over church-and-state rights. Catawba County commissioners in North Carolina voted unanimously yesterday to ignore a call to remove the symbol of the cross from the emblem, likely prompting court action by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The organization also has its sights on Ten Commandments memorials in several Nebraska cities, which it claims contravene the constitution's required separation of church and state.

A crowd of around 500 cheered when the Catawba County representatives made their decision, reported "The Charlotte Observer." Chairman Bob Hibbitts said that the cross, one of four symbols on the seal, was not meant to represent an official religion or discriminate against non-Christians.

"We should not condone a sellout of our heritage," he said. "On the contrary, united, we should fight for it." The commissioners voted to defend their 75-year-old seal after a request from the ACLU to remove it. State director Deborah Ross said that the argument that the seal was part of the county's heritage was irrelevant.

"I think that whether or not it's true... the case law from the last 10 years is pretty clear that they can't have a cross on their seal," she told the "Observer." "The decision is a legal consideration, not as cultural one."

Supporting the commissioners' stand was Ed Yount, pastor of Woodlawn Baptist Church in Conover, N.C., who said: "The ACLU is hypocritical, claiming to be for citizens' rights and coming to our small county and challenging our right to display our heritage." Bruce Johnson, pastor of Solid Rock Christian Center in Hickory, N.C., said churches across the country would gather signatures in support of the seal.

In Hastings, Neb., city officials and residents are concerned that a monument of the Ten Commandments at a city cemetery will soon be a target of the ACLU. The memorial originally stood at a museum, but was moved to the cemetery when construction began at the site.

Mayor Phil Odum told the Associated Press that there were a number of religious symbols on gravestones in the cemetery. State ACLU director Tim Butz said he had no argument with privately erected monuments. "Our beef is with cities that have religious displays on public land."

To the east, in Plattsmouth, Neb., city council members are waiting to hear from legal staff whether a monument with the Ten Commandments on in a public park is legal, reported "The Lincoln Journal-Star." President John Porter said: "I have lived here all my life, and until the ACLU brought it up I didn't even know it was up there."

The latest skirmishes over religious symbols on public land follow last week's ruling by a federal judge that a plan to place the Ten Commandments on the statehouse grounds in Bloomington, Ind., violates the First Amendment. A temporary injunction preventing the erection of the monument was issued after a complaint by local ACLU members.

But it is not only Christians who face problems with their symbols of faith. Some pagans are cautious about the jewelry they wear to work because of the negative reaction it receives.

One attendee at the annual Pagan Picnic in St Louis, N.C. last week told "The (Raleigh) News and Observer" he made an "economic decision" not to wear a pentacle after one client told him she could never recommend him to her friends. Others told the newspaper they thought it unfair that co-workers could wear crosses, yet they did not feel safe sporting their Wiccan images.

Courts Hit by Backlash From Campaign to Display Ten Commandments in Schools

by Andy Butcher
The trashing by Texas school officials of three students' book covers declaring the Ten Commandments is part of a backlash against the spreading grassroots movement to promote the public display of God's laws.

Liberty Counsel, an Orlando, Fla.-based religious civil liberties group, is suing the Willis school board, near Houston, over the incident, which saw staff take the biblically themed covers off and throw them away, saying that the Ten Commandments was hate speech that might offend others.

The action claiming violation of the students' rights to freedom of speech, filed in federal court in Houston last Friday, also cites the case of a teacher who confiscated Bibles from two sisters and threw them into a trash can, shouting, "This is garbage."

Liberty Counsel's Matthew Staver said students had a constitutional right to take religious literature to school and read it during their free time, and to put a religious cover on their books. Schools were not "religion-free zones."

Other recent moves to stop the promotion of the Ten Commandments--a growing nationwide initiative by several groups--include a federal judge ordering the removal of the laws from courthouses and schools in parts of Kentucky, and an attempt to stop a monument with the Ten Commandments inscribed on it from being placed on the Statehouse lawn in Indiana.

Display of the Ten Commandments in government buildings was banned in 1980 by the U.S. Supreme Court in a ruling that said doing so violated the constitutional prohibition against government establishment of religion. But groups have been finding creative ways to promote the Ten Commandments nonetheless, from book covers and T-shirts to historical displays.

Rob Schenk, director of the National Ten Commandments Project in Washington, D.C., said that the various attempts to stop the public display of the laws were a positive sign that the campaign was having an effect. The "common thread" in the various efforts to "squash religious expression" was the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which was "bent on purging America of any religious influence."

He said: "It's very clear that the ACLU is a blatantly anti-religious organization, and they are using these incidents as opportunities to carry out the very destructive mission they have. It is also very clear when you read the writings, speeches and in some cases sermons of our founders that they saw religion as perhaps the strongest and most positive influence in our culture."

Janet Folger, director of the Center for Reclaiming America whose "Yes, I Believe in God" project encourages teen-agers to take the Ten Commandments to their schools on book covers and T-shirts, said that Christians should not be intimidated into inaction by the various measures being taken.

Support for Ten Commandment initiatives are cropping up all over "because people are realizing that we need a return to just common sense. There are some rules for living that have worked ever since Moses came down from Mount Sinai, not only in Judeo-Christian history but through all civilizations."

Would opponents "strike down all laws against murder because they are based on one of the Ten Commandments? That's how absurd this has become."

Copies of the Ten Commandments were ordered to be taken down from government buildings in McCreary, Pulaski and Harlan counties in Kentucky last week after an ACLU suit challenged their constitutionality. They had been displayed as historical documents along with the Declaration of Independence--as they are in several other states.

Louisiana Stand Spotlights Growing Public Acceptance of Witchcraft
ACLU Hypocrisy
by Andy Butcher

As witchcraft gains more and more public acceptance across the country, Christians in Houma, La., are turning to prayer and a little-known law to stop its spread in their conservative community.

Hundreds of people from local churches gathered at Living Word Church on Monday for a citywide monthly prayer meeting prompted by concern over a Wiccan coven meeting not far from another church. "I wasn't aware how popular it has become in the last few years," said pastor Rene Monette. "It was a wake-up call to make us realize we need to come together."

An ABC News report Tuesday night featured the churches' stand and told how the local witches maintained that their beliefs are harmless. But Monette said: "The Wiccan church is against everything we stand for as a Christian nation and as a Christian faith. We don't want it here. We feel like a lot of baggage is going to come with all that stuff."

Monette told Charisma News Service today that he and others are hoping to persuade parish leaders to stand behind a local law used to regulate events like carnivals and circuses that bans fortune telling and palmistry. The law has been challenged in a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which argues that it violates the Wiccans' religious freedom. "We want them to fight it," Monette said. '[But] our greatest weapon won't be the law--it is prayer."

The Houma dispute is the latest example of Wicca's pagan beliefs gaining ground. CBS News reported Tuesday that there are an estimated 500,000 witches across the United States. Many took part in Pagan Pride Day celebrations in September, encouraging people to learn more about the nature-based religion. Followers refute links with Satanism and say they only do good through their spells.

Earlier this month Wiccan leader Bryan Lankford led the opening prayer at a Dallas City Council meeting, following controversy over his last-minute replacement by a church pastor at a previous meeting. His invocation was addressed to "Mother Goddess, Father God," reported "The Dallas Morning News."

Witches in Florida chose Halloween to file a lawsuit against the state for denying them tax-exempt status. The Department of Revenue had turned down an application from the Wiccan Religious Cooperative of Florida on the grounds that it did not have an established place of worship, "The Tallahassee Democrat" said. Attorney Heather Morcroft said yesterday: "Wiccans are not anti-Christian. They just want religious freedom to be applied to all religions equally."

Meanwhile a Gallup research poll revealed that belief in ghosts and witches has increased "substantially" over the last 20 years. The latest findings were that 31 percent of American adults said they believed in ghosts and 22 percent in witches. In 1978, just 11 percent believed in either.

In Houma, Wiccan high priest Monte Laisance told ABC News his group's main belief was witchcraft. "The main tenant is harm none," he said. Laisance's Crossroads meeting place also serves as a witchcraft museum.

The law Houma Christians want to see defended and enforced has already been successfully challenged elsewhere. Last November a federal judge ruled in favor of four people from New Iberia, La., who complained that the ban on fortune-telling, and palm and tarot reading was unfair.

5/17/00

Complaint lodged against praying judge
The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia filed a federal complaint against a Charleston, West Virginia, circuit court judge for bringing in a minister to pray before a May 1999 grand jury proceeding. The complaint claims that by asking the grand jury to bow their heads, Judge Thomas A. Frye Jr. violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The ACLU is waging the battle on the federal level after the state's Judicial Investigation Commission dismissed by the complaint last August.

Next it'll be a crusade to get rid of lowercase "t"s because they look like crosses
The ACLU also sued Richmond County, Georgia, this week, saying its Superior Court seal violates the First Amendment because it has an image apparently of the Ten Commandments. Not that there's anything written on the tablets like "Have no other gods before me": it's just two tablets with numbers on them.

The ACLU claims the cross represents an illegal endorsement of religion on public land. Peter Eliasberg, a lawyer for the group, said the cross "promotes Christian beliefs over others, which is not the role of the government. Federal park land is for all of us."

But John Sandleman, who saw service during World War II and regularly visits the cross, lamented the Park Service's decision: "Many thousands of men and women have died in war to protect the civil liberties of Americans. It is very sad that we cannot remember them the way we wish to."

ACLU at It Again...

The Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said it would sue to block the "Partners in Prayer Program" in the Beauregard Parish schools because it is unconstitutional. As part of the program, the Associated Press reports, parents are sent release forms asking if their children's names can be used in "Partners," which allows churches and other groups to adopt classrooms and pray for their students. The head of the school board says he will not drop the effort.

And Again

The Olathe, Kan., public library is taking off labels that mark particular books as suitable for Christians after complaints from the ACLU. The group says the labels are unconstitutional. David Ahlstrom, president of the Library Board, said the labels were not meant to offend anybody — but were just intended to provide a service to patrons, according to the AP.

So Who Can You Trust?

Treasurer Rita Cline of Shawnee County, Kan., shrank the word "God," but the American Civil Liberties Union is still not happy. When the treasurer put up an 11- by 14-inch sign in her office proclaiming, "In God We Trust," the ACLU sued in U.S. District Court. The message went beyond the national motto because the word "God" was printed in red letters bigger than the letters of the rest of the phrase, the ACLU said. The new sign is 16 by 20 inches, includes the bald eagle image from the $1 bill and uses uniform lettering similar to that on U.S. currency. Still no go.

ACLU Plays 'Grinch' in Ga. County
by Mark Cowan, correspondent

In small towns all around the nation, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is threatening lawsuits over celebrating Christmas in the public square. In one battle in Georgia, the ACLU has moved to strike Christmas from a school calendar.

Prior to his transformation, "A Christmas Carol's" Ebenezer Scrooge said this about Christmas: "You keep Christmas in your way and let me keep it mine."

But the Georgia chapter of the ACLU is not willing to do even that. The organization threatened to sue the Newton County (Ga.) School Board for putting Christmas holidays on the school calendar.

"The Newton County School Board changed the name of their holiday to the 'Christmas Holiday' and specifically said the reason they were doing it was because this was a Christian nation and for a clear religious purpose," said the chapter's Jerry Webber.

Webber said federal courts have issued rulings against such action in the past. But Mat Staver, of the Liberty Counsel, a religious-liberties legal group, said the ACLU is wrong.

"There's absolutely no reason to drop Christmas from the school calendar," Staver said. "There's no reason to change Christmas holiday to 'semester break' or any other such change. The bottom line is it shows hostility towards religion."

Staver said the ACLU reminds him of another infamous opponent of Christmas — the Grinch — who is known for saying: "I must find some way to keep Christmas from coming."

The Newton County board ultimately bowed to the ACLU's demand, voting to change the name on the calendar to "semester break." John Douglas, the only Newton County board member to vote against the change, said the majority figured a fight wasn't worth the cost.

"They said they didn't want to go to the expense of being sued," Douglas said. "They thought there might be some liability to the taxpayers."

Douglas said he thought the ACLU was bluffing.

La. ACLU Sues to Stop Prayer Effort
by Stuart Shepard, correspondent

Stop praying for my child! That's the cry of some parents in Louisiana who are suing a school district over prayer, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union.

After Billie Jean Bauer lost her 20-year-old son in an accident, she found praying for others was the means God used to bring her through that tragedy.

"I wanted to know of a way that we could legally pray for other children that the Lord showed us were spiritual orphans, children that have never had their names called to God," Bauer said.

So, with school permission, she began collecting names — and names only — of teachers and students. That was the birth of Partners in Prayer for Schools. Last year, in her area, 100 churches with 1,000 volunteers committed to pray over those names daily.

Cathi Talent heads up the 42 volunteer prayer warriors at Longville Pentecostal Church.

"This one high school student said that when she gets up in the morning and goes to school there is just a sense of peace in her spirit knowing that there is somebody in Longville praying for her that day," Talent said.

Yet when the ACLU of Louisiana got wind of the practice, it filed suit against the Beauregard Parish, La., school board. In Louisiana, a parish is a unit of local government, similar to the county level of government found in many states.

When asked about the lawsuit filed by the state ACLU and its leader Joe Cook, Talent said prayer is still the best answer.

"Actually, Mr. Cook has got about 1,300 people in Beauregard Parish that are praying for him," Talent said.

Because of the suit, eight new churches have signed up to pray.

A hearing on the case is scheduled Dec. 27 in U.S. District Court.

Judge says Cline can display 'God' signs

By MIKE HALL

The Capital-Journal

A federal judge has declared it is OK for public offices to display signs saying "In God We Trust."

U.S. District Judge Sam A. Crow has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against Shawnee County Treasurer Rita Cline. Crow also ruled that Cline can recover her legal expenses from the people who filed the lawsuit.

The ACLU had filed the lawsuit on behalf of Topekans Mary Lou Schmidt and Darlene Stearns, who objected to the signs being displayed in Cline's office. But their allegations also included other activities they say overstepped the separation of church and state, including sending out religious material on county stationery.

"The court finds plaintiffs' contention that posters bearing the phrase 'In God We Trust' violate the establishment clause, patently frivolous without any basis in law," Crow wrote, referring to the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against government establishing a religion.

Schmidt, a Pagan, has said that when she complained to Cline about the appearance of the signs, Cline wrote a letter to her, condemning her religion and questioning her patriotism.

"Plaintiffs appear to believe that they are free to contact a public official to voice their own religious or anti-religious views, but that the public official's response to them cannot include religious content without violating the plaintiff's free speech rights," Crow wrote.

Cline said Monday she was pleased to be vindicated by the court and felt she already had won the public opinion contest.

Since the lawsuit was filed, Cline said, she has received thousands of letters, messages and phone calls from people all over the country.

"Not one person, other than the plaintiffs, disagreed with that sign being in my office," she said.

Cline was represented in the case, at no cost to her, by the American Center for Law and Justice. Frank Manion, regional counsel for ACLJ, said, "The ACLU clearly attempted to use the legal system in this case to remove a legitimate and legal vestige of religious expression from the marketplace -- in this case banning the motto of the United States of America."

Attempts Monday to reach Schmidt, Stearns or a representative of the ACLU offices in Topeka or Kansas City were unsuccessful.

Crow's ruling was laced with references to the weakness of the ACLU case. He ruled the lawsuit was out of line for several reasons.

First, he said, no one had shown him any evidence that Schmidt or Stearns suffered in any way from Cline's signs or activities. No evidence was presented, he said, that Cline had ever done anything to repress the free speech of either Schmidt or Stearns nor retaliated against them because of their speech.

Second, he said, he couldn't even understand their request for an injunction against Cline.

"It is difficult to imagine what form the plaintiffs envision the requested injunction would take. An order prohibiting defendant from referring to her personal religious beliefs may raise its own novel issues of constitutionality to the extent it would constitute a prior restraint on defendant's free speech," he wrote.

In fact, several parts of the Schmidt/Stearns lawsuit appeared muddled to Crow.

"Plaintiffs' allegations regarding the violation of the First Amendment free speech rights are no model of clarity," he wrote.

In another part of his ruling, Crow charged that the ACLU's lawyers didn't tell the whole truth. They had referred to a ruling from the 6th Circuit Court known as American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio v. Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board.

"Plaintiffs omit the crucial fact that this case was vacated over three months before plaintiffs filed their brief. Cases which are vacated are rendered void, and can have no effect," Crow wrote.

In another section, Crow said the ACLU cluttered up its case with irrelevant arguments.

"The cited cases deal solely with issues which are not raised here (such as school prayer and religious tests for holding public office) and which are not alleged to be analogous to those which are raised here," he said.

Crow acknowledged that there are some practices that have been found unconstitutional based on the separation of church and state but that the Cline case didn't appear to meet those tests.

"The Supreme Court's decisions 'have recognized a distinction when government-sponsored religious exercises are directed at impressionable children who are required to attend school, for then government endorsement is much more likely to result in coerced religious beliefs,' " Crow wrote, quoting from another court case.

Stone Mountain, Georgia

The Easter sunrise services are OK. The 190-foot carvings of Confederate generals are OK. But when the managers of Stone Mountain Park near Atlanta, Ga., mention their Christian values and ethics on their Web site, the American Civil Liberties Union comes calling.

Officials with Silver Dollar City Inc., which manages the park under a 30-year lease from the state, tell the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that they never intended to use park attractions as a platform to preach. All they wanted to do is communicate their commitment to operate the park "all in a manner consistent with Christian values and ethics."

But Robert Tsai, a Georgia ACLU lawyer, said advertising the fact that a public park is being run in a Christ-like manner crosses the line. The offending statements were removed from the Stone Mountain Web site.

Council fights plaque's removal

By David M. Brown

TRIBUNE-REVIEW

A Pittsburgh attorney Tuesday night asked Allegheny County Council not to fight an effort to remove a Ten Commandments plaque from the courthouse, calling any battle over the issue a lost cause.

Also last night, council placed a resolution in committee designed to keep the plaque where it has hung near an entrance to the courthouse since about 1918.

Jon Pushinsky, speaking on behalf of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the county stands to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in a court challenge with Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The Washington, D.C.-based group has threatened to sue the county if the bronze marker is not removed from an exterior wall of the courthouse.

"I urge this council to take a position that will result in the removal of the plaque," Pushinsky said. "It is unconstitutional, and you are likely to lose in any court battle.

"Such a dispute ... will result in community discord that will split this county wide open."

Councilman Vince Gastgeb, a Republican from Bethel Park, urged council members to support his resolution aimed at protecting historic aspects of the courthouse, including the plaque titled "The Commandments."

"We have an obligation to protect this building and preserve this building. There are values and traditions here in the county that people have fought for, and as elected representatives we should fight to continue that."

After debating whether to vote on the issue last night, council decided to place Gastgeb's proposal in a committee for discussion in executive session since the matter could involve litigation.

Councilman Richard Fitzgerald, a Squirrel Hill Democrat, cautioned against the county becoming entangled in a lawsuit involving a separation of church and state issue.

"This is a lawsuit that we would lose. As elected officials, we must look at our legal liability. The Ten Commandments are a very important document that many of us, including myself, believe in and struggle to follow ... However, as a government official, I must not be in the business of promoting religion."

In October, Americans United wrote to county officials threatening a lawsuit if the plaque is not removed. The group cited as a precedent a 1980 U.S. Supreme Court decision banning Ten Commandments signs in public school classrooms.

County officials have vowed to fight the marker's removal, asking law firms to donate legal services if a court battle ensues. Ten law firms have volunteered their services

ACLU Blasts School Over Bible Course
Monday, January 8, 2001

The American Civil Liberties Union is attacking an Illinois high school's plan to offer its students a Bible class next fall, saying religion has no place being taught in a public school system.

But Massac County High School officials say they're offering students a valuable history lesson, not pushing one religion over another.

"We needed more electives and felt it would be a worthwhile class," said Principal Danny Stevens, who plans to offer the course to juniors and seniors. "We are aware of the separation of church and state and are not promoting one religion over another or promoting the values of living a religious lifestyle over living a secular lifestyle."

Stevens said instruction will not resemble a "Sunday school class" and insisted students will be taught from the perspective of history, focusing on how that history has influenced decision-making in modern society.

But ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka contends that it would be difficult to separate faith from history when it comes to the Bible.

"To teach it as history, you have to teach facts and accept miraculous events," Yohnka said. "How do they plan to handle teaching the parting of the Red Sea, the Plagues of Egypt or being led by the voice of God? We find this whole approach to teaching Bible in public schools troubling.

"This is faith, not academics, and the appropriate place to study religion is in a church or synagogue."

Illinois law allows schools to teach Bible courses, although they are not part of the state's educational requirements.

Eldorado High School is one of the few southern Illinois schools offering a course similar to what Massac proposes. The state does not keep data on the number of schools offering Bible courses, said Kim Knauer, a spokeswoman for the state Board of Education.

Yohnka said the ACLU will continue to monitor the situation, but won't intervene unless local objections lead to a call for a change in the policy.

Bill requires students to recite preamble
The ACLU has already objected to the proposal, saying it goes against U.S. Supreme Court decisions prohibiting prayer in public schools.

By EDWARD FITZPATRICK
Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE -- A state senator wants the 158,000 students in Rhode Island's public schools to begin each school day by reciting the prayer-like preamble to the state Constitution.

But the American Civil Liberties Union is objecting, saying the proposal is a blatant attempt to skirt U.S. Supreme Court decisions prohibiting prayer in public schools.

"It is hard to conceive what secular purpose is served by reading this particular portion of the Constitution," said Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU's Rhode Island affiliate. "It's really just a sham."

State Sen. Daniel J. Issa, D-Central Falls, is the primary sponsor of the bill, which calls for students in preschool through high school to recite the following:

"We, the people of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, grateful to Almighty God for the civil and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing upon our endeavors to secure and to transmit the same, unimpaired, to succeeding generations, do ordain and establish this Constitution of government."

Issa defended his proposal yesterday, asking, "How could it be unconstitutional to recite part of the Constitution?"

A daily reading of the preamble would "open doors" for students to learn more about the state Constitution and state government, he said. "It's part of history," Issa said. "Even back then, they were talking about how fortunate the country is, and maybe that will get students thinking about why."

Issa noted that the Pledge of Allegiance mentions God and that U.S. coins contain the term "In God We Trust." "People think 'God' is a bad word to use in the classroom," he said, "when a lot of words are used that shouldn't be used in the classroom."

But is the preamble a prayer? "That's up to the individual to interpret," Issa said.

Well, how does Issa interpret it? "I think it's a great way to start the day," he replied. "It's a positive thing that isn't hurting anybody."

Brown contended that the preamble is, in essence, prayer. "And the government should not be involved in sponsoring religious activities or prayers," he said. "It undermines the whole idea of separation of church and state."

Brown argued that the word "God" shouldn't be on coins or in the Pledge of Allegiance, either. He noted the words "under God" were not part of the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954 -- a change he attributed to McCarthyism and the Communist scare.

"You see the slippery slope," Brown said. "Before you know it, you have government-sponsored religion in a variety of ways."

Students would not have to recite the preamble if they did not want to, according to the bill.

But Brown said courts have repeatedly concluded it is unfair to put that kind of a burden on students who don't participate. "It isolates them, singles them out for possible ridicule," he said.

Neither of the state's two major teacher unions has taken a formal stance on the bill.

But Larry Purtill, president of the National Education Association Rhode Island, said, "We do have some concerns. We see more of these types of bills where more and more demands take time away from education."

Purtill acknowledged it wouldn't take long to read the preamble, and he said that given this year's president election, it's good to get students thinking about democracy. But he said he's not sure how memorizing the preamble would help students, and he'd rather see them study the state and federal Constitutions within the context of classroom lessons.

So does this bill stand a prayer in the General Assembly?

Last year, the bill never made it out of the Senate's Health, Education and Welfare Committee, but Issa said he is hoping it will get further this year. He said he thinks the Senate is becoming more conservative, with new members and committee leaders, and an ardent abortion foe, Sen. Catherine E. Graziano of Providence, has replaced a pro-choice senator as head of the HEW, which will handle the bill again this year.

Issa said he is not trying to impose his views on others. He is Catholic, but he noted the preamble does not mention any particular religion or sect. He said a constituent suggested the idea to him and he pursued it.

"I'm not known as Mr. Religion or Mr. Catholic," Issa said. "I'm no better than anybody else. It's just something I believe in. At minimum, it'll generate some positive discussion about schools and education."

To read the full text of Senate Bill 01-S0006, go to www.rilin.state.ri.us

ACLU wants Scouts out of public building, Lopez campground

Richard Jackoway
The Tribune
The Boy Scouts should pay up or abandon its traditional campgrounds of Camp French near Lopez Lake, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Calling the Scouts’ policy of discrimination against gays and atheists “tragically misguided,” ACLU officials raised the possibility of lawsuits this week if the Camp French lease with the county and a separate lease in Atascadero are not changed or terminated.

The ACLU petitioned the city of Atascadero to cut off use by the Scouts of a room in the Atascadero Lake Pavilion building.

Atascadero City Attorney Roy Hanley said he believes the Pavilion lease is legal because the Scout troops reimbursed the city through extensive improvements to the 1,600-square-foot meeting room.

County administrator David Edge and Deputy County Counsel Jac Crawford were unavailable Thursday to discuss terms and legality of the Camp French lease.

The ACLU of Southern California joined the SLO County chapter in sending the letters.

“Our letters ask the county and the city of Atascadero to stop subsidizing discrimination by giving rent-free leases to the Boy Scouts,” said Martha Matthews, staff attorney for the ACLU of Southern California.

“Continuing this subsidy of the Boy Scouts would violate California’s constitutional guarantees of equal protection and of separation of church and state and would also be vulnerable to a taxpayer suit for waste of public resources,” Matthews wrote.

The ACLU recently filed suit against the city of San Diego for a similar situation, she noted.

Scouts have used the county-owned Camp French facility as a camping and training area for more than a quarter century.

The county lets the Scouts use it rent-free in exchange for improvements constructed by them and other civic organizations.

“Obviously, it would be a big blow if it was taken away,” said Vic Enchelmayer, district director for the local Scouts council. “We do a lot of outdoor activities, weekend camp outs, adult training and other activities there.”

While the Scouts use Camp French extensively, Enchelmayer noted that other groups can and do reserve it.

Like Camp French, the Pavilion room is available for other groups to use, though the Scouts have first rights.

According to the Pavilion lease, approved in 1996, the Scouts were required to purchase and install carpet, acoustic ceiling panels, fire sprinklers, a divider wall, lighting fixtures, heating and air conditioning units and closets. They also pay for utilities, Hanley said.

The Pavilion was built in the 1980s during a recession, and the room was left unfinished. The scouts stepping forward to do the work was valuable for the city, Hanley said.

“At the time it was not in the cards that the city was going to do the work on its own nickel,” he said.

For the Boy Scouts of America, the ACLU letters are only the latest in many legal squabbles it has found itself involved in locally and around the country. Last year, the group won a U.S. Supreme Court case allowing the organization to ban gays and atheists from the organization.

In the fall, the local Los Padres Council, which includes scouts in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, fired its executive director after he announced that he is gay.

Len Lanzi is suing the Scouts, arguing that the Supreme Court case did not allow the organization to discriminate in employment.

The ACLU said the Lanzi case is further proof that local government should not be helping the Scouts in any way.

“The Boy Scouts of America has abandoned the values it used to stand for — honesty, fairness and respect for diversity — in favor of bias and exclusion,” Matthews said.

The ACLU is asking local governments to pass nondiscrimination ordinances that cover sexual orientation.

“Both leases have clauses saying that the Boy Scouts must comply with all local laws or the leases can be immediately terminated,” Matthews said.

The lease for the Pavilion room expires in 2006. The Camp French lease is good through 2031.

Two years ago, the local Boy Scouts moved its office from a San Luis Obispo city-owned building after the city removed lease subsidies. At the time, ACLU officials said they might take up the Camp French and Atascadero Pavilion leases at a later date.

R.I. Preamble Is ‘Prayer,’ ACLU Says

By Mark Cowan, correspondent

A Rhode Island lawmaker wants students in his state to start school by reciting part of the state’s Constitution.

The preamble to Rhode Island’s Constitution is a 60-word paragraph that, in part, proclaims appreciation to God for civil and religious liberty, and for God’s help in establishing a constitutional government.

State Sen. Daniel Issa sponsored the legislation that would require students to recite the portion.

“I think it’s important for students to know the cultural, historical background of the Constitution and the preamble,” Issa said.

Steven Brown of the ACLU said the section amounts to a prayer.

“We don’t believe that the Legislature can so easily circumvent the many Supreme Court rulings banning public school prayer by simply reciting something that happens to be in the state Constitution,” Brown said.

Not surprisingly, Issa disagrees with that claim.

“What some people may consider a prayer, other people may consider a secular part of the Constitution,” he said.

Jordan Lorence, of the Northstar Legal Center, also finds the ACLU’s objections difficult to follow.

“It seems kind of absurd to say that the Rhode Island Constitution — one of our founding documents of a state — somehow is so radioactive with constitutional violations that it would harm children or violate the law to have them recite it,” Lorence said.

Issa added that the preamble does not specify any particular understanding of God and is not an establishment of religion.

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That Line Keeps Moving

The image of a historical landmark, a local Baptist Church, will be removed from the Chester Township, Ohio, Police Department's new emblem after complaints from the American Civil Liberties Union that it may cross the line separating church and state.

Township officials told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that the 131-year-old church near the center of town was chosen since it is regarded as a recognizable local landmark. Its presence on police department patches, alongside the town's gazebo and an old school, was not meant to offend anyone, they said.

But the ACLU said the design may be interpreted as a "favorable nod" to the Baptist church, and is in violation of the Constitution.

ACLU Sues to Block Extremist City-Sponsored Prayer Breakfast

ACLU

Posted on 1/4/02 1:27 PM Pacific by Olydawg

ATLANTA -- Acting on behalf of five East Point residents, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia today filed suit in federal court here against Mayor Patsy Joe Hilliard and the City of East Point for their unconstitutional sponsorship, promotion and funding of the "East Point Mayor's Annual Prayer Breakfast."

"East Point's prayer breakfast is an extreme example of a city government choosing one religion over all others and making non-Protestant members of the community feel like outsiders in their own city," said Debbie Seagraves, Executive Director of the ACLU of Georgia. "In a city as diverse as East Point, and at a time when our nation is struggling for unity, I would hope that the mayor would understand that this is a divisive thing to do."

Each year's prayer breakfast has intertwined politics and religion under the cloak of city government sponsorship, the ACLU said in its complaint. Last year's prayer breakfast, for example, included a “litany” by the Mayor quoting "the words of King Solomon." The Mayor and other city officials asked Jesus Christ for his blessing, his "vision" and "wisdom."

And for the last six years, employees of East Point have designed, prepared and printed the fliers to promote the official prayer breakfast, working on city time and using the city's own letterhead. City funds are used to help pay for the event, and private donations are made to the city itself. The mayor promotes the event on official stationery, and employs the city's director of finance to disburse funds through public accounts.

“Numerous residents complained to the ACLU and we tried to work with the mayor to ensure that the prayer breakfast could move forward without government sponsorship or entanglement, but the mayor simply refused,” said Gerry Weber, Legal Director of the ACLU of Georgia.

The ACLU's lawsuit seeks a court order to prevent this year's prayer breakfast from taking place. A hearing on the matter has been scheduled for Monday, January 7th at 3:00 p.m. ACLU cooperating attorneys Frank Derrickson and Ralph Goldberg represent the residents.

ACLU, judge weigh in on 2-1/2-ton Commandments display

Washington Times | 1/10/02 | Stephanie K. Taylo, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Posted on 1/9/02 11:46 PM Pacific by kattracks

MONTGOMERY, Ala. --The battle lines are clearly drawn here. Roy Moore, once known as the "Ten Commandments judge" and now chief justice of the Alabama State Supreme Court, is being sued again by the American Civil Liberties Union, this time for plunking a 5,280-pound, 4-foot-high granite monument in the rotunda of the state judiciary building.

     The monument has the Ten Commandments inscribed on it, as well as quotes from George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and excerpts from the Alabama Constitution and the national anthem. The privately funded monument was erected on July 31.
     A group of black lawmakers, incensed by the religious display, stormed the rotunda on Aug. 28 with a 6-foot plaque inscribed with excerpts of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Court officials blocked them from entering.
     To mollify the lawmakers, Judge Moore hung a smaller plaque in the rotunda containing a quotation from Martin Luther King and one from Frederick Douglass acknowledging God as the source of justice and law.
     "The judiciary [branch of government] is supposed to always maintain its appearance of impartiality," said Robert Varley, one of the ACLU attorneys who filed the lawsuit.
     "In our opinion, the monument is sending the message out that this is a religious courtroom, this is in fact a Christian courthouse and if nothing else, Christians would be favored in the eyes of the law here. And we think that that's an inappropriate message."
     The lawsuit, filed on Oct. 30 by the ACLU in conjunction with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, maintains that the monument's display of the Ten Commandments is an unconstitutional establishment of religion in a government building.
     The judiciary rotunda ordinarily is as quiet as a cathedral. Except for the occasional researcher at the adjacent law library, few visitors venture there.
     Judge Moore's chambers are far more cluttered, with several copies of the Ten Commandments on the walls, an open Bible and family photos on his desk, next to "a Ten Commandments desk clock." On the wall behind him hangs a large painting of Abraham Lincoln and a print of scales with a Scripture underneath.
     "[The Ten Commandments] represents the moral foundation of our law," says Judge Moore, 54. "And the Alabama Constitution says we are to invoke God's favor and guidance to establish justice. My job is the administration of justice in this state."
     Judge Moore has been fighting this and similar battles for 10 years, ever since 1992 when, as a circuit court judge in Etowah County, he first displayed a plaque of the Ten Commandments on his courtroom walls. The ACLU sued him in 1995, but the case was thrown out on procedural grounds. Both sides agreed that a ruling never was made on the merits of the case.
     "It's been a long battle," he says. "I have been in federal courts, state courts. I have spoken on this issue from the east, the west, the north and the south. I have learned that throughout that there's a great lack of understanding of the First Amendment, a complete misunderstanding of the separation of church and state. People need to learn more about their constitution and about their rights under the First Amendment."
     The stakes were raised after Judge Moore swept to victory a year ago November. When he was sworn into office two months later, he pledged to "restore and preserve the moral foundation of the law."
     His opponents, however, say the prominent display of a Ten Commandments monument in the rotunda of the Supreme Court building sends a much more sectarian message.
     "The Ten Commandments are clearly sectarian," said Mr. Varley. "They apply to the Judeo-Christian traditions only. And that leaves out a tremendous number of religions in this country."
     He said: "You have a 21/2-ton monument to the Ten Commandments sitting alone by itself roped off in a situation where it has been made clear by the Supreme Court justice that he is not going to allow anything else to be hung around there."
     Steve Melchior of Cheyenne, Wyo., the lead attorney for Judge Moore, disagrees.
     "There's a moral law which the state is powerless to alter," he says. "You want justice? How can you have justice if you don't acknowledge the basis of all law?
     "[This case is about] left-wing powerhouses that are fighting to extricate any public acknowledgment of God," he says. "If they remove God from the picture, they remove accountability. That's why this [case] is such a biggie.
     "What [Judge Moore] has done is no different than what we have been doing in this nation since its very inception — publicly acknowledging God," Mr. Melchior says.
     Every branch of the federal government publicly acknowledges God on a daily basis, he adds, citing as examples the congressional chaplains on the taxpayers' payroll, the presidential oath sworn on a Holy Bible and the Ten Commandments displayed on the gates of the U.S. Supreme Court chambers.
     Mr. Varley responds that the U.S. Supreme Court has always maintained that the public display of the Ten Commandments is not unconstitutional in a historical context, on display with other laws.
     Scott Benen, spokesman for the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, calls Mr. Melchior's and Mr. Moore's interpretation of the First Amendment "creative."
     "If all the framers wanted to do was ban a national church, they had plenty of opportunities to state exactly that in the First Amendment," he says. "The historical record indicates that the framers wanted the First Amendment to ban not only establishment of a single church but also "multiple establishments," that is, a system by which the government assists many religions on an equal basis."
     Mr. Melchior responds that even the First Amendment was not intended to outlaw public acknowledgment of God.
     State legislators may end up deciding on the matter before the courts do. A proposed bill would enable Alabama citizens to vote on the posting of the Ten Commandments on public property within the state.
     Sen. Gerald Dial, Lineville Democrat, introduced such a bill last year in the Alabama state Senate, and Rep. DuWayne Bridges, Valley Republican, introduced a similar bill in the House. The bill passed 32-0 in the Senate, but died by a committee voice vote before reaching the House floor. It will be reintroduced this year with additional co-sponsors.
     "Now we're for the Ten Commandments," says Sen. Albert Lipscomb, Magnolia Springs Republican, "and I want you to report that."
     The lawsuit has been consolidated with similar charges brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Mr. Moore's attorneys filed their answer on Dec. 28 before U.S. District Court Judge Myron Thompson for the Middle District of Alabama.

BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
Islam studies required in California district
Course has 7th-graders memorizing Koran verses, praying to Allah

In the wake of Sept. 11, an increasing number of California public school students must attend an intensive three-week course on Islam, reports ASSIST News Service.

The course mandates that seventh-graders learn the tenets of Islam, study the important figures of the faith, wear a robe, adopt a Muslim name and stage their own jihad. Adding to this apparent hypocrisy, reports ANS, students must memorize many verses in the Koran, are taught to pray "in the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful" and are instructed to chant, "Praise to Allah, Lord of Creation."

"We could never teach Christianity like this," one outraged parent told ANS.

Elizabeth Christina Lemings, a teacher in the Byron, Calif., Union School District, was unaware of the course until her seventh-grade son brought home the handouts. Obtained by ANS, the handouts include a history of Islam and the life of Muhammad, its founder. There are 25 Islamic terms that must be memorized, six Islamic (Arabic) phrases, 20 Islamic proverbs to learn along with the Five Pillars of Faith and 10 key Islamic prophets and disciples to be studied.

"We can't even mention the name of Jesus in the public schools," Lemings laments, "but ... they teach Islam as the true religion, and students are taught about Islam and how to pray to Allah. Can you imagine the barrage of lawsuits and problems we would have from the ACLU if Christianity were taught in the public schools, and if we tried to teach about the contributions of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and the Apostle Paul? But when it comes to furthering the Islamic religion in the public schools, there is not one word from the ACLU, People for the American Way or anybody else. This is hypocrisy."

ANS reports that students are to pretend that they are Muslims, wear Muslim clothing to school, stage their own jihad via a dice game and pick out a Muslim name (to replace their own) from a list of 30.

When asked what they thought about the course, students described it as "fun," while others described Islam as "a pretty culture." Joseph Lemings, 12, told ANS, "the jihad was like playing a video game."

The "fun" description disturbs Elizabeth Lemings, who sees the course as a tool, not only to engender sympathy and support for the Muslim cause, but for recruitment.

"This is not just a class of history of examining culture," she said. "This course is entirely too specific. It is more about indoctrination."

Nancy Castro, principal of Intermediate-Excelsior School of Byron, told ANS that the Islam course (included within "History of Culture") reflects California educational standards. Castro maintains the course "is not religion, but ancient culture and history. We do not endorse any religion; we just make students aware." Castro further emphasized the course textbook is in use throughout California.

The textbook used for the Islamic course, "Across The Centuries," is published by Houghton-Mifflin and has been adopted by the California school system. In it, according to ANS, Islam is presented broadly in a completely positive manner, whereas the limited references to Christianity are "shown in a negative light, with events such as the Inquisition, and the Salem witch hunts highlighted in bold, black type." ANS notes the portrayal of Islam leaves out word of "the wars, massacres, cruelties against Christians and other non-Muslims that Islam has consistently perpetrated over the centuries."

Asked if there was any response from parents about the Islam course, Castro told ANS, "Oh, a couple of parents called to express concerns, three to be exact."

City council OKs prayer before meetings

The Herald | 1/10/02 | Leslie Moriarty

Posted on 1/10/02 10:50 PM Pacific by ppaul

MARYSVILLE -- Donna Wright believes that a council that prays together stays together. And apparently so do a majority of the other city council members in Marysville. Starting Monday, the council will have an ecumenical invocation at the start of each meeting, beginning a practice that has generated controversy in city council rooms across the nation.

Why it's OK to pray

If there is supposed to be separation of church and state, why is it OK for the city council to say a prayer? According to officials at Municipal Research & Services Center of Washington State in Seattle, a nondenominational invocation or a moment of silence at the beginning of a public meeting does not violate the separation of church and state clause in the U.S. Constitution. It is legal to establish a policy allowing for a moment of reflection, silence or a prayer, as long as it isn't specific to any one religion.

Marysville city attorney Grant Weed agrees with that.

Although the state Attorney General's Office hasn't expressed a formal opinion on the matter, spokesman Gary Larson said the invocations differ from school prayer in that city council members are adults.

He said school prayer is prohibited partly because impressionable children are involved. He said with adults, the First Amendment rights of free speech outweigh the church and state argument.

"Faith and politics together is nothing new," said Wright, a former member who was recently re-elected to the council. "The U.S. Congress and our state Legislature open with a prayer. And many cities across the nation do, too.

"I think it sets a good tone for the meetings."

Wright said the idea came to her after reading in a publication of the National League of Cities about prayers at public meetings. She lined up the votes to pass the measure 5-2.

According to library officials at Municipal Research & Services Center of Washington State in Seattle, no count is kept as to the number of cities in the state that begin council meetings with prayers.

In this area, Oak Harbor has for more than 25 years. Other councils that do include Spokane, Issaquah, Sumner, Yakima and Longview.

But the Spokane City Council ran into trouble in January 2001 when the city's human rights commission advised that public prayer before council meetings was unconstitutional and at odds with the city's pursuit of diversity. The commission recommended the council observe a moment of silence instead. In Oceanside, Calif., outside San Diego, the American Civil Liberties Union asked the city council to change the tone of its opening prayer, which the group said expresses too much of the Christian faith.

Legislative prayers -- nonsectarian requests for harmony and the divine blessings of the lawmaking body -- have been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on the basis of historical precedent going back to the very first Congress. But the court has distinguished those invocations from sectarian prayers.

Wright wants to see the first few prayers given by the city's fire department chaplain, and then open it up to any local minister who wants to give a prayer, on a signup basis.

"I see it as a 60- to 90-second prayer that isn't specific to any denomination," she said. "Just something to start us out on the right foot.

"I ran on a campaign of working together, and this is part of that."

Council member Suzanne Smith opposed the measure.

"I'm not against prayer," she said. "But I would like us to think this out a bit more before we act on it."

She said she wanted to see sample prayers that would be used and possibly a list of those who would participate by giving the prayers.

But the overall council didn't support her, although council member Jeff Seibert voted with Smith.

You can call Herald Writer Leslie Moriarty at 425-339-3436
or send e-mail to moriarty@heraldnet.com.

Jan 29, 2002

ACLU Wants "Jesus Is Lord' Signs Taken Down Outside Louisiana Town

By Doug Simpson
Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday demanding the removal of signs outside a southeastern Louisiana town that proclaim: "Jesus is Lord over Franklinton."

ACLU officials said public money was used to put up the signs on state roads, violating the constitutional separation of church and state.

"Can you imagine the hostility that Jews, Muslims, members of other minority faiths and non-believers must feel when living in or passing through that community?" asked Linton Carney, who first saw the signs in July while driving through Franklinton, 55 miles north of New Orleans. He said he has no religious affiliation.

The lawsuit names the town, its mayor and surrounding Washington Parish as defendants.

Mayor Earle Brown denied any knowledge of the signs. Parish President M.E. Taylor, however, admitted that area churches paid for the signs and parish road crews erected them. Taylor said they will be removed if judged illegal.

"Myself and some ministers and other Christians will pull them up ourselves and put them on private property," Taylor said.

He added that the ACLU was "splitting hairs" but Joe Cook, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said the law is clear.

"Public officials in that parish know the law. Unfortunately, they decided to engage in endorsement of religion," Cook said.

Last week, ACLU officials threatened to sue the mayor of Inglis, Fla., unless she removes her proclamation banning Satan within the town limits from posts at the town's entrances.

The mayor, a devout Christian, wrote the proclamation on Halloween night. It was typed on town stationary and affixed with the town seal.

AP-ES-01-29-02 1839EST

This story can be found at : http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAZ0JMD2XC.html

Gay-lesbian center sues over Dr. Laura Schlessinger event

AP | January 30, 2002

Posted on 1/30/02 12:34 PM Pacific by TopQuark

	Gay-lesbian center sues over Dr. Laura Schlessinger event

ASSOCIATED PRESS

January 30, 2002

LOS ANGELES – A group of gay and lesbian workers sued three Southern California counties because their First Amendment rights allegedly were violated during an appearance by radio talk show host Laura Schlessinger last year.

The seven workers at the Los Angeles-based Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services sued Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties in Superior Court on Tuesday with the aid of attorney Martha Matthews of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. They are seeking monetary damages along with an injunction that would ban the defendants from suppressing future protests.

Schlessinger, who broadcasts her advice show as "Dr. Laura," was the keynote speaker at the Southern Counties Placement Committee conference in Palm Springs Sept. 20-21. The conference was organized by the Riverside County Department of Mental Health. An after hours message left for the department supervisor, Tom Thomazine, was not immediately returned.

The seven workers were paid attendees to the conference. They showed up with copies of the book "Hate Hurts," and T-shirts with "StopDrLaura.com" printed on them. Some activists say Schlessinger has said hurtful things against the homosexual community.

One of the plaintiffs, Michael Ferrera, the director of public policy for the Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services, claimed the group of protesters were not allowed access to the conference and were escorted out by police.

Ferrera said conference organizers "were not trying to prevent a disturbance, they were trying to prevent discomfort on the part of their invited guest." It wasn't known whether Schlessinger saw the protesters.

Practice or Preference? [Jeb and ACLU join together defending religious freedom in Boca Raton, FL]

Florida Trends Magazine | Current Issue - Feb. 4, 2002 | Pat Dunnigan

Posted on 2/3/02 11:53 PM Pacific by summer

Practice or Preference?
11 plaintiffs claim a ban on cemetery monuments violates their rights.

By Pat Dunnigan

Like most modern cemeteries, Boca Raton’s municipal cemetery is designed out of practicality for landscaping and maneuvering grave-digging equipment among narrowly aligned gravesites. In accordance with the design, a rule prohibits vertical grave ornaments.

But for more than 10 years, attempts to enforce that rule have been no match for the bereaved, who come bearing crucifixes, edging stones, rope borders and statues.

Ian and Bobbie Payne, for example, placed a standing Star of David on their son’s grave. They say the vertical monument identifies their son as Jewish and helps enforce their religious belief that graves should never be walked on. Barbara Cavedoni believes it would be disrespectful to display the crucifix on her brother’s grave horizontally. Joanne Davis has marked the grave of her baby son with a 2-foot-high bronze statue of children playing and a statue of Jesus with a child.

The Paynes, Cavedoni and Davis are among 11 plaintiffs trying to convince the courts that the city’s ban on vertical monuments is a violation of their right to religious expression. In deciding the case, the courts have had to wrestle with the tricky issue of whether their efforts to honor deceased family members are really religious practices or are simply personal preferences about how to decorate the graves of their loved ones.

Generally, the government can’t interfere with religious practices unless it can show a “compelling” interest that it can’t satisfy in some other, less restrictive way. And after the U.S. Supreme Court eased the government’s burden in 1990 and later gutted a federal law designed to re-establish it, the debate shifted to the states that had adopted their own religious freedom laws.

Florida is one of them. Four years ago, a coalition of Florida’s religious and conservative political groups drafted a religious freedom act intending to make it difficult for the government to interfere in any religiously motivated conduct.

The Boca cemetery case, which will go before the Florida Supreme Court, has made for some strange legal bedfellows. The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which is representing the 11 plaintiffs, has been joined by Republican Gov. Jeb Bush. On the other side, veteran civil liberties lawyers Bruce Rogow and Beverly Pohl of Fort Lauderdale are defending the city. It is the first time that Rogow, among the state’s most experienced appellate lawyers, has found himself on the opposite side of the ACLU.

The ACLU argues that the plaintiffs are expressing their religion even if their respective religions don’t spell out the specific grave decorations as standard practice.

Rogow argues that Florida’s religious freedom law can’t turn every individual preference into a protected act of religious expression. If it did, there would be “cemetery anarchy,” he says. “If they could put up a cross, why can’t the cross be 100-feet high? Every neutral law of general applicability would be trumped by someone claiming their religious beliefs’’ motivated what they did.

Mathew Staver, an Orlando attorney who drafted the law four years ago, says it’s important to remember that plaintiffs have to show that the government’s action “substantially burdened” their free exercise of religion. Regulations that merely create an inconvenience would probably not qualify, he says. “The fact of the matter is,” he says, “if the court interprets the (Religious Freedom Restoration Act) correctly, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the plaintiffs will win.”

| August 22, 2002 | Mat Staver

Posted on 08/22/2002 1:33 PM Central by

Contact: Mat Staver

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 22, 2002

Kentucky Judge: Ten Commandments Displayed in Kentucky Courthouses Are Constitutional

LEXINGTON, KY - Today, Federal District Court Judge Karl Forrester in the Eastern District of Kentucky held that a display of the Ten Commandments together with other historical documents in Rowan and Mercer Counties in Kentucky are constitutional. Rowan and Mercer Counties were sued by the ACLU of Kentucky. The ACLU requested the judge to issue an injunction requiring the Ten Commandments to be taken down while the cases were pending in court. Judge Forrester denied the request for an Injunction and instead stated that the displays were constitutional. Rowan County is represented by Mathew D. Staver, President and General Counsel of Liberty Counsel, and Erik W. Stanley, Litigation Counsel for Liberty Counsel. Mercer County is represented jointly by Liberty Counsel and the American Center for Law and Justice.

Rowan, Mercer, Garrard and Grayson counties in Kentucky were sued simultaneously by the ACLU for displays containing the Ten Commandments in county courthouses. The displays include the Ten Commandments, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Charta, the Star Spangled Banner, the National Motto, the Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution, and a picture of Lady Justice. Named the "Foundations of American Law and Government" display, the displays are intended to display several documents that have played a significant role in the founding of our system of law and government. Grayson County's display was previously ordered removed in May. A decision on Garrard County's display is pending before Judge Forrester. The four lawsuits followed a lawsuit filed by the ACLU in 2000 against McCreary, Pulaski and Harlan counties in Kentucky. In those cases, Judge Jennifer Coffman ordered that the displays, which are identical to the Rowan and Mercer County displays, be taken down. McCreary, Pulaski and Harlan Counties are also represented by Liberty Counsel and have appealed the case to the Sixth Circuit. Oral argument on the McCreary case is expected before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in December.

Judge Forrester's decision today will be followed by a written opinion. Judge Forrester commented in Court that there are two issues in deciding the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays. The first issue is whether the display was erected for an entirely religious purpose. Judge Forrester stated that the displays in Rowan and Mercer counties were educational in nature and that there was no evidence that they were erected for an entirely religious purpose. The second issue is whether a reasonable observer would view the display as an endorsement of religion. The ACLU had argued that the Ten Commandments are an entirely religious document that played no role in the foundation of our system of law and government. Judge Forrester rejected that argument and said that the Ten Commandments are historical and did have a role to play in our system of law and government, therefore, they may be constitutionally displayed. Judge Forrester also commented that he specifically disagreed with the decisions ordering the Ten Commandments to be taken down in Grayson and McCreary Counties.

Mat Staver hailed today's decision as a great victory. Staver stated, "Today's decision begins to turn the tide against the ACLU who has been on a search and destroy mission to remove all vestiges of our religious history from public view. The ACLU's attempts to remove the Ten Commandments from public display are nothing more than historical revisionism at its worst." Staver added, "Whether the ACLU likes it or not, history is crystal clear that each one of the Ten Commandments has played an important role in the founding of our system of law and government. Each one of the Ten Commandments was adopted as law by 12 of the 13 original American colonies." Staver also added, "As long as a governmental entity displays the Ten Commandments together with other historical documents and does so for an educational or historical purpose, such displays will be constitutional." Staver concluded, "We are pleased that Judge Forrester found these displays constitutional and are confident that the Sixth Circuit will do likewise when it takes this issue up in December in the McCreary county case."

| 8/22/02

Posted on 08/22/2002 3:35 PM Central by

MARIETTA, Ga. — The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to force the Cobb County school board to remove disclaimers on evolution from thousands of middle and high school textbooks.

The suit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, just one day before the board was to discuss whether teachers should be allowed to teach faith-based ideas along with evolution as explanation for the variety of life.

The stickers, placed in new science books this month after requests from parents opposed to evolution on religious grounds, say evolution is a theory, not fact, and should be critically considered.

Jeffrey Selman, the father of an elementary school pupil, initiated the lawsuit. He said placing advisories in science texts is an attempt to inject religion into public schools.

"It singles out evolution from all the scientific theories out there," Selman said. "Why single out evolution? It has to be coming from a religious basis, and that violates the separation of church and state."

The board discussion Thursday night was to focus on whether to allow science teachers to cover opposing concepts, such as intelligent design, which argues that a "higher intelligence" is responsible for the breadth of life on Earth.

The lawsuit claims the disclaimers are a "fundamentalist Christian expression" that promotes religion in public education.

Though the printed labels use vague language, the intention is clear, said Michael Manely, a Marietta attorney who is representing Selman on behalf of the ACLU.

"What it does is promote the establishment of creationism in public schools," Manely said. "Why are they singling out evolution? Because from a creationist's standpoint, they don't have a problem with the theory of gravity."

Some parents in the county feel differently.

Acworth resident Bruce Horacek, whose children graduated from Cobb schools, said students are not being told of the faults in evolution. "You cannot prove or disprove that evolution or inert materials created the diversity we have," he said. "Evolution and creationism are both philosophies."

The issue appeared before the school board in March, when several dozen parents asked that alternatives be taught. They presented a petition signed by 2,000 county residents, demanding accuracy in textbooks.

The board adopted the labels, which say: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."

School board chairman Curt Johnston said the concerns of the community need to be considered in Thursday's meeting.

"The whole purpose of this discussion is to try to clarify what can be taught and what should be taught," Johnston said.

Similar debates have occurred elsewhere.

Ohio is considering state science requirements that would allow teaching of alternatives, including intelligent design. Kansas adopted standards that struck references to evolution, then reversed that stance after a new state board was elected in response.

In Georgia, Clayton County put evolution disclaimers in its science books in 1996, but has since removed them. Alabama put stickers on all biology books about the same time.

| Friday, August 23, 2002 | Jon Dougherty

Posted on 08/23/2002 1:49 AM Central by

A federal court in Lexington, Ky., has ruled that the Ten Commandments can remain on display in the Mercer County courthouse, rejecting an attempt by the American Civil Liberties Union to have them removed.

"This is a major victory for the people of Mercer County and for all Americans who don't buy into the ACLU's extreme misrepresentation of our Constitution," said Francis J. Manion, senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, which argued the case for the county.

The ACLU filed suit to have the Ten Commandments removed from a display including other historical and legal texts, but U.S. District Judge Karl Forrester denied the legal group's motion for a preliminary injunction yesterday.

"The First Amendment was never intended to remove all mention of God or religion from the public square," said Manion. "The Supreme Court and many other courts have long recognized the foundational role of the Ten Commandments in the development of our legal system."

The court held that government officials who display the Ten Commandments for their historical value have a permissible secular purpose for doing so, said ACLJ officials.

The display of the commandments with other historical and legal documents "makes clear that government is displaying [them] because of their undoubted secular importance and influence," the law center said.

Forrester, in his ruling, noted that the historical influence of the commandments was beyond "rational dispute," even though "plaintiffs might wish it were so."

"But plaintiffs' wishes cannot change history," Forrester wrote.

"With today's decision, we see an important development and a critical recognition of the constitutionality of such a display," said Manion. "It's clear the people of Mercer County understand the difference between 'acknowledgement' of religion and 'establishment' of religion."

It was not known if the ACLU would appeal the ruling.

The Virginia Beach, Va.-based ACLJ said it is currently involved in 15 other cases involving display of the commandments.

| 8/24/02 | Joyce Howard Price

Posted on 08/24/2002 1:15 AM Central by

The American Civil Liberties Union, after losing two Ten Commandments rulings in Kentucky this week, is trying to force them out of a Frederick, Md., cemetery.

Top Stories

The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit in Baltimore yesterday seeking removal of a Ten Commandments monument from a downtown public park in Frederick. City officials say religious symbols are appropriate because the park was once a cemetery. About 300 people are still buried there.
"No one is trying to make Frederick a Ten Commandments-free zone. But placement of a religious monument on government property sends a message of endorsement of a particular religious faith and a message of exclusion of others," Dwight Sullivan, managing attorney for the ACLU of Maryland, told the Associated Press.
The liberal civil liberties group was not appeased when the Frederick Board of Aldermen acted in the hopes it would halt the ACLU's lawsuit earlier this month. The board changed the name of the parcel from Memorial Park to the Bentz Street Graveyard Memorial in honor of the people buried there. No one has been buried in the cemetery since 1924.
The case in Frederick is one of many around the country in which the ACLU has sought removal of Ten Commandments monuments donated to local governments in the 1950s by chapters of the Fraternal Order of Eagles. The ACLU says the five-foot granite marker in Frederick and others of its type violate the First Amendment ban against state-sponsored religion.
In the past 12 months, Ten Commandments monuments have either come down or been covered up on public property in Kentucky and Colorado. But on Thursday, the ACLU's winning record in Kentucky came to a halt.
A federal court in Lexington denied a bid by the ACLU to force two counties in Kentucky to remove public displays in courthouses that feature the Ten Commandments alongside texts from various historical, patriotic and legal documents.
"This is a major victory for Americans who don't buy into the ACLU's extreme misrepresentation of our Constitution," said Francis J. Manion, senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a public-interest law firm, based in Virginia Beach. The center represented one of the two Kentucky counties — Mercer — in the case before the U.S. District Court in Lexington.
In an interview yesterday, David Friedman, the ACLU's general counsel in Kentucky, suggested that it might be too early for his courtroom opponents to be celebrating the ruling by U.S. District Judge Karl Forester. "We've won on this same issue in other courts in Kentucky," Mr. Friedman said.
Judge Forester rejected the ACLU's motion for a preliminary injunction, which would have required the immediate removal of the "Foundations of Law and Government" displays from courthouses in Mercer and Rowan counties.
The Mercer County display, for example, shows the Ten Commandments along with such documents as the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta and the Mayflower Compact.
Judge Forester said he would not rule on the legality of the Mercer and Rowan county displays until the 6th District Court of Appeals in Cincinnati decides an appeal of a lower court ruling that ordered the removal of similar displays including the Ten Commandments and excerpts from other historic texts from courthouses in McCreary and Pulaski counties, and schools in Harlan County, all in Kentucky.
Judge Forester held that the ACLU, which frequently takes up cases where it sees violations of constitutional requirements for separation of church and state, had not shown a "likelihood of success on the merits" of these cases, so he did not order the displays to come down.
Mr. Friedman noted that the Forester decision was the first time a judge has ruled against a motion for preliminary injunction in a Ten Commandments case in Kentucky. It is the ACLU's position that posting the Ten Commandments constitutes endorsing religion, in violation of the Constitution.
Mr. Manion said yesterday that he believes that Judge Forester's decision was the first time any judge in the 6th Circuit, which includes Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio and Michigan, had ruled against "what the ACLU wanted" in a Ten Commandments case.
Mr. Manion said he believes that Judge Forester's action is significant because the judge said in court that he disagreed with a colleague, U.S. District Court Judge Jennifer B. Coffman. She has ruled that the displays in McCreary and Pulaski courthouses, and in Harlan County schools — which are similar to those in courthouses in Mercer and Rowan counties — are unconstitutional and must come down.
In the hearing Thursday, Judge Forester also delayed action on the ACLU's request for a preliminary injunction to remove other "Foundation of Law and Justice" exhibits that include the Ten Commandments from a courthouse and hospital owned by Garrard county in Kentucky. So those displays, like the ones in Mercer and Rowan, will also remain up, pending the decision by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mr. Manion says he believes there is a "good chance" the 6th Circuit appeals court will uphold the constitutionality of the Mercer and Rowan county displays. "After all, the 6th Circuit upheld Ohio's state motto, 'With God, all things are possible,'" he said.
In his ruling, Judge Forester cited the role of the Ten Commandments in the development of the American legal system. He said government officials who display the Ten Commandments for their historical value have a "permissible secular purpose" for doing so.
The judge further held that displaying the Ten Commandments with "other historical documents" makes it clear that the government is displaying them for their "undoubted secular importance and influence."
He went on to say the historic influence of the Ten Commandments is "beyond rational dispute." He conceded that the ACLU might wish this were not the case. "But plaintiffs' wishes cannot change history," Judge Forester said.

ACLU assaults Constitution: John Hagee reveals Islamic intentions to take over America
WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Friday, August 30, 2002 | John Hagee

Posted on 08/30/2002 1:20 AM Central by JohnHuang2

Mainstream America is reeling with absolute shock from the politically correct decision of the University of North Carolina requiring incoming freshmen to read "Approaching the Qu-ran: The Early Revelations."

The book clearly is a defense of Islam that conveniently leaves out verses that call for the murder of infidels. UNC Chancellor James Moeser, defended his position of assigning the book saying, "It helps us from demonizing a whole group of people with being an enemy simply by practicing the same religion."

Apparently the sacred American Civil Liberties Union doctrines of the separation of church and state only apply to Christians and Jews. How else can you explain why the North Carolina ACLU went to court to support the University of North Carolina's mandatory reading assignment of the pro-Islam book for incoming freshmen?

UNC was challenged by concerned groups in the state, but the ACLU rode to the rescue and a federal appeals court sided with the university.

Try to imagine the ACLU's legal response had UNC Chancellor Moeser assigned all incoming freshmen to read the Old Testament or the Talmud before being admitted. All hell would have broken loose. Yet, there is no hesitation to demand freshmen students be indoctrinated with a theological virus that birthed the murder of almost 3,000 Americans on 9-11.

The First Amendment of the Constitution demands that the government take no position on religion. It is expressly the will of the people. Yet the ACLU in its relentless attack on any form of Christianity comes to the defense of the Islamic faith in a tax-supported University defying the establishment clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution.

For those of you lost in the fog created by politically correct educators and the absolutely biased ACLU to lead you into believing that Islam is a faith of love and peace, please note this quote from Winston Churchill:

That religion [Islam], which above all others was founded and propagated by the sword – the tenets and principles of which are ? incentives to slaughter and which in three continents had produced fighting breeds of men – simulates a wild and merciless fanaticism.

This statement from the brilliant political mind that detected and exposed the dangers of communism to the Western world with his "Iron Curtain" speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo.

For those who believe Sir Winston was biased, let's turn to the actual text of the Koran. All Americans need to know there are two editions of the Koran: One in Arabic and the other in English. The English version is much more mild than the hardcore fundamentalist Arabic version.

Sura 5, verse 85 prophesies an inevitable conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims. "Strongest among men in enmity to the believers [Muslims] wilt thou find the Jews and pagans."

Sura 9, verse 5 states: "Then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them. And seize them, beleaguer them and lie and wait for them in every stratagem of war."

You can be sure the freshmen at UNC will not be reading these verses. Neither will they read the following:

Sura 5:51 states: "O ye who believe [Muslims] take not the Jews or the Christians for your friends and protectors. They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he among you who turns to them [for friendship] is of them." The message is clear. If you accept a Jew or a Christian as a friend, you are not one of us. If you're not one of us you're an infidel.

Islamic fundamentalists believe the Koran commands them to fight Christians and Jews: "Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the last day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and his messenger [Mohammed] and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth [Islam] among the people of the scripture [Christians and Jews] until they pay the Jazyah [a special high tax to be paid only by Christians and Jews who do not renounce their faith and convert to Islam] with willing submission and feel themselves subdued." (Surat At-Taubah 9:29)

Does this sound peaceful? Does this sound like someone you would like to have for a next door neighbor? Taxing people into poverty who refuse to convert to your faith is peaceful? Killing people who do not submit to Islam is peaceful? Islam is a sister faith to Christianity? Not hardly!

Daniel Pipes, historian, writing for Commentary Magazine's November 2001 issue, records the following shocking story:

In June 1991, Siraj Wahaj, a convert to Islam, was a recipient of the American Muslim community's highest honors and had the privilege of becoming the first Muslim to deliver the daily prayer in the U.S. House of Representatives.

On that occasion he recited from the Koran an appeal to the Almighty to guide American leaders "and grant them righteousness and wisdom."

A little over a year later, Siraj Wahaj was addressing an audience of Muslims in New Jersey and articulated a completely different message from his mild and moderate prayer given before the U.S. House of Representatives.

He said: "If only Muslims were more clever politically, they would take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a Caliphate [Islamic leadership body].

He continued saying: "If we were united and strong, we would elect our own leader and give allegiance to him. Take my word, if the 6 to 8 million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us."

Is this loyal to America? Is this peaceful? Calling for the overthrow of the United States government is a sister faith to Christianity? Not hardly!

Yet, at the politically correct University of North Carolina, freshmen are required to read the literature that drives Islamic fundamentalists to kill Christians and Jews – to say nothing of destroying America.

| 10/08/02 | S.A. Miller

Posted on 10/08/2002 1:28 AM Central by

The mayor of Frederick, Md., ordered police to stop a group of activists carrying a "Save the Ten Commandments" banner from marching in a weekend parade.

The group's leader, who had a permit to march in the parade with a banner, was handcuffed and detained until the parade had passed.
"I was shocked, shocked that we were not allowed to march in the parade," said Neil Parrott, 32, president of the Friends of Frederick. "I did not expect this kind of reaction from the city at all."
His group carried the banner to demonstrate support of the city's fight against a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union to force the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from a public park.
Frederick City Hall spokeswoman Nancy Gregg Poss said Mayor Jennifer Dougherty ordered police to stop the group because it had violated its permit by having too many marchers and by displaying a different banner slogan than that approved by the permit.
The slogan also broke the customary ban on the display of political speech in the parade, part of an annual street festival.
"It is a city-run event, and that [banner] could imply and people could assume that it is the city's stance on the issue," Miss Poss said. "Political displays have historically not been allowed. That's why the permit asks specifically what will be on the banner."
Miss Poss said the permit allowed for three to five marchers and for a banner reading "Friends of Frederick."
About 15 marchers were participating in the parade on Saturday when they were stopped by police. When Mr. Parrott tried to re-enter the parade, police handcuffed him and placed him in a police car until the parade ended. He was released without being charged.
Lt. Tom Chase of the Frederick Police Department said Mr. Parrott was detained because he bumped into a police officer when trying to re-enter the parade, an action that is grounds for a charge of second-degree assault.
Officers on the scene decided it was not necessary to charge Mr. Parrott at the time, but the department will consult with the state's attorney before making a final decision about whether to press charges, Lt. Chase said.
A decision is expected by the end of the week, he said.
Mr. Parrott, a civil engineer from Middletown in Frederick County, said he was treated "cordially" by the police, but he disputed the assertion that he violated the permit.
"I have a great deal of respect for the mayor. She is a very wise woman, but she made a very foolish decision in this case," he said. "We are trying to preserve the history and heritage of Frederick and the freedom we have in Frederick to display the Ten Commandments on public property."
The Ten Commandments monument has been at the center of controversy in Frederick for the past six months, with advocates for freedom of religious speech at odds with those who believe it violates the First Amendment prohibition against state-sponsored religion.
A federal court in Baltimore will decide the dispute when it hears the ACLU lawsuit. No court date has yet been set.
Frederick's Ten Commandments debate began in April, when Blake Trettien, a senior at a Frederick County high school, sent a letter to City Hall challenging the constitutionality of the monument. The issue sparked a clash between city and county governments, which jointly own Memorial Park, where the monument is displayed.
In August, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit in Baltimore on behalf of Mr. Trettien to force the removal of the Ten Commandments from the park, an old graveyard converted in the 1920s to a park commemorating Frederick's war dead.
To avoid the lawsuit, the Frederick Board of Aldermen in August rededicated the park as a historic cemetery, saying religious symbols are appropriate on a site where about 300 people are still buried. The board changed the name of the parcel from Memorial Park to the Bentz Street Graveyard Memorial.
The ACLU proceeded with the lawsuit despite the move.

America's Ten Commandments: The ACLU's mistake
NRO ^ | 10/28/2002 | Michael Novak

Posted on 10/28/2002 12:08 PM CST by Utah Girl

After a weeklong trial, a federal court in Montgomery, Alabama, heard closing arguments last Wednesday (October 23) in yet one more effort by the ACLU to erase any recognition of God from public life in America — this time, to remove the Ten Commandments from a courthouse.

All over the country, the ACLU has been filing suits like to one in Alabama, winning some, losing some. The oddest thing is, if the ACLU project of removing God from public testimony should win, their victory would hurt the ACLU most of all. For two reasons: The first reason is that a plurality of Americans holds that there are civil liberties because certain inalienable rights were endowed in us by our Creator. This belief was expressed by the Continental Congress in the carefully wrought words of the Declaration of Independence. Our Founders held that the same Creator Who gave the human race the inestimable gift of the Ten Commandments also gave human beings the freedom to follow them — or not. He also laid on them the burden of making an account to Him — and to no other — of how they did so. As Thomas Jefferson put it, "The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time." There are civil liberties because our Creator made us free. And also, responsible finally to Him.

These words of Jefferson are particularly beautiful:

Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their own minds, that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his Supreme will that free it shall remain, by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint: That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations ...are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone... [A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom]

Why would the ACLU want to cut out of American consciousness the reason why, for a plurality of Americans, respect for civil liberties is a serious, even a sacred duty? Failure to observe is an offense against the Supreme will of God, and answerable on the last day before an undeceivable Judge?

But the second reason why the ACLU is committing suicide runs even deeper. The reason why there is religious liberty, or at least the sole reason given by three crucial Founding documents on the subject — the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the Virginia Statute for the Establishment of Religious Liberty, and James Madison's famous and eloquent Remonstrance — is this rare and precious conception: That prior to any obligation to the state, prior even to any obligation to civil society (prior both in time and in degree of importance), is the inalienable communion between the individual and the Creator, to Whom the human being owes a duty precedent to any he owes state or civil society. This duty cannot be fulfilled by any other than each individual, one by one. For each person, it is inalienable.

This inalienable relation between the individual and the Creator is the ground and foundation of the right to religious liberty, and through that first right, of all the other civil rights and liberties. From that human-divine relation emanates the spiritual power of the ACLU.

A DEEPER, MORE SURPRISING TURN
However, a deeper and more surprising turn in our reflections must now be taken. The conception of a Creator is specific only to a tiny handful of the world religions. The conception of a Creator Who demands to be recognized "in spirit and in truth," and not simply by outward actions (burning incense, bending the knee, reciting sacred formulae, performing certain ritual actions such as pilgrimages or prostrations, etc.) is specific to even fewer. The conception of a Creator Who, in addition, made every individual free, and glories in the friendship of free women and free men, seems in fact to be limited only to two: to Judaism and its offspring, Christianity.

It is probably true that the Ten Commandments are, with due regard for a modest pluralism of nuance and emphasis and interpretation, universal and recognized among all peoples everywhere. Even more strikingly than that, all ten of them, especially the last five or six, appear to have been reached in many places by the exercise of reason itself, without revelation. That stealing, murder, lying, and bearing false witness, and acting out of covetousness are universally condemned in all world literatures is fairly obvious. But even the first three or four commandments have been arrived at by reason alone.

Thus, for those who form a sufficiently high notion of God, it is also obvious that putting false idols in His place, worshiping as God something that is not God, or mocking and blaspheming Him or His name, are stupid acts of ignorance, arrogance, and pretension among mere mortals, who are like the grass of the fields, here today and tomorrow forgotten.

Nonetheless, the particular relation between the Creator and the individual imagined by the American Founders, and by them made part of the narrative history within which the conception of rights gains traction in our daily lives, is special to Judaism and Christianity. Just possibly, it is also compatible with Islam, that other religion of an almighty, eternal Creator of all things. So far, however, no Muslim thinker has come forward to explain how Islam understands human liberty. And all the other civil, political, and religious rights embodied in the American way of life, and put into words in its Founding documents. How does Islam ground those rights, in a way comparable to the arguments put forward by George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison mentioned above?

According to our own documentary history, the American conception and practice of religious liberty (and the grounding of our other civil and political rights) depends upon the relation between the human individual, female and male, and the Creator of all things, as presented by the Jewish and Christian traditions, and by no other tradition in quite that same way. Not even Thomas Hobbes and John Locke ground their conceptions of natural right in quite the same way as Mason, Jefferson, and Madison do. True, these Americans, especially Jefferson, knew some of the works of Locke well, and learned many turns of thought and expression from him. And why not?

Locke often expressed himself in the full-dress language of a believer in the Jewish and Christian traditions. Yet perhaps even more so than Locke, the innermost convictions of many if not most of the early American patriots were fired by religious conscience. The flames of revolt against kingly abusiveness were fed by the Puritan and evangelical preachers. For this reason, the American documents hewed even more closely than Locke to a Jewish-Christian conception of the main narrative line of human history: The Creator made humans to be free, and to make freedom prevail, against the many formidable obstacles it encounters in "the long course of human events."

In this respect, James Madison's sketch of the relation between the individual and its Lord and Creator, in the inner arena of conscience, calls to mind the first two propositions of the Ten Commandments: "I am the Lord thy God." The individual needs for a moment to let that sink in.

Then the next proposition follows ineluctably: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

Contained in these two lines is the metaphysical narrative that undergirds the principle of limited government. No absolute power, or absolutist government, can be allowed to prevail. Any such pretense is an idol, usurping the place that belongs to God alone. To God alone, each individual owes the allegiance of an inalienable conscience, which can be exercised by no other person whatever (not by mother nor father, not by brother nor sister, but only by that individual alone). That duty to the Creator is precedent to any duty to the state or even to civil society. In short, our right to religious liberty cannot be abridged by any state or civil society or any other human power whatever. Here is how Madison expresses this truth:

It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in the order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governour [sic] of the Universe. [Remonstrance, para.1].

The next Commandment reads: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." Benjamin Franklin gave this proposition a practical twist in his proposal for the official motto of the United States: "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."

The next is: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." Commander-in-chief George Washington issued as one of his first written orders to the Continental Army that there must not be any swearing or any blasphemy in the ranks, lest the Army's firm reliance on Divine Providence be compromised and the trust of the People in their Army scandalized. He also commanded his troops to begin every morning with a prayer, their officers present in formation, a chaplain having been assigned to each unit.

After the war, Washington frequently drew attention to, and commended public gratitude for "the many signal interventions of Divine Providence" in the course of the war. Among these, ever fresh in his mind, were the seemingly miraculous turns on his behalf in the battles of Long Island and Monmouth.

MEETING THREE CONDITIONS
The singular advantage of the Jewish-Christian conception of the relation between the Creator and his human subjects is that it allows for three things at once: the freedom of the individual conscience; a freedom ordered to law ("Confirm thy soul in self-control/Thy liberty in law") and social unity; and, third, a comfortable pluralism, in which diverse communities live in unity, with the free exercise of conscience. This is an original conception, a new order without precedent on the face of the globe, as Madison justly observed in Federalist #14.

Although this conception may be articulated and defended in more than one way, its particular historical origins in the specific religious traditions of early America, frequently recurred to, maintain a remarkable and continuing vitality. Furthermore, without requiring newcomers or imitators in other lands to become Jews or Christians, or to confess any one faith, these distinctive traditions open the blessings of liberty to all. We can pay homage to their specific origins without being forced to make a confession of faith in those traditions. Few are the historical conceptions so open to sharing their best fruits with others of different faiths.

More impressively still, the early American religions and their attachment to common sense managed to launch a form of pluralism that does not depend upon relativism — "anything goes" and "all opinions are equally valid" — while still honoring freedom of conscience. They did so by recognizing that each soul is in a constant dialog with its Creator, learning and advancing by its own lights, in its own time. No one else has the right to intrude coercively into that sacred conversation. One keen reason for religious liberty is that every soul needs room for that wrestling match, that long journey.

The texture of the American trust in the ultimate victory of liberty and the unshakeable foundation of our rights, from religious liberty to all the others, is knit through and through with the laws of the human universe announced by Governor of the Universe, and honored by our forebears throughout our history.

DEFYING REASON
Tearing the tangible recollection of these laws from our daily sight in courthouses and elsewhere is an act of unparalleled and suicidal blindness. It can be accounted for only by ideological rage, not by rational self interest.

Even those who do not believe in God should be able to see that many of their fellow citizens do hold such a belief. Moreover, these others hold certain important political truths to be self evident because, in the context of their belief in a God Who offers them friendship, other truths about life and liberty become clear to them. To help these others to lose a vivid memory of this Source of their rights is to help them treat these rights as less than sacred, as mere ideological opinions like any others.

Why would the ACLU desire an outcome like that?

And why would they take a position so flatly contrary to that of George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and other Founders?

The current tactics of the ACLU defy reason.

EOF

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