Posted on 05/27/2011 11:27:57 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs cannot stop a pastor from invoking the name of "Jesus Christ" in his Memorial Day prayer at Houston National Cemetery, a federal judge said Thursday.
Scott Rainey, lead pastor at the Living Word Church of the Nazarene, on Thursday filed a lawsuit requesting a temporary restraining order against the VA and its director of the Houston National Cemetery from censoring his prayer reference to Jesus.
The suit argued that the government is unconstitutionally censoring his speech and engaging in religious viewpoint discrimination.
The judge hearing the case agreed with Rainey, granting his motion for the court to intercede.
"The government cannot gag citizens when it says it is in the interest of national security, and it cannot do it in some bureaucrat's notion of cultural homogeneity," U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes wrote in his three-page order. "The right to free expression ranges from the dignity of Abraham Lincoln's speeches to Charlie Sheen's rants."
This coming Monday, Rainey will be able to recite his prayer in full during a Memorial Day service at the cemetery to honor fallen U.S. soldiers. This is the third year that the pastor has been asked by the National Cemetery Council for Greater Houston to give the invocation at the event.
In his prayer, Rainey will ask God to grant peace in the nations and to families of fallen soldiers and give wisdom to the nation's leaders.
The prayer will conclude with the Lord's Prayer and one reference to Jesus: "While respecting people of every faith today, it is in the name of Jesus Christ, the risen Lord, that I pray. Amen."
A month ago, the cemetery asked Rainey to submit a copy of his prayer for review. Cemetery director Arleen Ocasio told Rainey in an e-mail last week that he needed to edit his prayer. Rainey was also told on Wednesday that he if he didn't remove the Jesus reference then the prayer wouldn't be allowed.
Liberty Institute then filed the suit and motion for a temporary restraining order on behalf of Rainey on Thursday.
"Arleen Ocasio, the United States Department of Veteran Affairs, and all those in concert with them are forbidden from dictating the content of speeches – whether those speeches are denominational prayers or otherwise – at the Memorial Day ceremony of National Cemetery Council for Greater Houston," Hughes wrote in his order.
So lets say the court rules the other way, and the Pastor goes ahead with the prayer anyway. What would they do? Arrest him? I’m almost waiting for that to happen (and it will sooner or later).
Please, nobody give me that BS about "needing to be all including" or "what about soldiers of other faiths?" If someone invites a Christian pastor to say a prayer, in whose name is he going to pray other than Jesus? This was a set up and in that sense I am glad he won!
Amen!!!!!
Only one of the many victories that need to be had, lest Islam takes over.
If we can’t say the name of Jesus publicly now, we will be forced to listen to Allahu Akbar’s left and right later...
Liberals dare not take that right away from Islamists, since they might just be radicals and cry bloody murder to high heck, or worse you know... well let’s say some heads might roll.
I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of the double standards held by liberals and open contention to the will of the American people.
Last time I checked even the eschewed liberal polls, I believe more than 70% of Americans consider themselves “Christian”.
UMAIN. That is the English pronouncement of the HEBREW lettering for AMEN.
This is as UN-American as the bigots who rail against the local minister or priest who is to give the invocation at the local high school graduation.
This elderly Jew still recalls with warmth, the prayer recited by the BISHOP of our local diocese back in 1952. This HOLY man asked for GOD’s blessing for ALL of the graduates, not merely the Catholics. Is it necessary for me to point out that not a single non-Catholic protested saying, “We don’t need your stinkin’ prayers”.
It’s long past time we IGNORED the rulings of leftist, activist judges. Regardless of the courts ruling, this pastor should have said whatever he wanted. We’ve allowed leftists to trample on our liberty for far too long. Will the American people EVER show any SPINE???!! Good for this judges ruling, but it should neither have mattered, nor been SOUGHT in the first place!!!!
What is so astounding is the transformation from the Christian paradigm that we were founded and acted under for 200 years to that atheist/Marxist/Progressive worldview that we had laws against at our Founding, since the utilitarianism in that ideology always results in unequal for all, irrational law, and eventually no freedom for any, because of those irrational laws and chaos and inequality that always follows in societies which do not exist by the rule of law (based on reason (natural laws and God’s law).
This was universally followed until the Postmodern German philosophy invaded the court system and rationality went out the window. No freedom of religion? No freedom of thought? No freedom of expression and debate of ideas in the public square? How bizarre in a “free” Republic.
To take terms like “establishment” and twist the meaning into the bizarre notion of draconian force as if the mention of a word forced the belief on others....is nonsensical at best. It is fascism in its purest form—to deny the right of a person to convey ideas in the public, denies them of fundamental freedom of speech, thought and conscious, and denies them the right to practice their religion where it was understood by the Founders to be necessary —in the public square for a moral and virtuous people....where a Republic would be destroyed when people no longer practiced virtue in the public square, much less in private.
God is in the Founding document and it is the Judeo/Christian God—no other. So to honor the Constitution as written is to honor God in the public square.....no denials can be legal under that document. It is upholding our Constitution which demanded in the public square, schools, and the courts, etc. Always was allowed until the socialist Dewey.
The idea of specific name, as of Jesus, is not establishing a religion, but we do have to be careful with what is allowed. What if someone included all faiths but directed their prayers and devotion to Lucifer or Satan. What can a Wiccan say? That is the conundrum the insanity of German philosophy has created by allowing all cultures and all ideas to be equally valid. We do have to return to moral absolutes and to Universal Law which was established in the Constitution. Not all ideas were considered equal—in fact, Marxism was considered evil, as all utilitarianism where the means justify the ends.....the collective is above the individual....opposite of our legal system.
There were times where our courts would not allow atheists to be on a jury, or even give testimony because they could not be depended to give the truth, since they did not acknowledge God—how could they believe that every individual had inalienable rights from God.
“Congress shall make no law ...”ANY Freeper ought be able to recite the rest of it. The first Prayer in Congress Sept.7,1774 Rev.Jacob Duche—Ended “all this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ Thy Son an dour Savior,Amen.” On Sept7,1977Chaplain Edward L.R. Elson Opened the US Senate with that very same Prayer. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor seems to have invented the “endorsement Test so popular today In an attempt to justify the Lemon Test Neither of which reflect nor defend the terms used Nor their understanding when the Amendment was adopted.No prayer—and NO static display anywhere can violate the terms of the First Amendment.
This is a Christian nation, it should be a given.
Do we now have to call the federal govt about how to phrase every sentence that comes out of our mouth?
Will we be sent to jail for using OldSpeak?
RE: This is a Christian nation, it should be a given
________________________________________________________________________
“Whatever we once were, we’re no longer a Christian nation. At least not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, and a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers,” — President Obama (June 2007 speech)
SOURCE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmC3IevZiik
A veteran is a person who at one point in his or her life
wrote a check to the Government for, up to and including,
one life. They did it willingly knowing that what we have
needs to be protected. For all those who stood their watch
on the wall, well done! You stand relieved. For all those
who still stand on the wall, for all those who had their
“checks cashed”, -— WE WILL REMEMBER.
(William J. Evanow, MSGT USAF (Ret)
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