Church & State articles from May 2005

Church & State archives from May 2005

Church's hallucinogenic tea gets Supreme Court review.(IN THE CAPITAL)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... The U.S. Supreme Court has accepted a case involving a church's ritual use of a tea containing a hallucinogenic drug outlawed by the federal government. In Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, the justices will...

D.C. vouchers don't reach neediest kids, says study.(IN THE CAPITAL)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... A federally funded school voucher program in the District of Columbia, touted as a way for poor kids in failing schools to gain access to better education, is doing more for students already attending private schools, according to federal...

Georgia legislature derails faith-based funding.(AROUND THE STATES)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Georgia lawmakers defeated one of the governor's top priorities when they blocked a "faith-based" constitutional amendment in the Senate. Democrats, now a minority in the Georgia General Assembly, blocked Gov. Sonny Perdue's Faith & Family...

Jurors can't consult Bible, Colo. Supreme Court rules.(AROUND THE STATES)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... The Colorado Supreme Court has overturned a convicted murderer's death penalty after finding that jurors consulted the Bible during sentencing. In People v. Harlan, the state's high court ruled 3-2 that several jurors consulted the Bible...

Appeals court upholds 'Judeo-Christian' prayer policy.(AROUND THE STATES)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... A federal appeals court has upheld a Virginia county's prayer policy that discriminates against religious minorities. On April 14, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that "Judeo-Christian" prayers...

Family ties: top congressional leaders promise action on religious right agenda at the family research council's closed-door Washington briefing.
May 1, 2005... Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has a carefully cultivated public image as a moderate conservative with a non-ideological bent. The clean-cut Tennessee doctor comes across as a pragmatic public official who steers pretty close to the...

Judge grudge: religious right rabble-rousers are preaching impeachment to try to force courts to rule their way.
May 1, 2005... U.S. Appellate Court Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr. would seem an unlikely target for right-wing wrath. Never tagged as a liberal, Birch was placed on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. The Knight-Ridder...

Gibb's Fibs: religious right attorney rewrites history of Schiavo case at judicial conference.
May 1, 2005... During the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration's recent conference on "judicial activism," David C. Gibbs III, the Florida attorney who represented Robert and Mary Schindler, parents of Theresa "Terri" Schiavo, regaled a...

The French mis-connection: why President George W. Bush and the religious right have no business quoting Alexis de Tocqueville.
May 1, 2005... When French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville toured the young American republic in 1831, he was amazed at the degree of religious freedom and interfaith harmony he found. "On my arrival in the United States," he observed in his classic...

The religious right's vision for America: the people say no.(EDITORIAL)(Editorial)
May 1, 2005... Americans may finally be waking up to the Religious Right's near stranglehold on our federal government. For years, many Americans--even well-meaning people--dismissed the Religious Right as a "lunatic fringe" that would never gain real...

Religious right holds too much power in GOP, Ex-Sen. Danforth warns.(PEOPLE & EVENTS)
May 1, 2005... Some long-time Republican leaders are beginning to believe that the Religious Right holds too much sway over their party. In a March 30 op-ed piece in The New York Times, former U.S. Senator John C. Danforth warned, "By a series of recent...

Senate majority leader invites 'Christian nation' advocate to lead tour.(PEOPLE & EVENTS)
May 1, 2005... Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) invited Senate colleagues on a U.S. Capitol tour led by "Christian nation" advocate David Barton. On March 31, Frist sent letters inviting his colleagues to a "private tour of the U.S. Capitol building...

Faith Czar Towey blasts 'militant secularism' at Catholic men's event.(PEOPLE & EVENTS)
May 1, 2005... Bush administration Faith Czar James Towey criticized "militant secularism" during a March conference for Catholic men in Boston. Urging attendees to reject "militant secularism," Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based...

Miss. lawmakers plan to post Sermon on the Mount in public buildings.(PEOPLE & EVENTS)
May 1, 2005... Blessed are the publicly pious politicians for they shall curry favor with the voters. That seems to be the scriptural edict of the moment in Mississippi, where legislators have passed a bill that would permit the Ten Commandments, "In God...

Faith-based pharmacies?: religious right backs prescription exemptions.(PEOPLE & EVENTS)
May 1, 2005... Fundamentalist Christian pharmacists across the country are increasingly refusing to fill certain prescriptions, arguing they have a religious freedom right to avoid dispensing any medications that they believe fosters immorality. Critics...

Supreme Court hears oral arguments in religious freedom case.(PEOPLE & EVENTS)
May 1, 2005... A federal law designed to protect religious freedom reached the U.S. Supreme Court March 21, and legal observers are cautiously optimistic that the statute will survive high court review. The justices heard oral arguments in a case...

Air Force Academy rocked by charges of religious intolerance.(PEOPLE & EVENTS)
May 1, 2005... Cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs are complaining that the school is pervaded with fundamentalist Christianity and that non-Christians are made to feel like second-class citizens. One cadet, Curtis Weinstein, told ABC...

Corbin named new AU director of field department.(PEOPLE & EVENTS)(Beth Corbin)
May 1, 2005... Beth Corbin, long-time grassroots organizer for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, has been promoted to Field Director. Corbin joined Americans United in 1998 as grassroots organizer. In that position, she reached out to...

School prayer bill fails in Arkansas legislature.(AROUND THE STATES)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... A bill that would allow student prayers at public school-sanctioned events has died in the Arkansas legislature. On April 8, the Arkansas House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved HB 2971, which states that "student-initiated and...

'Intelligent design' bill introduced in Pennsylvania.(AROUND THE STATES)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Pennsylvania lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow "intelligent design" (ID) to be taught in public school science courses. In March, Rep. Thomas C. Creighton introduced HB 1007, which would amend state education law to allow...

Preaching teacher went over the line, N.C. school admits.(AROUND THE STATES)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... North Carolina public school officials have admitted in federal court that a teacher was wrong to include religious lessons in a fifth-grade classroom. In mid March, parents sued Sunnyside Elementary School in Fayetteville over lessons...

Church-state fight erupts in Argentina.(AROUND THE WORLD)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... The Argentine government and the Vatican are in conflict over the fitting of a military bishop who offered headline-grabbing comments over abortion. In February, Argentina's Health Minister Gines Gonzalez said that decriminalizing abortion...

Scalia has outdone himself.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has outdone himself. In heating oral arguments in the case of Van Orden v. Perry about a display of the Ten Commandments on public grounds, Scalia declared "It's [the Ten Commandments] a symbol of the...

Eye-popping question.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... I have just finished reading the April issue of Church & State and have a (perhaps naive) question relative to the lead article, "Nine Justices, Ten Commandments, 2 Important Cases." To wit: If the subject before the Supreme Court was, rather...

A remembrance of decisions past.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... The comments of Justices Scalia and Kennedy, to the effect that those who don't approve of Ten Commandments displays in government buildings should look the other way, reminded me of the opinion of Justice Henry Brown who wrote for the majority...

In Scalia we don't trust.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... In signaling how he will vote on the Texas and Kentucky cases regarding the placement of the Ten Commandments on government property, Justice Antonin Scalia tells us "... it is a profoundly religious message, but it's shared by the vast...

Grounds for impeachment?(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... In your article "Attack of the Clones" (March Church & State), you mentioned that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas claimed to support church-state separation during his confirmation, but wasted no time attacking the principle once on the...

Playing doctor: DeLay and the religious right's perverse prescription.(PERSPECTIVE)
May 1, 2005... Like many people, I was appalled when the U.S. Congress, prodded by aggressive Religious Right groups, intervened in the dispute over Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman whose tragic story captivated the nation. In mid March, House Majority...