North Carolina
Discounts
in Michigan

Save 30% to 50%

Now...buy fine furniture at
COST-PLUS PRICES!

We display and offer through our catalogs
over 409 famous furniture brands

Recommended by: Family Circle magazine, The Underground Shopper, The Toll
Free Shopping Guide, & "Live" w/Regis & Kathy Lee.

Discover why America's smartest shoppers burthe North Carolina way.

`N9rth. Calf)Una Futhiture

1 -800-227-6060

FREEE
Call today for free brochure • We deliver nationwide
Hours Monday through Saturday 9:30-5:30, Sunday 12-5

She
Loves Me

She
Loves Me
Not

286 West Maple • Birmingham

(810) 540-1977

THE DE TRO

Mon.-Sat. 10-5:30 • Thurs. 10-9

118

Next time you feed your face, think about your heart.

Go easy on your heart and start cutting back on foods that are high in saturated
fat and cholesterol. The change'lf do you good.

U American Heart Association

WE'RE FIGHTING FOR YOUR LIFE

Washington

LOSING page 126

church-state debate has shifted to
the right, toward terrain occupied
by groups such as Pat Robertson's
Christian Coalition.
Mr. Istook, whose resonant
voice hints of his past as a radio
reporter, has become the prima-
ry standard-bearer for the Chris-
tian right agenda in the House.
That status is especially curious
because Mr. Istook is a Mormon
— a group publicly described as a
cult by many Evangelical Chris-
tians.
In a recent interview, Mr. Is-
took kept coming back to one pri-
mary reason for altering the First
Amendment: the people, he said,
want it.
For decades, he said, the school
prayer issue "has commanded 75
percent popular support among
the American people. So when
people pose the question 'Why
now?' my response is, 'Why not
sooner?' Any issue that is of im-
portance to that number of peo-
ple in the country deserves to be
brought up:"
But polling data shows that
while a majority of Americans
support the concept of voluntary,
student-initiated school prayer,
there is far less support for sweep-
ing constitutional changes, ac-
cording to Rabbi David
Saperstein, director of the Reli-
gious Action Center of Reform Ju-
daism and a professor of
constitutional law.
And tampering with the Con-
stitution to suit changing public
attitudes defies the intentions of
the nation's founders, he said.
"Our fundamental liberties are
not supposed to. be subject to ma-
jority vote."
Leaders of religious right
groups regularly argue that the
amendment is necessary because
of pervasive discrimination
against Christians in public set-
tings. Mr. Istook said that while
Christians have been the prima-
ry targets of anti-religious pub-
lic policy, other groups have
suffered as well from "First
Amendment provisions being
used as a weapon by judges and
government bureaucrats against
people of faith."
He cited the Lee vs. Weisman
and Kiryas Joel cases as exam-
ples. The first involved a Supreme
Court ruling against a public
school graduation benediction by
a rabbi; the second centered on de-
cisions voiding the creation of a
public school district specifically
to serve the needs of Orthodox
Jews.
But Christians, he conceded,
will be the primary beneficiaries
of his amendment and the vari-
ant promoted by the GOP lead-
ership.
"In a country where Christian-
ity is the most prominent religion,
you would expect to see that from
people who target religious ex-
pression generally," he said.
"You're going to be targeting the

most prominent religion more
than the others."
Mr. Istook said that under the
guise of "political correctness," lib-
erals have "tried to undercut the
right to free speech by creating a
new right of freedom from hear-
ing something with which you dis-
agree. They have singled out
religious expression to be lumped
with pornography as categories of
expression which are so offensive
they should be repressed."

Ernest !stook:
Blunt objectives.

What about religious "witness-
ing" in schools and the workplace,
a primary concern of Jewish lead-
ers who worry that even "student-
initiated" prayer will result in a
subtle coercion against children
who choose not to participate?
"Proselytization is a major com-
mandment within Christianity,"
Mr. Istook said, offering citations
from the Christian Bible to prove
his point. "You can proselytize peo-
ple to be a Democrat or a Repub-
lican; you can proselytize them to
be in some environmental effort.
All of these are forms of prosely-
tization. So why should we seek
different treatment for religious
proselytization?"
But Jewish activists contend
that religious speech is treated dif-
ferently in the Constitution be-
cause of the enormous power of
religion, and the potential for re-
ligious coercion by the majority.
"Our Founding Fathers over-
whelmingly understood that reli-
gion is different from other kinds,
of speech and activity," Rabb'
Saperstein said. "Representative
(stook wants to undo over two cen-
turies of the most extraordinary
religious freedom and vitality in
history."
Some school prayer advocates
want non-sectarian prayer, or a
moment of silence; Mr. Istook
wants students to have the right -\
to vocal, formal prayer that he
says inevitably will reflect their
sectarian perspectives.
"Anyone's prayer reflects their
own religious beliefs," he said. "I
don't know of any other area
where you try to homogenize peo-
ple's expression, and force them L
to say things in a government-ap-
proved way. That's censoring your

LOSING page 130