The company they keep
An interesting tidbit from the OC Weekly on the litigation between the Diocese of Los Angeles and the breakaway parishes led by St. James, Newport Beach. It seems the lawyer representing St. James is John C. Eastman, dean of the Chapman University School of Law, who recently teemed with the "visiting professor and Bush White House 'torture memo' author John Yoo in April to debate two other Chapman law profs in Memorial Hall about presidential power in wartime. One thing Eastman rejected that day was a government investigation of Yoo and others because he did not believe the U.S. ever tortured anyone.
The case raises questions about St. James' constitutionally protected, First Amendment rights to religious freedoms, according to Eastman, who told the [Daily] Pilot, "By taking their church away that makes it hard for them to practice their religion."
Dean Eastman has to be smarter than this quote suggests.
