USA Update
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Ban on gambling rejected. The U.S. House of Representatives has rejected legislation that would have prohibited most gambling on the Internet. Supporters of the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act gained a healthy majority but failed to garner the two-thirds vote necessary to pass the bill under a suspension of the rules by which it was brought to the floor July 17. The vote was 245-159 in favor of the ban, leaving the bill 25 votes short of a two-thirds majority present. Thirty members did not vote.
___ Brewer disputes claims. A spokesman for Anheuser-Busch recently criticized a Baptist evangelist's assertion that alcohol is part of the nation's drug problem. "Alcohol is legal, narcotics are not," spokesperson Suzanne Gruenstein wrote to North Carolina Baptist evangelist Ted Stone, who had asked the company to tone down its advertising aimed at teenagers. "There is a difference between a responsible adult enjoying a cold beer on a hot afternoon and an addict sitting in an abandoned building shooting up heroin."
___ Debt-relief effort gains ground. An effort to cancel debts owed by the world's poorest countries took a key step forward July 13 as the House of Representatives narrowly approved funding more than three times what House leadership had planned to provide. The 216-211 vote raised from $69 million to $225 million the amount of 2001 U.S. funding for the international initiative known by its religious supporters as Jubilee 2000. Twenty-six Republicans joined 190 Democrats in approving the increase following heated criticism from debt-relief supporters, who charged that the original $69 million figure was too low and immoral.
___ Ban on executing pregnant women passes. The U.S. House of Representatives approved without opposition July 25 a ban on executions of pregnant women. The House voted 417-0 for the Innocent Child Protection Act, which would block any U.S. jurisdiction from carrying out a death sentence on a woman carrying a child "at any stage of development."
___ House affirms tax aid for churches. House lawmakers July 25 passed a bill that would boost business efforts in impoverished communities and allow houses of worship to receive tax funds to provide social services. The Community Renewal and New Markets Act won approval by a 394-27 vote. It would establish new tax breaks, loan programs, housing credits and business incentives in economically impoverished areas. President Clinton has agreed to sign it if the Senate approves the measure. It is unclear, however, if the measure is constitutional. It includes a controversial program known as "charitable choice" that would allow houses of worship to receive tax dollars to provide social services.
___ Creationism candidates lose. Kansas voters Aug. 1 rejected three State Board of Education candidates who support removing evolution from the state's science curriculum and replacing it with an emphasis on creationism. In the GOP primary elections, two incumbent board members and one other candidate lost their races to opponents who favor removing the voluntary evolution standards passed by the board last year. The standards, which won praise from religious conservatives and scorn from church-state watchdog groups, omit the big-bang theory of the creation of the universe and downplay evolution.
___ IRS settles with Christian Coalition. A Virginia district judge has ordered the Internal Revenue Service to refund $169 in taxes paid by the Christian Coalition in 1990 because the IRS has conceded that the organization was tax-exempt in that year. The July 25 decision was handed down by U.S. District Judge Henry Morgan Jr. of Norfolk, Va. Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, a law firm that represented the coalition, called the decision a "major victory." But critics of the coalition pointed out the IRS only conceded the organization was tax-exempt that one year. "This doesn't change the fact that the IRS denied the Christian Coalition's tax exemption due to its partisan political activities," said Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
___ Bright names successor. Bill Bright, longtime president of Campus Crusade for Christ, announced July 26 who will succeed him as leader of the prominent evangelical association. Stephen Douglass, executive vice president and director of U.S. ministries for Campus Crusade, will follow Bright when he retires August 1, 2001.
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