Pat Robertson

Today, Americans will witness the sad and sorry spectacle of right-wing legal and political activists urging Congress to reject strides toward equality and to pass a constitutional amendment that would require every state to treat some Americans as second-class citizens.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch has repeatedly charged that senators and activists are opposing confirmation of Bush nominees because of their religious beliefs. These charges poison an already divisive judicial nominations atmosphere, especially in advance of a possible Supreme Court vacancy and nomination.

People For the American Way Foundation joined today with the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and other groups to file a brief in federal court in support of parents challenging a school board’s decision to remove all Harry Potter books from the school library shelves. The decision by the Cedarville, Arkansas, school board, which requires written parental permission before students can check out the books, disregarded a 15-0 decision by the board’s Library Committee. The episode was triggered by a parent’s complaint that the books promote witchcraft and sorcery as well as the ideas that “magic will solve your problems” and that “parents/teachers/rules are stupid or something to be ignored.”

Statement by President Ralph G. Neas

At a time when political leaders of both parties are urging bipartisanship and national unity, it is truly unfortunate that Americans who watched today's edition of Pat Robertson's 700 Club television program received a far different message from Robertson and Falwell.