Man donates book proceeds to fight ACLU
By Sheri Kasprzak
sheri.kasprzak@gwinnettdailypost.com
WINDER - Ray Newman's new book won't just benefit the readers of his weekly newspaper column.
He's donating proceeds from "From Where I Stand" to Ten Commandments - Georgia Inc., a corporation led by the Rev. Jody Hice of Bethlehem First Baptist Church to raise money to fight legal battles in an effort to keep the Ten Commandments on public display in the state. Newman is treasurer of the organization.
Barrow County's fight with the American Civil Liberties Union over a framed poster of the Ten Commandments at the county's courthouse sparked the formation of the organization. The ACLU filed a lawsuit on Sept. 16 on behalf of an anonymous plaintiff calling for the removal of the poster. ACLU attorneys contend that the display is a governmental "stamp of approval" to certain religious beliefs.
On Thursday, federal District Court Judge William O’Kelley heard the county's motion to dismiss the lawsuit on grounds that the ACLU did not go through a trial judge before filing the suit on behalf of an anonymous plaintiff. The judge did not make a ruling on the motion Thursday.
The book was conceived after writing a column of the same title for a Barrow County newspaper, Newman said recently.
"I just had received a lot of encouragement from people who read the column each week," Newman said. "They said they would like to have them all at one time rather than each week."
Newman said writing the book was easy since he had his articles on disk from the seven months he's been writing his column. Thirty-three of the articles appear in the book, one of which is new and has never been published before. The columns are mostly theological in nature.
Newman said he was already in the process of writing his book before the ACLU suit came along and he decided that he would donate whatever money he makes, minus production and publicity, to Ten Commandments - Georgia.