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June 8, 2007
'Concerned Women' Decry Access to Contraception
"There's a utopian view that women ought to be able to have sex any time they want to without consequences that's the bottom line of all these bills," said Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America on congressional efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancies – and thus reduce abortion.
In particular, this supposed sex-driven “utopian view” is about the availability and use of contraception. The bills include measures to expand access to contraceptives and funding for comprehensive sex education, which teaches both abstinence and safer sex. In addition, Congress is considering the Access to Birth Control Act, which would ensure women can fill contraceptive prescriptions at pharmacies. CWA, which holds that pharmacists should be able to withhold prescriptions based on their personal beliefs, says the bill “would criminalize ‘Freedom of choice.’”
Eighty percent of adults agree that birth control should be accessible and that it should be dispensed without discrimination or delay and covered by health insurance, according to a new poll. The Lake Research Partners poll also found 88 percent support for teaching comprehensive sex education.
Posted by Ezra at 4:16 PM | Permalink
Disenfranchisement Strategy at Heart of Modern Right Wing
As Eric Rauchway noted in the New Republic Online this week, the Right’s myth of rampant voter fraud persists in spite of the facts of its near-nonexistence:
The divergence of rhetoric from reality resembles that of a hundred years ago, when reformers first supported registration laws. Although the reformers talked about "corruption," they didn't really mean vote-buying or repeat voting. They meant the wrong kind of people voting: "Universal suffrage," one reformer noted in 1903, meant "'tramp' suffrage"; it meant "licensed mobocracy."
Characterizing the modern right-wing campaign to place restrictions on voting -- to counter mythical “fraud” -- as simply a cynically veiled attempt to disenfranchise citizens seems unfair. Nevertheless, this view was more or less plainly articulated by Paul Weyrich, one of the founders of the conservative movement, in 1980:
Get the Flash Player to see this video clip.
Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome -- good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.
Weyrich was addressing one of the seminal events in the creation of the New Right, the Religious Roundtable’s National Affairs Briefing in Dallas. At this gathering of 15,000-20,000 ministers and activists just a few months before the election, Ronald Reagan joined speakers including Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Phyllis Schlafly, and many more. Reagan famously declared, “I know you can’t endorse me, but I endorse you” – cementing the alliance between the Religious Right and the Republican Party that continues to this day.
Posted by Ezra at 10:46 AM | Permalink
Well-Funded Minuteman PAC Light on Contributions to Candidates
The Minuteman PAC, founded to provide direct support to anti-immigrant candidates in accord with the principles of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, appears to carry the same symptoms of financial mismanagement as the MCDC itself.
Last week we reported on the internal meltdown at MCDC, where some of the group’s officers and 15 of its state coordinators were fired en masse after requesting a meeting with MCDC President Chris Simcox. The dispute arose out of allegations that Simcox hadn’t raised as much money as he claimed and wasn’t spending it as he had promised, on things like “field equipment” or background checks. Instead, MCDC’s 2005 IRS filing revealed the bulk of the group’s budget went to unspecified “professional services.” In addition, Minuteman dissidents had questions about MCDC’s vaguely-defined relationship with Alan Keyes’ non-profit Declaration Alliance and various consulting businesses associated with Keyes.
A look at the most recent FEC filings of Minuteman PAC, which lists Simcox as its honorary chairman, shows that while the group raised over $300,000 in the first quarter of 2007, and spent more than $270,000, only $10,000 went toward a candidate running for office. As the Washington Times reports, 97 percent of the money the group raised went to “‘operating expenses,’ including advertising, fundraising and telemarketing to promote the Minuteman PAC.”
And, as the Times reports, much of this money went to firms associated with Keyes. In some cases, Minuteman PAC spent tens of thousands of dollars with small marketing firms repeatedly used by the Minutemen, Declaration Alliance, and Keyes’ past political campaigns. Other expenditures went to consulting firms run by Keyes advisors, such as $10,000 to a for-profit firm run by the executive director of Keyes’ non-profit.
If you look at Minuteman PAC’s filings from the 2006 campaign, the same pattern emerges. Strangely, while this Minuteman PAC is registered in Texas, there is a second Minuteman PAC registered in Virginia. Officially titled the “Declaration Alliance Minuteman Civil Defense Corps PAC,” it originally shared a website with the Texas version. In any event, a look at its own filings reveals again the pattern of disproportionate spending on fundraising, consultants, and other operating expenses rather than on candidate races. The money was spent on the same firms with ties to Keyes.
As with the “Draft Keyes” effort apparently being pushed by Keyes’ own employees, it’s difficult to pin down exactly how the organizational structure of Keyes’ groups is designed – or where the money goes. All this confusion is certainly frustrating to disgruntled Minutemen. From the Times:
Gary Cole, who served as the MCDC national operations manager until he was fired in 2005 for asking about the organization's finances, said the Minuteman movement was being destroyed from within.
"The Minutemen are being attack by a cancer also," he said. "Our cancer is in corporate form. It devours our financial resources, our time, our imaginations and ultimately our hope. I will continue to fight until the enemy is vanquished or death separates me from your midst."
Posted by Ezra at 10:41 AM | Permalink
June 7, 2007
CWA Misses The Point – Again
Several months ago, shortly after former NBA star Tim Hardaway stated that he hates gay people, Concerned Women for America weighed in, calling his statement “both unfortunate and inappropriate.”
Of course, CWA only found the remark “unfortunate and inappropriate” because it made it harder for groups like CWA to advance their own anti-gay agenda by “foment[ing] misperceptions of widespread homosexual ‘victimhood’ which the homosexual lobby has craftily manufactured.” CWA’s self-serving attempt to decry Hardaway’s bigoted and offensive remark was completely undermined by its own equally offensive statement that “It’s perfectly natural for people to be repelled by disordered sexual behaviors that are both unnatural, and immoral.”
Clearly, CWA missed the point about what was offensive about Hardaway’s statement.
Flash forward to earlier this week when right-wing radio and TV host Joe Scarborough, while discussing potential Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson and his younger wife Jeri, asked his guest “You think she thinks she works the pole?” - presumably a reference to the poles that strippers occasionally use on stage.
Once again CWA is outraged … and once again they completely miss the point:
Joe Scarborough's banter … reflects attempts to mainstream porn into every day culture. Pornography shapes people's view
of women – and not just the women in the pictures – as objects to be used for sexual pleasure. The proliferation of pornography and strip clubs does have an effect. It results in men viewing women as sexual objects instead of capable and intelligent human beings. Mainstream culture, from TV to clothes, has become saturated not with flirtatious sex, but crass, debasing, dehumanizing porn that encourages judging women by porn standards. Scarborough's comments reflect and reinforce the normalization of porn.
At least this time around, CWA actually called for Scarborough to apologize, something they never did for Hardaway. But judging by their press release, it seems pretty clear that CWA is far more outraged by the supposed "’pornification’ of our culture” than with Scarborough’s sexist and misogynistic remark.
Posted by Kyle at 4:10 PM | Permalink
June 6, 2007
Moderators, Huckabee Miss Point: Whether Creationism Taught in Public School
In last night’s Republican presidential debate, moderators returned to the subject of evolution, pressing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee:
Huckabee gave an elegant answer to the inept question -- “I’m not planning on writing the curriculum for an eight-grade science book. I’m asking for the opportunity to be president of the United States,” he said. The idea that the president won't set science curriculum seems to echo the conservative view of federal versus state policymaking authority, but in practice the president may have a role doing just that.
In the midst of a heightened period of debate two years ago over teaching “Intelligent Design” creationism in public school science class, culminating in a federal judge repudiating the Dover, Pennsylvania school board, President Bush spoke out in favor of injecting creationism into curriculum, helping to legitimize ID proponents’ case. “With the president endorsing it, at the very least it makes Americans who have that position more respectable, for lack of a better phrase,” said Gary Bauer.
And the president’s role may even extend beyond shaping the terms of debate to setting actual policy. During congressional debate over Bush’s signature No Child Left Behind education plan, among the provisions considered was the so-called Santorum Amendment, containing language designed to make ID an integral part of science standards across the country. Although the amendment was rejected, confusion around the legislation caused many ID supporters (including Santorum) to imply that it was law. At the very least, this shows that a future president could potential be in position to implement an anti-evolution policy for public schools.
As we noted after the last debate, Huckabee expressed support for teaching creationism when governor of Arkansas. Last night, while Huckabee seemed to state that the theory of evolution is incompatible with belief in God, he correctly noted that his personal belief (much less his understanding of science) does not necessarily bear on public policy. But the policy question of whether creationism belongs in public school science class, on the other hand, is very relevant to the job.
(Via Ross Douthat.)
Posted by Ezra at 5:44 PM | Permalink
Alan Keyes Backs “Draft Alan Keyes” Movement
Try and follow this if you can:
An organization calling itself "We Need Alan Keyes for President" has launched a website to press the former Reagan administration diplomat to enter the field of Republican presidential contenders.
According to a statement at the website -- AlanKeyes.com -- the organization's purpose is to "determine and rally support for a presidential candidacy by Dr. Keyes."
The statement adds, "We Need Alan Keyes for President, Inc., is a political action committee . . . not managed by Alan Keyes."
The effort is spearheaded by several individuals at RenewAmerica, a grassroots organization affiliated with Keyes.
Stephen Stone, president of RenewAmerica, said, "At this point, Alan has not indicated that he will run. In fact, he has said that he would run only if enough people at the grassroots come forward to say they want him to run. Our job is to give them a chance to do so."
Added RenewAmerica's legal counsel Steven Voigt, chief of staff to the draft Keyes movement: "Alan believes that the American people, themselves, are the key to restoring the values that are essential to the future of our nation. He has therefore stressed that it's ultimately up to grassroots Americans to decide who they want in the arena. If enough moral conservatives want him, he's indicated he will run."
So the president and legal counsel of RenewAmerica - an organization that just so happens to have Alan Keyes as its chairman - have spontaneously decided to launch a draft Alan Keyes movement?
Keyes has apparently told Stone and Voigt that he’ll only run if “enough people at the grassroots come forward to say they want him to run” and so they have set out to generate such support via the website AlanKeyes.com – a website that just so happens to be registered to Alan Keyes Enterprises:
Registrant:
Alan Keyes Enterprises, Inc
ATTN: ALANKEYES.COM
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA 20172-0447
AlanKeyes.com was initially the site for his radio show. It then became a site for his 2000 presidential bid, and then went on to become a redirect to the RenewAmerica site, before becoming Alan Keyes Weblog, and then evolving into We Need Alan Keyes for President.
It should also be noted that the bio of Keyes on the draft Keyes website is nearly word-for-word identical to the bio of Keyes that is posted on the RenewAmerica website. And those inclined to donate to this new effort should probably be aware that their money will, in all likelihood, end up in Keyes' hands one way or another:
Your donation will be used by We Need Alan Keyes for President, Inc., to advance a potential candidacy by Alan Keyes for President of the United States. If Alan does enter the race, your donation will thereafter be used to advance his campaign. Should Alan decide not to enter the race, your donation will be used to support one or more organizations that are consistent with the vision and Declarationist ideals of Alan Keyes, as selected by the principals of We Need Alan Keyes for President, Inc. By donating, you understand and consent to the use of your contribution for such an alternative purpose, should Alan choose not to enter the race.
Considering that the two principle figures in We Need Alan Keyes for President are both employed by Keyes’ RenewAmerica, it doesn’t require much imagination to figure out just what organization “consistent with the vision and Declarationist ideals of Alan Keyes” they plan on funneling the donations to, should Keyes not run.
Since We Need Alan Keyes for President is not in any way being “managed by Alan Keyes,” it sure was generous of Keyes to allow the president and legal counsel of his organization to take time out of their schedules to try and gin up support for his own presidential campaign. And it was even more generous of him to hand over his website to help them in their effort.
Posted by Kyle at 4:19 PM | Permalink
June 5, 2007
Religious Right's Abstinence-Only Agenda on the World Stage
The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee indicated last week that Congress will reevaluate a controversial provision in Bush’s initiative to combat the global AIDS epidemic: a requirement that one-third of HIV prevention money be spent on abstinence-only education. The Hill reports that the abstinence provisions “were critical to gain support from conservative groups when the GOP-led Congress passed an AIDS authorization bill in 2003,” and predictably, religious-right groups are outraged:
“We’re definitely going to be lobbying very hard both Congress and President Bush who has supported these provisions to keep them in,” said Tom McClusky, vice president of government affairs at the [Family Research Council]. “It’s not even a large part of the overall spending, but some in Congress are upset and want to try to remove that. I’m sorry, but I think that condemns hundreds of thousands of people to death.”
CWA believes that removing the provisions would have major ramifications. “If Title V is not reauthorized before the June 30 deadline, we will not only lose funding for abstinence programs, but just as importantly, the definitions and guidelines that govern all of the federal abstinence dollars,” said Shari Rendall, CWA’s director of legislation and public policy.
(CWA’s Rendall appears to be confusing the abstinence-only provision in the global AIDS initiative with another current religious-right project, the effort to maintain federal funding for dubious abstinence-only programming in U.S. public schools.)
These complaints echo those we reported last summer, when Sen. Feinstein proposed eliminating the abstinence-only restriction on funds. But contrary to McClusky’s claim that such an action “condemns hundreds of thousands of people to death,” the abstinence-only restriction has caused confusion among those fighting AIDS, to the point where 12 out of 15 countries studied by the Government Accountability Office had to reduce funding for prevention of mother-to-child transmission in order to meet the abstinence-only target.
The Institute of Medicine recently released a congressionally-mandated report on the effectiveness of the initiative that called for “evidence-based programming” – as opposed to ideologically-driven targets – and noted that “the budget allocations have made spending money in a particular way an end in itself rather than a means to an end—in this instance, the vitally important end of saving lives today and in the future.”
At the very least, the Religious Right should be wary of crossing U2 singer and development activist Bono, who praised Bush’s recent proposal to increase global AIDS funding but said, “Condoms are a part of the solution; they just are.”
Posted by Ezra at 6:31 PM | Permalink
Anti-Immigration Forces Gear Up
Rep. Tom Tancredo already had little to no chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination and he certainly won’t be getting support from too many Senate Republicans now that he is threatening to destroy them if they vote for immigration reform:
Presidential hopeful Tom Tancredo said today he will work against fellow Republicans who support an immigration bill he considers a sellout.
Tancredo aides said the campaign would start a petition drive and volunteer network to help voters campaign against senators who support the White House-backed immigration plan. The bill, which provides a pathway to citizenship to the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the United States, has split Republicans in Congress.
The Colorado congressman announced his "Save America Campaign" hours before he and nine other candidates were to meet for the first Republican debate in the state with the earliest presidential primary.
In announcing his “Save America Campaign,” Tancredo warns that the immigration reform bill “will destroy America” and is urging supporters to petition/threaten their senators:
I demand Republican Senators stand up to George W. Bush, the Hispanic lobby and the corporate special interests and stand up for America.
I specifically demand you oppose the Kennedy-McCain-Bush amnesty bill or any other legislation that gives temporary or permanent legal status to illegal immigrants.
Otherwise I will oppose and actively work for your defeat in your next election.
Pat Buchanan, who is currently coaching Mitt Romney on the issue of immigration, is likewise on the rampage:
Bush's attack on the motives and character of conservatives tell us it is Goldwater-Rockefeller time again -- time to split the blanket. Conservatives need to declare their independence of Bush and to repudiate Bushism as the philosophy of their movement and party.
…The damage Bush has done to his party is beginning to rival that of Herbert Hoover. If the Clintons were doing this, would conservatives be mute? Time to lock and load.
Meanwhile, Grassfire.org has announced that it will soon begin running new “Where’s The Fence?” ads:
The initial media buy includes national airings on Fox News and CNN along with regional broadcasts in seven states identified by Grassfire as key to this week’s amnesty vote: Arizona (Kyl and McCain), Georgia (Isakson and Chambliss), Kansas (Brownback), Mississippi (Lott), North Carolina (Burr), Texas (Cornyn and Hutchinson), and Virginia (Warner and Webb). A total of seven ads will be airing -- the national (generic) version along with six customized versions featuring key senators who have supported amnesty or have expressed support for this year’s amnesty bill.
Posted by Kyle at 2:27 PM | Permalink
Wallis: Focus Admits Gays Not the Problem with American Families -- Just a Fundraising Canard
In an interview with Powell’s book store, Sojourners founder and liberal Evangelical activist Jim Wallis spoke of trying to find a common ground with Focus on the Family on whether gays are really behind the breakdown of families:
[Powell’s]: The religious right, though, regularly claims that the "gay agenda" wants to destroy the family. That's where the hysteria comes in.
Wallis: But I've not found that. My gay friends are also friends with my family. And they're glad that we have a healthy heterosexual relationship and a healthy relationship with our kids. But they want to be respected too—their rights, their relationships—and not be scapegoated for things that have nothing to do with them.
I had this conversation with Focus on the Family, and I said I agree with you that family breakdown is a huge crisis, a serious crisis. And I don't think the Left talks about that enough. My neighborhood is eighty percent single parent families. You can't overcome poverty with that, with eighty percent single parent families. But how do we reweave the bonds of marriage, family, extended family, and community, to put our arms around the kids? And it's not just in poor neighborhoods. Kids are falling through the cracks of fractured family in all classes and neighborhoods. So I said to them, I want to rebuild family life and relationships, but explain to me how gay and lesbian people are the ones responsible for all that? which is what their fund-raising strategy suggests. And after about an hour and a half they conceded the point. They said, Okay Jim, we concede that family breakdown is caused much more by heterosexual dysfunction than by homosexuals. But then they said, We can't vouch for our fundraising department, which says a lot, I think.
Via Andrew Sullivan.
Posted by Ezra at 2:24 PM | Permalink
June 4, 2007
Romney Taking Immigration Pointers from Pat Buchanan
Immigration reform is sharply dividing the Republican electorate, as right-wing activists and commentators take increasingly harsh pot-shots at President Bush and other Republican supporters of a comprehensive reform bill being considered in the Senate. Dissent in the ranks over the issue was blamed when the Republican National Committee laid off its entire telemarketing staff last week. And pressure is high among presidential candidates who otherwise agree on most issues: In particular, John McCain, a sponsor of the Senate bill, has been duking it out with Mitt Romney, whom McCain accuses of being newly hardline in his stance on immigration.
According to the American Spectator, Romney has been taking tips from staunchly anti-immigration commentator Pat Buchanan:
If former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney suddenly sounds tougher and pithier on immigration issues, thank pundit and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan for it. According to Romney insiders, the man who has flip-flopped on immigration sat down privately with Buchanan late last week to discuss the issue.
Buchanan, of course, is a long-time proponent of the view that Mexican immigrants are causing the “death of the West.” What kind of political advice is Romney taking from Buchanan? The former insurgent presidential candidate has recently warned Republicans that “pandering” to Hispanics has cost them white votes, and just two weeks ago he wrote of the current immigration bill,
What is happening to us? An immigrant invasion of the United States from the Third World, as America's white majority is no longer even reproducing itself. Since Roe v. Wade, America has aborted 45 million of her children. And Asia, Africa and Latin America have sent 45 million of their children to inherit the estate the aborted American children never saw. God is not mocked.
And white America is in flight.
Perhaps Romney feels that by embracing Pat Buchanan-style nativist sentiment, he can occupy the narrow political space currently owned by Rep. Tom Tancredo – the GOP’s one-issue anti-immigrant candidate whose campaign is run by Buchanan’s sister Bay. While Tancredo is picking up a small number of fervent supporters, polls show him mired at one percent.
Posted by Ezra at 5:10 PM | Permalink
Anti-Abortion Faction Accuses Major Groups of Selling out to GOP
The Washington Post today reports on the unusual spat among anti-abortion groups, apparently over the tactics of incrementalism versus absolutism, that spilled into public attacks against Focus on the Family founder James Dobson two weeks ago. Groups including Rev. Flip Benham’s Operation Rescue/Operation Save America and Colorado Right to Life placed a full-page ad in the Colorado Springs Gazette and the Washington Times demanding that Dobson “repent” for saying that a recent Supreme Court decision upholding the federal “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act” would “protect children.”
Confusingly, a separate anti-abortion group also called Operation Rescue praised Dobson for pushing the ban, and Colorado Right to Life’s national parent group also said it was in “complete disagreement” with its state affiliate.
In the Post, Colorado Right to Life President Brian Rohrbough fired back. A Focus on the Family spokesman said they supported the ban “because we, and most pro-lifers, are sophisticated enough to know we're not going to win a total victory all at once. We're going to win piece by piece.” But Rohrbough said the decision “encourage[s] abortionists to find less shocking means to kill late-term babies.”
"What happened in the abortion world is that groups like National Right to Life, they're really a wing of the Republican Party, and they're not geared to push for personhood for an unborn child -- they're geared to getting Republicans elected," he said. "So we're seeing these ridiculous laws like the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban put forward, and then we're deceived about what they really do."
Posted by Ezra at 5:08 PM | Permalink
First Amendment Protection Only For Those Who Believe
After a lengthy legal battle, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that the Montgomery County (MD) Public Schools’ “policy for distributing fliers by community groups [via a "backpack mail" program] is unconstitutional because it gives school officials unlimited power to approve or reject materials.”
The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Child Evangelism Fellowship of Maryland, with the backing of the Alliance Defense Fund and the Christian Legal Society, after its request to distribute fliers regarding its Good News Club - which is designed to “evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living” – was rejected.
The Circuit Court sided with Child Evangelism Fellowship, ruling [PDF] that the school district’s policy granted it “unbridled discretion to deny access to the oft-used forum — for any reason at all, including antipathy to a particular viewpoint — [and] does not ensure the requisite viewpoint neutrality.”
Around the same time, the Liberty Counsel, which is directly tied to the late Jerry Falwell and his Liberty University, sent a letter to Albemarle County School Board in Virginia, warning it that its refusal to distribute fliers about a church-sponsored vacation bible school via its own "backpack mail" program was unconstitutional.
The school district quickly changed its policy and the Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver was quite pleased:
"We're pleased the school changed its policy so quickly and correctly," says Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel founder and chairman. "The law is clear-- when schools allow the distribution of secular material, they must accommodate religious material."
Staver refers to a recent 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding a Good News Club's right to distribute fliers in Montgomery County schools in Maryland.
…
"They're not required to accept everything," he says, citing exemptions for libelous, obscene or pornographic material. Nor does he object if Muslim or Jewish groups want to distribute information about their events in schools. "The First Amendment is not just for the Liberty Counsel," he says. "You can't just pick and choose."
But one year later, it seems as if some on the Right are not so happy about Albemarle’s new policy now that students are bringing home fliers for a summer camp for atheists and freethinkers.
As Vision America’s Rick Scarborough fumes:
Teachers in the Albemarle, Virginia School District are rebelling at being required to distribute flyers for an atheist summer camp. According to the left, while the First Amendment forbids an "establishment of religion," an establishment of disbelief is apparently quite acceptable.
The flyers advertise Camp Quest, billed as "the first residential summer camp in the history of the United States for the children of atheists, freethinkers, humanists, 'brights,' or whatever other terms might be applied to those who hold to a naturalistic, not a supernatural, lifestance."
…
[I]t’s outrageous to force teachers to distribute these flyers
Who thinks Scarborough would have responded similarly to a non-Christian teacher who resisted sending home flyers proselytizing for an evangelical Christian group?
For its part, the school board claims that it is required to distribute the fliers because of the 4th Circuit’s ruling regarding the Good News Club in Maryland, which Scarborough isn’t buying:
The district claims an appellate court decision gives it no alternative. Nonsense! In ruling on a ban on promotional material from the Christian Evangelism Fellowship, the court held that school officials lack "unbridled discretion to deny access" to material for non-school functions. The operative words here are "unbridled discretion."
Of course, Scarborough either misunderstands or is intentionally misrepresenting the 4th Circuit’s ruling. As noted above, the court did not rule that that school officials lacked "’unbridled discretion to deny access’ to material for non-school functions,” but rather that its policy granted it “unbridled discretion to deny access” to its “backpack mail” program for any reason it saw fit and thus was unconstitutional.
It appears as if the Albemarle County School Board attempted to comply with the court’s “viewpoint neutral” requirement for such programs, just as it was reportedly instructed to do by The Liberty Counsel. So if Scarborough is upset that students are now bringing home fliers for an atheist summer camp, he ought to take it up with Liberty Counsel, Child Evangelism Fellowship, the Alliance Defense Fund, and the Christian Legal Society.
This isn’t the first time that Religious Right leaders have resisted others’ use of legal rights they demand for themselves. The federal Equal Access Act was passed by Congress in 1984 at the urging of Religious Right groups that said schools were violating the rights of students who wanted to form Bible clubs. But when students who want to form gay-straight alliances have asserted the same legal right (first affirmed by federal courts in Colin v. Orange Unified School District), Religious Right leaders and their political allies frequently resist or try to erect barriers to those clubs.
- via AU’s Wall of Separation
Posted by Kyle at 5:08 PM | Permalink