Free Republic

Informing Christians and confronting the culture on the important moral issues of the day Federal Court Rejects “Separation of Church and State”Conservative group leaders hail unanimous decision Tuesday News Contacts: Gary Glenn, President - AFA of Michigan: (989) 835-7978 Joe Glover, President - Family Policy Network: (202) 470-5095, extension 456 Ron Shank, Director - FPN of Tennessee: (615) 866-5242, extension 2 Mat Staver, President and General Counsel - Liberty Counsel: (407) 875-2100 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals: “The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state.” (CINCINNATI - 12/20/05) — In an astounding...

Subject: Laus Deo Laus Deo I thought that you and others may like to see this. One detail that is not mentioned in Washington, DC, is that there can never be a building of greater height than the Washington Monument. With all the uproar about removing the ten commandments, etc... This is worth a moment or two of your time. I was not aware of this historical information. On the aluminum cap, atop the Washington Monument in Washington DC, are displayed two words: Laus Deo. No one can see these words. In fact, most visitors to the monument are totally...

Values group hails unanimous decision Tuesday CINCINNATI -- In an astounding return to judicial interpretation of the actual text of the United States Constitution, a unanimous panel of the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Tuesday issued an historic decision declaring that "the First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state." In upholding a Kentucky county's right to display the Ten Commandments, the panel called the American Civil Liberties Union's repeated claims to the contrary "extra-constitutional" and "tiresome." See Cincinnat Enquirer at: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051221/NEWS01/512210356/1056 See U.S. Court of Appeals decision, page 13: http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/05a0477p-06.pdf "Patriotic Americans should...

A U.S. appeals court today upheld the decision of a lower court in allowing the inclusion of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse display, hammering the American Civil Liberties Union and declaring, "The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state." Article

Court Allows Church to Rent Space in Public Schools Saturday, Nov. 26, 2005 Posted: 12:11:25PM EST Religious groups may rent spaces in public schools for meetings just as other organizations can, a federal judge ruled recently. The decision by Judge Loretta Preska of the Federal District Court in Manhattan, N.Y., allows the evangelical Bronx Household of Faith church to rent space in a public school for four hours every Sunday. “The government may not treat activities that are similar to those previously permitted as different in kind just because the subject activities are conducted from a religious perspective," Preska wrote...

Though abortion has dominated the early politicking over Samuel Alito's Supreme Court nomination, another hot-button issue - religion - has cheered conservatives and worried liberals. In his 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rulings, Alito has shown a deference toward religious interests that some liberal groups think has allowed unwarranted government support for faith. Supporters portray him as a champion for the right to religious expression under the Constitution. Oddly, both sides in the debate say they're defending religious liberty. The Alliance for Justice says that as a federal appeals judge, Alito has "tried to weaken church-state separation." Meanwhile, Bruce...

On the Tuesday evening edition (11/08/2005) of the Colbert Report I was surprised to see a normally super-liberal and irreverent Stephen Colbert seriously challenge Catherine Crier when she lamented that our country would soon start to 'revert' to prayer in school, public display of nativity scenes and menorahs, etc...because of the likes of the Tom Delays and others on the Christian right. There is not transcript available but Colbert slammed her and Crier was really caught off guard. He basically stated that it was foolish to abandon our moral conscious for the 'public good' and what was wrong with a...

Council backs separation of church and state A majority of the state Church Council is willing to separate church and state, but want the church to maintain a privileged position among religious communities in Norway. The Council wants this to be rooted in a Church Act, Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reports. The new 'red-green' left-center government has been unable to agree on the future organization of the Norwegian state church and in their government platform, the Soria Moria Declaration, decided to leave this stance until the Council had reached its own conclusion. A survey commissioned by Centennial Norway 2005 this spring...

EDITORIAL: Fuelling the separatists' fire According to Jean Chretien, today is the day that inspired him to come up with the federal sponsorship program, otherwise known as AdScam. After all, the former prime minister has always insisted that it was the narrow defeat of the separatists exactly 10 years ago today in the second Quebec referendum that prompted him to develop the sponsorship program. His brilliant idea? To fly the Canadian flag and display the Canadian logo prominently in Quebec in order to help keep Canada united. And we all know how that turned out. On Tuesday, Judge John Gomery...

New deal needed to put unity issue to rest once and for all Divided we fall Calgary Sun October 30, 2005 One decade ago today Canadians coast-to-coast watched a cliffhanger vote on the fate of our country unfurl as Quebec separatists lost their bid for independence by just 1.2% of the vote. The nail-biting tally — 50.6% to 49.4% — shook our nation to the core. It also embittered Parti Quebecois Premier Jacques Parizeau’s supporters who came so close to fulfilling their dream to split from Canada. There were reports that had the PQ won by even the slightest margin...

he attack on a Buddhist temple and murder of a monk and two temple boys has pushed the government's patience to the limit and there are scores to be settled with the insurgents, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said yesterday. The security forces had been too laid-back and would have to shape up. A review of tactics used against the insurgents was being finalised and a new phase of suppression would begin before the end of this month. The killings at Wat Phromprasit were more than anyone could bear. Until Sunday, Buddhist monasteries, being places of reverence, had been off limits...

Better with coke Why Quebecers love their gay, drug-snorting PQ leadership hopeful BENOIT AUBIN He's got the looks of a matinee idol, a grin that could melt icebergs, and, at 39, in a political formation made up mostly of white-haired veterans, André Boisclair still passes for young. So what better than a little political striptease to sex up his campaign for the Parti Québécois leadership even more? At the onset, he admitted he is gay, and "proud of living in such a tolerant society." Two weeks ago, he went on Tout le monde en parle, the province's hippest talkshow, and...

Fort Smith (Arkansas) Police are investigating a case of domestic assault that severed a man's genitals, and landed his estranged wife behind bars. Police say the attack happened Sunday night just around 5:00 p.m. They say the couple have been separated for months, but were meeting to talk things over. Police say what happened next, is shocking and gruesome. The call came to 911. Dispatch took the information, “One of my best friends has been stabbed, there's blood running down, between his legs,” said the caller. And with the initial call, the initial thought, was a stab wound. But what...

Secession of the West: Is it time? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: September 3, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Alberta and Saskatchewan marked their 100th anniversary as Canadian provinces last Thursday, precisely two months after a poll found that 41 percent of Albertans and 31.9 percent of Saskatchewanites thought that "Western Canadians should begin to explore the idea of forming their own country." The results in the other two western provinces were lower – 30.8 percent in British Columbia and 27.5 percent in Manitoba – but all four figures nevertheless ran much higher than anything shown in previous polls on "western...

http://westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=928 A nation torn apart An exclusive Western Standard poll shows more than a third of westerners are thinking of separating from Canada. What’s dividing the country--and can anything be done to save it? Kevin Steel - August 22, 2005 It wasn’t just what the bumper sticker said, but where it was placed and what it was stuck on. The white rectangle that read, "One hundred years is long enough," followed by the website address, www.separationalberta.com, was high up in the rear window of a shiny new, high-end SUV driving through supposedly Liberal downtown Edmonton-- not on a dusty old...

Here's something that I posted a day or two ago on the forum site for my home-town newspaper, mainly to try to cause some strokes among the whacko lefties there: "OK, this is going to irritate a bunch of you I suspect. SGould [a leftie who admantly denies being one, and even denies being the person referred to in his listed email address :) ] is adamant that religion has no place in public discourse. I expect that view is generally agreed with by the liberal contingent here. Religion shouldn't be promulgated or exercised on public property, or in any...

On June 8, 2005, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited President Bush in the White House. Among the topics the two discussed were freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. Speaking from the Oval Office, Bush declared Turkey's democracy to be "an important example for the people of the broader Middle East."Turkey remains an important ally of the United States despite recent bilateral tensions over the Iraq war and its aftermath. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have valued Turkey not only as a strategic military partner in the Cold War but also, in recent decades, as a democratic outpost...

Saturday, July 30, 2005 Disengagement Begins Tomorrow Disengagement, as Prime Minister Sharon calls it, or unilateral separation, as former prime Minister Ehud Barak called it, or withdrawal, or whatever other term you like, begins in earnest tomorrow when settlers from Gush Katif will be moved to Nitzanim as part of Israel's pullout from Gaza. Interior Minister Ophir Pines (Labor) gushed about the preparations for the evacuees in Nitzanim, which are, in reality, double wide mobile homes. Let's be honest about disengagement: this is definitely what Prime Minister Sharon meant by "painful concessions", with an emphasis on the word "painful". It...

Being a rational thinker, it is often impossible to understand how Democrats can be so stupid. What exactly do the Democrats think is going to happen when they Balkanize America and invent categories for people so that no one is an American any longer but rather an "African-American" or an "Hispanic-American" or a woman or a homosexual whose allegiance shouldn't be to America but rather to the "cultural heritage" or the unique behavior that "defines" them? What do the Democrats think is going to happen when English is not the language of everyone but everyone is to speak their own...

Monday, July 25, 2005 Justifying the Fence: A Surprising Source The New York Times is often harshly critical of Israel. OK, not all the time. Much of their reporting is factual. Some, however, does seem to have a bias. Today, however, there was a truly excellent article titled In Most Cases, Israel Thwarts Suicide Attacks Without a Shot. Yes, there are successful attacks, most recently on July 12 in Netanya. To quote a relevant point: Israel is also building a separation barrier - an electronic fence and in some places a huge concrete wall - to make it harder for...