Free Republic

The commander of the Zevulun police station and a second detective disguised themselves as haredim and pretended to join others praying in order to hunt down a synagogue still in operation in Rechasim, in contravention of Health Ministry ...

If you’re among the 99, don’t wish for the 1 lost to remain so– Jesus certainly didn’t. And yet when you disputed a pastor’s decision to minister to the lost, you wish just that. Last Sunday President Trump made an unexpected visit to McLean Bible Church in Northern VA and requested prayer, which was granted on their main stage by Lead Pastor David Platt. Platt later issued a statement in response to many in his church who were angry with his decision to pray for the president. Prior to praying for President Trump, Platt read 1 Tim 2:1-6 from the...

Protests erupted at airports across the country following Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily barring Muslims from seven countries from entering the United States. Muslims gathered inside of Dallas Fort Worth Airport with a loud Arab call to prayer in protest of this ban.

FORT WORTH — For some faithful rodeo fans, the inclusion of a Muslim imam in the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo has become a burr under the saddle. The Stock Show has become more diverse this year as officials have let more groups offer prayers before the start of events. But the Facebook page for the 23-day event lit up this week after Moujahed Bakhach of the Islamic Association of Tarrant County led the public prayer Sunday night. While many of the comments on the Stock Show’s Facebook page were supportive of the more inclusive prayer policy, most were...

A Winston-Salem restaurant is giving customers a 15 percent discount if they pray in public. Mary’s Gourmet Diner in Winston-Salem gives the discount for anyone who takes the time to appreciate their food before digging in. Although the restaurant has been offering the special for four years, a recent Facebook post featuring a receipt with the discount has gone viral, highlighting the practice. …

While in the vast majority of their constitutionally related writings the Founding Fathers were explicit that the judicial branch of government is effectively the weakest of the three, such is not the case with today’s modern misapplication. Americans currently live under what is, for all intents and purposes, a counter-constitutional judiciocracy led by nine unelected, black-robed autocrats. Over many decades, the other two branches of government, the legislative and the executive, have, for some inexplicable reason, acquiesced to the notion of judicial supremacy – a dangerously dominant concept that erroneously regards the United States Supreme Court as the final arbiter...

A New Jersey town canceled its ceremony celebrating new U.S. citizens after federal immigration officials would not allow the event to begin with a prayer. According to the Star-Ledger, Carteret Mayor Daniel Reiman had assured U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials that the prayer leading Saturday’s ceremony would be nondenominational. “They refused to budge on that,” Reiman said, the paper reported. The battle came just days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that local government meetings can include sectarian prayers.

The notion that something can simultaneously be wrong and constitutional really seems to bother a lot of people. Consider the Supreme Court’s recent decision on public prayer. In Greece v. Galloway the court ruled, 5–4, that the little town of Greece, N.Y., could have predominantly Christian clergy deliver prayers at the beginning of city-council meetings. As a constitutional matter, the majority’s decision seems like a no-brainer to me. The authors of the Constitution permitted — and required! — prayer at similar civic gatherings when they were writing the document and for years afterward, when many served as congressmen, senators,...

After the marshal on Monday spoke the traditional “God save the United States and this honorable court,” the Supreme Court ruled that the upstate New York town of Greece does not violate the First Amendment’s prohibition of “establishment of religion” by opening its board of supervisors’ meetings with a prayer. This ruling would not scandalize James Madison and other members of the First Congress, which drafted and sent to the states for ratification the First Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights. The Congress did this after hiring a chaplain. Three decades have passed since the court last...

Ever since the Supreme Court ruled organized prayer and Bible study in public schools unconstitutional in the early 1960s, conservative Christians have been trying to re-enter the secular arena. Take Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). The case, The New York Times wrote last year, "...challenged a 1968 Pennsylvania law that reimbursed religious schools for some expenses, including teachers' salaries and textbooks, so long as they related to instruction on secular subjects also taught in the public schools. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger ... said the law violated the First Amendment's prohibition of government establishment of religion. The ruling set out what...

It's not just the American economy that has a deficit problem but American law. Call it a deficit of common sense. Here's the latest, irritating and all too common example of this recurrent problem, even plague. According to an appellate court up in New York state, prayers offered by private citizens at the invitation of a town council in Greece, N.Y., represent an unconstitutional establishment of religion. Why, for Heaven's sake? According to that court's "reasoning," the municipal government violated the First Amendment, which both (a) guarantees freedom of religion and (b) forbids government to establish one. Which is...

The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case examining whether sectarian prayer should be allowed at government meetings. The Supreme Court began the day’s session with its traditional opening, “God save the United States and this honorable court.” The irony of the high court hearing a public prayer complaint after its own mention of God was not lost on the justices. Atheists sued the town of Greece, N.Y. for its practice of opening its town council meetings with mostly Christian prayers, and asking everyone to rise for those prayers. A federal appeals court sided with the...

Washington D.C., Nov 7, 2013 / 04:11 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A case before the U.S. Supreme Court is considering the ability of a town in New York to open meetings with prayer, and could have broader implications for religious identity in government settings. “Community members should have the freedom to pray without being censored,” said David Cortman, senior counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom, which is defending the town of Greece, N.Y. “Opening meetings with prayer is a cherished freedom that the authors of the Constitution practiced,” he explained in a press release. “Americans shouldn’t be forced to forfeit this freedom...

he Supreme Court will hear arguments this week about prayers in public life, this latest deliberation revolving around a case from Greece, N.Y., and the recitation of prayers during town board meetings. The board used to begin each of its meetings with a moment of silence. When that moment of silence was replaced by spoken prayers, they turned out to be overwhelmingly Christian, and a suit was filed. Last year a federal appeals court ruled, according to The Washington Post, "...that such a 'steady drumbeat' of Christian invocations violates the Constitution's prohibition against government endorsement of religion." The Court, not...

The United States Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether or not the sectarian prayers offered at a New York town's meetings are constitutional. The highest court in the land will hear an appeal from a lower court decision regarding Greece, N.Y.'s practice of having explicitly Christian prayers open town meetings. Known as Galloway v. Town of Greece, the lawsuit was filed by two residents of Greece who felt the sectarian prayers made them feel excluded from the public affairs of the town. Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens, the two plaintiffs, are being represented by the Washington, D.C.-based group...

It's not my habit to pray over meals but I might just do it if I knew a DUmmie was nearby. Why? Because it annoys the hell out of them as you can see in this THREAD, "I hate when people pray over their food aloud in public." And I LOVE it when DUmmies are annoyed. So let us now watch the DUmmies vent their annoyance over public prayer before meals in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, who now remembers quickly voicing thanks recently to Divine Providence for making 3 packages of pre-cooked bacon available...

Giving to the Needy--- Matthew chapter 6: 1 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4...

The woman who successfully sued to have a Bible removed from a Harris County courthouse display is now suing to stop city council from opening meetings with prayers that she believes are too Christian. Kay Staley, a real estate agent and lawyer, argues religion and prayer are private matters that don't belong in government. She sued the city and Councilmember Anne Clutterbuck, saying the council's prayers are so overly Christian they violate the First Amendment separation of church and state. Clutterbuck was singled out for saying the Lord's Prayer. ...(Staley) argues the prayers are coercive to others who won't speak...

The judges on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have used a case from Cobb County, Ga., to proclaim that praying "in Jesus' name" is acceptable at county board meetings when other constitutional provisions are followed.

'Jesus Christ' not welcome at public meetingsJewish group claims any reference at government meetings 'unconstitutional'Any reference to "Jesus Christ" during a prayer at a government meeting is "unconstitutional." That's the opinion of the Jewish defense group the Anti Defamation League which is urging a Florida community to adopt a policy banning sectarian prayers making reference to any specific deities."If invocations are done, they have to be, according to (a 1983) Supreme Court decision, such that they do not advance any particular faith or belief," ADL spokesman Andrew Rosenkranz told the Palm Beach Post. "The reason being, you try and make...