Word: istook
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...amendment, sponsored by Oklahoma Republican Ernest Istook, proposed to stretch freedom of religion far beyond the after-school clubs and private prayer already allowed under federal guidelines. It insisted that "the people's right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage or traditions on public property, including schools, shall not be infringed." Worried opponents -- including plenty of religious organizations -- envision a turf war between faiths being fought on school grounds. In Istook's version of the future, they say, the most urgent religious freedom may be freedom from religion, not freedom...
...response, G.O.P. leaders have moved away sharply from the do-little approach that has characterized Congress's deliberations since last summer in favor of an agenda aimed at "drawing distinctions"--read, picking fights--with Democrats and the White House on everything from abortion to Monica. Says Oklahoma's Ernest Istook, a religious conservative in the House: "It's been a long time coming, but the leadership has finally gotten the wake-up call...
...would give public school children vouchers to attend private schools, and withdrew an $18 billion appropriation for the International Monetary Fund in a dispute with the Clinton White House over an antiabortion provision in a separate bill. And there's more to come. In June the House will consider Istook's Religious Freedom amendment to the Constitution, which would allow organized prayer in public schools. And before August, for the third time in three years, they will vote to outlaw "partial birth" abortions. The fact that much of this agenda will either die in the Senate or be vetoed...
...clubs' explosive spread coincides with a more radical but so far less successful movement for a complete overturn of the 1963 ruling. On the federal level is the Religious Freedom amendment, a constitutional revision proposed by House Republican Ernest Istook of Oklahoma, which would reinstate full-scale school prayer. It passed the Judiciary Committee, 16 to 11, last month but will probably fare less well when the full House votes in May. One of many local battlefields is Alabama, where last week the state senate passed a bill mandating a daily moment of silence--a response to a 1997 federal...
...that the First Amendment's Free Exercise clause protecting religious expression is as vital as its Establishment Clause, which prohibits government from promoting a creed. The civil libertarians' acceptance of the clubs owes something to their use as a defense against what they consider a truly bad idea: Istook's school-prayer amendment. Says Lynn: "Most reasonable people say, 'If so many kids are praying legally in the public schools now, why would you possibly want to amend the Constitution...