wfn.org | First amendment doomed?

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Note #7171 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

22-May-2002
02189

First amendment doomed?

Freedom Foundation head warns that basic freedoms 'are in trouble'

by James Solheim
Episcopal News Service

TALLADEGA, AL - In a provocative keynote address to the Associated Church Press annual convention here last month, Charles Overby, chairman of the Freedom Foundation, said that the First Amendment of the Constitution "is in trouble - and that means you are in trouble."

Overby called the First Amendment "a very fragile document - and there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world." Yet he said, in his address titled "The Religious Press in the Public Square," that "it will not survive this century unless the public is educated." 

Recent polls done for the Freedom Foundation, an independent foundation dedicated to the First Amendment and media issues, reveal that many Americans are objecting to what they perceive as "unbridled freedoms," expressing a willingness to give up some basic freedoms for more security. 

For example, almost 40 percent say that the First Amendment goes too far - double the percentage of the previous year. 

"We have our work cut out for us," Overby said when 46 percent of Americans think that the press has too much freedom. "That should be sobering to all journalists." 

He said that America is the most religiously diverse nation of earth with more than 3,000 recognized religious groups. "Yet many insist that we are a Christian nation."

He said that the Freedom Forum is convinced that it is important to teach about religion and its role in the life of the nation but is opposed to prayer in public schools or posting the Ten Commandments in government buildings, regarding them as attempts to "secularize" religion. 

"We don't need our government to tell us what to do in the realm of religion," he said. 

Overby challenged the church communicators to be more diligent in exploring the issues, using their considerable influence in more effective ways. "Your job is more important than it has been before, even though it is being minimized by many religious leaders," he added. Too often those leaders are "confused about the issues - they need more light and less heat."

The Associated Church Press is the oldest organization of religious communicators in North America, with more than 200 member publications, as well as numerous individual members.
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