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Sen. Brownback: ACLU -- Not Taxpayers -- Should Foot the Bill for Church-State Lawsuits
By Jody Brown
AgapePress
August 4, 2006
Page 2 of 2
In recent days Congress has passed a bill that could save the 29-foot Mount Soledad cross, located in a suburb of San Diego, by making it federal property. President Bush is expected to sign the bill.
Also testifying before the subcommittee were Marc Stern of the American Jewish Congress, Mat Staver with Liberty Counsel, and Shannon Woodruff, senior research counsel with the American Center for Law and Justice.
Huge Fees a 'Perverse' Incentive
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, strongly supports Senator Brownback's Public Expressions of Religion Act -- and in light of the Mount Soledad situation, he believes now is the appropriate time for the legislation to be considered. "For long-term protection, we need the Brownback bill now," he says.
He calls the lucrative legal fees being won in lawsuits targeted expressions of religion a "perverse" incentive. PERA, he says, is needed to repeal a section of the Civil Rights Attorney Fees Act that gives groups like the ACLU "a financial incentive" to attack all public expressions of religion. "This perverse incentive also pressures embattled state and local authorities to capitulate rather than be forced into lengthy, costly litigation," says the FRC leader.
Perkins says the City of San Diego had been "feeling the pinch" with the Mount Soledad case, but that with the anticipated White House approval of the recently passed legislation, the ACLU and others -- he calls them "militant secularlists" -- will now have to sue the Pentagon to get at the cross. "And the Pentagon has some experience of fighting," he warns.
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