New Director for WH Office of Faith-Based Partnerships

The White House announced this week (March 13) that a new Director had been appointed to the White House Office of Faith-Based Partnerships (WHOFBP).

The new Director is Melissa Rogers, formerly the director of the Center for Religion and Public Affairs at Wake Forest University Divinity School and a nonresident senior fellow at The Brookings Institution.  She most recently served as general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, a church-state separationist group, and served as one of the members President Obama appointed to the WHOFBP's Advisory Council in 2009. In that role, she was one of the very few on the Council who did not represent a beneficiary of WHOFBP funds.

Rogers also served as executive director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and was appointed to the State Department's Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group in 2011. She is a familiar face on Capitol Hill, testifying before members of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees on religious freedom issues.

She succeeds Joshua DuBois, who has led faith-based efforts under President Barack Obama since the president's first term. DuBois was a Pentecostal minister and a Senate aide to Obama prior to Obama's election to the White Hose. DuBois was a controversial choice in part due to his age (26 at the time) as well as his divinity credentials, and angered many church-state separationist groups by leaving almost all of the Constitutionally questionable aspects of the WHOFBP established by prior President George W. Bush in place.

Separationists are much more optimistic in regards to Rogers. The Rev. Welton Gaddy, president of Interfaith Alliance, a liberal faith-based group that has been a major critic of the WHOFBP, praised Rogers' appointment on Wednesday: "Much work is yet to be done on the proper relationship between federal money and sectarian organizations, including resolving whether these organizations can continue to accept taxpayer dollars while discriminating in hiring based on religion -- which I do not believe they should be allowed to do.

"I know of no individual better suited to oversee this important endeavor, with sensitivity to the competing views and priorities at play, and with great integrity, than Melissa Rogers."

65th Anniversary of McCollum v Board of Education

Rob Boston, AU
Communications Director

Sixty-five years ago today (March 8), the U.S. Supreme Court handed down one of its most important church-state decisions.

The 8-1 ruling in McCollum v. Board of Education in 1948 ended a practice in the Champaign, Ill., public schools of allowing ministers to come onto the campus during the day to offer sectarian instruction.

The decision is important because it marked the first time the high court ruled that the public schools could not be in the business of promoting religion to students. It paved the way for the 1962 and '63 rulings striking down official school prayer and Bible reading.

Writing for the majority in McCollum, Justice Hugo Black scored "the use of tax-supported property for religious instruction and the close cooperation between the school authorities and the religious council in promoting religious education."

Observed Black, "Here not only are the State's tax-supported public school buildings used for the dissemination of religious doctrines. The State also affords sectarian groups an invaluable aid in that it helps to provide pupils for their religious classes through use of the State's compulsory public school machinery. This is not separation of Church and State."

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Encinitas School Sued for Offering Yoga

ENCINITAS, Calif. — A nonprofit law firm announced Wednesday that it has filed a lawsuit against the Encinitas Union School District over a district yoga program that the plaintiffs argue is a form of religious indoctrination.

Americans United is not a party, nor does it support the lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed by the National Center for Law & Policy, Christian legal advocacy firm, on behalf of Stephen and Jennifer Sedlock and their two children, who attend school in the elementary district. 

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House OKs Funding to Rebuild Churches

On Wednesday, Feb. 13, the House quietly passed HR 592, a serious threat to the separation of religion and government. The bill aims to amend the Disaster Relief Act to permanently allow federal grant money to go directly to rebuild churches and other houses of worship after disasters.

This change would reverse a longstanding 60-year policy in regards to federal disaster relief. Such funding would clearly violate the Constitutional separation of church and state by forcing taxpayers to fund religious groups and sects with which they may not agree. Worse, this bill specifically was intended to provide an exclusive funding privilege to religious organizations that most other non-religious nonprofits do not and would not enjoy even with the signing of this bill into law.

Churches may seem disadvantaged at first glance, but they are not without access to government aid. Along with most non-profits, they are in fact eligible for SBA loans. Churches, as do other non-profit organizations, also have existing fundraising advantages not available to commercial enterprises and individuals through their tax-exempt status and through the deductibility of contributions provided to the non-profit organizations by their own supporters.  Federal disaster relief is intended primarily for organizations and individuals that do not have such advantages.

Many of the House Representatives from the Los Angeles and Ventura Counties area supported this bill, even in the face of First-Amendment concerns brought to them by Americans United and other church-state separation groups.  Here is the list of local Representatives that supported this bill:

CD24 Rep. Lois Capps (D)	CD25 Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon (R)
CD26 Rep. Julia Brownley (D)	CD28 Rep. Adam Schiff (D)
CD29 Rep. Tony Cardenas (D)	CD30 Rep. Brad Sherman (D)
CD31 Rep. Grace F. Napolitano (D)	CD32 Rep. Henry Waxman (D)
CD36 Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D)

This bill has not yet been considered by the Senate. We urge all AU-GLA chapter members to contact your Congressional representative and your state's senators and let them know your opinion on this issue. You can find out how your representative voted and send a letter of thanks or disappointment.

Americans United / Greater Los Angeles Chapter Chair Stuart Bechman on the Jesse Lee Peterson Radio Show Wednesday, Dec. 19, 6am

Stuart Bechman, chair of the Greater Los Angeles chapter of Americans United, will be speaking about the recent decision by the Santa Monica City Council to suspend their annual Winter Forum program (a program which had traditionally included 14 full-size Christian nativity scenes that covered 1/4 mile on city park property along Ocean Blvd. in Santa Monica every December), and the backlash that recent decision created among the Santa Monica Christian community.  Stuart recently had a letter published about the decision in the Los Angeles Times.

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson is the Founder and President of BOND Action, Inc., a nonprofit, 501 (c) (4) organization, (BOND's activist and political arm) which exists to educate, motivate and rally Americans to greater involvement in the moral, cultural and political issues that threaten our great country. Jesse Lee is also the Founder and President for the past 19 years of BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, a non-profit, 501 (c) 3 organization, whose purpose is "Rebuilding the Family By Rebuilding the Man". He is the author of the bold and highly popular books, "SCAM: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America" and "From Rage to Responsibility" and "The Seven Guaranteed Steps To Spiritual, Family, and Financial Success" guide. He is also the host of the nationwide Jesse Lee Peterson Radio Show, a TV host and a highly sought-after speaker.

The Jesse Lee Peterson Radio Show can be heard on-line at http://www.bondaction.org/content/radioshowhome and is live Monday through Friday from 6 - 9 am with podcast downloads available from the website.  Stuart's portion of the show will begin at approximately 7am this Wednesday, December 19.  The show will be available as a downloadable podcast after 9am on Wednesday, Dec. 19.

Riverside City Approves Funding for Religious War Memorial

A proposed taxpayer-built veterans memorial that has caused controversy since its design was unveiled will be built at Diamond Stadium with a depiction of a Christian cross, the Lake Elsinore City Council decided unanimously, 5-0, on Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012.

The memorial is to consist of a large tablet with an image of a soldier kneeling before a Christian cross beneath a depiction of a bald eagle. News reports indicate that the city may add a Star of David emblem as well.

The city council approved the memorial despite letters of opposition from the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, explaining how the monuments ignores soldiers who are not Christians (or Jews), and the legal action arm of the American Humanist Association, explaining that the memorial would be unconstitutional.

Join Us in Visiting Our Congressional Representatives This Election Season!

Americans United - Greater Los Angeles is organizing constituent visits to Congressional representatives from our area, and we want YOU to come.

Over the next 8 weeks, Americans United / GLA will be organizing office visits with several of the Congressional House members from the 25th to the 40th California Congressional District that represent the Greater Los Angeles area. If you are interested in joining a delegation to meet with YOUR Congressman about the importance of church-state separation, please drop us a note at AU-LosAngeles@gmail.com with your Congressional district, and we will be in touch with you about visit details.

Several of the congressional district numbers and boundaries have shifted for this election, so if you are not sure which Congressional district you are in, you can look it up by your address or ZIP code here. Be sure to click on the '2012 Districts' box to check the districts for THIS election.

Our representatives need to be reminded that we CARE about the First Amendment, and they should, too. Let's let them know this election season!