8/1/2006 - August 2006 Newsletter

SOUTHEAST LAW INSTITUTE™ 1200 Corporate Drive, Suite 107 Highway 280 - Meadow Brook Corporate Park Birmingham, Alabama 35242 Telephone: (205) 408-8893 E-mail: AEJ@SoutheastlawInstitute.org Facsimile: (205) 408-8894 www.southeastlawinstitute.org August 2006 Dear Friends and Supporters, We are finally able to provide you with a report on important bills in the last legislative session. We have had so many intervening events to report that we have not been able to get the legislative report to you. As you can see, the usual significant number of good and bad bills died at the end of the legislative session. However, as we have already reported to you, some good bills passed, including The Brody Act (The Unborn Victims of Violence law) and removal of the athletic event tax that was being placed on church school events. At the beginning of the session we had hoped for the passage of a number of good bills, since it was an election year. However, this year we noticed a little bit different twist to events when liberal democrats tried to pass “religious” or “moral” legislation for benefit of their political reelection campaigns. For example, the bill that would have made teaching the Bible an elective course, “The Bible Literacy Act,” was a deceptive and harmful bill done in the name of Christianity. It was a win-win situation for those misguided legislators. If the bill had passed they could have proclaimed the victory. But, since the bill did not pass, they blamed their opponents and tried to take credit for standing up for the Bible in order to enhance their position with the voters. This happened in primary races and will be seen again in November in the general election. There are continuing positive developments in the war over gay marriage. The same court in Massachusetts which legalized same-sex marriage has held that a proposed constitutional ban there may move forward for a vote. A court decision in New York state held New York law does not permit gay marriage. Homosexual activists had expected victories in both of those cases. Similarly, a federal court upheld a Nebraska gay marriage ban and a Tennessee court dismissed an ACLU lawsuit that sought to throw out a Tennessee ballot measure prohibiting same-sex marriage. Please continue to pray for these and other efforts. All of this has been very good news. Finally, we all know the expression that if you lie about something you may be struck by lightning. Recently, a survey of lightning deaths per state showed none in Washington, D.C. Apparently, politicians are immune to lightning strikes. Thank you very much for your continuing support. Please remember us with your contributions and prayers during the dog days of summer. Yours very truly, A. Eric Johnston AEJ/pmm

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