Free Republic

Governor Mitt Romney's political team has quietly consulted with leaders of the Mormon Church to map out plans for a nationwide network of Mormon supporters to help Romney capture the presidency in 2008, according to interviews and written materials reflecting plans for the initiative. -SNIP-- Church officials say they have a position of strict neutrality on political matters and are not supporting Romney's candidacy. Federal restrictionsBoth the church and BYU, as tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations, are prohibited by federal law from advocating on behalf of a particular candidate or political party. -

In yet another stunning attack on freedom of religion, President Barack Obama's Justice Department asked the Supreme Court last week to give the federal government the power to tell a church who its ministers will be. The case involves a former teacher at Lutheran school, who along with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is pushing a claim that a Lutheran congregation should be forced to restore her ministry position. Americans United for Separation of Church and State and American Atheists, Inc. have filed briefs siding with the Obama administration against the church. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Church...

For those interested in history and willing to dig a little, it’s not difficult to find proof that America’s heritage is not only Christian, but that our founders were profoundly Christian in their beliefs. The proof is in their personal writings and in the documents they signed that formed the basis for how we, as a nation, are governed. I came across a very interesting podcast recently. It was actually something that aired on Focus on the Family’s daily radio program June 30 and July 1 in advance of America’s Independence Day holiday, which for 150 years was actually a...

The Supreme Court is brushing aside an atheist's challenge to religion in government, refusing to hear a complaint about President Barack Obama adding "so help me God" to his inaugural oath of office. The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from Michael Newdow, who argued that government references to God are unconstitutional and infringe on his religious beliefs. Many presidents have added "so help me God" to the oath.

'National Democratic Party Germany' politician from Regensburg, W.W. [known to the editor of Kreuz.net, who's revealed himself Willi Wiener and authored a clarification for kreuz.net which follows further below, where he challenges the SSPX for using his conversion to support the CDU] has decided to leave the "far right" NDP Party which some consider fascist, because he feels it conflicts with his Catholic\Faith. This story underlines a certain tension going on within the Society regarding ways and means about how much to participate in politics. Mr. Wiener hasn't said the Church has no role to play in politics, but he's...

Hillary Clinton and Obozo are using YOUR taxes -- actually your grandchildrens' water-cooled, over limit CREDIT CARD -- to rebuild MOSQUES in the Middle East to "build good-will with the muzzies (who, in case the State Department didn't get the memo, call us the "Great Satan"). I guess some morons in Foggy Bottom -- and it's nearly impossible to find a NON-MORON down there -- still think we can BUY "FRIENDS" among these people. The video here tells the story: http://www.wsbtv.com/video/25764282/index.htmlCan you imagine the hell the ACLU would be raising if the out of control fedzilla were sending dough to...

A federal judge that oversees central Illinois threw out an atheist’s lawsuit that demanded the return of a $20,000 state grant used towards restoring a giant 111-foot cross. U.S. District Court Judge Michael McCuskey rejected on Tuesday plaintiff Rob Sherman’s argument that the grant was unconstitutional because it was taken from $5 million designated for the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. The grant, unlike Sherman’s allegation, was found to be made at the discretion of the Illinois’ executive branch and was not a legislative “earmark” as the atheist activist asserted. Sherman had filed the lawsuit last August against...

Editor: While remaining ambivalent to the nature of the Church and the State, the Holy Father restates the importance of the State in maintaining the moral order. Religion may not be merely limited as the participant in culture. Rom (kath.net/as) This Thursday morning Pope Benedict invited the new ambassador of the Republic of Austria to the Holy See, Alfons M. Kloss, for the handing over of qualifications, with which this extraordinary and appointed emissary was accredited. In his address Benedict XVI. called Austria the "Land of Cathedrals", that in its culture, its history and not least in everyday life, the...

Freethinkers have complained-- Now there are fears that the example will make a school. Paris (kath.net/KAP) in the Northern French community of Montiers the Town Council has been forbiden by a judge to display a Crèche. The judge ruled for the plaintiff, who based his suit on the principle of the separation of Church and State against the display, as the regional paper "Courier Picard" reported this Tuesday. Commentators fear that this example could be a school for others like it. Claude Debay, retired teacher and former Mayor of the Community had already decided that the crib would not be...

Monday's federal appellate court hearing on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the California ballot measure that bars same-sex marriages, was divided into two one-hour segments. During the first hour, lawyers argued over who, if anyone, has legal "standing" to appeal District Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown, who will be governor in a month, refused to defend the measure. Attorneys for its proponents want the court to allow them to become the appellants. There's also a very odd bid by Imperial County, or at least its marriage license clerk,...

Benedict XVI to the New Ambassador from Hungary: Legislative initiatives which value alternative relationships and family models, will promote the relativization of legislation and awareness of values in society. Rome (kath.net/as)This morning Pope Benedict received in audience the new Ambassador of the Republic of Hungary to the Holy See, Gábor Győriványi. In his German address, the Holy Father recalled the reinstatement of diplomatic relations with the Holy See and the Hungarian Republic in 1990 and expresse the hope, "that the deep wounds of the materialistic conception of man, which after 45 long years years will strengthen and heal the heart...

President Barack Obama signed an executive order on November 17 outlining the allowable religious practices of faith-based social service organizations that receive federal funds. Such organizations will not be permitted to offer federally-funded social services in the same location in which “worship, religious instruction, or proselytization” takes place. Among the key points in the executive order: “Organizations, in providing services supported in whole or in part with Federal financial assistance, and in their outreach activities related to such services, should not be allowed to discriminate against current or prospective program beneficiaries on the basis of religion, a religious belief, a...

Politics is not the only place where some pretty brassy statements have been made and repeated so often that some people have accepted these brassy statements as being as good as gold. One of the brassiest of the brass oldies is the notion that the Constitution creates a “wall of separation” between church and state. This false notion has been so widely accepted that people who tell the truth get laughed at and mocked. A recent New York Times piece said that it was “a flub of the first order” when Christine O’Donnell, Republican candidate for senator in Delaware, asked...

The media are in a full-scale hyperventilation following Tuesday's separation of church and state comments by Delaware Republican senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell. As an Investor's Business Daily editorial points out, O'Donnell was right when questioned about this issue during a debate with Democrat candidate Chris Coons, and all the nattering nabobs of negativism filling the airwaves are wrong: There is, of course, no such passage. Those scoffing law scholars might want to look at the Constitution's unadorned text instead of the judicial activist law review articles that take up so much of their day. What the Constitution does say, in...

It’s not that I have anything against Mexico; love the country; love the people. It’s just that I would like to edge the state of Texas over the border and out of America. My issues with the Lone Star State, aside from the fact that it nurtured and launched the career of George Bush, is that the Texas school board has staged an intellectual coup d’état, voting in changes to the school curricula based on political and religious bias rather than educational criteria. In this case, the board is pushing an ultra-conservative, Christian agenda. But no religious or political agenda...

GREENWOOD, Ind. -- A central Indiana district isn't calling off a planned high school graduation prayer unless a federal judge orders it. Greenwood School Board president Joe Farley says the district wants the judge to decide the merits of a lawsuit filed by the school's top-ranked senior. Greenwood High School student Eric Workman is asking a federal judge to stop a student-led prayer that the senior class voted to approve. The lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on the 18-year-old's behalf claims that the prayer and class vote unconstitutionally subject students to religious practice.

Douglas Farrow writes about The Audacity of the State: . . . Christendom, of course, had already seen many princes who were determined to make the church do their bidding. But Henry, by writing his supremacy into the laws of the realm, inaugurated a new era. In that era, the ongoing process of subordinating religion to the demands of the state would outrun the monarchy as such, and the Church of England too. Not merely some, but all of the church’s authority over things public would gradually be expropriated, binding even the conscience—as the Act of Succession already did—to the...

Thomas Jefferson, The First Amendment and the separation of church and state - most are surprised to discover that neither the Constitution nor the First Amendment contain these words. The First Amendment simply states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The fact that the phrase “separation of church and state” appears in no founding document does not prevent many judicial and social activists from invoking that phrase as the basis for many public policy decisions. Today, Thomas Jefferson (author of that phrase) is portrayed as the authority on the First...

IRS Asked to Investigate Tax Status of Americans United for Separation of Church and State www.LC.org Today Liberty Counsel filed a complaint with the IRS, asking the agency to investigate the tax-exempt status of Americans United for Separation of Church and State ("AU"). Our complaint follows last week's letter by AU against Liberty University. AU has engaged in a consistent pattern of filing complaints against conservative churches and nonprofit organizations. Its statements are designed to intimidate, silence, and harm those with whom it disagrees. AU's activity is reckless because the group fails to investigate the accuracy of its statements when...

What would America look like after four years of an Obama administration? "Hardship," "persecution" and "suffering" are among the prospects in a hypothetical letter from a "Christian from 2012" released today by evangelical leader James Dobson's political activist group Focus on the Family Action. Titled "Letter from 2012 in Obama’s America," the piece clearly targets the many evangelical Christians seeking "change," particularly the young, who could tip the election in favor of the Illinois Democrat . At the end of the letter, the fictional Christian laments that these people "simply did not realize Obama's far-left agenda would take away many...