Church & State articles from December 2005

Church & State archives from December 2005

Religious Right opens money-raising Christmas crusade.(IN THE CAPITAL)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Religious Right groups and right-wing pundits are stepping up their ongoing campaign to convince Americans that Christmas is under attack. In early November, the Alliance Defense Fund, a lawyers' outfit bankrolled by TV preachers, issued a...

Religious school aid advances in Senate, but falters in house.(IN THE CAPITAL)
December 1, 2005... The Senate has agreed to a federal aid program that includes massive funding for religious schools. On Nov. 3, the Senate approved a $1.7-billion education package for private and public schools that have enrolled students displaced by the...

Kansas school board passes anti-evolution standards.(AROUND THE STATES)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Kansas school officials have implemented statewide standards aimed at undercutting the teaching of evolution in the public schools. On Nov. 8, the Kansas Board of Education voted 6-4 to adopt science standards proposed by Religious Right...

New Jersey coach's prayers provoke controversy.(AROUND THE STATES; high school football )(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Debate over religion and public schools erupted in East Brunswick, N.J., when officials ordered a high school football coach to stop leading his players in prayer. In October, following complaints from students and parents and advice from...

Iowa inmate indoctrination on trial: Americans United challenges taxpayer-funded program that immerses inmates in fundamentalism and scorns other faiths, gays, women's equality.
December 1, 2005... A select group of inmates at central Iowa's Newton Correctional Facility has been learning some controversial things lately. They're being told that the Bible ordains men to run households; that homosexuality is a sin; that non-Christian...

Alito alarm: President Bush's Supreme Court pick is a 'grand slam' to the Religious Right, but civil liberties advocates are crying foul.(Samuel A. Alito Jr.)
December 1, 2005... TV preacher Pat Robertson wanted to know why his favorite lawyer Jay Sekulow appeared so giddy. "You have a smile on from ear to ear, Jay," Robertson said to Sekulow, head of the American Center for Law and Justice, a Religious Right law...

Clashing over Christmas: holiday humbuggery from the Religious Right.(EDITORIAL)
December 1, 2005... The Religious Right couldn't even wait for Halloween to be over before it started carping about the alleged nationwide campaign to drive Christmas out of public life. Like eager department store employees who start erecting plastic trees...

Pa. school board members say they misspoke about support for creationism.(PEOPLE & EVENTS)
December 1, 2005... Two school board members in Dover, Pa., who backed plans to introduce "intelligent design" (ID), struggled in federal court to explain discrepancies in their stories. Former board president Alan Bonsell tried to explain the source of $850...

Hallucinogenic tea case tests boundaries of religious freedom.(PEOPLE & EVENTS)
December 1, 2005... A small Brazil-based religious group that uses a mildly hallucinogenic tea during its ceremonies has sparked a battle over the limits of religious freedom that reached the Supreme Court Nov. 1. The high court heard oral arguments in the...

Fla. school board agrees to end graduation ceremonies in churches.(PEOPLE & EVENTS)
December 1, 2005... A Florida public school board has agreed to stop conducting graduation ceremonies in overtly religious settings, settling a lawsuit filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The Brevard County School Board voted...

Pat Robertson Attorney has high-flying lifestyle, says legal newspaper.(PEOPLE & EVENTS)
December 1, 2005... Jay Sekulow, a confederate of TV preacher Pat Robertson and an increasingly important operative for the Bush administration's drive to remake the federal courts, has used non-profit groups to finance a high-flying lifestyle for himself and...

Air Force should not promote religion, says Americans United.(PEOPLE & EVENTS)
December 1, 2005... Americans United for Separation of Church and State has urged the Air Force to adopt guidelines that bar coercive forms of proselytization by senior officers and chaplains. Attorneys with Americans United were invited to comment on proposed...

Rare Roger Williams book found in Rhode Island library.(PEOPLE & EVENTS)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... A librarian in Rhode Island stumbled across a rare find recently: an intact copy of a 361-year-old book by religious liberty pioneer Roger Williams. Librarian Phoebe Simpson at the Rhode Island Historical Society found the first-edition...

Far-right Catholics outline agenda in new document.(PEOPLE & EVENTS)
December 1, 2005... A group of ultra-conservative Roman Catholics gathered in Phoenix in October to release a new document demanding that U.S. church members vote only for candidates who agree with the hierarchy's views on abortion, marriage and other social...

Ex-president Carter derides erosion of church-state wall.(PEOPLE & EVENTS; Jimmy Carter)
December 1, 2005... Former President Jimmy Carter has a new book out that derides erosion of the wall of separation between church and state. Discussing the book, Our Endangered Values, on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air" program Nov. 2, Carter was asked by...

California church faces IRS investigation over anti-Bush sermon.(PEOPLE & EVENTS; George W. Bush)
December 1, 2005... An Episcopal congregation in Pasadena, Calif., has been informed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that a sermon given by a guest minister days before the 2004 elections may have crossed the line into unlawful partisan politicking. All...

Church polling sites must obey laws on politicking, AU says.(PEOPLE & EVENTS; Americans United for Separation of Church and State )
December 1, 2005... Americans United for Separation of Church and State reminded Texas election officials last month that houses of worship being used as polling places must obey all state laws concerning the display of signs and other election-related material....

Americans United is on the 2005 Working Assets ballot!(PEOPLE & EVENTS)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Each year, the phone and credit card company Working Assets donates to nonprofit groups a portion of its customers' payments. In 2005, each time any Working Assets customer uses one of the company's services, the customer can direct WA to...

S.C. attorney general backs sectarian council prayers.(AROUND THE STATES)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster has said he will fight attempts to stop sectarian prayers at city council meetings. In October, the Piedmont Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union wrote to the Oconee County Council and...

Afghan court jails editor for blasphemy against Islam.(AROUND THE WORLD)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... An Afghanistan court has sparked an international furor over its decision to imprison a magazine editor who published articles allegedly offensive to Islam. In early October, an adviser to President Hamid Karzai filed a complaint against...

Bulgaria bars visit by controversial Korean Evangelist Moon.(AROUND THE WORLD; Sun Myung Moon)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Officials of Bulgaria have barred the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the controversial thunder of the Unification Church, from entering the country. The Religion News Service reported that Christian groups and one of Bulgaria's nationalist political...

The Air Force's proselytism problem.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... Barry Lynn's quote in the Air Force Times ("Free Speech For Chaplains," Oct. 31) surely summed up the issue neatly. "The easy and appropriate solution," he said, "is for the Air Force to make it official policy that chaplains should not...

Military chaplains and diversity.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... Military chaplains are there to provide ministry in lieu of civilian clergy who are absent because the military command is a ship, or overseas or otherwise off-limits to civilian clergy. They are not to consider it an opportunity to prey upon...

Mayoral misconduct.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... I attended an Anderson, S.C., City Council meeting on Oct. 10, where the mayor of our city expressed his intention to pray before council meetings in the name of Jesus Christ, regardless of the recent ruling of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court that...

To Boise and beyond: it's far from quiet on the Western front.(PERSPECTIVE)
December 1, 2005... You can be welcomed to a town in many ways. Take my recent trip to Boise, Idaho. I had just arrived at the Kopper Kitchen for breakfast with the police chief, a newly elected city council member and other public officials to discuss the law of...