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Video at link. A Kentucky appeals court has upheld the conscience rights of a Christian printer who refused to make shirts promoting a gay-pride festival. In the 2-1 decision handed down Friday, Chief Judge Joy A. Kramer said she found no evidence that the store owner “refused any individual the full and equal enjoyment of goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations it offered to everyone else because the individual in question had a specific sexual orientation or gender identity.” Blaine Adamson is the owner of Hands On Originals, a Christian company that prints messages on T-shirts, pens, mugs and...

Most progressive groups oppose any expression of religion in the public square, and will likely oppose whatever this president does After President Donald Trump issued an executive order on religious freedom last week, the Left used its pre-written script to attack it even though it was dramatically scaled back from the draft that was leaked to left-wing media outlets in February. As if on cue, the Rev. Barry Lynn, president of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, pounced, claiming the executive order “tramples” and “guts” the entire notion of religious freedom.

This guy's idea And a good idea it is, as far as it goes. With religious liberty under assault both legally and culturally, an executive order designed to protect it is surely welcome for the Christian bakers, florists and photographers who don’t want to be forced to take part in a gay “wedding.” But it remains to be seen whether the order that’s coming Thursday will hold up any better than the one Pence signed into law in Indiana. It also remains to be seen what force of law a president’s executive order will have, but we’re going to find...

WASHINGTON, D.C, May 2, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – President Trump will sign an executive order on Thursday protecting the religious liberty of the Little Sisters of the Poor and ordinary Americans who don't subscribe to gender ideology or believe in same-sex "marriage," two "senior administration officials" have confirmed to Politico. The Nation released a leaked copy of an executive order in February that prompted outrage from the left over its protections for Christians who believe marriage is the union of one man and one woman and who don't want to be forced to fund contraception. Politico says an "influential conservative who...

After wrapping up his first 100 days in the White House on Saturday, President Donald Trump plans to hit a new set of issues, including religious liberty, tax reform, and school choice, a White House official told The Daily Signal.“We want to have legislation that has a profound impact on religious liberty, one that has profound impact on education, that has profound impact on health care,” Helen Aguirre Ferré, White House media affairs director, said in an interview Friday.Ferré added: These are just some of the issues we are working on that’s going to be absolutely critical going forward, not...

My fellow Americans: From the early days of the colonies, prayer in school was practiced and revered as an important tradition. Indeed, for nearly 200 years of our nation's history, it was considered a natural expression of our religious freedom. But in 1962 the Supreme Court handed down a controversial decision prohibiting prayer in public schools. Sometimes I can't help but feel the first amendment is being turned on its head. Because ask yourselves: Can it really be true that the first amendment can permit Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen to march on public property, advocate the extermination of people...

The more you see something shocking, the less shocking it appears, and the more something outrageous happens, the less outrageous it seems to be. That is how a culture becomes desensitized, and that is how the abnormal becomes normalized. But when it comes to the governmentÂ’s attack on our religious freedoms, it is our sacred duty to remain shocked and outraged. Such things cannot continue to happen in America if we are to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. According to the Washington Supreme Court, when Christian florist Barronelle Stutzman declined to do the...

When President Donald Trump spoke to the National Prayer Breakfast this month, he underscored his vow to defend the religious rights of the conservative Christians who helped propel him to power. Now, they expect the Justice Department under new Attorney General Jeff Sessions will reposition itself as a champion of what they see as that religious freedom. It would be a welcome change for conservative Christians who say their concerns were marginalized under the Obama administration in favor of First Amendment and LGBT issues. …

The Trump administration has dropped the federal government’s challenge to a nationwide injunction issued last year that blocked the fulfillment of Obama administration guidelines stating that transgender students’ access to bathrooms and other gender-segregated school facilities was protected under existing federal civil rights law. The injunction was issued in August by Judge Reed O’Connor of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Texas as part of a lawsuit filed by more than a dozen states over the Obama administration’s position that Title IX, the federal law that bans sex discrimination in schools, protects transgender students. Under that interpretation,...

The new UN expert on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues outlined a strategy for his three-year term before dozens of supportive UN bureaucrats, delegates, and activists in a meeting last week. Vitit Muntarbhorn, the newly appointed UN Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, spoke of the Sustainable Development Goals and the work of UN agencies to further the goals as a “good entry point for us.” The Thai law professor and homosexual activist also described health, education, and religion as “soft entry points” and cautioned that “sexual orientation and gender identity” are not closed categories, promising...

Unfortunately, after passing out of the Senate General Laws Committee last week, two bills that add sexual orientation and gender identity ("SOGI") as special legal classes passed the full Senate on Friday. One bill adds SOGI to public employment criteria. The other relates to housing and would require, for example, a faith-based university to open up it's female-only dormitories to male students who "identify" as a female. And it would require the university to open its married housing to same-sex couples. Although we anticipate these bills will be defeated in the House, the fact that these direct threats to religious...

I am the "kinda" campaign coordinator for a great guy that is running for public office in my state. That being said, I am looking for places to have events like town hall meetings.

Senate Republicans have agreed to a deal that strips an amendment protecting religious freedom for faith-based organizations from a defense spending bill, making the measure more favorable to signature by outgoing resident Barack Obama. Obama threatened to veto the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) if the bill included the Russell Amendment, which applies religious freedom exemptions to federal grants and contracts. The NDAA is an annual piece of legislation that addresses Department of Defense budget and expenditures. The Russell Amendment restated current United States law via the First Amendment. The measure would have protected, for example, faith groups that run...

Religious freedom issues have certainly been in the news in the U.S. over the past several years -- from the Little Sisters of the Poor to the freedom of organizations to hire people who aim to serve the mission of the organization. The federal government has played an unfortunate role in attempting to coerce people of faith to violate their consciences. Take the mandate from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (also known as the "HHS mandate") that forces Catholics like the Little Sisters to facilitate drugs and devices that can cause an abortion, among other morally objectionable...

NEW YORK (AP) -- For the combatants in America's long-running culture wars, the triumph of Donald Trump and congressional Republicans was stunning - sparking elation on one side, deep dismay on the other. Advocates of LGBT rights and abortion rights now fear setbacks instead of further gains. But the outcome emboldened the anti-abortion movement and breathed new life into the religious right's campaign for broad exemptions from same-sex marriage and other laws. Kelly Shackelford, head of First Liberty Institute, a legal group that specializes in religious freedom cases, said that, for his cause, the environment will transform from "brutal" under...

“Nov. 8 was a game changer – and not for our essential work.” So lamented husband and wife atheists Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-presidents of the so-called Freedom from Religion Foundation, which is based in Madison, Wisconsin and which claims 23,500 members nationwide. In fact, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth within the nation’s anti-God community in the wake of Donald Trump’s seemingly improbable election this past week as America’s next president. “Mr. Trump has made a number of statements,” decried David Silverman, president of American Atheists, “that has given millions of Americans who value constitutional...

Amir uses Ezekiel 34 to explain what is at stake in this election.

https://youtu.be/kwJZukmWpM0

This past summer, Hillary Clinton made this stunning and chilling statement in an interview on CNN: "deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs have to be changed." She did not specify in that interview which faith's religious beliefs had "to be changed." But now, thanks to WikiLeaks-released emails from the John Podesta's server, we have the context and intent of this statement. Mrs. Clinton was specifically referring to the religious beliefs of the Catholic Church.  The Democratic Party is on record via Podesta exchanges that it would like to and is already working to sabotage the Catholic Church from within to...

Many of you know that for more than 4 years, I have been one of the leaders of the team representing religious organizations, mostly Catholic (including Bishop David Zubik, Bishop of Pittsburgh’s Catholic Diocese) in his case which was consolidated in the U.S. Supreme Court with the case brought by The Little Sisters of the Poor and cases brought by others, against the government over Obamacare’s “contraception mandate.” A great number of religious groups of all denominations filed “friend of the Court” briefs supporting our position that while contraception is and could be available to all who choose to use...