FOCA Under the Radar

Over at MereComments a fair warning on what we can look forward to for the next few years:

Local media doesn't seem to pick up on it much. With all the attention on The District and what The District dictates, and among pro-lifers what Obama's promised FOCA (Freedom of Choice Act), a local, that is, a state FOCA bill of our own in Illinois is being crafted. Not just one, but two sites have been established in opposition. As I see it, on the federal and local level, a multiplicity of new initiatives and bills will keep cultural conservatives so busy that much will be done "under the radar" while the major media reports the "regular" news.

UPDATED: Connecticut moving to regulate the Catholic Church?

An update by BeetleBlogger and belatedly posted here:

Connecticut Democrats are in full retreat as public gets wind of proposed bill—thousands descend on Capitol to protest

Let's hope and pray that more and more of the public becomes aware of the dangers facing all of us in this battle and continues to make it's voice heard...



Frightening events in Connecticut. I'm sure we will we see more and more of this type of thing unfortunately. H/T to Hot Air

According to the First Amendment and the Establishment Clause, the government has no business dictating to religious organizations how they should structure themselves. In Connecticut, though, some lawmakers seem to have skipped over the Constitution. A new bill will require Catholic parishes and dioceses — and only Catholics — to organize their parish leadership in a way that pleases the Connecticut legislature (via The Corner):
The Lawlor-and-McDonald-controlled Judiciary Committee has introduced Raised Bill 1098, a bill aimed specifically at the Catholic Church, which would remove the authority of the bishop and pastor over individual parishes and put a board of laymen in their place. You can read Rep. Lawlor’s defense of this bill, Bridgeport Bishop William Lori’s response and more here.
We need as big a turnout as possible for the public hearing on Wednesday, especially from non-Catholics. As Ben Franklin told the Founders while they were signing the Declaration of Independence, “either we hang together or we will all hang separately.” Legislators need to understand that this bill is an attack on everyone’s religious liberty

(more here)

Publisher accused of 'dechristianising' church encyclopedia

From the Guardian:

Academic publisher Blackwell has been accused of attempting to "dechristianise" the Encyclopedia of Christian Civilisation it was due to publish in order to make it politically correct.


The Encyclopedia's editor-in-chief, George Kurian, claims that under pressure from an anti-Christian lobby, Blackwell decided that entries in the four-volume book were "too Christian, too orthodox, too anti-secular and too anti-Muslim and not politically correct enough for being used in universities". Kurian also claims that the press wants to delete words including "Antichrist", "Virgin Birth", "Resurrection", "Evangelism" and "Beloved Disciple" from the book, as well as objecting to "historical references to the persecution and massacres of Christians by Muslims".

Elementary blots out 'In God We Trust'

From WND:

An elementary school in Tennessee, after successfully rebuffing an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit over religious expression on campus, has nonetheless ordered the words "God Bless the USA" and "In God We Trust" covered up on student-made posters in the hallway.
Administrators at Lakeview Elementary School in Mt. Juliet, Tenn., told parents that the posters, promoting the See You at the Pole student prayer event, mentioned "God" and are therefore precluded by school board policy and prohibited in the hallways as inappropriate.
Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance defending religious liberty, filed a lawsuit today on behalf of 10 parents and their children, seeking an injunction against banning private religious expression on student-made posters.
"Christian students shouldn't be censored for expressing their beliefs," said ADF Senior Counsel Nate Kellum in a statement. "It's ridiculous as well as unconstitutional to cover up these references to God and prayer – one of which is the national motto itself – on posters announcing a student-led activity."
Further, Kellum surmised, "School officials appear to be having an allergic reaction to the ACLU's long-term record of fear, intimidation, and disinformation, despite a previous court ruling at this very school that said students can observe these types of events on school property." ...(more)

Judge Bans 'Secondhand Jesus'

Always good reading at Creative Minority Report. Thank goodness for the judge saving us all from the dreaded "moment of silence." Pitiful.

Inauguration 2009: 'So Help Me God' At Risk

From the AmericanThinker some good (if somewhat disheartening) reading on the Establishment Clause (or what is left of it)

With the approach of the presidential inauguration, America's most notorious atheist, Michael Newdow, is back in the headlines. Once again, he and an assortment of other plaintiffs are challenging the long-standing addendum, "So help me God," to the presidential oath of office. The lawsuit, filed by the American Humanist Association on Dec. 30, also challenges as unconstitutional, the pending invocation and benediction prayers to be offered respectively by Pastor Rick Warren and Rev. Joseph E. Lowery at the swearing-in ceremony of President-select Barack Obama on Jan. 20....

...Many words may be used to describe Michael Newdow, but unintelligent is not one of them. It is likely that most Americans view lawsuits against the religious expressions of inaugurations as frivolous and without merit, invoking the same type of ire against those challenging the constitutionality of the Flag pledge and the national motto. Dr. Newdow, however, knows something that most Americans do not.
Newdow knows that the legal precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court is actually on his side. He knows also that when it comes to judging his complaints, the Court has not been intellectually honest in the application of its precedent. So, he keeps at it (in 2002, the 9th circuit federal appeals court applied precedent and agreed with him, ruling that the Flag pledge was unconstitutional)....

...The religion clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution merely prohibits the federal Congress from passing law to establish religion and/or to prevent the people from enjoying free exercise. Under the protection of the Constitution, the feds cannot, by force of law, make you or your State subscribe to a religion and cannot prevent you or your State from carrying out religious expression. In short, the First Amendment ensures that the federal government has no jurisdiction over the religious affairs of the states and the people.
Then came the 1947 case of Everson v. Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court scuffled with the Establishment Clause, turning it on its head and setting it against the very states it was meant to protect. (Jurists refer to that feat as the doctrine of incorporation through which the Court uses the 14th Amendment as a handy tool to apply the Bill of Rights against the states.) Ironically, the clause meant to limit the federal government was used by the federal government to expand its power. Holding the Establishment Clause upside down in a full nelson, the Court forced it to cry Uncle Sam by reading into it a previously unheard-of doctrine: The requirement of government - federal, state and local -- neutrality toward religion.
We have reached the point in which the historic purpose of the Establishment Clause is practically irrelevant....(more)

Enough with the Oogedy-Boogedy

From NRO:
Kathleen Parker’s war on religion in the Re-public-an square entered a new phase today. In her syndicated column, she nobly attempted to explain her use of the term “oogedy-boogedy” to describe religious conservatives. It’s not that she is “anti-God.” It’s just that God really shouldn’t be mentioned in polite company. Religion can inform our values (gee, thanks). But reason, not religion, should inform our public debates. I hadn’t realized religion and reason were mutually exclusive. It seems Pope Benedict hasn’t gotten the memo, either. As he said in his widely misunderstood Regensburg address in 2006:
In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world's profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. (more)

What Is the Separation of Church and State?

From TownHall:

...In the First Amendment we see the balance between the federal government’s role in protecting religious practice and not coercing it. The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which guarantees all Americans the freedom of speech, religion, press, petition and assembly, has this to say about religious practice: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
The federal government cannot mandate a religious practice, nor can they prohibit religious practice. Unfortunately, in the last few decades we have seen many judicial rulings that demonstrate a desire to uphold the establishment clause of the First Amendment at the expense of the free exercise clause. This is completely contrary to the purpose of the First Amendment and a violation of it as well.
The first major case that undermined the balance between the establishment clause and the free exercise clause occurred in 1947. In Everson vs. Board of Education the Supreme Court, led by Justice Hugo Black, an FDR appointee and member of the Ku Klux Klan, reinterpreted the meaning of the First Amendment of the Constitution. This decision set in motion an unconstitutional chain of events that has undermined our First Amendment liberties ever since.
Just what did Justice Black and the other FDR appointees to the Supreme Court do? They hijacked a phrase used by President Thomas Jefferson, “separation of church and state,” found in a letter he wrote to the Danville Baptist Association in Virginia (1802). Jefferson’s letter was actually used by the court to limit religious freedom.
By taking completely out of context the phrase used by Jefferson in his letter, "separation of church and state," the Supreme Court ruled that the freedom of religious expression in the public square was a violation of the “separation of church and state” found in the Constitution. This is an astounding ruling, as the phrase “separation of church and state” is not even found in the Constitution. ...(more)