From Catholic News Agency:

Washington D.C., May 21, 2012 / 10:39 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Forty-three Catholic dioceses and organizations across the country have announced religious liberty lawsuits against the federal government to challenge the Obama administration’s contraception mandate.

The announcement was applauded by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who called it “a compelling display of the unity of the Church in defense of religious liberty.”   …

The lawsuits argue that a federal mandate issued by the Obama administration violates their fundamental religious liberty. The controversial mandate will require employers to offer health insurance plans that cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, even if doing so violates their consciences.

The new lawsuits join with 11 others previously filed against the HHS mandate by states, colleges, private employers and organizations throughout the U.S.

<Read the whole article> Also view the informative video.  

Response: This will not be the last for sure. Several Protestant organizations including the Southern Baptist Convention have also opposed the mandate and see it for what it really is- a ‘freedom of religion’ issue. Meanwhile the Obama administration has ridiculously framed the opposition as in a ‘war on women’ and the MSM has eagerly joined in that sham.

This is one of those issues that people of faith cannot ignore even if not directly affected by the mandate. In the long run if it stands, the freedom of religion will have been diminished in this country and set a precedence that all believers will come to regret. It is time to stand up now and be counted before it is too late.            *Top

Related Posts?:

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The young man is destined to become a jihadi suicide bomber while his father receives 1 1/2 Million Riyal ($400,0000) for the honor. Not only that but this is not the first son this Saudi father has ‘donated’ to the jihadi cause.

Apparently its all fine and legal, and normal in modern Saudi Arabia. In fact the mood of the occasion is festive and all in the name of Allah. Just another taste of the ‘religion of peace’ in action.

HT: The Blaze                *Top

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There is a battle raging in America over public displays of religion and our religious heritage. We have been covering these skirmishes for some time now on this blog.

Crosses on public lands have become the most obvious targets particularly war memorials with religious quotes and themes. Then at Christmas time the battle heats up over traditional nativity scenes, Christmas trees, Christmas carols, and city sponsored Christmas activities. Even secular expressions like Santa Claus have come under fire because of their connection to the Christian holiday. Then it starts all over again at Easter.

Atheist groups like the Wisconsin Freedom From Religion Foundation are combing through every town and city in the USA looking for crosses and religious displays of any kind on public property and then challenging their existence through threatened lawsuits. Many small jurisdictions do not have the necessary resources nor the motivation to meet the challenge.

It is really all about changing America which has always been a religious country into a more secular nation and in the process erasing any remembrance of our religious heritage. This has been going on for some time now and our history has nearly been rewritten to exclude the importance of our religious heritage that was the foundation upon which this great nation was built.

When I talk with my grandchildren about what they have learned in school about the history of this nation, they know very little about the role of religion in the founding of this nation. When I tell them that we use to pray in school and read the Bible in the 50’s when I was growing up they are surprised. Then when I explain to them that my mother, their great grandma learned to read in public school using a Bible and a McGuffey Reader as the main text books they don’t know what to think. Particularly when I explain to them that the McGuffey was full of Bible stories and scriptural references and was used in public schools all over country for over a hundred years and nobody ever considered it to be a violation of the Constitution.

How things have changed in America. Now crosses are being eliminated and public displays of religion are being challenged with the very Constitutional amendment that was suppose to protect our religious freedoms and practices from governmental interference.

Along this same line, here’s a great article by Michael Medved where he cites some of these recent and current battles:

“Banning Crosses, Erasing History”

I found his His conclusions to be particularly poignant:

“In each of these fights, it’s the opponents of long-standing religious displays who seek to impose their narrow views on the rest of us. It hardly amounts to an effort to impose theocracy when people of faith defend monuments that have inspired passersby for generations. In the case of the Ground Zero Cross, for religious believers, the artifact they honor played a prominent role in the haunting imagery after the terror attacks.

Meanwhile, secular extremists seek to erase such imagery from the collective consciousness and to purge public places of religious reminders. For skeptics, prominently displayed crosses convey the uncomfortable message that the great majority of Americans still honor a faith that self-proclaimed free-thinkers hold in undisguised contempt.

Beneath all the hypocrisy over constitutional restraints and traditional walls of separation, secular activists and self-styled defenders of "civil liberties" seek to transform American society in a way that our Founders and most subsequent generations would never recognize. They seem eager to defend flag-burning, obscenity and every other form of radical expression, while seeking to suppress emblems of the Christian faith that helped shape the nation since the arrival of earliest colonists.  …”

Amen.               *Top

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Disney has cancelled the TV program called “GCB” in the midst of Christian protests against it. Is this an example of Christian power? Actually according to some reviewers the show was not very good.

From Charisma News:

Although some Christians reportedly enjoyed GCB, the Disney program offended plenty. Now, Disney has taken it off the air.

GCB was based on the novel Good Christian B*tches by Kim Gatlin.

Ted Baehr, founder and publisher of Movieguide, said ABC/Disney’s cancellation of its “bigoted” show GCB, which mocked and ridiculed Christians, was a “victory for faith and values.”

Movieguide was part of a national campaign to convince advertisers to abandon the show and support more family-friendly programming.

<Read the rest>

Response: It is good to see it gone. Was the show cancelled because of Christian protests? Probably not. The show wasn’t all that good and the ratings were low, but the uproar certainly didn’t help and some sponsors were bailing out.

I must admit that I never watched even one episode so can’t personally make any comments about its quality. However, the idea that Christians were being made fun of, mocked and ridiculed, and portrayed as hypocrites was over the top from my perspective. What other religion would have ever been treated in this bigoted way? Can you imagine American Muslim girls being made fun of in a sitcom?

I can imagine the same idea for a show being done by a Christian cable network with the ultimate purpose of combating hypocrisy among Christians with a moral lesson to be learned in each episode. However, this is far from what Disney was doing in this show. The premise of the show obviously played into the dominant media bias and stereotypical perception of Christians particularly those from the Bible belt and it was reportedly popular on the coasts.

All I can say is that Christians better get use to it because this will not be the last salvo in this cultural war. Remember, the dominant media trots out anti-Christian documentaries with new supposed scholarly ‘discoveries’ every Easter. Plus every serious Christian running for political office is characterized as seeking some kind of reconstructed Christian theocracy in the MSM. Also, can you remember the last time an evangelical Christian was ever presented as anything other than a hypocrite on TV and in most major studio movies? There have been some exceptions but very few indeed in the last 10 years. So the battle goes on but at least we won this chapter.             *Top

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                       (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is another one of those situations lately where Christians involved with street ministry -preaching or handing out tracts have been subjected to threats or arrests by the police in America.

The incident happened in Buffalo, New York during the Italian Festival last year. The police threatened to arrest a Christian man who was sharing his faith on public streets and sidewalks and ordered the him leave the festival.

The police are entirely wrong here since the Constitution guarantees free speech and the free expression of religion. The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) filed a federal lawsuit last Thursday against the city of Buffalo over the incident.

<Read about it here>              *Top

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           Colorado highlighted (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From the Denver Post:

The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that governors’ proclamations of a state Day of Prayer violate the Constitution’s provisions for religious liberty.

When the state sponsors the particular religious practice of prayer, the three-judge panel found, it sends a message that those who pray are favored members of Colorado’s political community.

"In doing so, they undermine the premise that the government serves believers and nonbelievers equally," Judge Steven Bernard wrote in a 73-page decision.

The content of six Colorado Day of Prayer proclamations, 2004 to 2009, is "predominantly religious," lacking a secular context or purpose, and the effect is "government endorsement of religion over nonreligion," Bernard wrote. Judges Alan Loeb and Nancy Lichtenstein concurred.

The lawsuit against the Colorado Day of Prayer was brought by the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation. The foundation also attempted to shut down the US National Day of Prayer but were turned back by the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in 2011.

<Read the entire story>

Response: Hopefully the governor will appeal the ruling. The Colorado Day of Prayer is entirely voluntary and not really a forcing of a particular religion upon people in the state. Unbelievers are really not forced to participate and really are not harmed or affected in anyway unless they choose to be. 

Our religious heritage in this country continues to be under assault. Secularists and atheists continue to use constitutional passages that were meant to protect religious liberty in order to erase religion entirely from the public square. 

The Colorado Day of Prayer and similar events across the country in reality are not attempts to establish any kind of state religion. Not only that, no one really believes that they are. Nevertheless, activist groups like the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation are using that legal language in order to destroy all vestiges of religion and displays of faith wherever they find them.

The effect is really not a question of establishment or favoring a particular religion but forcing the establishment of atheism as the new official state doctrine in Colorado and ultimately all across America.             *Top

Related Posts?:

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Hamtramck, Michigan: Hamtramck High School has a student body which is reportedly 65% Muslim. The traditional proms which American schools have sponsored forever all across America are hardly supported in this Muslim dominated community.

According to sharia law, young unmarried girls are forbidden to date or dance with boys or even appear in school without head coverings. So girls in this sharia compliant community do not get the opportunity to even attend a traditional high school dance. Funds where raised for the all girls prom mostly through bake sales in order to give them a chance to experience an American prom.

<Here’s a link to the New York Times story about the event>

Response: The NY Times article is predictably positive about this development. Others are claiming that this is another example of ‘creeping sharia’ being introduced into mainstream America.

I have mixed feelings on the issue.

First of all, I believe that the event itself was great but it should have been sponsored by the area mosques in a rented hall and not as an official high school prom. For me it is a matter of equal access and treatment for people of faith. Does anyone out there really believe that any high school in America would sponsor an all Christian girls event of any kind? Yet this was a sharia compliant all Muslim girls event in a public high school.

What disturbs me is the fact that Christian values, symbols, and traditions are being expelled from schools all across America while many educators and schools are going out of their way to accommodate Muslim prayers and dietary rules.

For example, most schools in California have in the last ten years eliminated pork from the cafeteria menus in deference to Muslim students. Every school I ever went to as a child had some Jewish students with similar dietary rules but schools never conformed to those religious requirements until Muslim parents recently complained and demanded the changes.

Also, while Christian students are hard pressed to pray and read their Bibles even during break times, increasingly schools with significant Muslim student bodies are beginning to set aside rooms and even excuse Muslim students from their classes during prayer times.

We have Constitutionally mandated freedom of religion in the USA and I wouldn’t say a thing about Muslim student accommodation if Christians received equal treatment. The other thing that really bothers me is that Muslims all around the world demand that everyone else change in deference and in respect for their beliefs while they persecute those of other religions in Muslim dominated countries. Now it is all coming to America and the specter of sharia is beginning to be raised here under the guise of religious freedom. However, sharia offers anything but freedom and equal treatment.            *Top

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