Scientology Caught Forging Los Angeles Police Chief's Endorsement
http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cityBeat/citybeat1.html
The Way To More Questions
Scientology affiliate The Way To Happiness of Glendale teaches honesty
in schools but, according to LAPD and others, utilizes dishonest
promotions
By Carl Kozlowski
If a high-ranking LAPD official can be believed, perhaps the
Scientology-affiliated The Way To Happiness should take a page from
its own teachings.
Two of the Glendale-based nonprofit organizationís 21 guides to
achieving happiness are ìBe Worthy of Trustî and ìSeek to Live the
Truth,î neither of which were followed apparently in the groupís
dealings with the LAPD and a city in Texas.
Officials with the group, which over the past two decades has
distributed booklets of the same name to millions of school children
across the country, all with the help of a variety of public officials
and corporate sponsors, say they have worked with hundreds of
organizations throughout Southern California and around the country in
efforts to promote clean living as a virtue worthy of emulating.
But according to LAPD Cmdr. Mike Downing, the Church of Scientology
forged his endorsement on The Way To Happiness Web site, prompting the
LAPD to disavow any endorsement of Scientology and The Way To
Happiness.
TWTH, Downing told the Pasadena Weekly, also apparently fraudulently
posted on the Web a letter of commendation from the LAPD that was not
signed by alleged writer Chief William Bratton, and also forged
Downingís approval by rubber-stamping his signature to the image on
the site, www.twth.org
But that isn't the only time TWTH, which has distributed booklets to
more than 12 million American schoolchildren in 12,600 public schools
since its inception in 1984, allegedly fabricated information to
promote its product.
In the case of the LAPD, the booklets were distributed by the
department, but only after TWTH representatives approached police
officials repeatedly and only succeeded in disseminating through the
Hollywood Division. Even then, when TWTH attempted to distribute the
booklets with the LAPDís name on them and depict a book-cover drawing
of a policeman wearing an LAPD badge, they were ordered by police to
remove the badge image and remove the departmentís name from the back
cover.
"We sent them back and said they could not distribute the literature
with the LAPD Hollywood Division on the text. I've seen the program
work, and I don't mind programs that try to raise the stature of
communities and clean them up, but we as the LAPD cannot endorse the
Church of Scientology," said Downing. "I did not authorize
the letter displayed on their site nor its display, and they used a
stamped-font signature instead of my actual one."
In response, TWTH President Lance Miller, a high-level Scientologist,
denied any wrongdoing on the part of the foundation and said Downing
is, at best, mistaken.
"That's the first I've heard of it. Michael Downing has appeared at
events for us and spoken very highly of the work we do," said Miller.
"As far as I know, the letter was generated and sent by him and I have
the original hanging on my wall here. It looks like a real signature
to me. But if it's a situation where we need to remove it, we
certainly want to comply."
The organization's success at entering public schools with a guidebook
espousing "21 Rules for Living" is particularly noteworthy at
a time when displaying the Ten Commandments in schools, courthouses and
other public places remains a hot-button issue.
While TWTH states that the booklets are devoid of religious content or
any proselytizing for the Church of Scientology, the bookís rules
directly parallel the life rules displayed by the church at its L. Ron
Hubbard Life Exhibition in Hollywood.
However, TWTH downplays its ties to Scientology, which has long
battled charges that it is a cult, and does not note in booklets that
the author is Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
As reported in the Weekly on Aug. 4, the hugely popular Church of
Scientology, a religion embraced by such Hollywood luminaries as Tom
Cruise and John Travolta, has attracted widespread media attention,
primarily due to exposure by Cruise on national television in recent
months. In turn, that exposure prompted some disgruntled former
members to reopen some of the churchís lengthy history of lawsuits and
claims alleging fraud, threatening of the churchís critics, and the
fact that the heart of the churchís beliefs center around the claim
that every humanís stresses are in reality the result of the souls of
aliens, Thetans, attaching themselves to their bodies.
Church leaders have responded to some of these criticisms by softening
some of the organizationís more blatant recruitment tactics while
claiming the churchís more extreme aspects are aberrations of the
past.
According to ex-church member
Tory Christman, who rose to the
second-highest level of membership during her 30 years as a
Scientologist, such questionable tactics are de rigeur for TWTH and
its affiliate program, Set A Good Example (SAGE), which encourages
community volunteerism by students and sponsors local essay contests
on that theme. "It's fantastic when kids go out and do good in the
community as part of their Set A Good Example program, but they can't
say it's not part of Scientology," said Christman. "Scientology
is designed to 'clear' planet Earth's citizens of their problems, so kids
are always going to be part of that approach."
"The church calls it 'safeguarding' when they're able to promote
positive attitudes about Scientology by doing things people like and
help people," Christman continued. "They should do good things
but it's bad that they use community leaders to promote and pay for the
books who often have no clue it's affiliated with Scientology."
Controversy be damned, TWTH is growing, as Foundation President Miller
noted that the program had just this month been authorized for use in
all of Nevada's public schools.
"We just put a million books into the South LA area through The Way
To Happiness Outdoors Club, which takes inner-city youths into the
mountains and shows them a world beyond their four-block radius," said
Miller. "We work with over 600 different organizations, and the
programs are often more successful when run exterior to the school
system but still in conjunction. We rely on community members'
donations to pay for it, not tax dollars, and the SAGE contest is
optional."
The ability to distribute the booklet in so many schools has raised
questions in some areas from advocates of church-state separation as
well as coalitions of church and parental groups. For instance,
according to a June 27, 1990, article in the Los Angeles Times, a
Fresno school district official named Geoff Garratt led a successful
campaign to bar TWTH and its SAGE program due to church-state
separation concerns even after the program had successfully been
launched in a middle school in that city.
Yet Barbara Ayash, president of another Scientology-related group
called the Concerned Businessmen of America (CBA), still mentioned the
Fresno program as one of the SAGE success stories in an Aug. 15
interview with the Weekly. In addition, Ayashís granddaughter, Marylen
Ayash-Borgen of San Diego, faxed the Weekly office two statements that
she authored about purported TWTH and SAGE successes in Glendale and
Inglewood schools.
One statement claimed the city of Harlingen, Texas, attained a year
with "ZERO violent crimes" in 1998, three years after
Harlingen became the first city in America to offer the programs
citywide in its public schools.
According to the May 24, 1999, newspaper article that Ayash-Borgen
refers to, which was faxed to the Weekly by a current staff member of
the Harlingen Valley Morning Star, violent crime and crimes against
property in that city had fallen by 13 percent in 1998. Yet the city
still experienced 54 violent crimes per 10,000 residents for an
approximate total of 324 violent crimes in the city of 60,000.
Additionally, police officials did not mention The Way To Happiness
program at all as one of the reasons for the crime drop.
"I can't conceive that we would say any program alone was responsible
for dropping crime," Juan I. Ramirez, public information officer for
the Harlingen police, said in a phone interview. "Besides, there's no
city on Earth without violent crime."
But former Harlingen Mayor Connie de la Garza was receptive to trying
the program after he was approached by local dentist and Scientologist
Juan Villareal in the mid-1990s about what he described as "a program
that can help young people make the right decisions."
Rev. Charles Palmer, pastor of the Treasure Hills Presbyterian Church
in Harlingen, led a coalition of a dozen pastors from throughout the
city who sought to bar TWTH from the cityís schools. Yet despite their
combined strength, the protests were unsuccessful for an interesting
reason. "We wanted equal access of all churches, but it didn't
seem to deter anything because Dr. Villareal became the school board
president," said Palmer.
"We ultimately didn't receive any feedback once the program was in
schools, but most people would say the materials would look good. Our
concern was because of who authored it initially and where it was
coming from."
The promise to keep Scientology tenets out of schools was kept despite
the fact that in 2002 Villareal settled a federal lawsuit filed by
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging he had forced
his dental practice employees to take Scientology courses or lose their
jobs.
"Anytime you have a program trying that, I'm for it regardless
of religion, creed or code," said de la Garza in a phone interview.
"Whether you agree with Mr. Hubbardís philosophy or not is
immaterial. What I like is if you can touch a child and make them a
better adult. That's what we need to do."
It was de la Garza's recommendation in a letter to Inglewood Mayor
Roosevelt Dorn that inspired Dorn to welcome TWTH and SAGE programs
into his city's public schools three years ago. Dorn noted that he was
aware of the programs' Scientology connection. Dorn said he also knew
that the program is paid for by donations rather than tax dollars, and
he believed that they sufficiently steered clear of proselytizing to
merit inclusion for the values they promoted.
"I am a minister in the AME church, and those portions of the
Church of Scientology that teach individuals to uplift their lives
and cause them to do better with their lives, how can I argue against
that?" said Dorn. "The Methodists can develop a book like
that, Baptists, Catholics, anyone who develops that kind of book if
it's good, the schools will say fine. But if it's going to be
promoting religion, that's different and I'd be against it."
Dorn's opinion was largely echoed by Peter Eliasberg, the ACLU of
Southern Californiaís Manheim Family Attorney for First Amendment
Rights. Eliasberg noted that some of the issues that could grow out of
having TWTH in schools are tricky, but appear to have been carefully
navigated by the organization.
"The only way a school might be allowed to distribute religious
materials on campus from outside groups is if they allowed other
religions to come in. You can imagine it could get crazy, so a lot of
schools might not open themselves so broadly," said Eliasberg.
"What's tricky is that it's not obviously either here, a religion or
religious group. I'm concerned that they use a different name, and
parents and schools should be vigilant so that the lines shouldn't be
crossed," Eliasberg said. "Is this a way in the door to further
proselytizing? But if this is the equivalent to a school assembly on
tolerance, I can't say it's a bad thing to have general moral
training in schools."
"We cannot endorse the Church of Scientology or any religion as the
LAPD, and we very specifically said they could not use the LAPD name
as it related to their book. They know they are clearly overstepping
their bounds in linking to the LAPD as an organization that works
with The Way To Happiness Foundation."
The problem is that claim is a lie as well.
The name "Scientology"® is trademarked to the "Church" of Scientology. Neither this web page, nor this web site, nor any of the individuals mentioned herein assisting to educate the public about the Scientology organization's "Volunteer Minister" program are members of or representatives of the Scientology organization. Quotes used within this web page and within this web site are used according to the Fair Use laws of the United States.
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