RELIGION : ACLU, Tammy Bakker Team Up

ORLANDO, Fla. — The American Civil Liberties Union is joining forces with Tammy Faye Bakker in efforts to overturn a zoning ban against church services in a warehouse area.

Warren Keiner, the ACLU’s Central Florida chairman, said there is no compelling reason to prohibit religious services in an industrial area, where peace and quiet are not as important as they would be in a residential area.

Bakker and her husband, Jim, set up their New Covenant Ministries in Orlando last year, before he began serving a 45-year federal prison term in connection with fund-raising activities in their former PTL television ministry.

It has been housed in a shopping mall, a hotel, a piano shop and lately in an industrial park.

After one Sunday service, Orange County zoning officials said that while she could operate a broadcasting studio, no church services would be permitted.