Americans United

for Separation of Church and State - Orange County

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AU-OC

3337 S. Bristol, #251

Santa Ana, CA 92704

orangecountyau@yahoo.com

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2006 in Review

The Annual Address of the Chapter President, Stephanie Campbell

November 18, 2006

Officers

First let me introduce our officers for 2006:

Stephanie Campbell, President
Allison Young, Vice President
Ann Stern, Treasurer
Richard Gillock, Secretary/Webmaster

Programs

In 2006 we were able to accomplish many things, including some interesting programs regarding church/state separation:

January – Mr. Eddie Tabash, "The Real Meaning of Separation of Church and State – an historical perspective"
March – Dr. Francisco Ayala, "Darwin's Greatest Discovery: Design without Designer"
May – Dr. Martin Young, "Why do people who support separation of church and state promote religion in the schools?"
July – "Interfaith Forum" with Rabbi Stephen Julius Stein, Sheikh Yassir Fazaqa, and Rev. Jerry Stinson.
September – Rev. Karen Stoyanoff, "Reconciling our support for the First Amendment with our work for Justice"

Our two most successful meetings were the Interfaith Forum held at the Temple Bat Yam in Newport Beach and the lecture by Dr. Francisco Ayala on evolution. We have had great success with the evolution topic each time we have presented a speaker on the topic.

On the Horizon for 2007

On alternate months we have had smaller, more intimate meetings. It began as a book club in 2005, morphed into an issues group in 2006, and in 2007 we are going to attempt to create an activist group. One of the key activism rolls we would like to undertake is monitoring school board meetings and city council meetings to grade their ability to separate church and state.

On the early agenda for 2007 meetings are:

January – "Religious Hate Crimes in 2005." African American, Gay/Lesbian, and Jews were the most frequent hate crime victims. Crimes against African Americans decreased by almost 1/3 in 2005. Dramatic drop in hate crimes targeting people perceived to be Arab, Middle Eastern or Muslim.
May 2007 – Michael Newdow, "Under God and the Pledge, Taking it to the Supreme Court." In God We Trust Lawsuit was rejected saying it has “nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion.” Where do we go next.

Membership Report

Financially we are stable and growing. We have grown our membership by over 100% this year in Orange County.

One reminder, please renew your membership through the Orange County Chapter. By doing so you remain on our county chapter list at the national headquarters and it also means that part of your membership dues stay here with the county chapter. This makes it easier for us to hold expensive events like the Interfaith Forum and to cover expenses of the newsletter, website, and other chapter communications.

Volunteer

We hope that many of you will become active in the chapter. Our steering committee meets monthly, the time and date are on our website. All members are welcome to attend. This is where we plan our events and prepare our communications with National.

We need your ideas and your efforts to make this a successful chapter. A chapter cannot sustain on the efforts of a few officers, it needs for its members to involve themselves and share the work. It is both interesting and rewarding and I hope you will become a volunteer in 2007.

Submitted by: Stephanie M. Campbell, President

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