By Sharon Wright
Kentucky (Owensboro) Messenger-Inquirer
January14, 2000
The House Judiciary Committee narrowly sent a proposed bill to the floor Thursday that would exempt churches from allowing camps and other facilities to be used by groups that do not espouse their religious views.
But some say the measure, which garnered 10 votes on the 18-member committee, goes too far and would allow religious groups to discriminate on the basis of race, religious affiliation or other criteria.
The bill would make churches exempt from a civil rights clause that ensures all religious and other groups access to public facilities. If the bill passes, church camps and other facilities they own would no longer be considered public.
State Rep. Thomas Kerr, D-Taylor Mill, the bill's primary sponsor, said the proposal is the outgrowth of a 1996 incident in which a church in his constituency, Bullittsburg Baptist Assembly, leased its northern Kentucky camp to the Free Inquiry Group for a weeklong retreat without realizing the group did not share their belief in a supreme being.
"We firmly believe we shouldn't have to make our facilities available to groups that are opposed to those principles we hold dear to our hearts and souls," said church attorney Robert A. Winter Jr. of Cincinnati.
Winter said the church didn't know until after it had scheduled the retreat that the Free Inquiry Group was a secular organization that emphasizes science, nature and evolution over organized religion. He said the group also brought alcohol onto the campgrounds, violating another Southern Baptist belief.
But Helen Kagin, secretary for the group based in Cincinnati and northern Kentucky, said the group described itself thoroughly when reserving the camp. She said the only alcohol on the premises were a few beers left in a refrigerator to chill by a couple who drove from Amherst, N.Y. to visit the retreat.
Alcohol is normally not permitted at retreats, Kagin said, because the children who attend range in age from only 8 to 13 and most of the counselors are also too young to drink.
The Rev. Wayne Lipscomb of the Northern Kentucky Baptist Association, which represents about 66 Southern Baptist churches in that area, said legislation would protect organizations like his from potential discrimination lawsuits.
"We work on a shoestring budget," Lipscomb said, "and the last thing we needed to do was put our assets up to go to court."
But Rep. Katie Stine, R-Fort Thomas, said the legislation was too broadly written and could open the door to discrimination. Stine, whose family is Jewish, said the measure could make it possible for her local YMCA to prevent her and her family from participating in activities there.
Bill supporters introduced a memo from the state Human Rights Commission supporting the legislation. But a spokeswoman with that agency Thursday said the memo was dated more than two years ago and no longer reflects the commission's position. Kerr said he received a message before the committee went into session that the commission no longer backed the bill.
Jeff Vessels, a spokesman for the Kentucky chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, also voiced his opposition to the bill.
"We're deeply concerned about this very broadly worded bill that it will roll back the civil rights we have enjoyed for decades," Vessels said. If the bill were passed, he said, minorities or people with disabilities might find any number of doors closed to them.
"This bill makes religion a tool of hatred and would make it legal to use tax money to discriminate," he said, referring to some programs that receive state tax money and currently use church facilities for functions.
If that happens, the church group could find itself facing a lawsuit anyway.
"I think we would certainly look very closely at the way this is implemented and, if it's used to remove civil rights, we'd be interested in moving forward with action," Vessels said.
Kagin said the Free Inquiry Group was formed in 1991. She said the group has not asked to use the church camp for its retreat since the 1996 incident.
Kagin said the group is comprised chiefly of atheists, agnostics and free thinkers who use a "rational approach to life.
"We are not against religion, although we are not ourselves religious," she said. "We believe you can be a moral person without believing in an afterlife."
Sharon Wright, (270) 691-7299
sWright@messenger-inquirer.com
By Michael Collins
The Kentucky Post, Frankfort Bureau
January 14, 2000
FRANKFORT - A Southern Baptist group from Northern Kentucky contends churches should not be forced to rent their facilities to organizations that don't share their beliefs. The group is pushing for passage of a bill that would let religious organizations get around existing civil rights laws.
Opponents of the legislation said it would roll back years of progress toward fighting discrimination in Kentucky. ''This bill makes religion a tool of hatred,'' said Jeff Vessels, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.
House Bill 70 would exempt religious organizations from civil rights laws by declaring that their facilities are not a ''place of public accommodation, resort or amusement.''
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Tom Kerr, D-Taylor Mill, passed its first test Thursday when it cleared the House Judiciary Committee on a 10-3 vote. The proposal now goes to the full House for consideration.
The Rev. Wayne Lipscomb, pastor of Union Baptist Church, said churches in Northern Kentucky decided to push for the legislation after renting a church camp to a group of secular humanists in 1996. The Bullittsburg Baptist Assembly Camp, which is located in Boone County, is owned by the Northern Kentucky Baptist Association.
Lipscomb said church officials didn't learn until after they agreed to lease the facility to the group that its members didn't share the church's belief in God. Church officials decided to go ahead and let the secular humanists use the facility because they feared a lawsuit if they didn't, Lipscomb said. ''It was not a pleasant experience,'' he said.
Opponents of Kerr's bill expressed concern that it is so broadly worded that it could open the door to exclude African-Americans and other minorities from a number of activities. Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, said her family plays basketball at the YMCA. She said she fears that if Kerr's bill becomes law, the YMCA could refuse to let her family members use the facility because they are Jewish. ''It is a broader path than we need to go down,'' said Rep. Stein, who voted against the bill.
Vessels said the proposed law also could allow day-care centers, after-school programs and a host of other services that are tied to religious organizations to openly discriminate. Many of those services are supported by state money, and allowing them to exclude people who don't share their beliefs would amount to using tax dollars to promote discrimination, Vessels said. ''This guts civil rights and uses religion as an excuse'' to discriminate, Vessels said. Lipscomb said that is absurd. But he acknowledged that camp owners would not want to lease the facility to certain groups, such as gays and lesbians.
Helen Kagin, a Union resident and member of the group that rented the church camp, said church members were fully aware of the group's beliefs when they leased the facility to the organization. The group leased the facility for its Camp Quest children's camp in 1996. The organization again rented the facility a year later and received no complaints, she said. ''We left it cleaner than most of the Baptists do,'' she said.
Ms. Kagin, who attended Thursday's committee meeting, said she was stunned to find out that the churches are pushing for a law to keep groups like hers out of their camp facility. ''It's not even an issue anymore because we didn't want to come back,'' she said. ''Has this been festering in their souls all this time that they are so upset we might try and do it again? It's ridiculous.''
By John Cheves
Lexington Herald-Leader
Thursday, February 3, 2000
FRANKFORT -- Churches could refuse to rent their facilities to gays and lesbians, atheists and others who violate their religious beliefs, but could not bar blacks or other racial groups, under a bill the House of Representatives passed yesterday.
House Bill 70 was amended five times and debated for nearly an hour before it passed 82-17. The sponsor, Rep. Tom Kerr, D-Taylor Mill, hailed it as "an attempt to restore a measure of religious freedom to our religious institutions."
The bill would exempt religious organizations from civil-rights laws that require public accommodations to be open to all. Instead, churches could keep their rented campgrounds, meeting halls and other facilities off-limits to groups inconsistent with the churches' "religious tenets."
Kerr sponsored the bill after a Baptist church association in Northern Kentucky was forced to rent its campground to a group of children who as part of their science studies held the theory of evolution over the Biblical story of creation.
Church officials testified last month before the House Judiciary Committee that they wanted to bar the children from their campground, but they felt such a move could prompt a lawsuit under civil-rights laws.
Two Democratic lawmakers, Rep. Eleanor Jordan of Louisville and Rep. Kathy Stein of Lexington, criticized the bill for advocating intolerance of others. Jordan said she detests the Ku Klux Klan, but she supported its right to march in Jefferson County a few years ago.
"It's very dangerous to tinker with civil rights legislation, particularly when the attempt is to keep someone out," Jordan said. "It's very dangerous to talk about excluding people."
The bill proceeds to the Senate. Kerr said he labored over several amendments in order to narrow its focus.
At the Judiciary Committee, critics said the original bill could allow a church to bar any group blacks, Jews, the disabled that its members did not like.
In the final version, churches could not discriminate on the basis of disability, race, color or national origin. But gays and lesbians, atheists, Satanists, Wiccans and other whose presence offends religious groups could be barred, Kerr said.
Kerr challenged Jordan, who is black, saying she should appreciate his bill, because it would allow her church to prevent the Ku Klux Klan from renting its meeting hall.
"The church I worship in would welcome the Ku Klux Klan," Jordan shot back, "because I believe we would convert them."
By Michael Collins, Frankfort Bureau Chief
The Kentucky Post
February 3, 2000
FRANKFORT - A bill stemming from a dispute between secular humanists and a Northern Kentucky church camp passed easily in the House on Wednesday. If House Bill 70 clears the Senate as expected and is signed by the governor, it would give religious organizations the right to exclude certain groups from church camps or other facilities.
Sponsored by Rep. Tom Kerr, D-Taylor Mill, the bill passed the House 82-17 despite objections that it would turn back the clock on civil rights. But Kerr and other supporters argued that the legislation is necessary to keep civil rights laws from trampling on religious freedom. The legislation would exempt religious organizations from state civil rights laws by excluding them from the definition of ''public accommodation.'' That would mean that religious organizations could refuse to make their facilities available to any group that doesn't share their religious beliefs.
Kerr said the proposed law would ''put churches back in control of their facilities.'' But Rep. Eleanor Jordan, D-Louisville, and other opponents said the bill would set a dangerous precedent. ''It's dangerous to tinker with civil rights legislation, particularly when the intent is to keep someone out,'' Rep. Jordan said.
The legislation was requested by a group of Southern Baptist churches from Northern Kentucky. The churches rented the Bullittsburg Baptist Assembly Camp, which is owned by the Northern Kentucky Baptist Association, to a group of secular humanists in 1996. Church officials claim they didn't learn until after they agreed to lease the Boone County facility that the humanist organization's members don't believe in God. The churches decided to go ahead and rent the camp instead of risking a lawsuit. The secular humanist group, which used the facility for its Camp Quest youth camp, insists that church officials were told up front about the organization's beliefs.
Legislators tightened the bill by approving a broad amendment that Kerr hoped would appease critics who feared that churches might use the proposed law to discriminate against African-Americans and other minorities. The amendment inserted language into the bill making it clear that religious organizations can't discriminate on the basis of disability, race, color or national origin. It added another clause prohibiting discrimination in non-religious activities sponsored by religious organizations.
The YMCA and other religious groups sometimes offer basketball leagues and other programs to the public. Kerr said the changes would help ease concerns that some of those groups might try to use the proposed law to keep Jewish people or African-Americans from participating in those programs. Another change states that any group that teaches or advocates hatred based on race, color or national origin doesn't fit the definition of a religious organization. Kerr said that would prohibit skinheads or other hate groups from claiming they are a religious organization and are therefore exempt from civil rights laws.
The changes failed to satisfy those who still find the provisions too broad. Rep. Jordan, who is African-American, said she fears religious organizations will use the bill to exclude people like herself. "If we don't protect the rights of everybody, then we have no right to protect the rights of anybody,'' she said.
Rep. Arnold Simpson, D-Covington, was the only Northern Kentucky legislator to vote against the bill. Simpson, who also is African-American, said he understands the intent of the legislation, but ''I was concerned that somehow it could be used for a purpose that Tom did not intend.... I was just never 100 percent comfortable with it,'' he said.
Helen Kagin, a Union resident and member of the group that rented the church camp in Boone County, said she is disappointed that legislators approved the bill. ''The representatives who passed it showed a real lack of thinking about this because it has all kinds of ramifications,'' she said. ''It is definitely discrimination.''