Posts on First Amendment

I've always wanted to launch my own grassroots political organization dedicated to protecting our Third Amendment rights, collecting donations, and then just sitting back while turning out glowing annual reports about how, thanks to our tireless efforts, no citizen was compelled to house soldiers in their place of residence during times of peace for 217 consecutive years.

While it is not quite as ingenious as my idea, it looks like the Media Research Center is launching it's own version of this sort of can't-possibly-fail initiative, as Alex Koppelman points out:

Whether they know it or not, the staff at the Media Research Center -- a conservative press watchdog -- seems to have hit upon an ingenious new strategy: make a big deal about getting involved in fights in which your enemy is nonexistent. You can't possibly lose!

Monday, the MRC announced the formation of the Free Speech Alliance, a group dedicated to fighting against the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, an old FCC regulation that mandated equal time for opposing viewpoints in opinion programming. The move was announced in a post on MRC's blog, Newsbusters, that was titled "The Free Speech Alliance Declares War on the 'Censorship Doctrine.'"

The MRC is also asking people to sign a petition against revival of the regulation. "In 1987, President Ronald Reagan rescinded the Fairness Doctrine and since then, talk radio has flourished. Conservatives dominate it, and liberals can't stand it. By re-instating the Fairness Doctrine, liberals would effectively silence the conservative leaders of the day ... and would essentially take control of all forms of media," the group says in an introduction on the Web page that hosts the petition. On the same page, the MRC warns, "In recent months, the groundswell for reinstatement is intensifying. In fact, a growing number of liberal leaders in Washington, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, have openly stated their intent to do so."

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According to the MRC, Fairness Alliance member organizations include Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, Concerned Women for America and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Of course this sort of right-wing effort to save America from the return of the Fairness Doctrine is almost guarantee to succeed without those involved having to do anything at al since, as Marin Cogan explains, there is no effort underway or desire whatsoever to actually reinstate it:

Today, the doctrine has almost no support from media-reform advocates. According to Mark Lloyd, co-author of the CAP report, "I don't think there's any movement [to restore the fairness doctrine] at all. ... We don't support it. " Craig Aaron of the media-reform group FreePress says, "[I]n reality, the fairness doctrine as it existed is never ever coming back."

Responses from the offices of most of the Democrats who have been pegged as fairness-doctrine proponents--Schumer, Dick Durbin, Dianne Feinstein, and others--have ranged from a firm denial that the issue is a priority at all to disbelief at finding themselves at the center of a manufactured controversy. "Somebody plucked this out of the clear blue sky," says the press secretary for New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat who was questioned about the issue by a conservative radio-show host a few weeks ago. "This is a completely made- up issue." Senator Durbin's press secretary says that Durbin has "no plans, no language, no nothing. He was asked in a hallway last year, he gave his personal view"--that the American people were served well under the doctrine--"and it's all been blown out of proportion." In fact, as recently as last year, the House voted by an overwhelming three-to-one margin to temporarily prohibit the FCC from imposing the dead policy; 113 Democrats voted to support the move.

Meanwhile, the president-elect himself has said in no uncertain terms that he does "not support reimposing the fairness doctrine on broadcasters." Republican paranoia is nothing more than that.

It seems that, back in 2006, Kentucky State Rep. Tom Riner inserted a provision into Homeland Security legislation that required the state Office of Homeland Security to openly and repeatedly stress “the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth" and thank God for keeping the state safe.

Apparently, under former Governor Ernie Fletcher, the office dutifully carried out this obligation but now Riner is upset that under current Governor Steve Beshear, the office isn’t praising and mentioning God as it is required to do so by law: 

The 2006 law organizing the state Office of Homeland Security lists its initial duty as "stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth."

Specifically, Homeland Security is ordered to publicize God's benevolent protection in its reports, and it must post a plaque at the entrance to the state Emergency Operations Center with an 88-word statement that begins, "The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God."

State Rep. Tom Riner, a Southern Baptist minister, tucked the God provision into Homeland Security legislation as a floor amendment that lawmakers overwhelmingly approved two years ago.

As amended, Homeland Security's religious duties now come before all else, including its distribution of millions of dollars in federal grants and its analysis of possible threats.

The time and energy spent crediting God are appropriate, said Riner, D-Louisville, in an interview this week.

"This is recognition that government alone cannot guarantee the perfect safety of the people of Kentucky," Riner said. "Government itself, apart from God, cannot close the security gap. The job is too big for government."

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Under previous Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a lay Baptist preacher, Homeland Security interpreted the law at face value, prominently crediting God in its annual reports to state leaders and posting the required plaque.

Under Gov. Steve Beshear, officials this week said they didn't know about the plaque until the Herald-Leader called to ask whether it's still there. (They checked; it is.) The 2008 Homeland Security report, issued a month ago, did not credit God, but it did complain about a decline in federal funding from Washington.

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There is no reference to God in Homeland Security's current mission statement or on its Web site, which displeases Riner.

"We certainly expect it to be there, of course," Riner said.

Somehow we missed this story a few months back about Central Alabama Pride suing Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford for discriminating against the group when he refused to allow city workers to hang Gay Pride Week banners.

For his part, Langford had a rather novel church-state defense:

Langford on Wednesday reiterated his position against signing a proclamation for the event because he said it is inappropriate for a government to endorse a lifestyle that God opposes.

"The bottom line is I don't condone the lifestyle and what they were asking me to do in my official capacity as mayor was to issue a proclamation which in essence endorsed the gay lifestyle," Langford said. "If I had issued such a proclamation, I would in essence be saying that God's position is wrong and I wouldn't dare take a position against God. So as opposed to suing me, they need to be suing God, and the last time I checked, he can defend himself. End of story."

Apparently, in Langford's view, the role of government is to please God and the determination of what is pleasing to God is made entirely by whether Langford personally approves of the the issue at hand. 

Presumably, Langford realized that that sort of defense wasn't going to stand up well in federal court, which is why he's now getting legal representation from Jerry Falwell's Liberty Counsel:

Stephen M. Crampton, a lawyer with Liberty Counsel, has filed notice that he will appear as an attorney of record for Langford. The Liberty Council is a nonprofit legal organization with ties to a fundamentalist Baptist University in Virginia.

That was the entirely predictable message at yesterday's press conference, organized by Chaps Gordon Klingenschmitt in Richmond, VA to protest the "forced resignations" of six police Chaplains who refused to deliver non-denominational prayers at department-sanctioned, public events:

The ministers and the Family Foundation of Virginia held a news conference yesterday to assail [state police Superintendent W. Steven] Flaherty's directive and Kaine for backing it.

"The recent decision by Superintendent Flaherty and its subsequent endorsement by Gov. Kaine is an act of anti-Christian hysteria based on a flawed decision by a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court that has yet to be upheld and is, in fact, in conflict with other circuit court decisions from around the country," said Victoria Cobb, Family Foundation president. "The policy clearly violates the First Amendment-protected rights of free speech and religious freedom."

Cobb and the ministers said that barring the state police chaplains from using the name Jesus Christ is, in effect, a violation of those chaplains' rights because their religion calls upon them to pray to Jesus Christ.

"In our belief, it's not even a complete prayer" without appealing to Jesus Christ, said Rev. Rob Schenck, of the National Clergy Council ... ["So how do we end a prayer unless in the name of Jesus Christ? We are pleading with the governor . . . to reconsider the magnitude of this thing."]

Former Navy Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt, who said he was discharged from the Navy for praying to Jesus Christ, sent Kaine a letter signed by 86 ministers, asking him to revise the policy for state police chaplains.

Klingenschmitt told Kaine that the policy amounts to religious discrimination and "anti-Christian persecution."

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Hashmel Turner, the Fredericksburg councilman and minister whose prayers to Jesus Christ sparked the court case, attended yesterday's press conference.

He said he has given up leading prayers before council meetings because of the court's ruling.

"We as Christians, we are persecuted and oppressed," Turner said. "We have to support these chaplains that are being persecuted."

Those in attendance also announced that they intend to follow through on Klingenschmitt's threat to hold a pre-election rally that "could impact the national election" and will be doing so with a "statewide prayer rally" outside the Executive Mansion on Nov. 1.

We noted yesterday that the Alliance Defense Fund is moving ahead with its “Pulpit Initiative” effort whereby dozens of pastors and churches will risk their tax-exempt status by openly defying IRS rules against explicitly endorsing candidates from the pulpit – but it looks like at least one high-profile pastor won’t be joining them:

The Rev. Rod Parsley's 12,000-member World Harvest Church in Columbus won't be participating, said Debbie Stacy, director of Parsley's Center for Moral Clarity.

Considering that the church has already had its own run-ins with the IRS and Parsley has already been humiliated on the national stage, it’s not very surprising that he decided to sit this one out.

It looks like the Alliance Defense Fund is moving ahead with its efforts to potentially get dozens of churches stripped of their tax-exempt status: 

Declaring that clergy have a constitutional right to endorse political candidates from their pulpits, the socially conservative Alliance Defense Fund is recruiting several dozen pastors to do just that on Sept. 28, in defiance of Internal Revenue Service rules.

The effort by the Arizona-based legal consortium is designed to trigger an IRS investigation that ADF lawyers would then challenge in federal court. The ultimate goal is to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship.

"For so long, there has been this cloud of intimidation over the church," ADF attorney Erik Stanley said. "It is the job of the pastors of America to debate the proper role of church in society. It's not for the government to mandate the role of church in society."

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Rather than wait for the IRS to investigate an alleged violation, the organization intends to create dozens of violations and take the U.S. government to court on First Amendment grounds.

"We're looking for churches that are serious-minded about this, churches that understand both the risks and the benefits," Stanley said, referring to the chance that they could lose their coveted tax-exempt status or could set a precedent.

Stanley said three dozen church leaders from more than 20 states have agreed to deliver a political sermon, naming political names.

"The sermon will be an evaluation of conditions for office in light of scripture and doctrine. They will make a specific recommendation from the pulpit about how the congregation would vote," he said.

"They could oppose a candidate. They could oppose both candidates. They could endorse a candidate. They could focus on a federal, state or local election."

Fortunately, the good folks at Americans United are all over this and have already released a brochure debunking ADF’s bogus line of argument:  

The free speech rights of religious leaders are already broadly protected by the U.S. Constitution. Clergy can and do address public policy concerns, ranging from abortion, gay rights and gun control to poverty, civil rights and the death penalty. They may support legislation pending in Congress or the state legislatures, or call for its defeat. They may endorse or oppose ballot referenda. Indeed, discussion of public issues is a common practice in religious institutions all over America.

The only thing houses of worship may not do is endorse or oppose candidates for public office or use their resources in partisan campaigns. This restriction, which is found in federal tax law, is not limited to churches and other religious ministries. In fact, it is applied to every non-profit organization in the country that holds a tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Contrary to the claims of many in the Religious Right, the IRS is not singling out houses of worship for special regulation. Thousands of educational, scientific, charitable and literary organizations hold the 501(c)(3) status, and all must abide by the legal requirement barring involvement in elections.

Why does this rule exist? The answer is obvious upon a moment's reflection: Non-profit organizations receive tax exemption because their work is charitable, educational or religious. That tax benefit comes with conditions. One requirement is that tax-exempt organizations refrain from involvement in partisan politics. This is a reasonable rule, since tax-exempt groups are supposed to work for the public good, not spend their time and money trying to elect or defeat candidates.

All of those potential right-wing candidates out there who are searching for a ready-made agenda to run on are in luck, because today the Family Research Council unveiled a report entitled "25 Pro-Family Policy Goals for the Nation."

As FRC explains, the report is designed to serve as a blueprint for candidates, though it'll work for pastors, voters, and plain-old citizens as well:

The document you hold in your hands can serve as a model for the platforms the Republican and Democratic parties will write this summer. It can also serve as a blueprint for how those we elect can promote and protect the family and its values in 2009 and in the years to come.

The 25 goals we put forth here are grouped into eight main subject areas, ranging from Human Life to Marriage and Family to Religious Liberty to Culture and Media. Each page features a brief analysis of the issue, followed by one or more specific policy proposals which can help America meet that individual goal. Some involve action by Congress, some by the president, and some by state legislators or executive officials.

If you are a candidate for office or an elected official, please consider adopting these proposals as your own. If you are a values voter, challenge those running for office as to their position on these issues, and weigh their response as you consider your vote. If you are a pastor or leader of an organization, consider making copies of this booklet available to your members. If you are simply a citizen who cares about the family in America, write to your elected officials and urge them to pursue these goals with vigor.

As one would expect, the FRC then proceeds to lay out its policy priorities on everything from marriage to abortion to judges. If you are looking for a concise collection of the issues that make up the Right's current political agenda, this new FRC report is one-stop shopping:

It was only last year that People For the American Way Foundation helped represent parents in Odessa, Texas against a school board determined to use public schools to promote a particular religious doctrine. “HA! Take that you dang heathens!” the school district’s curriculum director wrote triumphantly after the board voted to use the Religious Right-backed National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools program. The board settled the lawsuit by dropping NCBCPS.

So it’s natural that advocates of church-state separation would be skeptical of the Texas State Board of Education’s decision last week to approve Bible courses statewide, without providing specific educational or constitutional guidelines.

Mark Chancey, associate professor in religious studies at Southern Methodist University, has studied Bible classes already offered in about 25 districts for the Texas Freedom Network.

The study found most of the courses were explicitly devotional with almost exclusively Christian, usually Protestant, perspectives.

It also found that most were taught by teachers with no academic training in biblical, religious or theological studies and who were not familiar with the issues of separation of church and state.

"Some classes promote creation science. Some classes denigrate Judaism. Some classes explicitly encourage students to convert to Christianity or to adopt Christian devotional practices," Chancey said. "This is all well documented, and the board knows it."

On the other hand, the Religious Right is gung-ho about the move. Decrying “[e]nemies of the First Amendment,” Rod Parsley’s Center for Moral Clarity (a supporter of the unconstitutional NCBCPS curriculum) wrote, “We’re glad legislative and educational leaders in Texas have ignored the shrill arguments of the anti-faith fringe, and we hope other states follow suit.”

Jonathan Saenz of the Liberty Legal Institute and the Free Market Foundation similar predicted that “Texas is going to be seen as a leader on this issue,” and also characterized skeptics as fanatical opponents of religious freedom:

"There are enemies of religious freedom all across our state of Texas and across the country, and they'll do anything and stop at nothing to restrict academic freedom and restrict the religious rights of students," Saenz contends. "They simply do not want kids, even on their own choice, to be able to look at the Bible." The State Board of Education is discussing this week how to develop the proposed new courses.

And Gordon Robertson, Pat Robertson’s normally soft-spoken son, compared efforts to prevent the government from proselytizing in the classroom to outlawing Christmas and Thanksgiving:

Given the Religious Right’s steady efforts over the years to push campaigns like NCBCPS, Robertson shouldn’t be surprised that advocates of church-state separation insist on a distinction between teaching about the Bible objectively and promoting a particular brand of faith.

Want to know what Klingenschmitt thinks of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit's ruling on the Fredericksburg City Council case? Well,, he's helpfully released a version of the decision interspersed with his own erudite legal reasoning: "KLINGENSCHMITT COMMENT: THE WORD ‘JESUS’ IS NOW ILLEGAL RELIGIOUS SPEECH, BANNED BY O’CONNOR’S TWISTED READING OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT. ‘GOD’ IS PERMITTED, BUT ‘JESUS’ IS BANNED. THAT’S NOT FREEDOM. YOU MUST ‘LEAVE JESUS OUTSIDE’ IF YOU WANT TO SPEAK IN A GOVERNMENT FORUM. O’CONNOR IS WRONG, AND SO IS THE CITY OF FREDERICKSBURG."

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that making a portrait of Jesus the central decoration of the Slidell, Louisiana courthouse was an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment’s separation of church and state. “To know peace, obey these laws,” read an inscription on the painting in the courthouse foyer, which depicted Jesus holding the New Testament. Slidell had already changed its display to present the Jesus portrait among other historic figures, an arrangement the judge okayed for its apparent secular purpose.

On yesterday’s “700 Club,” Pat Robertson deplored this decision and other court rulings on the separation of church and state:

You know, we’re following this insanity that’s been brought about by several Supreme Court decisions … The Supreme Court has really violated the Constitution, and they’ve brought out something that was never intended in the First Amendment. The First Amendment doesn’t say what they say it says. They have done violence to the religious traditions of this nation. America was founded as a Christian nation—in 1892, the Supreme Court said, “This is a Christian nation.”

(AP photo by Judi Bottani.)

In his state of the union address, President Bush called for a permanent extension of “charitable choice”—no doubt including efforts by his administration to allow faith-based groups receiving federal funding to discriminate in hiring. Reporting on the effort in Congress, the Washington Times quotes an organization taking up Bush’s charge:

A coalition of multidenominational religious groups is fighting to save the language, and the scuffle is complicating efforts in the Senate to renew the SAMHSA [Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration] law. SAMHSA funds and administers a slew of outreach and intervention programs, doling out grants to social service groups that help fight mental illness and addiction. …

"Asking faith-based organizations to ignore religion in making staffing decisions is like asking senators to disregard party affiliation and political ideology in choosing their staff, or requiring the Sierra Club or the Human Rights Campaign to ignore the political and philosophical commitments of potential staff," argued the Coalition to Preserve Religious Freedom in a letter to Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Enzi.

The “Coalition to Preserve Religious Freedom” might sound like an organization that would be outraged when a government-funded program openly refused to hire, say, Catholics or Baptists. After all, the Religious Test clause of the Constitution prohibits the government from requiring officials to be of a certain faith, and civil rights laws protect people from religious employment discrimination at all but private religious institutions. But this group apparently defines “religious freedom” not as an individual liberty but as the right of faith-based groups to discriminate while receiving federal dollars.

In fact, this coalition’s name sounds a lot like that of the Coalition to Preserve Religious Liberty, a group of 50 religious, civil rights, and educational organizations (including PFAW) that formed in the 1990s to oppose efforts to establish state-sponsored prayer and public funding of sectarian schools—quite the opposite of the Coalition to Preserve Religious Freedom.

CPRF is hosted by a group called the Center for Public Justice, and its members include (as of this 2004 document) the National Association of Evangelicals and the Christian Legal Society.

In September, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that Sen. David Vitter inserted an earmark into the federal budget to provide $100,000 to the Louisiana Family Forum, a Focus on the Family affiliate, apparently for the purpose of combating the teaching of evolution and global warming in public schools. Now the Kansas City Star is raising questions about whether earmarks from Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) and Kit Bond (R-Missouri) are going to religious purposes:

Sens. Sam Brownback and Kit Bond used earmarks last year to direct about $1 million to an area group "empowering the un-churched urban poor for the kingdom of Christ."

On the surface, the taxpayer-supported appropriations for World Impact Inc. raise constitutional questions about the separation of church and state.

… Brownback, a Kansas Republican, and Bond, a Missouri Republican, note that World Impact does a lot of good for the urban poor in the region, with wanting to create an outreach and education center in St. Louis and running a ranch in central Kansas that is used as a "Christian training center for inner-city young men ages 18-25."

World Impact operates programs in several other states and received nearly $2 million in earmarks in the 2008 spending bill, according to a report last fall in Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper.

While recent rule changes have made the earmarking process a little more open, there is still far less scrutiny than to budget items that have been debated or the Bush administration’s own faith-based efforts. Still, the president of the World Impact charity assures us that “We are faith-based, but federal funds will be kept separate from our faith programs."

A federal judge ruled this week that the school district of rural Annapolis, Missouri could no longer let Gideons International hand out Bibles in an elementary school, and Pat Robertson is none too pleased. From yesterday’s “700 Club”:

According to Robertson, the ACLU doesn’t have enough to do since it lost its “raison d’etre,” Communism, and so now “they say their main goal is to take religion out of the public square.”

Robertson also complains that “one or two atheists can strip a whole community of its deeply-held religious views.” As a matter of fact, the parents who sued the school board are Christians, but in any event we expect Christianity to survive in eastern Missouri even without the local government working to convert fifth-graders.

The right-wing Liberty Counsel, which represented the school, plans to appeal.

A lawyer for Adam Key sent a letter to the American Bar Association asking them to examine the accreditation of Pat Robertson's Regent University School of Law, saying that Regent is "creating a bunch of lawyers who don't believe in free speech."

Mitt Romney’s speech on religious liberty and the role his faith would play in his presidency – the long-discussed “JFK speech” -- included some Kennedy-esque rhetoric about the fundamental importance of religious liberty, but it was a far cry from JFK’s ringing endorsement of church-state separation.

The timing of Romney’s speech, as former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee overtook Romney in Iowa polling, seemed to make it clear that Romney’s target audience was the conservative evangelicals who play a major role in Republican primaries. Many of those voters have told pollsters that they’re reluctant to vote for a Mormon, and they have little patience for arguments that church-state separation is good for religious liberty.