Washington Watch 4460 Orchard Lake road MI 48323 248.683.1010 Rhone: West Bloomfield, II •ant (Sired ofq0esi 'Bloomfield P in Studios and suites with private baths Three well planned daily meals Assisted living , Emergency call systems . Housekeeping and linen services Round the clock staffing W .1111 catered services Licensed Nurses 24 Hours Daily Personal care assistance Medical supervision s g beautiful surroundin Spa with pool and exercise room Scheduled activities Game room created especiall y Library Hair salon for older adults. Sundries shop Transportation Regent Plus--For The Memory Impaired Religious Liberty Coalition Collapses JAMES D. BESSER Washington Correspondent Washington arly in the year, backers of a new religious liberty bill drafted to replace one over- turned by the Supreme Court were boasting about the unusually broad coalition of religious and civil rights groups backing the legislation. This week, support for the mea- sure, once termed the top domestic priority for a number of Jewish groups, crumpled after months of conflict over claims that the Religious Liberty Protection Act (RLPA) could trump" civil rights laws. RLPA, designed to prevent state and local governments from using public money to interfere with reli- gious practices, could allow landlords to justify discrimina- tion against gay or unmarried couples or African Americans on religious liberty grounds, according to groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union. In recent days, pro-choice, anti- child abuse and women's groups added their voices to those worried that RLPA could undercut other civil rights protections. Some Jewish leaders, while dis- agreeing with that argument, worried that pushing RLPA now — with a fractured, quarreling coalition — could do more harm than good. "It's becoming increasingly clear this bill will not happen in this Congress because of opposition from all quar- ters," said Mark Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, an early supporter of the measure. "We are increasingly concerned about what this debate will mean for religious liberty in general." Efforts at compromise were thwart- ed by inflexible positions on both sides — civil rights leaders who insist- ed that the new measure carve out exemptions for all existing civil rights laws, and religious leaders who wanted no exemptions. " TOURS AVAILABLE DAILY call 248.683.1010 Since 1986 STEVEN TARNOW, C.R. (248) 626-5603 PREFERRED BUILDING CO. Fax 248-932-0950 Residential & Commercial Remodeling Building Quality Into Every Project With Unmatched Personal Service. Featuring Andersen Windows NARK` ,N110 , A1 AN ,IH . 1,110 , 01 1111 K1 N100111 , 1. 001,110 Licensed & Insured 11•111111111•1111=M1 American Heart Associationt Tobacco? oir Fighting Haan Disease and Stroke ii Don't get me started... 01997, American Heart Association 9/17 1999 \ eat I- ■ 1 "Some differences just can't be blinked away," Pelavin said. At an emotional, two-hour meeting, a number of key supporters — includ- ing the RAC, the Anti-Defamation League, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Baptist Joint Committee, the United Church of Christ, and the National Council of Churches — agreed to stop supporting the bill. They held out the possibility that they might press for a narrower bill before the end of the congressional session. But the Orthodox Union and the American Jewish Congress — whose legal director, Marc Stern, drafted RLPA — will continue to support the measure. "The charges that have been leveled against RLPA are often exaggerated and distorted," said Stern. "Some of the claims are bizarre. But the political reality is that we may have to rethink strategy" Stopping Cyber Hate Hate groups contin- ue to spread their poisonous ideology over the World Wide Web, but crafting policies to shut them down without steam- rollering basic consti- tutional protections . will be extraordinarily difficult. That was the core message offered by several Jewish leaders at Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on online hate. Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center described an assortment of hate sites, from Web pages offering step-by-step instruc- tions for backyard bomb builders to a site designed to be found by school children doing research on Martin Luther King — in reality, the product of one of the most notorious hate groups on the Net. He added that more hate sites are targeting the very young — often, children as young as 8 or 9, using slick and deceptive packaging to give their sites a veneer of legitimacy. The Wiesenthal Center has identi- fied some 2,200 "problematic" sites featuring over-the-edge hate ideology or outright incitements to terrorism.