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American Legion Urges Senate to Protect Public Expression of Religion

By Peter J. Smith

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 3, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The American Legion, the United States’ largest veterans organization, testified at a Senate hearing urging the passage of S. 3696, "Veterans' Memorials, Boy Scouts, Public Seals, and Other Public Expressions of Religion Protection Act of 2006."

The bill seeks to remove from judges the power to award taxpayer-paid attorney fees to the ACLU or other similar organizations in lawsuits brought against veterans memorials, the Boy Scouts, or the public display of the Ten Commandments or other symbols of American history and religious heritage.

A number of such cases have been brought forward recently, with the ACLU and similar organizations using a reinterpretation of the Establishment Clause as the means to force the removal of religious and historical symbols from schools and public places. The Establishment clause states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

In many of Establishment Clause cases the law firms attacking public religious and national symbols have had their large legal fees remunerated from public coffers.

“Benevolently intended fee provisions are being used as a bludgeon against public entities to surrender to ACLU’s demands, and being used to obtain profits in the millions”, testified District 21 Commander Rees Lloyd on behalf of the Legion. 

Lloyd, relying on his unique experience as a former ACLU attorney, told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution how the ACLU enriches itself with taxpayer monies, and gave examples of the ACLU’s campaign to eradicate religious expression from the public sphere.

Lloyd reported that the ACLU reaped $950,000 in attorney fees after the City of San Diego capitulated to its demands in a settlement driving the Boy Scouts out of Balboa Park. Lloyd told the Senate committee that the ACLU collected a colossal $2,000,000 in attorney fees in the recent "Intelligent Design" case against the Dover, Pennsylvania school board. This was $2,000,000 in profit, says Lloyd, since the law firm representing the ACLU informed both the court and the public that it had waived any attorney fees and acted pro bono on the ACLU’s behalf.

The introduction of the Public Expressions of Religion Protection Act has liberal groups up in arms.

"This bill is intended to make it harder for people to stand up for their religious liberty," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "It would be an outrage if Falwell and Robertson got away with this. Our constitutional freedoms don't count for much if individuals don't have the financial means to bring their legitimate claims before the bar of justice."

The Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), intends to amend all federal laws with fee-shifting provisions, including the Civil Rights Attorney Fees Act, 42 U.S. Code 1988, and the Equal Access to Justice Act,

Legion testimony pointed out that the ACLU’s manipulation of those very laws once designed to benefit poor people, have forced municipalities, schools, and locally elected bodies, especially small towns, to either surrender to the ACLU or risk the fiscal consequence of massive attorney fees for not purging public expressions of their religious heritage.

"That's judicial blackmail, plain and simple," said the Legion’s National Commander Thomas Bock, who has said the Legion intends to educate Americans about the ACLU’s millions of dollars in profits from “Establishment Clause” cases.

Note: The American Legion is encouraging Americans to contact their senator to support passage of S. 3696, and also to contact their house representative to urge passage of a similar bill, H.R. 2679, the Public Expression of Religion Act (PERA), which has been sponsored by Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN) in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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