WASHINGTON (RNS)—President Obama spoke at length Feb. 3 about the daily contours of his Christian faith, brushing off the skeptics who question the authenticity of his beliefs.

“My Christian faith … has been a sustaining force for me over these last few years, all the more so when Michelle and I hear our faith questioned from time to time,” Obama told thousands of political leaders, diplomats and religious officials at the National Prayer
Breakfast.
“We are reminded that ultimately what matters is not what other people say about us but whether we are being true to our conscience and true to our God.”

The president’s remarks come in the wake of polls that showed Americans harbor persistent questions about Obama’s faith, with one in four thinking he is a Muslim, and 43 percent unable to say which faith he follows.

Thursday’s speech reflects a renewed emphasis on faith in the president’s public remarks, as when he spoke at Christmas of the birth of Christ being “a story that’s dear to Michelle and me as Christians,” and said the Christmas story “guides my Christian faith.”

As the son of parents who largely shunned organized religion, Obama said, he was influenced by clergy of the civil rights movement, including the late Martin Luther King Jr. and leaders of the Jewish, Muslim and Hindu faiths.

As a community organizer working with churches on Chicago’s South Side, Obama said, “I came to know Jesus Christ for myself and embrace him as my Lord and Savior.”
Obama said he is supported by the prayers of well-known religious leaders and countless unknown grass-roots supporters. He has prayed in the Oval Office with “pastor friends” like megachurch leaders Joel Hunter of Florida and Bishop T.D. Jakes of Dallas, and enjoys “consistent respite and fellowship” in the chapel at the Camp David presidential retreat.

He said his children’s godmother has organized prayer circles across the nation to pray for him.

“Once I started running for president and she heard what they were saying about me on cable, she felt the need to pray harder,” he said.

“By the time I was elected president, she says, `I just couldn’t keep up on my own. I was having to pray eight, nine times a day just for you.’ So she enlisted help from around the country.”

Obama said he prays in the morning for “strength to do right” and at bedtime, “I wait on the Lord and I ask him to forgive me my sins.”

He also joked that his prayers have shaped his life as a father and husband.

“Lord, give me patience as I watch Malia go to her first dance, where there will be boys,” he said of his older daughter. “Lord, have that skirt get longer as she travels to that dance.”

Obama was greeted outside the Washington Hilton by a small group of protesters who claim that some members of the evangelical organization that sponsors the annual breakfast support harsh anti-gay laws in Uganda.

Obama did not mention the controversy, as he did at last year’s breakfast when he condemned as “odious” proposed legislation in Uganda to impose the death penalty on HIV-positive gays and lesbians.

The bill, which has not been voted on, was drafted by a Ugandan lawmaker with ties to The Family, the evangelical organization that sponsors the breakfast. On Jan. 26, prominent gay-rights activist David Kato was murdered in his Kampala home after he and other “known homos” were displayed on the front pages of a Ugandan newspaper.

“It is an absolute affront to my faith to say they stand for Christianity and then to stand for hate and bigotry as well,” said one of the protesters, Joey Heath, a second-year student at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington.

Watch a video of Obama's remarks here.

Richard Yeakley contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Six feet above the vaulted entranceway to Washington National Cathedral, the rough contours of Rosa Parks’ face are taking shape.

Using a motorized hammer and chiseling tools that date back centuries, stone carver Sean Callahan is working patiently on a new bust of the civil rights heroine.

“I have to be aware of the significance of it,” he said. “It puts pressure on me to get it right. I have to pay respect to her in that sense.”

Across the Human Rights “porch” in the cathedral’s narthex, Parks soon will be joined by another famous woman, Mother Teresa.

Callahan, a 45-year-old Catholic, was not alive when Parks made history by staying seated on a segregated bus and helping spark the civil rights movement; but he remembers hearing about Teresa, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning nun, when he was growing up.

Starting with Parks, Callahan is using a pointing machine, whose brass arms adjust as he measures a plaster model that acts as an exact guide for the carving, chiseled from a block of stone in the narthex.

“It’s kind of like a three-dimensional connecting the dots,” Callahan said.

He carefully places the machine within 1/16th of an inch of the model before shifting the device to his stone canvas nearby.

“If you mismeasure this, then everything’s off,” he explained.

The delicate details of Parks’ face will surface from what at first looks like a mass of dots and parallel chiseled lines. The dots indicate how far down he must chisel each part of the stone to develop the contours of the finished bust.

Eventually, he will have to leave the machine behind and do the final work by eye, which, he says, is the toughest part.

“Portraits are particularly difficult because everyone recognizes them,” he said. “If you’re doing something like a hand or a gargoyle, it’s not as critical. But it’s an indefinable thing to make the face come alive. It’s hard to explain, but that’s just something that takes patience and practice to get the hang of.”

Callahan, who worked as an apprentice under stone carvers at the cathedral in the 1980s, has done restoration work on the White House exterior and gargoyles in private gardens. The cathedral hired him six years ago.

As he stands amid temporary scaffolding, a carving of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt peeks over his shoulder.

Others already enshrined in the “human rights” portal include slain Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero and Bishop John Walker, the first black Episcopal bishop of Washington.

“The people selected to appear in the iconography of the Human Rights Porch were chosen because of their extraordinary actions and contributions to the cause of human rights, social justice and the welfare of their fellow human beings,” said Samuel T. Lloyd III, dean of the cathedral.

Callahan’s work began a week before the country marked the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., with whom Parks worked closely. The sculptures of Parks and Mother Teresa, based on clay models by North Carolina sculptor Chas Fagan, are due to be completed by Easter.

“That quiet strength is, I think, the common denominator,” Fagan said of the two women he sculpted. “Rosa Parks definitely showed it with her actions and through her own life, and the same with Mother Teresa.”

Fagan, 45, who crafted the sculpture of President Ronald Reagan that stands in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, worked with cathedral craftsmen to complete the model so the faces of the women fit artistically within the cathedral’s architecture. While he could “fix my mistakes” as he sculpted, he said, there’s “no wiggle room” when Callahan gets to the carving stage.

With these figures, the landmark cathedral that was officially finished in 1990 is educating worshippers just like the cathedrals of old, Fagan said.

“Now that the structural stuff is complete, there’s a chance to do what all the other cathedrals did in their own time,” he said. “Just fill all the niches and teach through the art.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa has concluded a three-year probe into alleged lavish spending at six major broadcast ministries and asked a prominent evangelical group to study ways to spur self-reform among religious groups.

Since 2007, Grassley, the outgoing top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has pursued allegations of high salaries and the use of private jets and Rolls Royces by some of the nation’s most prominent TV ministers.

On Jan. 6, he released a final 61-page review that said evangelists Benny Hinn of Texas and Joyce Meyer of Missouri had made “significant reforms” to their operations, but four others provided incomplete or no responses.

Grassley asked the Evangelical Council on Financial Accountability to conduct a formal study of issues raised by his staff, including whether churches, like other nonprofits, should be required to file detailed financial disclosure forms to the Internal Revenue Service.

“The staff review sets the stage for a comprehensive discussion among churches and religious organizations,” Grassley said in a statement. “I look forward to helping facilitate this dialogue and fostering an environment for self-reform within the community.”

Both Grassley and ECFA officials said they hope to resolve issues in ways that do not involve new legislation.

“Less government is better, and I think both ECFA and the senator espouse that philosophy,” said Michael Batts, an ECFA board member and certified public accountant who will chair the ECFA’s new Commission on Accountability and Policy for Religious Organizations.

Although the association has worked primarily on certifying the financial integrity of evangelical groups, the commission’s work will include a range of religious organizations and other nonprofits, he said.

“These issues are the types of issues that transcend theology and doctrine and actually relate to the freedoms and the practices of all religious organizations,” he said.

There is no timetable set for how long the new commission will work before sending Grassley a report, but ECFA President Dan Busby said it would be “a robust process” of more than a few months.

Among the issues it will consider are:

• Whether there should be limits on clergy housing allowances
• Whether tax rules about “love offerings” received by clergy should be clarified
• Whether current laws that prohibit partisan politicking in churches should be changed
• Whether the IRS should create an advisory committee of churches and other religious organizations.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State criticized the report’s recommendation of repealing the prohibition of church electioneering.

“If these multimillion-dollar ministries are already misusing their donations for personal gain, imagine how much more dangerous they would be operating in the world of partisan politics,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United.

Grassley staffers determined they did not have “time or resources” to issue subpoenas to the four ministries that did not completely respond to their inquiries. They instead issued reports based on public records, third parties and insiders.

Among their findings:

• Insiders in Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Fort Worth said they were intimidated from speaking with committee staff, with one former employee saying they were told “God will blight our finances” if they talked.
• Georgia pastor Creflo Dollar’s ministry was called the “least cooperative,” with staffers unable to determine the names of board members.
• The majority of questions asked by Grassley staffers of Bishop Eddie Long’s megachurch in Lithonia, Ga., remained unanswered, including the amount of his salary.
• Several former staffers at Paula White’s megachurch in Tampa, Fla., wanted to speak with staffers but “were afraid of being sued by the church,” and at least one was reminded by a church lawyer of a previously signed confidentiality agreement.

WASHINGTON (ABP) — Melissa Rogers is a veteran religious-liberty attorney and nationally recognized expert in church-state law. She currently is director of the Center for Religion and Public Affairs at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity. She also serves as a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, and recently completed a term as the first chair of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. She has served as general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. In an e-mail interview, she reflects on some major developments in her field over the last decade and where things might go in the decade that just began:

Melissa Rogers

Q: What have been the most important developments for religious liberty – legally, politically and culturally – in the last decade?

A:

• More types of government funding flowing to more kinds of religious institutions. (This is courtesy of a continuing trend at the Supreme Court toward interpreting the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause in ways that place fewer restrictions on government funding and religious institutions and activities.)
• A trend toward limiting taxpayer standing to challenge certain potential Establishment Clause violations. (The Supreme Court kicked off this trend by placing more restrictions on the types of challenges that may be brought regarding potential Establishment Clause violations.)
• Continued ability of states and localities to maintain policies that are more restrictive regarding government funding [of] religious institutions and activities than what the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause requires, as long as those policies do not violate the federal Constitution (e.g., Locke v. Davey).
• The debate over the free-exercise rights of American Muslims intensifies.
• The increasing prominence of a group of evangelicals that has a different set of priorities than the so-called “Religious Right.” The “Religious Right” movement still exists, and many evangelicals continue to be at least somewhat sympathetic with a number of its positions on church-state issues. But a significant number of evangelicals — many of them young — are prioritizing issues such as care for God’s creation, concern for the poor and vulnerable, and nuclear disarmament.
• The growth in the number or prominence of secular organizations playing roles in this field, such as the Secular Coalition for America and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and the aggressive campaigns of “new atheists” like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins.
• Public schools take more steps to encourage academic teaching about religion.

Q: What issues, trends or potential battles do you see on the horizon in 2011?

A:

• A continuing debate over plans for an Islamic center in Lower Manhattan and plans for mosques in some American cities. The court battle will continue over the Oklahoma measure that bars state courts from considering Sharia, while other states are likely to consider similar measures. [New York Republican and House Homeland Security Committee Chair] Rep. Peter King’s hearings on “Islamic radicalization” will likely reignite a bitter national debate over the place of Islam in America, terrorism, and free exercise rights.
• Battles over policies requiring nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and the extent of exemptions for religious organizations from such policies.
• Continued debate over conscience clause issues in the health-care arena. The Department of Health and Human Services may complete a rule-making process on these issues in early 2011.
• The interagency working group established by President Obama’s November 2010 executive order [in response to the recommendations of the faith-based advisory council] will submit a report regarding implementation of the terms of the executive order and related matters in mid-March 2011. Advisory Council members and others who care about these issues will watch this process carefully.
• There will be mounting pressure on the Obama administration to implement a campaign promise to prohibit all organizations, including religious ones, from discriminating on the basis of religion in government-funded jobs. At the same time, a different coalition will fight hard to maintain the status quo.
• A Supreme Court decision by summer in the Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn case.
• Lawsuits will continue over sectarian references in official prayers before legislative meetings.

Q: Expanding that into the following decade, where do you see trends taking the United States and the rest of the world in 2011-2020 in terms of religious freedom?

A: I’m limiting myself here to the United States, and I’m mostly raising questions instead of trying to forecast trends:

• What stamp will the Roberts Court put on establishment and free-exercise issues? Will it continue to limit standing to challenge alleged Establishment Clause violations? Will it revisit the endorsement test formulated by former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor? Will at least certain members of the court call for it to revisit its 1990 Employment Division v. Smith decision?
• What role will Justice Elena Kagan play on religious-liberty issues?
• Will the numbers of the “nones” (those who claim no religious affiliation) continue to grow at a rapid pace, and, if so, how will this affect law, public policy, and politics? What will be the trajectory of evangelicals who distinguish themselves from the “Religious Right” movement?
• If Mitt Romney runs for president in 2012, we will once again debate whether his Mormon faith is relevant to his candidacy, and, if so, how.
• How will the Tea Party movement incorporate those who have been pushing for a much weaker interpretation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause? How much attention will be given to themes like these in upcoming elections and in law and policy at other times?
• As more religious institutions receive more types of government funding, how will it affect their ability to be true to their missions and to raise private money?
• How will limits on lawsuits brought to enforce the Establishment Clause affect the degree to which Establishment Clause values are honored by government?
• To what extent will religion be viewed and treated as distinctive in law and policy? Will current trends toward treating religion and religious institutions more like secular ideas, institutions, and pursuits expand? And, if so, how will that change religious liberty, religion, and religious institutions?

 — Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.

NEW YORK (ABP) — Observers of religion in public life have been scratching their heads about inclusion of a Baptist scholar known for advocating the separation of church and state in a recent Newsweek magazine article titled "Faces of the Christian Right."

The photo slideshow named Melissa Rogers, director of the Center for Religion and Public Affairs at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, as one of 11 individuals who speak for a new Religious Right described as "more strategically, denominationally and ideologically diverse" than before.

Melissa Rogers

Her name appeared alongside well-known social conservatives including Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Jim Daly of Focus on the Family as possible successors to leaders like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson now retiring from the political stage.

Newsweek chose Rogers, a former staff member at the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, for her recently finished term as chair of President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The group made recommendations about how to provide taxpayer funding for social services by religious institutions without violating the First Amendment's restriction on government sponsorship of religion.

"It's not as sexy as praying with the president, but it's the sort of stuff that fundamentally shapes the relationship between the government and the church for years to come," Newsweek reported.

Pundits that follow religion and politics reacted swiftly.

"Legal scholar Melissa Rogers is most decidedly not a member of the Christian right," Sarah Posner, associate editor of Religion Dispatches, weighed in.

Posner described Rogers, who also is a senior fellow with the Washington think tank the Brookings Institution, as "one of the country's best authorities on church-state separation law and an advocate for enforcement of the Establishment Clause."

Posner continued: "Not only would Rogers herself be surprised to be on the list, I'd imagine, but so would the Christian right itself: one of its core aims is the reversal of Supreme Court jurisprudence on the separation of church and state."

Looking over the Newsweek listing, Steve Thorngate at Christian Century found little they all have in common "other than being Christians, broadly right to center-left theologically, who have some degree of political influence in one area or another."

Sarah Pulliam Bailey at the Get Religion blog recalled an article she wrote last year in Christianity Today questioning whether the term "Christian/religious right" is even helpful anymore.

Rogers said she talked to reporters at Newsweek and hoped the headline would be changed. After it appeared that was not going to happen, she registered her objection in a comment on Newsweek's website.

"I'm a Christian, but I'm not part of the 'Christian Right,'" she wrote "That's partially because the terms 'Christian Right' or 'Religious Right' suggest that a person holds a set of positions, a number of which I have actively opposed."

While no one familiar with her work "would describe me as a member of the Christian Right," Rogers said, "At the same time, I don't claim to be part of the 'Christian Left.'"

"Part of my concern with both of these titles is that they often describe situations in which political views define religious views," she commented.

Another name on the Newsweek list was Jim Wallis, a progressive evangelical whose advocacy against social ills like poverty and inequality earlier this year prompted Fox News personality Glenn Beck to advise his conservative listeners to leave churches that teach "social justice."

Aaron Weaver, a doctoral student in religion, politics and society who writes a weekly news review for Baptists Today labeled the Newsweek article "religion journalism at its worst."

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

WASHINGTON (ABP) — Early on in his House tenure, someone lit a religious-liberty fire under Rep. Chet Edwards — and, despite Edwards’ position in the most Republican House district in the country to be represented by a Democrat, that fire never burned him.

Although the self-described “husband of a Baptist preacher’s daughter” has represented a very conservative and rural part of Central Texas for nearly 20 years while simultaneously and outspokenly advocating for strict church-state separation in Congress, he never suffered any significant political damage from his stances on religion. What finally did the 59-year-old in last month is the same anti-incumbent, anti-government wave that upended virtually all moderate and conservative Democrats representing “red” districts this year.

Outoing Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Texas) has earned a reputation as a staunch, if unlikely, defender of church-state separation in Congress. (Photo courtesy Edwards\' office)

“I never lost an election over this issue,” Edwards said in a Dec. 2 interview from his House Appropriations subcommittee office. “My defeat in 2010 was more about national politics and the nation’s unemployment rate than it was about church-state.”

But even if he had finally lost his seat (which he held onto even after Lone Star State Republicans re-drew district lines in 2005 specifically to oust him) over his defense of church-state separation, Edwards said, it would have been worth it.

“If you’re not willing to lose an election over important principles, then you don’t deserve to ever win an election,” he said. “And church-state separation has always been an issue that I was more than willing to lose over, because I know there are a lot of people throughout the world who have sacrificed more than elections in their defense of religious freedom.”

Inspired by Reynolds and Truett

Although Edwards still officially lists himself as a Methodist in congressional biographies, he has long attended Baptist churches — Calvary Baptist Church when he is at home in Waco, Texas; and McLean Baptist Church in Washington’s Northern Virginia suburbs. He credits a Baptist university president and a famous Baptist preacher’s sermon with inspiring in him a deep passion for religious liberty and church-state separation.

“About 15 years ago, Herb Reynolds and I were having lunch together … and we started talking about church-state issues and he sent me a copy of George Truett’s speech on the steps of the Capitol in 1920 on religious liberty,” he said. “And after I read that speech, I was hooked.”

At the time Reynolds, who died in 2007, was president of Baylor University. Truett, legendary pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas from 1897 to 1944, delivered his famous Capitol-steps speech to Southern Baptist Convention messengers, meeting in Washington in 1920, extolling religious liberty.

“That utterance of Jesus, ‘Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's,’ is one of the most revolutionary and history-making utterances that ever fell from those lips divine,” Truett said in one of the most-quoted portions of his speech. “That utterance, once for all, marked the divorcement of church and state. It marked a new era for the creeds and deeds of men. It was the sunrise gun of a new day, the echoes of which are to go on and on and on until in every land, whether great or small, the doctrine shall have absolute supremacy everywhere of a free church in a free state.”

Reynolds’ advice and Truett’s words helped convince Edwards of church-state separation’s paramount importance in safeguarding religious freedom.

“What was so clear to me in Truett’s speech was the idea that religious freedom was a divine gift, and it is sacrilegious to infringe … on that freedom,” he said.

But Edwards didn’t see many of his fellow moderate-to-conservative Democrats in Congress talking much about church-state issues.

“I started asking around in the House and found very few members who had focused on this issue. And I decided somebody has to speak up — and that we need voices that come not just from the ACLU and other liberal organizations,” he said. “We need moderate and conservative voices speaking out in defense of church-state separation — because, after all, it is a very conservative principle, the idea that religion should be put on a pedestal high enough to be beyond the reach of politicians or politics.”

Fight over school prayer

His first chance came quickly. In mid-1995, a House committee began having hearings on a proposed constitutional amendment, championed by then-Rep. Ernest Istook (R-Okla.), to make room for “student-sponsored” prayer in public schools as well as “acknowledgements of the of the religious heritage, belief or traditions of the people.” Edwards became one of its most outspoken opponents, and it eventually the amendment was derailed.

For his role in stopping Istook's efforts, Edwards earned the scorn of the Christian Coalition. They distributed a brochure to voters in his district accusing the young congressman of being un-American — and, even worse, un-Texan — for his opposition to the amendment.

“And I thought how odd it is that I can be accused of being un-American because I was defending the Bill of Rights,” he said.

Edwards went on to weigh in repeatedly in favor of strict church-state separation in fights over things like public display of the Ten Commandments and government funding for religious charities.

He’s been given religious-liberty awards by several Baptist organizations, including the board of directors of Associated Baptist Press.

On social issues other than religious liberty, though, Edwards has often been criticized from the left. Gay-rights groups give him poor marks while the National Rifle Association rates him highly. He opposed the health-care-reform bill that President Obama signed earlier this year.

Islam and the future

In September, Edwards took some hits from friends in the religious-liberty community for issuing a statement opposing a controversial Islamic community center planned for a site a few blocks away from the former World Trade Center location in Lower Manhattan.

But Edwards said his opposition was a matter of prudence rather than the law.

“I tried to be very clear in my statement that I believe that Muslims have the right to build mosques or community centers where any other faith has the right to build such a house of worship or center,” he said. "I felt that, given some of the far-right talk-show discussions and the environment in the country, that this would actually push us backwards in terms of rights for Muslims,” he said.

Edwards believes the ongoing controversy over the site has proven his fears right. “That whole debate created a backlash against Muslims in this country and we need less of that, not more of that,” he said.

The rights of Muslims may be the next big test of religious liberty in the United States, he contended — and that fits in with a pattern in American history of threatening the rights of unpopular religious minorities.

“The pathway to losing religious liberty begins not by inhibiting the rights of the majority but the rights of the minority,” he said. “Once that foundation — that foundation of religious liberty for every citizen — is undermined, then the foundation upon which we all stand is put at risk.”

While polls show that fiscal rather than social issues were important to the voters who put Republicans in charge of the House this time around, Edwards believes the culture wars will inevitably return to the fore in the 112th Congress.

“My guess would be that, if not in 2011, in the 2012 election year there will be a rash of bills introduced to not just chip away but tear down the wall of separation between church and state,” he warned.

Baptist advocates for church-state separation who have worked with Edwards over the years are lamenting his impending departure from Congress.

“Chet has been a dedicated public servant and a great friend of religious liberty,” said Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. “His long-standing commitment to the principle of religious liberty and willingness to speak out on its behalf served as a witness to other members of Congress, who counted on his voice on the issue.”
 

Related ABP stories:

Hundreds gather in Waco to honor late Baylor president Reynolds (5/31/2007)

In reauthorizing Head Start, House rejects religious discrimination (5/4/2007)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (ABP) — A state appellate court in California has dismissed a lawsuit filed by plaintiffs including a former Southern Baptist Convention officer claiming that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and therefore is not eligible to occupy the White House.

California's Third District Court of Appeals threw the lawsuit out Oct. 25, ruling that election officials are not required to erase doubts about Obama's eligibility among individuals who have come to be known as "birthers."

Wiley Drake

Retired Presiding Justice Arthur Scotland, sitting by assignment, said determining the eligibility of a presidential candidate is the responsibility of party officials and Congress and not California's Secretary of State.

The court said plaintiffs Alan Keyes, Wiley Drake and Markham Robinson failed to prove that a lower court erred in finding that Secretary of State Debra Bowen had a duty to administer a legal election but not to investigate whether nominees of political parties are eligible.

"Any investigation of eligibility is best left to each party, which presumably will conduct the appropriate background check or risk that its nominee's election will be derailed by an objection in Congress, which is authorized to entertain and resolve the validity of objections following the submission of the electoral votes," Scotland wrote in the court's opinion.

Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., served as second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2006-2007. He was Keyes' vice presidential running mate on the California ballot in the 2008 presidential election. Both were nominated by the state's American Independent Party. Markham was the party chairman.

The trio had asked the appeals court to order the Secretary of State to verify the "constitutionally required qualifications of Obama, and any and all future candidates" for president. To do otherwise, they argued, "not only allows, but promotes, an overwhelming degree of disrespect for our Constitution and for our electoral process, and creates such a lack of confidence of voters in the primary and electoral process itself, that it would confirm a common belief that no politician has to obey the laws of this Country, respect our election process, or follow the United States Constitution."

Drake's attorney, Gary Kreep of the conservative advocacy group United States Justice Foundation, reportedly planned to meet with his clients to discuss whether to appeal the dismissal.

Kreep recently filed a court paper in a similar case under appeal in federal court arguing that allowing a lower court's ruling against his clients to stand would strip minorities in the U.S. of "all political power" and allow laws to be based "upon the whims of the majority" instead of the Constitution.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

Previous story:

Drake's lawyer claims legal precedent for courts to remove a head of state

WASHINGTON (ABP) – Abortion and gay rights appear to be decoupling as important dividing lines among Americans when it comes to social issues, according to recent surveys on values, faith and public life.

Rising support for legally recognized same-sex unions and other gay-rights issues alongside relatively steady numbers regarding support for legalized abortion confirm the findings of other studies. And the cleavage between the two issues as indicators of social or religious conservatism is particularly apparent among younger voters.

“The survey reveals a decoupling of the social issues of same-sex marriage and abortion, which have traditionally been mentioned in the same breath in the public discourse,” said Robert Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, which released the second set of findings from its biennial American Values Survey Oct. 13.

They show an eight-point increase in support for same-sex marriage since 2008 as well as massive generation gaps between older and younger voters in their relative support for gay unions.

The poll showed that 37 percent of respondents favored full civil marriage rights for same-sex couples, up from 29 percent who supported them in 2008. Another 27 percent said they believe gay couples should be allowed to enter into civil unions short of marriage. Only 33 percent opposed any sort of legal recognition for same-sex couples.

The generation gap on the issue was stark. Among the youngest group surveyed (ages 18-29), a full three-quarters supported full same-sex marriage rights (52 percent) or civil unions (23 percent). But among those age 65 and over, only a small majority voiced support for same-sex marriage (22 percent) or civil unions (29 percent).

The survey also showed that white evangelicals are the major religious group most opposed to same-sex marriage. While nearly six out of 10 white evangelicals said they oppose gay marriage and a slight majority of African-American Protestants did, majorities of mainline Protestants and Catholics were supportive.

The generation gap in support of gay marriage held across all religious groups, including among white evangelicals.

And while nearly a fifth of respondents said they had become more supportive of gay rights in the last five years, only 6 percent said they had become less supportive.

Meanwhile, when it came to abortion, 55 percent of all respondents said it should be legal in all or most cases, while 42 percent said it should be illegal in all or most cases — reflecting proportions of the population that have held fairly steady for decades. More tellingly, 7 percent said they had become more supportive of abortion rights in the last five years. In the same period an identical percentage said they had become less supportive of legalized abortion.

While support for abortion rights was fairly similar across age groups, figures on other social questions also reflected a generation gap.

“Our survey found that nearly two-thirds of Americans under 30 say that one of the biggest problems in the country is that not everyone is given an equal chance in life. Less than half of adults age 65 and older see this as one of the biggest problems,” said Dan Cox, the institute’s director of research.

The findings of increasing support for gay marriage reflect other recent studies. A study released Oct. 6 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found 42 percent of Americans supported gay marriage, while 48 percent opposed it. It was the first time in the Pew Forum’s 15-year history of asking the question that opposition to same-sex marriage had fallen below 50 percent. Unlike the Public Religion Research Institute survey, the Pew Forum study did not ask respondents about their support for civil unions.

The poll of 3,013 adults was conducted the first two weeks of September. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points. A first set of findings, released the week before, found that there was much more overlap between the Tea Party movement and the Religious Right than many pundits suggest.

–Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.

Previous ABP story:

New poll finds large overlap in Religious Right, Tea Party (10/6/2010)

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Six months after advisers turned in 164 pages of recommendations to the White House’s faith-based office, thorny church-state questions remain unanswered and some critics say the office has been used to push the president’s health care reform.

Joshua DuBois, head of the White House Office for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, says his office is making slow but steady progress in implementing advisers’ recommendations and expects to have reforms announced soon. (RNS FILE PHOTO/ David Jolkovski)

Much of the work done by the White House Office of Faith-based & Neighborhood Partnerships has been low profile, and successors to the blue-ribbon advisory panel that ended its work in March haven’t been named.

Outsiders say whatever progress has been made has been done too quietly and that the White House has dragged its feet on a promise to change Bush-era rules that allow federal grant recipients to hire and fire based on religion.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s been six months of silence,” said Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, who served on a task force charged with reforming the office.

Joshua DuBois, who was tasked by President Obama with overhauling and expanding the office, estimated the administration has started or finished implementing at least half of the advisory council’s 64 recommendations.

Members of the original 25-member panel say the office is making gradual progress on their advice even if it is, as one adviser put it, “less sexy.”

DuBois insisted his office is making steady progress in mulling or implementing the council’s suggestions, even as he conceded, “We can always do more to get the word out about those efforts.”

“There’s a tremendous amount of work going on helping faith-based organizations serve people in need,” DuBois said, citing progress in feeding hungry children in Latino communities and flood disaster relief in Tennessee.

The announcement of a new set of advisers, which took longer than he expected, should occur “pretty soon,” he said.

According to an internal memo, the office is drafting an executive order to implement recommendations on internal reforms, which advisers had hoped would address church-state concerns.

DuBois declined to specify the nature of the reforms, but said: “I think you will see the exact form of that implementation soon. We’re working diligently on this.”

The office’s low profile has allowed it to fly below much of the political chatter in Washington, until recently when critics charged it was adopting the same practices that dogged the office under former President George W. Bush.

Critics have questioned why the office was involved in connecting faith leaders on a September conference call with the president about health care reform. Obama told clergy they could be “validators” for the reform, according to Politico.

“If that office is doing this, what are they not doing they should be doing?” asked Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance.

In a Washington Post column, former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson added: “Obama has mainly employed his faith-based office to defend federal initiatives, particularly health care reform.”

Some council members, however, said there was nothing inappropriate about the White House trying to reach a broader audience through religious leaders.

“When there are issues at the federal level and information that need to get out to a network, we’ve got a great relational network,” said. Peg Chemberlin, president of the National Council of Churches and a former advisory council member.

DuBois strongly rejected the criticism and said such outreach would continue.

“It is reflective of an important shift from the previous office and those officials … that really saw faith-based organizations only as recipients of dollars and cents as opposed to important partners on nonfinancial issues, like sharing health care information,” he said.

Melissa Rogers, a church-state expert who chaired the advisory council, said the office has moved to implement some of the council’s goals. She remains hopeful that the recommendations on “much needed reform of the church-state rules” will be acted on soon.

“The White House has been putting them through a process,” she said, “and the process is near the finish line.”

But the matter of whether faith-based organizations can make hiring decisions based on religion and still receive federal grants remains as it was in the Bush administration.

“It’s a continuing frustration that they haven’t moved to clarify this,” said Rabbi David Saperstein, a Reform Jewish leader and another former member of the council. White House officials decided early on that that question would not be included in the panel’s portfolio.

DuBois said the hiring issue is being reviewed “very closely” by the Justice Department and White House counsel but “there is no further update at this point.”

Some members of the council, including Florida megachurch leader Joel Hunter, acknowledge that the jury is still out on their year of work.

“Whether or not they implement the recommendations in a substantive way really does remain to be seen,” he said.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The last rites of a slain Marine clashed with a small church’s right to preach its anti-gay gospel in oral arguments heard before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Despite religion’s prominent role in the dispute, however, the justices seemed most interested in, and perplexed by, the limits of another First Amendment right—free speech.

Westboro Baptist Church, an independent Baptist congregation with about 50 members based in Topeka, Kan., has picketed nearly 200 military funerals in recent years with signs like “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “You’re Going to Hell.”

Founded in 1955 by Fred Phelps and composed mostly of his relatives, Westboro believes God is punishing America for its tolerance of homosexuality by killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2006, Albert Snyder filed a federal lawsuit against Westboro after church members picketed near his Marine son’s funeral in a Catholic church in Westminster, Md. Snyder argues the church infringed on his rights of privacy and religious expression, and it intentionally inflicted emotional distress with nasty signs targeted at his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder.

In addition to the funeral protest, Westboro posted a poem on its website accusing Snyder and his ex-wife of raising their son “to defy his Creator, to divorce and to commit adultery.”

A federal court partially sided with Snyder and awarded him $5 million in damages; an appeals court overturned that verdict, ruling for the church.

Supreme Court justices seemed torn between sympathizing with Snyder’s anguish and defending Westboro’s right to picket and preach, no matter how offensive its message.

Any ruling they deliver, the justices know, will have far-reaching implications for the First Amendment. The justices repeatedly raised hypothetical situations and pondered where to draw the lines between free speech and harassment, between offering opinions on public issues and targeting private citizens with invective.

Sean Summers, Snyder’s attorney, said, “I would hope the First Amendment wasn’t enacted to allow people to disrupt and harass people at someone else’s private funeral.”

Summers painted Westboro as publicity hounds who sought to “hijack someone else’s private event” to promote their church and inflict harm on the Snyders.

But the justices questioned whether Westboro’s apocalyptic picket signs were targeted at the Snyder family or the country at large. “It sounds like ‘You,’” in signs like “You Are Going to Hell,” is directed at “the whole rotten society in their view,” said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Westboro used many of the same signs to protest at the Maryland state capital the same day as the Snyder funeral, Ginsburg noted, meaning the church was likely targeting societal issues, not private families. Several justices alluded to the high court’s long history of protecting speech on matters of public concern.

But Ginsburg and other justices also appeared to empathize with the Snyder’s plight.

“This is a case about exploiting a private family’s grief,” she said. Ginsburg then asked Phelps’ daughter and church attorney, Margie Phelps, “Why should the First Amendment tolerate exploiting this Marine’s family when you have so many other forums for getting across your message?”

Margie Phelps said Americans are questioning why U.S. soldiers are dying, and Westboro Baptist Church has answers people need to hear. “We have an answer to your question … Our answer is that you have to stop sinning if you want this trauma to stop happening.”

“Nation, hear this little church,” Phelps said. “If you want to stop dying, stop sinning. That’s the only purpose of this little church.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor acknowledged some of Westboro’s pickets, such as those condemning America or its wars, involve public speech and are thus likely protected by the First Amendment. “I fully accept you’re entitled in some circumstances to speak about any political issue you want,” Sotomayor said. “But what’s the line between doing that and then personalizing it and creating hardship for the individual?”

WASHINGTON (ABP) — A church-state watchdog group says the Internal Revenue Service should investigate whether a New York church violated federal tax law by endorsing a Democrat running for governor.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a group frequently critical of conservative churches politicking for candidates on the Religious Right, voiced alarm Oct. 7 at activities reported at Brown Memorial Baptist Church in Brooklyn involving gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo.

According to an Oct. 3 New York Times story headlined "Election season puts politicians in the pews," Cuomo made brief spiritual remarks before launching into a 10-minute "pitch for support in his bid for governor." After Cuomo spoke, the newspaper said the church's pastor "quickly encouraged congregants to vote for Mr. Cuomo."

Barry Lynn, Americans United's executive director, said in a letter to IRS officials that the report made it appear that the church "stepped over the line" of what is impermissible activity for non-profit organizations that take advantage of the benefits of being tax exempt.

Lynn said the church's intervention in New York's governor's race "would seem to be a clear violation of federal tax law" and urged the IRS to investigate.

On Oct. 8 Americans United asked a federal appeals court to declare establishing a National Day of Prayer unconstitutional. AU, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and Interfaith Alliance Foundation, filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a lower-court decision striking down a 1988 statute that directs the president to proclaim the first Thursday in May a day of prayer.

The court document argued that the statute, passed after pressure from the Religious Right in 1988, violates a constitutional ban on government establishment of religion. It described the statute as "a plain endorsement of religion over non-religion and of certain types of religious beliefs and practices over others."

"Congress needs to get out of the prayer business," said Lynn, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. "Prayer is an inherently religious practice, and our Constitution makes it clear that promoting it is not part of the government’s job."

Lynn said Americans can pray anytime they want without permission from Congress and alleged that the observance is not about religious freedom but rather "another opportunity for certain religious groups to use government to push their narrow viewpoint on the rest of us."

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—A majority of Americans—including those who do not practice any particular faith—think students should be able to express their religion in public schools, according to a new poll by the First Amendment Center.

Three-quarters of Americans support student religious speech at public school events.

A slight majority of those who don’t practice religion (52 percent) think such expression is appropriate.

In addition, 80 percent of Americans said students should be permitted to pray at events at public schools.

“Clearly, most Americans want to keep government out of religion, but they don’t see an expression of faith by a student at a public school event as a violation of the separation of church and state,” said Ken Paulson, president of the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center in an announcement of the findings.

The telephone survey of 1,003 adults also found a majority (53 percent) of Americans continue to think the U.S. Constitution establishes a “Christian nation,” compared to 55 percent in 2008.

Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, said he found that belief “discouraging” even as he welcomed agreement by two of three Americans that the First Amendment requires clear church-state separation.

The poll, conducted between July 28 and Aug. 6, also found:

• 76 percent of Americans support the proclamation of the National Day of Prayer by the president or Congress; atheists groups have filed suit to stop the practice.

• 61 percent said freedom to worship applies to all religious groups, no matter how extreme their views may be.

• 48 percent said the religious affiliation of a candidate for office is important in their voting decisions.