Connecticut To Pay Fee For Church Convention In State

The United Church of Christ had been planning to hold its national convention in Connecticut at the new Convention Center in Hartford. However, according to yesterday's Hartford Courant, when a labor dispute at the Center led the union involved to call for a boycott, the Church withdrew. Now Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell has salvaged the convention for her state by agreeing to have the state pay a $100,000 fee for an alternative site-- the older Hartford Civic Center. Recently elsewhere when tax funds have been used to subsidize church conventions, critics have raised church-state separation questions. (See prior posting.) [Thanks to Donald C. Clark, Jr. via Religionlaw for the lead.]