You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February 2010.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, was scheduled to speak today at a National Prayer Luncheon at Andrews Air Force Base. But the invitation was recently withdrawn by the chaplain’s office because Perkins has spoken out in favor of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy.”
Addressing this issue is Catholic League president Bill Donohue:
The decision to silence Tony Perkins, an ordained minister and Marine veteran, represents political correctness at a dangerous level. There are legitimate reasons to accept and reject the current policy regarding gays in the military. No one, therefore, should be censored from speaking at any private or public forum—much less a military installation—because of his or her views on this subject. While the most immediate issue is the blacklisting of Perkins, the larger issue is the “chilling effect” this decision will have on the free speech and religious liberty rights of all those who serve in the military, especially clergymen.
As a religious leader, and as a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, I am dou
bly troubled by this outrageous decision. Accordingly, we will call for an investigation of this matter. The damage to Perkins cannot be undone, but steps can certainly be taken to ensure that something like this never happens again. I will now contact Major General Darrell D. Jones, Commander of the Air Force District of Washington, at Andrews Air Force Base asking for a probe into this matter. It is important that the Public Affairs Office at Andrews hear from Catholic League members about this very disturbing issue.
http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1780
Contacting Elected Officials
The old adage of “it’s not what you say but how you say it” applies directly to contacting and lobbying elected officials. The right to speak out for or against our government is as old as the institution itself. However, how you say something can be just as important as what you say. If you have something to say about your government, take the time to say it in the most effective way possible.
Our form of government in America relies heavily upon the feedback and involvement of its citizens to operate effectively. In “speaking truth to power”, we as citizens, help our government operate by contacting elected officials on a regular basis and letting them know our strong positions on the issues.
When it comes to lobbying, all types of communication are important – writing, calling, emailing, faxing and meeting with your officials are quality ways of addressing key issues of concern.
Don’t be silent! Your elected officials work for you. Let them know how you feel! Select the links below for our pointers on effectively reaching out to elected officials:
Meet with your elected officials
Congressional contact information
Read More:
http://christiancoalition.com/contact_your_elected_officials
Let’s do what we can to prevent this from happening again.
Pray, Call, Take Action.
Pensacola, FL – Following Judge M. Casey Rodgers’ ruling late Friday evening, which denied the request for intervention by Christian Educators Association International (CEAI).
During testimony in December, Michelle Winkler broke down on the witness stand when describing how a coworker sought comfort from her a
fter losing her two-year-old child. The two hid behind a closet door to pray because they feared the consent decree. Denise Gibson, an elementary teacher for 20 years, testified the order forces her to tell parents she cannot respond if they talk about church or their faith. She may not even respond to an email from a parent if it contains a Scripture verse or “God bless you.” Instead, the District requires her to open a separate email to respond rather than hit “reply,” in order to eliminate any trace of religious language. School employees are prohibited from “communication with a deity” when in their “official capacity.” They are considered to be in their “official capacity” even when not working – whenever they attend a “school event,” which includes events during the day, including breaks, after-school events on or off campus, and privately sponsored events on campus for students. Employees cannot bow their head or fold their hands and must prohibit others from praying, even in meetings such as Good News Clubs or privately sponsored baccalaureate services. The ACLU has dragged three employees to court already, yet, Judge Rodgers states there is no “chill” on free speech.
Read more:
http://www.lc.org/index.cfm?PID=14100&PRID=909
February 16, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Attorneys from the Chicago- based Thomas More Society are appearing in Providence municipal court Wednesday for a hearing on their motion to dismiss disorderly conduct charges against Christopher Young. Young, a Democratic mayoral candidate, was arrested and dragged away to jail after questioning Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-Rhode Island, about his pro-abortion views at an open forum on health care at Brown University last November.
Thomas More Society attorneys argue that Young was not “d
isorderly” but rather was exercising his First Amendment rights when he questioned Rep. Kennedy about his support for abortion in health care reform and tossed a video onto the table at which the Congressman was seated. The video was Maafa 21, a documentary on the history of abortion aimed at African-Americans that charges Planned Parenthood and other abortionists with “black genocide.”
Young had asked Kennedy, “Why would you mandate Catholics to support the funding of abortion when it goes against our religious beliefs? It forces Catholics to fund abortions or serve a five year prison sentence.”
“You make it a felony,” he said. “This is not a free country. You are forcing people to support a bill that goes against the religious beliefs of the people of this country.”
Tom Brejcha, chief counsel for the Thomas More Society said in a press release on Tuesday that, “Young was wholly within his rights in putting tough questions to Kennedy, who never answered but sat smugly and watched while his questioner was muzzled, handcuffed and hauled off to jail.”
Brejcha added, “Kennedy had argued that every person has a divine spark that entitles him or her to health care, and this provoked questions from Young, also a Catholic, as to how Kennedy could advocate health care laws suppressing conscience rights of Catholics and others who deem it abhorrent that the divine spark is snuffed out in so many infants before they even see the light of day.”
Read More: Http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/feb/10021603.html
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. -Thomas Jefferson
Article:
D.C.’s same-sex “marriage” law may still be under congressional review, but the city’s children are already feeling its effects. After 80 years in the District, D.C.’s Catholic Charities has been forced to close its doors on a popular foster care program after an ugly confrontation with the City Coun
cil about placing kids with same-sex couples. Late last year, officials with the city issued an ultimatum: ignore the Church’s core teachings or wave goodbye to $2 million in foster care funding. Susan Gibbs, a spokesman for the Archdiocese, said Catholic Charities really had no choice. “The city is saying that in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that’s really a problem.”
In negotiations with the District, Catholic Charities had asked members to compromise by adding a religious exemption to its gay “marriage” bill. T
he city refused, leaving people to wonder about the fate of the 63 other programs operated by Catholic Charities in the Washington metro area. Barry Lynn, who has taken it upon himself to police the issues of church and state, argued, “If faith-based charities cannot or will not obey civil rights laws, they ought not benefit from public funds.”
He’s wrong on two counts. For starters, counterfeit marriage isn’t a civil right. Nowhere in the Constitution do we find a compelling or logical basis for treating it as such. Secondly, Catholic Charities wasn’t the one benefiting from public funds–Washington , D.C. was. Last year alone, more than 124,000 people were fed, housed, treated, legally defended, or adopted as a result of Catholic Charities programs. If the City Council is willing to sacrifice a child’s well-being on the altar of political correctness, then no one in the District is safe–including D.C.’s neediest. These city leaders have proven that they would rather let men marry men than provide for their residents’ basic needs.
Councilman David Catania, author of D.C.’s same-sex “marriage” bill, shrugged off the Church’s impact. “[Catholic Charities doesn't] represent, in my mind, an indispensable component of our social services infrastructure.” This, coming from a city whose infrastructure can’t even manage to clear the snow off its streets! Are we to believe that the District, which has trouble operating a fleet of plows, can somehow navigate the tricky road of child services? D.C. needs all the help it can get! In the meantime, we applaud Catholic Charities for refusing to swallow policies that are incompatible with their faith. Maybe in the end, the best way they can serve the community is by standing up for what they believe.
http://by132w.bay132.mail.live.com/default.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0
An eighth-grade teacher has accused her students of committing a “hate crime” and being “cruel” because they left a Bible on her desk and a Christmas card with the word “Christ” underlined.
Melissa Hussain, an Apex, N.C., science teacher at West Lake Middle School, is suspended with pay and may lose her job after she purportedly clashed with students on the subject of religion and sent students to the school office when they asked about the role of God in creation during a lesson about evolution.
Hussain wrote on her then-public Facebook page that it was a “hate crime” when her students left a Bible on her desk, according to the Charlotte News & Observer. She complained about students singing “Jesus Loves Me” and wearing Jesus T-shirts.
Hussain said she “was able to shame her kids” over the incidents.
“I can’t believe the cruelty and ignorance of people sometimes,” Hussain wrote on the social networking site.
She said she wouldn’t let the Bible incident “go unpunished.”
Read More and PRAY for the protection of the students. Also, for state and national leaders to protect, preserve, and defend our spiritual heritage.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=125374
William Holmes McGuffey is the author of the McGuffey Reader, which was used for over 100 years in our public schools with over 125 million copies sold until it was stopped in 1963. President Lincoln called him the “Schoolmaster of the Nation.
” Listen to these word of Mr. McGuffey:
“The Christian religion is the religion of our country. From it are derived our nation, on the character of God, on the great moral Governor of the universe. On its doctrines are founded the peculiarities of our free Institutions. From no source has the author drawn more conspicuously than from the sacred Scriptures. From all these extracts from the Bible, I make no apology.”
MERCER COUNTY, Illinois – Leaders in one community’s school district will turn to guidance from a higher power as they forge ahead with their first consolidated school year. The Mercer County School Board agreed to hold a prayer before their meetings. The Westmer and Aledo School Districts joined forces this year. When the discussion of prayer is connected to any school function it is often met with heated debate but as News 8′s Chris Williams learned people in Mercer County District 404 don’t seem to mind their leaders asking for heavenly guidance.
On a chilly President’s Day school is in session in Mercer County, they recognized the holiday last Friday. Today it was back to work for folks like Superintendent Alan Boucher. Boucher and the school board have had a full agenda with the consolidation and combining the traditions of two communities. Last week a local minister asked whether the board should pray before their meetings.
“We did look into legal counsel to see what they would have to say about the issue and they said it is permissible as long as the prayer is non-sectarian and as longs as the board does not favor one religion over another”, said Superintendent Alan Boucher.
An organization of local ministers will now take turns leading that prayer. We asked around to see what residents thought about the idea that has drawn heated debate in some communities but everyone we spoke with here said they supported the idea. It may have been hard to find someone here who disagreed with the issue because the board that used to oversee the Aledo School District traditionally held a prayer before their meetings.
“The board is interested in following the law”, insisted Boucher. “They’re not seeking to break the law in any way and they it’s a practice that has been present in the prior district, the prior Aledo District and I just think they don’t think it was a big deal.”
I asked Superintendent Boucher whether there was any concern that this idea opens the door to religious leaders and views the board may not have considered when making their decision. Boucher told me, if things don’t go well they can always consider discontinuing the practice at any time.
The board has a special meeting this week. Their first regularly scheduled meeting since the decision is next Wednesday. Mercer County School District 404 serves about 1,500 students in Mercer, Rock Island and Henderson Counties. The district’s headquarters is in Aledo. The five Mercer County Schools are in Aledo, Joy and New Boston. Children from Keithsburg, Eliza, Hamlet, Seaton and Millersburg also attend the schools.
http://www.wqad.com/news/wqad-prayer-school-board-aledo-westmer-021510,0,2699802.story
This is a reminder of how God is woven in the very fabric of America.
- In God We Trust -
It’s amazing that, at a time when such concerted effort is underway to erase the role of God and faith in America’s public life, our nation’s capital, Washington D.C., is filled with Christian religious symbols that adorn its buildings and monuments as its abiding evidence of God’s role in America’s heritage.
President George Washington said, “No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. “
Engraved on the aluminum capstone is the Latin phrase, Laus Deo, which means “Praise be to God.” Carved tribute blocks of the monument have statements such as “Holiness to the Lord”,” Search the Scriptures”, “The memory of the just is blessed”, and “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
The US Capitol
In the House chamber is the inscription, “In God We Trust.” Also in the House chamber, above the Gallery door, stands a marble relief of Moses, surrounded by twenty-two other lawgivers. At the east entrance of the Senate chamber are the words Annuit Coeptis, which is Latin for “He has favored out undertakings.” The words “In God We Trust” are also written over the southern entrance.
In the Rotunda is a painting of “The Baptism of Pocahontas,” and also “The Embarkation of the Pilgrims” that shows the Pilgrims praying on shipboard led by William Brewster. Clearly seen is an open Bible are the words, “the New Testament according to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.” The words, “God With Us” are inscribed on the sail of the ship.
In the Capitol’s chapel is a stained glass window depicting George Washington in prayer under the inscription “This Nation Under God.” Also, the prayer from Psalm 16:1 is etched in the window, which states, “Preserve me, God, for in Thee do I put my trust.”
The Supreme Court
The Supreme Court building has a number of places whe
re there are images of Moses with the Ten Commandments. As you enter the Supreme Court courtroom, the two huge doors have the Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion of each door and a display of the Ten Commandments is also engraved over the chair of the Chief Justice.
The Jefferson Memorial
When you enter the Jefferson Memorial, you will find many references to God. A quote that runs around the interior dome says, “I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the minds of man.” One of the panels reads: “God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
The Lincoln Memorial
On the right side is Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, which mentions God fourteen times and quotes the Bible twice. He concludes with a lament over the destruction caused by the Civil War, and appeals to charity in healing the wounds of the war. “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” (From The American Patriots Bible)
As we read these inscriptions that expose the heart of our Founding Fathers, let’s pray that God will help us preserve, protect, and defend our spiritual heritage. We are “One Nation Under God”.
There are varying opinions regarding the Biblical information associated with this article. We do not attempt to infer anything other than bills such as this one aligns with CPCF’s goal to preserve, protect, and defend our religious and individual freedom. What do you think?
“As a Christian, I believe there is a time that Christ will come back to receive His people home, and that’s just the basis of what the Bible shows, and that there will be an antichrist that arises during that time, and those that remain, to buy or sell anything, they will have to take on this mark. I don’t know that it’s a microchip.” -Virginia Del. Charles W. Carrico Sr.
“As a Christian, I believe there is a time that Christ will come back to receive His people home, and that’s just the basis of what the Bible shows, and that there will be an antichrist that arises during that time, and those that remain, to buy or sell anything, they will have to take on this mark. I don’t know that it’s a microchip.” -Virginia Del. Charles W. Carrico Sr.
(Richmond, Virginia)—Virginia’s House of Delegates passed a bill last week that will protect Virginians from attempts by employers or insurance companies to implant microchips in their bodies against their will.
For Full Article: http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art.html?ID=7585
These articles should stir in us a passion as people of faith to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Truth, Prayer, and Action are the key. We must know the Truth (be aware of the critical state of our nation and issues affecting our faith and freedom), Prayer (pray for God to bring justice and ask Him what you can do), and Action (we must use our voice and resources to protect our rights). Practical ways to help include: telling others, gathering people to pray, communicating with your representatives, and giving to organizations on the front lines.
Together, we are making a difference!
LOS ANGELES — Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed a lawsuit Monday against Los Angeles County officials on behalf of a Christian man who was prohibited from sharing his faith on a public sidewalk outside the San Fernando Courthouse. County officials told Anthony Miano that he could only conduct his free speech activities across the street on a sparsely used sidewalk.
“Christians shouldn’t be prohibited from expressing their beliefs in a clearly public area. Our courts should understand this more than anyone else,” said ADF Senior Counsel Nate Kellum. “This man was doing nothing other than exercising his First Amendment right to peacefully share his faith with people willing to interact with him or accept his religious literature. That is a protected free speech activity that cannot be outlawed on a public sidewalk, whether it is near a courthouse or anywhere else.”
Beginning in July 2008, Miano routinely stood on a public sidewalk outside the San Fernando Courthouse from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. to share his faith and distribute religious literature. But on Aug. 26, 2008, a Los Angeles County sergeant and a deputy sheriff stopped Miano and told him that he was not permitted to speak or hand out literature at that location. They provided him with a copy of a general order from the L.A. County Superior Courts detailing its regulation of speech activities outside county courthouses.
In December 2008, ADF attorneys sent the San Fernando Courthouse Presiding Judge Robert J. Shuit a letter explaining that the general order he directed the officers to issue to Miano did not prohibit Miano from exercising his constitutional rights.
ADF attorneys contend that Miano was well outside the 100-foot zone from the courthouse’s operational doors. The only doors within the 100-foot range from Miano’s free speech activities are largely unused emergency exits.
ADF-allied attorney John Stewart, of Orange, is serving as local counsel in the lawsuit, Miano v. McCoy, whichwas filed with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/3731
