Distorting the Issues Truly nonpartisan organizations typically gather information for voters guides by distributing questionnaires to candidates and then faithfully reprinting all the questions and the candidates' responses in full. When candidates do not reply to a question, or to an entire questionnaire, such truly nonpartisan organizations generally content themselves by simply reporting that they received no response. Indeed, voters guides distributed by churches are legally required to be based on actual answers to neutrally phrased questionnaires. The Christian Coalition takes a wholly different approach, one that creates the opportunity for a good deal of partisan mischief, and one that endangers the tax-exemption of the churches that distribute their guides. Rather than reprinting the questions candidates were asked, the Christian Coalition prints a short phrase that often misleads would-be voters about what question it is to which the candidates are in fact responding.
Prayer is subject to the same general rules that govern all other student behavior in schools.
Children are permitted to pray individually during free time, and in groups at any time when they are otherwise permitted to gather in groups for non-directed activities. The very notion that a child would be arrested for praying in public schools is preposterous, and yet the Christian Coalition presents the issue as if that were the case. The second area of dishonesty is the Christian Coalition's practice of picking and choosing what it will report in its guides on the basis of how those issues will help or hurt particular candidacies. The group's questionnaire to candidates included some 104 questions this year. Those questions were divided by issue area, with multiple questions on most issues.