Inside Scientology - Janet Reitman [189]
Farrakhan did not, however, mention the key terms associated with the brand—Scientology, Dianetics, L. Ron Hubbard—an irony for a church that has spent so much money and human capital promoting itself and its name. But Miscavige, nothing if not pragmatic, would surely approve this tactic if it served to drive up Scientology's enrollment statistics, just as he has appeared to endorse the quiet ways that Scientology-sponsored front organizations are now disseminating Scientology's message into society.
Over the past decade or so, Scientologists have forged bonds with state and local lawmakers in cities across the United States, some of whom may not be fully aware of the Scientology connection. One example is the church's close ties to the National Foundation of Women Legislators, which counts more than eight hundred members in state and federal government. Since the late 1990s, Scientologists have held key positions in the organization, which they have used to reach out to lawmakers on issues pertaining to drugs and social reform, notably psychiatry.
In the spring of 2010, this link became notably clear after it was revealed that the Nevada Republican Sharron Angle, a Tea Party candidate for the U.S. Senate and a member of the NFWL, had backed a bill to implement a Hubbard-inspired drug rehabilitation and reform program known as Second Chance in Nevada state prisons. The president of Second Chance, Joy Westrum, sat on the NFWL board and had reportedly been instrumental in linking Second Chance, which uses the Purification Rundown, with a drug awareness program known as Shoulder to Shoulder, which has nothing to do with Scientology but happens to be supported by the NFWL.
Angle, a Southern Baptist, was clearly enamored of Second Chance, appearing in a promotional video for the program. Angle also became an advocate of CCHR's agenda—though she did not publicly endorse CCHR—and in 2001 and 2003 tried to introduce legislation that would prohibit school nurses or psychologists (though not licensed physicians) to require that certain students take psychotropic drugs like Ritalin. These efforts failed, but in 2003, Angle did manage to convince the Nevada senator John Ensign to introduce a similar bill in Congress. (According to theLas Vegas Sun, Angle's website at one point contained a reference, later scrubbed, to her partnering with actresses Jenna Elfman and Kelly Preston, who joined her in lobbying Ensign.)
"The Church of Scientology has been excellent at taking well-established social problems and capitalizing on them for its own good," noted the Canadian sociologist Stephen Kent, who has studied Scientology's tactics and practices for twenty years. The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, for example, provided Applied Scholastics—along with many other for-profit educational systems—with the opportunity to introduce Hubbard's study technology into the schools, and it was highly successful at implementing the program in one middle school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which was notorious for its poor performance record. Similarly, in Washington, D.C., Applied Scholastics International is now one of twenty-nine tutoring services listed in the Title I Supplemental Educational Services Guide provided to parents of children attending D.C.'s failing public schools.
The attacks of 9/11 also gave Scientologists a chance to introduce Hubbard's Purification Rundown to skeptical New Yorkers, and first responders continue to receive help from the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project, which critics decry is Narconon by another name.