HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017389.jpg

4.2.12
WC: 191694

“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can…force citizens to confess by word or act their faith…”

Elon was excused from saying the words for the remainder of the year.

Elon suffered no adverse consequences from his religious dissent, but the same cannot be said for Susan Shapiro, a 17 year old high school senior in the Boston area. When she exercised her right not to participate in the pledge, her teacher said it was as if someone had spit on the Star of David. She was called names by fellow students and told to “go back to Israel.” (She was born in America). I agreed to represent her and, after we threatened to bring a lawsuit; we got the school to permit her not to participate in the pledge and to inform the students that she was within her rights.

A few years later I was to become involved in a highly publicized case involving the right of a criminal defendant not to be discriminated against on account of his religion, even though he himself was accused of using his religion to defraud co-religionists. The case involved television evangelist Jim Bakker, who was married to the equally famous Tammy Faye Bakker. I was retained to argue his sentencing appeal, following his conviction for defrauding PTL (“Praise the Lord” and “People that Love”) Club Lifetime Partners who had paid for homes in Heritage U.S.A.—a Christian family retreat—but were never able live in them. This is how the appellate court summarized the case:

Bakker planned to finance these projects by selling lifetime partnerships [that promised] annual lodging in one of the Heritage Village facilities…Many of these partners drew on meager incomes to purchase Heritage Village lodging benefits. Appellant raised at least $158 million through the sale of approximately 153,000 partnerships with lodging benefits.

Bakker promised television viewers that he would limit the sale of partnerships to ensure that each partner would be able to use the facilities annually. Appellant, however, oversold the partnerships…Bakker used relatively few of the funds solicited from the partners to construct promised facilities…Instead, Bakker used partnership funds to pay operating expenses of the PTL and to support a lavish lifestyle. This extravagant living included gold-plated fixtures and a $570 shower curtain in his bathroom, transportation in private jets and limousines, an air-conditioned tree house for his children and an air-conditioned doghouse for his pets. This combination of overselling partnerships and diverting partnership proceeds meant that the overwhelming majority of the partners never received the lodging benefits Bakker promised them.

After a lengthy and emotional trial, Bakker was convicted by a jury. The judge sentenced him to 45 years in prison. In imposing that lengthy sentence, the judge—the Honorable Robert Potter, known around the courthouse as “maximum Bob”—said the following:

"He had no thought whatever about his victims, and those of us who do have a religion are ridiculed as being saps from money-grubbing preachers or priests."

302

HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017389