Presbyterians join battle over Los Angeles church property

http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=4896

[Religious Intelligence] 19 Aug 2009--Conservative Presbyterians in the United States have filed an amicus curiae brief with the United States Supreme Court in support of the breakaway congregation of St James Newport Beach in its battle with the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.

On July 27, the Presbyterian Lay Committee, a leading traditional pressure group within the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America (PCUSA) filed a brief in support of the Petition for Writ of Certiorari filed last month by St James in response to the February decision by the California Supreme Court in favour of the diocese.

The Presbyterian legal team is led by Kenneth W Starr, a former federal judge and US solicitor general who was appointed Independent Counsel to the Whitewater land transactions of President Bill Clinton. The Starr Report submitted to Congress was the basis for impeachment proceedings later brought against the president. Dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law, Mr Starr successfully defended California’s Proposition 8 before the state’s Supreme Court after supporters of gay marriage sought to overturn the referendum that banned it.

St James’ legal team also includes a leading Washington lawyer as well, with President Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General Edwin Meese, III serving as co-counsel.

In its brief, the Lay Committee argues the California Supreme Court’s decision violates the US Constitution’s Establishment and Free Exercise of Religion clauses of the First Amendment by giving churches with a “hierarchical” form of government an exemption from the common law statute of frauds not available to other religious groups.