Dear Friends & Supporters, Here's a couple of items of interest: 1. South Caroline gets into the recent "Posting commandments craze." One Board of Education member says, "screw the buddhists and kill the muslims." 2. Christian Coalition admits to selling Ollie North campaign supporters lists; North's opponent says he was snubbed by CC, who continue to deny FEC access to internal documents relevent to the pending suit. SC COUNCIL ENTERS DISPLAY FRAY Atlanta Constitution, June 5, 1997 For Tim Scott, the evidence is pretty clear. The world has gone straight to you-know-where and needs to take a good long look at what God told Moses when he laid down the law with the Ten Commandments. Scott, a Charleston County councilman, has pushed through a resolution that calls on county officials to set up a plaque in the council chambers listing the Ten Commandments. Council members said they hope to see the Ten Commandments displayed within two weeks. They are seeking private donations to pay for the display. Their action is the latest in a series of efforts across the nation to get the commandments displayed in public places. Even the U.S. House of Representatvies passed a resolution saying the Ten Commandments should be permitted in government offices and courthouses. In Alabama, Circuit Court Judge Roy Moore was ordered to take down is display of the commandments, which were in his courtroom. Moore has appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court, while Alabama Gov. Fob James has said he will call out the National Guard to keep Moore's display intact. In South Carolina, a state Board of Education member has proposed placing the Ten Commandments in all public schools. The member, Henry Jordan, has been roundly criticized, however, for saying "screw the Buddhists and kill the Muslims," during a discussion of the issue at a board meeting in May. And in Dorchester County, just west of Charleston, the County Council went on record encouraging people to display the commandments in homes, businesses, schools and houses of worship. "What is the cost of immorality in our country?" asked Scott, who said America's laws are based on the Ten Commandments. Displaying them would serve as a reminder to everyone that a moral life is still possible, he said. But C. Andre Brumme III, staff counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in South Carolina, said displaying the Ten Commandments in a public building is a clear violation of the constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state. "There is no way you can argue that the Ten Commandments are anything but a religious document," he said. "The first commandment is 'thou shalt have no other gods before me.' You can't say that is a basis for our laws. He has written one letter to the council and said he will write another detailing the case law on the subject, including a Cobb County case in which a U.S. District Court judge ordered the Georgia county to take down the Ten Commandments, even though they had been on display since 1939. The Judge said the display could stay if it was part of a larger display of historical documents. The county refused to change it, so the court ordered the county to pay the plaintiffs $100,000 in damages plus attorneys fees. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case. "I think it's unfortunate that your going to blow $100,000 on this foolishness," Kenneth Glover, a local Democratic Party chairman, told the Charleston County Council moments before the council voted unanimously May 20 to erect the plaque. MORE EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN COALITION PARTISANSHIP Christian Coalition Rented Mailing List Associated Press The Christian Coalition - a tax exempt organization that says it doesn't take sides in elections - rented a mailing list of 36,000 if its supporters to Oliver North's 1994 Senate campaign. The rental, while legal, adds to the evidence that the coalition is more a political organization than the tax-exempt educational and religious group it claims to be, said Frances Hill, a professor at the University of Miami Law School who specializes in rules governing tax-exempt groups. A spokesman for the Christian Coalition acknowledged the transaction, but emphasized the list was rented at fair market value. "We don't endorse specific candidates," said communications director Arne Owens. Owens said the list, for which North's campaign paid $5,131 in the spring of 1994, would have been available to any candidate who wanted it. North's opponent in the fight for the GOP nomination at the time, former Reagan administration budget director James Miller, said he had sought the Christian Coalition's help and was rebuffed. "I solicited their support... but was told, 'We have nothing against you, but we'll be supporting Ollie,'" Miller said in an interview. North went on to win the nomination but lost the general election to incumbent Democratic Sen. Chuck Robb. "it is hard to argue that this is a normal commercial transaction," Hill said, noting a Federal Election Commission lawsuit challenging the group's assertion that it does not engage in overt politics. "It begins to establish a pattern of closeness to Republican Party candidates." In its eight years of existence, the Virginia-based coalition has paid no federal taxes, claiming an exemption for groups that promote public welfare. The law says such groups can dabble in politics, but that cannot be their primary purpose. Because of the coalition's extensive political activities, the Internal Revenue Service has never ruled on its application for tax-exempt status, making the case the longest-pending one of its kind in federal files. In federal suit filed last July, the FEC charged that the coalition had improperly spent thousands of dollars to promote the candidacies of Republican congressional candidates, including North. Coalition director Ralph Reed called the suit baseless. The FEC and the coalition are now locked in court disputes over the government's access to internal coalition documents and witnesses, and no resolution is expected before this fall. The names of donars and people who had otherwise responded to Christian Coalition mailings were made available to North's campaign by Universal Lists, a company run by Ben Hart, once the group's primary direct-mail contractor and a close friend of Reed's. At the top of the March 23 bill is the notation: "Ralph - Here's the North invoice. Ben." North campaign records show the bill was paid six weeks later. At about the same time, the Christian Coalition was pouring $150,000 into mailings and phone calls urging its Virginia members to register as delegates to the state's GOP nominating convention. "There's no question most of our people are with North," Reed said at the time. "And our people participate." Hart has acknowledged being questioned in a federal investigation into whether irregularities occurred in contracts the coalition had with him for printing, mailing and fund-raising. U.S. postal authorities also have been investigating the group's mailing practices. "We think nothing is going to come of this," said Hart's lawyer, Steven Chameides. Chameides acknowledged his client had made a payment to the coalition last year in settlement of discrepancies that turned up in a review of billing records. He would not comment on the amount, but another individual familiar with the payment said it was about $164,000. The coalition has since shifted some of its direct-mail work to other contractors. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Americans United for Separation of Church and State Atlanta Chapter PO Box 79174 Atlanta GA 30357-7174 404-607-0660 tallulah@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~tallulah/au/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------