Network Has God, Law on Its Side

Two things we know: The Lord works in mysterious ways, and he has a crack legal team working Orange County.

At some point, you’d think these earthly secularists would get the hint and back off when The Big Guy’s interests are at heart. Or, at least, be a little less brazen when taking him on in hopeless causes.

The latest divine kick in the briefs came last week when the state appeals court in Santa Ana ruled against the Coast Community College District for its handling of the sale of KOCE, the local public broadcasting station. The three-judge panel sounded just short of disbelieving that a lower court let the district bypass the high bid from Dallas-based Daystar Television Network in favor of one from a private foundation of local business and civic leaders.

In another high-profile case three summers ago, a federal judge pointedly ordered Cypress to stop trying to condemn property owned by the Cottonwood Christian Center to make way for a giant discount store. By the time the judge ruled, the city said it had already repented and was working on a compromise with the church. That deal eventually was worked out.

The college district apparently wasn’t watching the Cypress case. It now has gotten itself into a real bind, because the sale is off the table. Unless, that is, Daystar, whose corporate name is Word of God Fellowship, Inc., succeeds in convincing a court that the district make good on the sale to its organization.

It’s a whole other discussion as to whether it would be better if KOCE remains in the Public Broadcasting System fold. I wish it would, but as the appellate court unflinchingly noted, you can’t be so obvious in trying to thwart televangelists from buying your station in a fair auction.

Or, as we nonlegal people might say: Pity the fool who rattles the heavenly cage.

I ran that by Cameron Totten, one of Daystar’s attorneys. His Beverly Hills law firm doesn’t normally represent faith-based clients, he said, but he noted that the setback in Superior Court was a real stunner. Up until the judge’s decision, Totten says, everything was going well.

“We even felt the judge was having a tough time understanding how this could be a reasonable deal when the foundation was going to get a 30-year loan interest free with no security,” Totten says. “But for whatever reason in the end, he sided in favor of the community college district.”

For those who remember Church Lady on “Saturday Night Live,” we know to whom she’d attribute the whole thing.

The appellate court ruling referred to a third-party statement in the court record that the district trustees were bound and determined to “filter out” any televangelists, so certain were they that such groups would submit the highest bid. “It was obvious,” Totten says, “that there was prejudice going on under the surface.”

Let’s hope the trustees and judge encounter the forgiving God at the pearly gates and not the wrathful one.

I’d be less worried for them if the case had been a close call, but the appellate court makes it sound like the law was fairly clear. “We didn’t know what to make of it,” Totten says. “We thought we had an extremely strong case. We didn’t see the [Superior Court] result coming at all.”

As if to underscore the point, Totten notes, “I think the board of directors made it more about religion than our client did. Our client was simply interested in expanding their broadcasting. If you look at the bidders that were involved, there were several religious broadcasters. That’s just how the market is.”

I don’t wish eternal damnation on anyone, including judges and community college trustees. But they’ve made their beds.

In parting, I asked Totten if it were the lawyers or God’s handiwork that guided the appellate ruling. “I think we had good lawyering,” Totten said with a chuckle. “I can’t speak for God, even though our client is the Word of God.”

*

Dana Parsons can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at

dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.