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Life & Times Transcript

11/22/05

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

A letter from the IRS is enough to scare anyone, but can the IRS bully the pulpit?

Rev. Ed Bacon>> As a Christian Evangelical talk show host told me this past Friday, "Pastor, we are for you all the way because we know that, if they come for you today, they'll be coming for us tomorrow."

Val Zavala>> And then, he was struck down by polio in the middle of the Depression, so how did he manage to start a Christmas tradition?

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> It's a well-known story from the Bible. Jesus tells his followers to give unto Caesar what is Caesar's, meaning pay your taxes. But what if you are a tax-exempt church? And what if the IRS says you've crossed the line separating church and state? Well, that's what happened to All Saints Church in Pasadena and, as Hena Cuevas tells us, they got a letter recently from the IRS.

Hena Cuevas>> When Reverend George Regas sat down last October to write his Sunday sermon, he never imagined his words would attract the attention of the IRS and make national news.

Rev. George Regas>> I had worked hard on it and it was interesting and it had a powerful message about peace and about poverty.

Hena Cuevas>> It was just two days before the 2004 presidential election, a bitter battle between President George Bush and Senator John Kerry. Regas, who is retired, was invited as a guest speaker at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, a prominent liberal church. So on October 31, 2004, he delivered the sermon "If Jesus Debated Senator Kerry and President Bush".

Rev. George Regas>> "Kerry and Bush debates around three hugely important issues: ending war and violence, eliminating poverty and holding tenacious to the hopes."

Rev. George Regas>> I've certainly engaged the president before. I've engaged the war issues before, but I've never had this kind of clear confrontation with the IRS.

Hena Cuevas>> Yes, the Internal Revenue Service. Eight months after delivering the sermon, All Saints received this letter from the IRS. In it, the tax collection agency stated "We believe it is necessary to resolve questions concerning your involvement and activities which may constitute political campaign intervention."

Churches are allowed to support or oppose ballot propositions or speak out on issues, but they cannot endorse a particular candidate. If they do, they risk losing their tax-exempt status and may have to pay back taxes. Reverend Ed Bacon is the current pastor at All Saints. How surprised were you when the church received the letter from the IRS?

Rev. Ed Bacon>> Oh, I was very surprised. It was the last thing that I would expect for the IRS to come in and say that we were guilty of campaign intervention. It's something that we're so very careful about.

Hena Cuevas>> According to the letter, it was an article in the Los Angeles Times that brought the sermon to the attention of the IRS. The letter refers to the Times article saying the sermon "delivered a searing indictment of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq, criticism of the drive to develop more nuclear weapons and described tax cuts as inimical to the values of Jesus." If Regas's sermon did indeed endorse a specific candidate, the IRS could take away All Saints' tax-exempt status.

Ed McCaffery>> Here we have the big bad IRS cracking down on a church for what seemed to be political reasons.

Hena Cuevas>> Ed McCaffery is a Professor of Tax Law at USC. He says churches have the right to speak out during an election as long as they stick to issues, but not candidates.

Ed McCaffery>> So the line in the sand, as it were, is between general political discussions or participation and candidate-specific actions or endorsements.

Hena Cuevas>> Regas and Bacon say they are aware of what the law states, especially during an election period.

Rev. Ed Bacon>> I've been observing this law for my entire professional life. It's always been very, very clear. There is a very strong boundary that is there for us, that guides us.

Rev. George Regas>> "But let me make this statement to relieve some of the anxiety which some of you bring today. One, Jesus wins. . . I don't intend to tell anyone how to vote."

Hena Cuevas>> This isn't the first time All Saints Church has found itself in the middle of a national controversy. In the 1970's, at the height of the Vietnam War, a sermon given by George Regas against the war made national headlines when it was published in the Los Angeles Times. Also in the 1970's, Regas was behind the national movement for the ordination of women into the Episcopal Church.

Rev. Ed Bacon>> And this church has stood with gay and lesbian people who wanted full inclusion in the church and in the sacramental life of the church, so we're not unaccustomed to controversy.

Hena Cuevas>> So All Saints hired a Washington, D.C. law firm to handle their case. The first thing they did, according to Bacon, was answer an initial set of questions submitted by the IRS. But the agency sent them a second questionnaire, wanting more information. Why didn't they feel it was enough?

Rev. Ed Bacon>> They're staying with this notion of implication and that's simply not good enough for us because the regulations are clear that it's about explicit endorsement.

Hena Cuevas>> Because this is an ongoing investigation, the IRS isn't talking. McCaffery, who has read the sermon and the IRS's letter, says the law specifically prohibits actions, not just words.

Ed McCaffery>> Have you used taxpayer money to advance a particular candidate in a particular election? Have you coordinated directly with the campaign for a particular candidate? Have you used the coercive power of the church threatening excommunication if you don't vote in a certain way?

Hena Cuevas>> All Saints Church is not the only one that has received a notice from the IRS. About thirty other churches nationwide have as well.

Ed McCaffery>> We really don't know if this is politically motivated with a small "p" and the churches that are being investigated are disproportionately anti-administration, anti-Bush, liberal social justice churches. We don't know that or not.

Rev. Ed Bacon>> If a preacher is afraid to say what his or her conscience is telling them what the spirit of God is saying to them and they are afraid that the IRS might be listening in and come down on them because of something that the IRS thought was an implication, that's quite chilling to a preacher.

Hena Cuevas>> Reverend Bacon says he's received support from both liberal and conservative churches. As for Regas, after all the controversy, the only thing he says he would do differently is deliver his 2004 election season sermon with a lot more passion. I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> So you think you can't really do anything to improve our government? Well, listen up. A major labor union is asking Americans for their best ideas on how to improve everything from taxes and education to health care and, what's more, there's a hundred thousand dollars in it for the winner.

The contest is called Since Sliced Bread, as in the best idea since sliced bread. So far, thousands of ideas have been sent to the website, most of them from Los Angeles. The organization behind the contest? The Service Employees International Union headed by Labor Chief, Andy Stern. Stern is the man who led the revolt against the AFL-CIO, a revolt that led to the SEIU breaking away from the giant labor coalition. I talked with Stern about organizing workers globally and their contest for ideas to improve America.

Andrew Stern>> And the idea is that people in Washington are just not talking about solutions that everyday Americans are facing. You know, people don't wake up and think whether they're in a red state or a blue state. They think about how am I going to get my kids to school and how am I going to pay my bills and take care of my mom and dad? Sinceslicedbread.com is a chance for average Americans to give their ideas to the people of Washington, D.C. and, so far, eleven thousand-plus have done all of that.

Val Zavala>> What kind of ideas?

Andrew Stern>> Well, it's everything from taxes to transportation to health care, but they're not just pie-in-the-sky ideas. I mean, people are giving very specific -- in many cases, very interesting -- twists on ideas that I don't think our policy makers have really thought about. So we're hoping, when we get down to our finalists and all of America gets to vote, that we're really going to have some good new ideas for the twenty-first century.

Val Zavala>> And a little bit of money to be made in this.

Andrew Stern>> A hundred thousand dollar first prize, two fifty thousand dollar runner-up prizes. I think it's just been a great opportunity. We're thrilled by how many Americans have participated.

Val Zavala>> So if I have an idea, do I have to have researched it? Is it a long essay? How do I actually submit it?

Andrew Stern>> It's so simple. You go to sinceslicedbread.com and you write your ideas down. It can't be more than a hundred seventy-five words. You can do it in English or in Spanish. Then the experts will make sure, if it's not quite clear, that we figure it out for you, but it's simple. It is the American version of "American Idol", but it's about the ideas of tomorrow for all Americans.

Val Zavala>> And when will the winner be announced?

Andrew Stern>> Well, the winner will be announced on February 1, but all of America gets to begin voting in January. So we hope that everyone will go on. We'll have hundreds of thousands of people who will tell us what are the ideas they think work for them to have their work valued and rewarded.

Val Zavala>> And most importantly, what will happen to this idea or these winning ideas?

Andrew Stern>> Well, we hope that these ideas are going to be proposed in the presidential election and the gubernatorial election, that they'll be the kind of ideas that our politicians finally appreciate, that Americans do have strong feelings about their future and all the best ideas aren't in Washington, D.C. and we hope that they'll adopt them and bring them into our political debates and actually pass them.

Val Zavala>> Now the other challenge that you have as head of the SEIU, which is the largest or the fastest growing --

Andrew Stern>> -- and the largest union in the United States.

Val Zavala>> And the largest union, but it's the result of a major split. Tell us what caused that split and where you hope to take the new union.

Andrew Stern>> Well, unions are a gift and, when they work, they allow ordinary people to do extraordinary things. But for too long, the union movement has not understood that the world has changed, the economy has changed, our employers have changed. Unfortunately, we tried to stay the same. What happened this summer was a group of unions said, "When you're walking down a road and you know where it ends and it's not good for the American people, then get off that road and walk in a new direction where there's new ideas." We want to build a modern, new, dynamic, different, diverse and growing labor movement and that's just what we've begun to do.

Val Zavala>> Now one of the employers you're really focusing on is Wal-Mart. In fact, you have wal-martwatch.com. How do you hope to change the Wal-Mart culture?

Andrew Stern>> Well, we want to change Wal-Mart's business motto. You know, America was great when large corporations made sure that everyone shared in their success, not just the CEOs and the stockholders. Wal-Mart, for instance, is asking taxpayers like you and me to pay for their health care and that's just not right. So the Wal-Mart business motto which has high costs for the low prices, high cost to human beings, to communities and small business, is what needs to change if we're going to have an America where work is valued and rewarded.

Val Zavala>> Health care is a major issue and you're on that bandwagon as well. Again, a huge challenge. We've been talking about reforming our health care system for years now and nothing really has changed, so what kind of handle do you hope to get on that problem?

Andrew Stern>> Well, I think we're at a very different moment of history and I think we have to say the employer-based health care system is over in America. I mean, we're watching the plant closings in GM. I mean, you can't put fifteen hundred dollars on a car in the United States and then go across the river to Canada where there's no health care costs because it's shared by everyone.

The American employer-based health care system is dead. Americans employers should be screaming at their top of their lungs that we need a new health care system where everyone is covered in order for us to compete. They can't just tinker anymore. It's too corrupt and corroded a health care system and we need to build a new American health care system where everyone is included.

Val Zavala>> So all this sounds great, but at the same time, most people agree that right now the power of organized labor and unions is kind of at an ebb. So where are you going to get the muscle to make these changes?

Andrew Stern>> Well, here's the good news. In California, union membership is growing. In our union, I just came from Oregon. Ten thousand new childcare workers just joined our union. I mean, the truth is, people want to have unions. They want their work valued and rewarded and what we did last summer with Create Change to Win, a new federation, a new movement, a new moment of history, to grow a new and modern and dynamic labor movement, and that's just what we're going to do.

Val Zavala>> Well, Andy Stern, you've got a big job, but it will be very interesting watching how you do it.

Andrew Stern>> Thanks very much for your time.

Val Zavala>> Thank you.

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Val Zavala>> Have you ever wondered why we decorate our homes for Christmas? Well, there's a good case to be made that the tradition started right here in Los Angeles in 1936 with the very first Christmas House. What did it look like? A tiny bungalow enveloped in decorations, hundreds of lights, fake snow, pine trees inside and out. It drew thousands of people and lifted thousands of spirits in the middle of the Great Depression.

And who first thought of creating this Christmas wonderland? A young man from Canada named George Skinner who was struck with polio at age twenty-two. Now his daughter, Georja Skinner, is bringing her father's story to life. We met at the historic Perry House, a classic Victorian in Heritage Square where she told me about a most unusual man. Your father, you could make the case, was the first to really start or inspire people to decorate their houses for Christmas because he himself was obsessed.

Georja Skinner>> That's right. He was obsessed, but the guy -- you know, my father had such a great spirit about him and I think that really came from a tough life. I mean, he grew up here in Los Angeles. He absolutely loved it here. He became President of the Optimist Society. He was very outgoing and looking forward to a job in show business only to be struck down by polio in the epidemic here in Los Angeles in 1934.

Val Zavala>> He was only twenty-two?

Georja Skinner>> He was twenty-two years old, just in his prime, you know, looking forward, had a girlfriend, thought he would embark on this great career and polio robbed him of that, as it did so many people. And what happened was, he was paralyzed over ninety percent of his body and told he would never walk again. You can imagine, you know, hearing this. He really searched in his soul, I think, to find a way to heal and he reached out to an image of what made him the happiest while he was in that iron lung and that was this recalling of going home to Canada and these beautiful Christmases that he missed so much.

Val Zavala>> For two long years, George fought polio. He was in an iron lung, went through painful stretching and pulling therapy and even wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt for help and was able to get hydrotherapy in Los Angeles. Finally in the spring of 1936, George was released from the hospital. He and his father built exercise equipment and George worked out daily to regain his strength. They took a picture of the day he threw away his body brace.

Georja Skinner>> In 1936, out of the hospital in the spring, he was raring to go. In fact, one of the first days that he was home from the hospital, he got up in the middle of the night, sat down at his kitchen table and started drawing these elaborate plans for something that the neighborhood, let alone Los Angeles or anywhere else, had never seen before. Sort of like Rube Goldberg meets Walt Disney, you know, on a shoestring budget. I mean, it was just an amazing feat. He started creating this fantastic winter wonderland and he started building it with neighbors and friends and people from the American Legion and it wasn't a normal Christmas House. This was something that was over the top.

Val Zavala>> It really was. Describe what kinds of things went into it. How much? How many lights? How much material?

Georja Skinner>> Seven thousand watts of lights. He actually had to get the Department of Water and Power to donate a separate generator. Seven hundred pounds of cotton, two hundred fifty strung lights, which was kind of new for the day, and big floodlights. It was lit up like a movie set. You can imagine coming around the corner like from Whittier to Matthews Street and most of the homes were modest and they have little trees in the window and a wreath and there's this giant movie set with a house that's covered in cotton and corn flakes so it looks like a snow storm.

Val Zavala>> Corn flakes?

Georja Skinner>> The corn flakes were mixed with like cotton batting and mica chips and put on the front lawn. Then he had people chipping ice from his freezer and put that all over the lawn as well. Then in the back yard, he had a talking wishing well. He would meander through the house and then come out to the back door where this wishing well would greet you. In 1936, the Los Angeles Times covered it.

Then in 1937, it was even better. They wanted to add all kinds of new things, so they added the huge tower and a big star and they had Christmas carols going all the time. He actually recorded area choirs from Boyle Heights, which I still have the recordings of, and then he blasted this through speakers on his front lawn so you could hear it all the way -- if they had a freeway, I'm sure you might have been able to hear it on the freeway at that time.

Val Zavala>> And, of course, your grandfather, his father, helped as well. I understand that they would often start building this in July? They would live in their garage and start building in July to get ready for December?

Georja Skinner>> That's right. Usually during the summer months, they would live in the garage because they moved all their furniture out to accommodate this wonderful display for people. You saw in the photo that they have, you know, cotton on the floor that resembled snow in the living room, thirty Douglas Fir trees in the living room that go into an infinity diorama of, you know, a forest in the winter. Then in the back yard, they added this thirty-foot waterfall which was off of a glacier mountain. It looked like the Matterhorn, actually. It was just a fantastic kind of thing.

Val Zavala>> In 1938, George and his father and volunteers built the most elaborate Christmas House ever, but two days before its official opening, someone sneaked inside to take a look. They were smoking a cigarette and flicked an ash.

Georja Skinner>> And the whole house went up in flames.

Val Zavala>> Before it was officially opened, but all the work had been done?

Georja Skinner>> Yes. All the work had been done, so the best Christmas House ever was reduced to smoldering ash except for a few of the decorations in the back yard. So what Albert and his son, George, did is they said, look, we can't rob the kids of Los Angeles of a great Christmas anyway. They got an okay from the fire department and opened the house the following day so that people could come through and still enjoy the beauty of Christmas.

Val Zavala>> Still thousands of people came through?

Georja Skinner>> Thousands of people. The newspaper reports eighty thousand the first year and a hundred thousand in 1937 and 1938, so you can imagine in this wonderful community, which was such a great mix and still is today, I mean, there's such a resurgence of Boyle Heights. I'm so excited to be working with the Boyle Heights Restoration Society there. They're doing some great things and hopefully we'll bring back Christmas House for that community next year.

Val Zavala>> George Skinner died of lung cancer in 1978. The original Christmas House is now a high school parking lot, but the Skinner family kept a scrapbook and now Georja has put the story in a book called "The Christmas House: How One Man's Dream Changed the Way we Celebrate Christmas". Do you sense that there are fewer and fewer people even putting up Christmas lights? What do you think that's about?

Georja Skinner>> I notice that there are fewer and fewer people. I think that we've lost touch with what this is all about. I think George Skinner really had, you know, a purity of heart when he decorated, as so many other people do, but I think that it's become something of an empty kind of magic and I think that this book, "The Christmas House", and this story rekindles that magic again and shows you about why these things were done.

Val Zavala>> Heritage Square will hold its annual Victorian Lamplight Celebration with carolers, decorations, food, photo exhibits and even a chance to learn Victorian dances. It happens the weekend of December 3 and 4. You can call Heritage Square at (323) 225-2700, Ext. 221 for information or go to Georja's website at christmashouseonline.com.

Val Zavala>> Turkeys, of course, are the foul de jour for this Thanksgiving holiday, but for the rest of the year, chickens far outstrip turkeys when it comes to our carnivorous consumption. But we met one man in Silverlake whose chickens are just too exotic to ever end up on a dinner plate.

Sam Louie>> We've heard the phrase "different strokes for different folks" and it's no different when it comes to pet ownership. Here in Silverlake, one man raises exotic chickens as pets.

Carl Hunter>> "Hey, girls. Come on. Do you want to go out and play? Okay, go play."

Carl Hunter>> What fascinates me is their variety and because I like chickens and I don't like just plain white chickens. I like things that are unusual and interesting and varied.

Sam Louie>> Carl Hunter has eight different breeds of exotic chickens from around the world scampering through his property.

Carl Hunter>> I have two Coucou de Rennes. Those are from France. I've got Polish. There's a White Crested Black Polish here. I have a Golden Polish in the other pen. The Japanese Silkies come from China and Japan. They're either named Chinese Silky or Japanese Silky.

Sam Louie>> Carl enjoys raising chickens as a hobby. It brings back fond childhood memories of his grandfather's farm.

Carl Hunter>> He had a little farm when I was a kid and I would go out there and play with the baby chicks or get the eggs or whatever. I'd just be totally fascinated with them.

Sam Louie>> As an adult, Carl was able to carry on that tradition. He and his partner own a house on three-quarters of an acre in Silverlake.

Carl Hunter>> The chickens are kept in an environment that lets them be chickens. I like to let them out and run around and fly a little bit, dig in the dirt and have a dust bath. All of those kinds of things that they need to do to be real chickens.

Sam Louie>> The exotic chickens come in a variety of sizes and colors. Similar to typical hens, they lay eggs.

Carl Hunter>> "Did you lay your egg yet? Let me see. Oh, you did. Look at that. Look at that nice big brown egg she gave. Well, thank you. Someone will enjoy that for breakfast."

Sam Louie>> But the beauty of these hens is that their eggs also come in a rainbow of colors.

Carl Hunter>> Blue-green, olive, pink. Each hen has her own color and will lay the same color on every egg.

Sam Louie>> Most of these chickens originated from a hatchery in Iowa. The postal service delivered them as baby chicks within seventy-two hours from the time they hatched.

Carl Hunter>> When I walked into the post office, I could hear them the minute I opened the door. I said, "Those are my babies out there (laughter)".

Sam Louie>> Carl maintains they all have their own personality. He's even given some of them names. His favorite is Carol.

Carl Hunter>> She's the star. She's been on several shows and she just was rented out last weekend for a benefit show where a dancer used her in a couple of numbers. Every feather fluffs out and she has the feel of a cat as opposed to the feel of a regular feathered bird.

Sam Louie>> While he has his favorites, he loves all of them dearly. So when predators like coyotes get to them, the loss can be hard.

Carl Hunter>> I feel very badly about that, especially a young rooster out of this group from this spring that was pulled right through the fence and killed and eaten by a coyote. He was a very, very tame rooster and I had a lot of fun with him.

Sam Louie>> Despite the occasional threat from coyotes, Carl says that raising chickens gives him a great sense of pride and satisfaction, as well as keeping him young at heart.

Carl Hunter>> You know, for me it's a lot of fun, a great hobby, and I get to go on an Easter egg hunt every day (laughter).

Sam Louie>> I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, no matter what's on your table. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

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