If you haven’t yet signed up for the Family Leader Network updates, don’t pass up this opportunity to make a difference. Here is a sample of an email that is being sent today about the public expression of religion. You can sign up to receive the email sends by clicking here.

Does this seem wrong to you?

For nearly 50 years the Boy Scouts in San Diego leased a portion of Balboa Park, but the ACLU sued the city for leasing to a “discriminatory” organization. The upshot was not only that the Scouts were booted out of the park, but the city had to pay $950,000 to the ACLU in attorney’s fees. Citizens paid and the ACLU’s coffers got fatter.

The ACLU and two other groups received nearly $550,000 in an Alabama case to remove the Ten Commandments from the courthouse. The Ten Commandments were removed and the ACLU’s coffers grew.

When the city council of Great Falls, South Carolina closed a meeting with prayer, the search-out-and-destroy ACLU was in the audience, sued the city and won. Not only can the city council no longer have prayers, but the city had to pay $65,000 to the ACLU in attorney’s fees — or ¼ of their city budget for the year.

The Threat is Enough to Make Officials Fold

Groups like the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation have been avidly working to strip any expression of religion from the public square and recovering huge attorney’s fees in the process. Thus, you, as a taxpayer, have been paying for the relentless attack on religious expression. Your money is being used to undercut your values.

What’s worse is that the fear of being hit by one of these expensive lawsuits has sent many local governments scurrying away from religious expression if they are merely threatened with a lawsuit from the ACLU or another group. Attorney’s fees have been used as a club to frighten local officials into compliance. It’s a form of legal terrorism. For example, consider these incidents of capitulation:

County officials in Iowa agreed to remove the Ten Commandments from the courthouse grounds rather than engage in a costly lawsuit.

A lawsuit from the ACLU nudged Montana officials into removing the Ten Commandments and nativity scene from county property.

Los Angeles and Redlands, California both agreed to erase crosses from their city seals rather than possibly lose an expensive lawsuit.

Help on the Way

Tired of being fleeced by the ACLU and other groups? Both the House and the Senate will be considering bills called the Public Expression of Religion Act , which would require that each party to an Establishment Clause case pay their own attorney’s fees. In other words, the ACLU would no longer be able to collect from the taxpayers when they sue over religious expression.

While this would not in any way defund the ACLU, which ended last year with $49 million dollars in their coffers, it would help local governments stand their ground when they are threatened for religious expression.

The Public Expression of Religion Act is not yet at the stage of being voted on, but will be shortly. What we need now in both the Senate and the House are co-sponsors of the bill.

This will not be an easy bill to pass, because much pressure will be brought to bear against senators who support it. They will need our support.

Take Action

Ask Senators and Representatives to Co-Sponsor Bill

Email your Senators and Representative by clicking here http://capwiz.com/familyleadernetwork/dbq/officials/ and ask them to co-sponsor the Public Expression of Religion Act. Though this legislation should be a common sense approach to this program, the opposition will be fierce.Your email can read something like this:

Dear Senator/Congressman

Please co-sponsor the Public Expression of Religion Act so that taxpayers will no longer have to pay attorney’s fees in legal cases dealing with the Establishment Clause. As your constituent, I believe this is an important piece of legislation so that religious expression isn’t erased from the public square.

Thank you.

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