Today’s blacklisted American: Second-grade child punished for talking about Christianity

Persecuting Christians is once again cool!
Persecuting Christians, even little children, is once again cool!

They’re coming for you next: A second-grader at North Hill Elementary School in Des Moines, Washington, has been regularly harassed and punished by the teachers and administrators because she likes to talk about her Christian religion to her playmates.

The harassment has included searching her backpack each morning to confiscate any Christian materials before she entered school. The punishment included sending her to the principal’s office ten different times since January 1st for daring to mention the Bible and her Christian beliefs to others. From the press release of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which is threatening to sue the school and its district if this Soviet-type censorious behavior does not stop:
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Today’s blacklisted American: Christian nonprofit denied tax exempt status by IRS because such teachings are “partisan Republican”

Moses: A Republican Party lobbyist, according to the IRS
Moses: A Republican Party lobbyist, according to the IRS.

Blacklists are back and the IRS has got ’em! The IRS has denied a Christian nonprofit tax exempt status because it has deemed such “Bible teachings are typically affiliated with the [Republican Party]” and are therefore partisan.

From the IRS denial letter:

“Specifically, you educate Christians on what the Bible says in areas where they can be instrumental including the areas of sanctity of life, the definition of marriage, biblical justice, freedom of speech, defense, and borders and immigration, U.S. and Israel relations,” read a letter from IRS Exempt Organizations Director Stephen Martin to Christians Engaged, a nonprofit group seeking tax-exempt status. “The Bible teachings are typically affiliated with the [Republican Party] and candidates. This disqualifies you from exemption under IRC Section 501(c)(3).”

Heh. Well, at least the IRS has now admitted the satanic nature of the Democratic Party. According to this IRS official, only the Republican Party supports such biblical teachings as the ten commandments. The Democratic Party is opposed to this, which makes being Christian or Jewish a partisan political position.

Of course, the IRS itself is very partisan, as the article at the link notes:
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Today’s blacklisted Americans: All religious schools

The cancelled Bill of Rights

They’re coming for you next: The homosexual lobby is pushing the Biden administration to deny accreditation to any religious school that did not endorse its political and sexual agendas.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), America’s largest and most powerful LGBT lobby organizations, is pushing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to target Christian educational institutions, demanding that the Biden Administration strip colleges that adhere to rules and positions opposing homosexuality of their accreditation. The HRC’s “Blueprint for Positive Change,” which offers 85 recommendations, proposes eliminating non-discrimination exemptions for religious colleges if they refuse to abandon the biblical position on marriage.

The Blueprint states, “Language regarding accreditation of religious institutions of higher education in the Higher Education Opportunity Act could be interpreted to require accrediting bodies to accredit religious institutions that discriminate or do not meet science-based curricula standards. The Department of Education should issue a regulation clarifying that this provision, which requires accreditation agencies to ‘respect the stated mission’ of religious institutions, does not require the accreditation of religious institutions that do not meet neutral accreditation standards including nondiscrimination policies and scientific curriculum requirements.”

In other words, if a religious school forbids homosexual behavior among its students or teaches it is a sin, based entirely on that school’s religious beliefs, it accreditation should be cancelled, and its ability to provide students legally recognized degrees eliminated.

Understand that if you are homosexual you have plenty of very friendly schools to go to that will celebrate your sexual preferences and beliefs. No one is oppressing you because a Christian, Evangelical, or Orthodox Jewish school believe otherwise.

That’s not enough however for the leftist gay lobby. Just because it has successfully created positive options for itself throughout society it must still destroy any options for those who disagree with it. This is the epitome of oppression and intolerance.

At this moment the Biden administration has not accepted these recommendations, but if you think it won’t, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you. One of the very first executive orders signed by Biden was one that required schools to let men who “identify” as women compete in women’s sports. They remain men in every biological sense except the clothes they wear, their hairstyle, and (most important) their utterly delusional belief they are a women.

If Joe Biden and the Washington leftist crowd that runs our federal government thinks this edict makes rational sense, we must expect them to do whatever they can to shut down religious schools for daring to express any dissent of the homosexual movement’s agenda.

The first amendment be damned! You are all going to obey our new leftist lords, or you will be silenced!

Passover: Celebrating Freedom

An evening pause: For tonight, the second Passover Sedar, a short video explaining some of the philosophical underpinnings of Passover. Though decidedly from the reform (and liberal) side of the Jewish community, it still summarizes much of what Passover represents. On this holiday each person must imagine themselves a slave, so as to better appreciate what freedom represents.

The orthodox side of the Jewish community would add that this freedom comes from God, for which we must be ever thankful. The orthodox would also note that our freedom exists because of the arrival of the Torah, the Ten Commandments, and the rules for living a good life, handed down to at Mt. Sinai, after the exodus.

I say, be humble and try to do right, to the best of your ability, no matter what others demand (the Bible, even for someone who does not believe in God as the religions do, provides a good instruction manual). Do that, and you will certainly be free.

Adam Shugar – Hanukkah Overture for String Orchestra and Clarinet

An evening pause: A fitting musical piece in the middle of Hannukkah. Performed by the Orchestre Nouvelle Génération.

Normally I don’t post orchestra performances filmed in their entirety from only one wide shot, as this is. I make an exception here for three reasons: 1. The music is good. 2. It is not well known, and should be. 3. Unlike most orchestras, this string orchestra performs while standing, and the high angle looking down allows you to see them all as they play together, almost like a choreographed dance. It works.

Hat tip Danae.

The war with Islam explained

Link here. The author, very obviously well educated in both the Islamic religion as well as recent Islamic history, describes the real religious meaning of phrases like “Allahu Akbar” and “la ilaha illa Allah” and in the process outlines quite clearly the power-hungry goals of Islam, based on the religion itself.

This is also why “Allahu Akbar” and “la ilaha illa Allah” – both statements of faith that embody the religious concept of the supremacy of Islam and of Allah – are mistranslated. First it was the struggle to establish the supremacy of the monotheistic Islam over the pagan idols of seventh-century Mecca. Then it was a struggle for supremacy over other religions, including monotheistic ones, in the Arabian Peninsula, resulting in the expulsion of non-Muslims, as related in the compilation of hadiths on behalf of the Prophet Muhammad: “I shall take out the Jews and the Christians from the Peninsula”[5] – a ban that is in force to this day against non-Muslim religious institutions. Later it was a struggle against other religious empires, such as the Persian and the Byzantine. However, the rendering of “Allahu Akbar” in the U.S. media as “God is great” omits the aspect of superiority in the word Akbar (which but means “greater” or “greatest,” not merely “great”) and blurs the specific reference to Allah rather than to another deity. In the same vein, “la illaha illa Allah” is often translated in the U.S. media as “There is no god but God” (rather than “There is no god but Allah”). Omitting the supremacy of Allah over all other deities is a mistranslation, and moreover leads to a logical fallacy – reminiscent of Carrollian nonsense verses.

One of the reasons for such mistranslations is the fact that in the modern Western world the struggle for supremacy among religions has almost completely ceased, and to the extent that it still exists, it is nonviolent. Therefore, statements of religious faith that embody a continuing historical struggle for divine religious supremacy lack a modern religious/cultural conceptual basis through which to be understood in the West, and consequently lack a linguistic equivalent. The American media, facing the risk of not being understood in translating these Islamic concepts, prefer to provide an approximate translation, even though these are inherently misleading.

This is not to say that “Allahu Akbar” is uttered only by jihadis continuing the age-old struggle for the supremacy of Islam and of Allah. Over the centuries it has come to be uttered by non-religious Muslims as well, and even by Christian Arabs. In many cases, it carries a variety of meanings – ranging from admiration for what is perceived as a wonderful act of Allah to an expression of shock and horror in the face of calamity.

A translation should always reflect the context, the speaker, and his intent. But what often happens in the U.S. media is that when “Allahu Akbar” is said by a jihadi, it is translated as if said by a non-religious Muslim or a Christian Arab. This is utterly wrong. And when such mistranslations occur time and again, whether intentional or out of ignorance, it results in a profoundly apologetic misrepresentation of the concept, and its cultural and religious meaning.

Note the history as described. Even if there are millions of Muslims who do not wish to conquer, oppress, and eliminate other religions, the fundamentals of Islam end up causing it to do these exact things, eventually. And these fundamentals are once again today driving the religion’s power elites. Woe to us here in the west if we do not heed this reality.

I strongly suggest my readers read the entire essay at the link. He documents his points in great detail, and quite thoughtfully.

Increasing hostility to religion in America

A yearly survey of incidents of religious discrimination in the U.S. has found a steady rise in the past three years.

For the last three years the Liberty Institute and the Family Research Council has published Undeniable: The Survey of Hostility to Religion in America. The legal group says they’re seeing cases of discrimination against those of faith rising rapidly. “The first time we did it, we collected about 600 cases,” Jeff Mateer, general counsel of the Texas-based Liberty Institute, told CBN News. “We went from 600 to 1,200. And this year we’re up to about 1,600. So, the threats are continuing to increase at a dramatic pace.”

The article outlines some specific stories that are quite horrifying. The worst was the case of a man fired from his job because of the sermons he gave during his free time. Sadly, that is only a sample.

Tennessee cheerleaders defy a ban on pregame public prayers

Despite a ban on any pregame prayers at a Tennessee high school, forced on the school to avoid court suits, the school’s cheerleaders led the crowd in prayer anyway.

Prayer organized by school officials is inappropriate and unconstitutional. Prayer organized by students, however, is completely appropriate and constitutional. I would hope more students do this kind of defiant behavior, because the anti-religious organizations that threatened lawsuits are increasingly challenging the rights of the students, and that effort must be resisted.

“Tolerance, freedom, and the hypocrisy in an age of confusion”

The reflections of one man concerning the present social conflict between religion and gay rights.

An employee of a church or school is – must be! – a role model to all parishioners and students, even to the community. The church or school cannot allow its message, already under so much assault by the pop culture, the press, and the government, to be undermined even by its own employees.

Such actions [gay marriage] therefore force the hand of the Church; it must defend its policies by terminating employees who will no longer be the role models the Church needs.

Again, tolerating a failing is one thing; endorsing it is another. When you keep a failing private, you can hope for tolerance (your employer can continue to hope it’s a weakness that you’ll conquer or outgrow). But when one chooses to make that failing public – again, whether we agree that it’s a failing or not is immaterial; the Church thinks so, and the employee knew it – then one has to take the consequences of tearing that rift.

A very wise and thoughtful essay. Please read it all.

Two Baptist chaplains are suing the Veterans Administration for demanding they stop naming “Jesus” in their prayers.

Freedom in Modern America: Two Baptist chaplains are suing the Veterans Administration for demanding they stop naming “Jesus” in their prayers.

Two Baptist chaplains said they were forced out of a Veterans Affairs chaplain training program after they refused orders to stop quoting the Bible and to stop praying in the name of Jesus. When the men objected to those demands they were subjected to ridicule and harassment that led to one of the chaplains leaving the program and the other being ejected, according to a federal lawsuit filed Friday.

The Obama administration has ordered 1100 square miles of open ocean off limits to private fisherman and tourists because of the government shutdown.

Shutdown fascism: The Obama administration has ordered 1100 square miles of open ocean off limits to private fisherman and tourists because of the government shutdown.

The article above also has a link to a story where voluntary unpaid Catholic priests have been told by the Obama administration that they will face arrest if they try to serve mass at military chapels or minister to military personnel during the shutdown.

More than a thousand pastors have resolved to defy the IRS and preach politics from the pulpit before the election.

Good for them: More than a thousand pastors have resolved to defy the IRS and preach politics from the pulpit before the election.

“The purpose is to make sure that the pastor — and not the IRS — decides what is said from the pulpit,” Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the group, told FoxNews.com. “It is a head-on constitutional challenge.” Stanley said pastors attending the Oct. 7 “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” will “preach sermons that will talk about the candidates running for office” and then “make a specific recommendation.” The sermons will be recorded and sent to the IRS.

“We’re hoping the IRS will respond by doing what they have threatened,” he said. “We have to wait for it to be applied to a particular church or pastor so that we can challenge it in court. We don’t think it’s going to take long for a judge to strike this down as unconstitutional.”

First of all, the IRS has always enforced this oppressive regulation very selectively. Black churches for example have been allowed to preach Democratic Party politics for decades, without any threats from the IRS.

Second, the regulation really does make no sense. What right does the IRS have deny these religious leaders the freedom to participate in the political debate? Free speech is free speech. To threaten their tax status just because they express their opinions for or against a candidate seems quite oppressive, the kind of thing petty dictators do when they want to shut their opponents up.

In fact, when you think about it, the regulation’s basic consequence was to shut these religious leaders up. Much like the “equal time” regulation that was used for decades to shut up conservative thought on the radio and television airwaves, this IRS regulation has effectively banned religion from the political process. Our Constitution might forbid Congress from setting up an official religion, but it does not forbid people of religion from using their moral teachings to try to influence elections. As I say, free speech is free speech. They are citizens like everyone else, and have the right to express their ideas and to try to persuade people. And in a free society, no one is obliged to listen to them or be convinced by them,

A Florida family now faces fines for hosting weekly Bible study sessions in their home.

A Florida family now faces fines for hosting weekly Bible study sessions in their home.

Shane and Marlen Roessiger, of Venice, Fla. are facing a $250 per day fine for hosting Friday night prayer and Bible study gatherings that are attended by as many as 10 people. “It is difficult to understand how it is illegal to have a prayer meeting on Friday night with a half dozen people but it is alright if I invited the same group on Monday evening to watch Monday night Football,” Roessiger said. The Roessigers are also facing a fine for putting a small sign in their front yard.

Gee, maybe they should riot and kill people instead. That way the government would call them members of the religion of peace and let them practice their religion freely.

The atheist Freedom from Religion Foundation has threatened to sue 151 Mississippi schools if they allow students to pray using public address systems during athletic events.

Freedom for me but not for thee: The atheist Freedom from Religion Foundation has threatened to sue 151 Mississippi schools if they allow students to pray using public address systems during athletic events.

In other words, according to this atheist organization, all expression of religion must be banned from the public marketplace of ideas. Only then will we have true freedom!

What is encouraging from this article is the increasing willingness of school officials, religious leaders, and students to resist this oppression.

Criminal charges have been filed against a German rabbi for performing circumcisions.

Criminal charges have been filed against a German rabbi for performing circumcisions.

A doctor from Hesse filed a criminal complaint against Rabbi David Goldberg, who serves in the community of Hof, in Upper Franconia (northern Bavaria), according to the Juedische Allgemeine weekly newspaper. The chief prosecutor of Hof confirmed that charges had been filed against the rabbi. The charges are based on the controversial decision of a Cologne district court, which ruled in June that circumcisions for religious reasons constitute illegal bodily harm to newborn babies.

The article does not tell us anything about the doctor who filed the complaint. I wonder what that doctor’s motives are.

Because of a single complaint a retirement home has forbidden its residents from praying.in common areas.

Land of the free? Because of a single complaint a retirement home has forbidden its residents from praying in common areas.

The complaining resident, Wanda Hughes told DePetro that she wrote a letter to the property management group because she finds the Rosary to be “an in your face ritual.” In the letter she threatens to bring the issue to the ACLU if it is not addressed.

What I find disgusting is that this person, Wanda Hughes, somehow thinks that just because she doesn’t like prayer she has the right to shut it down. The rights of others mean nothing to her.

What is also disgusting is the cowardice of Brook Village Retirement Home in North Providence, which immediately bowed to her wishes while grinding its fist into the faces of everyone else.

A Phoenix man has been jailed for hold Bible study sessions in his own home.

This is freedom? A Phoenix man has been jailed for holding private Bible study sessions in his own home.

Salman is the owner of Mighty Mike’s Burgers — and he is also an ordained pastor. He and his wife have been hosting Bible studies on their 4.6 acre property since 2005. The gatherings were originally attended by as many as 15 people.

Wow! As many as fifteen people! The mind boggles. Just imagine the traffic problems these mobs must have caused, especially as they gathered on a plot of land as small as 4.6 acres!

How the Higgs boson explains the universe.

How the Higgs boson explains the universe.

And what it can’t explain:

The discovery [by the existence of the Higgs boson] that nature is beautifully symmetric means we have very little choice in how the elementary particles do their dance – the rules simply “come for free”. Why the universe should be built in such an elegant fashion is not understood yet, but it leaves us with a sense of awe and wonder that we should be privileged to live in such a place.

Science discovers how the universe operates. Philosophy and religion try to explain why. Thus, it is perfectly reasonable in a rational world to consider the existence of God, and why musings about the possibility of intelligent design do not contradict pure science.

And I speak not as a religious person, but as a secular humanist.

The testimony of the fired JPL employee who is claiming religious discrimination continued on Monday.

The testimony continued on Monday of the fired JPL employee who is claiming the science center fired him because of his religious beliefs.

[David Coppedge] trial’s started last week, and on Monday [he] testified that his supervisor Gregory Chin had wrongly accused him, threatened his freedom of religion and created a potentially hostile working environment. “You are pushing your religion in this office and harassing people with this religion,” Chin said, according to Coppedge, who added: “He was angry and he got angrier.”

Coppedge said he asked Chin why he considered intelligent design anything but science. “Dave, intelligent design is religion,” Chin replied, according to Coppedge. Chin warned him against discussing religion or politics with colleagues, he said.

“I felt threatened .. I said: ‘Greg, this gets into issues of free speech and freedom of religion … this could be construed as creating a hostile work environment’,” he added.

Real scientists should never feel threatened by anything Coppedge was saying, and should in fact enjoy debating the issue. Unfortunately, I have learned that such open-mindedness is found with increasing rarity in modern intellectual society, especially when it comes to Judeo-Christian beliefs. This is why I tend to believe Coppedge’s story.

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