Rob
Sherman Advocacy
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Rob
Sherman Advocacy
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"Fighting injustice, one victory at a time."
The President of Elk Grove Village, Illinois, has reneged on his agreement to have me become the first atheist to ever present an invocation at a government meeting in America. In so doing, he betrayed a promise to a friend. What's much worse is that he then lied about it to the press.
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Elk Grove Village President Craig Johnson had invited me to do the invocation at tonight's meeting of the Village Board of Trustees. As reported in the January 10th edition of Liberal News & Commentary, an article appeared on Page 3 of the Daily Herald. It didn't take long after that for Mr. Johnson to renege on the deal.
I received a call from the Village Manager at 3:01 on Friday afternoon. He called to say that there was a problem with me doing the invocation on Tuesday. In the fifty-seven year history of the village, invocations have been given only by members of the community. The Village President has decided to retain that practice and directed the Village Manager to inform me of that decision.
I replied that I agreed with and supported sustaining that practice. However, after further discussion, I also informed the Village Manager that I met that standard and probably met that standard more fully than most clergy in town.
Since financial support for Rob Sherman Advocacy of Buffalo Grove has not yet materialized sufficiently to provide me with any income, I support my family financially by working as an employee of a freight business in the industrial park on the east side of the village. I therefore meet that standard of being a member of the community in the same way as many clergy in town do, by working in town while living in a neighboring suburb. I am just as much a member of the community as those clergy who work in Elk Grove Village but live in a nearby suburb, so the President's concern could be put to rest and I would be there on Tuesday to do the invocation.
Not only that, the Rob Sherman Travel Agency still operates part time, selling an occasional vacation package from Apple Vacations. The Midwest regional headquarters of Apple Vacations is in Elk Grove Village. All of my Apple business goes through that office and all of the Apple travel documents for my customers are produced there. Perhaps you've seen their building. It's on the south side of the Northwest Tollway (Interstate 90), about a mile east of Arlington Heights Road.
In addition, the web site for Rob Sherman Advocacy is hosted by my internet service provider, which is located on Howard Street on the east side of the Village, so Elk Grove Village is truly the economic engine of everything I do. If that's not enough, my television show is carried on the Elk Grove Village public access channel, so in reality, I am more of a member of the Elk Grove Village community than most of the clergy who work in one of the churches in town.
The Village Manager said that he'd get back to me (presumably with a different excuse). When he called back, about fifteen minutes later, he said that, while everything I said was true, I didn't live in Elk Grove Village. I replied that there surely were some, if not many, of the clergy who lead churches in Elk Grove Village but don't live in the town, either. Certainly, some live in neighboring suburbs, such as Arlington Heights, Schaumburg, Hoffman Estates or even Buffalo Grove, so the non-resident excuse didn't wash.
The Village Manager said that he'd get back to me (presumably with a different excuse). When he called back, about fifteen minutes after that, he said that, while what I said was true, I didn't work for a faith-based community organization. I replied that no atheist works for a faith-based community organization, so if that was now going to be the standard by convenience, it would mean that no atheist could ever do the invocation. Invitations to give the invocation would therefore be made on a discriminatory basis of god-believers only, with no atheists allowed, so this new excuse amounted simply to discrimination against atheists.
I reminded the Village Manager that the whole premise of Duh-bya's faith-based initiative is that community organizations should not be discriminated against in the allocation of federal funds solely on the basis that the community organization is operated by a sectarian denomination. Here, Elk Grove Village was now proposing the exact opposite standard, in which a member of the community would be discriminated against if he is not a member of a faith-based organization. That obviously would be reverse discrimination.
The Village Manager said that he'd get back to me (presumably with a different excuse). When he called back after about another fifteen minutes, he offered to let me make a presentation during the "Citizens' comments" portion of the agenda, which would be moved up to just after the Pledge of Allegiance and an invocation by somebody who believed in God, but that I would not be allowed to give the invocation.
I rejected the snub.
The next day, the Daily Herald published another story about the situation, entitled, "Village withdraws its offer to let atheist say invocation." Since that story didn't make it into the electronic edition of the Daily Herald, I've reproduced it, below, for the benefit of those of you who live out of town and have no other access to see the story. If you live in town, please go buy a copy of the paper, yourself.
In this Daily Herald story, at the bottom of the first column, President Johnson is quoted as saying that I "was never expected to give the invocation." My being listed on the Official Agenda as the person who would be giving the invocation "was a typo," according to Johnson.
The Village Board meeting is Mr. Johnson's meeting. He can invite whomever he wants to give the invocation and he has the right to withdraw that invitation at any time. It's his meeting. What is of concern is that he would put my credibility in doubt by lying about supposedly never having invited me to do the invocation, that the listing was just a typo. Another concern is that Mr. Johnson seems to have a very short memory.
The Daily Herald reporter who wrote both stories is Rebecca Ames Boykin. She chooses to use just her last two names in her byline. It's her name. She is welcome to do what she wants with it. Last Tuesday, the Village Board held a Committee of the Whole meeting. Rebecca, who is an excellent reporter, wasn't assigned to cover that meeting, so she didn't hear how Mr. Johnson was telling everybody at the meeting that I would be doing the invocation at the January 14th meeting. Mr. Johnson might have been able to fake out Miss Boykin since she wasn't there, but a reporter for a different newspaper was there, and he can verify the truth impartially.
Patrick Corcoran, the Elk Grove Village reporter for the Pioneer Press Newspapers, was at the Committee of the Whole meeting last week. Mr. Corcoran called me to say that Mr. Johnson had told him, personally, at the conclusion of that meeting, that I would be doing the invocation the following week, so Mr. Corcoran couldn't understand why the Village President would deny ever having invited me to do it in the first place. In fact, after Mr. Johnson appeared on the August, 2002, edition of the Rob Sherman Television Show, Mr. Johnson mentioned at that time to Mr. Corcoran that he had invited me to do the invocation and that it would happen as soon as a date could be worked out, so where was the Village President coming from, after twice telling this highly respected reporter that I would do the invocation, that I "never was expected to give the invocation"?
It's one thing to change your mind, Mr. President. It's quite another thing to betray a friend by breaking a promise, and then lying about it.
Mr. Johnson's immoral and unethical conduct is particularly worrisome for two reasons.
First, Mr. Johnson operates Johnson Insurance Agency, Inc., in Elk Grove Village. According to his ad in the Yellow Pages, Mr. Johnson sells insurance for Aetna, Safeco, Travelers and General Casualty. People give Mr. Johnson money in exchange for a promise, made in a written contract, that they will be covered in the event that they suffer specific losses. What happens when people make a claim against their coverage? Will Mr. Johnson contend that the apparent inclusion in their contract of protection from that type of loss was "just a typo," so they're not covered? The people of Illinois should be very concerned about buying insurance from that type of a dishonest and unscrupulous person.
If I was in the market to buy insurance, I wouldn't buy from a known liar like Craig Johnson of the Johnson Insurance Agency.
Second, the people of Elk Grove Village are in an all-out battle to save the town from O'Hare expansion. If Mayor Daley of Chicago were to enter into an agreement with Mr. Johnson of Elk Grove Village on terms to settle the airport expansion dispute, could Mayor Daley trust Mr. Johnson to not come back later and say that provisions of the contract do not apply because they were "just a typo"? Even worse, how would Mr. Johnson feel if Mayor Daley were to agree to some term, such as putting the western bypass of the Tri-State Tollway on airport property, only to have the bulldozers knock down hundreds of businesses in Elk Grove Village to make way for the roadway to run right through the middle of some Elk Grove Village industrial parks? Would Mr. Johnson be satisfied with a reply from Mayor Daley that the new tollway was always going to be crammed down the guts of Elk Grove Village and that the written agreement to put it on airport property was "just a typo"?
The best thing to do, now, is for Mayor Johnson to resign as Village President, for he truly lacks the character to be trusted with the leadership role. At the very least, he should resign from any role in negotiating on the airport deal and he certainly should close his insurance agency to protect Illinois residents from any more claims that written agreements were just typos.
I'm greatly disappointed that Craig Johnson has turned out to be just another liar.
Rob Sherman P. O. Box
7410
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089-7410
A post office box is used
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Telephone: (847) 870-0700
Fax: (847) 870-1156
E-mail: rob followed by the at symbol followed by robsherman dot com