Category: Politics

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Public School Field Trips, Religion, and the Law

Question:

What’s the big deal? Why can’t public school children go see that Charlie Brown Christmas play?

Answer:

The law of separation of church and state, as it applies to public school field trips, as explained by the Appignani Humanist Legal Center’s Bill Burgess in a letter sent Monday:

November 26, 2012

Sandra Register
Principal
Terry Elementary School
10800 Mara Lynn Drive
Little Rock, Arkansas 72211

Dr. Morris Holmes
Little Rock School District
810 West Markham Street
Little Rock, Arkansas 72201

cc: Little Rock School District Board of Education

Re: Public Elementary School Field Trip to Church to See Christian Play

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am writing to alert you to a serious separation of church and state concern.  We have recently received a request for legal assistance from the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers and the Central Arkansas Coalition of Reason on behalf of the parents of a student at Terry Elementary School. They informed us that the school has scheduled a field trip for students to view a production of “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!,” a Christmas play with a sectarian theme, staged at and by Agape Church, a local evangelical Christian church,[1] the week of December 14.

The American Humanist Association is a national nonprofit organization with over 10,000 members and 20,000 supporters across the country, including in Arkansas.  The purpose of AHA’s legal center is to protect one of the most fundamental legal principles of our democracy: the constitutional mandate requiring separation of church and state, embodied in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.[2]

As you must know, the Supreme Court has made clear that the “First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state” and that this “wall must be kept high and impregnable.”  Everson v. Bd. of Ed. of Ewing Twp., 330 U.S. 1, 18 (1947).  To do so, “the Constitution mandates that the government remain secular.”  County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573, 610 (1989).  In order to secure this freedom from state-backed religion, the Constitution requires that any governmental “practice which touches upon religion, if it is to be permissible under the Establishment Clause,” must have a “secular purpose” and not “advance . . . religion.”  Id. at 590.  Specifically, the government “may not promote or affiliate itself with any religious doctrine or organization.”  Id.  Courts “pay particularly close attention to whether the challenged governmental practice either has the purpose or effect of [unconstitutionally] ‘endorsing’ religion.”  Id. at 591.  Endorsement includes “conveying or attempting to convey a message that religion or a particular religious belief is favored or preferred.”  Id. at 593.

In short, “religion must be a private matter for the individual, the family, and the institutions of private choice,” not the state.  Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 625 (1971).  In addition, the Supreme Court has in particular expressed especially “heightened concern” about preventing any sort of public school involvement with religion because of the risk of “subtle coercive pressure in the elementary and secondary public schools” environment.  Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 592 (1992).

Applying these general constitutional rules to the issue at hand, we have reason to believe that the school’s actions are in violation of the Establishment Clause.  The school is encouraging impressionable young students to attend an event in a Christian venue with a Christian message.  The effect is to affiliate the school with that message, encouraging its adoption by the students by means of this endorsement.

In the play, following a raucous and disjointed attempt to put on a Christmas pageant, Charlie Brown expresses frustration.  Linus says he can tell Charlie Brown “what Christmas is all about.”  He then quotes verbatim the New Testament of the Bible, Luke 2:8-14:

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.  And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.  And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

The characters then cease bickering, adopt this religious view (rejecting the supposed “commercialism” of a secular Christmas celebration), and, in the immediately following final scenes, sing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”:

Hark the herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled
Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With the angelic host proclaim:
“Christ is born in Bethlehem.”
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”

The message of the play is clear: Jesus Christ is the son of God and the messiah, and the real meaning of Christmas is to celebrate the anniversary of his birth.  It is completely sectarian in nature and expressly rejects any secular version of Christmas.

A church is of course free to spread this religious message.  Our public schools, however, are not free to take part in the effort.  They may not choose to promote it by encouraging students to attend, let alone by organizing and funding attendance by means of an official field trip.  Although objecting students may decline to attend, they will face the subtly coercive pressure of their peers to do so (in addition of course to the explicit encouragement of the school).  Because of this, the Supreme Court has made clear that an Establishment Clause violation is not “mitigated by the fact that individual students may absent themselves upon parental request.”  Abington School Dist. v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 224-25 (1963). 

The Establishment Clause forbids our schools from promoting a religious message in this way.  This trip must therefore be canceled.  In the alternative, it may be modified to be instead a visit to a secular Christmas-themed theatrical performance, such as the Nutcracker, would of course present no issue.

Please notify us in writing about the steps you are taking to avoid this constitutional violation so that we may avoid any potential litigation.  Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

 

Sincerely,

William J. Burgess
Appignani Humanist Legal Center
American Humanist Association
________________________

[1]   https://www.agape-church.org/.

[2]  The very first sentence of the Bill of Rights mandates that the state be secular: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”  This provision, known as the Establishment Clause, “build[s] a wall of separation between church and State.”  See Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 164 (1878).  The Supreme Court “has given the [Establishment Clause] a ‘broad interpretation . . . in the light of its history and the evils it was designed forever to suppress. . . .’  [finding that it] afford[s] protection against religious establishment far more extensive than merely to forbid a national or state church.”  McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 442 (1961).

This post originally appeared on WWJTD.)

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Whence Cometh “Separation of Church and State”?

For some reason, over the last few days I’ve gotten a number of irascible Facebook posts, nasty emails, and all around ugly comments aimed in my direction.

This one was more politely worded than most:

Would you be so kind as to show me where In the Constitution or the Bill of Rights you find this? The key to my question is very simple, it must be in the those two Founding Documents, not some other papers, such as in Personal Letters or what someone thinks those two Documents say. But word for word what you stated above.

And to help you, I will post the Amendment which you are speaking to:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

 

Okay, I’ll bite. 

This is actually a common complaint from the religious far right, especially those who think that since their particular brand of religion is dominant in this country, the rest of us should all bow our heads, shut up, and go along with it.

The questioner apparently knows that the phrase “separation of church and state” was used by Thomas Jefferson in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists. It has been used by many others to express the intent and function of the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It has been quoted by courts, and, to the dismay of the questioner and his ilk, is now the law when it comes to matters of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

These are vitally important words. I’ll explain why “separation of church and state” became the phrase used in the law.

Jefferson’s letter read, in toto:

To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.

The phrase that Jefferson used, “a wall of separation between church and state,” has been repeatedly cited by the Supreme Court of the United States. In Reynolds v. United States, an 1879 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, the majority wrote that Jefferson’s comments “may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the [First] Amendment.” Reynolds was the case that conclusively decided that Mormons could not engage in polygamy because bigamy was illegal.

Mr. Reynolds claimed that his religion required him to engage in polygamy, and therefore he had a religious duty to violate the bigamy law. Citing Jefferson’s Danbury letter, the U.S. Supreme Court made a distinction between belief and action. Believing in polygamy was fine, and no law would ever stop anyone from believing whatever they believed. Faith, as Jefferson said, “lies solely between Man & his God,” and no person had to “account to any other for his faith or his worship.” However, acting on that belief contrary to the law and public policy was not permitted. Again, as Jefferson had said to the Danbury Baptists, “the legitimate powers of government reach actions only,” and actions taken contrary to law could be punished by the government.

In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), erudite U. S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black referred to the Danbury Baptists letter when he wrote: “In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state.” This supreme court case made it clear that the Constitution and all of its amendments, including the First Amendment, applied to the states as well as to the federal government.

The Everson case had to do with reimbursements to parents whose children took public transportation to school. The U.S. Supreme Court split in a 5-4 decision over whether the reimbursements to parents taking public transportation to private school were unconstitutional, with the majority deciding that the reimbursements did not establish religion. What everyone on that court agreed to, though, was that a wall of separation between church and state was critically necessary.

Justice Black’s language was the broadest and most clear:

The ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between Church and State.

There have been lots of decisions since these two, lots prior to these two, and lots between these two. Separation of church and state is not just a catchphrase; it’s the law.

Some people, like the commenter who (more politely than most these last few days) wrote to me, object to the letters of the men who drafted the Amendment being used to interpret it. Courts often look to the intent of the people who wrote the laws in question to determine what was intended. The phrase found in legal opinions that do this is “looking to the legislative intent.” When applied to the Constitution, it is called the “looking to the intent of the framers.”

Because court decisions have historically interpreted the Establishment Clause to erect this wall of separation between church and state, and since Congress has never passed any law contravening it, “separation of church and state” is the law of the United States of America.

To demand that the constitution say exactly the verbiage we commonly use is absurd; the document was never intended to cover every possibility, but rather to broadly enumerate basic rights. If anyone wants a more thorough explanation of why the Constitution is worded the way it is, I suggest reading the Federalist Papers compiled by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay during the Constitutional Convention of 1789. The Federalist Papers are a collection of 85 essays written during the Constitutional Convention that describe the process or creating the foundational legal document on which the rest our laws rest. Often the essays of the Federalist Papers were being written in the same room as the debates raged among the attendees of the convention. The Federalist Papers are free in various formats from numerous sites. Get them in ebook format from Project Gutenberg and from the Library of Congress, download a free PDF from Penn State, or get the audio books from Project Gutenberg or Librivox.

For those who need a history refresher, James Madison was the Secretary of State who negotiated and supervised the Louisiana Purchase and later was president of the U.S. during the War of 1812; Alexander Hamilton was the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury until he was killed in an ill-advised duel with Jefferson’s former Vice President Aaron Burr; and John Jay was the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Very colorful characters were midwives to the birth of this nation’s laws – gentlemen, rogues, scoundrels, and philosophers all played a part.

But how does a court get to decide what the Constitution means? The quick answer is that courts are the arbiters of disputes, and therefore must be able to interpret laws. The 1803 U.S. Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison, decided by the famous Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, established judicial review of administrative and legislative actions and cemented the separation of equal powers between our three branches of government – ensuring that each branch checked and balanced the other two.

The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution establishes the Constitution, treaties, and the laws of the United States as the supreme law of the land. The power of judicial review is implied when Article III, pertaining to the judiciary, and Article VI, containing the Supremacy Clause, are read together. The Supremacy Clause says:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

Therefore, until the United States Supreme Court decides otherwise, “separation of church and state” is the law of the United States of America.

When I was in law school almost three decades ago (now I feel really old!) I clerked in the law office of my older cousin. He is a garrulous, opinionated fellow who regularly both pissed me off and taught me a lot.  He once told me, standing in front of a case full of dense law books, that Constitutional Law was only good for cocktail party conversation. Of all that he ever said to me – and I disagreed with him a lot – this is the only thing I seriously take issue with.

(This post originally appeared at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2012/11/from-whence-cometh-separation-of-church-and-state/)

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The Week in Review – Law and Atheism

This week’s roundup of legal news:

A judge in Oklahoma sentenced a juvenile who was convicted of manslaughter to church instead of prison. Tyler Alred’s friend was killed when the car Alred was driving crashed. The teenagers had been drinking. While I don’t think prison is a healthy place for anyone, and certainly not for a juvenile, I can’t help but wish something could be done about this aspect of the young man’s sentence. If the juvenile appeals his sentence and it is found to be unconstitutional, he might be re-sentenced and sent to prison. So this judge, who has apparently sentenced other defendants to church, will not only get away with it but keep on doing it. A 16-year-old who accidentally kills his friend will live with that horror for the rest of his life, anyway. Alred has a laundry list of other requirements to meet that are common to rules of probation or parole: things like finishing school, finding a job, and more. If he doesn’t do as he has been ordered, he’ll spend up to ten years in prison. The victim’s family did not want him to serve time. “We don’t need to see two lives wasted for a mistake,” said the victim’s sister.  How many of us might agree to suffer through ten years of church?

In response to the 9/11 attacks, the Kentucky legislature made an official “finding” in 2002 that the “safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.” Aided by American Atheists, secularist plaintiffs won at the trial level when the trial judge agreed that the state had “created an official government position on God.” But the state appellate court said something to the effect of “oh, those are just words, you know?” so now the plaintiffs are asking the United States Supreme Court to weigh in. When Alternet reported this story yesterday, its article, which got widespread attention, said that the state’s citizens had to acknowledge the existence of “Almighty God” or be prosecuted and punished with up to a year in prison. That’s not exactly the case.  The article corrected itself later, by accurately reporting that a plaque with a religious statement attributing public safety and homeland security to Almighty God had to be placed on the wall of the state’s homeland security building, or the executive director of the agency risked a year in jail for a misdemeanor violation. Kentucky Revised Statute 39G.010(2) says, in relevant part:

The executive director shall: (a) Publicize the findings of the General Assembly stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth by including the provisions of KRS 39A.285(3) in its agency training and educational materials. The executive director shall also be responsible for prominently displaying a permanent plaque at the entrance to the state’s Emergency Operations Center stating the text of KRS 39A.285(3)[.]

The legislative finding referred to in the above statute is in KRS 9A.285. The italicized words are what the Executive Director of Kentucky Homeland Security is supposed to post on the wall of the building:

The General Assembly hereby finds that:

(1) No government by itself can guarantee perfect security from acts of war or terrorism.

(2) The security and well-being of the public depend not just on government, but rest in large measure upon individual citizens of the Commonwealth and their level of understanding, preparation, and vigilance.

(3) The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God as set forth in the public speeches and proclamations of American Presidents, including Abraham Lincoln’s historic March 30, 1863, Presidential Proclamation urging Americans to pray and fast during one of the most dangerous hours in American history, and the text of President John F. Kennedy’s November 22, 1963, national security speech which concluded: “For as was written long ago: ‘Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’ “

The second statute, with the italicized language, went into effect March 28, 2002. The posting requirements were not passed into law until 2006 when the American Atheists lawsuit was initiated.

Something to point out about this is the fact that the Kentucky Legislature mentions a November 22, 1963, JFK speech about national security. That speech was not given 49 years ago today in Dallas, Texas, by President John F. Kennedy. On his way to the luncheon where he was to deliver it, Kennedy was assassinated.

What the Kentucky legislature chose to ignore was the fact that John F. Kennedy had given another speech in Texas three years earlier, making it crystal clear that, despite his strongly held personal religious beliefs, Kennedy also believed that keeping church and state separate was of absolute paramount importance.

Let’s hope the conservative United States Supreme Court does the right thing.

The Speaker of Uganda’s Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga,  says that Uganda’s new “Kill the Gays” bill will be passed before the end of 2012 despite vigorous and vocal international criticism of the legislation. She called it a “Christmas gift” to Uganda’s Christian population. Uganda already criminalizes homosexual behavior, but the new bill adds different levels of seriousness to the crime of being gay, punishment for which ranges from life imprisonment to death:

‘Aggravated homosexuality’ is defined as gay acts committed by parents or authority figures, HIV-positive people, pedophiles and repeat offenders. If convicted, they will face the death penalty.

The ‘offense of homosexuality’ includes same-sex sexual acts or being in a gay relationship, and will be prosecuted by life imprisonment.

According to one report, Several European countries have threatened to cut aid to Uganda if it passes, with the UK government warning Uganda it would face severe reductions in financial help. President Obama has described it as ‘odious’, and Canadian politician John Baird has said it is ‘vile, abhorrent, and offends decency’.

The preaching and teachings of evangelical American Christians, including Rick Warren (The Purpose Driven Life) and Scott Lively (whose Abiding Truth Ministries are listed as a Hate Group by the Southern Poverty Law Center), have been credited with “igniting” the homophobic rampages.

Uganda is notorious for its superstitions, child sacrifice by witch doctors.  Burningsuspected witches alive is still prevalent in the country. (Warning: This video  is a graphic recording of an alleged witch being burned alive in Uganda in 2011.)

So, yeah, modern American Christian evangelism does serious harm in today’s world, in case there are any fence-sitters out there reading this.
U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins said that the city of Santa Monica, California, did not have to allow any seasonal displays, religious or otherwise, in its park. Last year, to the dismay of the Christians who had previously dominated the annual seasonal display in the park, a number of atheists got 18 out of 21 spaces that Santa Monica regularly let religious groups use to erect seasonal displays. About half of the non-theist displays were vandalized, so the city ended its tradition of allowing the seasonal displays. The city decided to stop all displays in the park. In court Monday, Deputy City Attorney Yibin Shen said the ban had been under consideration for 20 years and was ultimately motivated by the cost to the city after the number of applicants spiked in recent years. The department in charge of running the lottery for booth spaces doubled its staff and spent 245 hours annually running the system and reviewing applications.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State and eight other groups representing Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, and secular organizations have filed an amicus brief in a death penalty case in Florida. Amici curiae, or “friends of the court” briefs are filed by individuals or groups who are not parties to the lawsuit in question, but who feel they have something important to add to the issue under consideration. Frequently these groups want to influence public policy which will result from the decision. In this case, the defendant was sentenced to death after the prosecutor quoted extensively from the Bible, specifically from the book of Romans, in his cross-examination of a minister in the sentencing phase of the case. The passages he quoted demanded the death penalty. The organizations asked to file the brief because, despite their various religious viewpoints, they are “united in the view that the decision between life and death in a capital case should not turn on the jury’s interpretation of religious doctrine.”

In matters of legal amusement, private funds paid for a monument with the Ten Commandments to be erected on the lawn of the Oklahoma State Capitol. Many are snickering at its misspellings, which are expected to be corrected. Oklahoma’s ACLU is determining whether a legal challenge will be made. Since the existence of the ten commandments on government property has repeatedly been held to violate the Constitution, a legal challenge has a high likelihood of success. The Oklahoma ACLU’s organizer, Ryan Kiesel, was a Democratic House member at the time the law was passed allowing the erection of the monument. He was among 16 absent when the final vote in the Oklahoma House passed the law allowing placement of the monument 83-2. I have no clue why Kiesel was absent that day.

Greece has brought blasphemy charges against the performers, producer, and director of an Athens production of Terrence McNally’s play “Corpus Christi.” The play portrays Jesus and the disciples as gay men living in Texas.

The play’s director told Reuters he was stunned that prosecutors had chosen to go after him rather than pursue tax evaders and others blamed for driving Greece to near-bankruptcy.

“What I see is that there are people who have robbed the country blind who are not in jail and the prosecutor turns against art,” Albanian-born Laertis Vasiliou said.

If they are convicted, the men would face several months in jail. That’s not as dire as the situation faced by Alber Saber in Egypt, but still – to think that a country as advanced as Greece, and a member of the EU to boot, would prosecute people for religious speech and iconoclastic beliefs is beyond the pale.

Obama said that if any petition could gain 25,000 signatures in a month he’d consider it. Will he? I don’t know. You have to create an account to sign the petition, but I did so quite some time ago and haven’t yet received any spam because of it. Yes, most of the petitions look to be pretty far from a reasonable request, and as of this writing, there seem to be a lot of them that, if denied, will result in another Civil War. Like, “ALLOW ALASKA TO SECEDE FROM A DYSFUNCTIONAL UNION.” Yes, it’s all in caps. There seems to be one or more of those for each state. But seriously,  Here are a couple of Petitions you might consider signing.

  •  First is one that asks that the law be changed to require religious organizations to pay taxes. It has been posted for a week, and as of yesterday had 5,880 signatures. It’s short and sweet. It will remain posted until December 14 to gather the necessary signatures. Let’s blow the doors off the thing. This one is important.
  • The second one asks to remove references to God from our money and the Pledge of Allegiance. It expires December 12.  When I added my name, this petition had over 11,000 signatures and had only been posted since November 12. I don’t have a lot of hope that this will go anywhere since we have 533 people in the halls of Congress who claim to believe in that whole God thing, but the more noise we make, the more attention we’ll get. Right?
  • The third is one to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). This one is getting close. It closes December 7, and as of this writing has more than met its quota. I’d like to see this one make a point, though, and garner lots of extra signatures.

A point about all three of these petitions: they all ask for laws to be passed or repealed, which is something only Congress can do. Just because the President is asked to take action does not mean that Congress will go along with it. The President can’t make or repeal laws by himself. He can issue executive orders, which set his administration’s policy and occasionally – and temporarily – take on the quasi-character of a law, but an executive order and a “pretty please” to his supporters in Congress is about the best he can do.

(This post originally appeared on WWJTD.)

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Re-Twinkies

Twinkies
Soon to be a mere memory

The Sky is Falling.

The End is Near.

It’s the Apocalypse, and it’s not even December yet.

How could the Mayans have been so wrong?

Today, Hostess Brands asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to allow it to liquidate everything and sell its iconic brands.

Yes, Twinkies Lovers, that means you are likely to feel the disaster first and foremost, and there’s no telling how long it will last. It may last forever.

I have written about the Twinkies Famine of 2000 and the Great Twinkies Depression of 1987, both of which were reported upon by the venerable New York Times. Twinkies addicts clamored for their fix, Ebay made out like a bandit, and, eventually, things returned to normal.

But this time? This time it’s going to be worse. Much worse.

When “normal” returns, it may not be the same “normal” we know and love. Like Bill O’Reilly lamenting the loss of the normal United States populated by Ward, June, Wally and the Beave, the new normal may be damn near unrecognizable.

!!!!

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Fine, so I had to insert a tiny smidgeon of political commentary. Nevertheless, dammit, Hostess is depriving Traditional America of Twinkies on a timetable that resembles greased lightning.

There is no time to waste.

Stop reading this blog immediately and get thee to thy local Twinkies Distribution Point post haste. It is expected that on Monday – just three days hence – the bankruptcy court will let Hostess shut down operations.

Hostess would have to shut operations anyway, because its bakers threatened a strike. When it filed for permission to liquidate, Hostess said that it no longer had the resources to weather a prolonged strike, which apparently they expect this to be. This means that over 18,000 Hostess employees will be out of work in an already challenging job market.

Curse you, striking bakers! Why couldn’t you wait? It’s all about you, isn’t it?

Stockpile all the Twinkies you can – and fast. Even if Hostess sells the brand and the recipe to another company, there will be a gap in production.

This is travesty.

 

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FFRF Sues the IRS to Enforce 501(c)(3) Electioneering Restrictions

Remember last week when I said I’d probably give the Freedom From Religion Foundation an upvote every week? Well…

 

I’m just going to use this graphic for them from now on. They’ve earned it.

If I could adorn it with sparkly glitter and blinky neon lights without risking an epileptic seizure or a migraine, I’d probably do it.

Yesterday, FFRF sued the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. No shit. And yes, they sued because the IRS won’t friggin’ enforce the rule about churches electioneering. Basically, this is a claim of a sort of nonfeasance or dereliction of duty, something that isn’t very common. By not doing his job – by not enforcing the law – FFRF says that the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service has violated the Equal Protection Clauses of the Constitution.

FFRF wants a declaratory judgment against the Commissioner – in other words, a judgment that says that the Commissioner has done wrong. It has asked for an injunction against the Commissioner’s refusal to enforce the law, which is a convoluted way of saying that it wants the court to issue an order requiring the Commissioner to enforce the law. (I know – why couldn’t they just say that?) FFRF also wants the court to order the Commissioner of the IRS to designate someone as a high-level official who can take the complaints from IRS Form 13909 and investigate them.

The lawsuit asserts that under the administration of Commissioner Shulman, the Internal Revenue Service, under the direction of the IRS “has followed and continues to follow a policy of non-enforcement of the electioneering restrictions of §501(c)(3) against churches and other religious organizations.”  You tell ’em, FFRF!

And the complaint continues: “As a result, in recent years, churches and religious organizations have been blatantly and deliberately flaunting the electioneering restrictions of §501(c)(3), including during the presidential election year of 2012.” Ya think? Just to be certain that the court is aware of the kinds of things that are going on, FFRF lists a few of them:

  • Illinois Bishop Daniel Jenky required that a partisan letter be read by every celebrating priest in the diocese to congregants the weekend before the recent Presidential election;
  • On October 7, 2012, more than 1500 clergy, in a deliberate and coordinated display of noncompliance with the electioneering restrictions of §501(c)(3), including prominent megachurches, flagrantly violated the law against churches electioneering;
  • The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, one of the most prominent and respected religious ministries in the country, ran blatantly partisan full-page ads in October of 2012 in the Wisconsin State Journal;
  • Just prior to the November 6, 2012 election, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association also ran blatantly partisan ads in the the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and more than a dozen national and battle ground state newspapers
  • The Association also published expressly partisanship on its website just prior to the election;
  • Open and notorious violations of the electioneering restrictions of §501(c)(3) by churches and other religious organizations have been occurring since at least 2008, with churches recording their own partisan activities and sending the evidence to the IRS.

Did you catch that last bit? In case you hadn’t heard, the churches are violating the law and taunting the IRS by sending proof of their blatant disregard for the law to the IRS themselves! And the IRS sits there with its thumb up its ass and does nothing but admire the wallpaper.

Understandably, FFRF, which itself is a 501(c)(3) organization, is somewhat miffed by this, and in the lawsuit it said so. Why does FFRF have to obey the law but these religious organizations do not? This is religious discrimination. Selective non-enforcement of the law based on religious criteria violates the Establishment Clause and the Equal Protection Clause, and, to add insult to injury,

The preferential tax-exemption that churches and other religious organizations obtain, despite noncompliance with electioneering restrictions, amounts to more than $100,000,000,000 annually in tax-free contributions made to churches and religious organizations in the United States.

I don’t know how or where FFRF came up with that number, but if it’s true, that’s about thirty-five billion – with a B – dollars in lost tax revenue. Money that we owe China. Money that would sure help with deficit reduction.

FFRF wants a level playing field and an end to the preferential treatment. It demands that the law is enforced. By not enforcing the law with respect to religious institutions, the government is effectively giving religion a $35,000,000,000 tax subsidy. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is establishment of religion.

A private attorney, Richard Bolton, is representing FFRF on this one. Bolton is a respected civil rights lawyer in Madison, Wisconsin, where FFRF is located. I would imagine he’s going to be getting a lot of hate mail in the near future, so let’s give him some love, shall we? Thanksgiving is coming next week, and he’s someone we might just want to thank.

You can read FFRF’s own press release and the complaint against the IRS on the FFRF website. If you aren’t a member of FFRF already, it’s time to join. Even if you don’t join, please donate. FFRF isn’t electioneering, so contributions to it will remain tax-deductible. The Freedom From Religion Foundation works tirelessly to protect our rights. They deserve some love, too.

(This post originally appeared on WWJTD.)

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Mike Huckabee Displays Idiotic Christian Arrogance Again

Mike Huckabee was on the Daily Show again last night. He’s hawking his new book, but naturally he didn’t much talk about his book.
“Why does anybody have to be automatically anything other than what they truly believe?” Huckabee asked Stewart in the first part of the interview (6:14). At that point, he was talking about letting black conservatives be conservative without calling them “pawns,” or worse. A good question, which begs the question put to him in the second segment of the interview: why do Christians who don’t believe what their fundamentalist preachers tell them to believe have to be consigned to the fires of hell?

Yes, the second segment of the interview is what’s really important.

Stewart started the second segment by asking, “When [conservatives] keep demonizing these groups, whether it be single women, black people, illegal immigrants, it makes it impossible to work with them as a collaboration. Why would you collaborate with evil people? And when you convince them that they’re evil, why work with them?”

Unfortunately, this question never got answered. Huckabee denied demonizing these people, and truthfully, he probably has not demonized most of them himself. His network and his party certainly have, though he won’t speak for either of those entities. Now, Huckabee has demonized the natures of gay people, but Stewart did not take him to task for that.

Instead, Stewart segued into an abbreviated version of the despicable two-minute commercial Huckabee narrated for the Christian Right just before the election. You know the one.

In it, Huckabee quotes Psalm 127:1 and says that “unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” He then calls certain things “not negotiable:”

  • The right to life from conception to natural death
  • Marriage should be reinforced, not be defined
  • It is an egregious violation of our cherished principle of religious liberty for the government to force the church to buy the kind of insurance that leads to the taking of innocent human life

Against a backdrop of flames, Rev. Huckabee goes on to say that “Your vote will be recorded for eternity.” He asks, “Will you vote the values that will stand the test of fire?”

This commercial is so incredibly offensive on so many levels my stomach still churns with anger to watch it, and the election is over and done with.

Huckabee actually claimed that this commercial did not attempt to send the message that if Christians voted for the Democrats they would go to hell – unless they were biblically illiterate. I really cannot imagine how that wasn’t the message, since I don’t even believe in hell and that’s the clear message I got from it – and I’ve read and studied the Bible extensively. “Oh, no!” exclaims Huckabee. “If they know 1 Corinthians 10, they will know!” Then he claimed that 1 Corinthians 10 was about being tested in the fires of a forge, and coming out stronger or some such.

For the biblically illiterate, let me explain 1 Corinthians 10. There is not one word about forges or fire. It’s all about not worshipping false gods and not participating in idolatry. We all know that since there is only one true god, so there can’t be any other gods, no matter how true their own believers believe them to be, and no matter how false those idolaters believe the one true god to be. Frankly, the arrogance of the “one true god” thing just staggers me, especially when one considers that the adherents of the Abrahamic religions have no better proof of their god than the adherents of any other religion.

But let’s look at 1 Corinthians 10:29, which asks, “Why should my liberty be judged by someone else’s conscience?”

Why, indeed, Reverend Huckabee? Why should my freedom be judged by your conscience? You arrogant twit, I can cherry-pick Bible verses just as well as you can.

I think the Good Reverend Huckabee was actually referring to 1 Corinthians 3:13, which more or less says what Huckabee claimed this commercial meant to say, just without the forge part. Because that’s totally not in there. And the part about judgement day, and therefore hell, definitely is in that particular passage.

Again, this is what pisses me off about Christians. They want to spew their Bible at me, but then I have to correct them – even the supposedly learned ones – because they don’t get it right. If they want to beat me up with their scripture, they should at least know their stupid scripture.

Of course, maybe he really meant 1 Peter 1:7, or 2 Peter 3:7, or some other passage that refers to fire but not hell, even though most of the passages I find pretty much equate testing by fire with the Judgment Day and hell. So Huckabee’s protests that the reference to fire doesn’t also refer to Hell or Judgment hold about as much water as that colander I used to strain my spaghetti last night.

Let’s examine the the three points of that disgusting commercial.

The right to life from conception to natural death

Nowhere in the Bible does any religious authority, real or imagined, claim that life begins at the moment of conception. I’d cite verses where it says so, but there aren’t any.

Let’s face it: The Biblical God is not pro-life. He advocates and permits child murder, infanticide, child abuse, and, yes, abortion.  Fundamentalist Christians rely on such passages as “thou shall not kill” Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17 (one of the commandments), and  “If men strive and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no misfortune follow, he shall be surely punished according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.And if any misfortune follow, then thou shalt give life for life,eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” Exodus 21:22-24. Although the Exodus passage seems to be a favorite among the anti-choice crowd, I would point out that the harm mentioned in it is harm to the woman, not to the aborted or miscarried fetus.

God’s favored prophets prayed for abortions. Don’t believe me? Read Hosea 9:11-16. This same favored prophet also advocated ripping the fetuses out of the wombs of pregnant women in Hosea 13:16, something the God-favored King Menahem of the Israelites proudly did in 2 Kings 15:16, too. There’s even a ritual to induce an abortion in a faithless wife in Numbers 5:21 (presumably done instead of stoning her, although when stoning and when abortion is the proper course of action, the Bible doesn’t say).

So God is definitely not pro-life, at least for fetuses. But what about hastening death? Apparently the fundamentalist Christians also don’t like euthanasia, mercy-killing, or assisted suicide, either. They want people to suffer. This is where compassion gets thrown to the wind by these Christians. Suicide is tantamount to murder, in their eyes.

The Bible reports several suicides (Ahithophel; Saul and his armor-bearer; Samson; Zimri, who was king of Israel for only seven days; and Judas Iscariot) and men who want to be stricken dead (Moses, the prophet Elijah, and Jonah – twice) but nowhere in the Bible does it condemn them for that. The Bible also reports mercy killings, without reference to judgment, except in the case of the Amalekite who lied to David about killing Saul. Saul himself was not condemned for asking to die. Abimelech begged his armor-carrying servant to kill him in Judges 9:52-54, because he lost a battle and could not bear the indignity of his inevitable murder at the hands of (gasp!) women. There was no judgment attached to Abimelech’s death.

So, there does not seem to be a problem with euthanasia, either. Huckabee’s first point fails, on both counts.

Marriage should be reinforced, not be defined

This one is so easy it’s almost a no-brainer. I cannot grasp why these wackjob Christians think that the Bible defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Jon Stewart jumped on this pretty fast, pointing out that the biblical definition of marriage is polygamy. Although Huckabee tried to say it isn’t, he cited no biblical authority for his position other than the Adam and Eve story. Lots of biblical marriages came after that one. Furthermore, it’s not real clear that Adam and Eve ever actually tied the knot. They sort of hooked up because of the dearth of others of their same species to choose from, and apparently shacked up, never going that extra step of committing to each other monogamously. They had no other options but bestiality.

So it stands to reason that yes, marriage could stand to be defined. But to say it’s biblical marriage really leaves the door wide open.

Because if you let your servant get married, and he leaves your employment, his wife and children are yours unless the servant agrees to stay and have his ear bored through with an awl. (Exodus 21:6) I’m not clear whether this means the servant’s earlobe gets pierced, or if his eardrum gets pierced. Either way, it’s pretty barbaric. But, that’s one definition of Biblical marriage.

Exodus 21:10 reminds men who take second wives that they can’t neglect the first one. Oops, Mr. Huckabee. Guess there’s a new definition of biblical marriage implied here.

Deuteronomy 22 is a great place to look for definitions of marriage. I like the one where the guy marries the woman and decides he doesn’t like her. If her father can’t then produce bloody sheets proving that she was a virgin at the time of the wedding, well, she gets stoned to death. What a sweet marriage that makes.

One of my favorite definitions of marriage is the rapist and his virgin victim. Yeah, Deuteronomy 22:28-30 is all about that.

Now, Paul is not real keen on marriage at all. Despite the fact that the species will disappear without it, sex is gross, and women are … well, Paul’s misogyny is another issue altogether. Paul thought everyone ought to have a spouse, though, if they really want sex, whether or not he could fathom why they’d want it. My guess is that Paul was so undesirable he never got laid, and therefore had no idea what he was missing.

And that doesn’t count all the various marriages in the Bible that involved multiple wives, concubines, and slaves. Heck, Abraham had a wife (Sarah), his wife’s slave (Hagar), another wife (Keturah), and an unknown number of secondary wives.

Then his grandson Jacob had two sister-wives (Rachel and Leah), and two servants of his wives (Zilpah and Bilhah).

Solomon had 700 wives and 300 secondary wives, in addition to the Queen of Sheba. That’s 1001, for those of you who aren’t good with math.

And the list goes on.

It is an egregious violation of our cherished principle of religious liberty for the government to force the church to buy the kind of insurance that leads to the taking of innocent human life.

Right.  Do I really have to explain this?

Most people in the United States who are lucky enough to have health insurance coverage have it because their employer provides it. If their employer did not provide it, health insurance would be prohibitively expensive. Therefore, people are generally forced to accept whatever health insurance is offered through work, unless they are wealthy enough to afford it on their own – which most people are not.

Limiting your employee’s health insurance options based on your own religious beliefs, whether or not your employee shares your religious beliefs, is totally not forcing your religion on them. (/Sarcasm)

Until there is a single-payer system, or until health insurance is decoupled from employment and made affordable, employers are in a position to unfairly force their religious beliefs on their employees.

It is an egregious violation of our cherished principle of religious liberty for anyone to limit our access to health care based on religious beliefs we do not hold. If the government permits this, the government is complicit in the establishment of religion.

Therefore…

Stewart nailed him on the thinly disguised guilt trip the Huckster attempted to foist on good believing Christians. The commercial was pro-life and homophobic, and it essentially told Christian voters, with the appropriate imagery of their religion of intimidation and threat, that if they were not also pro-life and homophobic, they would burn for all eternity. Sweet message, that.

Among the most disturbing things about these Christians who want to impose their Bible on the rest of us are:

  1. For a number of reasons, foremost among them its bizarre contradictions, we don’t believe their Bible to be reliable, and therefore object to basing our laws on it;
  2. Their Bible contravenes proven science;
  3. We do not agree that some of the crazy shit they think is good is actually, well, good;
  4. As a foundational document, their Bible is inconsistent, violent, bigoted, misogynistic, and homicidal, and none of those things are acceptable in modern society;
  5. If they cherry-pick only the “good parts” of the Bible to apply to modern life, we have to question why, if so much of it is dispensable, they consider it to be a legitimate authority;
  6. Why they think it is acceptable to force their dogma on people who do not accept their dogma.

Dissenting minorities and minorities representing different demographics will always need protection from the will of the majority. And right now the majority seem to be batshit Christians, who want to impose their will on the rest of us.

 

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The Week in Review – Law and Atheism

Here’s my roundup of legal machinations over the past week. No, I haven’t listed everything, and yes, I may have missed something important. Please leave comments on other events involving the law and secularism that you consider noteworthy.

Freedom From Religion Foundation

Despite the IRS suspension of the egregious political activity by 501(c)(3) tax-exempt religious organizations, FFRF decided this past week to take on the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association for its political ad that essentially endorsed Mitt Romney for President. Billy Graham reportedly told Romney that he would support the Republican candidate for President because he would support the “biblical definition of marriage.” Read FFRF’s letter to the Director of Exempt Organizations Examinations (DEOE), in which Annie Laurie Gaylor reminds us, once again, that she rocks.

As I mentioned in my earlier post today, the Director of Exempt Organizations Examinations is a high-ranking official, one level removed from the Secretary of the Treasury, and thus under the current Treasury Department organizational structure, is the correct person to determine whether an investigation is necessary. There were several people of that rank and authority before the 1998 bureaucratic restructuring.

Voters in Maine, Maryland, Washington, and Minnesota

Tuesday was a great day for same-sex marriage ballot measures. State by state, it’s slowly happening. I’ve never seen any objection other than those based on religion, so despite the “why do I care” attitude of some atheists, I feel strongly that as secular humanists we should co-own this issue with our LGBTQ friends. We’ve shared their closets all these years, after all. Ballot measures addressing the issue were voted on by citizens of four states Tuesday, and all of them passed handily. Nine states and D.C. now have no-holds-barred same-sex marriage, which confers all rights to homosexual couples that heterosexual couples enjoy. Another dozen states are almost there, giving same-sex couples almost all the rights of heterosexual couples through domestic partnerships and civil unions.

Kansas Board of Education

They’re at it again, that quirky group of deep thinkers. Global climate change is the current target of the anti-scientists on the Kansas Board of Education.

Adherents of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster may recall that it was an intelligent design curriculum proposed by the Kansas Board of Education that prompted FSM Prophet Bobby Henderson’s letter, the erudite lyricism and persuasive argument of which caused the noodly goodness of Pastafarianism to explode across the globe. I can’t wait to see what creatively crafted new religion comes out of this train wreck.

But wait! There’s more!

Certifiable wackjob Jack Wu ran for the Kansas Board of Education on the anti-science platform. Go to his website and read his biography for yourself. Personally, I can’t decide if it’s pathetic or hilarious. Wu moved to Kansas from California after seeing the light of Fred Phelps’ infamous Westboro “God Hates Fags So Let’s Picket a Military Funeral” Baptist Church. He promised to end the teaching of that “satanic lie” of evolution in Kansas schools. If he could find his way to the board meetings, that is.

Followers of the Friendly Atheist may remember that a month ago Hemant Mehta interviewed Jack Wu  and concluded, “If there’s anything we ought to take away from this, it’s that Wu shows how anyone can run for office.” This statement proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Hemant can find something nice to say about absolutely anyone.

Fortunately, <a href=”https://www.cjonline.com/article/20121106/NEWS/311069915>Jack Wu was overwhelmingly defeated.

The Democratic incumbent, Carolyn Campbell, worried that this guy, whose name is presumably pronounced “woo” for a reason, would win his seat just by having the oh-so-coveted “R” next to his name on the ballot, but Kansas Republicans distanced themselves from him. “He has not and does not have any connection or been in contact with the Kansas Republican Party, other than filing as a Republican — something the party has no control over,” said Clay Barker, the Executive Director of the Kansas Republican Party.

Wu’s politics are completely focused on Biblical teachings. Kansas Governor Sam Brownback is too liberal for Jack Wu – Wu has said that Brownback, famous for uber-conservatism, just isn’t anti-abortion enough. Since Brownback has promised to sign any anti-abortion measure to cross his desk whether he’s actually read it or not, one must wonder exactly what Wu expects of Guv’nor Sam.

Wu’s campaign collected a whopping $5 in donations and received a princely $9.99 in donated goods and services. Maybe there’s hope for Kansas, yet.

Florida Man
During my misspent youth, which even at my advanced age is still not over and done with, I spent way too much time on Fark.com. The “Florida” tag was always a warning that a stupid people/stupid government story was about to happen, and I’d click on it with glee, glad that there was one place in the country that might, occasionally, top the stupidity I saw on a daily basis right here at home.

On election night, Florida experienced at least a partial redemption.

In an outstanding FU to those who would merge church and state, Florida voters squelched Amendment 8, one of 11 proposed constitutional amendments on Florida’s ballot this election season. Amendment 8, humorously titled the “Florida Religious Freedom Amendment,” would have repealed a provision in the Florida Constitution that prohibits using state revenue “directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.” That’s right: it would have directed taxpayers’ dollars to support religious institutions.

Brave Atheists in Egypt

As bad as we might think we have it in the Bible Belt and other red states, there are places where religion is even more suffocating. Take Egypt, where 95% of the population is Muslim. There are still very quiet pockets of non-believers who dare to meet to discuss religion, despite the arrest last month of Alber Saber, a 27-year old who was physically attacked in the street because of irreligious statements appearing on his Facebook page. Egypt does not have freedom of belief, and no matter how ludicrous it seems, the Egyptian courts can prosecute and punish someone who is incapable of believing in a god.

The bravery of the small groups who continue to manage to meet and discuss their philosophy, beliefs, and iconoclastic understanding of the world cannot be adequately described. I don’t know that I would be brave enough to defy courts and criminal punishment to talk about my lack of belief.

Alber Saber’s blasphemy trial resumes next week.

  Spain’s Constitutional Court

In 2005 Spain’s Socialist-dominated Cortes Generales (parliament) passed a same-sex marriage bill over the strenuous objections of the conservative Popular Party. Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero signed it into law, making Spain the third country in the world – the Netherlands and Belgium had been first and second – to legalize same-sex marriage. When he left office last year amid Spain’s economic woes, Zapatero forthrightly stated that the same-sex marriage law was his proudest achievement in office.

The Popular Party appealed to the  Constitutional Court, the highest court in Spain, which agreed to hear the case. The Catholic Church, led by the scions of that compassionate humanist Torquemada, unsurprisingly sided with the conservative challengers.

Tuesday, in an 8-3 ruling, the Spanish Constitutional Court upheld the same-sex marriage law. A written decision is expected within a week.

This is excellent news for tens of thousands of same-sex couples who have tied the knot in the intervening years. While the court challenge wended its way to a decision, same-sex couples married, adopted children, and created families. Imagine the chaotic limbo those families might have endured with a different decision.

Certain Arkansas Voters

There was a dubious Republican triumvirate running for various seats in the Arkansas state legislature. Two were merely crazy racist bigots, but the third, Charlie Fuqua, was all that and then some. Fuqua proposed passing a law based on the Bible that allowed parents to kill their recalcitrant children. Oh, he didn’t necessarily want to enforce it, mind you – he just wanted to give parents a bigger stick than the one they already have.

A bit of background: I practiced in juvenile court for fifteen years before I burned out completely on the daily dose of unthinkable child abuse and neglect. Fuqua’s stupidity staggered me. This man was running for re-election, and he actually thought it was a good idea 1) to pass a law that “wouldn’t be enforced” and 2) give parents who murder their children a defense of justifiable infanticide. I can hear it now: “Your Honor, I know he was only six months old, but he wouldn’t stop crying so beating him to death just made sense,” and “Your Honor, she was dating that boy I didn’t like, and she climbed out of her bedroom window to go see him. It was the second time this month, so I had no choice but to kill her.” Those scenarios happen already with despicable regularity. Can you imagine how much more prevalent child abuse would be if it were legally acceptable?

These are the same people who have to have a vindictive God to give them morals. All three of these assclowns lost their races Tuesday.

(This post originally appeared on WWJTD.)

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IRS Investigation of Church Political Activity, Redux

Right out of the gate, my first post ever on WWJTD, and the next thing I know I’m seeing my chosen topic everyfreakingwhere on the Interwebz, and my information was … not as good as I thought it was. Shit. I’m embarrassed. This had better not be a harbinger of things to come, I mutter darkly to anyone in earshot.

So, here’s the down-low. In 2007,  the pastor of the Living Word Christian Center in Minnesota had announced – from the pulpit – his endorsement of Republican Michele Bachmann for her reelection to the US House of Representatives.  This was a clear violation of 26 U.S.C. §501(c)(3), the Internal Revenue Code that allows exemptions from tax on certain non-profit corporations, trusts, and certain other entities.

Some gung-ho atheist activist (or maybe it was just somebody who detested Michele Bachmann on general principles; I hear such folks are common in certain circles) complained to the IRS. The Director of Exempt Organizations, Examination (DEOE) sent a notice to the church that it was initiating an investigation. According to the church, that office was not high-ranking enough to initiate the investigation, so when the inevitable administrative summons came, it refused to comply. Naturally, the IRS took the church to court to force compliance with the summons.

Special requirements must be met to investigate a church for tax noncompliance. The Church Audit Procedures Act, found at §7611 of the Internal Revenue Code, is intended to keep the government out of church affairs as much as possible. The Act allows a church inquiry when “an appropriate high-level Treasury official reasonably believes” that the church is no longer in compliance with the requirements of 501(c)(3). It defines “appropriate high-level Treasury official” as “the Secretary of the Treasury or any delegate of the Secretary of the Treasury whose rank is no lower than that of a principal Internal Revenue officer for an internal revenue region.” The regional commissioner, who this definition referred to, was one level removed from the Commissioner of the IRS.

The catch was this: in 1998 the IRS eliminated the position of the Regional Commissioner, which was the “principal Internal Revenue Officer for an internal revenue region.” In fact, the IRS did away with regions altogether, and restructured its chain of command by subject rather than by geographic area. Since the position of “principal Revenue Officer for an internal revenue region” no longer existed, and Congress did not amend the definition of “appropriate high-level treasury official” in the Church Audit Procedures Act, there was no one authorized by the statute besides the Secretary of the Treasury who could make the “reasonable belief” determination and launch an investigation of a church for not adhering to 501(c)(3) requirements. The DEOE, which had made the “reasonable belief” finding and launched the investigation into the Living Word Christian Center, was four levels below the IRS Commissioner, and therefore not ranked equivalent to the former position of Regional Commissioner.

With this opinion in one single federal District Court in one single state, IRS investigations of churches came to an inglorious screeching halt. The purpose of the Church Audit Procedures Act was more than fulfilled: government basically could no longer touch churches, even when they were blatantly violating the tax code. Churches are free to meddle in government, without repercussion, at least until the definition of “appropriate high-level Treasury official” is amended, or until the position of Regional Commissioner is reinstated.

I checked the Code of Federal Regulations. Nope, the masses blogging and reporting about this matter over the last week are right: the regulation intended to help the IRS enjoin flagrant political activity by 501(c)(3) organizations has not been updated since December 1995. Although some religious news sources advise caution, other religious news outlets celebrate, since that means church can invade the state, but the state cannot invade the church.  An attempt to update it was made in 2009, after a decision by the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. noted the problem, too, but despite a public hearing having been held on the matter, nothing has yet been done. That may be because Congress will have to act, and by the time of the public hearing on the matter in January 2010, the Republicans had retaken the U.S. House of Representatives, the Tea Party held sway over all political decisions, and progressive government essentially ground to a halt.

But the ruling in the Minnesota case only applies to proceedings to enforce a summons issued by the IRS, not to actual enforcement of the law, so presumably there’s some other way to address the issue. Presumably. Maybe. If there is, I can’t find it. Shit.

What gets me is the IRS guy I spoke with while writing my piece last week told me that the IRS is still taking complaints about political over-reaching by churches. He directed me to the appropriate form, and he said that it definitely should be filed. When I started stumbling across article after blog post after news item about this, I had to wonder about the disconnect. Now, after actually researching the history of the problem, it seems ludicrous to me that Tim Geithner or any Treasury official ranked one level below him is going to bother themselves with hundreds of complaints about churches. In fact, it seems ludicrous that any Treasury official ranked that high would. Maybe that’s why only one church has ever had its tax-exempt status yanked, ever. Ever.

Now I’m mad.

Their own hero said it.

How the hell is it that we’re supposed to have a separation of church and state, but that separation can only go one way? Government has to keep out of church business – and I agree that it should, unless the church is violating the law. But when the church gets all up the the government’s business, and I find out that the government has essentially hamstrung itself so that it can’t take remedial action, my blood boils.

I live in one of the most Christian-dominated states in the U.S. If we are to trust the numbers collected by the Huffington Post, though, probably only half of Americans are strong Christians. That leaves the other half of us, who aren’t riding the Jesus Train and think we ought not to have a theocracy, wondering why churches are allowed to have such strong voices, and why they are allowed to drown out the other half of us.

Then I consider when this happened. The decision by the Minnesota District Courtwas issued January 30, 2008, just 15 days after Barack Obama was sworn in as President. And something started to be done by the summer of 2008, but federal rule-making takes a long time. And by the time it came down to it, Congress was cram-packed full of tea-partying wackjobs and I guess the Treasury Department was a bit sidetracked, what with the biggest economic crisis in a century enjoying prominent headlines and the Treasury Department embroiled in a little problem having to do with things like debt ceilings and such.

Capital punishment will show the little buggers how to act. And remember, boys and girls: we don’t hit.

Why do we have laws that aren’t enforced? Before you think this is a rhetorical question, consider the likes of Charlie Fuqua, an incumbent Republican candidate for the state legislature from my own home state, who thinks we ought to pass a law permitting parents to kill their disobedient children. After all, the Bible says it’s fine. And we won’t really enforce it, just hang it over the little darlings’ heads until they stop behaving like mini-monsters.

Then there’s the notorious Billy Graham ad. Fortunately, FFRF is all over that one. OF course, the letter Annie Laurie Gaylor sent to the IRS demanding an investigation was sent to the DEOE – yes, the same official the Minnesota District Court said wasn’t high-ranking enough – so it may not go anywhere unless it gets kicked up the chain of command.

But the media is reporting on it, supplying the quotes from church leaders, photos of church marquees, and reports or violations that the IRS will need if it ever gets its administrative ass in gear and decides to institute Regional Commissioners or persuade Congress to correct the structural issues based on the Treasury Department’s structural reorganization.

As for those of us who feel strongly that churches do not speak for us and should stay out of politics, we can still form brigades waving stacks of Form 13909, filling them out and submitting them to the IRS in hopes that the government will actually get around to enforcing the law.

Sure, the First Amendment stands for free speech, but it also stands for separation of church and state.

Frankly, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if all churches paid taxes. Render unto Caesar and all that, you know.

(This post originally appeared on WWJTD)

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Lesson One: Become an Atheist Activist Today

It’s election time again, which means that now is the perfect time for atheist activism. I know a way for you to become an effective atheist activist without ever leaving the safety of your keyboard, and I’m going to share it with you.

Come on – let me see a show of hands – how many of you reading WWJTD know of a church or other religious organization in your community that tells its members how to vote on issues? Raise those hands higher. I can’t see you. Okay, now look around. See all the hands waving in the air? There are lots of them.

It’s time to do something about this.

Did you know that most nonprofit organizations – including churches – cannot endorse candidates, tell their members how to vote, publicly support one side of an issue, or lobby? I know. It’s stunning. You’d never know it from the way so many of them behave. But if they lobby, electioneer, or outright tell their congregation how to vote, they’re supposed to lose their coveted tax-exempt status.

Because it’s illegal for them to engage in politics. Not illegal in the criminal sense, but in the sense that they enjoy a favored status in exchange for a promise that they will not engage in politics. So, when they break that promise, they should lose their favored status. The problem is, they tend not to. The IRS just doesn’t have enough proof against most of these churches.

I want to do something about that. I want you to do something about that. And I can tell you how to do it in a legal, above-board, non-confrontational way.

We can make these particular churches pay taxes just like everyone else – because if they blur the line between church and state, they are supposed to lose their tax-exempt status. At the very least, getting a letter from the IRS warning them that their political activity is dangerously close to the line may inspire them to cut it out.

 

Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code gives most nonprofit organizations, including churches, their tax-exempt status. Almost all churches are organized as non-profits and approved under 501(c)(3). That’s how tithes and offerings and other donations to them are tax-deductible. But, that special status comes at a cost: no 501(c)(3) organization may endorse, support, or oppose any candidate for public office. They cannot make contributions to political campaigns, and they cannot make any public statements for or against a candidate. They cannot take sides on any issue. Violation of this requirement will cause the IRS to strip the organization of its tax-exempt status.

Now, some minor politicking is permitted, but strict rules apply. No fundraising can happen at the event where the church or other 501(c)(3) organization does its politicking. If one candidate is invited, then all of the candidates running for that position – not just the one favored by the organization – must have an equal opportunity to be heard at the event. And most importantly, the organization cannot give even a hint as to which candidate it supports.

These rules also apply to ballot initiatives, referendums, and other matters voted on by the public. They apply to laws and constitutional amendments presented to the people for their vote. Gay marriage, abortion rights, gambling – all of these are issues churches like to weigh in on, and their publicly stated positions are grounds for them to lose their tax-exemption.

Why doesn’t the IRS do something? Because the IRS doesn’t have the time or the manpower to go around the country looking for these kinds of violations. It takes effort, proof, and a complaint to get them going. The only thing they routinely investigate without a complaint being filed are income tax returns, randomly selected for audit.

The IRS will investigate a church or other nonprofit organization if one of its higher-ranking agents has a “reasonable belief” that the organization’s activity violates its 501(c)(3) restrictions. It’s up to us to provide a basis for that reasonable belief, because the IRS won’t police each and every church. Thank the FSM, we are perfectly capable of recognizing and supplying concrete proof of these violations, so as to create that “reasonable belief” in the minds of the upper echelon of the Internal Revenue Service. We non-theists are all about reasonable beliefs!

Revocations of these tax-exemptions actually can happen. They don’t happen as often as we might like, but it’s up to us to help change that. As far as I know, the tax-exempt status of only one church was ever revoked, although the tax-exempt status of other nonprofits violating this rule have been revoked over 40 times.

The notorious case of the IRS pulling the tax-exempt plug on a church is Branch Ministries v. Rossotti. Branch Ministries and its church bought a full-page ad in the Washington Post and USA Today opposing Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election. The advertisement clearly said that the church had placed the ad, and it solicited tax-deductible contributions to help pay for the ad to be run in additional newspapers in large markets. The ad claimed that Clinton supported abortion on demand, homosexuality and the distribution of condoms to teenagers in public schools. It cited various Biblical passages and said, “Bill Clinton is promoting policies that are in rebellion to God’s laws … How then can we vote for Bill Clinton?”

The bigger question for Branch Ministries became, “Since we’re overtly supporting a particular candidate and letting the world know about it, how can we maintain our status as a 501(c)(3) organization?” Answer: It could not.

How do we make sure that more churches are investigated, and that more churches pay taxes? Not every church will do us the favor of being so blatant about its political activities. Therefore, we must report what we see. We have to give the IRS proof to support that reasonable belief that a church or nonprofit group engages in political activities. They won’t self-report these violations any more than an illegal immigrant will self deport. It’s up to us to do it through the available legal channels.

The IRS needs documentation. It can get that documentation from any number of sources, but the most reliable are:

  • Newspaper or magazine articles or ads
  • Television and radio reports
  • Internet (yes, the IRS apparently believes everything it reads there)
  • Voters guides created and/or distributed by the church
  • Documents on file with the IRS (e.g. a Form 990-T filed by the church)
  • Church records in the possession of third parties or informants

That last bit is where we come in. The IRS says that information obtained from informants must be reliable, so we need to do more than just send an email to complain. Proof will get the church’s tax-exempt status revoked. Send photos, audio recordings, video recordings, news articles – anything that provides independent proof that the activity has happened. Heck, if you can tolerate sitting through a religious service close to election day, go to church and record the pastor or priest’s political rants. You know they’re giving them in pulpits across the nation.

Here’s an example of how it’s done.

Actual Church Sign at 702 Church St., Benton, AR
Photo taken October 23, 2012

There’s a church near where I live that is also a polling place. Churches as polling places are an issue for another day, so let’s leave that for now and focus on something even more in-your-face egregious.

One of the ballot initiatives in our area has to do with medical marijuana. This particular church has taken it upon itself to say that legalization of marijuana for medical purposes is a moral issue. There are reasons for and against legalization of marijuana that I won’t get into here – whether or not the ballot initiative should pass isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about whether someone’s church should be allowed to tell them how to vote on the issue.

This church was featured on my local news a few days ago. I have a link to the news report, and I have IRS Form 13909, which can be downloaded as a PDF file or completed online. This is the complaint form to use when you see nonprofit organizations engaged in the political process. If you bookmark no other IRS form, bookmark this one.

The form asks for the basic information about the church. Its name and address are easy enough to find with Google, but the form also needs the church’s EIN, or tax identification number. You can usually find that number on the website of the National Center for Charitable Statistics. Now, this particular church doesn’t appear in that list. This probably means that it is simply holding itself out to be a church under Section 508 of the Internal Revenue Code, without ever going through the 501(c)(3) approval process. No matter – the same rules apply. If it’s going to go around telling folks how to vote, it’s going to lose its tax-exempt status.

The rest of the form is fairly self-explanatory, but the instructions are attached to the form at the link I’ve provided. Once you’ve completed the form, it can be emailed to the IRS at eoclass@irs.gov; mailed to IRS EO Classification, Mail Code 4910DAL, 1100 Commerce Street Dallas, TX 75242-1198; or faxed to 214-413-5415.

Easy, peasy.

Do this, and become a law-motivated atheist activist today.

(This post originally appeared at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2012/11/lesson-one-become-an-atheist-activist-today/ )

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West of Memphis and the West Memphis Three

Last week I went to the Market Street Cinema to see the free screening of West of Memphis, the newest offering among the documentaries about the West Memphis Three. (It’s offered again later this month for anyone interested, and will be back again later in the fall.)

West of Memphis, Sundance Film Festival, West Memphis Three

In the event that anyone reading this has lived under a rock for the last couple of decades and isn’t aware of the case, the West Memphis Three are Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley. They were teenagers when they were convicted of the capital murder of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas.

West Memphis Three Mugshot
(source)

In 1993 and 1994, there was a media circus surrounding the arrests and the trials. The West Memphis police, ignorant and superstitious, claimed that Echols, who was a weird kid who dressed funny, liked magic, and listened to heavy metal music, was the leader of a Satanic cult that ritualistically killed the little boys. After a nine hour interrogation, the West Memphis Police coached a confession out of Misskelley, a mentally handicapped high school dropout. All three were convicted. Echols was sentenced to death; Misskelley and Baldwin were sentenced to life without parole.

After nearly two decades of legal wrangling, the WM3 were freed from prison about a year ago, when, rather than go through a new trial, they entered pleas pursuant to North Carolina v. Alford, pleading guilty but simultaneously declaring their innocence. It was a long road getting there – 18 years long. That’s half again as long as the Millennium Falcon’s Kessel Run. They took the whole 18 parsecs to get there.

Scott Ellington
Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ellington (source)

In the film, Prosecutor Scott Ellington repeated his assertion that, despite not having reviewed the evidence in the case, he believes the West Memphis Three are guilty. He was not the original prosecutor. That dubious honor went to John Fogelman and Brent Davis, a pair to whom I have no problem assigning contempt.

Likewise, the judge was not the one who had presided over the case for 18 years. Judge David Burnett repeatedly ruled against the defense at the pretrial, trial, and post-trial proceedings. Had he still been on the bench when this offer was extended, we cannot be assured of the same outcome.

A week before the murders happened, I hung out my shingle and opened my solo law practice. Even though I had been out of law school for five years, I felt like a neophyte when it came to actually practicing law. Oh, there are stories, some of which I’ve told and some of which I will never tell, about how I groped my way to a successful practice. But in 1993 I was uncertain and confused about the practice of law. And like most of the rest of the state, I was riveted by the unfolding case. By the time of the trials eight months later, I was appalled at the travesty of justice I saw. I felt completely impotent. I had no idea that I might have helped, and boy, I wanted to help. I had gotten into the business of law to help the underdogs of the world, and the West Memphis Three defendants were underdogs from the day they were conceived.

When the first appeals were being pursued, Arkansas’s Death Penalty Resource Center, a state agency that provided litigation support and appellate representation in death penalty cases, was defunded and disbanded. One of its attorneys, Al Schay, sublet office space from me. The day he trundled in the boxes that held the transcripts of the Echols-Baldwin trial, he said I could read them. I had read countless transcripts as a law clerk for an appellate judge, and was undaunted by the thousands of pages of testimony and exhibits. I sat on the floor of Al’s office after hours and I read. And read. And became enraged at the prosecutors and the judge who presided over the cases. The fact that those three young men were convicted of capital murder on such flimsy evidence was appalling.  What’s worse, I don’t remember a single motion that went in the defense’s favor – except one. That one favorable ruling was ultimately undermined by juror misconduct. The ruling should have prevented Jessie Miskelley’s coached confession from coming into evidence against his co-defendants. However, the jury foreman in the Baldwin-Echols trial made a special effort to ensure that the jurors were aware of it.

Courtroom Rotunda, Arkansas Justice Building
Courtroom Rotunda at the Arkansas Justice Building (source)

The day the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the convictions, I realized that the court was nothing more than a calculating political beast. The majority reached its conclusion because that was the conclusion they felt they politically had to make. Three devil-worshipping teenagers had ritually murdered three little cub scouts. It was sensationalism that sold papers. It was sensationalism that provided job security even in the august halls of the Supreme Court, where I had been so proud to work not long before. It sickened me.

Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols should never have been convicted. They did not receive a fair trial. Did Jessie Miskelley? I don’t know. I’ve never read the transcript of his trial. My guess is that with the same people in positions of power, and the same facts, he did not. I know that Dan Stidham, Misskelley’s lawyer, believes he did not.

Dan Stidham
Dan Stidham, Legal Hero (source)

I met Dan Stidham at a seminar recently. For fifteen years, Dan Stidham was an active hero in the West Memphis Three case.  He was appointed to serve as Jessie Misskelley’s attorney at trial, and was the only attorney who stuck with his client after the trials, even to the point of preparing Jason Baldwin’s appellate paperwork when Jason had no lawyer. Stidham is now a circuit judge, but he was Jessie Misskelley’s lawyer throughout the trial and appellate process until 2008, when he assumed the bench. I told him that I wished I had reached out back in those days. I didn’t because I thought I had nothing to contribute. I realize now that I could have offered my time. I told him that when the trials were ongoing, I had wanted to do something – anything – because I saw what a miscarriage of justice was happening. He gave me a look that said, “Why didn’t you?” and I felt more impotent than ever. I regret not doing something back then, even though I didn’t think I was competent to do anything.

West Memphis Three Tipline Billboard
(source)

In the years between their convictions and their release, I was peripherally aware of the movement to free the West Memphis Three. I had seen the billboard in West Memphis with its tipline phone number. I read each court’s decision denying any relief at all to the convicted men. I never forgot them, but I believed their case was hopeless. A results-oriented judicial process was at work, one I knew intimately from the inside. It didn’t matter how the judges reached their decision, only that they reached the one most politically appropriate. They had constituents to answer to each election cycle. A case as notorious as the West Memphis Three had to be controlled with an iron fist.

I never saw Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills  or Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, the HBO documentaries about the West Memphis Three. I never read Devil’s Knot, investigative reporter Mara Leveritt’s book about the case. I had read news articles about the case, though, and read each judicial opinion at every level, both state and federal, as the fruitless appellate process lumbered on over the years.

Then, in the spring of 2011 I heard from Ken Swindle, an attorney in the northwest part of the state, whose contributions to a listserv for trial lawyers I had admired for several years. Would I sign a petition asking for a new trial for the West Memphis Three? I didn’t have to think about it. Hell, yes, I would! The West Memphis Three case exemplifies for me what is wrong with the criminal justice system on so many levels: cronyism among law enforcement officials and the State Crime Lab, results-oriented judicial decision-making, religious bigotry, a lack of critical thinking skills among the population at large (which make up our juries), prejudice, bad science, superstitious ignorance, the lack of resources available to all but the wealthiest criminal defendants, and the complete failure of standards of reasonable doubt and the assumption of innocence.

There’s no way I could ever practice criminal law. I would stroke out in very short order from the stress caused by the rampant injustice. The assembly-line attitudes I have encountered in family court and in juvenile court are bad enough without compounding it with the inequities of the adult criminal justice system.

But finally, the Arkansas Supreme Court did the right thing. Finally, it agreed that DNA evidence had to be considered in light of all the rest of the evidence – including evidence that at least four trial witnesses had recanted in the intervening years, and possibly including evidence that the Echols-Baldwin jury was tainted by the published confession they were never supposed to consider – and which the jury foreman made sure they did. And when the Arkansas Supreme Court sent the case back to the trial court this time, there was a new judge in town.

West Memphis Three Freed
(source)

Judge David Laser acknowledged in open court that the release of the West Memphis Three pursuant to the Alford pleas wasn’t justice for anyone – not for the defendants, and not for the victims – because innocent men remained convicted, and were robbed by the State of nearly two decades of their lives.  The terms of the plea agreement allowed three victims of a miscarriage of justice to finally go free, albeit under the burden and stigma of probation. Judge Laser said,

I don’t think it will make the pain go away to the victim families. I don’t think it will make the pain go away to the defendant families. I don’t think it will take away a minute of the eighteen years that these three young men served in the Arkansas Department of Corrections.

West Memphis Three Press Conference
WM3 at the Press Conference After Their Release Hearing (source)

Since their release, I have seen the first two Paradise Lost documentaries as well as the third one, Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, which was being made just as the WM3 were freed. I have read Devil’s Knot. The thing is, it didn’t take any of these efforts to convince me that justice was not served. While they told me more than I knew before, I knew when I read the transcripts and looked at the evidence on the first appeal that the West Memphis Three were innocent. Not just “not guilty,” which can mean that they probably did it but the state didn’t prove the case, but innocent. 

And that leads us to the real question: who killed Chris Byers, Stevie Branch, and Michael Moore?

West Memphis Three Victims

West of Memphis left me with more questions than ever before. In December 2011, three new witnesses came forward with hearsay evidence that Terry Hobbs, Stevie Branch’s stepfather, has admitted guilt to members of his family. It’s my understanding that, despite his strong assertion that he would look into anything the defense brought him, Ellington has not done a single thing in the last nine months to look into those allegations. Hearsay is plenty good enough for investigators to launch investigations in much less serious crimes. If it is true that the “Hobbs Family Secret” is that Terry killed those boys, Arkansas is denying justice not only to the WM3, but to the victims and their families.

That having been said, West of Memphis did not show conclusive evidence of Terry Hobbs’s guilt. I don’t think it intended to. It raised serious, valid questions that need investigation, though. Someone killed those kids, and that someone has never done a single day’s worth of prison time for their murders.

Also disconcerting to me were David Jacoby’s on-camera statements and his willingness to allow recordings of his telephone conversations with Terry Hobbs about the night the boys disappeared. Jacoby is a friend of Terry Hobbs, and was with Hobbs for part of the evening and night when the families and police searched for the missing children.  He stopped short of saying outright that he wasn’t with Hobbs during the time Hobbs claims. Since he is Hobbs’ alibi, I wish Jacoby had been asked that tough question directly, and I wish he had given a straight answer. The implied answer is there, but the lawyer in me wants it airtight.

I don’t know if Terry Hobbs did it. I don’t know if there was someone else in those woods who killed the children. But “beyond a reasonable doubt” and “innocent until proven guilty” have to mean something. They just HAVE to. And despite two juries, and despite the affirmed decisions of the appellate courts, the West Memphis Three were not proven guilty.

 

As a postscript, my hat goes off to Ken Swindle, who didn’t stop working on the case when the West Memphis Three walked out of that courtroom last August. Ken has filed requests for disclosure of evidence under the Freedom of Information Act on behalf of two of the victims’ parents. The West Memphis Police Department maintains that the case is closed, so the information is fair game under FOIA. The problem is, they won’t deliver. The plaintiff parents, Pam Hobbs, ex-wife of Terry Hobbs and mother of Stevie Branch, and Mark Byers, adoptive father of Chris Byers, are both very outspoken supporters of the West Memphis Three. Today, Ken requested a hearing on the FOIA request, which has been resisted by both the West Memphis PD and Scott Ellington, the current prosecuting attorney.

You go, Ken. Call me if you want help.

 

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