GETTING THE ACLU TO REPRESENT YOU MIGHT BE HARDER THAN YOU THINK

The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) involves itself in civil rights cases, and if they take your case, their representation is usually free. So, how do they get paid? As part of their case, they usually demand that the opposing party pay their fees. The ACLU was instrumental in the Crystal Seifferly case, which involved an honor roll high school student who sued the local school board over her right to wear her pentacle in school. The ACLU represented her and in the negotiated settlement, the Defendant school board paid over $14,000 in legal fees to the ACLU.1 You may wish to consider involving the American Civil Liberties Union in your case. Each state has an active ACLU branch. If one is located in your area, they can usually be found through the phone book or information in your area. If you have computer/Web access, the main ACLU site is www.aclu.org. From here, you can find all the ACLU offices in the country.

However, getting the ACLU to represent you is not as easy as you might think. Do not believe that the ACLU will take your case if you just call them up and tell them that you think you are the victim of religious discrimination. First, you will have to get someone to review your case, and it might take quite a bit of time just to get someone to call you back. If you have a matter that is time sensitive—that is, you have to do something before a certain date—you might not have enough time to involve the ACLU. Even if you are able to get an ACLU attorney to talk to you, you will have to convince them that you have a case of merit that is worth their time. They will probably have a form for you to fill out, and the form itself can be rather intimidating.

One Pagan organization tried to involve the ACLU in its legal matter and was not successful in getting the ACLU to represent them. In August of 2000, the Wiccan church of Ozark Avalon, located in Columbia, Missouri, was embroiled in a fight with the Tax Assessor of Cooper County, Missouri. Having been declared a church and having been granted 501(c)(3) status by the IRS, Cooper County refused to grant Ozark Avalon a church-based tax exemption (discussed in detail in Chapter 7). Tom Dixon, the president of this not-for-profit Wiccan Church, contacted the ACLU and asked them for representation at the second stage of the administrative process, which was the state-level appeal board. Mr. Dixon’s wait time for the ACLU was six weeks, and this put Ozark Avalon past the date set for the appeal. He also had to fill out a rather large and detail intensive form that was required by the ACLU.

Even after having done all this, the ACLU declined to represent Ozark Avalon. Persons less tenacious than Tom Dixon and Rose Wise, the other Steward of Ozark Avalon, might have been discouraged and might have given up, but these two did not. Mercifully, Ozark Avalon found a local attorney who took their case, and Ozark Avalon was successful in obtaining its church- based tax exemption. A copy of the Missouri State Tax Commission’s decision can be found on Ozark Avalon’s Website. It is a gold mine of legal references for Pagans and their lawyers. There is one other organization specifically interested in the separation of church and state: Citizens for the Separation of Church and State. Their Website is located at www.au.org/. They are currently involved in the Cynthia Simpson case, which involves a Wiccan who wanted to be put on the list of clergy for performing opening invocation at meetings of the County Supervisors.