Oklahoma police captain sues department over mosque assignment

A Tulsa police officer and devout Christian is suing his department after being punished for refusing to go to a mosque for a mandatory cultural event.

Police Capt. Paul Campbell Fields, a 17-year veteran, was docked two weeks' pay, transferred, reduced to the graveyard shift and made ineligible for promotions for at least a year, after he told his chief his faith made it impossible for him to attend a "Law Enforcement Appreciation Day" at the Islamic Cultural Society of Tulsa, according to the lawsuit.

Fields, 43, is a non-denominational Christian, who quoted Scripture in legal explanation of his insubordination.

"This event is compelling me to go to a venue where a group of individuals is prepared to discuss their (Islamic) faith," Fields said during a May 2012 deposition, the transcript of which was obtained by FoxNews.com. "And in my faith, I have a duty to proselytize my faith to people (who) don't subscribe to my faith. I can't do that in uniform. And so therein lies the conflict or moral dilemma I face."

Fields' attorney, Robert Muise of The American Freedom Law Center, elaborated, "He was going to be in a place where people were going to refer to Jesus Christ as merely a prophet and not his Lord and Savior.

"And he wouldn't be able to respond to them in any way," Muise added. "That was very troubling to him."

I completely agree with you and your questions re "where are the Christians" and the "cultural rot of the West...?"

The fact is that lots of self-professed Christians are not learning of this story as the MSM don't champ at the bit on this story, it's simply not an issue of first Amendment infringment to them, they only notice when liberals and atheists complain about being "prevented from being Boy Scout leaders," etc.

I, for one, am sending this story out to my email list, writing editorials in the print media and challenging elected officials or my local police department and Attorney General regarding any such requirements for our law enforcement employees.

When the message on Dan Cathey's smear became known, Christians got off their bibles and made their voices known - without leadership from the pulpits.

I daresay if this Captain's plight becomes know, plenty of believers will apply pressure on the Tulsa PD to not only make them back down but reinstate him to his job.

I live outside of Tulsa and have for over 15 years now, so I stopped following the city politics in detail quite awhile ago. However, since it saturates the local news, etc., it is hard to get away from it totally.

Tulsa has had a mix Republican/Democrat mayors for quite awhile now (current mayor Bartlett-R, and his immediate predecessors: Taylor-D, LaFortune-R, Savage-D). Same with the council make-up. Think RINO/plutocrat when you see Republican here. Tulsa is not a conservative bastion: it is more like the Austin of Oklahoma.

Tulsa’s city government is a mayor-council form of government, with no city manager (the mayor runs the city); and a more divisive, ineffective form of governance you couldn’t find. Tulsa has all sorts of weird zoning issues, high city taxes that are ineffectively spent, crony capitalism (i.e. political “friends” of both sides being funneled money and contracts), pet political projects “for the good of the city”, etc. It has some real problems that the monied folk in town refuse to allow to come to a fair and equitable vote. And, of course, the local media are in the pockets of the local plutocrats, so nothing ever gets reported correctly.

But, in spite of all this, it is still a pretty good place to live (compared to other places I have lived over the years), as a lot of this political nonsense really doesn’t affect the people as much as they would like it to. (The fights on the city council; and between the council and the mayor are good for a few laughs sometimes...) You can safely ignore a lot of the crap, especially if you live outside Tulsa proper in one of the larger “suburbs” such as Broken Arrow, Owasso, Sand Springs, etc. In fact, there is a movement of people out of the core of Tulsa into the outlying cities. If I am remembering this correctly, in the entire Tulsa metro region, there are more people living outside the City of Tulsa proper (i.e. in the surrounding cities) than inside the city, perhaps a 60/40 or 65/35 percentage.

The liberals here tend to be less confrontational and “in-your-face”, and less dangerous than politically active liberals I have seen on the coasts. We have our share of gay parades and festivals, etc., but most people view it with a grain of salt and generally attend these to buy good things, and to eat the food; not to support the cause.

In short, Tulsa is a somewhat more liberal bastion in than you would expect in Oklahoma (like Austin in Texas and has a similar reputation) but for the most part the expression of liberal causes and such is pretty benign (unlike Austin). Kind of a weird mix of conservative and progressive, but the extremes of both tend to cancel out into a more middle-of-the-road mix.

And that is probably more than you wanted to know about Tulsa...

I enjoyed learning about the politics of Tulsa. It seems that much of politics is the same wherever you go. That part about RINOS and plutocrats certainly has a familiar ring like cronyism and the media being servile to the local plutocrats. I have seen the same patterns as I have delved into the issue of illegal immigration. The iron triangle of politics, business and media really shows up in this issue and they act like the modern day slave power. You cannot budge these people regardless of how much you try to educate them. They by now know that they are hurting American jobs, sovereignty and even American lives but they keep on lying and defying the will of the people. It’s like lifting up a rock and watching the bugs scurry in all directions.

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