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ABOUT US
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October 20, 2000 Office of the President The new Supreme Court term is only a few weeks old and already Court has taken two religion cases. Meanwhile, both Presidential candidates have talked about what they want to do with the Supreme Court. You can help us file briefs in these important cases and you can help decide who gets to pick Supreme Court Justices. Dear Friend of the National Legal Foundation: Last term, the United States Supreme Court handed down its terrible opinion in the Sante Fe football prayer case. (But thanks to you, we have been able to educate thousands of citizens and school boards about the religious rights our children and grandchildren do have in America’s public schools.) Now, the Supreme Court has started its new term and it looks like it’s going to be time to stand up and be counted again. AND FOR THAT WE NEED YOUR HELP! Already, the Court has decided to hear oral arguments in one religion case. And already the Court has accepted one case, only to send it back to the Eleventh Circuit -- the court that heard the case before. The case that the Court send back is Adler v. Duval County School Board. It is a graduation prayer case. This is a case that we filed a brief in when the case was at the Eleventh Circuit before. A brief that was only possible with your help! A brief that helped Duval County protect student prayer. Now we want to file a brief again. This case is at a critical stage. The Supreme Court sent the case back because it wants the Eleventh Circuit to re-evaluate the case in light of its Sante Fe opinion. That is not good news. Since the Supreme Court struck down football prayers in Sante Fe, the victory for graduation prayers in Adler may be in trouble . . . unless we can help the court understand why the Adler case is different from the Sante Fe case. THIS IS A DIFFICULT—BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE—TASK! If you have supported the National Legal Foundation for very long, you know that we know how to pull off this kind of a victory. After the horrible Amendment 2 case, the Supreme Court accepted the homosexuals’ appeal of our Issue 3 case and sent it back to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to re-evaluate in light of Amendment 2. Everyone thought we had a loser on our hands. BUT, PRAISE GOD, WE WON THE ISSUE 3 CASE! And now we want to help Duval County pull out a victory which will allow students to pray. Plus, as I mentioned, the Court will hear arguments in another religion case, called Good News Club v. Milford Central School. In this important case, a public school in New York has refused to rent its facilities to a religious club despite renting to all sorts of other community groups. Here is a portion of the outrageous policy the school district is defending at the Supreme Court:
You can see why we want to file a brief in this case. But again, we can only do it with your help. In both of these cases, I must know if we have sufficient funding to do this work. I need your help. NOW, ALLOW ME TO SHIFT GEARS FOR A MOMENT. As you well know, we have a presidential election close at hand. I want to say a few words about why this is so important to folks like you who support our work. You can support us in prayer. You can provide the finances to fund our work. The staff can work long hard hours at wages far below what they could make at for profit law firms. BUT NONE OF THIS WILL MATTER IF THE SUPREME COURT IS COMPOSED OF RADICAL LIBERAL JUSTICES. Everyone knows that the next President of the United States will appoint many new Justices. After all, many of the current Justices are in poor health and advanced in years. Some people believe he will appoint as many as four new Justices. While the National Legal Foundation does not endorse candidates, we can certainly tell you what each candidate has said about the Supreme Court. Al Gore has said that he will appoint Justices that will uphold Roe v. Wade. In other words, he will appoint pro-abortion Justices. George W. Bush has said that he will appoint more Justices like Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia. In other words, he will appoint more pro-life, pro-religious liberty, pro-morality Justices. Now let me tie together the two things I’ve written about. We want to file briefs in the two cases I’ve described to you. We will also want to file briefs in any other religion case that is heard this term. But I also want to know that all of our current and future efforts will not be in vain. I need to know that our friends and supporters will vote for the presidential candidate that they believe will more likely appoint right thinking Supreme court Justices. I am hoping that you and I can exchange promises. I will promise to vote and to file briefs in as many of these cases as you help us fund. I hope you will promise to vote and to give your very best financial gift today. Together we can make a difference. Thank you so very much, Steven W. Fitschen P.S. By the time you get this letter, both the election and the first brief deadlines will be just days away. Please return your response card just as soon as you possibly can. I need to know which briefs we can fund and file! Thanks again.
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Post Office Box 64427, Virginia Beach, Virginia, 23467-4427 |
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© 2006 by the National Legal Foundation & Minuteman Institute |
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