National Day of Prayer: If You Don't Like It...

...just go about your business. Nobody is forcing ANYONE to covert to or profess belief in any relgion. The National Day of Prayer recognizes the roll faith has played in building our strength as a culture.
x
Let's be clear, those in the Freedom from Religion are free from religion. If they believe their "right" includes being totally insolated from other peoples' expression of belief, they've got another thing coming to them. People of faith, like it or not, have to put up with their constant whining and insults.
x
While this writer does not share Rev. Franklin Graham's doctine of faith, Graham deserves tremendous respect for putting his faith into action tending to the needy and left behind around the world even attempting to open doors to North Korea. His comments about Islam, though stated from the conviction of his religious beliefs, do resound with strong truths. Just as we just discussed with immigration, people have a sad tendency of talking with passionate conviction without ever bothering to read what's at stake. One cannot read The Koran without realizing that the Muslim religion is founded on some vicious and cruel notions and sanctions bigotry and sexism.
x
While we're not going to attempt to argue from a Christian pulpit, we will note The Bible talks of false prophets, and surely when one considers that concept vis-a-vis the writings in The Koran, that notion is driven home clearly. Mohammed should be seen as one of the villains of world history not in the light of Jesus, Buddha, or Moses.
x
Anything that makes today's "me" driven culture pause and help individuals understand there are wonderful powers far greater than the individual is a good thing.

PC Police in Davenport, Iowa Want No Good Friday to be Just Okay

Here we go again. Another city is being “politically correct” with yet another assault on Christianity adding further insult to injury for the vast majority of the American population who identify themselves as Christian.

In this instance the city of Davenport, Iowa has removed “Good Friday” from its municipal calendar in favor of “Spring Holiday.” There is one valid argument, that of the observance of Passover which occurs on the same lunar calendar. The solution then would be “Good Friday/Passover.” The city recognizes the holiday in accordance with when the Christian holiday observes its sacred day which is determined by the ancient lunar calendar.

The change was recommended by the Davenport Civil Rights commission suggesting the holiday should be named something more “ecumenical.” The move was made without even informing the town council which supposedly is responsible for approving such measures. The change was presented by Craig Mulin, city administrator, through memos to municipal employees.

The chairman for the city’s Civil Rights Commission, Tim Hart issued a statement which said in part:

"We merely made a recommendation that the name be changed to something other than Good Friday. Our Constitution calls for separation of church and state. Davenport touts itself as a diverse city and given all the different types of religious and ethnic backgrounds we represent, we suggested the change."

Ah, isn’t that the modern day politically correct shallow bureaucratic response?

We’ve been taught since 1960’s that there is this immobile, steadfast wall that separates church and state. Oh really? What does the constitution really say?

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The framers of the Constitution did not want the United States to establish a national church such as the Church of England or nationally sanctioned recognition of Catholicism as was prevalent in much of Europe. Further, some states were founded by members of certain faiths who sought to create their own faith-based colonies in the New World. The constitution sought to be sure the national government would not mandate any particular religion. In essence when speaking of the “establishment clause” that is what’s at stake. The second aspect is “the free expression thereof” which guarantees all citizens to practice their religion without any legal interference.

When someone can demonstrate how anything any institution of federal, state, or local government has made a law respecting the establishment of religion, bring it on and let’s see what it says! Good Friday on a municipal calendar hardly raises itself to this.

One has to ask those who are so quick to dismiss expressions from public any display of anything remotely Christian, what is it they find so threatening? Could it be some of the basic principles of Christianity demand a higher level of behavior than some are willing to hold themselves responsible for displaying?

Otherwise, it would seem like they could handle what they find objectionable the same way most of us handle such things that aren’t too blatantly stuffed in our faces, IGNORE IT!!! After all, isn’t that what they encourage the majority population to do with all the baseless trash and obscenity that is almost pandemic in the world of entertainment these days?

Thankfully this story has a happy ending, for now, but what will the PC Police fix their eyes on next?

Veterans' Cross Yet Another Focus of ACLU's All Out Attack on all Public Expression of Faith

A small cross stands against the elements on Sunrise Rock in California’s Mojave Desert. It was erected in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars in memory of fallen soldiers who died for our country. This site was chosen by World War I veterans who sought out the desert environment as a healthy location for their recuperation. Since then, Marines have had memorial plaques placed with the cross honoring their lives and sacrifice.

The following article from Newsmax.com gives more background about the cross, its history and the controversy brewing.

http://www.newsmax.com/us/ACLU_attacks_war_crosses/2009/06/12/224649.html

More background is provided by individuals directly involved with maintaining the shrine the cross defines in the following video clip that will both make the extremely angry and heartbroken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeuBB_mOFIA

Sadly once again, the radical left-wing hate group, the ACLU has gone to court to have the cross removed under their obscene misinterpretation of the 1st amendment suggesting that because the cross stands on Federal land, it constitutes an attempt by the state to impose religion on the people.

Issue after issue, Right Minded Fellow has established that the very rationale for our existence as a free republic invokes the understanding of God as the Declaration of Independence so clearly articulates:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

If in fact, we derive our basic freedoms which we found denied us by the British crown from our Creator, then is not recognition of that Creator a logical part our public dialog?

The first amendment in how it addresses religion is designed to support this notion not to deny it when it states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

Somehow, the ACLU turns this whole concept inside out that any free expression of religion on public property is the government somehow legislating the establishment of religion. In any of these cases, where is Congress involved in the first place?

The Constitution is crystal clear, it designates Congress as the agency and mandates that that institution of government neither imposes religion through law nor prevents people from freely practicing their religion.

In the Sunrise Cross case, the ACLU is seeking to use the court specifically to block the free expression of religion by seeking to have a passive symbol of deceased veterans’ faith to be removed. As such the memorial for these servicemen and the values it represents are prohibited by the 9th District Court as the agency of government actively denying expression.

As citizens of the United States, we live in a culture where citizens of all faiths are supposed to be free to practice their religion and freely express their beliefs. Whether it was the Catholics in Maryland, Quakers in Pennsylvania, or Pilgrims in Massachusetts, settlers came to colonize America for the promise of religious freedom fleeing Great Britain and Europe denied them.

Because the British government established the Church of England with the British king or queen acting as the head of the church and many continental countries acknowledged the Catholic Church as the official religion of the state, our founding fathers sought to make it part of our nation’s legal framework to make any officially established state church illegal and further would not allow the state to legislate the ways individuals chose to celebrate their faith.

When the Supreme Court under Chief Justice, Earl Warren, banned compulsory prayer in public school it argued that the state was mandating religious observance since the public school as the agent of the state prescribed a specific religious act, prayer, to be performed by all public school students. Because students are compelled to attend school and the school determines the content of a religious activity that clearly falls under the courts’ prohibition. The act of praying required specific behavior of students.

Sadly, that ruling opened the door for radical elements in society with a purely anti-religious agenda to attempt to extend that concept essentially to argue any mention of religion or presence of any religious artifact on public property with the approval of the state also constitutes an attempt to establish religion and thus impose it on the unwilling.

In recent years, court action has ordered the display of the Ten Commandments in public buildings be removed. Courts have ordered Christmas decorations especially such displays as nativity scenes off of public land, but now the 9th District court attempts to personalize it even further in denying recognition of veterans’ faith in memorial.

The logic and reasoning is clearly set forth in this concept, there is nothing if the ACLU succeeds in getting this measure judged in their favor, then what would keep them from demanding the removal of crosses under the same logic from plots on Veterans’ cemeteries? Would the court see a difference between memorials for an individual being any different than that of a group of Veterans?

When one considers the language of the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution and considers the historic challenges that compelled our founding fathers to articulate those rights, there can be no question that the ACLU’s attempts to create what amounts to a complete and total freedom from any public expression of religion, that somehow the simple display of items with religious meaning or symbolism infringes on a person’s liberties is absolutely absurd. One can chose to embrace or ignore the items of religious expression. No one is being mandated to do or believe anything nor is anyone’s ability to freely express his or her religious beliefs or lack of being adversely affected.

Once again, the radical left is shown as the champions of absolute intolerance.

For now, the current alignment of the Supreme Court could very well overrule the decision of the 9th District Court on the Sunrise Rock cross. However, in openly trying to apologize for American behavior to followers of Islam, President Barack Obama stated that the United States in neither “a Christian nor a Jewish nation.” President Obama has consistently supported the most radical contentions of the ACLU and his administration is loaded with leaders who have a long history of openly anti-religious behavior.

As such, people of faith must be fearful of potential Obama nominees not just to the Supreme Court but the entire Federal Bench. After all, as Sonya Sotomayor asserted, policy is made at the appeals court level.

California College of Alameda GUILTY of Religious Persecution

Coming to a stadium near you if the left-wing

secular radicals have their way?

.

.

What comes to mind when one hears of religious intolerance?

Would that be the kind of fervent anti-Semitism which was once sadly widespread across the country?

Would it be the way some people view the Mormons for their revisions of Christianity?

Surely, the news media considers anything directed at followers of Islam even when it’s honest reporting of factual situations that uncloak some of the religion’s barbaric practices religious intolerance?

How things have changed. Now the simple act of praying in some places subjects the worshiper to unbelievable harassment. Two California college students have been threatened with suspension because one of them was visiting one of her professors who had taken ill and she offered a sympathetic prayer for her ailing instructor to which the professor consented. This episode took place at the College of Alameda. The story originated just before Christmas in 2007 when a student, Kandy Kyriacou, stopped by her professor’s office to drop off a Christmas gift. Finding her teacher ill, she offered a prayer, as her professor bowed her head and she began the prayer, the other faculty member who shared the office, Derek Piazza burst in shouting, “You can’t be doing that in here!”

Ms. Kyriacou left the office rejoining with a friend of hers, Ojoma Omaga, but Mr. Piazza was not through yet. He continued his scolding tirade against the girls. If that was not intolerant enough, days later, both students got letters from the school indicating the institution’s “intent to suspend” referring to “disruptive or insulting behavior” and “willful disobedience.” The letters provided no facts to support their charges. In a subsequent administrative hearing, the school indicated that Ms. Kyriacou was being punished for praying for her sick teacher, but they offered nothing more than Ms. Omaga was in her company – as in guilt by association. The irony in this situation is the girls reported Mr. Piazza’s condescending behavior which boomeranged into suspension letters being issued to the girls.

The school refused to rescind the letters prompting lawsuits since the students were in danger of suspension or expulsion for any other disciplinary matter such as again praying on campus. God forbid, a pocket Bible might fall out of one of the girls’ purses.

The girls sought legal assistance from the Pacific Justice Institute. It is still not clear whether justice will ultimately be resolved for these two young ladies. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston refused the college’s attempts to have the case thrown out of court.

The extent to which public schools and universities are persecuting students who openly profess their faith is a dangerous phenomenon for which their have been far too many episodes reported where students have even been punished for giving classmates Christmas cards.

The attitude of the radical left is that any expression of religion outside a person’s private residence or within the confines of a house of worship is absolutely unacceptable behavior subject to the force of law where they can find complicit school officials, mindless municipal officials, or wicked lawyers who might pursue such issues in civil court.

In their world of a “living Constitution” one which can be twisted and reconstructed to fit any twisted philosophy of law and public policy, the First Amendment means the freedom from religion. No person living in the United States should ever be subjected to the sight of a Christian practicing his or her faith. Ironically, these same iconoclasts would also support that public institutions should provide for feet washing stations and even accommodations for prayer rugs for Muslim students attending state schools or Muslims working for state offices.

“Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion or the free expression thereof.” As such, students attending state run institutions should be able to express and discuss their religion with no fear of consequence and should certainly be able to pray as long as their not disrupting class, “Excuse me, Professor Pinhead, but I was so shocked by Lady MacBeth’s behavior, I’d like to have the class join me in prayer!”

Any American who is not angered by this case where a young lady is punished for an act of unselfish caring for another person simply has no idea what being American means. What should we make of the rude, boorish behavior of Professor Piazza who’d so hideously overreact to a student’s act of thoughtfulness. What is so offensive about simply walking in on a prayer to begin with. It wasn’t as if Ms. Kandy Kyriacou was trying to convert him or criticize his moral values.

Clearly, Mr. Piazza is the person who should have a letter of reprimand entered in his personnel folder. That the school even had the capacity to contemplate discipline against he girls is very annoying. Every school administrator involved in the decision making process to issue the suspension letters must be held to account for such extreme, inappropriate, and mean-spirited behavior. Surely, at least one school administrator should be suspended without pay for a few days and be required to write a thorough and appropriate letter of apology to these students.

The religious intolerance of the liberal elite in this country whose radical commitment to a totally secular world cannot go unchallenged. All defenders of human rights and people of faith must take this matter very seriously. Any such occurrences in any community must be publicized so those responsible can face the public outcry they deserve.

Silence is consent.

Obama's Anti-Christian Attitude

First there was the trip to Europe. What prompted Barack Obama to include in a speech, "We are not a Christian nation. We are not a Jewish nation." Well, as a technicality, the second amendment established "congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion or the free expression thereof." The primary intent of that was that the United States consisting of many former colonists whose families came to the new world to avoid religious persecution in Europe would never be subjected to a state religion in the new Republic. Nevertheless, our founding fathers were people of faith who wrote of their convictions in many contexts.

When thoughtfully considered, the very heart of the rational for the founding of our nation as set forth in the Declaration of Independence argued: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

At the very essence of our legal foundation are values established by our Judeo-Christian heritage not to mention what percentage of the American people identify themselves as Christian or Jewish. So from a technical legal perspective, Obama is correct, from a cultural and real life perspective he is dead wrong. The beauty of the American system is the right to dissent and the right to follow or not follow a religion as each citizen is so guided.

Few Americans would argue than many aspects of Islamic law are just plain wrong such as the total subjugation of women and how nonbelievers are treated. Regardless, again and again, President Obama has gone out of his way to cozy up to the Islamic world.

What's so obvious is his avoidance of anything that conveys a connection with Christianity. At a recent speech at the Jesuit university, Georgetown in Washington, DC, the White House demanded that the stage be cleared of anything that would suggest Christian symbolism. The inscription "IHS" from the Greek letters to mark Jesus were ordered covered over which a triangular piece of black plywood was installed so as not to offend the President's sensitivities.

Who knows what Obama's true spirituality is. His behavior suggest he fancies himself as a divinity as if it's something he's thought, believed, or spoken, it surely must be true as he seldom cites constitutional principles or U.S. history to establish his rational. He has fervently denied ever being Muslim. We know of his Christian heritage if one can truly call it truly Christian, through his association with Reverend Jeremiah Wright's church in Chicago which subscribes to the radical doctrine of "Liberation Theology" a belief system which weds Marxist political and economic principles to selective Christian teachings. Obama's entire history of his association with the Chicago church speaks volumes of how shallow the river of faith is when it flows through Obama nation. After studying with extreme left-wing and Marxist scholars through his education, he needed something that would enable him to learn how to be an authentic American Black given his father was from Kenya and his mother was a white woman from Kansas. The opportunistic Barack Obama who had no heritage with the historical struggle, the origins of his ancestors being yanked from their native Africa and sold in the slave trade landing them in the southern United States, could develop the appearance of someone who had such a background. Barack Obama was a little boy thousands of miles from the real struggle when the Civil Rights movement, one that had powerful Christian values guiding it, was fought in the streets of America in the mid-60's with its crowning moment being the immortal "I Have a Dream" speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, as in "doctor of divinity."

The one thing that is for certain, Barack Obama's values are built on Marxist and far left ideologues. Through crafty political skill and cloaking his true identity, this detestable power hungry socialist has enjoyed his meteoric rise to hold the most powerful position in the world.