Mixed Signals From the Front

Just watching the patterns in the news, I think things might be starting to improve for Christians in the United States.  People are standing up and saying enough in many places, but that doesn't mean things are all good and sunny here in The-Land-of-the-Used-To-Be Free.

Among other things, the ACLU is cuttin' up ugly in Missouri .  They are seeking to block a law that would make it illegal to deliberately disrupt religious services.  The "Anti-Christian Lawyers Union" hold that that would interfere with freedom of expression.  I guess they're not objective enough to see that disrupting a religious service on purpose interferes with a congregation's freedom of expression, and their right to free exercise of religion both. Somehow, the parasitic lawyers have decided that religion is fair game for hate groups.

In South Carolina the ACLU has sent letter--with no basis in law--to schools in an attempt to intimidate them.  These letters state that the schools may not teach anything about religion.  I guess these lawyers don't understand a couple of simple things:  western and world history are not intelligible without some understanding of religion and religious issues.  Modern (since 1550) Western European History is incomprehensible without an understanding of the Reformation, and the Reformation itself is incomprehensible without an understanding of the issues and doctrines that the Protestant Founders were concerned with removing, and the Catholic Counter-Reformers were concerned with defending.  It set up divisions and fault lines that are still operative today, around the globe.  In the same way, world history, and especially the history of the interactions of the Islamic World and the Western world make no sense without an understanding of the Great Schism.  For that matter, one cannot make sense of the history of south Asia without understanding the tensions between Buddhism, Islam,  and Hinduism.  Likewise, East Asian history needs an explication of Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and Shinto.  Not to mention the history of colonialism and various world issues through WWII, or even near contemporary history like the Balkan Wars  of the 90s! The ACLU in it's letter also deliberately misstated that schools may not have religious clubs, or student groups that study scripture etc--this is in direct contradiction to Federal Court rulings.  The Federal Courts have ruled that religous student groups have the same rights as to access as secular ones.

In Loveland Colorado a school has confiscated a students rosary.  The school claims it is a "gang symbol".  Well I guess if San Fransisco can get away with labeling the Church a "Hate Group" a school can call Catholics a street gang here in Seculo-Fascist America.  But I do recall  that the constitution protects free exercise of religion, freedom of speech--and by extension freedom of expression--and states that people cannot be deprived of their property without recompense.  By taking his limiting his freedom of expression, freedom of speech,  ability to exercise his religion and taking his property with such stipulations that make it impossible for him to recover it, some unelected public employees have trampled his rights.   I guess here I should say that European Catholics and many American Catholics say one should not wear the rosary like jewelry--but this kid is Hispanic, and they don't have that stricture--and it's not a rule for the Universal Church that they no be worn in such a manner.  Hmmmm...if he's Hispanic, this looks even worse, because not only is it directed against a harmless symbol of his Catholic Faith, the assumption is that a Hispanic kid displaying a rosary must be a gang-banger:  it's Anticatholic bigotry and racism in one, a twofer of discrimination.

“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 Roessiger's are a family in Florida that are under attack  for hosting a Bible Study in their home and placing a sign in their yard listing a phone number you can call to have people pray for you.  The Pacific Justice Institute is providing legal counsel and assistance in the families battle with the Venice Florida City Code Enforcement Board.  Right now it looks like the family has won the battle for their Civil Rights.  But, there is a warning here for the accommodationists--The Seculo-Fascists keep trying to say that Freedom of Religion applies to what occurs (with limits on anything that can be construed as political, and one of their buzz phrases is that "The personal is political") inside of a church or in a home, but given the slightest pretext they will try to stop what happens in the home.

The Fransiscan University of Stuebenville is under fire, and receiving attacks from every quarter, to include CNN and NPR, for teaching a course on deviant behavior.  They are being attacked by Sodomites and others who object to being called deviants.  I have new for them--in Sociology, a devient is some onw on the extreme ends of the bell curve for behaviors, and since the best figures put Sodomites and Sapphists at 1.5 to 3 percent of the population, by scientific definition they are deviants.  So much for Academic Freedom, as well as Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Thought.  Let alone the idea that Academia is about the free exchange of ideas.

Holy Family Catholic Church in Citrus Heights California is under fire for having a pro-life sign on their lawn.  The sign reads "Don't support abortion with your vote--Vote Pro-Life".  It doesn't endorse a specific party or candidate, but a moral stance based on the faith of the Catholic Church.  They are being told that this sign pushes the envelope of permissible speech by a church, by pro-abortion persons.  My own parish has had people call us, or walk into the office to berate us for our pro-life signs, which didn't even mention voting.  Speech rooted in religious belief isn't well tolerated by Seculo-Fascists.

The religious and free speech rights, as well as the right to freedom of association of the family that owns and runs Chick-Fil-A have been so battered that they have been driven from the public forum by what amounts to an economic lynch mob of sodomites and their sympathizers.  The actions of this company were within the law, within their rights and in accordance with their faith.  Yet the hate mongers who despise Christians who actually live and act according to their belief have effectively silenced them.  Yet another example of the civil rights of Christians under attack.

I want to conclude by a blatantly partisan statement about some of the US Catholic Bishops.  I think they are ignorant and foolish.  The movie Natural Born Killers brought the American Indian fable of the rattlesnake brought into the house to mainstream American attention, yet these men are allying with the ACLU--remember the first paragraphs?--on a cause that is not an absolute in Catholic teaching, never thinking that this same group will cheerfully destroy the Church int he United States for their Seculo-Fascist goals.

We have only ourselves to blame.