Sun Myung Moon Sung, the North Korean President, to discuss ways to achieve peace on the Korean peninsula, as well as on international relations, tourism, etc. In 1994, Moon was officially invited to the funeral of Kim Il Sung, in spite of the absence of diplomatic relations between North Korea and South Korea. Moon and his church are known for their efforts to promote Korean unification. In 2003, Korean Unification Church members started a political party in South Korea. It was named "The Party for God, Peace, Unification, and Home." In its inauguration declaration, the new party said it would focus on preparing
United States v. Sun Myung Moon York Civil Liberties Union, called the prosecution "an indefensible intrusion in private religious affairs." The "New York Times" and the "Washington Post", which had both been critical of Moon, expressed concern about the government's prosecution of him and the consequences it might have for other religious groups. Michael Tori, a professor at Marist College (Poughkeepsie, New York) suggested that Moon's conviction helped the Unification Church gain more acceptance in mainstream American society, since it showed that he was financially accountable to the government and the public. In 1991 Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Carlton Sherwood wrote a book in Sun Myung Moon's