Free Republic

North Liberty, Iowa. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has signed a lease for up to 25 years with a group that wants to build a Muslim youth camp at Lake Coralville. The lease allows the Cedar Rapids-based Muslim Youth Camps of America to build on 114 acres of federal land. Construction can start once the group works out details with county and state regulators, the corps said Wednesday. Plans for the $934,000 camp north of North Liberty call for lodging up to 60 campers ages 10 to 17 in cabins and tents plus staffers during the summer and up...

NASHVILLE — The American Civil Liberties Union will likely appeal a recent ruling by a federal appeals court, which allows Tennessee to offer anti-abortion license plates bearing the message "Choose Life." A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati earlier this month overturned a lower-court ruling that said the tag illegally promoted only one side of the abortion debate. The ACLU and other plaintiffs have until Friday to file an appeal for a hearing before the 6th Circuit, according to Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the ACLU of Tennessee. They would have another week to...

ASHLAND, Ky. — Students have no religious or free-speech right to opt-out of school training aimed at stopping anti-gay harassment in Boyd County schools, a federal judge has ruled.U.S. District Judge David Bunning said "there is simply no basis for an opt-out" because the training does not endorse any viewpoint or require students to disavow their religious beliefs. Three students had skipped the mandatory sessions at Boyd County schools.Bunning wrote in an opinion issued Feb. 17 that mandatory training "to address the issue of harassment at school, including harassment based upon actual or perceived sexual orientation, is rationally related to...

When will the GOP Congress wake up and stop funding the extortionate demands of these anti-American Christian-hating bigots at the ACLU? The City of Pasadena, California, recently settled with the American Civil Liberties Union to avoid further expense, agreeing to terminate its lease with the Boy Scouts and to give the ACLU $940,000 because the ACLU claims the Boy Scouts are a "religion" (see excerpt below). Our main thrust should be a permanent takedown of the ACLU, to get them out of our treasury, out of our lives, and out of our religious beliefs. The ACLU Foundation---worth some $135 million----may...

An ACLU lawsuit on behalf of an agnostic, lesbian couple seeking to nullify the Boy Scouts’ long-standing lease with a San Diego park will be heard in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, widely regarded as the nation’s most liberal. The city of San Diego is appealing a U.S. District Court judge’s ruling in 2003, which determined the agreement violates the First Amendment’s ban on state-sponsored religion. Oral arguments will begin Tuesday morning in Pasadena, Calif. A decision is expected later this year. Judge Napoleon Jones said in his 2003 ruling the Boy Scouts are a religious organization with a...

The fear of lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union has driven 216 Boy Scout, Cub Scout and related troops across the state - including 35 in North Jersey - to sever their charters with public institutions. Many of them, including Troop 124 in Northvale, have enjoyed a long friendship with municipalities that have sponsored the Scouts, provided them with funding and offered a comfortable meeting space. But an ACLU threat has sent troops scrambling for new sponsors. The Boy Scouts of America issued a directive last April for all troops to transfer their sponsorship by the end of the...

(KSDK) - Threats of litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union is causing trouble for some Boy Scouts in St. Charles County. Last year the ACLU complained the Boy Scouts were a religious group, because members were compelled to swear an oath of duty to God. When the ACLU began winning court cases, several sponsors pulled out. Cub Scout Pack 530 was sponsored by Castlio Elementary School in St. Charles County for 20 years until the school pulled out after the ACLU'S nationwide threat to sue. Some parents are upset because the parent-teacher organization at Castlio decided not to sponsor...

Proving it does not discriminate against the size of the municipality it will take to court, the American Civil Liberties Union is locked in a legal battle with a small New Mexico town over a tiny cross on its seal – this after last year forcing the County of Los Angeles to remove a cross from its seal. After being threatened with a lawsuit should it continue to use the seal, the city of Tijeras, N.M., – with a population of less than 500 – decided to place itself in a David and Goliath conflict with the ACLU to defend...

According to their own literature, the American Civil Liberties Union's job "is to conserve America's original civic values – the Constitution and the Bill of Rights." Preserving our values is a very admirable goal. But in spite of their lofty rhetoric, the ACLU is not such a protector of America's values. To the contrary, no organization, together with its allies, has consistently done more harm to our traditions and values. Just in the past few weeks, the ACLU has again proven their contempt for American values in several arenas. In September, the ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme...

The ACLU is gearing up for another battle against abstinence education. A program called “Not in My State” was designed by the group to influence schools and politicians to reject abstinence education. SNIP The group wants schools to think that if they promote abstinence until marriage, they’re really advancing a religious concept—and that opens the door to the fear of litigation.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. – First Amendment, U.S. Constitution As demonstrated in the first entry in our Bill of Rights, Americans are a religious people with a history steeped in faith. The first act of the Continental Congress called for prayer. President Lincoln enacted a day of prayer and fasting, and President Truman created an annual National Day of...

(Columbia-AP) September 20, 2005 - The American Civil Liberties Union wants three Upstate governments to stop mentioning Jesus Christ in prayers before council meetings. The ACLU has written Anderson and Seneca city councils and Oconee County Council asking them to follow a federal court ruling. The Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals last year upheld a lower court ruling that prayers before Great Falls Town Council were unconstitutional because they honored one faith over another by mentioning Jesus. The US Supreme Court refused to consider the town's appeal. Mike Cubelo of the ACLU says the organization will sue if necessary.

It's tough to be a parent. In fact, raising your child these days to develop into a healthy, happy, responsible adult has never been harder. Violence and sex saturates television and movies, popular music is filled with profanity and rage – even video games often focus on the darkest edges of human behavior. It is bad enough that the culture seems at war with parents. But more disturbing are the actions of courts to damage the link between parent and child. And no group has done more to inflict damage on parental rights though the courts than the American Civil...

ACLU sues Woodfin over park ban on sex offenders The Associated Press A new law that bans sex offenders from going to parks in the town of Woodfin was challenged Friday in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina. The ordinance, enacted in May, is unfair to convicted criminals who have served their punishment and done nothing else wrong, according to the lawsuit filed by the ACLU-NC's Legal Foundation in Buncombe County Superior Court. "These laws stigmatize people who have successfully rehabilitated and may even have families of their own, who might want to take...

U.S. Representative John Hostettler has introduced legislation which seeks to prevent the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from collecting millions of dollars in court awards when they seek to remove symbols of the Christian faith from society. The Public Expression of Religion Act of 2005 (H.R. 2679) would prevent secular organizations from collecting attorney fees after suing communities to remove memorial crosses, Ten Commandments displays, or any other vestige of the Christian faith. The legislation reads, “The remedies with respect to a claim under this section where the deprivation consists of a violation of a prohibition in the Constitution against...

The man behind an online effort to rein in the American Civil Liberties Union is taking his campaign to America's churches, hoping to mobilize millions of believers into taking a stand against the legal organization. As WorldNetDaily reported, Nedd Kareiva's StopThe ACLU.org is dedicating to ending the legal victories of the ACLU – from limiting the activities of the Boy Scouts to promoting same-sex marriage. The website exists for one purpose, Kareiva says, "to mobilize millions of God-fearing, patriotic Americans to stand up to the ACLU agenda and consigning it to the ash heap of history (or export it to...

The man behind an online effort to rein in the American Civil Liberties Union is taking his campaign to America's churches, hoping to mobilize millions of believers into taking a stand against the legal organization. As WorldNetDaily reported, Nedd Kareiva's StopThe ACLU.org is dedicating to ending the legal victories of the ACLU – from limiting the activities of the Boy Scouts to promoting same-sex marriage. The website exists for one purpose, Kareiva says, "to mobilize millions of God-fearing, patriotic Americans to stand up to the ACLU agenda and consigning it to the ash heap of history (or export it to...

ATLANTA - Five Cobb County residents and the ACLU are suing Cobb County for overly sectarian prayers at county commission meetings. The lawsuit, filed by the ACLU Wednesday in federal court in Atlanta, claims the prayers before commission meetings are too Christian. One prayer ended, "in the name of Jesus our savior," and dozens more since 2003 mentioned Jesus, according to the lawsuit. The ACLU does not challenge the commission's right to pray before meetings, just that the prayers are overly Christian, offending the five plaintiffs. The lawsuit seeks unspecified "nominal damages" and a court order for Cobb to stop...

While growing up I was a proud member of an organization that emphasized the importance of honesty and "being clean in thought, word and deed." We vowed to serve God and our country. If you think that this organization's philosophy is non-controversial, you are sadly mistaken. We live in an era of Political Correctness. The beliefs and values that our society broadly embraced when I was a member of Boy Scout Troop 77, chartered by Holy Trinity Catholic Church of Racine, Wisconsin, are now endangered.Unfortunately, our federal courts often make decisions that assault our country's most cherished beliefs and values....

On Sunday, President Bush addressed a Jamboree of more than 30,000 Boy Scouts in Virginia. He stated, "through the generations, scouts have made America a stronger and better nation." Those critical of the Boy Scouts of America argue that the Boy Scouts' exclusion of gays, atheists and females makes America more divided and divisive. One side wishes to strengthen the Boy Scouts; the other wishes to destroy the Boy Scouts by forcing politically correct changes upon it. Over the past two decades, the Boy Scouts has been both a flash point and the ground of sustained struggle between traditional and...