From: SECBH@CUNYVM.BITNET
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: County Employees Complain of "Born Again" Harassment
Date: 15 Nov 90 17:34:01 GMT

Officials in Polk County Iowa are investigating complaints that
the director of the Information Services Department held prayer
meetings during work time and harassed staff members who did not
share his "born again" beliefs.

Employees and former employess told the Des Moines Register that
director Ike Brown, who is a pastor, and Larry Low, a former county
employee now working as a pastor, announced that they were "born
again" and attempted to "save" their co-workers.  Brown and Low
reportedly asked secretaries to type sermons and are accused to
giving favored treatment to employees who shared their religious
views.

"It used to be, you'd go looking for somebody, and they'd be in
a prayer meeting," said Linda Wiles, a former employee.  "The
office was divided between the born-agains Christians and
everybody else -- whatever we were."

After she resigned, Wiles...complained of religious harassment to
County Administrator Ray Sears.  Brown denied the charges, and
county personnel officials told the Register that an investigation
is going on.

The above is a slightly condensed account from Church and State,
Vol. 43, #10, 10 November 1990.
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Jack Carroll     "When a religion is good, I conceive it will support
    itself; and when it does not support itself so
                  that its professors are obliged to call for the
                  help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend,
                  of its being a bad one."
                                              Ben Franklin