Scientology and Society
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Scientology and Society in the News
| Date | Title | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| April 9, 2000 | 2 Judges, 2 Counties, and a Lot of Baloney | How to explain the mental nose dives of the medical examiner and the chief circuit judge when they were confronted with the story of the slow, miserable death in 1995 of Scientologist Lisa McPherson at the Fort Harrison Hotel? This is the part I gag on: The Internal Revenue Service gave Scientology the tax-exempt protection of a religion. If what they do at Scientology headquarters in Clearwater is a religion, then I'm a planet. Saturn, say, rings and all. | |
| November 12, 2007 | A Church Accounting | While religious institutions have constitutional protection against certain taxation, they are also expected not to abuse their special status. In fact, while Grassley is looking into such matters, he should add the Church of Scientology to the list. Scientology's shameful past includes a 25-year legal and psychological campaign against the IRS to be recognized as a tax- exempt religion. Scientology tactics included a criminal conspiracy in the 1970s to bug IRS offices, which led to 11 convictions of church members including founder L. Ron Hubbard's wife. Scientology filed dozens of lawsuits against the IRS, hired private investigators to dig up dirt on IRS employees and financed other IRS critics. | |
| October 20, 1993 | Advertising: Church of Scientology to Launch Campaign to Improve Its Image | The Church of Scientology, having just won tax-exempt status after a bitter, decades-long battle with the Internal Revenue Service, is now ready to take on media critics in a major promotional campaign to try to mend its public image. The church has responded aggressively to its portrayal by news organizations in the past. After Time ran its cover story titled "Scientology: The Cult of Greed," the church ran expensive inserts in USA Today, in an attempt to discredit the Time story. | |
| April 12, 1996 | Again, Scientology's Secrecy Arouses Suspicion | Two decades after Scientology secretly started buying property and establishing its considerable presence downtown, there remains an enormous amount of mistrust about its goals and motives. Unfortunately, Scientology has no one to blame but itself for much of the criticism its leaders adamantly argue is unwarranted. Scientology's recent secret purchase of three small motels north of downtown Clearwater will heighten suspicion. That secretiveness reminds Scientology critics of how the church secretly started buying land 20 years ago under the name United Churches of Florida. | |
| August 6, 2008 | Anonymous Returns, Scientology Responds | Cringely outlines Scientology's long history of harassing journalists and critics. | |
| October 4, 2006 | Anti-Gay Scientologists Backed Mark Foley | Mark Foley, who resigned from Congress because he got caught sending sexually suggestive e-mails to teenage male pages, had a political relationship with the very anti-gay Church of Scientology. The controversial cult-like church has major operations in Clearwater, Fla., which just happens to be in Foley's district. The group also hosted a fund-raiser for Foley in May 2003 when he was considering a Senate run. | |
| April 5, 1998 | Anti-Ritalin Campaign Misleading, Critics Say | Twelve-page pamphlets are being handed out on street corners across the U.S., sounding frightening alarms about Ritalin, a prescription drug used for three decades to calm hyperactive children. Researchers and government regulators looking into the legitimate worries about misuse or over-prescription of Ritalin ridicule these "facts" as distortions and exaggerations of their work. Because the claims are constantly recycled without qualification or context, they say, parents are panicking unnecessarily. | |
| March 27, 1953 | Arrest Gives Pair Fine New Engrams | Two Dianetics practitioners were arrested and released in Detroit. Police are deciding whether to bring charges, and what charges to bring. Six E-meters were seized. | |
| August 13, 2008 | As Scientology Expands, So Do Its Naysayers | Anonymous protestors in Seattle call attention to Scientology's space opera teachings, tax exempt status, and Fair Game policy. | |
| October 30, 1996 | Bavaria Asks Disclosure of Scientology Ties | The southern state of Bavaria said today that it would require all state employees to fill out a questionnaire detailing any tie to the Church of Scientology. The state chancellery said all applicants for state jobs, including teachers and police officers, would not be hired if they refused. Those already employed would face disciniplary measures if they declined. The move is part of a long-running effort by German authorities to stifle the influence here of the Scientologists. German authorites have charged that the group is a profit-making scheme and have denied it the tax breaks normally given churches and charities. | |
| January 30, 2005 | Buffalo News: Englightenment's Dark Side | Because Jeremy Perkins and his mother shared the church's adamant opposition to psychiatry, he didn't take drugs that medical professionals say could have staved off his illness - and saved his mother's life. | |
| December 23, 1988 | Changing Strategy: Scientology Now Steps Right Up To Controversy | After years of sparring with the townsfolk and veiling itself in secrecy, the Church of Scientology has succeeded in turning Clearwater into its spiritual mecca. Scientologists quietly run teen nightclubs, schools, day-care centers, management consulting firms and other businesses, records and interviews show. Now the strategy of the organization, longtime observers say, is to confront controversy, gain converts and make money - lots of it. Scientology's Clearwater operation brings in $1.5-million to $2-million a week, say church watchers who include Clearwater police, former Scientology security chief Richard Azneran and former Scientologist-turned-author Bent Corydon. | |
| October 28, 1988 | Church Lawyer Alleges Ministry Bias | Premier David Peterson has been asked to appoint independent lawyers to prosecute the Church of Scientology, after allegations that the Attorney-General's Ministry is caught in a conflict of interest. Lawyers for the church also asked the provincial auditor yesterday to examine the propriety of the ministry's having financed a civil suit launched by one of its own lawyers against the church and several media outlets. | |
| January 25, 1996 | City Balks At Church's Figures On House Plan | The Church of Scientology was hoping Wednesday to get approval for a plan that would move as many as nine people into individual units at its staff apartment complex and create common lounges for rest and relaxation. Instead, city officials revealed that the numbers for the total population at Hacienda Gardens just don't add up. | |
| October 19, 1987 | City Shouldn't Pay For Guide | Clearwater Scientologists, in their ongoing "let's-be-friends" effort, have agreed to update a 2-year-old downtown shopping guide. They produced the original one and provided copies to merchants for distribution throughout the downtown area. This time they want somebody else to pick up the $6,000 to $8,000 printing bill. Scientologists and others who feel the brochure is worthwhile want the Community Redevelopment Agency to pick up the tab. "My initial reaction was there's no way I will support paying the Scientologists to do a brochure on downtown," Mayor Rita Garvey said. | |
| October 29, 1986 | Class Action Suit Thrown Out | A $467-million class action filed by a member of the Church of Scientology against a consumer protection group and four of its employees has been thrown out by Quebec Superior Court Justice Jean Marquis. | |
| October 21, 1993 | Clearwater to Keep Battling Scientology | The city is still fighting the Church of Scientology. Despite a strongly worded recent court decision in favor of Scientology, city commissioners have decided to continue the decade-long legal battle over a rule that would let the city police the organization's financial records. Commissioner Fred Thomas said he was annoyed by the scores of letters sent by Scientologists to lobby him before the Tuesday meeting. He called one letter "threatening" and said it amounted to a "declaration of war" against the city. | |
| January 1, 1988 | Clearwater Wants To Join Case Before Supreme Court | Attorneys representing Clearwater in its legal battle against the Church of Scientology have asked permission to file a brief in a similar case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Clearwater is defending its 1983 charitable solicitations ordinance in court. The ordinance requires financial disclosure by any religious or charitable organization that solicits funds in Clearwater, including the Church of Scientology, which has international headquarters here. | |
| September 25, 1995 | Code Name: Snow White | The Scientology sect is fighting for its position in Germany. With the most lavish PR campaign to date, the psycho-concern blasts its opponents with its hardest attack yet. A defector reveals why: Sect founder L. Ron Hubbard himself had early declared Germany to be enemy number one, he feared that German psychiatrists wanted to murder him. | |
| December 9, 1993 | Cult Prosecuted Over Safety of Commune | Scientology, one of Britain's largest cults, is being prosecuted by a local authority for failing to ensure one of its largest communes is safe for human habitation. The Independent has been leaked documents from the church headquarters that show it may have misled safety inspectors over the number of adults and children living in the commune. The cult has persistently denied overcrowding in any of these communes and says they are fit for human habitation. It has, however, been confirmed that environmental health officers from Mid-Sussex are prosecuting the cult for failing to keep Stonelands, one of its largest communes, safe. | |
| April 3, 2000 | Cynical Sales in Scientology | Professional Danish sales representatives strongly distance themselves from the methods employed by Scientology in selling their message. - It's a cynical, brutal and hard sales method. People are pushed into a corner, and their only way of getting out is to say "yes, please", says Dennis Rasmussen, advisor in "Danske Saelgere" - the organization of professional sales people. | |
| October 25, 2005 | Dangerous Cult or Secret of Success? | with more and more stories unfolding about the church's beliefs in alien invasions and the need to "audit" the soul through costly counselling sessions, just what is Scientology all about? I'm soon told that there are numerous negative parts of my spiritual wellbeing. Apparently, I'm verging towards being unstable, nervous and depressed while also being highly critical and unappreciative of others. In short, I'm a spiritual mess. | |
| April 20, 1970 | Dear South End - Scientology | A chapter of the Church of Scientology is now in the process of forming on the campus of Wayne State. These people seem quite sincere in what they are doing. They want to make the world a better place in which to live by making man better. However, their sincerity seems more like $incerity. The first of four levels cost only $650.00 and as far as I could tell each successive level costs more. | |
| October 16, 1998 | Defamatory Attack - Scientology Defames Professor | In early June, The Globe and Mail distributed an insert published by The Church of Scientology entitled Freedom. This insert contained an article that amounted to a lengthy and defamatory attack on Dr. Stephen Kent and his research on new and alternative religions, particularly Scientology itself. | |
| April 15, 1994 | Escape Route From Scientology 'Has Never Been Busier' | A husband and wife team who help Church of Scientology members leave the controversial organisation say they have never been busier after a spate of national coverage surrounding the cult. Bonnie Woods, a former Scientologist, and her husband Richard formed Escape nearly three years ago and operate from their East Grinstead home. The couple claim to have given advice to about 100 former cult members. |
Scientology and Society in the News
| Date | Title | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| December 21, 2005 | Tax Court Denies Scientology-Like Deduction for Jewish Courses | The US Tax Court rules against Michael and Maria Sklar, who were seeking the right to deduct the cost of their children's religious education, a right that the IRS grants only to Scientologists. |