Source: Los Angeles Times
On November 2, 2000, the Los Angeles Times reported that Judge Alexander Williams III of the Los Angeles Supreme Court will preside over a case that debates 1st amendment rights. Jewish activist Irv Rubin filed suit against the city of Burbank to stop the references to Jesus Christ at Burbank's City Council meetings. Officials say "Rubin's demand is unlawful because it would force the city to censor speakers, adding that the council has no role in selecting the clerics who give the invocations." It is the Burbank Ministerial Assn. that chooses the clerics from a list of volunteers. Rubin, executive chairman of the Jewish Defense League, took offense to a Mormon minister's reference to Jesus Christ in an invocation of a City Council meeting last November.