CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS GROUPS JOIN FIGHT IN U.S. SUPREME COURT
Pastor's Report Staff
Various church organizations and other groups deeply concerned over the State of California's violation of the Church's constitutional rights and freedoms, have been watching our case with increasing alarm. We now have before the nation's highest tribunal a special petition asking, in effect, that the U.S. Supreme Court review this case closely now (before it would ordinarily reach that Court) because of the extraordinarily grave constitutional implications of what the California Attorney General is doing. Just recently a number of these groups have "spoken up" by filing supporting briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court in behalf of the Church. Below is an article which appeared in today's Pasadena Star-News (reprinted by permission) reporting on a news conference called in Washington D.C. by some of these groups in further support of the Church's rights.
Church receivership criticized as illegal
By DAN MEYERS Star-News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - The State of California in effect "established a religion" when it took control of assets and management of the Worldwide Church of God, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney said Monday.
"It is very clear to us that the actions of the state have violated... the First Amendment," said the attorney, Nina Kraut, assistant legal director for the ACLU Washington office.
Speaking at a press conference, Ms. Kraut and Lee Boothby. a lawyer for a Maryland group called Americans United for Separation of Church and State, criticized the state for putting the Pasadena-based Worldwide Church in receivership beginning Jan. 3.
Superior Court Judge Jerry Pacht ordered the action after six former members of the religious group accused church leaders of misusing and not accounting for church finances.
Attorneys for the church have lost a series of attempts to have the receivership order rescinded. They now are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case when the court reconvenes in October.
The ACLU. Americans United, the Alliance for the Preservation of Religious Liberty, the Institute for the Study of American Religion. and the Berkeley Area Interfaith Council have filed a brief in support of the church's position.
"No First Amendment right is absolute," Ms. Kraut said But she added that the state "over-reacted" when it took control of the Worldwide Church of God.
Boothby said, "The State of California has intruded itself violently" in the case.
The attorneys said their support of the church was based on principles of freedom of religion, not on an analysis of the charges of financial abuse that prompted the receivership order.
"Whatever the abuses may or may not be, they do not warrant" such extreme action. Boothby said.
CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS GROUPS JOIN FIGHT IN U.S. SUPREME COURT
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