Newt Gingrich is leading a Repub-lican plan to allocate $7 million in taxpayers' money from the 1998 D.C. budget to provide vouchers to 2,000 low-income pupils to attend the religious, private or public school of their choice. Students could qualify for up to $3,200 annually.
A similar effort failed in 1995.
D.C.'s nonvoting Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton chided leadership for failing to allocate the $7 million for needed repairs of public school buildings.
A government board in Nashville issued the bonds in 1991 on behalf of David Lipscomb University, affiliated with the Church of Christ.
The coalition is lobbying to create an office in the White House to report on religious persecution and specify sanctions against other countries. At a recent press conference, Donald Hodel, new president of the coalition, made it obvious persecution against Christians is his main concern, claiming "more than 160,000 Christians were martyred in 1996."
Hodel mainly cited Moslem countries which do not separate church from state, and therefore persecute minority religions.
Not grasping the connection be-tween theocracy and persecution, the coalition renewed its drive to pass a "Christian Nation" constitutional amendment to allow government to sponsor prayer and worship, and to subsidize religions.
On Sept. 10, GOP leadership en-dorsed the Freedom From Religious Persecution Act, sponsored by Senate Majority leader Trent Lott and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, after meeting with 30 leaders of religious organizations.
The loose-lipped founder of the Christian Coalition was taped addressing about 100 state leaders. "I know that all these laws say that we've got to be careful, but there's nothing that says we can't have a few informal discussions among ourselves," he told a chuckling audience.
He admitted he is "dangerously seeking to overturn the established order."
The coalition annually trots out a huge retinue of powerful Republican politicians and candidates to address its annual meeting. Its voter guides use all-capitals to differentiate GOP candidates from lower-cased Democrats.
As a c(4) lobbying group, the Christian Coalition is forbidden from endorsing candidates, or indulging in partisan politics. However, the Christ-ian Coalition openly has taken credit for the Republican-controlled Con-gress. At the private meeting, Robertson said: "Look, we put you in power in 1994 and we want you to deliver." He also lambasted potential Democratic candidates for the presidency.
Its eight-year-old application for tax-exempt status has not been ruled on by the IRS, making it the longest-pending case of its kind. The Federal Election Commission is investigating charges that the coalition illegally contributed to Republican candidates through its voter guides and get-out-the-vote efforts.
The tape was released by Americans United for Separation of Church & State.
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Circuit Judge Edward Hanson, Jr., in an Aug. 29 order, told Robertson to reveal the name and date of the conversation which Robertson had referred to in court in October, 1996, during a defamation lawsuit. Three professors at the law school at Regent University, founded by Robertson, had filed the suit against Robertson in 1994, which was settled last year.
The Brown County Board, serving Green Bay, voted 17-7 against placing the religious decalogue in its courthouse. Outagamie County previously denied the request.
The Michigan-based association, connected to the group supporting Alabama's Judge Roy Moore, recently announced its plan to "restore God to America" by posting the commandments in every Wisconsin and Mich-igan county courthouse. The Freedom From Religion Foundation has written every Wisconsin county board against the unconstitutional scheme. Even 16 Green Bay area clergy opposed the idea.
"It is apparent to the court that the City's primary purpose for the sale to the Memorial Association of the small plot of land underneath the Mount Soledad cross was to save the cross from removal and/or destruction," wrote Thompson.
The very act of trying to "save" the cross "clearly shows a governmental preference for the Christian religion," Thompson said.
For eight years, the city has fought to keep a cross atop La Jolla's Mt. Soledad, losing every step of the way. It then voted to sell a 15-foot by 15-foot parcel of land in the midst of a city park to the "Mount Soledad Memorial Association."
Although Thompson ruled the noncompetitive sale showed a government preference for religion, he did not order removal of the cross or rule out the sale of a larger parcel of city park. Voters in a referendum overwhelmingly approved the sale of the land and cross to the association.
Peter Irons, an attorney representing a San Diego atheist-plaintiff, has suggested replacing the divisive cross with a new memorial. The ACLU, on behalf of a Roman Catholic plaintiff, also is seeking to remove a similar cross on Mount Helix in East County.
Voters in San Francisco--where a federal court has also ordered removal of a huge cross on city land--are being asked to approve a similar sale of public land there in November.
The group said the cross, which was erected in 1962, is the preeminent symbol of the Christian religion and its presence is intended to "lord over" the residents of Oahu. It is visible for 15 square miles, and is used for annual Easter services.
Taxpayers also paid for a 200-foot stairway built by the U.S. Army.
A similar cross at Camp H.M. Smith (U.S. Marines Hawaii) was successfully challenged in 1986 and removed in 1988. Hawaii is in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which recently ordered the removal of two others crosses from public property, one in Eugene, Oregon, and the other in San Francisco. Eugene's cross was removed on June 14, 1997.
Almost two-thirds of voters favor ending a church-run educational system, although the alternative will still permit religious instruction and observances in a "nondenominational" system.
Roman Catholic and Pentecostal parents derailed a previous effort by the province to limit churches' role in public schools in a 1995 court challenge. But premier Brian Tobin called the nonbinding vote a "clear and strong mandate" and predicted secular schools would be in place by the fall of 1998. Changes still must be approved by the Commons and the Senate.
The boys' father heard thumping noises in the basement on Aug. 26. He discovered his wife beating the 8-year-old, screaming about sending the boys to heaven. When he tried to stop her, she ran upstairs and began striking their 9-year-old with the 33-inch wood baseball bat.
The 4-3 ruling was based on a minor's right to privacy under the state constitution--a right approved by the voters in 1972 and interpreted by the California courts more broadly than federal privacy protections.
On Aug. 29, a new Texas law requiring parental consent before minors can obtain state-paid birth control was similarly declared unconstitutional.
A number of fundamentalist Chris-tian books on child rearing advocate spanking with objects, citing the bible's book of Proverbs, which contains the verse, "He who spares the rod hates his son." Proverbs also says: "Do not hold back discipline from a child. Although you beat him with a rod, he will not die."
But critics of the practice spotlight its inherent dangers. In early August Colorado mother Renee Polreis was convicted in the death of her 2-year-old adopted son, David, whom she had repeatedly beaten with wooden spoons.
In July, California Attorney General Dan Lundgren issued an opinion that parents are free to spank kids with shoes and other objects. Lundgren's opinion was sought by state senator Ray Yanes, who is working, on behalf of a Perris minister, to repeal an anti-spanking measure applying to foster parents. Haynes said his views are supported by Dr. James Dobson's book Parenting Isn't For Cowards.
He cited the case of WDCU Radio, the only full-time jazz station in Washington, D.C., owned by the University of the District of Columbia. It recently announced its sale to Salem Communications, a chain of 42 religious stations providing such radio fare as Oliver North's talkshow, to several hundred affiliates.
Currently, religious broadcasters saturate the nation's airwaves with 1,648 radio stations--a third of which claim they are noncommercial.
The church's stated goal is to cater to scholars applying the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church to the problems of the day, which sounds suspiciously like a center for political lobbying.
Cardinal Adam Maida said about $30 million has been donated and efforts are underway to raise the rest.