This crusader is found where church meets state
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WASHINGTON - On the wall of Barry Lynn's Capitol Hill office hangs a vintage movie poster of Godzilla wading through Tokyo's harbor, spewing death and destruction with every step.
That's the same image a lot of people have of Lynn, the head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He is a thorn in the backside of the religious right, a lightning rod who generates as much controversy as he does accolades.
In recent weeks he has become the point man in the offensive against President Bush's plan to provide federal funds to faith-based charities. Lynn, 52, is also the left's most articulate champion of why the government should not sponsor school prayer and why the Christian Coalition's voters guides are illegal.
But behind the sharp-tongued news releases and biting sound bites lie a mild-mannered man of deep religious faith who says his crusade against religion in public is actually a campaign to protect it in private.
"I've never seen government touch religion where it didn't either trivialize it or politicize it," Lynn said.
Lynn, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, has spent his career in the murky mix of religion and public policy. With a divinity degree from Boston University and a law degree from Georgetown, he understands both arenas.
Even Lynn's critics will attest to his mastery of the law, his principles, his convictions. But it is his interpretations of the law - not to mention the liberal causes he supports - that get his opponents fired up.
His ideas are 'dangerous,' critic says
"I don't want to bash Barry Lynn as a person, but I'm more than willing to bash his ideas, which I think are dangerous," said Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. "Barry Lynn certainly believes what he believes, but sincerity is no substitute for accuracy."
Lynn has emerged as the most visible proponent of church-state separation since Madalyn Murray O'Hair's caustic attacks on school prayer in the 1960s. Along the way, he has attracted a similar following of admirers and detractors. Crisis magazine, an independent Catholic journal, recently labeled him "The Man Behind the War Against Religion."
Bush's new White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives will provide Lynn with the highest-profile platform to argue his case. It has also raised interest in his organization. On the day Bush announced his program, the Americans United Web site had 147,000 "hits"; the previous high was 30,000.
In Lynn's mind, the issue is simple: The government is constitutionally prohibited from supporting religion, and religious groups that seek government money end up tainted in the long run.
Government money? 'Just don't do it'
"Taking government money is like taking a trip to Temptation Island," Lynn said. "Just don't do it."
But Lynn's opposition to Bush's program is not an opposition to faith-based programs, he insists. As a public minister and a private person of faith, he has seen religion do extraordinary things, he said, even in his own life. He said he does not want that power threatened or diluted by government red tape.
Lynn is certainly not alone in his position.
"You don't have vital religion unless it's voluntary, and it's not voluntary if government gets involved," said the Rev. James Dunn, a former president of the Baptist Joint Committee and a Lynn associate for 20 years.
Fair enough, say his critics. Lynn's opposition to the Bush plan was not a surprise. He is, after all, a former lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union who argued that anti-pornography laws chip away at "constitutional values of privacy and free expression." But what infuriates his opponents is Lynn's constant - and often blistering - attacks on the religious right.
Lynn's organization monitors Pat Robertson's "700 Club" TV program and attends his conventions to take note of any constitutional or politically incorrect missteps. Lynn lambasted Jerry Falwell for his implication that purple Teletubby "Tinky Winky" might be gay. Lynn suggested efforts to revive prayer in schools may have led the Columbine High School killers to feel "alienated and ostracized."
Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice - an advocacy law firm founded by Robertson - said Lynn's rapid-fire press releases and take-no-prisoners style have blunted his message.
"I think he is overzealous in his quest to keep church and state separated, to the point of losing his effectiveness with people," Sekulow said. "His opinions are not in the mainstream."
'Decent distance' between church, state
Lynn says leaders of the religious right have been less than honest about their political and social motivations. He makes no apologies for threatening to report Robertson to the Internal Revenue Service for tax violations but bristles at the notion that he is hostile toward religion.
"If I saw someone ripping off a guy's car, I would report it to the police, and if someone is misusing their tax exemption, I'd report that too," Lynn said. "That's not hostility toward anything, except maybe illegal conduct."
And he chuckles at the notion that, in the words of Crisis magazine, he is mounting a fierce campaign to strip religion from the public square. "There's no army here of lawyers willing to drop everything and battle Christianity around the country," he said.
For Lynn, both the Constitution and religious faith are kept most pure when they are kept apart at a "decent distance." Lynn applauds the success of faith-based programs and even extols Robertson's right to say whatever he wants, but just don't ask him to pay for it.
"The government cannot get into the business of conversion," Lynn said. "If George Bush thinks the solution to every problem is conversion, he can do that and believe that, but he just can't expect the taxpayers of the country to help him."