Tag Archives: Religious Liberty

News

Belgian archbishop targeted by gay activists over AIDS remarks

4 Comments

Another example of speech critical of homosexuality being threatened with legal sanctions, reported by Life Site News. (H/T Mary)

Excerpt:

The new archbishop of Brussels, Andre-Joseph Leonard, is being targeted by homosexualist groups, and has been condemned by the country’s prime minister, after he said that AIDS is a consequence of risky sexual behavior, including homosexual sexual activity.

Homosexualist groups have accused Archbishop Leonard of “homophobia,” after he pointed out in a book released in October that “AIDS at the beginning multiplied through sexual behaviour with all sorts of partners or else through anal rather than vaginal sexual rapports.”

“When you mistreat the environment it ends up mistreating us in turn,” he continued. “And when you mistreat human love, perhaps it winds up taking vengeance.”

“All I’m saying is that sometimes there are consequences linked to our actions. I believe this is a totally decent, honourable and respectable stance.”

A lawyer acting on behalf of a homosexualist lobby group has filed a formal complaint against Leonard for “homophobic statements” and “violating an anti-discrimination law.”

[…]Recently a man ran up to the archbishop during a service at the Brussels cathedral and shoved a cherry pie in his face, apparently in connection with the controversy.

Here’s a CDC study that discusses whether certain types of sex are more risky than other types.

Here’s a refresher on some of the violence directed against supporters of the Prop 8 pro-traditional-marriage amendment.

And in Canada, an evangelical TV show has just been pulled off the air, also for disagreeing with homosexuality.

Note that comments to this post will be strictly filtered in accordance with Obama’s law restricting speech critical of homosexuality.

News

Court validates student’s right to freedom of religion

1 Comment

From One News Now. (H/T Caffeinated Thoughts via ECM)

Excerpt:

Montana’s highest court has ruled in favor of a former Montana high school valedictorian who was banned from speaking at her graduation because her speech contained religious references.

Among Renee Griffith’s planned comments were such statements as: “I didn’t let fear keep me from sharing Christ and His joy with those around me” — and “I learned not to be known for my grades…but for being committed to my faith and morals and being someone who lived with a purpose from God with a passionate love for Him.” She was ordered by school officials to replace “Christ” with the words “my faith”; and to amend the other statement to say she “lived with a purpose, a purpose derived from my faith and based on a love of mankind.”

Griffith, a co-valedictorian of her 2008 senior class, refused to do so and, consequently, was prevented from speaking at the ceremony.

[…]The Rutherford Institute helped to argue the case on behalf of Griffith.  “Renee wanted to mention Christ and God in her graduation speech, and the school said she couldn’t do it — then she insisted that she be able to do it,” explains Rutherford’s president, John Whitehead.

“She was actually forbidden from even participating in the graduation ceremony at all,” Whitehead continues. “So I think this [ruling] sends a shot across the bow of all these other cases that have happened across the country — and it’s a reaffirmation that we still have some freedom in the United States.”

A lower court had ruled previously that Griffith’s civil rights were not violated, and the school district had argued mentioning Christ or God in a speech is a violation of the alleged “separation of church and state.”

“But the [Montana Supreme Court] actually addresses that and says that’s not true — this is just basically free speech and students should have a right, as other students have a right, to mention what’s important to them and their lives when they’re up before the students speaking about graduation,” says the spokesman for The Rutherford Institute.

Whitehead says the ruling affirms to Christian students that mentioning the name “Jesus” in a speech is not taboo.

W. William Leaphart dissented from the majority of the judges – he ruled against Renee Griffith. He was opposed to Christians exercising their religious liberty in the public square.

This is a good lesson about how the public school system tries to force their secular worldview onto Christians. Can you believe that? The National Butte School District #1 actually told her what to say so that she could sound like them. They wanted her to pretend to believe what they believe. And they thought that suppressing her views would cause her no harm at all. That it was OK for her to be suppressed. That is was a good thing to silence her. That her rights could be breached so that their feelings would not be hurt. So that they wouldn’t have to realize that Christianity isn’t stupid, that it might even be true, and that smart people believe it.

The best thing Christians can do is to encourage their children to do well in school and to study apologetics. The atheists really hate the idea that smart people can be Christians. They really hate being confronted by smart Christians. Dumb ones they can accept, but the smart ones make them very angry. That’s what we want.

By the way, this censorship by the public schools actually happens a lot. I blogged about the last time this happened here.

News

Court says nurse who was forced to perform late-term abortion can’t sue

1 Comment

Story here from LifeSiteNews. (H/T Mary)

Excerpt:

Today the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Catholic nurse who was forced by a New York hospital to participate in an abortion does not have the right to sue her employer.

Administrators at Mt. Sinai Hospital had threatened Catherine DeCarlo with disciplinary measures in May 2009 if she did not honor a last-minute summons to assist in a scheduled late-term abortion. The hospital insisted on her participation in the procedure on the grounds that it was an “emergency.”

Lawyers for DeCarlo, however, have pointed out that the procedure was not classified by the hospital as an emergency, and the patient was apparently not in crisis at the time of the surgery.

DeCarlo claims that her participation in the abortion led to serious emotional trauma. She also claims that hospital administrators later attempted to coerce her into signing an agreement to participate in abortions in the future.

The hospital had reportedly known of the Catholic nurse’s religious objections to abortion since 2004.

Alliance Defence Fund (ADF) attorneys had filed two suits in the case – one federal, filed in July 2009, and another state, filed earlier this year. The federal suit claimed that Mt. Sinai ignored federal laws prohibiting coercion while receiving hundred of millions of dollars in federal funding.

In January the case was dismissed by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, at which point it was appealed to the Second Circuit.

However, in today’s ruling the court found that there is no right to private action or private remedy under the statue cited by DeCarlo in her suit – the so-called “Church Amendment.”  (Read the decision here.)

That amendment protects health care workers working for federally-funded entities from being discriminated against because they refused to perform abortions on religious or conscience grounds.

In other news, pro-abortion nutter attacks pro-life display with metal pipe and gets arrested when he turns to attack pro-lifers, too. Hey – anti-life is pro-violence. That’s their view.

Sorry if blogging is a little light lately. I am having fun reading Mary’s frequent debates on Facebook. It’s really fun!