BJC reduces budget, updates board, elects officers_102003

Posted: 10/17/03

BJC reduces budget, updates board, elects officers

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)–Directors of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs adopted a smaller budget and heard a report on the organization's work–including its involvement with an important upcoming Supreme Court case–during the group's annual meeting this fall.

Convening at First Baptist Church of Washington, directors of the religious-liberty watchdog organization adopted a 2004 budget of $1.06 million–slightly less than the 2003 budget.

Executive Director Brent Walker noted the BJC finished 2002 with a sudden upswing in contributions and significant growth in its number of individual donors. However, he said, “The bad news is that the first eight months of this year have been terrible–like night and day.”

Walker noted that an anemic stock market made the situation worse for income from the organization's endowment funds.

General Counsel Holly Hollman highlighted several legislative and legal areas in which the group is working to promote the separation of church and state. She also announced the BJC has weighed in on a case the Supreme Court agreed to hear that deals with the use of government funds for religious instruction.

The high court agreed in May to hear arguments in Locke vs. Davey. Joshua Davey applied under a program in Washington state that provides scholarships to disadvantaged students who want to attend in-state colleges. The scholarships may be spent at any accredited school, including religious ones.

Davey, who qualified under the program's rules, elected to spend his scholarship at Northwest College, a Seattle-area Bible school affiliated with the Assemblies of God. However, the state revoked the scholarship when officials found out Davey planned to major in theology and business management.

State officials cited a provision in Washington's constitution that prohibits the state from spending any money on religious instruction. Davey sued the state with the help of the American Center for Law and Justice, a legal-advocacy group founded by Religious Right leader Pat Robertson that often opposes a strict interpretation of church-state separation.

Davey won in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, generally considered one of the nation's most liberal federal appeals courts. A three-judge panel of that court ruled 2-1 that the Washington constitutional provision, as well as a similar state statute, violated Davey's freedom of religious expression under the U.S. Constitution. Washington Gov. Gary Locke appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.

Hollman said the BJC had joined the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress and the American Federation of Teachers on a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, asking the justices to overturn the 9th Circuit's ruling.

Hollman said the ruling, if upheld, could set a dangerous and wide-ranging precedent for government funding of religious groups. While the Supreme Court previously ruled it is permissible for government organizations to provide vouchers or scholarships that can flow indirectly to religious groups, the Locke case has the potential to extend that into a finding that states are required to include religious groups in such programs if they already include secular groups.

Referring to the specific ban on state support for religious schools in Washington's constitution and similar provisions in other state constitutions, Hollman said, “The Locke vs. Davey case is really a frontal assault on these state constitutional provisions.”

In other action, directors elected new BJC officers for 2003-2004.

The new board chairman is Jeffrey Haggray, a representative from the Progressive National Baptist Convention and executive director of the District of Columbia Baptist Convention. He is a member of Washington's Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist Church. Haggray replaces Reginald McDonough of Virginia.

The BJC's new vice chairman is Ray Swatkowski, a representative from the Baptist General Conference and the conference's executive vice president. He lives in Zion, Ill. Swatkowski replaces Ed Massey of Kentucky.

The new second vice chairman is Glen Howie, who represents the North American Baptist Conference. He is an attorney and also serves as the part-time pastor of Mowata Baptist Church in Eunice, La. Howie replaces Margaret Ann Cowden of Pennsylvania.

The new secretary is Sue Bennett, representing the Religious Liberty Council. Bennett is president of Bennett Enterprise in Tulsa, Okla., and a member of Southern Hills Baptist Church. She replaces Richard Bloom of Illinois.