Christians Brace for Obama Appointees

According to this press release from the American Center for Law and Justice, the incoming Obama administration's position on a U.N. resolution against "religious defamation" bears watching.

Pushed by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the measure could be used to silence Christians and to prevent Muslims from voluntarily converting to other faiths, which is already a capital crime in some Islamic countries.

Christian activists are also closely following Obama's Federal Communications Commissioner appointments, in anticipation of a campaign by the American Left to suppress Christian and conservative talk radio by means of the so-called "Fairness Doctrine."

An Obama Administration & Keeping an Eye on the U.N.

A new Administration means change and at the American Center for Law and Justice, we're closely examining what's at stake as President-elect Obama begins to govern. At the same time, we're monitoring developments at the United Nations, where an anti-Christian resolution is up for a vote.

The new president is moving fast, naming Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his new chief of staff as well as beginning to float names for his Cabinet. He has also made clear what his first 100 days will look like, pledging to sign as many as 200 executive orders. With these orders, President-elect Obama is promising to overturn President Bush's ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, restore the ban on offshore drilling and reinstate taxpayer funding for the United Nations Population Fund, an organization committed to coerced abortions.

There's already movement in reshaping the nation's Federal Communications Commission, the agency that would be critical in re-launching the so-called Fairness Doctrine, a measure that would cripple Christian and conservative talk radio.

The new president named made two appointments to the FCC "transition team" -- Susan Crawford and Kevin Werbach to the posts. Werbach, a former counsel at the FCC during the Clinton Administration, specializes in information and communication technologies. With Obama's first chance of appointing a new FCC commissioner coming in June of 2009, we will be keeping an eye on who he appoints. A simply majority of the five commissioners is all an Obama Administration needs to re-implement the so called Fairness Doctrine.

Also being discussed this week in Washington, DC is the change in committee and subcommittee structures in both the House and Senate. With Democrats soon to hold as much as a three vote majority in many of the committees in the Senate and even bigger margins in the House, it is critical that we keep an eye on what is going on behind the scenes.

Pro-life riders, increased funding for Planned Parenthood, the Employer Non-Discrimination Act and a host of other issues will be decided in these committees. At the same time, there will be much attention focused on the next Congress and the issue of judicial nominations.

As you know, for years Democrats blocked many of President Bush's nominees to the federal judiciary with filibusters. With a new majority in the Senate that may reach 60 seats for the Democrats, it would make it much more difficult for Republicans to challenge the new president's judicial nominees. Of course, in addition to the numerous vacancies in the federal judiciary, the Obama Administration will make nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court, should a vacancy or vacancies occur.

While we're focused on the new developments unfolding in Washington, we're also concerned about what's taking place at the United Nations.

In recent months, we've talked a lot about the resolution on the Defamation of Religions - a measure that protects the religion of Islam while targeting other religions including Christianity - a measure being pushed by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

As our international affiliate, the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), has reported in the past, the OIC uses the concept of "defamation of religions" as both sword and shield. In Islamic countries, blasphemy laws are used as a shield to protect the dominant religion, but even more dangerously, they are used to silence minority religious believers - especially Christians - and prevent Muslims from converting to other faiths, which is still a capital crime in many Islamic countries.

Tomorrow in the U.N. - in what is known as the Third Committee - this troubling resolution will receive a vote. If it clears the committee, it is likely the General Assembly at the U.N. will vote on it early in December. We will have representatives at the U.N. tomorrow and bring you an update on Wednesday.

Without question, this is a time of change. Our Government Affairs team is working to ensure that the ACLJ is in a position to stand up for your constitutional and religious freedoms - as the nation prepares for a new president and a new Congress which convenes in early 2009.

We will continue to report on upcoming changes and let you know how you can make a difference.

Regent Law Student's Account of Supreme Court Oral Arguments

Regent Law student Leandra Rayford wrote this first-person account after returning from watching American Center for Law and Justice chief counsel Jay Sekulow argue Pleasant Grove City vs. Summum last week. Sekulow is an adjunct professor at Regent, where Rayford is one of his students. She worked at the ACLJ last summer, and had a piece of the early research that Sekulow relied on. Here is Leandra's story:

Pleasant Grove Oral Arguments at the Supreme Court
Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Today I had one of the greatest experiences--if not the greatest-- of my law school career: I went to hear oral arguments at the Supreme Court of the United States on the case Pleasant Grove City v. Summum. This summer when I was given the opportunity to work at the American Center for Law and Justice and do research on monuments throughout the country, I don't think I really comprehended what preparation for a Supreme Court argument entails. However, even though I stopped working for the ACLJ once school started, I have been enrolled in a class that has been following Dr. Sekulow's preparation for oral arguments.


A couple of weeks ago, our class (about 30 students, I think) gave Dr. Sekulow a moot court session where for two hours we asked him questions about the facts, legal analysis, and hypotheticals. He had previously done a 6 hour moot court with a different group. Having traveled and done moot courts in different areas, he engaged in two more moot court sessions at Regent, where he not only practiced his answers, but also the etiquette of the court: yielding to a justice who is speaking, knowing which justice to address and answer first when multiple are talking at once, asking permission to continue answers, etc.


Yesterday, those of us in the class (plus a few others) went up on a bus to D.C., stayed the night in a hotel a few blocks from the Supreme Court, and then (when our bus failed to show up) walked to the Supreme Court at 5 am to stand in line for tickets to get in and hear the oral arguments. Not only students in the class were there, but also students who clerked (like me) this summer for the ACLJ. For four hours, we endured the biting cold of the fall morning and stood outside in line, as bundled up as possible. Then... they started letting us in, but a horrible thing happened-- not everyone in our class got in to the building. Apparently there more more seats reserved than anticipated, and also some people who were connected to Regent in some way (such as graduates or spouses) showed up and were before students in line. Also, there were a few people not connected to the school interspersed with the students.


I was looking back at some of my friends wondering what they were going to do, and when I was seated in the courtroom (and this says a lot for his character to me), Dr. Sekulow asked if all the students got in, because he was actually thinking about his students and not just his argument. When I responded "no, sir" he was upset and tried to figure out what happened; the simple fact was that there were too many people!


At 10 am I was slightly puzzled that the justices had not yet appeared. I was told the Supreme Court was very prompt, so I looked back and forth at the two large courthouse clocks (the room is amazing, by the way, with large friezes around the room of historical law givers and a ceiling that reminded me of Rome). At 10:02, the police officers indicated that we should rise just as the Chief Justice walked into the courthouse. It was time for the fun to begin. :)


In all honestly, I'm not quite sure what happened for the first 7 minutes or so. I'm pretty sure that an opinion was read by the Court for a case, but I don't know what the case was about and I was somewhat shaking-- both from trying to get warm and nerves. Then, another really cool thing happened: we got to see people being admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court. After a few others, Dr. Sekulow made a motion that the court accept Regent professors Darius Davenport, Scott Pryor, and Lynn Kohm into the bar, as well as others. Then, all those admitted were sworn in.


Finally, Chief Justice Roberts called the case, and Dr. Sekulow began his argument. He got through about 44 seconds before any questions started from the court, and I was surprised at how long he had to answer questions about the Establishment Clause (an estimated 5 minutes). He also quoted pages of text, which I was amazed at--once again-- that he could do just off the top of his head. What was almost comical was to hear how fast he talked in trying to get his point across, only to have the pace of the argument slowed substantially by a justice asking a question.

Thinking about it now, I do laugh because he would be on a roll answering a question, and then Justice Ginsburg would cut in with a question that it seemed she would never finish because it took so long to ask. Also, Justice Souter (I think it was him) seemed to ask a ton of questions at one point on government speech, and I was definitely proud of how moot courts had gone at Regent as some of the questions he had were similar to those that came up, which meant I knew Dr. Sekulow had a prepared answer. It seemed that his argument went on for a very long time, and it turns out I was correct; while he had talked about possibly reserving 10 minutes for rebuttal, he only reserved two!!

The next person to present (for Pleasant Grove) did so on behalf of the government. He got through about 12 seconds, I think, before asking a question, and talked noticeably slower than Dr. Sekulow. Though I can't remember the certain phrase he used, he seemed to have a theme to his argument because I remember noticing that he said the exact same sentence multiple times as answers to different questions. I couldn't tell if he was just trying to drive it home, or if he kept saying it because he was trying to justify it in different ways if the justices did not agree.

Finally came the attorney for Summum. She got out a whopping nine seconds of speech before her opening statement was cut off with a question. I honestly don't remember much of her argument because it did not make much sense to me, and apparently I was not alone in that as a justice commented that he did not understand what she was saying. I do remember her saying that she believed a city could only adopt a monument by doing so formally and in writing stipulating such. She also got many hypotheticals; Justice Scalia definitely asked her a ton of questions. The attorney backed herself into a corner and finally conceded that one of his examples would be government speech (although to keep her point, she shouldn't have agreed with him).

In rebuttal, one of the things I noticed was a lack of an example which ran through all of our moot court sessions-- Fred Phelps and his church wanting to put up monuments. However, Dr. Sekulow told us later that he did so on the spur of the moment, choosing instead to use that with a 9/11 monument such as the park has, under the current 10th Circuit ruling, a person would have to also be allowed to put up an Al Qaeda monument.

Overall, hearing the oral arguments was an amazing experience. Then, at a reception at the ACLJ, I met the current mayor of Pleasant Grove City. Suddenly all my work from this summer and even in the class had a face to it; before it was just a city some place in Utah, even though I read the depositions of citizens and the mayor. Meeting the mayor somehow also gave me more of a sense of urgency regarding the case, because, as he said "it's [his] case, and all [he] can do is show up and watch and wait."

So now we all wait... The Supreme Court will release its decision sometime before the end of the term, and that's really all we know. The arguments were phenomenal, the experience was once-in-a-lifetime, and once again I feel blessed to be a part of Regent Law School.

Pleasant Grove City v. Summum: It Was Contentious, as Expected

The Supreme Court's decision on Pleasant Grove City v. Summum is too close to call, and it may come down to the wavering Justice Anthony Kennedy once again, to judge by this Bloomberg News Service account of oral arguments Nov. 12.

A transcript of the arguments in .pdf form is linked in the Legal Documents blogroll at left, under "Pleasant Grove City v. Summum." Here is the Bloomberg account.

Bloomberg - Religious Displays in Parks Divide U.S. Supreme Court Justices
November 12, 2008
By Greg Stohr, Bloomberg

U.S. Supreme Court justices clashed over a Utah town's decision to allow a Ten Commandments monument in a public park, as they weighed a bid by [Summum] to erect its own display.

The justices today heard arguments on a federal appeals court ruling that said the town of Pleasant Grove must give equal access to Summum, [ wants to display its "seven aphorisms."

That prospect had several justices voicing concern about a free-for-all in public parks and museums. Among them were Chief Justice John Roberts, who asked whether the government would have to balance the message conveyed by the Statute of Liberty.

"Do we have to have a Statue of Despotism?" Roberts asked. "Or do we have to put any president who wants to be on Mount Rushmore?"

On the other side were justices who said they worried about giving the government unfettered discretion over the messages displayed on public property. Justice John Paul Stevens asked whether the government could "decide not to put up the names of any homosexual soldiers" on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington.

The Supreme Court in 2005 said governments can post the Ten Commandments on public property as part of a broader display of historical or moral symbols. That case centered on the Constitution's establishment clause and the limits it places on government support for religion in the public square.

In the latest case, Summum opted not to invoke the establishment clause to seek removal of the Ten Commandments display. The group instead pointed to the Constitution's free-speech guarantee, saying the town must give equal access to other religions and viewpoints in the park.

'Public Forum'

A federal appeals court in Denver said Pleasant Grove had created a "public forum" in the park and generally would have to give all groups an equal right to erect monuments.

Pleasant Grove contends that its monument is exempt from the equal-access requirement because the display is a form of government speech, not private expression. The Fraternal Order of Eagles gave the city the Ten Commandments monument in 1971.

Summum's lawyers say the monument doesn't qualify as government speech because the town never formally adopted the message on the monument as its own.

Though not directly at issue in the case, the establishment clause question lurked close to the surface in today's argument. Roberts said a declaration that the Pleasant Grove monument was government speech would make it harder for the city to argue that it wasn't favoring one religion over another.

"You're really just picking your poison, aren't you?" he asked the town's lawyer, Jay Sekulow.

Establishment Clause

Justice David Souter said a high court ruling forcing the city to adopt the Ten Commandments message as its own would be fatal to the town's defense under the establishment clause.

"Isn't that what is driving this?" he asked Summum's lawyer, Pamela Harris.

Harris said the city was trying to avoid having to formally subscribe to the particular version of the Ten Commandments on the park monument. She said the town "wants to have it both ways."

Sekulow likened the city's role to that of a "museum curator" who selects which exhibits to display. Bush administration lawyer Daryl Joseffer made similar arguments in support of the city.

They drew their strongest support from Justice Antonin Scalia. "You can't run a museum if you have to accept everything, right?" Scalia said.

Ginsburg Comments

Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Souter in suggesting the Ten Commandments display violated the establishment clause. She later said she wasn't aware of "any tradition" of allowing groups to erect monuments on free-speech grounds.

Several justices signaled they were torn by the case and were looking for a way to limit any unintended consequences from the court's ruling.

"Do we have to decide this case that it's all or nothing?" Justice Anthony Kennedy asked.

The Ten Commandments depict the rules that Jews and Christians believe God handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai. Summum, a Salt Lake City-based church founded in 1975, says its aphorisms came from an earlier set of tablets that Moses brought down from the mountain and then destroyed in anger.

The Summum aphorisms include "the principle of psychokinesis" and "the principle of correspondence."

The court will issue a ruling by July.

Pray for Jay, November 12

Constitutional litigator Jay Sekulow will argue Pleasant Grove City v. Summum before the U.S. Supreme Court tomorrow.

Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ), will argue on behalf of Pleasant Grove City, Utah. The case centers on a distinction between government speech and private speech.

A three-judge federal appeals court panel ruled in favor of a group called Summum to erect its own monument of "Seven Aphorisms" in a city park in Pleasant Grove, the site of a long-standing display of the Ten Commandments donated to the city decades ago. When the full appeals court convened en banc to rehear the case, it split 6-6 and decided not to try again. This left the three-judge panel's decision undisturbed.

The ACLJ asked the Supreme Court to take the case and overturn the lower court decision that private parties have a First Amendment right to put up the monuments of their choosing in a city park, unless the city takes away all other donated monuments. Sekulow argues that the appellate panel's ruling runs counter to well-established precedent that the government has to be neutral toward private speech, but it does not have to be neutral in its own speech.

"In short, accepting a Statue of Liberty does not compel a government to accept a Statue of Tyranny." Unless reversed, the Tenth Circuit ruling will "force local governments to remove long-standing and well established patriotic, religious and historical displays."

Sekulow rehearsed his arguments under the pressure of a "moot court" at Regent University's School of Law Friday afternoon. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments tomorrow, November 12.