End of an era: AFA law team members take separate paths

When the legal team at AFA Center for Law and Policy (CLP) sits down around the conference table and starts to reminisce, it sounds a little like a family reunion, with lots of laughter and fond recollections. On another level, it’s a lot like a reunion of infantrymen who survived heavy combat together. Both are valid analogies for what Stephen Crampton, Brian Fahling, Michael DePrimo and Bruce Green have experienced during their tenure at CLP.

The law group’s roots go back to 1988 when AFA hired its first attorney. AFA was a pioneer in the field, but over the years, other law groups and ministries have arisen to offer the same legal services. Thus, AFA’s board recently decided to close the doors on this chapter of AFA ministry.

“When it comes to First Amendment issues, religious freedom and pro-life issues, our CLP set a high standard,” said AFA Chairman Don Wildmon. “We set the pace and others have followed. We are sad to close the CLP, but I’m convinced other legal groups will fill the gaps. And our work can focus in other directions.”

At the reunion conference table, the AFA Journal asked the attorneys to cite a few major accomplishments of the CLP.

“I think the defining case for our tenure with the center was what we call the Connecticut case,” Crampton said.1 The CLP clients were pro-lifers who were sued in an attempt to prevent their demonstrating on public sidewalks near abortion clinics.

“It was a massive case,” Crampton said, “because it involved the Department of Justice, the U. S. Attorney’s Office and the State of Connecticut Attorney General suing our clients.”

To make a long story short, we won! Those same pro-lifers are still on the streets today, counseling outside abortion clinics, saving babies’ lives and sharing the love of Christ. For a time in the 1990s, the CLP was the law firm most involved against the Clinton administration’s efforts to close down pro-life activities outside abortion centers.

“The abortion cases are also the ones that stick out in my mind,” DePrimo said. “In West Palm Beach, Florida, we were able to secure an injunction against a buffer zone around an abortion clinic – something that’s unheard of. I don’t know anyone else who ever won a buffer zone case.”2 That injunction allows pro-lifers to demonstrate without being restricted, for example, by a 100-foot distance from the clinic.

“I think another important case for us was the Saxe case,” Green said.3 “It was the first anti-harassment case where there was a significant victory. That was an early win in an opinion by now-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.”

The Saxe case protected the right of Christian students to speak openly regarding their stand on the immoral nature of homosexual acts without being punished by school officials.

Fahling remembered an Alabama case when AFA of Alabama was sued along with the state’s Focus on the Family affiliate and other Christian groups for $300 million.4 The suit was initiated by Greene County schools, Greene County Commission and the Green County Race Track. The litigants alleged that the pro-family groups were taking bribes from gambling and mafia interests.

“This was another quick turnaround,” Fahling said. “This was one of the few cases I know of where litigants were able to get the federal court to enjoin the prosecution of a state court action. Federal courts are usually loathe to do that.”

As they recalled landmark cases, the attorneys returned again and again to two things that made them effective – teamwork and quick response. Because of those two elements, Green said, “The kind of results that have come from this firm are disproportionate to our size and to the contributions in funds that it cost to sustain us through the years.”

In addition to litigation, the CLP had immeasurable impact consulting and assisting local prosecutors, city governments and state attorneys general regarding laws to regulate and/or curtail pornography and sexually-oriented businesses.

“We advised countless municipalities in situations that never got to litigation precisely because we were advising them,” Crampton said.

The same can be said for their defense of pro-life demonstrators. “Sometimes we’d write a letter and the police would back off,” DePrimo said.

The CLP’s co-workers in the Tupelo offices view this transition with mixed emotions. We’ll miss the law team. Yet, knowing them to be Godly men, we are confident they’ll discover the paths God is preparing before them. We wish them Godspeed.

AFA/ACTIVISM
AFA leaders praise the late Rev. Jerry Falwell
AFA founder Don Wildmon said evangelist Rev. Jerry Falwell, who passed away in May, will be remembered for his efforts to call America back to righteousness.

Falwell, who died at age 73 of heart problems, was probably best remembered for helping to found the “Moral Majority” in 1979.

The evangelist credited the Moral Majority with getting millions of conservative voters registered, resulting in the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 and also giving Republicans control of the Senate that same year.

“I shudder to think where the country would be right now if the religious right had not evolved,” Falwell said when he stepped down as Moral Majority president in 1987.

While primarily known to many conservative Christians for his work in the political arena, Falwell was always a pastor and evangelist at heart. The church that Falwell started in an abandoned bottling plant in 1956 grew into the 22,000-member Thomas Road Baptist Church, which produced the “Old Time Gospel Hour,” carried on television stations around the country. He built Christian elementary schools, homes for unwed mothers and a home for alcoholics.

He also founded the 7,700-student Liberty University in Lynchburg, which began as Lynchburg Baptist College in 1971.

Wildmon began working with Falwell in the late 1970s. Throughout the years, they worked together on a number of issues, encouraging evangelicals to be salt and light in society.

“I think the last time I saw him he was talking about the Lord’s going to let him stay around a little bit longer to finish the university,” Wildmon said. “Well, the Lord had other plans. But Jerry lived a life well-spent, and he played his role.”

AFA President Tim Wildmon said Falwell was not afraid to speak publicly about the Christian faith and then take the heat that inevitably followed. “It’s not an easy thing to endure the mockery and hatred that is thrown at a Christian leader when he or she stands for righteousness,” he said. “But Jerry Falwell stood fast. In that way he was an inspiration to many Christians.”

Bruce Green, AFA vice president of law and policy, worked with Falwell as the founding dean of Liberty University’s School of Law.

“He was known in public as a man of vision and of uncompromising convictions and courage in the face of harsh opposition,” Green said. “But I knew him as a man of deep and sincere Christian faith, warm and ingratiating to everyone he met, always ready to encourage and lend a helping hand.

“I consider it a singular honor to have worked with him and for him in the pursuit of his vision for a great educational institution.”

EDUCATION
ID backer denied tenure at Iowa State
Iowa State University (ISU) has come under fire from academic freedom advocates over its decision to deny tenure to an astronomy professor who believes in intelligent design (ID).

The theory holds that life is far too complex to have been the result of Darwinian evolution, instead requiring an intelligent designer. The professor, Guillermo Gonzalez, wrote about the subject in his book The Privileged Planet.

Gonzalez told World magazine that he has never introduced the subject of ID into any of his classes, and said he did not understand why the school should care about an outside interest. “I just want to do ID research on my time,” he told World. “Maybe I should have waited until after I received tenure.”

In its own defense, ISU said tenure is very difficult to achieve at the school, even for many good researchers.

However, a spokesman for one leading ID think tank said he believes that Gonzalez is clearly being punished for his scientific views.

“Dr. Gonzalez is not a biologist, so he wasn’t even challenging Darwin’s theory in biology,” said Dr. John West of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. “All he was doing was making arguments from physics and astronomy about the design of the universe, which is something that even some evolutionists accept and have praised his book on. But that was too much for the thought police at his university.”

Gonzalez’s credentials appear to be solid. For example, according to The Ames Tribune, a local newspaper in the college town, the ISU physics and astronomy department requires tenure candidates to write at least 15 peer-reviewed journal articles. Gonzalez has written 68 – of which 25 have been written since he began work at ISU in 2001, the article stated.

Among the journals that published his work are Nature, Science and Scientific American, said World.

“Last year he co-authored a college textbook in astronomy with Cambridge University Press that’s used by other faculty in his own department,” West said, “and so the idea that this guy somehow must not be up to snuff or must be in the bottom 9% of his university – because 91% of the people who applied [at ISU] for tenure this year got it – those are just really outlandish arguments.”

West said that one of Gonzalez’s chief opponents at ISU is religious studies professor Dr. Hector Avalos, an avowed atheist who, following the publication of The Privileged Planet, circulated a petition in 2005 denouncing intelligent design.

Ironically, West added, while Gonzalez was being denied tenure, ISU promoted Avalos to full professor. In his most recent book, Avalos argued that the Bible is worse than Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Gonzalez filed an appeal of his tenure denial with ISU President Greg Geoffroy.

FAMILY
German home schooler reunited with parents
The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), a U.S.-based group, is celebrating the return of a German home-schooled student to her parents after she was taken from her family by the state for not attending public school.

Melissa Busekros was 15 and had been home-schooled for two years when German officials in February decided to remove her from the custody of her parents. Home schooling in Germany is illegal.

Busekros was placed with a foster family after spending a couple of weeks in a psychiatric hospital, where she was diagnosed with “school phobia.” When she turned 16 in late April, she ran away from her foster family and went home. At that point, the state decided it would not try to remove her again, and an appeals court restored custody to the family.

Mike Donnelly, an HSLDA staff attorney, said German officials were forced to respond to widespread public outrage. “I think the pressure and the international attention of this got through media sites and news programs,” he said, “making sure that the Germans know that people are watching. The phone calls to the embassy, the direct contact with [German] officials … had a lot to do with it.”

Poll: Parents back abstinence education
A new survey reveals that the majority of U.S. parents – by a two-to-one margin – support abstinence education over comprehensive sex education for their children.

The National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) is touting the new Zogby International poll, which demonstrated that when parents become aware of what abstinence education teaches versus what comprehensive sex education teaches, support for abstinence programs jumps from 40% to 60%, while support for condom-based “safe-sex” programs drops from 50% to 30%.

NAEA executive director Valerie Huber said she is convinced there has been a “misinformation campaign” about abstinence education throughout the media.

“Once parents understood that abstinence education is really holistic and includes some of the core components, such as building healthy relationships, strengthening self-control, developing skills that will improve their chances for a healthy future marriage, and even the benefits of choosing abstinence after being sexually active,” Huber said, “parents want that message given to their teens.”

The NAEA official said she hoped the results of the Zogby poll will inform the debate in state legislatures and Congress over funding for sex education in schools. “Most parents do reject the so-called ‘comprehensive’ sex education approach because it promotes and demonstrates condom use,” she said. “They think it sends a mixed message and it crosses the line to actually encourage sexual activity.”

That would square with the fact that, according to the survey, 83% of parents think it is important for their child to wait until marriage to have sex.

Two out of three parents indicated that the mixed message of comprehensive sex education “is not something that they want their children to receive,” Huber pointed out.

She said most parents wanted their kids to hear a strong abstinence message and, if there is a discussion of contraception, it should detail the “realistic limitations” of condoms and other contraceptives in preventing pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.

Stay-at-home moms worth $138K, group says
So a mom doesn’t work unless she works outside the home? According to one estimate, the work performed by the typical stay-at-home mom is worth a bundle.

Salary.com, a company that helps both employers and employees calculate what their skills are worth on the open market has come up with a figure for the variety of jobs done by dear ol’ Mom.

“Based on a survey of more than 40,000 mothers, Salary.com determined that the time mothers spend performing 10 typical job functions would equate to an annual salary of $138,095 for a stay-at-home mom,” the company said.

Moms that work outside the home also got a salary estimate. “Working moms ‘at-home’ salary is $85,939 in 2007; this is in addition to the salary they earn in the workplace,” said the site.

The company matched the 10 job titles and salaries that most closely approximated what moms do for their families: housekeeper, day care center teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, CEO and psychologist.

HOMOSEXUALITY
Students punished for resisting pro-homosexual event
Dozens of students at three Sacramento, California, area public schools were suspended when they took a stand against a pro-homosexual event – the “Day of Silence” – which was observed nationwide in April.

In the Sacramento area, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 students chose to stay home instead of being confronted with the pro-homosexual message on the Day of Silence. But nearly 50 students who did attend school that day wore clothing and distributed literature highlighting the dangers of homosexuality. Of this latter group, some were sent home, some were suspended, and others were given “Saturday school,” a form of weekend detention.

Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), said his organization is working to clear the offenses from the students’ records. “We’re hopeful that we’ll be able to reach a positive resolution without having to file a lawsuit. We’re still at the early stages,” he said.

“Unfortunately, California is like many parts of the country,” Dacus said. “School districts and administrators are often very dogmatic about their liberal agendas.”

The head of PJI believes the suspension of students who chose to counter the homosexual message was a clear violation of the highest law of the land. “The Constitution protects students from being discriminated against simply because the school district doesn’t like what they say or the fact that what they say comes from the Bible,” he said.

PRO-LIFE
Planned Parenthood named in lawsuit
The world’s largest abortion provider is being sued in Ohio, accused of covering up criminal activity in a case involving a teenage girl and her father.

A lawsuit has been filed naming Planned Parenthood as a defendant for not reporting the sexual abuse of a minor. The suit alleges that the father of a teenage girl entered the abortion facility in Warren County, Ohio, in November 2004, seeking an abortion for the girl to cover up his sexual abuse of the teen and the resulting pregnancy.

Attorney Dana Cody of Life Legal Defense Foundation, which filed the suit on behalf of the girl, said Planned Parenthood is accused of violating Ohio state law.

“[Her father] took her to Planned Parenthood for an abortion and birth control,” the attorney explained, “and rather than report the abuse, Planned Parenthood went ahead and was complicit with the abortion. And because of the birth control, the sexual abuse continued and was covered up.”

Cody said if the allegations are true, Planned Parenthood is complicit in the young girl’s abuse when it should have been protecting her. The sexual abuse continued for an additional 18 months until it was reported by a basketball coach. The father was eventually tried and convicted of sexual assault.

It’s not the first time Planned Parenthood has been accused of not reporting the sexual abuse of minors. During a two-year investigation by Life Dynamics International (LDI, www.ldi.org), an adult posing as a 13-year-old girl would call Planned Parenthood clinics and claim to have been impregnated by a 22-year-old boyfriend – a criminal act of statutory rape.

“Life Dynamics legally recorded over 800 calls [to the abortion clinics] …. While many clinic workers can be heard on the tapes telling the caller that this situation was unlawful and they were legally mandated to report it to the state, 91% of the facilities still agreed to illegally conceal it,” LDI said on its Web site.

RELIGION
Study: Religion has positive impact on kids
A new study reveals that children from religious homes are better behaved than kids who grow up in homes without religious influence.

The study, conducted by sociologists at Mississippi State University (MSU), asked parents and teachers of more than 16,000 children to rate how much self-control the young people had and how often they exhibited poor behavior.

Those scores were then compared by researchers to how frequently the children’s parents said they attended worship services, talked with their child about religion, or argued about religion. According to the MSU researchers, teachers and parents said those children whose families regularly attended worship services or talked about religion at home were found to have better self-control and social skills than children with non-religious parents.

John Bartkowski, an MSU sociologist who helped conduct the study, said, “What we found is that religion matters. Not only does parental church attendance or religious worship service attendance positively affect child development outcomes, but the frequency at which parents and children discuss religion has a beneficial effect on children’s development.”

Bartkowski said religious communities offer a strong support system for parents. “Religious communities are one resource that parents can use to bolster the positive influences in their children’s lives,” he pointed out.

“Of course, this doesn’t negate the effect of Boys and Girls Clubs involvement, extra-curricular activities, and other things that actually steer youth toward positive developmental outcomes,” the sociologist said. “But, if indeed it takes a village to raise a child, then we can say that religious communities are an important part of the village we live in, and parents would be wise to utilize this resource, should they wish to do so.”

In addition to these findings, Bartkowski said the MSU researchers also discovered that children were more likely to have behavior problems when parents argued about religion. The study will be published in the journal Social Science Research.