Posted on 03/16/2004 9:46:07 AM PST by presidio9
federal judge ruled that the New York City Department of Education could continue to ban the display of the Christian Nativity during Christmas. Remarkably, the judge found that the display of the Jewish Menorah during Hanukkah and the Islamic Star and Crescent during Ramadan were allowable since these symbols are “secular.” Ostensibly, state-sponsored discrimination against Christians is permissible because it provides “parity” for other religions.
Not to be outdone, another federal judge in Kansas ruled that Washburn University has every right to display a sculpture mocking the Catholic faith. The oxymoronic Campus Beautification Committee selected the display, entitled “Holier than Thou,” portraying a Catholic bishop with a morbid facial expression wearing a miter resembling a penis. The judge did not find hostility toward Catholics, but rather a display that will “increase the intellectual capacities of Washburn’s students.”
The Thomas More Law Center, a public-interest law firm, brought suit in the aforementioned cases. Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center, commented, “Unfortunately, this and several other recent decisions by federal judges have demonstrated that there is a double standard when it comes to applying the Establishment Clause. The Ten Commandments and the Christian Nativity scene are out, but an anti-Catholic display of a bishop wearing a miter that resembles a phallus is permissible because it allegedly enhances aesthetics. Apparently, the religion clauses protect atheists but afford no comparable protection for Christians.”
Catholic Charities is one of America’s largest social service organizations providing assistance to people regardless of religious affiliation. Catholic Charities is an arm of the Roman Catholic Church, but the California Supreme Court does not seem to agree with this assessment. The organization did not meet the narrowly defined religious employer exemption in a law requiring California employers to provide birth control coverage in health plans. Thus, the court ruled that Catholic Charities must ignore its moral opposition to contraception. This is a great example of how government-mandated health insurance works when it becomes a “right.”
The case represents the ultimate paradox: the very fact that the Catholic Church’s inclusive policy of hiring and helping people regardless of faith is the reasoning used by the court to declare the purpose of Catholic Charities is, in fact, secular. No, it’s called being a good Catholic. I’m selling oceanfront property in North Dakota if you really believe that Catholic Charities is a secular organization.
While appeasing the ACLU and other secular humanists, the California court has insulted Roman Catholics around the world. Regardless of personal opinion on the matter of birth control, even among Catholics, this benchmark case is not about contraception. It’s about whether or not the government should interfere with liberty and the free exercise of religion. The only dissenter on the court was Justice Janice Rogers Brown, who wrote, “Here we are dealing with an intentional, purposeful intrusion into a religious organization’s expression of its religious tenets and sense of mission.”
State-sponsored discrimination and hostility toward Christians is reaching epidemic proportions in a country rooted in Judeo-Christian principles. Our Founders could never have envisioned how far we would travel off the beaten path. This disturbing trend is no anomaly. It’s a highly organized and well-financed campaign by secular humanists and atheists who have found sympathetic legislators and jurists. The agenda is simple -- drive organized religion underground in order for nihilism and moral relativism to metastasize.
French historian and American observer Alexis de Tocqueville opined, “liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.” Americans of all faiths must stand together with the understanding that no religion is safe when even one comes under attack. Josef Stalin disclosed an ominous plot many years ago: “America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.” We’ve stood by as Christianity takes a beating in the town square. It’s high time we turn the tide. Our very liberty depends on it.
Think Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Ataturk, etc. etc.
Well can't you see the obvious double standard and hypocrisy of articles like this. Many Christians (and some Jews like Dennis Prager) run around writing and saying the most vile, hate fulled stuff about people who don't believe in their God in a way they find acceptable. 3 recent nasty examples (One, Two, Three) recently posted here on FR by these so called good religious people accuse non believers of such horrible things as being responsible for all abortions, Gay marriage, The Nazis, being Un-American, and much more, Almost anything wrong or bad in society for the past 300 years they blame on non-believers.(And these were in the main news forum, I don't even what to know what is said in the religion forum).
It's obvious from the responses to these articles that many Christians are in full agreement and find this acceptable behavior, Yet God forbid (pun intended) someone questions Christianity in any way, Then comes the whinning and playing the victim with claims of Christian bashing. Christians seem to be able to dish it out but they sure can't take it, According to Christians bashing, scapegoating and spewing hatred towards non-believers is OK but non-believers are suppose to not say anything back or else they are guilty of unfairly attacking Christians.
Even though I am not one of them I used to think Christians were unfairly targeted, But after reading some of these vicious post by Christians, If that's the way you people think and believe then sorry but you are getting what you deserve.
Uh. Not one of those things are true.
All societies form on religion or in the case of communism the lack there of. Your lucky America was not formed on islam or atheism.
—Patrick Henry
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the gift of God?”
—Thomas Jefferson
“We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us ... to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”
—James Madison
No kidding!!! Well now who would have thunk.
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