05-24-2004, 12:01 PM
|
#1
|
|
Contributor
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: Los Angeles area
Posts: 40,549
|
Liberty Counsel
Know the enemy.
Liberty Counsel's leader hits hard from the right (requires registration)
Quote:
In the past four years, the Liberty Counsel has intervened in nearly every major Central Florida and national conservative issue.
He fought to force two mentally retarded Florida women to give birth to children of rapists; supported "Choose Life" license plates; opposed gay adoptions and fought to retain "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
. . .
Staver's rise to national prominence -- and the size and wealth of his organization -- took off after forging a relationship with Falwell recently.
Liberty Counsel raked in almost $1.4 million in 2002, about $1 million of which came from donations. Just six years earlier, Liberty Counsel earned only about $293,000, mostly from court victories.
"Before their affiliation with Jerry Falwell, they were an obscure, somewhat struggling religious-right group that didn't have a high profile," said Rob Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Liberty Counsel will grow from five to 10 lawyers this year and plans to open a law school and policy center at Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.
"He and I just think alike, and we have therefore been good friends for many years," said Falwell, whom Staver successfully represented in a lawsuit over his church's property rights.
|
|
|
|
