Free Republic

By Lee Shearer lee.shearer@onlineathens.com LEXINGTON - Oglethorpe County Commission Chairman Robert Johnson begrudgingly directed an employee to take down a display of the 23rd Psalm from the Oglethorpe County Courthouse Monday. Johnson said he feared an expensive legal challenge. The Psalm, embroidered on a tapestry about 4 feet by 5 feet, hung for about a month on a wall in a hall outside of the office of Oglethorpe County Clerk of Courts Geneva Stamey. According to lawyers with the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, displaying the 23rd Psalm is essentially the same thing as displaying the Ten...

A federal judge has rejected the latest bid by a West Rutland man to get a vanity plate with a biblical message. U.S. District Court Judge J. Garvan Murtha agreed with an earlier ruling by a federal magistrate denying Shawn Byrne's request for an injunction against the state Department of Motor Vehicles. The injunction would have allowed Byrne to get his vanity license plate with "JN36TN."

The New Mexico chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is objecting to the new logo for the Village of Tijeras. Some village residents are objecting to the ACLU. At issue is the village seal, an image containing depictions of a conquistador’s helmet, a sword and a Catholic rosary. It’s the last item that has the ACLU concerned. “Religious minorities cannot be made to feel like outsiders simply because the government endorses in an unenlightened way the majority faith,” says Peter Simonson, the executive director of the New Mexico ACLU. “It’s part of the culture that has been the Village...

Leonard Pitts, a noted columnist and a member of the United Church of Christ, now appears to consider himself the printed media spokesperson for this "progressive" denomination. For those not in the know, "progressive" is a synonym for a faith that has the intelligence to move beyond the myths, tales and lies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and center itself on the teachings of Karl Marx, Sigmued Freud, secular humanism and whatever other false gospel that is currently in vogue. In an article "second thoughts about the religious right" he deplores this "noxious groups' influence."Mr. Pitts, speaking of Christian...

The ACLU, representing an atheist, is threatening five San Diego-area personalities with legal action over the proposed wording of a ballot initiative that will determine the fate of a historic cross on city land. The five behind the Mt. Soledad initiative are KFMB radio talk-show host Rick Roberts; KOGO radio talk-show host Roger Hedgecock; San Diego Padres radio announcer Jerry Coleman, Rep. Randy Cunningham, R-Calif.; and SoledadNational.com Director Phil Thalmeimer. The attorney for atheist Philip Paulson, James McElroy, has told the men he will file the challenge next week. McElroy claims that a number of their statements on the ballot,...

"I have absolutely no intention of backing down" . Rick Roberts The Lawyer for atheist Philip Paulson, James McElroy, has told five San Diego area personalities that he will file a legal challenge next week to the proposed wording of a July 26th City of San Diego ballot initiative. The initiative will determine the fate of the Cross located on City land atop Mt. Soledad in La Jolla, CA.. The personalities includes KFMB radio talk show host Rick Roberts, KOGO radio talk show host Roger Hedgecock, San Diego Padres baseball club announcer Jerry Coleman, Congressman Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham, and SoledadNational.com...

Boy, parents say principal barred him from reading, discussing book at recess. A 10-year-old boy is taking his battle to study the Bible at recess to a federal courtroom. Karns Elementary School fourth-grader Luke Whitson, through his parents, has filed a civil rights lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Knox County Board of Education, School Superintendent Charles Lindsey and Karns Elementary Principal Cathy Summa. Luke's parents, Samuel and Tina Whitson, contend Summa barred Luke from holding a Bible reading and discussion group at recess. Knox County Deputy Law Director Marty McCampbell, who handles school-related litigation, declined comment on the...

What is the goal of the ACLU? By Jack Ward June 1, 2005 The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sounds like an organization that protects American values. Many people believe that the ACLU is the nation's guardian of liberty, and great protector of the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, the ACLU was never a promoter, or protector of American values or the Constitution. In fact, ACLU might as well stand for the American Communist Lawyers Union. The ACLU has created the facade that it is a champion of the oppressed, but it uses the powers of the government to coerce all members...

The city removed the Christian symbol from its sign after the ACLU complained, citing 1st Amendment concerns. A Scott Siegel tour of downtown Redlands is a game of what's missing. He whisks past stone-tiled City Hall in favor of a second-story window at the drab public-works building. "Look!" he says pointing to the window. There, like a coffee-cup ring on a table, is a faint gray circle. He walks into the Fire Department. "Hey, can I see someone's badge?" he asks. A firefighter shows where someone drilled a nail-sized hole into the badge. What's missing? A cross. In this former...

NewsweekJune 6 issue - For the true commitment-phobe, living among the Na people in southwestern China would be paradise. The Na are the only known society that completely shuns marriage. Instead, says Stephanie Coontz in her new book, "Marriage, a History," brothers help sisters raise the children they conceive through casual sex with nonfamily members (incest is strictly taboo). Will we all be like the Na in the future? With divorce and illegitimacy rates still high, the institution of marriage seems headed for obsolescence in much of the world. Coontz, a family historian at Evergreen State College in Washington, doesn't...

No need for scientists to be dogmatic about the existence, or not, of God - Paul Johnson It is always a delight when scientists talk sense. The Guardian quotes the gynaecologist Robert Winston saying last week that science and religion are ‘essentially both the same thing’. He denies that science is ‘about certainty, about absolute knowledge, about facts’. The truth, he adds, ‘is that science really is about uncertainty, and I think that religion is also about uncertainty’. This accords with my view. True religion has an element of mystery — greys, shades, shadows and doubts. Absolute religious certitude, of...

TAARBAEK, Denmark - A Danish Lutheran minister who publicly denied the existence of God said Sunday he was glad to be back in the pulpit, but refused to speak about the case that led to his brief suspension last year. The country's Evangelical Lutheran Church suspended him in June 2004 because he said in an interview that "there is no heavenly God." Earlier this month, he was reinstated after renewing his vows, but will remain under the supervision of a bishop. In Denmark, where Lutheran ministers are employed by the state and only the government can fire them or take...

Once upon a time, not too awfully long ago, America was known as the ‘shining city on the hill.’ America, the most radical experiment in the history of the world, was the only nation to which people oppressed and repressed by old world systems of social classes and castes could be free of the stifling bindings engendered by those man created constraints. She was a Judao-Christian nation where God of the bible, and not an elite ruling class, was sovereign over all. America was the land of hope, promise and opportunity, where not only all men were equal before God’s...

Democrats lost the evangelical vote decades ago. As the last election showed, they are now in danger of permanently losing Catholics. But the left has devised an ingenious technique for winning back disaffected Catholics – insult their Church and its leader. And they thought of this all by themselves? As part of the campaign to defeat the Republican push to end the judicial filibuster, on May 17, 2005, MoveOn.org, PAC ran an ad appealing to anti-Catholic paranoia. The broadside was an altered photo that showed Pope Benedict XVI standing outside the Supreme Court’s chambers. The pontiff appears to be holding...

...Atop that hill stands a six-foot cross.... That dusty hilltop and its lonely marker just might become the scene of the most significant church-state controversy since last year's fight over the Pledge of Allegiance. In 1934, a gritty prospector named J. Riley Bembry gathered a couple of his fellow World War I veterans at Sunrise Rock. Together they erected the cross, in honor of their fallen comrades. The memorial has been privately maintained ever since.... A wrinkle developed in 1994, when the federal government declared the surrounding area a national preserve. With the cross now located on newly public land,...

Once upon a time, not too awfully long ago, America was known as the 'shining city on the hill.' America, the most radical experiment in the history of the world, was the only nation to which people oppressed and repressed by old world systems of social classes and castes could be free of the stifling bindings engendered by those man created constraints. She was a Judao-Christian nation where God of the bible, and not an elite ruling class, was sovereign over all. America was the land of hope, promise and opportunity, where not only all men were equal before God's...

PITTSBURGH - The American Civil Liberties Union sued in federal court Thursday to prevent prayer at a high school graduation ceremony Saturday, and a judge signed a negotiated agreement upholding the ban. The Keystone School District's school board and solicitor had agreed to the prayer ban on Monday, but the ACLU sued because some in the Clarion County community were hoping school officials would allow prayer anyway, said Witold "Vic" Walczak, legal director of the group's Pittsburgh chapter. "When public schools reserve time at a graduation ceremony for prayers, they violate the Constitution by putting the power, prestige and endorsement...

The ACLU is no longer a defender of freedoms but a defender of all things unAmerican. Your attacks on religion, patriotism, and conservatism are in direct opposition of your own stated mission. Your support of foreigners, terrorists, and other anti-American factions is on the verge of seditious.

About 800 gay-rights advocates marched at the Focus on the Family campus Sunday to show their contempt for James Dobson's views on homosexuality. The Rev. Mel White, who heads the interfaith movement Soulforce, called the gathering an intervention for Dobson and his organization. The group's members asked to meet with Dobson today. "James Dobson was a wonderful family counselor," White told a crowd. "Now he is a danger to himself and the nation. ... We love him anyway."

A CUNY professor who called religious believers "moral retards" has gone on another Internet rant - calling himself a defiant "superman" and comparing religion to oppressive regimes. A firestorm erupted at Brooklyn College after the views of Timothy Shortell - elected to head the sociology department this month - were revealed in a Daily News story on Monday. "Christians claim that theirs is faith based on love, but they'll just as soon kill you," Shortell wrote in an online journal that is linked to his Web site (www.shortell.org). Brooklyn College officials responded yesterday by launching an investigation into the controversial...