Jan-Dec 2020
Apr-Dec '18
UnShackled
for Life
Freedom to Go 'n Grow Together in Christ
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. First Amendment to the US Constitution
Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31b-32 (NIV)
There are some in this country that would be happy to forbid praying in public. Yet what better example of people using their first amendment rights than this?
That said, 'Saying Grace' recently set at auction record for a Norman Rockwell painting at $46M.
First Amendment
Oct 2019-Jun 2020
(06/30/2020) BBQ Restaurant Cancels Catering Job with “Back the Blue” Police Supporters After Leftists Threaten to Burn Down their Business. It appears that terroristic threats work. Of course they work. And we on the Right are much less inclined to make such threats than those on the Left. So now the Left is going to threaten business for merely serving groups that serve the police? This is exactly how the Left is taking over this country. What are we going to do about it? I do wish this business, assuming they are insured, would report the threats, ask for police protection, and go right ahead and serve without favor, though possibly with fear. We are folding and giving in to the Left far too much.
(06/30/2020) Media fret: Kayleigh McEnany undermining journalism ‘credibility.’ Nope, you've done that to yourselves. You're just upset that she has the gall to point it out. And you are just making it worse by attacking the messenger rather than cleaning up your own house. We could use a lot more truth-tellers today than we have.
(06/30/2020) Kneeling during the anthem is protesting against America. It should be obvious, but we have trained an entire generation (and more) to be oblivious to the obvious. Good is evil and evil is good. I should add that if you play on a national team (women's soccer) and refuse to stand for the anthem of your country, you should be booted from the team. You obviously have no desire to represent your country, so you should not.
(06/29/2020) Chris Cuomo demands to know where it says protests must be 'peaceful.' Then he gets a lesson on the Constitution. Good grief! the First Amendment specifically says that. You'd think that someone who spouts off on TV would go to the trouble of looking something like that up. But the Fake News media cannot be troubled to do that because that would make it harder for them to present fake news.
(06/26/2020) UCLA Students Want Two Professors Fired Because They Didn’t Accommodate Student Feelings. We certainly have managed to raise an entire generation plus that believes that everything in life is all about them. Our schools have totally failed, but so have a lot of parents, including Christian parents.
(06/26/2020) ‘Analysis: WaPo is FAKE NEWS’: WaPo blames conservative media for ‘severity’ of COVID, face-plants over their OWN headlines. Most as the MSM will say and publish anything that promotes thee progressive agenda, including absolute falsehoods. Just like most Democrat politicians.
(06/25/2020) RADICAL LEFTIST GROUP Threatens Christian Prayer Rally Planned on Saturday to Save the Iconic St. Louis Statue in Forest Park. Of course.
(06/13/2020) Tom Cotton EVISCERATES Cancel Culture in 'Obelisk of Wokeness' Speech. I am a big fan of Cotton, and speeches are more than a lot of others are doing. But we need to go far beyond speeches. Will the Tea Party revive? We need to take to the streets, so to speak. Unlike the other guys, we will actually get the necessary permits, be genuinely peaceful (unlike the "mostly peaceful" crowd), and clean up after ourselves. The MSM will still declare us to be the biggest threat to our country. The fact that well over 300,000 have signed up for Trump's Tulsa rally indicates that people are anxious to get out and support America. But we need more venues than Trump rallies!
(06/13/2020) Baltimore fines Church for holding services while thousands protest in the streets. But of course.
(06/13/2020) Black Student Union demands 'disciplinary' board to punish students who use 'hate speech.' I'm so old I can remember when when pretty much everyone believed in free speech. Now the Left is doing a full frontal assault, not just on free speech, but on the entire First Amendment (to say nothing of the Second and Fourth Amendments, as well). How many remember that every single Democrat in the Senate voted to modify the First Amendment to allow Congress to make any "exceptons" they choose to make? Every. Single. Democrat. But you probably didn't kow this because the MSM does not make a big deal of anythng that might make Democrats look bad. Need a refresher? Democrats File Bill to Repeal the First Amendment and Here is the Vote.
(06/12/2020) School administration: Bible verses are 'abusive.' Friends, if you don't think Christianity is under attack, think again.
(06/11/2020) Birmingham Schools, Housing Authority Sever Ties With Church of the Highlands Over Pastor’s Social Media Activity. And the pastor apologized. He had no business apologizing. Is he going to apologize for the gospel? Some find that offensive, as well. Never, never water down the gospel, and never, never apologize for supporting declarations of facts and of truth. When you do, you are declaring that truth is not important.
(05/19/2020) Group targets Army chaplain for sharing 'Coronavirus and Christ' book. The First Amendment is very clear in what it says. Yet it has been totally perverted, not just by ignorant people, but by evil people.
(05/15/2020) Mass. Governor Targets Churches For Shutdown Rules He Didn’t Apply To Home Depot. First Amendment or not quite a few politicians consider church to be non-essential. Not that it should matter what they think.
(04/11/2020) Churches Are Fighting Tyrannical Government for the Right to Celebrate Easter While Social Distancing. We have a lot of petty tyrants out there. Here is another that isn't so petty: ‘Crossed the line’: Ban-happy Michigan governor blasted for ‘insane’ overreach in response to coronavirus outbreak (here are several examples). In Michigan, you can't buy garden supplies, child seats and much, much more. Why?
(04/10/2020) Indiana Governor To Churches: Worship As I Say Or Be Shut Down. It probably isn't as bad as you might imagine from the headline, but there really is a problem when restrictions are put on churches that are not put on other organizations.
(02/15/2020) Graham lauds pastor Dems chided and shut down. We need many more pastors who are willing to speak the truth to those in power.
(02/10/2020) Buttigieg stance on religious liberty 'extremely troubling.' To be fair, I think this is a problem with all the Democrat candidates, not just Mayor Pete.
(01/18/2020) Prayer in Schools: Thanks, President Trump. Now Can You Restore Prayer in Churches? That would be nice.
(01/16/2020) Why America Must Recommit to Religious Freedom. Be you didn't know that this is Religious Freedom Day.
(01/11/2020) Locals Puts Up Their Own Nativity Scene After Town Says No To Scenes On Public Property. We need to be doing a lot more of this.
(01/06/2020) Rutgers student told not to quote Bible in essay because of 'separation of church and state.' Given that the essay was only read by the professor, this is totally absurd. She said quoting Scripture might offend non-Christians.
(01/01/2020) Religious People Think Democrats Will Strip Our Rights Because It’s True. The title says it all.
(12/30/2019) Police stand up to atheist group 'sensitive' over prayers for murdered deputy. Bravo. Do not give in to these atheist organizations, which rely on intimidation to get their way.
(12/17/2019) Atheist group lied to school over Nativity scene. Natch.
(12/07/2019) Misguided Fairness for All Act Would Undermine Religious Liberty. Yes, it would, and not just a little bit, but massively. And it is being proposed by misguided Republicans who think that playing Democrat-lite is a good thing. It is not. If the GOP had resisted going Democrat-lite for the past 50 years, our government and our culture wouldn't be in such a mess.
(12/04/2019) 42% of Gov’t Employees Say Gov’t Should Ban Offensive Speech; 62% of Those Want Violators Jailed. In short, a very significant portion of people who are paid by the taxpayer believe people should be jailed for exercising their constitutional rights. Note that government workers are much more inclined to think this way than the public at large. This is very scary.
(12/03/2019) Pastor vows to protect religious liberty at the ballot box. Freedom of religion (and of speech) really is at risk. The 2020 election will determine what direction we go as a country - retain our freedoms or lose them. Don't be passive.
(12/03/2019) 'Internet rumor' of 'end-times apocalypse' prompts state to demand Christian school's closure. This is pretty horrifying. Two lessons. There are plenty of government officials who wish to silence Christian voices and are willing to take action to do so. Second, when government officials screw up, they are far, far more likely to double-down and make things worse than to simply apologize.
(11/20/2019) F*ck the Tories: The Rise of Anti-Brexit Apartment Rentals in the UK. Of course. this is the UK. But we see the same thing here in the USA. The Left doesn't want to debate the issues and fight it out in the public square and at election time. The Left wants to actively punish those who disagree with them. To say that both sides are equally to blame for the deep political divide in this country is totally false. At least 90% of the problem comes from the Left. It is the Left that wants to stifle free speech, it is the Left that wants to restrict your religious rights, it is the Left that wants to punish people for trying to live out their faith or to punish them for merely disagreeing with the Leftist agenda.
(11/18/2019) Football game prayer ban lifted, case to proceed. What seems to have been totally lost is that the First Amendment only prohibits Congress from doing stuff regarding religion. That is all. While state constitutions can do the same at the state level, there is nothing in the First Amendment to prohibit states from passing laws to restrict religious expression or even to establish a state-level church. The problem we have is that the courts have turned the FA upside down to claim that "establishing religion" can involve any expression of religion by an employee of the government (on "company time") or at any event that involves the expenditure government funds. In short, religion is to be suppressed by the courts in the name of the establishment clause. This is totally contrary both to the clear understanding (by the founders) of and the clear wording of the First Amendment. But the Left has always relied on the courts to do their dirty work. since there is no way legislatures would be willing to pass laws to do the same.
(11/09/2019) Set Free: Gear Up Now for the Religious Liberty Battle of Our Lives. We didn't do very well in the battle over SSM. Most of us rolled over and played dead. The stakes are far higher this time.
(11/06/2019) Will Gay Rights Trump Religious Freedom? To be blunt, in many cases, it already is.
(11/05/2019) Judge OKs attacks on major Christian ministry as 'hate group.' Basically, according to the judge, the SPLC is just exercising its First Amendment Rights. I wouldn't have any problem with that except that other organizations - and businesses - use the SPLCs list of "hate groups" to censor and discriminate. And that should be grounds for suing for damages. The judge, naturally, does not see it that way - which means that as a practical matter, the SPLC can freely label as hate groups any and all Christian organizations and churches that adhere to the Bible. Actually, according to the judge, any organization may freely be labeled a "hate group."
(10/28/2019) Majority of poll: off to jail for your undefined 'hate speech.' Among our many problems, our schools no longer teach anything about what the Bill of Rights is, and why it is so important. It is easy to hate "hate speech" - as long as you get to decide what qualifies. Most seem to think that they would get to decide, if we went that route.
(10/26/2019) Why Faith is Key to Preserving Our Liberty. And so it is.
(10/21/2019) The Totalitarian American Left. They really are coming after conservative Christians and Christianity, though we are hardly the only ones.
(10/20/2019) Atheists Call for Establishing Atheism as the National Religion. Pretty much.
(10/16/2019) Judge torpedoes ban on counseling against same-sex feelings. Good, but there are such bans in many other places, as well.
(10/16/2019) Hiding Behind The Supreme Court Won’t Stop Beto O’Rourke’s Crusade To Punish Orthodox Religion. That is, we cannot hide behind the court. The court legalized abortion, mandated SSM - both nationwide - and unless the courts start undoing that which they have already done, it will only get worse.
(10/16/2019) Intolerance in Academia. The Left controls most of the megaphones in America, those with the megaphones have the most influence. Our public schools and universities are perhaps the root of the problem. To put it mildly, the views taught and promoted are completely at odds with the values this country was founded on and which our Constitution - the real one, not the "living" one - enshrines.
(10/15/2019) Minnesota's Ellison re-launches attack on religious freedom. Of course he is. That is what the Left does.
(10/11/2019) Beto Vows to Strip Tax-Exempt Status From Churches That Oppose Gay Marriage. Friends, this is what we are dealing with. Or rather, this is what we are ignoring and not dealing with. Beto may be the only candidate stupid enough to actually say this, but plenty of others would be happy to do the same by letting the courts do their dirty work.
(10/09/2019) Minnesota AG Keith Ellison Rips into Religious Freedom: ‘License to Discriminate Against LGBTQ Folks.’ Apparently it is perfectly OK to discriminate against religious folks, no matte what the Constitution says. This is an AG, mind you.
(10/08/2019) Minneapolis mayor attempts to toy with Trump, gets fingers burned. In short, the mayor is trying to prevent Trump from speaking in his city. This from the party of tolerance. They are working hard to prevent political speech they don't like and they are working hard to prevent religious speech they don't like.
(10/05/2019) Christian Crackdown? Students Must Submit Speeches, Swear Oath to School. Don't believe it? Believe it. It is true. I doubt the courts will permit it to stand.
(10/05/2019) If School Prayer Is Unconstitutional, How Much Worse Is Anti-Christian Moral Teaching in Schools? Good question.