The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 178

L-4 THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER Sunday, February 18, 1979 Courts Back Right Of Cults To Solicit Funds From Public for the City of Chicago, said tighter regulations were being sought. In Dallas, after Hare Krishna members started wearing business suits and wigs over their shaven heads, officials said solicitors had, to wear name tags. "There is little reason to go in disguise except to deceive," Federal District Judge Patrick Higginbotham said, when the rule was challenged in court. MISS SCHIEFELBEIN, who testified for the state in the Minnesota case, and other former members jot the Unification Church said they had been encouraged to work 18-hour days and told to conceal their identities. Miss Shiefelbein also said she had been berated by one of her leaders when she was detained by the police because she and another woman had not created a tantrum and played on the police's emotions.

However, the Unification Church has been quite successful in upsetting many laws, because its own lawyers are well aware of the scene. "Until 1977 we turned the other cheek," says Cathy Lowery, an official at the Unification Church's home office in New York. "Reverend Moon has told us to be more aggressive. Now we're going to litigate." Long before Jonestown, many public officials were trying to supervise and limit religious soliciting. Bruce Rakay, an assistant attorney general in Ohio, said: "Basically, it's a consumer issue.

People should know. It's up to the attorney general to protect them." But the officials are finding that It Is not easy to control soliciting. The latest battlegrounds are California and Minnesota. Members of Hare Krishna have been accused of beatings, death threats, short-changing and fraud while soliciting contributions at the Los Angeles Airport, and the city has filed suit to limit the solicitations. Officials of the sect denied all of the allegations.

IN MINNESOTA the Unification Church sued in federal court October 11, challenging a new amendment that said any religious group that raised more than half of its funds from nonmembers must file a statement with the State Securities Division. "The only organizations that fall Into the compliance category are groups like the Unification Church," Ron Troyer, national coordinator for legal affairs for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's church, said as he filed suit. Many small communities have tried to limit conditions for soliciting. In Huntington Park, a new law limits fund-raising from 9 a.m.

to 5 p.m. Town officials concede that the law was aimed at the "Moonies" in the area. "Unfortunately, the ordinanace prohibits all groups from soliciting, even the Salvation Army," a councilman said. AIRPORTS ARE a major area for soliciting because large numbers of people are trapped for hours, usually with money in their pockets. Some airport managements have been able to legally limit where soliciting can take place.

In Boston, solicitors cannot approach people on ticket lines and in certain terminals. But most airports now display signs saying they cannot ban solicitors from the grounds. In Chicago, a two-year-old rule limiting airport soliciting was overthrown October 8 by District Judge George Leighton, who ruled that the law was unconstitutional on the ground that it restricted freedom of religion. Richard Friedman, an attorney groups to solicit funds. And they have been joined by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which wants equal treatment for all groups.

"Every little hamlet In America Is going to try to enact some statute to control these groups," says the Rev. Dean Kelley, NCC executive for religious and civil liberty, which represents most "mainline" Protest-ant, Episcopal and Orthodox denominations. Tin afraid it's going to be open season on the so-called cults," Kelley added. "The trouble is, one man's cult is another man's religion." AT FIRST, Kelley and others were concerned a backlash from the mass deaths Jonestown would produce a clamor for control of the cults. However, there seems to be no uniform reaction around the BY GEORGE VECSEY 1979, NY.

Times News Service NEW YORK They worked the bars and the drlve-in movies, Diane Schiefelbein recalls. there was a sign saying "No Soliciting," they tucked the c-andybars in their purses and peddled them one at a time. That is how they raised money for their religious group, the Unification Church. Once they were working drive-in movie where soliciting was banned and the public-address warned patrons that "two Moonies" were knocking on car windows. In sworn testimony recently, Miss Schiefelbein-who has since left the Unification Church-recalled how "we hid the candy under a bush" and later "crawled over the fence and fled." Not all religious groups try to raise funds in bars and drive-in movies, but many groups do try to canvass strangers in public places or in door-to-door visits.

AS A result, many communities have gone to court and others are trying to strengthen laws that limit religious soliciting. But they are finding that it is not easy to do it legally. The Unification Church, in particular, has won recent court cases in Dallas, Chicago, Oettysburgh, New Brunswick, N.J., and Las Vegas, Nev. The decisions either struck down antisoliciting laws or ruled that existing requirements had to apply equally to all religious groups. In addition, some leaders of so-called "established" groups, such as the Billy Graham Evangelical Association and the National Council of the Churches (NCC), afraid that they might be next to be prosecuted, have supported the right of newer (sfbfflnfa on WUUUUUUIMJ Ijlklm A3 4 mmma a 20 of) 'the three newest concepts in window one week only One of the leading manufacturers in window dressing gives you these three exciting window decors.

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