Former Christian Coalition Director, ACLU National President to Speak Monday

By Chad Binette Sept. 9, 2005

Photo: Sae Schatz

The Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Government symposium will be held Sept. 26 at the Student Union.

Full Photo

Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition, and Nadine Strossen, national president of the American Civil Liberties Union, will give the keynote addresses Sept. 26 at a University of Central Florida symposium on church and state issues.

Reed and Strossen will speak together and answer questions at 7 p.m. in the Pegasus Ballroom of the UCF Student Union. They will address issues such as prayer in schools, Ten Commandments cases and the role of religion in political campaigns.

“Church and State: Blurring the Line,” which is free and open to the public, is a daylong symposium organized by the Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Government. The institute is a nonpartisan organization that promotes civic education for students and other Central Florida residents. Frey represented Central Florida in Congress from 1969 to 1979.

The symposium will begin at 9:30 a.m. with a panel presentation on how policymakers view church and state issues. Speakers will include U.S. Rep. Ric Keller, R-Orlando, and Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty.

Three local religious leaders will speak at a 10:30 a.m. forum on how different faiths perceive church and state issues. Rabbi Richard S. Chizever, of Temple Israel in Longwood; Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed, in Longwood; and Imam Muhammad Musri, president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, will participate on that panel.

The symposium also will feature George Mason University professor and author Jeremy D. Mayer, who will speak at 11:30 a.m. Mayer is the author of “Running on Race: Racial Politics in Presidential Campaigns, 1960-2000” and “9-11: The Giant Awakens.”

Attorneys David Friedman, who represented the ACLU in a Ten Commandments case, and Steven L. Micas, who represented Chesterfield County, Va., in a separate case involving religion and local government, will speak at 1:30 p.m.

Retired Lutheran minister John McCollister, author of “God and the Oval Office: The Religious Faith of Our 43 Presidents,” will speak at 3:30 p.m. He will be joined by Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and Circuit Judge Clayton Simmons of Florida’s 18^th Judicial Circuit.

A full symposium schedule and more information about the Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Government are available at www.loufrey.org.

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