Web wars.

Religious Right Groups Are Spreading False Information About Church-State Separation On the Internet. Now Separationists Are Fighting Back.

A quick glance at the Internet homepage of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) doesn't reveal anything remarkable. After all, 345 members of the U.S. House of Representatives have their own site on the World Wide Web, and most have similar features: a description of the Congressional district, press releases, a recent voting history on major bills and an option to send an electronic message (e-mail) to the representative.

But a closer examination of Speaker Gingrich's site reveals a section other members of Congress don't have. It's called the "Faith and Freedom" area of his website, and it's raising a few eyebrows (speakernews.house.gov/ffp).

Titled "An Introductory Look at America's Inspirational History," the website says it is "intended to serve as a guide to the beliefs of our Nation's Founders." There, Gingrich shares some of his thoughts on church-state separation.

"The First Amendment to our Constitution prohibits the establishment of a state religion and guarantees the right of free exercise of religion," Gingrich wrote, giving his own incomplete description of the Establishment Clause. "While some would take the First Amendment to bar all reference to God in the public square by government officials, the historical evidence suggests that it was not intended to have this effect."

Gingrich then gives visitors an opportunity to examine historical documents that mention the word "God" such as the Mayflower Compact and the First Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1676 and read historical quotes that refer to God from the likes of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. He even offers what some might consider a kind of "God Tour," where people can learn about various places throughout the notion's capital where the word God is featured, such as the chamber of the House of Representatives and the Capitol's Congressional Prayer Room.

What seems readily apparent is not just Gingrich's theocentric viewpoint, but also his understanding that the Internet is a valuable tool used by millions of people for information, including information on the separation of church and state.

Arguments and conflicts over the proper meaning of the First Amendment and the place for religion in public life may at one time have been limited to courtrooms, universities and government chambers. But today the Internet has blossomed into an epicenter for communication. Going "online" now means having a front-row seat at the primary location for church-state debate, controversy and information -- available to anyone with a computer and a modem.

No one could have predicted the success of the communications medium now known as the "Internet." It began in 1969 as a military program called "ARPANET," designed to enable military computers to communicate with one another by redundant channels, regardless of damage done to the network in the event of a war. Though ARPANET no longer exists, the global network of computers still does.

The term "Internet" really refers to that network. The World Wide Web, however, is only a part of the Internet. The World Wide Web (often called www or "the web") is a commonly used system for navigating the Internet through websites that appear as a collection of text, pictures, sounds, and digital movies.

To understand the expansion of the medium, consider some startling statistics: the number of "host" computers, which store and emit information, has gone from 300 computers in 1981 to almost 10 million last year. Recent estimates regarding the number of people who use the Internet place the count at about 40 million, and that figure is expected to grow to 200 million by 1999. There are currently 60 million sites on the Internet. Through the 1990s, the annual rate of growth for World Wide Web traffic is 341,000 percent. In light of numbers like these, the stereotype of Internet users being limited to computer experts and Star Trek fans is simply no longer accurate.

With this growth in mind, it should come as no surprise that debates about separation of church and state have moved to the web. But with electronic communication being a new and unique medium, the dynamics of the church-state debate are changing in new and unique ways. And as more and more journalists, students and even lawmakers seek reliable and useful information from their computers, there is something of a race going on as to which side of the church-state debate will assert more influence online. At present, it appears that those opposed to separation are ahead.

For example, the controversy surrounding Judge Roy Moore in Alabama has hit the Internet with a vengeance, and it is a perfect illustration of what is occurring with online communication.

Moore came to national notoriety last year as the judge who placed a handcarved plaque of the Ten Commandments on his Gadsden, Ala., courthouse wall and opened jury sessions with Christian prayers. His celebrity status grew when he refused to follow the ruling of Circuit Court Judge Charles Price, who insisted that the display violated church-state separation and should be taken down. Moore received the support of Gov. Fob James, who threatened to call out the National Guard to block the removal of the Commandments.

In April, the Christian Family Association (CFA) and its executive director, Dean Young, created a website in support of Moore (www.judgemoore.org). With headings that read "Judge Moore and Christians vs. ACLU," the site is a source of detailed information from Moore's perspective.

"Christians and others who love religious freedom must not sit idly by like we did in the 1960's when Prayer and Bible reading were taken from our schools," the CFA argues. "Our country is going in the wrong direction and Christians are finally waking op. It's a new day in Alabama and this nation.

"The ACLU has made a tremendous error," it goes on. "They chose a judge who will not bend to their wishes, and have awakened a sleeping giant, God's People. We will win in the Supreme Court of Alabama."

CFA's Moore project exemplifies how an Internet site can utilize a multi-media approach and take advantage of what is possible online. What used to require a lot of people, money and hours can now be done easily, quickly and cheaply. In addition to slanted rhetoric supporting Moore, the site includes a variety of links designed to help further the CFA cause, win the debate and even make a profit.

For example, you can print and sign a copy of a petition endorsing Moore's actions to be delivered to the Alabama Supreme Court and join the 215,000 others that the site claims have already enlisted in the petition effort. A calendar of events tells where people can attend hearings, rallies and press conferences in support of Moore.

Visitors to the webpage can directly order a "Copy of the Actual Brief Filed with the Alabama Supreme Court" for $10, a granite 20-inch replica of the Ten Commandments for $149.95 or even a copy of Original Intent, a $12.95 book by David Barton, the notorious "Christian nation" propagandist whose works have been marred by false or misleading history.

Before the advent of modem electronic communications, getting petitions and talking points to supporters would have required a major undertaking from several activists, as would informing communities about events they may want to attend. Selling materials to raise funds also required an extensive effort. But, as this site and others show, all of those features and more can be combined into a single place, easily accessible anywhere in the world through the Internet.

While Moore's is just one site, it is by no means alone. Those opposed to church-state separation may appear to be more prolific on the Internet because there are simply more of them. Early on, people who oppose First Amendment principles saw the promise of the new technology and dove right in. As a result, virtually every Religious Right group in America has its own sophisticated and detailed website, being used to disseminate information, organize activists, link to the websites of like-minded groups and recruit membership.

As evidence of this, one can perform a search of church-state information on the Internet by way of several popular "search engines" (websites where people can request and retrieve specific information found elsewhere on the Internet). Such a search would generally be the first step taken by anyone seeking more information on any given subject. But researchers have to be careful about the material found there.

Conducting a standard search for church-state information on a search engine will give you several hundred websites. Even if one were looking for objectivity by avoiding the sites of well-known Religious Right organizations that oppose separation, there is no guarantee that smaller, individually run sites will be any more accurate or reliable. In fact, sometimes they're worse.

One such site is titled, "The Myth of Separation of Church and State." The site (www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g030/mcf/Church_State.html) was created by the Maranatha Christian Fellowship, a group that describes itself as a "body of Christians committed to bringing the radical New Testament message of Jesus Christ to the University of Minnesota."

Maranatha's church-state information is wantonly misleading. The site's authors insist that Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802 was intended to create a wall of separation that is "one directional ... its purpose was to protect the church from the state. The world was not to corrupt the church, yet the church was free to teach the people Biblical values." However, this claim, also spread by Christian nation advocate Barton, ignores all historical evidence and has been thoroughly discounted by all credible historians who have looked at the matter.

But the Maranatha Fellowship doesn't stop there. Like several other websites with similar attacks on church-state separation, they go on to make several more "Christian nation" claims of dubious historical accuracy. For example, they assert that 52 of the 55 authors of the Constitution were evangelical Christians and that our Constitution is strictly based on biblical ideas and strictures. The authors even go so far as to create a chart to show a "direct statistical correlation between the removal of prayer and corrupt moral conduct."

The main concern of those who seek accurate information online is that there is nothing explicit or obvious about a site like this one to alert the reader to its errors and historical bias.

A student, for example, doing a project on separation of church and state for school may do a search and come across the site for Summit Ministries' Christian Answers (www.christiananswers.net). While the site may serve as a resource for those who would like to believe that this country was founded exclusively by and for the Christian faith and that the First Amendment never intended church-state separation, a student unaware of the historical facts may be willing to accept inaccurate information like this on face value.

When dealing with traditional communications media like television news or newspapers, there are editors and journalistic reputations to uphold. But the Internet is a completely unregulated medium, and there are no fact checkers online. For those who seek church-state knowledge from their computer, it may be best to remember the phrase, "caveat emptor."

This is not to suggest that the Internet cannot be counted on for reliable and accurate information, or that it should be avoided because of the errors made by others. On the contrary, with tens of millions of people seeking information online, defenders of the church-state wall now see the need to improve their online presence.

Jason Hays, operations manager for Americans United for Separation of Church and State and webmaster for the organization's home page (www.au.org), agrees.

"There is no doubt that people are looking for online information from those who want to keep church and state separate," Hays said. "For example, in February of 1997, the Americans United home page was averaging 341 visits a day. By July, that average had more than doubled to 702 visits a day, and in November that number was up to 1,394."

In addition to the Americans United page, what many consider the single best source for church-state information on the web can be found at the Separation of Church and State Home Page (www.louisville.edu/~tnpete01/church/ index.htm).

The page, created and maintained by Tom Peters, Jim Allison and Susan Batte, exists "to explain and defend the constitutional principle of separation of church and state." As the authors explain on their site, "We are concerned that this principle is under attack by the religious right. We believe that this attack is ill-founded, and that it bodes ill for our nation and our religious freedoms. We've created this page to explain why we think the religious right is wrong, and to help ensure that they don't win."

Online communication, however, is not limited exclusively to information via websites. Mobilization and organization techniques have also grown and adapted to eagerly take advantage of the new opportunities online. Nathan Rickard, chapter coordinator for Americans United, says that communication with members and chapters from coast to coast has been revolutionized with the advances in new technologies.

"In a word, going online is critical," said Rickard. "Instead of stuffing a thousand envelopes or making the phone calls with information for our chapters and activists, I can contact all of them simultaneously, for free, with the touch of a button. Better yet, we can post important messages to our members on our webpage, and the activists can check it whenever they wish. That's not only cost effective, it saves countless hours."

The result is not only use of the Internet by the national staff of Americans United, but the creation of individual sites for some of the organization's chapters, such as a site for the Atlanta Chapter (www.mindspring.com/~tallulah/au), Rochester Chapter (www.frontiernet.net/ ~ldecours/au), North Texas Chapter (www.flash.net/~lbartley/au) and the San Fernando Valley Chapter (www.ausfv.org).

While the web and e-mail are widely used, more and more people are also looking at additional communications methods online. "Newsgroups," for example, feature messages on specific topics that are posted in a public forum. Visitors to a newsgroup can read the postings, and then place a response that can be read by others. Another method is "chat rooms," online areas where people can communicate simultaneously with others about a variety of subjects.

Hardly a controversial news event can happen anywhere without a flurry of discussion from people on newsgroups and chat rooms. Recently, major church-state issues such as private school voucher legislation, Bible-as-History courses in Lee County, Fla., and a federal court ruling on school prayer in Alabama have all led to vociferous debate and postings online. Not surprisingly, church-state separation sometimes takes a beating from those doing the posting.

"I know of several chapter activists for Americans United who frequently spend many hours online responding to the errors and mistakes posted by Religious Right activists," said Rickard. "Not only does that help to give people an additional perspective, it gets the word out that there are groups such as ours working to do something about separation of church and state. We've even built membership by people learning about us in chat rooms."

Church-state separationists are expecting even more online action in the future. "It isn't hard to see that the future is gravitating towards the Internet," said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "Almost every major newspaper, television network, civil liberties organization, religious group and member of Congress has a webpage. Want to know what Pat Robertson is doing about the Istook Amendment? You can check online. Want to read Gary Bauer's recent speech on public religious displays? Read it online. Wondering about the status of a voucher bill in the state education committee? Every state legislature in America is online.

"Having an online presence is simply no longer an option for those who want to have an impact," said Lynn. "The ability to communicate effectively to a national audience is crucial. For too long, many of us were hesitant to take advantage of technological advancements, but after looking at the Religious Right's aggressive approach to dominating the medium, we are afforded that luxury no longer."

RELATED ARTICLE: WORLD WIDE WEB

Sampling of Religious Right Websites

www.cc.org - Christian Coalition www.aclj.org - American Center for Law and Justice www.frc.org - Family Research Council www.fotf.org - Focus on the Family www.afa.net - American Family Association www.promisekeepers.org - Promise Keepers www.cwfa.org - Concerned Women for America rutherford.org - Rutherford Institute

Websites with Separationist Info

* www.au.org - Americans United for Separation of Church and State

* www.aclu.org - American Civil Liberties Union 

* www.pfaw.org - People for the American Way 

* www.erols.com/bjcpa/index.html - Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs

* www.tialliance.org - The Interfaith Alliance

* apocalypse.berkshire.net/~ifas - Institute for First Amendment Studies

* www.baylor.edu/~Church_State/Welcome.html - Institute for Church State Studies at Baylor University

* www.mainstreamop.org - Mainstream Opinion