A threatened lawsuit by the Freedom From Religion Foundation and its Denver chapter ended a far greater taxpayer subsidy to religion than previously reported.
Attorney Robert Tiernan, who directs the Denver chapter, had requested the same discounted rate for rent of a city facility as Denver has extended to the Colorado Council of Churches.
For 53 years, the Council has held an annual Christian sunrise service on Easter at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, a natural amphitheatre on the outskirts of Denver, owned and operated by the city. For most of those years, the city permitted the Council to use Red Rocks for free.
In the past few years, the city charged the Council only a flat rate of $2,000. Normal rental is $7,500 plus costs.
Tiernan's official letter of complaint about this preferential treatment for religion in April 1999 included a request for his chapter to rent Red Rocks this Easter at the $2,000 rate. The city waited six months before denying his request.
After Tiernan informed Denver officials that the national Foundation had authorized him to go to court, the city backed down, agreeing in December to charge the religious group the going rate of $7,500.
However, Denver news stories in March revealed that the city subsidy was much more substantial, apparently including costly police protection, paramedics and other services.
The Colorado Council of Churches, representing 12 member churches, announced in late February that it needs to raise $17,900 for the April 23 event. This will cover labor costs including police officers for crowd control, stagehands, truck loaders and paramedics.
The council said it will have to pay $4,450 for production, which includes sound system, organ and piano rental, honoraria, a coordinator, and $1,500 for parking attendants.
The city is asking for rent up front this year.
Rev. Jim Ryan of the Council of Churches told the Denver Post that the development is positive: "Now it can be a widespread community event, instead of looking like a city-sponsored event."
About 10,000 people regularly attend the interdenominational prayer service.
"Our victory was even bigger than we thought," notes Tiernan.
A decision to veto a local Christian radio station's plan to broadcast live from school lunchrooms was announced in March by the school district in Yakima, Washington, following a letter of complaint by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
The Foundation wrote the Superintendent on behalf of Yakima residents after the Yakima Herald-Republic covered a February press conference by Christian radio station KLES, which announced it would be holding live broadcasts from cafeteria lunchrooms. A reporter revealed that none of the schools had yet given the station permission to conduct the broadcasts, which would include "spiritual" music.
In her letter to Supt. Larry Petry, Foundation staffer Annie Laurie Gaylor noted that it would entangle the schools with religion to let a Christian radio station "set up shop." The proposal is an obvious enticement to attract student listeners, ingratiate their families and proselytize a captive audience ("Students have to eat lunch").
Gaylor also cited the Washington Constitution which forbids any "sectarian control or influence" in the public schools, and any public property being appropriated for "any religious worship, exercise, or instruction, or the support of any religious establishment."
Gaylor pointed out that nonreligious families would not be the only ones offended by such a scheme. If the station is evangelical, its presence would offend Catholic parents; if it is a Catholic station, it would offend Protestant parents.
"Hooray for FFRF," wrote local Foundation member Jack Lines, in mailing the Herald-Republic's March 11 news story, "Schools Deny Christian Radio Plan for Campus Shows."
A middle school in nearby Sunnyside has permitted the Christian radio station to broadcast from its school since 1998.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 10-2, ruled on March 15 that prayer can continue at the high school graduation ceremonies in Duval County, Georgia.
Duval allows seniors to vote on whether they want a "message" and which student should give it. Last May, a three-member panel of the appeals court ruled 2-1 that the message policy was unconstitutional. The district appealed to the entire court to rehear the case.
Dissenting Senior Circuit Judge Phyllis Kravitch said the Duval policy is coercive, and its primary effect "is to advance religion."
The ruling affects public schools in Florida, Georgia and Alabama.
A Florida statewide voucher program was ruled unconstitutional by Circuit Judge L. Ralph Smith, Jr., on March 14. Smith said the Florida state constitution requires that public education be "uniform" and take place in "free public schools."
Gov. Jeb Bush championed the law, which would have tied voucher eligibility to school performance on standardized tests. It serves as the model for a national program endorsed by presidential candidate Gov. George W. Bush of Texas.
In Michigan, Gov. John Engler, who opposes a pro-voucher initiative on the November ballot, proposed a $100 per student decrease in state funding for public schools if voters approve the vouchers. The cut to pay for vouchers would cost many school districts more than a million dollars a year.
Florida's Education Commissioner Tom Gallagher announced new guidelines on March 16, ending bible-as-history courses previously approved by the state. Schools with bible classes must now teach them as literature.
A study issued in January by People for the American Way showed that 14 school districts teach the bible as historical fact, promoting a Christian viewpoint. One exam question: "Why is it hard for a nonChristian to understand things about God?" Another called the devil the "father of the Jews."
Gov. Frank O'Bannon signed into law a bill on March 15 permitting Ten Commandments to be erected in public schools and buildings as part of a "historic" display, also permitting currently freestanding Ten Commandments outside public buildings.
Also approved was a 9-1/2 ton limestone Ten Commandments to be erected on the south lawn of the Statehouse in Indianapolis. State Rep. Brent Steele commandeered that action, completing the carving of the monument before he secured permission. It replaces a smaller version of the biblical edicts that stood in the same area for 33 years before being removed after being damaged in 1992.
Brett Shankman, a spokesman for the Jewish Community Relations Council, said: "They are not historical. It's practically sacrilegious to say this is a historical monument."
The ICLU said the "state can't pick and choose which religions are historically validated," and that it plans to go to court to stop placement of the bible rules on the capitol grounds.
Religious conservatives lost a significant battle in March when the Illinois House, by a 55-48 vote, rejected a bill to let teachers and principals post the 10 Commandments ("historic religious documents") in public schools.
Neighbors objecting to an 81-foot-high steeple to top a new 58-foot-high Mormon temple in a Boston suburb won part of their lawsuit when a Superior Court judge recently agreed the steeple violates local zoning laws restricting total height to 72 feet.
Belmont citizens argued a church is not exempt from town rules, even though state zoning laws permit churches to bypass local regulations. The $30 million Mormon temple will open this summer.
Two school vacation days coinciding with Jewish holidays were eliminated by the Sycamore Community school board, Ohio, in February.
The ACLU filed suit last August against the 2-year pilot program, saying it favors Judaism over other religions. However, the school district closes for Good Friday, as a result of union negotiations, something the school board did not address.
The Georgia Supreme Court overturned a death sentence on March 6 in a Clayton County murder case in which a district attorney urged jurors to follow biblical mandates.
The justices affirmed the conviction of Anthony Carruthers for a grisly 1995 murder, but ordered a new jury to rehear arguments on whether he lives or dies. Assistant District Attorney D. Brandon Hornsby injected the "often irrelevant and inflammatory issue of religion into the sentencing process and improperly appeal[ed] to the religious beliefs of jurors" in his closing arguments in March 1998, wrote Presiding Justice Norman S. Fletcher.
The Christian prayers broadcast at school football games in the Santa Fe, Texas case before the U.S. Supreme Court were the tip of the iceberg.
According to an in-depth Los Angeles Times piece (March 8, 2000), a mother who volunteered in the elementary schools witnessed a teacher leading students in prayer before lunch: "You could see some of the Jewish kids felt left out."
A Catholic son whose mother refused to let him participate in religious singing, was put outside the classroom. A Mormon student who complained when her teacher passed out fliers for a Baptist revival was told that she belonged to a "nonChristian cult."
The ACLU filed a lawsuit against religion in the district in 1995. U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent ordered the district to adopt new policies prohibiting prayer and religious instruction in class, but said students could give a "brief invocation."
When the district appealed to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, last year the court affirmed (2-1) the lower court, but added that school officials may not allow students to "read overtly Christian prayers from the stage at graduation ceremonies."
It was this ruling that the school board, joined by Gov. Bush, appealed to the Supreme Court. The high court, in an unusual one-line order, limited the case to the policy permitting "student-led, student-initiated prayer."
Bush's brief before the court urges it to permit student-led prayer nationwide, saying if a student is given a platform he or she is free to "ask fellow students to follow Jesus Christ."
Galveston attorney Anthony P. Griffin, representing the plaintiffs, said that school officials are encouraging prayer, not free speech, and would never permit students to denounce the school board or mock religion from the podium.
"The core of the First Amendment is that we don't vote on religion in this country and allow the majority to use the instruments of government to spread the faith," says University of Texas Law Professor Douglas Laycock.
A 220-year ban against dancing on Sundays was lifted in Great Britain, making it legal to charge for public dances and serve alcohol.
"If people want a bit of Sunday Night Fever, that's fine by me," said Home Office Minister Mike O'Brien.
After nearly five centuries as the state church, Lutheranism ended its ties with the Swedish government at the first of the year.
"It's a happy separation--or a happy divorce--that has evolved over many years, and that is very good," said Carl-Einar Nordling of the Ministry of Culture.
"Swedish society has outgrown the state church system," he said.
About 90% of Swedes are nominally Lutheran, but are generally indifferent to organized religion. Bishops will no longer be appointed by government, the church can no longer receive tax money, and children will not automatically be enrolled if their parents are church members.
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