Crossposted from SmokeyMonkey.org. Please see the Newsweek article linked at the bottom. I posted this to my website before I read the Newsweek article. They are closely related.
Receiving subcommittee action last week was H.R.2679, the Public Expression of Religion Act. This piece of legislation is brief, and designed to chip away at the foundation of the First Amendment by excluding compensation for prosecuting attacks on the establishment clause.
To amend the Revised Statutes of the United States to eliminate the chilling effect on the constitutionally protected expression of religion by State and local officials that results from the threat that potential litigants may seek damages and attorney's fees. [emphasis mine]
The purpose and support for this legislation is very clear. The very threat of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) can prevent violations of the First Amendment's establishment clause. Please read below about this attempt to nullify First Amendment protections.
If you search on "Public Expression of Religion Act", two main sites come up in favor of it: family.org (Focus on the Family) and stoptheACLU.com. We're all familiar with the theocratic bent of Focus on the Family. And, of course, StoptheACLU has recently been villified for its role in exposing the addresses of families in Delaware attempting to stop religious persecution in their small town.
More importantly, they have recruited former ACLU attorney Rees Lloyd (now working for the American Legion), who has this amazing quote in the family.org article:
It's eleven miles off the highway. It's in the middle of the desert. You have to drive to it to be offended by it. A judge says tear it down and gave the ACLU 63 thousand dollars.
The case in question is Buono v. Norton. The ruling said this:
This case is squarely controlled by Separation of Church & State Committee v. City of Eugene. In SCSC, plaintiffs alleged that a "fifty-one foot concrete Latin cross with neon inset tubing," located at the crest of a hill in a city park, violated the Establishment Clause...
Defendants seek to distinguish SCSC by contrasting the visibility and location of the two crosses. They point out that the SCSC cross was fifty-one feet tall, illuminated with neon tubing and located in a city park adjacent to Eugene's downtown business district. By contrast, the Sunrise Rock cross is five to eight feet tall, "is in a remote location, is not projected toward the public, and is not illuminated the way the cross was in SCSC..."
These distinctions are of no moment. Though not illuminated, the cross here is bolted to a rock outcropping rising fifteen to twenty feet above grade and is visible to vehicles on the adjacent road from a hundred yards away. Even if the shorter height of the Sunrise Rock cross means that it is visible to fewer people than was the SCSC cross, this makes it no less likely that the Sunrise Rock cross will project a message of government endorsement to a reasonable observer.
In other words, and Lloyd should know this, it makes absolutely zero difference how far into the public, government-owned land the religious symbol is, it is still illegal to have religious symbols on public land. In fact, the plaintiff frequently visited the area and was offended by the cross, hence the lawsuit.
Back to discussion of H.R.2679, the following is the money clause in the legislation:
The remedies with respect to a claim under this section where the deprivation consists of a violation of a prohibition in the Constitution against the establishment of religion shall be limited to injunctive relief.
This is like decriminalizing school prayer, religious icons in courthouses, and any number of other violations of the First Amendment. It may seem like a small, ineffective piece of legislation, but the effect would be to inundate the courts with frivolous establishment clause suits. Essentially, it would send a signal to every school board and city council in the country that the Congress will make laws regarding the establishment of religion, and you are free to test those laws in court. It is devious, and it is unconstitutional. H.R.2679 must be opposed.
Sources
Washington Post, June, 2004.
See also
Bringing the church to the courtroom from Newsweek. The article talks about The Alliance Defense Fund and its anti-ACLU efforts.