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MARYLAND SCHOOL PRAYER By William J. Murray 
On March 14, 2000 I testified before the Maryland Legislature on behalf
of school prayer. This was the first time I had testified in any manner
in Maryland about school prayer since the lawsuit was filed by my
mother, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, to remove prayer from the schools in
the early 1960’s. I was invited to testify by Delegate Anthony
O’Donnell, one of the few Republicans in the Maryland Legislature. His
bill, Education - Schools - Authorized Practices, would allow students
to make a statement, including a prayer, at their graduation.The controversy started in a rural Maryland county that had allowed class presidents or other leaders of a graduating class to make a statement or lead a prayer. Last year one student demanded that there should be no prayer. He proclaimed that it was his right to censor all other students so that he would not be "offended" by a prayer. The ACLU immediately entered the case in favor of censorship as they usually do and the school board told Julie Schenk, a class leader, that she would not be allowed to express her faith during the graduation ceremony. Delegate O’Donnell’s bill simply stated, "On public school property or other property utilized for a school-sponsored event, student-delivered, voluntary messages or prayers shall be permitted during graduation or commencement ceremonies or other school-sponsored events within the context of the event." At the hearings Delegate O’Donnell and several parents testified in favor of the bill as did I. Standing against freedom of speech and for censorship was the ACLU of Maryland, the Maryland Jewish Alliance and the Maryland Association of Boards of Education. The leadership of the "education" community in Maryland and particularly the teachers unions such as the NEA believe in censorship. Any ideas not promoted by liberals, they believe, should be banned speech, particularly if that speech has to do with God. Baltimore Sun, which ran the first story ever on my mother, sent a feature writer to cover the story. Besides the Baltimore Sun, the story appeared in the Washington Post and Washington Times, as well as being distributed by the Associated Press and the Capitol News Service. TEXAS SCHOOL PRAYER A prayer for the players before a high school ball game is a tradition in Texas older than football. The practice of publicly praying for contestants before games is probably older than written language. There was prayer at the original Olympic games in ancient Greece.The ACLU and four families in Texas believe they have a better understanding of civilization and the U.S. Constitution than the rest of humanity and thus they are at the Supreme Court attempting to rob those of faith of their right to free speech. On March 29 the Supreme Court of the United States heard the case of the students of El Paso, Texas who simply believe they have a right to pray before their school football games. Opposed, of course, is the ACLU. The ACLU has raised millions of dollars from those who hate free speech to win this case. In fact, the ACLU has raised far more money on this issue than it would ever cost to argue the case. But, that is the real business of the ACLU, raising money for the executives that run it. In their quest for fame and big bucks the will of the people has no place.
Oddly, the liberal ACLU, the PAW and other left-wing groups that fight school prayer criticized Bush for backing school prayer but said nothing about Gore being on the same side with Bush on the issue. Inside the Washington Beltway it is understood that Vice President Gore’s staff told the ACLU, the PAW and other liberal and atheist groups that because of the election he "had" to support voluntary prayer but that once in office he would move back to their side. Thus they have not criticized him for this new position of his. During the hearings, Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Thomas and Scalia were obviously on the side of the students who wanted to have the right to pray before the games. That gives us three votes in favor of prayer before the games. Justices Souter and Ginsburg were openly hostile to prayer. It appears that Justices Stevens and Breyer will side with Souter and Ginsburg, giving them four solid votes against prayer. As usual, the votes of Justices Kennedy and O’Connor will be pivotal. If either Kennedy or O’Connor vote against freedom of religious speech, there will be no more prayers before school football games. Both Kennedy and O’Connor have to vote with us. Please be in prayer with me that the Holy Spirit will touch the hearts of Justices Kennedy and O’Connor. Pray that their hearts will be softened to His will and that they will turn from the secular path and allow our children the right to freedom of prayer. School Prayer Victory in Florida The 11th U.S District Court has ruled that graduation ceremonies in Duval County, Florida may continue to involve student-led prayer. The panel of judges voted ten to two to uphold the school board’s policy of allowing students to elect a representative who would then craft and deliver an uncensored graduation message. The ACLU will probably appeal the ruling since they are against freedom of speech that may involve prayer.The elected student may deliver any message, religious or secular. The message may not be a prayer. In fact, the student could say he is an atheist. But not even that satisfies the ACLU because the student could say a prayer if he wants to. The ACLU does not want the student to have that liberty. Under the rule of law as they see it, the student leader should be directed to deliver only a non-religious message with no prayer. The ACLU would OK a message such as, "All hail the great and wonderful ACLU." A statement giving God credit for His wonders would, however, be prohibited. We must continue to pray that other judges will come to see the ACLU for what it is, an organization dedicated to trampling on the rights of those it disagrees with. Baby Body Parts for Sale The Religious Freedom Coalition for some time has been working in Washington with the Family Research Council, Traditional Values Coalition, the Christian Coalition and other groups to expose the dismemberment and sale of body parts from aborted babies. Planned Parenthood runs the largest number of abortion mills in the United States. They promote late term abortions because the various parts of the babies can fetch big dollars. The woman pays Planned Parenthood for the abortion, then Planned Parenthood sells the brain of her baby to researchers for $1000.00. Yes, that is the going rate for a baby brain in good condition. The other parts of the baby are sold as well.In March, ABC’s 20/20 filmed abortionist Dr. Miles Jones of Kansas discussing sales of thousands of dollars a week in baby body parts. This is against the law. The Republican Congress has passed laws against such a gruesome trade; however, the Reno Justice Department has not acted. At last the FBI has begun an investigation, apparently without Reno’s approval. Please pray that the ghouls who trade in the body parts of the innocent unborn will be brought to justice. Slavery Is Not Dead By Nancy M. Murray Human slavery is not, as most Americans believe, a problem of bygone generations, something that doesn’t exist in the modern world. The tragic fact is that millions of women and children around the world are traded and sold and moved from country to country as sexual slaves. The Department of State conservatively estimates that at least 50,000 women are trafficked into the United States each year, most of them coming from Russia, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and Mexico. A large but unknown number of children from Mexico and from within the United States are sold each year into U. S. brothels. Many of the same people involved in trafficking drugs and illegal arms are also trading women and children for financial gain. The human slave trade, though, unlike drug smuggling, exposes the criminals to very little personal risk. They are aided and abetted in every country by dishonest businessmen and corrupt government officials who also profit financially. Large international trafficking rings operate in poverty stricken countries such as India, Mexico, Ukraine, Nepal, Thailand and many others, looking for the desperately poor and vulnerable. Sometimes parents of families on the brink of starvation succumb to the temptation to actually sell their children to traffickers. Other times, girls from poor families are recruited for what they think will be jobs in factories or as household servants. Typically, these women and children are taken to another country, usually in western Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, the U. S. or Canada, where they do not speak the language and have no legal visa, and are forced into prostitution. They are held in inhumane conditions where they are beaten and raped, and many contract AIDS or venereal diseases. If they do not comply with the demands of their captors, food and water are withheld, and threats are made against their families back home. When these prostitution trafficking rings are discovered, even in the United States, not much is done to the criminals because the law does not treat these crimes as the kidnapping and rape which they actually are. The victims, who are undocumented aliens, are put in jail, sometimes for many months, while police try to get information about who brought them into the country. Many victims are too traumatized to testify and too afraid of retaliation by the traffickers. They have good reason to fear, because they face deportation to their home country where they will be at the mercy of the criminals against whom they had testified. To address this tragic problem, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) have introduced HR 3244, which would provide much more severe penalties for the traffickers and would provide more assistance for victims when they are found. It also provides for a reduction in U. S. financial aid to governments which tolerate or condone human slave trafficking. The next step for HR 3244 is consideration at a hearing by the Judiciary Committee which decides which proposed legislation reaches the floor of the House for a vote. Rep. Henry Hyde is chairman of the Judiciary Committee. The Clinton administration has so far thrown up obstacles to every attempt to stop sexual trafficking of women and children, evidently because those in the administration do not see prostitution as something wrong and evil. In fact, last year when the United Nations was trying to do something to stop this trade, Clinton and Madeleine Albright sided with countries like the Netherlands, where prostitution is legal. They opposed a much tougher protocol offered by Argentina and supported by the developing countries from which most of the victims come. Furthermore, at a speech before the World Trade Organization conference in 1999, Clinton included child prostitution and child pornography in the category "worst forms of labor." Mr. Clinton should realize that children being used by adults for sexual purposes cannot in any way or form be called "child labor." This is a serious crime in every civilized society, and for very good reasons. The Administration position is that the victims should be required to prove that actual force was used, and that trafficking people between countries for sexual use would be permissible if the traffickers could show signed consent forms from the victims. However, consent of the prostitute has never been the issue in the 70% of countries worldwide which ban prostitution. The damage to society is well recognized and doesn’t depend on who does or does not consent. And after all, how much ability to "consent" does a young girl have when her family is starving and her parents tell her that she will have to leave and send back some money for them? Some degree of force, coercion or fraud is practically always present in these cases. A typical case would be that of Lydia, a 16 year old Ukrainian girl, who along with some teenage friends was befriended by a well dressed older woman who told the girls they were nice looking and could get jobs as models. They accepted her invitation to dinner to talk about this, and afterward went to her home. The last thing Lydia remembers is accepting a drink at the woman’s house. The drinks were drugged, and the woman handed the unconscious girls over to a trafficker who drove them into Germany. When Lydia woke up she found herself in a brothel in Germany, where the manager told her she owed him $35,000 and she would have to work for him to pay it back. After seven months, Lydia managed to escape the guards one day and went to the police. They arrested her and sent her home. Back at home, she is now seventeen but feels much older. She is in poor health from several sexually transmitted diseases, and she lives in hiding for fear the traffickers will find her again. The plight of the youngest victims is particularly tragic. Although sexual abuse of a child is strictly banned by U. S. law, in many countries it is tolerated and even condoned by the government. This is especially true when the children involved are from a foreign country. The proposed bill, HR 3244, would bring pressure to bear on governments which knowingly allow this slavery to go on. At the very least, they should not be receiving financial aid from the United States. Updated 5/10/00: A bill supported by the Religious Freedom Coalition to stop modern slavery - the trafficking of women and children for sex - has passed the House by voice vote. The bill was introduced by Chris Smith of New York. Click here to learn more about passage.
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