COME VISIT US AT AUDETTE CADILLAC FOR THE BIGGEST SELECTION, BEST SERVICE & LOWEST PRICE state solution," said Jack Bendheim, the group's chairman. "But we're not endorsing any specific proposal; we would only endorse a peace proposal put out by the government Feinstein of Israel." Bendheim said his group has not taken a position on whether or not the administration should meet with Beilin and Rabbo. But Americans for Peace Now (APN), which pressed for support for the Feinstein/Capps resolution, argued that the Geneva accord is a com- plement to the administration's Mideast road map, not an alternative. "Geneva offers a model for the corn- pletion of the process that the road map begins," said APN assistant director Lewis Roth. Official U.S. endorsement of the Geneva plan would be "a painless way for the administration to send a strong message to the Israeli govern- ment and the Palestinian Authority that they have to do better," he said. But the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, while issuing no public statements about the Geneva plan or the pending congressional resolutions, advised its activists that "endorsing such back-channel ideas as a viable alternative to the road map and the vision laid out by President Bush last spring creates the illusion that what is holding up the peace process is a deficit of ideas. "Moreover, it distracts attention away from the real steps necessary to move the process forward: direct bilateral negotiations." Separation Case • Tuesday's oral arguments in a Supreme Court case involving the state of Washington's refusal to provide a schol- arship to a divinity student could trigger the most dramatic change in church- state law in decades and touch off an avalanche of new school voucher and faith-based social service proposals. But after the arguments, several Jewish activists said religious groups opposing the Washington policy — including conservative Christian groups and the major Orthodox Jewish organi- zations — may have overreached. "What struck me was that the key votes on the court — the folks in the center — seemed quite concerned about the breadth of relief that was being requested," said Richard Foltin, legislative director for the American Jewish Committee, which participated in a brief supporting the Washington state decision. That included Justice Sandra Day O'Conner, who has been the swing vote on a number of recent church-state cases. Still, Foltin and others warned against predictions based on oral arguments. The case, Locke v. Davey, was brought after Joshua Davey was turned down for a state merit scholarship. Washington, like 36 other states, has constitutional prohibitions preventing public money from going to religious institutions; unlike some states, Washington enforces those provisions strictly. Davey sued, claiming the state gave scholarships to other students regardless of their course of study but denied funding to him because he was pursu- ing a divinity degree — a clear case of religious discrimination. Attorneys for the state of Washington argued that giving the money to Davey would constitute a government subsidy for religious training, but a U.S. Appeals Court ruled against them _ . In a brief supporting the state, Marc Stern, legal director for the American Jewish Congress, argued that the state was not trying to "suppress religious ideas," but just avoiding the obvious conflict of subsidizing theological train- ing. "It has not committed religious ideas to an ideological gulag," he wrote. But opponents of the Washington pol- icy say all they're seeking is equality for religion and religious institutions — and that the Supreme Court increasingly agrees with them. "If you follow the trend of the court for the past few years, the emphasis on the idea of neutrality — that you have to treat religion and reli- gious institutions on a par with the non- religious —is really gaining strength," said Abba Cohen, Washington director for Agudath Israel of America. Agudah participated in an amicus brief submitted by the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs. A broad ruling striking down the Blaine amendments — the measures in state constitutions prohibiting funding to religious institutions — would repre- sent a "sea change" in church-state law, Cohen said. The immediate results could include a surge in new state voucher legislation and "charitable choice" proposals, which would open government grants to reli- gious health and social service providers. 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