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(Louisville, Kentucky) When regular services are over Sunday night, the Rev. Kevin Ezell
will turn his pulpit over to preachers with a political message, a move that has
prompted an outcry from other religious leaders.
Ezell's Highview Baptist Church is hosting "Justice Sunday,"
featuring a videotaped speech from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.,
that rallies churchgoers to protest a filibuster of nominees for the federal
judiciary. Highview was arranging to have the videotape played at the same time
around the country for churches that had requested it.
Sunday's event, organized by the Family Research Council of Washington, D.C.,
is a way for Christians to speak their minds about a hot political issue, Ezell
said.
"We shouldn't have to check our citizenship at the door," the
pastor said. "What we believe affects every area of our lives."
Not everyone agrees. At least three churches and other organizations are
planning to protest Justice Sunday.
Some say the close co-mingling of religion and politics is bad for both
institutions, especially if the debate it centers on isn't being done honestly.
"This is deceptive, manipulative and false," said Joe Phelps, who
joined nearly two dozen other ministers Friday morning at a news conference to
criticize Sunday's event. "Stop. Please stop."
The filibuster, a 200-year-old tradition in the Senate, gives 41 senators the
right to hold unlimited debate on a subject. It takes 60 votes to end the debate
and hold the vote. Democrats have banded together to block votes on 10 of
President Bush's nominees, while allowing votes on more than 200 judges.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said the goal of
Justice Sunday is to get the "Christian community" to help rein in
"the last bastion of liberalism, the federal courts" and put an end to
filibusters of judicial candidates.
Because of the filibuster, "judicial activists" dominate the courts
and have stopped prayer in schools but found a legal right to sodomy and seem
headed toward approving gay marriage, Perkins said.
Those issues are important to Christian voters and judges are ignoring the
legislative and public will - and Sunday's rally will address that, said
Perkins, a former state legislator and U.S. Senate candidate in Louisiana.
Jim Holladay, pastor of Lyndon Baptist Church in Louisville, said Perkins and
Ezell are not speaking for all Christians, even though they appear to be
claiming to do so.
"We just ask our sister church to be honest," Holladay said.
The Rev. Dr. Robert W. Edgar, General Secretary of the National Council of
Churches, said Justice Sunday splits people of faith into those who agree with
Perkins' group and those who don't, resulting in a polarization of Christian
voters.
"This ad campaign should be called 'Just Us Sunday' instead of 'Justice
Sunday,'" Edgar said during a conference call with reporters Friday.
"It makes one political point of view a litmus test for Christian faith,
and in so doing, attempts to disenfranchise, if not excommunicate, the millions
of American Christians who hold a different view."
The Rev. Albert Pennybacker, chairman of the Clergy and Laity Network for
National Leadership Change, said Perkins and groups like his exaggerate their
influence.
"This is manipulative, deceptive nonsense," Pennybacker said during
an interview Thursday.
Pennybacker's group, which coordinates 65 religious communities, is one of
several planning counter-protests Sunday. Other groups planning to protest
include the NAACP, the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade and the Jefferson
County Democratic Party.
Raoul Cunningham, head of the Louisville branch of the NAACP, said Justice
Sunday is the type of partisan political event intended to be kept out of the
church and should be cause for an investigation of its tax-exempt status.
The national NAACP was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service after its
chairman, Julian Bond, gave a speech that criticized President Bush during the
2004 presidential election.
"It will be interesting to see if the administration goes after Highview
Baptist Church after such a blatant partisan activity," Cunningham said.
University of Kentucky law professor Paul Salamanca, who is not involved with
any of the events, said the law requires that churches not advocate for the
election or defeat of any particular candidate to keep a tax-exempt status.
Salamanca said the law does not specifically address political activity.
Gary McCaleb, senior counsel to the Alliance Defense Fund, which has been
providing legal advice about Justice Sunday, said the church has no concerns.
"From our perspective, this is just citizens standing up and telling
elected officials to do your jobs," McCaleb said. "It doesn't trigger
any alarm bells with the IRS."
©Associated Press 2005
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