|
Friends United Meeting |
 |
December 1999
J.E. McNeil: A Skeptical Advocate for Peace
By Ben Richmond
She is a tax lawyer who also reads Tillich and Bonhoeffer. She calls herself a religious fanatic and attends meeting "every Sunday" (although missing the day after giving birth). On the other hand, she is neither conventional nor pious! In unguarded moments, her language echoes her indigent clients, and she speaks enthusiastically of the party she and her husband threw for neighbors and friends the night he came home from the hospital with a brain tumor before falling into his final coma. She's a liberal Quaker who admires the work of evangelical Friend Richard Foster (saying her son would attest that she agrees with Foster about discipline), but she won't recommend Foster's books to her friends because of what she terms his "homophobia."
J.E. McNeil has become well known in peace-activist circles as a lawyer who will take on the cases of protesters and conscientious objectors. This fall, she has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to appeal the case involving the military tax resistance of New England Friends, Edith and Gordon Browne. Also this fall, J.E. has been named the executive director of the Center on Conscience and War/NISBCO, an organization that for almost 60 years has worked to defend the rights of conscientious objectors to the military draft, and those who refuse to cooperate with the military.
Despite her sometimes costly commitment to these causes, she terms war tax resistance and non-registration for the draft "stupid."
"I do not support war tax resistance and non-registration for the draft," she told me during an interview in her paper-strewn office. "I think they are stupid. War tax resistance, in particular!" (Her eyes twinkled here, knowing that she was speaking to a long-time war tax resister.) "In the vast majority of cases, the government gets the money, plus penalties and interest. It is counter-productive. In the case of [those who refuse to register] for the draft, the only person you hurt is yourself. Your non-registration won't bother the generals.
"But, I will always support war tax resisters and non-registrants who know all this but do it anyway," and here, J.E. spoke with intensity, "because they are compelled by their religious beliefs to do it. In other words, the people who agree with me that it is stupid, but who feel compelled by God to do it anyway, are the people I represent."
Back in 1940, as Europe was being consumed by war, representatives of Mennonite, Brethren, Quaker and other churches got together to figure out a way to support their conscientious objectors. Memories of "The Great War" were still fresh in "Peace Church" circles: of the thousands of conscientious objectors who had been drafted into the army, and who had, because of their refusal to wear uniforms or bear arms, ended up suffering in jail. Many died of the harsh treatment.
The accommodation that the negotiators worked out resulted in legal recognition of conscientious objector status for those religiously opposed to participation in war in any form and alternative service through Civilian Public Service Camps. NSBRO (The National Service Board for Religious Objectors) was established to take on this work. In the fall of 1940, Paul Comley French, a cigar-smoking journalist and Quaker from Baltimore Yearly Meeting, who had represented the Friends Peace Committee in those negotiations, was named the first executive director of NSBRO. Soon, the Methodists (who had more C.O.s than the Quakers) and the Peace Board of the Federal Council of Churches, and then many other denominations joined the effort. NSBRO was renamed NISBCO (the National Interreligious Service Board for Conscientious Objectors), and it went on to assist C.O.s through the Korean, Vietnam, and Gulf War conflicts. NISBCO has just been renamed the Center on Conscience and War. J.E. McNeil is the first Quaker since Paul Comley French to serve as executive director.
About a year and a half ago, J.E. got a call from the NISBCO office. It seems that a young man with intentions of becoming a doctor had joined the Army. This was a way to finance his training, and he'd been told that being a doctor in the army was the same as being a civilian doctor.
"That was patently false," said J.E.
Before long, he was in training camp and was handed a rifle. Then he was told that if he had a civilian patient who was dying and a soldier, no matter how minor the complaint, he had to treat the soldier first. This began to open his eyes.
As he started thinking, he became involved in a church, and began to question the morality of participation in war. He went to a military chaplain, but was told, in essence, "Get a life." He went to his commander who told him, "You took the money; you're stuck."
He was assigned a residency program in a military hospital. By this time, he had been in the service for two years, but he started to refuse any more money. He also sought out legal help. Unfortunately, his attorney was poorly informed, the work was not done well, and his C.O. application was denied.
It was at this point that he was assigned to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in Washington, D.C. From there he found NISBCO, and J.E. With her help, he started the discharge process again. She filed a writ of habeus corpus on his behalf, saying in legal terms: "He meets the standard of a C.O., you can't keep him." Final outcome: he received an honorable discharge and was allowed to defer repayment to the military until after he had finished his residency.
Although NISBCO has changed its name to the Center on Conscience and War (CCW), this is the sort of practical work in defense of individual conscience that continues to be its bread-and-butter. During the active military draft, they were the agency the churches depended on to monitor draft regulations. Now, in this period of the draft standby, CCW is working to eliminate the draft entirely.
In the meantime, eighteen-year-old men are still required to register. One of the big problems with the current system is that there is no way to indicate an intention to file as conscientious objectors at the time of registration. For this and other reasons, some refuse to register. Although there have been very few criminal prosecutions for non-registration, Congress has passed a number of punitive measures denying college loans and other benefits to those who fail to register for the draft. CCW operates a revolving loan fund to try to help non-registrants with educational loans.
In recent years, CCW has also tried to provide legal assistance to conscientious
objectors in other countries where C.O. status is often not recognized
(e.g., in Central America and, for men, in Israel), and to help refugees
from compulsory military service gain entry to the United States.
In the 1980s Gordon Browne was executive secretary of the Friends World Committee for Consultation--Section of the Americas. Less well known was the fact that he and Edith felt compelled by conscience to refuse to pay the military portion of their federal taxes. J.E. says they didn't talk about their witness much because they didn't want to seem to be boasting: it was just something that they felt they had to do.
Two years ago, the Brownes initiated a case with J.E.'s help concerning their war tax resistance. They are not challenging the collection of the tax itself-but they are challenging the assessment of additional penalties for something they feel compelled by religious conscience to do.
About the same time, Rosa Packard of New York Yearly Meeting and Priscilla Adams of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, brought similar cases with the assistance of attorney Peter Goldberger. (Each case has different circumstances and somewhat different legal arguments.) Rosa Packard insists that the government should not force her to "commit murder." To her, assessment of tax penalties is an obvious case of religious persecution.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution begins with the words, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;...." It is the "free exercise" clause that is at issue in the three Quaker cases. Do Friends have the right to live according to the dictates of a religious belief that forbids them from participation in war? Unfortunately, lower courts have ruled in each of the cases that the government's interest in maintaining the tax system overrides the free exercise of religion.
When I asked J.E. to explain the significance of the Browne's case, she gave me this short legal seminar going back to the 1990 Supreme Court decision in the case of Employment Division v. Smith:
"Smith says you can make a law against hats in general and apply it to yarmulkes [the Jewish skullcap], but you cannot make a law specifically against yarmulkes. Smith also says that if you make a law against hats and give a 'hardship waiver' for people with cancer when they loose hair then you must give it for religious hardship. In other words, there is a rule that if a waiver is given for any reason, then waivers must be given for religious reasons as well.
"Under RFRA [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which Congress passed 1993 in reaction against the Smith decision], the government must provide a waiver for yarmulkes unless the government has a compelling reason why you shouldn't-and it must show that it is employing the least restrictive means of achieving its purpose.
"We are saying that, for religious reasons, the Brownes cannot voluntarily pay the military portion of their tax. They do it openly; they get no benefit from it, and they give the money away to charity. IRS takes years to collect the tax, and then adds huge penalties and interest. The IRS has a "hardship waiver" for penalties that applies to almost any reason for non-payment beyond, 'I didn't have the cash.' The problem is that the IRS manual specifically denies these waivers for religious reasons.
"What we are arguing is that, according to Smith, once you have a hardship waiver, absent a compelling reason not to, you must extend the waiver to religious claims." The RFRA law also raises the question of whether penalties are the "least restrictive means" of collecting the tax.
The Supreme Court will decide whether or not to hear the Quaker cases sometime over the next several months. But, the fact is that most such appeals are never heard.
"The question, 'how does faith fit in my life?' doesn't work." J.E. told me. "I try to make faith be my life: in my work, with my son, with my husband, in the way I practice law. I read the Bible and Thomas Kelly, and they are helpful, but trying to do faith on your own doesn't work. The Meeting shores up your faith. Sometimes, in Meeting, I can tangibly feel God's presence; the Meeting really can magnify God's presence in your life."
Listening to J.E. talk makes me glad that a community of faith surrounds her. In her advocacy for the poor and for conscience in the realm of peace, she, in turn, strengthens the community.
The Center on Conscience and War/NISBCO, 1830 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20009; (202) 483-2220; nisbco@igc.apc.org
Ben Richmond is the managing editor of Quaker Life.
Copyright (c) 1999 Friends United Meeting
Return to December Contents page