Free Republic

The same California Supreme Court that created a "right" to homosexual "marriage" earlier this year has now ruled that the state may force healthcare professionals to provide services that support an immoral and physically dangerous lifestyle. California's highest court was unanimous in its decision on Monday that Christian doctors may not refuse to perform artificial insemination for homosexual patients. (See "California court says no religious exemption for doctors") Attorney Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), reacts to the ruling. "This is a clear violation of the fundamental rights of individuals to live and practice their faith," he...

Pope Benedict Tells China: Open Up To Christianity By DANIELA PETROFF Associated Press Writer OIES, Italy -- Pope Benedict XVI urged China Tuesday to open up to Christianity as he visited the birthplace of a 19th century saint who died as a missionary there 100 years ago. China's officially atheistic Communist Party forced Chinese Catholics to cut ties with the Vatican in 1951, and the two sides have not restored formal relations. Many of the country's estimated 12 million Catholics worship in congregations outside the state-approved church and often are arrested or harassed. "It is important for this great country...

A new 5-year contract between workers and the Tyson Foods poultry processing plant in Shelbyville, Tenn. has been negotiated in which the American holiday Labor Day has been eliminated as an official holiday to be replaced by the Muslim holy day Eid al-Fitr According to a news release from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, a new 5-year contract at the plant included the change to accommodate the hundreds of Somali Muslims who work at the plant . Eid al-Fitr falls on Oct. 1 this year and marks the end of Ramadan. Every American should be outraged. First of...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will introduce a measure Wednesday establishing a federal task force on polygamy and offering help to those trying to escape polygamous communities. The bill, if passed, would set the stage for likely the largest orchestrated crackdown on polygamy in a century. Ahead of the first congressional hearing focused on polygamy since the 1950s, Reid, a Mormon convert from Nevada, will introduce the Victims of Polygamy Assistance Act. It would set up a collaborative effort between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to combat "broad patterns" of polygamy-related crimes. The bill also would create grants...

Collision might be due to growth in municipalities not accustomed to lifestyle Among the 600,000-plus hunters heading out for last year’s gun-deer season were three Clark County brothers who were cited for not wearing blaze orange — clothing, they said, that was against their Amish religion. Members of the religious sect noted for their black felt hats, dark trousers, long dresses and bonnets are barred from wearing bright clothing. But a Clark County judge ruled last month that there’s nothing in the Amish religion that compels them to hunt deer. So each brother was fined $143.10. It was the latest...

As California Goes...? by: Emily Miller, July 18, 2008 The same-sex marriage debate proved to be a politically divisive issue in the 2004 election, and once again the subject dominates the national political landscape during an election year. Yet one aspect of the gay marriage debate remains largely ignored: if and how same-sex marriage threatens religious liberties and the free exercise clause of the First amendment. Lawyers convened last week at the Family Research Council to discuss the emerging conflict between same-sex marriage and religious liberty, and noticed an increase in the number of cases filed against religious institutions charged...

A federal appeals court in Chicago has ruled that fair-housing laws do not extend to permitting a Jewish resident to nail a mezuzah to a door frame, prompting an outcry from the Jewish community. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling on Thursday (July 10), decided the federal Fair Housing Act does not accommodate a resident’s religious requirement to affix the Jewish emblem to a doorway, if the ban on hallway displays applies to everyone regardless of religious beliefs. The case stems from the condominium association at Shoreline Towers, a Chicago housing complex, enforcing a rule...

"We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately." — Benjamin Franklin.Imagine your city council enacts controversial legislation with no public notice despite city employees telling concerned citizens that before any action was taken, they'd read about it in the paper. Imagine that your city continues to refuse to hold a public hearing despite the uproar and you sue. The judge not only finds against you, but orders you to pay $10,000 in legal fees. Your city tries to thwart your every effort to get your issue on the ballot, using a long and frivolous legal battle...

- Snip- Evidence from previous and pending cases indicates that the court tends to take an extremely narrow view of people's "free exercise and enjoyment of religion" when they clash with another group's need for equal protection. This would seem particularly true following the In re Marriage Cases ruling, in which the majority equated the ban on same-sex marriage to the now discredited (and unconstitutional) ban on interracial marriages. Religious liberty claims rarely, if ever, have prevailed in the face of complaints about racial discrimination. Conflicts about the rights of gays and those of religious believers demonstrate that these are...

Screwtape toasts the Commission My dear Luciwa, While I hope you will continue to consider me your uncle, I note you have broken up with my incompetent nephew Wormwood. Our family never understood what you saw with the lazy oaf; we always knew you were capable of much worse. And worse you have! Your cunning has sharpened since leaving the isle for its scion between the seas. The breakup and the change in scenery have obviously renewed your vigor as a temptress. Particularly noteworthy are the new commissions and tribunals you have concocted as head of The Republican Underworld Defense’s...

They say we are tired of culture wars. Tell that to the California Supreme Court, which didn't sound tired at all when it lobbed a big, fat hand grenade into the marriage debate. Ideas have consequences. And the California court endorsed two big, brand-new, very bad ideas. The first idea is that the internationally recognized human right to marry includes same-sex marriage. In U.S. constitutional law, fundamental human rights are those deeply rooted in our traditions. Not even in Massachussetts or in New Jersey could the courts quite stomach the idea that same-sex marriage is deeply rooted in those traditions....

NEW YORK — Six Bahá’í leaders in Iran were arrested and taken to the notorious Evin prison yesterday in a sweep that is ominously similar to episodes in the 1980s when scores of Iranian Bahá’í leaders were summarily rounded up and killed. The six men and women, all members of the national-level group that helped see to the minimum needs of Bahá’ís in Iran, were in their homes Wednesday morning when government intelligence agents entered and spent up to five hours searching each home, before taking them away.The seventh member of the national coordinating group was arrested in early March...

Iran Violates Religious Freedoms Iran is designated by the U.S. State Department as among the world’s top violators of religious freedom. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is an independent body that does not speak for the U.S. government. But it is required by Congress to report to the U.S. Secretary of State every year on governments that abuse the religious liberty of their people. Consistent with the annual State Department report on Religious Freedom, the recent Commission report says that the regime in Tehran "engages in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, including prolonged detention, torture...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain vowed in a speech on Wednesday to make freedom of religion a key foreign policy issue if he is elected to the White House in November. "There is no right more fundamental to a free society than the free practice of religion," he said at Oakland University in the state of Michigan. "Behind walls of prisons and persecuted before our very eyes in places like China, Iran, Burma, Sudan, North Korea and Saudi Arabia are tens of thousands of people whose only crime is to worship God in their own way."...

Leave Us Alone by: Bethany Stotts, May 01, 2008 Several Muslim scholars argued at a recent Georgetown University conference on religious freedom that the best way for America to encourage Islamic religious freedom is to stay out of the discussion. “In general, the western unilateral insistence on the universal adoption of it’s understanding of religious freedom—that is the result of uniquely western historic...experiences—could be counterproductive, and often reminiscent of Western colonial bullying in the recent past,” argued Notre Dame University Professor Asma Afsaruddin (emphasis original). Similarly, the two other scholars, Radwan Masmoudi and Abdolkarim Soroush, argued that U.S. efforts in...

This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows. In 1774, a young James Madison, while traveling through Culpeper County in Virginia – well before he became our fourth president – passed by a jail where a number of Baptist preachers had been incarcerated for nothing more than preaching without an official government license. One of these "criminals" preached from a window of the jail to any who would listen. Madison would never forget the dedication of those brave preachers – nor the audacity of the officials who had jailed them.

The Story of a Convert from Islam – Baptized by the Pope at St. Peter's His name is Magdi Cristiano Allam. For five years he has lived under guard, threatened with death. But his baptism has raised harsh criticism, against him and against Benedict XVI. The complete text of the accusation written by Aref Ali Nayed, architect of the letter of the 138 by Sandro Magister ROMA, March 28, 2008 – Three days earlier, in an audio message released over the internet, Osama bin Laden had accused "the pope of the Vatican" of having "a significant role" in fighting a...

Responsible fathers needed, mayor says   Nat Roberts, 12, waits for the start of a parade kicking off the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom Celebration. Members of the Knights of Columbus join in prayer during the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom Anniversary Celebration at the Monument for Religious Freedom along Washington Avenue yesterday. Knights of Columbus members, framed by American flags, arrive at the Monument of Religious Freedom.    Tomzak calls on churches to promote responsible fatherhood at religious freedom event At the ceremony yesterday to mark the 231st anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's religious freedom statute, Fredericksburg Mayor Tom Tomzak...

FORT WORTH, Texas, Jan 3. -- Just before New Year's Eve, a Fort Worth mother was kicked off the public bus for reading the Bible aloud to her children on the way to church. "What kind of person pulls over public transportation and kicks out a mother and her children for reading their Bible on the way to church?" said Kelly Shackelford, Chief Counsel for Liberty Legal Institute, the legal organization representing Christine Lutz. "Freedom of religion exists on public transportation just like anywhere else." Christine Lutz was reading the Bible to her children while on the way to church...

BOSTON, December 9, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a shocking turn-around, Massachusetts’s governor Mitt Romney announced yesterday that Roman Catholic and other private hospitals in the state will be forced to offer emergency contraception to sexual assault victims under new state legislation, regardless of the hospitals’ moral position on the issue. The Republican governor had earlier defended the right of hospitals to avoid dispensing the “morning-after pill” on the grounds of moral dissent. The Boston Globe reported that Romney’s flip on the issue came after his legal counsel, Mark D. Nielsen, concluded Wednesday that the new law supersedes a preexisting statute...

“Laces 4 Love” is a not for profit charitable organization that has been providing shoes and socks to poor kids during the Holidays. Barry Lynn and "Americans United" tried to stop them.

It is often thought that religious liberty means a strict separation of church and state, but that view is out of tune with the proper understanding of the role religion and morality play in the civic and public life of a self-governing people. A more compelling model is that of America's Founders, who advanced religious liberty in a way that would uphold religion and morality as indispensable supports of good habits, the firmest props of the duties of citizens, and the great pillars of human happiness.Origins of Religious LibertyThe story of religious liberty in America begins with religious persecution in...

An official from Sudan says that Westerners going to live in Sudan should have to pass an exam on the local culture ... in other words, be indoctrinated on the Islamic ways of life. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7127128.stm Khalid al Mubarak works at London's Sudan embassy. He says that courses were mandatory in the colonial era and they "worked very well." He says a two-week course could help avoid accidental insults ... like naming a teddy bear after the prophet Muhammad. The courses would be run through government colleges and "should consist of educating somebody of what is acceptable and what is not...

Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times An art handler at the Queens Public Library cleaned the display case Tuesday where the Flushing Remonstrance will be shown. The Flushing Remonstrance made a rare visit yesterday to the old neighborhood. ...the] Remonstrance...an important early recorded defense of the freedom to worship that has been called the religious Magna Carta of the New World. Relatively little known, this 1657 appeal by some 30 Flushing farmers for freedom to practice their Quaker religion goes on display... snip... According to historians, a group of about 30 freeholders in Flushing, which was then called Vlissingen,...

Grandmother of Dennis Lindberg holds boy's guardian responsible.Grandmother tried to intervene on boy's behalf.

14-year-old Dennis Lindberg dies just hours after a Skagit County judge uphold the youth's right to refuse a blood transfusion because of his religious convections

LINCOLN, Neb. — A Christian student group's latest attempt to show middle school students how fun the group could be was too much for school administrators to swallow. snip

There are those who would like to tell you that no religion is civilized, but these tend to be people whose ignorance of history is so profound as to appear deliberate. Human beings sometimes do terrible things, and when they do, they invariably find reasons to invoke their belief system, whatever it is, to excuse their bad behavior. Thus Communists have committed their barbarities in the name of "the good of the people," just as Christians and Muslims and practically everybody else, when they decided certain people needed killing or oppressing, found a way to excuse themselves in the name...

As you read this, Ayaan Hirsi Ali sits in a safe house with armed men guarding her door. She is one of the most poised, intelligent and compassionate advocates of freedom of speech and conscience alive today, and for this she is despised in Muslim communities throughout the world. The details of her story have been widely reported, but bear repeating, as they illustrate how poorly equipped we are to deal with the threat of Muslim extremism in the West. Hirsi Ali first fled to the Netherlands as a refugee from Somalia in 1992 after declining to submit to a...

Toronto Catholic School Board Bows to Secularism Commentary on inclusion of "sexual orientation" in Board's Workplace Harassment policy By Fr. Alphonse de Valk, editor Catholic Insight magazineFrom Oct. 2007 edition of Catholic Insight TORONTO, October 4, 2007 (catholicinsight.com) - Just before Catholic Insight went to press with its September edition, on August 15 we learned that in May 2007, the Toronto District Catholic School Board (TCDSB), in its document Workplace Harassment, had moved to prohibit all teachers and staff from complaining or objecting to "same-sex partner status." It turns out that two other unacceptable prohibitions had previously been imposed already;...

US Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Appeal on Forced Contraception Coverage For Catholic Agencies Agencies fear they will be forced to subsidize abortion next By Hilary White WASHINGTON, DC, October 3, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled that it would not hear an appeal to a New York court ruling upholding a state law that forces religious-based social service agencies to subsidize artificial contraceptives as part of employee drug plans. Catholic Charities of New York was joined by other religious groups in a suit arguing that New York's Women's Health and Wellness Act of 2002 violates...

U.S. Christian Camp Loses Tax-Exempt Status over Same-Sex Civil-Union Ceremony By John Jalsevac OCEAN GROVE, N.J., September 19, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced on Monday that it was stripping the Methodist Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association of its tax-exempt status for part of its property. The Methodist camp made the news earlier this year after it refused, for religious reasons, to allow a lesbian couple to hold a "civil-union" ceremony at a pavilion on the camp's property. The pavilion, said Scott Hoffman, the camp's chief administrative officer to LifeSiteNews, "is a facility we...

New Study Finds Christian Counseling Effectively Assists Leaving Homosexual Life-Style Study also finds leaving the lifestyle not psychologically harmful By Meg Jalsevac NASHVILLE, September 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new study, entitled the Exodus Project and conducted by two psychologists, has determined that, through "religiously mediated means", it is possible for homosexual individuals to leave their old lifestyle and embrace the heterosexual lifestyle.  The study also determined that, contrary to mainstream scientific thought, the effort to change one's inclinations away from homosexuality does not appear to be psychologically problematic. In the words of the authors themselves, "The study is the...

Savannah State Censorship by: Tony Perkins, September 11, 2007 While schools like the University of Michigan are actually paying for the installation of Muslim footbaths, Christians on other campuses are being persecuted for following Jesus’ example of washing the feet of others. At Savannah State University, a student group called Commissioned II Love was expelled last year as an official organization for “practices that are not unlike [that] of a cult.” The action came after other students complained that the group’s off-campus foot-washing and baptism ceremonies were akin to “hazing.” Commissioned’s members have since sued, and the group’s case seems...

Now I'm not a supporter of Mitt Romney, however I do think he deserves an equal chance to be elected President without being discriminated against. I would want Mitt to lose perhaps to Fred Thompson or Rudi, but Mitt should be given the chance to lose fairly, not by unfairly targetting his religion. Hindu, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim (i.e., Wafa Sultan is an example of a Muslim woman braver than any of us in the War on Terror), etc. Give each man or woman a fair chance as individuals... that's what the US consistution and this forum is all about. I...

Among many parents at Rosemeade Elementary, he is viewed as a nuisance. But David Wallace Croft says he is fighting against the influence of "Judeo-Christian monotheism." He defines himself as an atheist, an "optihumanist" and a Libertarian. Over the past several years, he has fought any signs of religion at the Carrollton school his three children attend. He complained about Boy Scout rallies held during school, fliers sent home about Good News Bible Club meetings and the inclusion of "Silent Night" and a Hanukkah song in holiday concerts. The rallies and fliers stopped, and in some cases the songs were...

The Office of Management and Budget within the White House released a statement of opposition to the "hate crimes" bill known as H.R. 1592 on the same day the proposal was approved by the House of Representatives (May 3rd). The announcement criticized the measure, describing it as "unnecessary and constitutionally questionable." Some have interpreted the statement as a promise to veto the bill coming from the President himself. However, that assessment may be premature, since neither the President nor any of his spokesmen have said what he will do if a "hate crimes" proposal reaches his desk.The statement, which was...

FOREST, VA - The leader of a national pro-family organization is accusing a U.S. Senator of jeopardizing the welfare of American soldiers in an underhanded attempt to have "sexual orientation" added to the list of federally-protected hate crimes categories. Family Policy Network (FPN) President Joe Glover described Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy's decision to add a controversial "hate crimes proposal to a military spending bill as "reckless" and "possibly treasonous" in an email to the group's supporters in all 50 states. Kennedy's amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act is described by Glover as "a shockingly manipulative attempt to force the...

Stephen Mansfield explains how the "Everson" decison got it wrong and mis-represents the intent of the Founding Fathers, even of Thomas Jefferson himself.

Now praying gets 7 Christians arrested Cops call holding Bibles while lying prostrate 'disturbing peace' By Bob Unruh © 2007 WorldNetDaily.com Christians have been arrested recently at "gay" festivals for nothing more than having a protest sign that is "wider than their torso," but now police have gone even further, targeting Bible-carrying ministers for praying on public property and for standing on a public sidewalk near a "gay" festival. One of the new cases comes from Elmira, N.Y., where police arrested seven Christians who went into a public park where a "gay" fest was beginning and started to pray, faces...

The LifeSiteNews.com story published Tuesday on the jailing of Pastor Lerle in Germany has been retracted after LifeSiteNews.com was informed that we were working with false information. While Pastor Lerle has in the past been jailed for anti-abortion activities his current one year imprisonment stemmed solely from holocaust denial and not from comparing abortion to the Nazi holocaust as we erroneously reported Tuesday. My sincere apologies for this serious error. John-Henry Westen Editor LifeSiteNews.com

A city court in Erlangen, Bavaria gave Lutheran Pastor Johannes Lerle a one year jail sentence for the "crime" of comparing abortion to the Nazi holocaust. In response, Jim Hughes, Vice-President of International Right to Life Federation has called on pro-life activists internationally to take action on the matter by contacting German authorities to demand freedom of speech and freedom of religion for the pastor (see contact information below the story). Pastor Johannes Lerle compared the annual murder of 150,000 babies through abortion in Germany to the murder of thousands of innocent Jews in Auschwitz. The court, which consisted of...

Germany has barred the makers of a movie about a plot to kill Adolf Hitler from filming at German military sites because its star Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, the Defense Ministry said on Monday. Cruise, also one of the film's producers, is a member of the Church of Scientology which the German government does not recognize as a church. Berlin says it masquerades as a religion to make money, a charge Scientology leaders reject.

Selena Fox, a Wiccan priestess and founder of Circle Sanctuary, arranges flowers May 20 in Barneveld around a new grave maker with the Wiccan pentacle for Nevada National Guard Sgt. Patrick Stewart who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005. A rather big deal has been made about the fact that on Memorial Day, the graves of military veterans who embraced Wicca, the nature-based religion founded on respect for the Earth, nature and the cycle of the seasons, were dedicated with government-issued markers etched with a symbol of their religion: the Wiccan pentacle. Certainly the Wiccans, whose legal fight finally forced...

Mr. STEARNS. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I come to the House floor as a result of a town meeting I had in my congressional district in which I heard from the Harvest Christian Church. It goes to the point that the United States and India , as all of us know, are the world's two largest democracies. However, although the Indian National Government guarantees religious freedom, in many of the provinces, oppression and persecution still exist. I want to bring that to my colleagues' attention this morning. Harvest Christian Church in my home district has worked closely with many church...

DR. KIM R. HOLMES: It is an honor to be here with all of you this morning to introduce today's spe­cial guest and speaker, who will deliver the third of the Margaret Thatcher Freedom Lectures. These lectures are part of a series that we kicked off last year, the purpose of which was to bring greater clarity and attention to the values, principles, and pol­icies that undergird freedom. The first lecture was given by Natan Sharansky, who explored a question at the heart of the debate on the future of the Middle East, "Is Freedom for Every­one?" He looked mainly...

When James Madison agitated to make religious freedom fundamental to the United States Constitution, it was not from hostility to religion. It was from hostility to established religion, with its presumption of an authority in worldly affairs that only an elected government should exercise. James Madison (1751-1836) The first freedom listed in the Bill of Rights tells us that Congress shall "make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" — a rule that is just as important in its second half as in its first.  However, the free exercise of religion involves living by...

04/24/07 Massive Arrest of Chinese and American Christian Leaders in Xinjiang Article Photos China Aid Association Press Release 04/24/07 Tel: (432) 689-6985 Fax: (432) 686-8355 Contact: Bob Fu info@ChinaAid.org www.ChinaAid.org www.monitorChina.org Midland, TX (CAA)-April 24, 2007 Massive Arrest of Chinese and American Christian Leaders in Xinjiang CAA has learned though credible sources that on April 19, 2007 in Akesu city, Xinjiang province, about 30 major house church leaders were arrested when they met with four American Christians Among two American are a senior pastor and an associate pastor of an American church. Sources tell CAA that the four Americans arrived...

St. Paul schools sued over religious flier ban http://www.wctrib.com/ap/index.cfm?page=view&id=D8OF4OO80 The Associated Press - Thursday, April 12, 2007 ST. PAUL An evangelical group has sued St. Paul schools to overturn its ban on religious fliers, contending that the First Amendment gives it the same right as Boy Scout troops and Little League teams that distribute recruitment material at schools. While administrators acknowledge the district's ban on materials of a sectarian nature, a school lawyer said the district's opposition to the St. Paul Area Evangelicals' flier is that it asks parents to take their children out of class each week. The evangelical...

A religious group criticized by H Street residents for amplifying their street-corner preaching says members are within their legal rights but would welcome a compromise with neighbors and city officials. "We've kept the law, we've obeyed the rules of Washington D.C., and we've exercised our religious freedom," said Yahanna, a regional director for the Israelite School of Universal Practical Knowledge. "If that creates a problem for someone that would like to work with us, we're more than happy to work with them." Residents near the corner of Eighth and H streets in Northeast say the preaching, often diatribes on race...