Civil liberties group stands up for christian rockers

A Charlottesville-based civil liberties group will appeal a court decision against a Christian rock band that was barred from performing at a school-sponsored event. The Rutherford Institute represents members of the band Pawn, who say their constitutional rights were violated when school officials at the Rossford Exempted Village School District in Rossford, Ohio, kept them offstage at a school-sponsored anti-drug rally. The incident occurred in December 2004.
    The band was asked to perform, and agreed to endorse a nonreligious, “Just Say No” anti-drug message between sets.
    A week before the assembly, school officials pulled out, apparently anxious about lyrics like these, taken from the band’s website: “We need proof of service. Who is willing to live the life? We need pawns on the front line, throwin’ down for the blood of Christ. Need to tell em’ what Christians do, need to tell em’ who they’ve gotta know. Follow the makeup of the Martyrs, fire us up and watch us glow.”
    John Whitehead, president and founder of the Rutherford Institute, says, “They were cancelled, and the school replaced them with a group that had pro-drug lyrics. To avoid the religious stuff they actually got a group that was into the whole drug scene.”
    The judge ruled that the band’s performance would have put the school in “realistic danger” of appearing to represent a religious viewpoint. Student attendance at the anti-drug rally was optional.
    Whitehead tells C-VILLE that Rutherford’s main argument was “the viewpoint discrimination. If you invite someone into a school…you can’t discriminate against viewpoint.”
As for the institute’s viewpoint, they take a purist’s approach to civil liberties, challenging everything from Bill Clinton’s ethics (remember the Paula Jones case?) to the PATRIOT Act—and all with a small local staff, supplemented by around 250 pro-bono lawyers nationwide. They will appeal the Pawn case to the 6th U.S. District Court of Appeals next month.