This Week in God

February 24, 2007

The God Machine worked overtime this week, with more religion-related news items than it could handle. First up, an item brought to my attention by several readers, about the year’s most interesting religious court case.

Annie Laurie Gaylor speaks with a soft voice, but her message catches attention: Keep God out of government.

Gaylor has helped transform the Freedom From Religion Foundation from obscurity into the nation’s largest group of atheists and agnostics, with a fast-rising membership and increasing legal clout.

Next week, the group started by Gaylor and her mother in the 1970s to take on the religious right will fight its most high-profile battle when the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on its lawsuit against President Bush’s faith-based initiative.

The court will decide whether taxpayers can sue over federal funding that the foundation believes promotes religion. It could be a major ruling for groups that fight to keep church and state separate.

“What’s at stake is the right to challenge the establishment of religion by the government,” Gaylor said.

It’s worth noting that the case isn’t explicitly about whether Bush’s faith-based initiative is constitutional, but rather, about the extent to which taxpayers can file lawsuits challenging government support of religion. Supreme Court oral arguments are scheduled Wednesday, Feb. 28.

Next up is an item about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the Justice Department’s new-found concerns about religious liberty.

This week, in a speech before the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, Gonzales announced what he’s labeled the First Freedom Project, which will reportedly “enforce protections against religious discrimination.” The DoJ has apparently scheduled a series of training seminars throughout the country over the coming months to “increase education” about religious discrimination, and will also create a Religious Freedom Task Force, which will review policies and religious discrimination cases.

Some friends of mine aren’t impressed.

“Expecting the Bush administration to defend religious liberty is a little like asking Col. Sanders to babysit your pet chicken,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “This administration has repeatedly worked to destroy true religious freedom by merging church and state.”

As part of the new initiative, dubbed the “First Freedom Project,” Gonzales unveiled a 43-page report detailing the department’s intervention in several cases dealing with religion over the past six years. He vowed that the department would do even more in this arena…. AU’s Lynn said the report documents the administration’s skewed views on religion and government.

Apparently, Gonzales has a unique definition of “religious discrimination.” The Justice Department’s report, for example, highlights a case in which the Salvation Army could accept taxpayer dollars and then fire staff members, with publicly-subsidized salaries, because they were of the “wrong” religion — and the DoJ took the Salvation Army’s side. The same report went on to note a Florida case in which the Justice Department argued that unless taxpayers were forced to finance private religious academies, it would constitute discrimination against religion.

“Religious liberty is for everyone,” said Lynn. “but it seems clear this new initiative has more to do with keeping the administration’s Religious Right allies happy than advancing a great constitutional principle.”

Next up is an update on an old This Week in God story. About a year ago, we learned that the Rev. Lonnie Latham, a far-right Oklahoma pastor and a member of the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee, was arrested after propositioning a male undercover police officer outside a hotel. After being charged with offering to engage in an act of lewdness, Latham insisted he was only “in the area pastoring to police.”

Latham now admits that his explanation was a lie. What’s more, he’s turned to the ACLU and offered a more creative legal defense.

The lawyer for a former Baptist church leader who had spoken out against homosexuality said Thursday the minister has a constitutional right to solicit sex from an undercover policeman.

The Rev. Lonnie W. Latham had supported a resolution calling on gays and lesbians to reject their “sinful, destructive lifestyle” before his Jan. 3, 2006, arrest outside the Habana Inn in Oklahoma City. Authorities say he asked the undercover policeman to come up to his hotel for oral sex.

His attorney, Mack Martin, filed a motion to have the misdemeanor lewdness charge thrown out, saying the Supreme Court ruled in the 2003 decision Lawrence v. Texas that it was not illegal for consenting adults to engage in private homosexual acts.

“Now, my client’s being prosecuted basically for having offered to engage in such an act, which basically makes it a crime to ask someone to do something that’s legal,” Martin said.

Both sides agree there was no offer of money, but prosecutor Scott Rowland said there is a “legitimate governmental interest” in regulating offers of acts of lewdness.

Latham’s lawyers deserve bonus points for their creativity, at a minimum.

In religion briefs:

* David Paszkiewicz, the New Jersey teacher who was taped telling public school students that they “belong in hell” unless they’re Christian, is now denying that his comments constituted “preaching,” and his lawyer is arguing that Paszkiewicz may have been “set up” by a student.

* A study that purports to show that strangers’ prayers can double the chances of a woman getting pregnant using in-vitro fertilization is — surprise, surprise — finding its validity under question.

* A 10-year-old Philadelphia boy who said he was not allowed to wear a Jesus costume during his school’s Halloween activities has sued his local district, alleging that his religious and free-speech rights were violated.

* And also check out the story of Don Larsen, a Pentecostal military Chaplain who lost his job because he switched religions.

“Now, my client’s being prosecuted basically for having offered to engage in such an act, which basically makes it a crime to ask someone to do something that’s legal,” Martin said.

Hypocritical yes, but still a fairly compelling argument.

Both sides agree there was no offer of money, but prosecutor Scott Rowland said there is a “legitimate governmental interest” in regulating offers of acts of lewdness.

Why? And where do you draw the line? Are they trying to put singles bars out of business?

  • Every time you talk to a Theocrat or a true-believer who thinks government should advocate for specific religions I come back to one basic flaw in their logic; the frequent excuse (which is affirming the consequent, a logical fallacy by the way) that the Founders were Christian, thus Christianity was somehow “endorsed” by Jefferson and his buddies.
    Here’s the flaw; if they were so detail-oriented in their deliberations and writings about what our country should be about, why did they not specify “Jesus” or “Christianity” anywhere in the Constitution instead of explicity discussing the need for separation of church and state?
    The reason is there is no endorsement of one particular religion. The Founders knew what religion and government could do together from their experiences with the Chruch of England and religious persecution. They guided us that direction specifically to avoid the abuses they suffered at the hands of English monarchs.
    As Frank Herbert wrote “When religion and politics ride in the same cart, the whirlwind follows.”

  • It sounds like they’re using the DoJ to politicize people, to do political work. That’s outside of the scope of what the DoJ exists to do.

  • The next Rev. Lonnie W. Latham defense: “I though the police officer was one of the Village People!”

    The amount of repressed homosexuality among the religious “elites” in this country is staggering. You almost cannot think of the Dobsons, Bauers, Billy Graham Jrs. and others without thinking of the buried sexual inner conflict and turmoil roiling within. Why do these people hate themselves?

  • What Latham and the undercover (that’s convenient) cop chose to do or not do is their business. Not mine, not any government claiming to represent me. It’s truly mind-boggling to me that such a simple, natural, potentially pleasurable, private activity can be the subject of police entrapment, surveillance and reportage. Haven’t our police, government officials, and reporters got better things they could be doing?

    The American view of sexuality, even among supposed adults, really is preadolescent in the extreme: schizophrenically shifting from pretended chastity to unimaginative (and sometimes exploitative) pornography and back again — just as many Christians have only two biblical views of women: virgins or whores. I’d say it was due to the fact that our nation was founded in part by Colonial Era Puritans, except that even they had a more mature approach to sex than modern-day Americans.

  • Supreme Court ruled in the 2003 decision Lawrence v. Texas that it was not illegal for consenting adults to engage in private homosexual acts.

    This is really all you need to know about sexual mores in the U.S.. 2003? Really? Are we sure we’re not talking 1963 or 1973 or 1983? What would I do if I didn’t have the SC around to tell me who and how to fuck? “Preadolescent” really nails it, Ed. It is the difference between puritan and puritanical.

  • This week, in a speech before the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, Gonzales announced what he’s labeled the First Freedom Project, which will reportedly “enforce protections against religious discrimination.”

    Apart from atheists, the group whose religious freedom is under greatest attack in the US is the Muslims. Ah, but here comes Alberto Gonzales to the rescue. No, wait, he just rode right by.

  • Thank goodness you brought up Rev. Longie Latham. I was about to go into “Hypocritical Christofascist Bastard,” withdrawal.

    Phew!

    I will be highly pleased if a HCB is instrumental in getting this law thrown out. Really, stuff like this makes my month and supports my hope that one day the entire Xtofascist wing of religion will undergo total meltdown.

    tAiO

    ps Wanna come up to my room for some pastoring? Is at the very least, an original pick up line. I hope.

  • Latham’s lawyers deserve bonus points for their creativity, at a minimum.

    Actually, that argument sounds absolutely correct to me. Do you really want to take the position that approaching an adult, in public, with a proposition to engage in consensual activity in a private place should be illegal? Latham may be a hypocrite, but it seems to me that he’s absolutely right that this law is unconstitutional under Lawrence v. Texas.

  • The Freedom From Religion case is apparently a majorly big deal. As I understand it (and please be aware I am not a lawyer of any type) the issue is whether individuals have standing to sue the government. The de facto position is that, since each taxpayer’s contribution is such a small portion of the total, individuals cannot sue the government over how their tax dollars are spent. So you can’t get all in a fluff because the gub’mint is buying B2 bombers with your money, since only $17.32 of yours went toward the plane, and you don’t have enough stake.

    On the other hand, religious freedom cases are given a separate standard because violation harms everyone. As it was explained to me, the Administration’s argument is that since the faith-based initiatives are paid for out of the executive general fund and not specifically decided by congress, individuals do not have standing to sue. It seems analogous to the Enemy Combatant fiasco: there is an exception to give taxpayers the ability to sue the government with regard to religious establishment. But this money is coming from a different source, and the precedent doesn’t include that source. No accountability for you!

    If the administration wins this case, then there would be no way for citizens to try to stop public spending on religion, so long as it was paid for out of the general fund. In addition this would open the door to the congress wink-wink nod-nod appropriating money to the executive general fund to pay for religious spending.

    It all sounds very worrisome to me. I know there’s a blog where lawyers dissect matters before the supremes for the mind of the interested layperson, but my Google Fu is weak today and I can’t find it.

    That’s all I’ve got.
    Tenebras

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