Religious Right Agenda In Congress

• The House approved the Head Start reauthorization bill (H.R.2210) with a provision allowing religious organizations that receive Head Start funds to consider religion in employment decisions.  An amendment to remove the clause allowing discrimination was defeated 199 to 231.  Bell, Green, Jackson-Lee, and Lampson voted to remove the clause; Brady, Carter, Culberson, DeLay, and Paul voted to keep it.

 

• The House removed from the State Department authorization bill (H.R. 1950) all aid slated for the United Nations Family Planning Agency.

 

• The House voted to deny the use of funds to enforce judgments in Newdow v. U.S. Congress, which held that requiring public school students to say the Pledge of Allegiance violates the First Amendment, and Glassroth v. Moore, which held that a Ten Commandments monument put in Alabama’s state judicial building by its chief justice is unconstitutional.  The votes were on amendments to the Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary appropriations bill (H R 2799).  The Newdow amendment passed by 307–119, the other by 260–161.  Brady, Carter, Culberson, DeLay, Green, and Paul voted for both, Bell and Jackson-Lee voted against both, and Lampson voted for the Newdow one and against the Moore one.  In March, the House passed a resolution (H. Res. 132) expressing its sense that the Newdow decision is inconsistent with the First Amendment and should be overturned.

 

Montgomery County Moderates Take On Religious Right

Montgomery County moderates mobilized to defeat another effort by the religious right to change the county’s public library policy.  In May, Mark Cadwallader, on behalf of Citizen’s Task Force for Family-Friendly Libraries, wrote County Judge Alan Sadler and two commissioners urging them to adopt a new materials selection and review policy that “stands up for community values, and decency and protection of minors, etc.”  He had honored Sadler’s request to keep work on the new policy quiet, he wrote, because “quiet change dictated from the top down…would be more effective and less messy.  Once voted into place by the commissioners, it would be done, and opposition reaction should be short-lived.”

 

Cadwallader is with the Republican Leadership Coucil, a local religious right group.  The RLC led an unsuccessful effort last fall to remove some books from library shelves. 

 

On July 14, at Sadler’s invitation, a minister and some congregants packed a Commissioners' Court hearing to support the new policy.  Most of them condemned homosexuality and demanded removal of any book that mentions homosexuality without disapproval.  They also wanted to terminate the county’s membership in the American Library Association and Texas Library Association, the librarians’ professional associations.  They charged that the ALA is atheistic and supports pornography and homosexuality and they criticized its opposition to Internet filters in public libraries.

 

Mainstream Montgomery County responded with a petition supporting ALA membership, the current library policy, and the library director, and objecting to the proposal that would give the Court the final say on library materials.  The group asserted that the new policy would result in censorship, with libraries reflecting only certain religious and political beliefs.  It also pointed out that the county would lose access to hundred of thousands of dollars in grants for which ALA members are eligible.  Volunteers and an online petition collected 1500 signatures.

 

On July 28, after two hours of citizens’ comments on both sides, Commissioners Court voted 3 to 2 to retain the current library policy and review procedures with the citizen/librarian advisory board and retain affiliations in the ALA and TLA.

 

The RLC has now embarked on a petition drive to try to persuade the six Montgomery County school boards to require science teachers to teach “intelligent design” theory along with evolution.  It plans to present the petitions to school boards by Sept. 18.  For more information about these issues or Mainstream Montgomery County, see MainstreamMC.org.

 

 

Religious Right Judicial Nominee Goes To Senate