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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

Jul-Sep 2016

 

(09/29/2016) Atheist Group and Methodist Pastor Sues Arizona School for Teaching History.  It seems that including Christianity in teaching US history is beyond the pale.


(09/26/2016) Why the Church Absolutely Needs to Talk About Politics.  Sadly, given the fact the the government has intruded into pretty much every aspect of our daily lives, the church must become more involved in politics or become irrelevant in today's culture.


(09/25/2016) It’s Time for Conservatives to Boycott the NFL.  Speaking for myself, I am going to keep track of my favorite teams, but I am going to avoid watching NFL games in person or on TV.  Be advised, this article is about more than just football.  Conservatives get upset or annoyed by many things, but rarely do we do anything about it - which is why the Left keeps getting its way.

 

(09/24/2016) Fed Report: Amend Laws so 'Gay' Rights Trump Faith.  Seeks to limit First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  Of course, the free exercise clause has already been severely restricted and many Christian have already limited their expressions of faith to houses of worship.

 

(09/19/2016) FEC Commish Warns: Dems Gunning for Conservatives.  This concerns the First Amendment.  Freedom of religion has already been significantly undermined and remember that every single Democrat in the Senate voted to amend the Constitution to allow Congress to "regulate" speech.  Every. Single. One.


(09/19/2016) SEATTLE: Entire Football Team at Garfield High School Including Coaches Refuse to Stand for National Anthem.  To quote someone else: "What I love about the Obama administration is all the racial healing."  Do you detect a tinge of sarcasm?  Race relations are at the lowest point in years. 


(09/18/2016) Shocker: NFL Ratings Tank.  "The NFL saw a reduction in most key apples-to-apples comparisons."  Well, "tank" might be an exaggeration, but they are certainly down.  As a private concern, the NFL has every right to suspend players who refuse to stand for the anthem.  They are on company time, so to speak, when they are on the field in uniform.  I haven't tuned out the NFL yet, but I'm not going to watch games involving players who refuse to stand for the anthem.  If players on my favorite teams refuse to stand, I won't watch, as tough as that may be.


(09/17/2016) Schools Crack Down on 'USA' Chant, Ban Flags.  This is in Michigan.  Makes perfect sense.  Schools have been teaching kids for some time that they should be embarrassed for their country rather than proud of it.  How can they reinforce these lessons if they allow pride in America to show up at sporting events?  Seriously, it seems that our public schools have decided that they are exempt from the First Amendment.


(09/15/2016) Brit Hume dismisses as ‘utter claptrap’ professors’ defense of safe spaces as ‘incubators of new ideas.’  When looking at what those on the Left espouse (safe spaces, in this case), remember one thing - everything they do and everything they advocate is all about gaining power and control.  If viewed from this perspective, everything they do makes sense.

 

(09/14/2016) School District: Betsy Ross Flag Symbolizes "Hate."  You can't make this stuff up.  That said, we should not sit back and ignore it just because it is absurd.


(09/14/2016) The Left Is Weaponizing Sports.  What happens when a culture loses its last neutral ground?  I would argue that religious conservatives need to start fighting back.  Some leadership would be useful because many of us are reluctant to take the first step on our own.  Example:  Christians attending HS football games could gather in front of the stands (or on the field, if possible) after games to pray. 


(09/14/2016) Yale SJW Student to Professor: “I want your job to be taken from you.”  This attitude is far more common that some of us think.  There is a growing population that believes that people should be punished for their beliefs.  Nothing could be more contrary to what 'America' has traditionally meant, but we have a growing population that wants to destroy that America.


(09/12/2016) Hillary: People Will Write PhD Theses About Sexism Against Me For Years.  Fellow evangelicals, there is a lesson to be learned here.  Do not be like Clinton and play the victim.  Yes, the First Amendment is being eroded and one of the primary targets seems to be conservative Christians.  Rather than just grumble about the sorry state of affairs, use this as inspiration to do something!  Our Christian Response page has some suggestions.


(09/09/2016) Civil rights chief: 'Religious freedom' code words for intolerance.  As the article states: be afraid, be very afraid.  But the question is, are we going to do anything about it, or jsut sit on our rears until our freedoms are lost?


(09/02/2016) Kaepernick Has a Right to Free Expression, and So Does Everyone Else.  This is a good overview of the whole "Kaepernick Affair."  Suffice it to say that while in this case the MSM's focus is on an individual's right of free speech, in certain other cases their focus has been on the right of private employers to punish people for exercising their right of free speech.  The only thing consistent about the media is their consistent bias.  Fortunately, there are some exceptions.


(08/30/2016) NY Times reporter wants Google to suppress information about Hillary.  Because the reporter does not like "conspiracy theories" about Hillary Clinton's health, he wants them to be suppressed by search engines.  Of course, the larger question is never addressed: who exactly gets to decide what information is suppressed?  NY Times reporters?  The DOJ?  Would you trust any of them?  This is exactly why we have and need a First Amendment.


(08/28/2016) Upstate school district defends decision to not allow American flag into football game.  Sigh.


(08/27/2016) Police Officer Prays with Flood Victims, Red Cross tells Him to Stop!  The officer was in uniform and off-duty.  Consider making donations to the Salvation Army rather than the Red Cross.


(08/27/2016) New “Thought Police” Unit Armed With Own Budget and Re-Education Camps.  This concerns "social media" and their censorship of "hate speech," which always seems to involve conservative speech rather than liberal speech.  It should be no surprise that liberals will find conservative views more "hateful" than liberal ones.


(08/25/2016) NYT Reporter Rips ‘Incredibly Inappropriate’ Hannity for Giving Trump ‘Free Advertising.’  I laughed out loud when I read this.  But it is not funny.  The MSM gives Democrats billions in "free advertising" and no one bats an eye.  Years ago, Evan Thomas, himself a liberal, said that the MSM was worth 5-10% for the Democrats in an election.  Without the MSM, where would the Democrat party be?


(08/24/2016) Pennsylvania County Resist Atheist Bullying.  Good for them.  What is tragic is that as far as religious freedom is concerned, the courts have used the First Amendment to suppress religious expression.  We all know what the First Amendment says regarding religion: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."  The key words are "Congress" and "law."  We all know that the "establishment clause," simply means that Congress was not to establish an official national religion or church.  The fact that it has been mutilated beyond all recognition by our courts is not a tragedy, it is a scandal.  Tragedies are something to be accepted and dealt with.  This is not something we should accept.  We need to be fighting back.


(08/23/2016) Old Glory ordered removed from upstate NY fire trucks.  I think there is more to this story than the article indicates.  The real question - which isn't answered - is what if instead of the flag it was something else?  Would that something else have been ordered removed?  This removal may have had to do with the size or some other factor.  If that was the case, rather than just order the removal, they should have simply requested that the flag be displayed in a different manner?


(08/22/2016) The Coming Free Speech Apocalypse.  It boggles the mind that we should even have to think about needing to save the First Amendment.  But the sad fact is that it has already been significantly whittled away - especially Freedom of Religion.  And that has only whetted the appetite of those that believe that rights come from government and government should have the ability to grant rights as well as take them away.  Currently they are focusing on the "taking away" part, but they are not above taking your money in order to grant new rights and privileges.  Does anyone remember Roosevelt's Four Freedoms?  Look it up.


(08/22/2016) Air Force officer faces investigation over Bible on his desk.  Is there no end to this madness?  May I just say that all Christians in the military that have a desk job should make sure to have an open Bible on their desk, all the time.  I strongly believe that Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation needs to be countersued so much that it hurts.  Rather than having him intimidate others by threats of lawsuits with little pushback, he needs to get a taste of his own medicine.


(08/21/2016) Hillary Campaign Vows To Destroy Opposition Website (Breitbart News).  Why?  After acknowledging that conservative news outlets "have a right to exist," they say that Breitbart needs to be shut down entirely because they are "radical, bigoted, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic conspiracy peddlers who never have been and never should be anywhere near the levers of power in this country.”  I have someone else in mind who should never be near the levers of power in this country.  The Democrat party has been attacking the First Amendment for years, but those attacks (many of them very successful) have accelerated in recent years.  They will continue to accelerate under a President Clinton. 


(08/20/2016) No buyer for Breyer.  Apparently Justice Breyer has written a book that to some extent explains liberal judicial thought.  it really just boils down to this: anything that supports the progressive view may be used in a court decision, everything that supports the traditionalist, originalist view is to be ignored. 


(08/16/2016) Major flip for school that sent cop to 1st-grader's home.  Child under fire for sharing Bible stories with classmates.  This is a good ending, but there should never have been a "beginning" to this story.


(08/13/2016) On Religious Liberty, a Chasm Divides the Democrat and Republican Platforms.  It is appalling how far we have gone from the clear meaning of the First Amendment.  For more concerning religious freedom: Gay Activists are Attempting to Dissolve the First Amendment.


(08/12/2016) Who is Judge Ruth Neely from Pinedale, Wyoming?  Anyone who doesn't think that the goal of the Left is to chase believers out of office and out of the public square had better read this and reconsider.


(08/11/2016) Judge Plays God to Ban 'Unimportant' Bible Verse.  Just what we need: judges determining which Bible verses are "important" and which are not.

 

(08/11/2016) The ABA sets forth a de facto speech code for lawyers.  As a country we are moving away from the whole concept of liberty and freedom towards a system where public behavior must be state sanctioned. 


(08/11/2016) Who's Afraid of Religious Liberty?  This is a long article, but definitely worth the read.  Here is a little introduction to it.  Update: I should mention that one of the key points of this article is that "anti-discrimination" laws are being used both destroy the First Amendment and to discriminate actively against religious Christians and Jews.


(08/10/2016) A Crucial Victory for California Christian Universities.  It is good to have some positive news once in a while, but bear in mind the Left does NOT give up after a single defeat.  We, on the other hand, ....


(08/09/2016) After Being Punished for Praying, Football Coach Files Lawsuit to Get His Job Back.  Fighting back is essential.  It doesn't look like he is suing for damages as well, but he should.


(08/08/2016) How The Left Is Weaponizing The American Legal System.  And it is very much to the detriment of Christians and conservatives.


(08/07/2016) Christians, You Don’t Need to Be on TV to be Heard.  We all have an audience; it doesn't have to be big.


(08/06/2016) DePaul University Bans Ben Shapiro.  DePaul is a private university, so it can do as it chooses.  But in general, our higher education system seems to be geared primarily towards turning out progressives who are ill-equipped to cope in the real world.  Some adult intervention is seriously needed.  Here is more: Ben Shapiro Responds to Being Banned by DePaul University. 


(08/06/2016) Court says IRS may still be targeting conservatives.  Should anyone be surprised?  They can target conservative groups with no consequences, so why not keep doing it?


(08/02/2016) Newspaper rejects ad over the word "Christian."  The newspaper's implication that it was a technical issue that caused the rejection sounds as believable as Google's similar claim that it was a technical problem when nothing regarding Trump would show up for a "presidential candidates" search.


(07/30/2016) No, the Constitution Does Not Bar ‘Religious Tests’ in Immigration Law.  It certainly does not.  In only bars religious tests for public officials.  Note that it says nothing about the private sector.  Nevertheless, courts and bureaucrats seem to think that Christian groups cannot restrict their leadership to Christians (I'm speaking of college groups here).


(07/30/2016) Cal State Cancels Ben Shapiro Appearance After Liberal Students Compare Him to KKK.  The First Amendment is in serious trouble, and aside from the Democrats in the Senate (all of who voted for an amendment allowing Congress to regulate speech), no one is more to blame than the supposed "adults" who run many of our universities.


(07/29/2016) Documentary: Is the University Killing Free Speech?  Answer: they are trying very hard and they are being aided and abetted by the Democrat party.  Both have a very strong interest in getting those who disagree with them to just shut up.


(07/28/2016) Lovers of Religious Liberty Will Find Scant Comfort in the New Democratic Party Platform.  No one should be surprised.  Christianity, or rather committed Christians, are one of the biggest obstacles to the progressive utopia. 


(07/25/2016) Here is more on the Left imposing their values on everyone else: Judge Decides ‘ChristianMingle.Com’ Must Include Gay Singles.  One might ask why gays would want to seek dates at such a site, but then you might wonder why gays couples would want a wedding cake, flowers or a photographer to participate in their SSM when said service provider objects to SSM.  The answer is - they don't.  What they want is power over you, and possibly money - money is always nice.

 

(07/24/2016) A Pastor Fights Against Government Restrictions on Political Sermons.  Sadly, quite a few Christians fall in the low information voter (LIV) category.  It does not help that pastors are prohibited - or at least think they are - from talking politics from the pulpit.  One of the biggest problems today is that the law, when enforced, is very selective.  Black churches actively promote the Democrat party from the pulpit.  They do this freely, knowing that they will never be prosecuted or lose their tax-exempt status.  Conservative evangelical churches cannot be so sanguine.


(07/24/2016) Governments To Christians: Don’t You Dare Speak Out Against The Sexual Sin In Society.  This seems further along in some other countries, but it is happening here to.  The whole concept of "hate Speech" is an anathema to g\the First Amendment.  Of course, we as Christians should never be hateful in the way we speak.  But since when was speaking the truth classified as "hateful?"  It is starting to be, and once "hate speech" is outlawed, its definition will expand and expand to fit the progressive agenda. 


(07/22/2016) Let Churches Speak Freely. Drop the Johnson Amendment — Or Just Make It Clear.  Even under the Johnson Amendment, churches could engage more politically than they do.  But uncertainty over how the IRS will enforce the Johnson Amendment makes them overly cautious.


(07/21/2016) Flag-Burning Commie Protester Accidentally Sets Himself on Fire Outside of RNC.  Is this poetic justice?


(07/14/2016) Pentagon's transgender policy steamrolls religious liberty.  It seems that the new primary role of the military is to serve as a mandatory laboratory for liberal social policies - all without any kind of voter approval or accountability.  Lincoln's government of the people, by the people and for the people is a thing of the past.


(07/09/2016) University of Northern Colorado Defends Orwellian ‘Bias Response Team.’  Wow.  I suppose you could say that are colleges are leading the way.  Unfortunately, they are leading us - and our children in particular - in the wrong direction.  And their favorite tactic is to intimidate those who disagree into keeping quiet.  And we have been remarkably cooperative in keeping quiet, have we not?


(07/09/2016) There’s “absolutely no value…to a judge…studying the Constitution,” says Judge Richard A. Posner.  Should this not be grounds for removal from office (impeachment)?


(07/07/2016)  The Stand in Iowa.  More on Iowa and freedom of religion.


(07/05/2016) As if we don't already have enough bad news: Dear Iowa Christians, Use the Right Pronouns in Church . . . Or Else.  Update: Iowa Bureaucrats Force Trans Bathrooms On Churches, Forbid Non-PC Preaching. 


(07/05/2016) Democrats Keep Trying To Suppress Free Speech.  This merits another 'of course.'


(07/04/2016) This Fourth of July, Our Religious Freedoms are Under Assault. Wake Up.  A Michael Brown column.

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