Barry W. Lynn
Encyclopedia
Barry W. Lynn, Esq. has been the Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a group that advocates separation of church and state, a legal doctrine interpreted by AU as being enshrined in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.-Mission:The guiding principle of Americans...

 since 1992. He is an ordained minister
Minister of religion
In Christian churches, a minister is someone who is authorized by a church or religious organization to perform functions such as teaching of beliefs; leading services such as weddings, baptisms or funerals; or otherwise providing spiritual guidance to the community...

 in the United Church of Christ
United Church of Christ
The United Church of Christ is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination primarily in the Reformed tradition but also historically influenced by Lutheranism. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches united in 1957 to form the UCC...

, and a prominent leader of the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 religious left
Religious left
Religious left is a term referring to religious movements with a left-wing direction. For more information, see:*Christian left*Jewish left*Buddhist socialism*Christian socialism*Islamic socialism*Liberal religion...

. He is known to be a strong advocate of separation of church and state
Separation of church and state
The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....

.

Biography

Lynn was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, but his family moved to nearby Bethlehem
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem is a city in Lehigh and Northampton Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 74,982, making it the seventh largest city in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie,...

 when he was a child. He attended Bethlehem's Liberty High School
Liberty High School (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania)
For schools with similar names, see Liberty High School.Liberty High School is a public high school located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the United States....

, graduating in 1966.

In 1970, Lynn received his B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 from Dickinson College
Dickinson College
Dickinson College is a private, residential liberal arts college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally established as a Grammar School in 1773, Dickinson was chartered September 9, 1783, five days after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, making it the first college to be founded in the newly...

 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Carlisle is a borough in and the county seat of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The name is traditionally pronounced with emphasis on the second syllable. Carlisle is located within the Cumberland Valley, a highly productive agricultural region. As of the 2010 census, the borough...

 and his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology
Boston University School of Theology
Boston University School of Theology is the oldest theological seminary of American Methodism and the founding school of Boston University, the largest private research university in New England. It is one of thirteen theological schools maintained by the United Methodist Church...

 in 1973. After attending law school at night, he graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center
Georgetown University Law Center
Georgetown University Law Center is the law school of Georgetown University, located in Washington, D.C.. Established in 1870, the Law Center offers J.D., LL.M., and S.J.D. degrees in law...

.

After law school, he continued to work with the United Church of Christ
United Church of Christ
The United Church of Christ is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination primarily in the Reformed tradition but also historically influenced by Lutheranism. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches united in 1957 to form the UCC...

 to gain amnesty
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...

 for young men who chose self-exile to protest the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

. Before going to Americans United, Lynn held positions related to religious liberties. In the mid to late '80s he was legislative counsel for the Washington ACLU
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...

 office, where he frequently worked on church-state issues. From 1974 to 1980 Lynn held positions within the national offices of the United Church of Christ, including two years for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 as legislative counsel.

Lynn has appeared frequently on radio broadcasts and television to debate and discuss First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...

 issues, including MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

's Today Show, Nightline, Fox Morning News (Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

), CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

's Crossfire
Crossfire
A crossfire is a military term for the siting of weapons so that their arcs of fire overlap. This tactic came to prominence in World War I....

, Lou Dobbs Tonight
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Lou Dobbs Tonight is an American editorial commentary and discussion program hosted by Lou Dobbs, previously broadcast on CNN and currently on Fox Business Network. The hour-long show aired live on evenings every weekday, and was replayed in the overnight/early morning hours. It covered the major...

, and Anderson Cooper 360°
Anderson Cooper 360°
Anderson Cooper 360° is a one-hour television news show on CNN, hosted by the American journalist Anderson Cooper. It is also broadcast around the world on CNN International....

, The Phil Donahue Show
The Phil Donahue Show
The Phil Donahue Show, also known as Donahue, is an American television talk show that ran for 26 years on national television. Its run was preceded by three years of local broadcast in Dayton, Ohio, and it was broadcast nationwide between 1967 and 1996.In 2002, Donahue was ranked #29 on TV Guide's...

, Meet the Press
Meet the Press
Meet the Press is a weekly American television news/interview program produced by NBC. It is the longest-running television series in American broadcasting history, despite bearing little resemblance to the original format of the program seen in its television debut on November 6, 1947. It has been...

, CBS Morning News
CBS Morning News
For CBS's main morning news program, formerly known as CBS Morning News, see The Early Show.CBS Morning News is the half-hour daily television broadcast from CBS News that airs following Up to the Minute and features late-breaking news stories, weather forecasts, and sports scores...

, ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

's Good Morning America
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...

, NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News is the flagship daily evening television news program for NBC News and broadcasts. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is located in the center...

, ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News
CBS Evening News
CBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....

, and Larry King Live
Larry King Live
Larry King Live is an American talk show hosted by Larry King on CNN from 1985 to 2010. It was CNN's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly....

. He was formerly a weekly commentator on church-state issues for UPI Radio
United Press International Radio Network
Originally named "UPI Audio," the United Press International Radio Network was an audio actuality news service for radio and television stations from then-major wire service United Press International....

, and served for two years as regular co-host of Buchanan and Company on the Mutual Broadcasting System
Mutual Broadcasting System
The Mutual Broadcasting System was an American radio network, in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. radio drama, MBS was best known as the original network home of The Lone Ranger and The Adventures of Superman and as the long-time radio residence of The Shadow...

.

Lynn currently hosts the radio program Culture Shocks, which can be heard on 1160 am in Washington D.C. and on several stations nationally including the syndicated Genesis Communications Network.

Lynn's first book, Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault on Religious Freedom (ISBN 0-307-34654-4), was published in October 2006.

Legal actions and stances

In 2006, Lynn argued that Focus on the Family
Focus on the Family
Focus on the Family is an American evangelical Christian tax-exempt non-profit organization founded in 1977 by psychologist James Dobson, and is based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Focus on the Family is one of a number of evangelical parachurch organizations that rose to prominence in the 1980s...

’s efforts to bring up moral issues in the 2004 election represented “a blatant effort by Dobson
James Dobson
James Clayton "Jim" Dobson, Jr. is an American evangelical Christian author, psychologist, and founder in 1977 of Focus on the Family , which he led until 2003. In the 1980s he was ranked as one of the most influential spokesman for conservative social positions in American public life...

 to build a partisan political machine based in churches ... [Dobson] has made it abundantly clear that electing Republicans is an integral part of his agenda and he doesn’t mind risking the tax-exemption of churches in the process.”

A separate organization unrelated to Lynn's Americans United later filed a formal complaint with the IRS over Dobson's political endorsements. Lynn did not support this complaint, and the IRS determined that since the endorsements were given by Dobson as a private individual, they did not violate federal tax law.

Americans United filed suit against the InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI), a program of Prison Fellowship Ministries. IFI's had contracted with the state of Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...

 to provide in-prison rehabilitation programs. The suit alleged that the Iowa program violated the separation of church and state in the Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...

. Lynn asserted that the program was saturated with Christian fundamentalism and treated non-fundamentalist inmates like second-class citizens.

Prison Fellowship Ministries responded with claims of the program's alleged effectiveness in reduced recidivism (two studies - one by the State of Texas and one by the University of Pennsylvania - support these claims, while according to the Americans United website, a professor at UCLA has "debunked" one of the studies as "statistically flawed.") Two federal courts agreed with Lynn that the program was unconstitutional.

After a federal court struck down the program, Prison Fellowship appealed to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The state of Iowa joined with IFI in appealing the decision. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals panel consisted of three judges: Duane Benton, Roger L. Wollman and retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor sitting by special designation. On December 3, 2007, this panel unanimously affirmed the lower court decision, and the IFI program was removed from the Iowa prison.

Lynn was very critical of the Stupak–Pitts Amendment
Stupak–Pitts Amendment
The Stupak–Pitts Amendment was a proposed amendment to the Affordable Health Care for America Act of 2010 . It was submitted by Representatives Bart Stupak and Joseph R. Pitts...

, which was supported by the Catholic Church, and which aims to restrict the federal funding of abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

 in recent health care
Health care
Health care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...

legislation.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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