Religious Rights Watch

Our neighbors to the north have given us another excellent foreshadowing of what the near future of political correctness run amuck holds for us.

It seems that a pro-life student, wishing to engage in a SILENT protest against abortion was put in isolation and segregated from the rest of the student body.  The student, Jennifer Rankin, was joining in the pro-life "Silent Day of Solidarity" campaign, which involved wearing red tape over her mouth and a red armband.  The point of the protest was to be able to respond with a pro-life answer when people would ask why she is protesting.

From Life News:

...a school principal alerted police and met Rankin and her mother at the entrance where she told them that the protest is not welcome at the school. Ultimately, school officials allowed Rankin into the building but kept her in isolation away from other students.

"I was taken directly into a small room that was opposite the vice-principal's office and I was in there all day," Rankin told the Petersborough Examiner newspaper. "I wasn't allowed to speak with or see any other students and students were not allowed to come and see me and I was isolated in that room for the entire day."

Keep in mind that one of the "nice" things about Canada and some European countries is that, for good or ill, they seem to be a harbinger of what's heading our way.

Again, political correctness run amuck.

America will find out how far to the left its federal judiciary has gone when the United States Supreme Court rules on whether or not a cross memorializing World War I veterans can remain on federal property.  Today, the nation'a top court considered a case, Salazar vs. Buono, commonly called the "Mojave Desert Cross" case.   

A federal district court ruled that the 5 feet by 8 feet cross in the Mojave Desert had to be removed.  The left-wing judge found that the primary effect of the cross was to advance religion, in violation of the Constitution's Establishment Clause.  The Republican-controlled Congress in 2004 enacted legislation which directed the Interior Department, now under Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, to transfer an acre of land including the cross honoring World War I veterans to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in exchange for land equal in value.   

The most out-of-touch Circuit Court of Appeals in the land, the 9th Circuit in San Francisco  --  which has most of its major decisions overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court  --  permanently stopped the government from implementing the Act of Congress.  The cross is now disgracefully covered in a plywood box, as ordered by the unelected judicial tyrants.     read more »

CBNNEWS.COM

A New Hampshire judge ruled, Wednesday, not to ban the phrase "under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance in the state's public schools, dismissing claims by an atheist group that its inclusion was unconstitutional.

Chief Judge Steven McAuliffe decided the phrase "neither advances nor inhibits religion" and is included in the pledge to enhance student's knowledge of U.S. history and provide a sense of patriotism.

Lawmakers also decided to uphold America's Christian heritage by displaying the phrase 'In God We Trust' at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C.  Click play for more.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation filed the suit in 2007 on behalf of parents and students who refused to say the pledge because it included a reference to God. The group claimed the pledge coerced children to participate in religion by reciting the phrase.

The American Center for Law and Justice - a prominent Christian legal rights group thatparticipated in the case-- applauded the court's decision to uphold Supreme Court precedent.

"We're extremely pleased with the sound and well reasoned decision issued by the court," said Jay Sekulow, ACLJ Chief Counsel. "The court concluded that the New Hampshire statute giving students an opportunity to voluntarily recite the Pledge in school is constitutional and consistent with the First Amendment."

The court ruling stated that the pledge statute implemented by the New Hampshire school district does not persuade children in religion in any way.  read more »

Judge Steven McAuliffe, a federal judge in New Hampshire and an appointee of President George H. W. Bush, rejected the lawsuit by the infamous atheist, Michael Newdow, who has a maniacal fetish to get rid of the Pledge of Allegiance in all American schools because he is offended by the words in the pledge "Under God" and who wants references to God erased from the public square in America.  Incidentally, Judge McAuliffe was the husband of Christa McAuliffe, one of the victims of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

In this particular case, Newdow was trying to get rid of the Pledge of Allegiance in the Hanover, New Hampshire public school system.  Judge McAuliffe ruled that school children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance each morning  --  as hundreds of millions of American school children have done for decades  --  with the words "one Nation under God" does not violate the First Amendment.  He said that the pledge is voluntary and is not a prayer.  

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty represented three families from Hanover, New Hampshire and the Knights of Columbus in the case before the federal judge.  Indeed, the Knights of Columbus had spearheaded the national effort some 55 years ago to add "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.  read more »

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The case of teenage Christian convert Rifqa Bary will be back in a Florida court room on Monday.

Bary is the 17-year-old from Ohio who converted from Islam to Christianity. She fled from her home after her parents discovered her conversion.

Bary told police her father threatened her and she could be killed. She boarded a bus in downtown Columbus and ran away from home in late July.

Her friends said it was a journey the former Muslim feared since the day she became a Christian at a Columbus church back in 2005.

"She was scared her dad would find out," said Adrianna Mancillas, a close friend of Bary. "That her parents would find out, and sometimes she would talk about being afraid of going back to Sri Lanka, and being sent back."

Mancillas is a student at Ohio State University and also led Bary to Christ.

"I wanted to protect her. I didn't want anything to happen to her," Mancillas continued. "So for me, hearing anything like that her book was found or hearing that she was threatened, things like that broke my heart."

Christians on the OSU campus were impressed with the strength of the high school girl who had to hide her faith from her family.

It is a testimony they quietly spread over the years, even off campus.  read more »

CBNNEWS.COM

Organizers of a teen abstinence summit are being sued, because of their references to the Bible. The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the "Just Wait" Abstinence Unit at the Department of Human Services in Mississippi.

The lawsuit claims Christian music and Bible teachings were part of a state-sponsored event and that Miss. Lieutenant Governor Phil Bryant was introduced as someone who was "not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

"The state of Mississippi cannot sponsor overtly religious events as part of its abstinence-only-until-marriage program," said Brigitte Amiri, Senior Staff Attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project.

"Instead of preaching, the state needs to start teaching youth how to make responsible and healthy decisions throughout their lives," she said.

The ACLU is asking a federal judge for an injunction to prevent future summits with religious activity and that the state be forced to return any federal funding used for the event.

As if the fear of big-brother needed to be underlined any further among conservative Christians, we have just that by way of  New Hampshire judge ruling ordering a home-schooled girl to spend some time attending a public school due to the "rigidity" of her mother's religious beliefs.  He suggested that the girl needed to broaden her horizons and consider other worldviews.

Excuse me, but it seems to me that the instruction of children when it comes to beliefs and a "worldview" is the sole prerogative of parents and has nothing whatsoever to do with government.  Or at least that's the way it used to be...and that Americans expect it to be.

But here you go...

The girl's mother, Brenda Voydatch, has engaged the Alliance
Defense Fund, a Christian legal group based in Scottsdale, Ariz., to
contest the ruling, in which the judge granted a request by the girl's
father, Martin Kurowski, that the girl go to a public school.
 read more »

Some judges in America  --  whether pressured by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) or not  --  just lack commonsense.  Such is the case with a federal judge, U.S. District Court Judge Margaret C. Rodgers, who was actually appointed by a Republican president.   

The case involves a northern Florida school principal and an athletic director who are facing criminal charges and up to six months in jail over their offer of a mealtime prayer according in the "The Washington Times" (August 14, 2009.)   Pace High School Principal Frank Lay and the school athletic director, Robert Freeman, who go on trial on September 17th of course have the support of the local community.   

Persecution against Christians in America has reached such a point that a federal judge is actually threatening educators who just wanted to pray at a school event with up to six months in jail; a fine of $5,000 and loss of some 40 years of retirement benefits in the case of one of these men.  The Founders of this nation would be appalled at the lack of religious freedom in the country they began over a couple centuries ago.     read more »

In early July, a number of conservative civil rights groups joined the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in writing a letter to the superintendent of the Rappahannock Regional Jail demanding that his jail respect the religious freedom and First Amendment rights of one of his prisoners.  

In the letter sent to Superintendent Joseph Higgs, Jr., on July 9th, the ACLU - joined by Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship group, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and the Rutherford Institute, among others - wrote that "based on concerns brought to our attention by Anna Williams, whose son was detained at the Rappahannock Regional Jail (the "Jail").  Ms. Williams, a devout Christian, wanted to support her son spiritually during his confinement at the Jail by sending him religious language, including passages from the Bible".     read more »

Congressman Steve King reacted last week to the atheists' attempt to ensure that our nation's motto, "In God We Trust," and the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag are not permanently engraved in the new Capitol Hill Visitors Center (CHVC). Congressman King said: "This lawsuit is another attempt by liberal activists to rewrite history and deny that America's Judeo-Christian heritage is an essential foundation stone of our great nation."  read more »