Washington City Paper: Contents for Feb. 2

Taking Liberties
What's wrong with the ACLU

Cover Story

District residents favor limits on campaign

contributions; the American Civil Liberties Union is suing to overturn them.

District residents favor a curfew for

children; the ACLU is suing to repeal it.

District residents favor student-led school prayer; the ACLU is suing to prevent it.

Do civil libertarians really know what's best for the city?

Meetings of the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics are usually sleepy affairs. A few petitioners present their cases, the three-member panel discusses them, and the spectators—no more than a handful of them—observe quietly in the back of the room.

But on April 6, 1994, nearly 400 Bible-thumping adults transformed the community room at 1 Judiciary Square into a surrogate Sunday meeting. The crowd, dressed up in suits and ties, dresses and hats, had come to show and shout their support for a citizen-sponsored initiative to return prayer to the schools. The initiative, which was sponsored by public-housing employee and aspiring politician Chuck Ballard, would have permitted nonsectarian student-led prayer in D.C. public schools. If approved by the board, supporters of the initiative would have been allowed to gather signatures to place it on the November 1994 ballot.

A cry of "Hallelujah!" and a reading from Luke would have been more appropriate than a call to order and the recitation of the minutes. Ballard told board members that "God laid something on my heart'' when he wrote the text for the initiative. "It's my way of getting a little bit of morality back in the school system."... Continued

Issue of Feb. 2 - 8, 1996

News and Features

Taking Liberties
What's wrong with the ACLU
Cover Story By Jonetta Rose Barras
Mother's Helper
Feature By Ellen Barry
Eating Jim Crow
Feature By Philip Burnham
Shot Rod
The City By John Cloud
Washington, D.C.: A (Third) World-Class City
Why Imitate Paris When You Can Be New Delhi?
The City By Jeffrey Itell
Heart & Soul Food
The City By Brett Anderson
Guerilla Parking
The City By Don Crinklaw
Fourth Estatehood
The Mail By G. Michael Corrigan
Pretrial and Error
The Mail By Donna V. Madole
Wright On
The Mail By Pete Durgan
CEO A-OK
The Mail By Linda Chavez
Putting Words in His Mouth
The Mail By Carl C. Sumter
The Moon Upstairs
The Mail By John Walker
White On
The Mail By James E. Felten