Rob
Sherman Advocacy
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Rob
Sherman Advocacy
Click on either picture for larger image and picture description.
"Fighting injustice, one victory at a time."
In last Saturday's Liberal News & Commentary, I told you about parochial school ads that appeared on the village marquee two weeks ago in my home town of Buffalo Grove, Illinois, and that Rob Sherman Advocacy had sought to have the ads removed and similar ads banned from government property. Today, I'm pleased to report that this project by Sherman Advocacy has been successfully completed.
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At just past nine o'clock on Monday morning, February 25, 2002, I drove past Buffalo Grove Village Hall and observed the advertisements pictured below. The ads promoted two parochial schools, one Jewish and one Christian. Click on the images below to see larger versions of the ads.
I parked and went inside village hall to request a meeting, at the earliest possible time, with either Village President (Mayor) Elliott Hartstein or Village Manager William Balling to discuss my concerns about the ads. Within half an hour, both the President and the Manager agreed to meet with me that morning. At ten o'clock that same morning, I met with both the President and the Manager in the Village Manager's office.
I expressed my objections on constitutional grounds to the use of taxpayer property for the purpose of promoting parochial schools, directly in one case and indirectly in the other case. The constitutional arguments were as follows:
The Illinois Constitution, at Article 1 (Bill of Rights), Section 3 (Religious Freedom), states, in pertinent part, that "No person shall be required to support any ministry or place of worship against his consent, nor shall any preference be given by law to any religious denomination or mode of worship." It was my contention that the taxpayers of Buffalo Grove were unconstitutionally being required to support Judaism and Christianity by taking tax dollars from us to buy the sign and then using the sign to promote parochial schools of those religions. In addition, the government was showing a preference to Judaism and Methodist Christianity by choosing to promote those two sects on public property.
Article 8 (Finance), Section 1 (General Provisions), Paragraph A states: "Public funds, property or credit shall be used only for public purposes." It was my contention that promoting attendance at selected private schools was a private, not public, purpose, in violation of the provisions of Article 8, Section 1.
Article 10 (Education), Section 3 (Public Funds for Sectarian Purposes Prohibited) states, in pertinent part, that "[No municipality] shall ever make any appropriation or pay from any public fund ... anything ... to help support or sustain any school [or] academy ... controlled by any church or sectarian denomination; nor shall any grant or donation of land, money, or other personal property ever be made by ... any [municipality] to any church, or for any sectarian purpose." It was my contention that the advertisements constituted an obviously unconstitutional use of tax dollars to aid parochial schools and that the advertisements constituted an unconstitutional grant or donation of public land, money and property for a sectarian purpose.
President Hartstein and Manager Balling were, as always, very courteous, polite and professional. They responded that the points which I had made merited consideration and review, and that someone would get back to me within a week with a decision on what changes, if any, were warranted. We departed on excellent terms.
At three o'clock that very same afternoon, the Assistant Village Manager in charge of communications, Phillip Versten, called me on the telephone to say that the Village agreed with me and that the advertisements for the parochial schools had been already been removed from the village marquee. He also stated that a policy was now in place to make sure that those types of messages would not appear on our signboard in the future.
This marked the second time in a week that the goal of a Rob Sherman Advocacy project had been achieved in less than a day. On the previous Monday, as reported in the February 19th edition of Liberal News & Commentary, I had succeed in getting Sears to pull its Old Glory door mats from their The Great Indoors stores nationwide. This also marked the fourth time in less than three weeks that the goals of a Rob Sherman Advocacy project had been achieved.
Rob Sherman Advocacy again seeks your financial support. Rob Sherman Advocacy not only has worthy projects, it actually achieves the goals of its projects, and often does so very quickly.
Rob Sherman Advocacy doesn't issue news releases complaining about state/church separation violations, the way that it is done by an outfit from New Jersey that you may have heard about. Instead, Rob Sherman Advocacy issues news releases announcing that we have ended state/church separation violations because we get involved and have the talent, strategy, techniques, contacts, willingness and persistence to get results. If you want results, the place to put your money is here, not in New Jersey. Please contact Rob Sherman Advocacy to become a supporter. Here's how to contact Rob Sherman Advocacy:
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Rob Sherman P. O. Box
7410
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089-7410
A post office box is used
because
the street address uses a curb mail box,
which is not secure.
Telephone: (847) 870-0700
Fax: (847) 870-1156
E-mail: rob followed by the at symbol followed by robsherman dot com