Tag Archives: Freedom of Religion

News

Left-leaning US Supreme Court curtails religious liberty on campus

13 Comments

Story from Fox News. (H/T Family Research Council)

Excerpt:

An ideologically split Supreme Court ruled Monday that a law school can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that won’t let gays join, with one justice saying that the First Amendment does not require a public university to validate or support the group’s “discriminatory practices.”

The court turned away an appeal from the Christian Legal Society, which sued to get funding and recognition from the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law. The CLS requires that voting members sign a statement of faith and regards “unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle” as being inconsistent with that faith.

But Hastings, which is in San Francisco, said no recognized campus groups may exclude people due to religious belief or sexual orientation.

The court on a 5-4 judgment upheld the lower court rulings saying the Christian group’s First Amendment rights of association, free speech and free exercise were not violated by the college’s nondiscrimination policy.

[…]Justice Samuel Alito wrote a strong dissent for the court’s conservatives, saying the opinion was “a serious setback for freedom of expression in this country.”

“Our proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate,'” Alito said, quoting a previous court decision. “Today’s decision rests on a very different principle: no freedom for expression that offends prevailing standards of political correctness in our country’s institutions of higher learning.”

[…]Justice John Paul Stevens was even harsher, saying while the Constitution “may protect CLS’s discriminatory practices off campus, it does not require a public university to validate or support them.”

Stevens, who plans to retire this summer, added that “other groups may exclude or mistreat Jews, blacks and women — or those who do not share their contempt for Jews, blacks and women. A free society must tolerate such groups. It need not subsidize them, give them its official imprimatur, or grant them equal access to law school facilities.”

It should be noted that Sam Alito is a George W. Bush appointee, as was John Roberts. Stevens is widely regarded as the second most liberal Justice on the SCOTUS, with Ruth Bader-Ginsburg who wrote for the majority being the most liberal.

How did the Supreme Court become so liberal? Well, because a majority Christian country voted in Presidents who appointed liberal judges. I have had Christians whom I respect and admire, who love free speech, tell me that they valued things like universal health care, social welfare programs for single mothers and public education. If you want a secular government to take over things in private industry, so that the government has a monopoly funded by mandatory tax collection from Christians, then you get a secular Supreme Court. A secular Supreme Court has no respect for your religious liberty. And the Democrats are the party of secularism. A vote for Democrats is a vote against religious liberty. A vote against the public practice of Christianity.

If you young Christians are looking for something to do, why not get your law degrees and join the ADF or the HSLDA? And I am especially talking about you homeschoolers. Don’t homeschool yourselves out of a position of influence. If you want to keep your right to be a Christian in public, you’re going to have to fight for those rights. Because standing apart from the academy is equivalent to giving up your rights. You better have a plan to go to college, and I do mean a good college, and grad school after that. No exceptions.

By the way, you can learn more about Barack Obama’s appointee to the Supreme Court. She is going to be FAR WORSE than John Paul Stevens. And again, lots of Christians voted for Obama and thus will cause a loss of religious liberty. Obama has already passed laws that restricted Christians from being as free as they were under Bush, not the least of which is the ability not to be complicit in funding the Big Abortion industry.

Videos

Public school bus driver blasts little girl for discussing Christianity

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From Lone Wolf Archer. (H/T Neil Simpson’s latest round-up)

Story is here. (This link also has a video with more of the audio of the bus driver)

Excerpt:

After the girl was dropped off, Zimmer said a bus camera showed Campbell telling the students, “If you can’t believe in tolerance toward one another, you don’t belong here. You belong in a parochial, church school.”

Zimmer also claims the bus driver questioned another student about whether Rachael ever said anything racist to him.

“If she says anything racial to you, I want to know about it, because I am going to eat her alive,” Zimmer said Campbell can be heard saying on the tape. “You’re a smart guy. Rachael is a stupid little bigot.”

Zimmer said Campbell then came back to the girl’s home after all of the children had been let off the bus and brought Rachael and her older sister, who were home alone at the time, onto her empty bus, berating Rachael about her opinions on gay marriage.

“Say we’re a gay couple …and we go to China … and she would adopt a child. She comes back, and if she dies, that child isn’t mine. You can’t keep that kid,” Zimmer said Campbell is heard saying on the tape. “Or I’m filthy rich and she is not, I die, she does not inherit my money. That’s what this is all about.”

When he asked the school district why Campbell wasn’t disciplined, Zimmer said he was told she was working within the scope of her employment.

Notice that the father is forced to pay for these government schools through mandatory taxation. And also note that the school’s only response was to deny that anything was wrong. That’s why public schools are EVIL. We need to have vouchers so that parents can get their money back and send their children to schools they actually want. I think that my fear is that we as Christians are not really serious about protecting our children. We want to have marriages, and families, and children, but we are not really willing to learn about the problems that our children will face from anti-Christian public schools.

If you want to understand what people who are on the other side think of what was done to that little girl, then go to this atheistic blog and read the comments. Warning: there is vulgar language. Atheism is an amoral worldview. And it’s the worldview that is increasingly present in the Democrat party, which is hostile to public expressions of Christian faith.

My plan at this point is homeschooling for kindergarten through grade 6, then private schools all the way on from there. I wish I could get my money back from the government for these public schools, health services, and pensions that they are providing to everyone else, but oh well.

News

Christian preacher arrested for saying that homosexuality is a sin

8 Comments

Story from the UK Telegraph. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Dale McAlpine was charged with causing “harassment, alarm or distress” after a homosexual police community support officer (PCSO) overheard him reciting a number of “sins” referred to in the Bible, including blasphemy, drunkenness and same sex relationships.

[…]Mr McAlpine, who was taken to the police station in the back of a marked van and locked in a cell for seven hours on April 20, said the incident was among the worst experiences of his life.

[…]Mr McAlpine was handing out leaflets explaining the Ten Commandments or offering a “ticket to heaven” with a church colleague on April 20, when a woman came up and engaged him in a debate about his faith.

During the exchange, he says he quietly listed homosexuality among a number of sins referred to in 1 Corinthians, including blasphemy, fornication, adultery and drunkenness.

After the woman walked away, she was approached by a PCSO who spoke with her briefly and then walked over to Mr McAlpine and told him a complaint had been made, and that he could be arrested for using racist or homophobic language.

The street preacher said he told the PCSO: “I am not homophobic but sometimes I do say that the Bible says homosexuality is a crime against the Creator”.

He claims that the PCSO then said he was homosexual and identified himself as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender liaison officer for Cumbria police. Mr McAlpine replied: “It’s still a sin.”

The preacher then began a 20 minute sermon, in which he says he mentioned drunkenness and adultery, but not homosexuality. Three regular uniformed police officers arrived during the address, arrested Mr McAlpine and put him in the back of a police van.

At the station, he was told to empty his pockets and his mobile telephone, belt and shoes were confiscated. Police took fingerprints, a palm print, a retina scan and a DNA swab.

Sounds like this was a police sting operation in which a Christian acting as a Christian in public was targeted by the state-run police force for holding views that are incompatible with the ruling elite. He was put in jail for disagreeing publicly with his elected officials on a question of morality.