Thoughts From A Conservative Mom

Posts Tagged ‘Religious Discrimination’

If you’re opposed to the idolatrous cult of the Messianic Nanny State, beware…the Obama administration has you in their cross-hairs.

John Boyle writes at The Citizen-Times:

In a blistering letter to President Barack Obama, the Rev. Franklin Graham said the IRS targeted the two non-profits he heads with an audit last year after the organizations took out ads urging people to support biblical principles on marriage and in choosing political candidates.

In the letter, dated Tuesday, Graham said in light of recent revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, he does not believe the audit was “a coincidence — or justifiable.” Graham, son of famed Christian evangelist the Rev. Billy Graham, now heads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association based in Charlotte, N.C., and Samaritan’s Purse, a worldwide relief organization headquartered in Boone.

“I am bringing this to your attention because I believe that someone in the administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us,” Graham concluded in the letter. “This is morally wrong and unethical — indeed some would call it ‘un-American.’”

Read more at The Citizen-Times

Steven Ertelt writes at Life News:

James Dobson, the pro-life family advocate disclosed today that he was a victim of IRS discrimination, in a revelation that adds to the growing Internal Revenue Scandal.

Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, says he faced discrimination from the federal agency when trying to start a new group.

Family Talk Action Corporation is a Christian ministry that was formed for the purpose of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ; of providing Christ-oriented advice and education to parents and children; and of speaking to cultural issues that affect the family. Dobson is the president and CEO.

On September 2, 2011, Family Talk Action filed a Form 1024 with the Internal Revenue Service requesting § 501(c)(4) status. The attorney completing this form had submitted scores of similar applications over his 26 year career with none being rejected.

In January and February 2013, Family Talk Action’s counsel called the IRS reviewing agent, R. Medley (ID no. 52402), to inquire regarding when there would be a determination of the application. Her voice mail box was full on each of these calls so no message could be left. On March 6, he called Ms. Medley again and got routed to her voice mail again. This time, he was able to leave a voice mail message and requested a return call.

Medley did not call back until March 19. Family Talk Action’s attorney asked her when the IRS would issue its determination letter. Ms. Medley responded saying, I don’t think your Form 1024 (application for exemption) will be granted because Family Talk Action is “not educational” because it does not present all views. She continued, saying that Family Talk Action sounded like a “partisan right-wing group” because, according to Ms. Medley, it only presents conservative viewpoints.

She then added, “you’re political” because you “criticized President Obama, who was a candidate.”

Read more at Life News

Dobson and Graham weren’t the only targets during the 2012 campaign:

The Biblical Recorder, the official news journal for North Carolina Southern Baptists, found itself in the same situation in March – audited for the first time since the Baptist newspaper was founded in 1833.

The newspaper garnered national attention last summer after Editor Allan Blume published an interview with Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy. In reference to his support of the traditional family, Cathy said he was “guilty as charged.”

The Biblical Recorder also published the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s ads affirming traditional marriage.

And then – came the telephone call from the Internal Revenue Service.

“It raised some red flags and made me wonder why we were being targeted for an audit when we have been around since 1833 and have never been audited before,” Blume told Fox News. “Putting it all together made me wonder.”

Blume said the timing may have been coincidental – but “it didn’t seem that way.”

“There seems to be a very anti-Christian bias that has flowed into a lot of government agencies – oppression literally against Christian organizations and groups,” he said. “It makes you wonder what’s going on.

Blume said the newspaper was eventually cleared, but the audit consumed time and money.

“It was a lot of time and energy that we didn’t have,” he said. “It took some of our staff literally several weeks of doing nothing but that (the audit),” he said.

Read more at Red State

It’s also come to light that the IRS was targeting pro-Israel groups and pro-life groups:

IRS officials refused to grant tax exempt status to two pro-life organizations because of their position on the abortion issue, according to a non-profit law firm, which said that one group was pressured not to protest a pro-choice organization that endorsed President Obama during the last election.

“In one case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for tax exempt status for Coalition for Life of Iowa. In a phone call to Coalition for Life of Iowa leaders on June 6, 2009, the IRS agent ‘Ms. Richards’ told the group to send a letter to the IRS with the entire board’s signatures stating that, under perjury of the law, they do not picket/protest or organize groups to picket or protest outside of Planned Parenthood,” the Thomas More Society announced today. “Once the IRS received this letter, their application would be approved.”

Planned Parenthood endorsed Obama in 2008 and 2012.

The IRS also pressured another pro-life group about its religious activities. “The IRS withheld approval of an application for charitable tax-exempt recognition of Christian Voices for Life, questioning the group’s involvement with ’40 Days for Life’ and ‘Life Chain’ events,” according to the law firm. “The Fort Bend County, Texas, organization was subjected to repeated and lengthy unconstitutional requests for information about the viewpoint and content of its educational communications, volunteer prayer vigils, and other protected activities.”

Read more at the Washington Examiner

With this much coordination against his “enemies,” there’s NO WAY Obama didn’t know about it.

“Very Frightening”: Prominent Catholic Professor Claims IRS Audited Her After Speaking Out Against Obama And Demanded To Know Who Was Paying Her

Why Would the IRS Target Billy Graham?

Surprise!  Director of IRS Tax-Exempt Determinations Office Is Obama Donor

IRS Admits To Targeting Conservative Groups For Harassment

IRS Tried to Swing 2012 Election Towards Obama

Why is the IRS Regulating Speech In The First Place?

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood government that Obama arms, funds and supports is violently persecuting religious minorities, using our tax money to do it:

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood’s governing majority, is not actually crucifying the nation’s Christians. But they are nonetheless actively persecuting Coptic Christians who are said to be one-tenth of the population of the largest Arab country. A photograph of two young men set afire during recent demonstrations is pretty striking.

Demonstrations have turned into riots as Egypt’s police cracked down on the Copts. The Copts were protesting against increasing sectarian violence directed at the country’s Christian minority.

Typically, what has been happening is the Copts protest against Islamist violence directed at them and their churches. St. Mark’s Cathedral has been the target of Muslim extremists in recent week. When the Copts face police, they get tear gassed. And then they are the ones arrested. The Muslim Brotherhood authorities will pick up Coptic youth—hopefully the ones not yet set on fire—and jail them.

Then, the police grab some of the Islamists perpetrators and jail them. Later, following a much-ballyhooed “reconciliation,” the authorities release all—perpetrators and victims alike.

Read more at Townhall

In Syria, the rebels that the U.S. is supporting – who are trying to overthrow Assad – are Islamic extremists who are threatening to exterminate any Christians left behind who don’t convert to Islam:

Syria’s Christians fear an Islamist takeover should the current government be overthrown. During the ongoing civil war there has been a well-documented rise in the number of salafi-jihadist groups operating in Syria that pose a direct threat to Syria’s Christian community. These militant opposition forces espouse an Islamist ideology, which incorporates elements of Wahhabism and Salafism and whose stated goals and objectives are by definition hostile towards Christians. Firsthand accounts from Syrian Christian refugees in Lebanon reported by award winning investigative journalist Nuri Kino detail the horror in which they described kidnappings, rapes, harassment, theft and other violent reprisals at the hands of Islamist groups.

Those who survived reported “just being Christian is enough to be a target,” disproving theories that violence and kidnapping directed towards Syrian Christians is purely incidental or for economic reasons.

Read more at Weasel Zippers

Once again, our taxpayer money is going towards funding Islamic extremism and the suppression of religious liberty.

Islam’s Collective Punishment of Christians

Brutal Sharia Law Now Official Law Of Egypt

Syrian Rebels Attack Christians, Impose Sharia law

Christian Massacres Are Result Of Disastrous U.S. Foreign Policy

Obama Complicit In The Persecution of Christians?

Krauthammer Warns: Gay Marriage Case Could Lead to All-Out ‘Assault on Religion’

View on YouTube

Last summer, lesbian journalist  and activist Masha Gessen admitted in a radio interview that the purpose of pursuing gay marriage is to destroy the institution of marriage entirely:

“It’s a no-brainer that (homosexual activists) should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. …(F)ighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there — because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie.

The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don’t think it should exist. And I don’t like taking part in creating fictions about my life. That’s sort of not what I had in mind when I came out thirty years ago.

I have three kids who have five parents, more or less, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have five parents legally… I met my new partner, and she had just had a baby, and that baby’s biological father is my brother, and my daughter’s biological father is a man who lives in Russia, and my adopted son also considers him his father. So the five parents break down into two groups of three… And really, I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality, and I don’t think that’s compatible with the institution of marriage.”

Read more at the Illinois Family Institute

George Neumayr warns at American Spectator:

The end point of liberalism is a coercive secular state in which the religious have no meaningful rights. American church leaders are kidding themselves if they think the gay-marriage juggernaut is going to stop at civil marriage. It won’t. It will quickly travel past court houses to churches, demanding that all religions bless gay marriages.

Denmark casts a shadow of this future, where the gay-marriage juggernaut has smashed through church doors. Last year the country’s parliament passed a law requiring all Lutheran churches to conduct gay marriage ceremonies. “I think it’s very important to give all members of the church the possibility to get married,” said Manu Sareen, Denmark’s minister for gender equality. Reluctant bishops have to supply ministers to satisfy the right whether they like it or not.

Iceland and Sweden have similar arrangements. Since many of the bishops are in the tank for gay marriage anyways and since these churches are “state” churches, this pressure generates little news. But it is instructive nonetheless. Where gay marriage exists, religious freedom gradually disappears, to the point where ministers have to choose between serving as secularism’s stooges or facing societal oblivion.

In America, this pressure will take the form of “discriminatory” churches losing government grants, permits, and participation in programs. It will be the death of religious freedom by a thousand little cuts here and there: canceled speeches of religious figures at state universities, lost HHS grants, the refusal of city governments to recognize churches that don’t permit gay marriages, “hate crime” legislation that extends to opposition to gay marriage, and so on. All of this will have the effect of pressuring churches into blessing gay marriages. A law forcing priests and ministers to preside at gay marriages won’t need to be passed; the invisible law of indirect governmental pressure will do the trick.

[...]  The goal of the gay-marriage juggernaut is to make Christians pariahs, as irrelevant to public life as racists. It doesn’t have to pass a Denmark-style law to force churches to conduct gay marriages; it can achieve the same end through punitive political correctness.

Read more at American Spectator

Gay Marriage Is Merely The Vehicle For Left’s Ultimate Goal: Destroying the Church

‘Don’t Care’ About Gay Marriage?  The Left Will Allow No Fence-Sitting.

“Marriage” Mayhem: Religious Freedom Being Trampled in the Scuffle

Adam Carolla: Gay Marriage Inevitable, So is Left’s March to Force Churches to Comply

Forces of Cultural Change: Explaining the Shift in Public Attitude on Same-Sex Marriage

What You Can Do About Same-Sex Marriage

Canada Offers Sobering Warning Of What Happens To Religious Liberty When Gay Marriage Is Legalized

Christians Targeted For Beliefs on Gay ‘Marriage’ – Is The Church Responsible?

The Dark, Intolerant, And Abusive Nature Of The Gay Agenda

The Agenda to Silence Christians

Short answer: because if they acknowledge parents’ fundamental right to educate their children, they will have to recognize it for all parents here, as well.

Dell Tackett warns at Truth Observed:

Uwe and Hanna are home-school parents from Germany. But Germany doesn’t tolerate home schooling. Those who do are harassed, fined, imprisoned, and can lose custody of their children. Uwe and Hanna had such a religious and moral problem with what German government schools were teaching that they chose to school their children themselves, just as millions in this country do every day. But Germany’s laws, based upon a 1938 law signed by Adolph Hitler, believe that Germany’s children belong to the State from an educational standpoint. The law prohibits parents from educating their own children so that Germany can prevent a different worldview, or “society” as the law states, from arising.

After increased persecution from the German state, Uwe and Hanna fled to the United States. A Federal judge heard the arguments and granted them asylum, stating that Germany’s law and policy was “Nazi-esque”.

Immediately, the Obama Administration filed suit against the ruling and will bring the case before the United States Court of Appeal for the Sixth Court on April 23. They are seeking to deport the Romeike family, which would send Uwe and Hanna back to Germany to face jail and possibly the loss of their children.

Why does the administration seek to do this?

Because it agrees with the German law. It doesn’t believe that parents have a right to educate their children. It is more in line with the National Education Association that homeschooling shouldn’t be allowed. It believes that the government can best educate “America’s children”. It doesn’t want another worldview taught in this country. It wants America’s children to have one worldview and one worldview only.

That is why they don’t want to grant asylum to the Romeike family. That would affirm parental rights—rights that have been fought for by so many courageous parents over the last 40 years in this country. Rights that I believe will take a serious hit if this case is won by the Administration.

Think of it this way: if the Administration wins this case, the legal statement and precedence will be set that parents do not have a fundamental right to educate their children and if the State were to ban home schooling, it would not be a violation of parental rights at all.

Read more at Truth Observed

A plea from abused homeschoolers

Attorney General Holder: Parents Have No Right to Educate their Children

German Homeschooling Family Flees to US

Flashback: US grants home schooling German family political asylum

Crackdown on Homeschooling in the Near Future?

Threat to Parents’ Rights a Bigger Issue than Rights of a Child

In the twisted mind of the Left (the ideology of which the United Nations is the primary propagandist), telling a woman that she can’t murder her child is the same as genitally mutilating her.

Offering a person the counseling and therapy needed to address the deep wounds at the root of same-sex attraction is equal to torturing and beating them.

You can’t even reason with someone that detached from reality and logic.   Black is white, up is down, wrong is right, love is hate, night is day…and nothing you say will convince them otherwise.

Kirsten Anderson reports at Life Site News:

A recent United Nations report on torture and mistreatment in health care systems around the world singled out lack of access to abortion as a form of “torture,” classifying it as a human rights violation on par with female genital mutilation, forced sterilizations and state-sanctioned beatings.

The report also says governments should recognize the preferred sex of ‘transgender’ individuals without regard to biology, arguing that forcing such people to undergo sex-reassignment surgery in order to prove their case is equivalent to torture.

[...]  The report calls for the “elimination of homophobia” in health care settings, calling on “all States to repeal any law allowing intrusive and irreversible treatments, including forced genital-normalizing surgery … ‘reparative therapies’ or ‘conversion therapies,’ when enforced or administered without the free and informed consent of the person concerned.”

[...]  One of the main ‘protection gaps’ identified was a lack of easy access to abortion in some countries.

“The Committee against Torture has repeatedly expressed concerns about restrictions on access to abortion and about absolute bans on abortion as violating the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment,” Mendez wrote.

In the densely-worded 23-page report, Mendez devotes an entire section to “Reproductive Rights Violations.”  While a list of violations towards the beginning of the section includes female genital mutilation, forced abortion, and forced sterilizations, much of the text that follows is focused on abortion access.

Read more at Life Site News

United Nations Backs Report Calling Abortion a Human Right

U.N. Group Calls for Abortion as Human Right for 10-Year-Olds, Decriminalization of Prostitution

Irony Alert: UN Human Rights Commissioner Wants To Make It A Crime To Oppose Abortion

California Bill Seeks To Deny Those Struggling With Homosexuality The Option Of Reparative Therapy

Former APA president says organization controlled by ‘gay rights’ movement, positions no longer science based

It’s not just Catholics. They’re doing it to Protestants, as well.

Be prepared.

John Nolte warns at Breitbart:

If anyone wants to argue that the same government currently forcing religious institutions to purchase the abortion pill through ObamaCare will not eventually use civil rights violations in order to attempt to force the Church to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies — good luck with that.

But this would have been unthinkable five years ago.

It was just three months ago that the White House and media piled on a reverend for preaching the Bible’s teachings on homosexuality. The result was his invitation to speak at Obama’s inauguration being rescinded.

This would have been unthinkable five years ago.

With the election of Pope Francis, we have news anchors openly clamoring that the Church is out of step on same-sex marriage.

This would have been unthinkable five years ago.

Fifteen years ago, the same leftists and media assuring us today that same-sex marriage won’t be imposed on the Church were telling us that civil unions (which I’ve always supported) would never lead to gay marriage.

With all that in mind, am I really supposed to buy that, within five years (maybe five days), the left and the media won’t be incessantly asking this question: “If the Church cannot legally refuse to marry an interracial couple, how can it legally refuse same-sex couples?”

Read more at Breibart

Erick Erickson correctly concludes at Red State:

As long as there are still Christians who actually follow Christ and uphold his word, a vast amount of people around the world — never mind Islam — will never ever see gay marriage as anything other than a legal encroachment of God’s intent.

So those Christians must be silenced. The left exerted a great deal of energy to convince everyone that the gay lifestyle is an alternative form of normal. It then has exerted a great deal of energy convincing people that because the gay lifestyle is just another variation of normal, gay marriage must be normalized.

Meanwhile, those Christians are out there saying it is not normal and are refusing to accept it as normal because of silly God dared to say marriage is a union between a man and woman.

Any Christian who refuses to recognize that man wants to upend God’s order will have to be driven from the national conversation. They will be labeled bigots and ultimately criminals.

Already we have seen florists, bakers, and photographers suffer because they have refused to go along with the cultural shift toward gay marriage. There will be more.

Once the world decides that real marriage is something other than natural or Godly, those who would point it out must be silenced and, if not, punished. The state must be used to do this. Consequently, the libertarian pipe dream of getting government out of marriage can never ever be possible.

Within a year or two we will see Christian schools attacked for refusing to admit students whose parents are gay. We will see churches suffer the loss of their tax exempt status for refusing to hold gay weddings. We will see private businesses shut down because they refuse to treat as legitimate that which perverts God’s own established plan. In some places this is already happening.

Christians should, starting yesterday, work on a new front. While we should not stop the fight to preserve marriage, and we may be willing to compromise on civil unions, we must start fighting now for protections for religious objectors to gay marriage.

Churches, businesses, and individuals who refuse to accept gay marriage as a legitimate institution must be protected as best we can. Those protections will eventually crumble as the secular world increasingly fights the world of God, but we should institute those protections now and pray they last as long as possible.

Read more at Red State

Religious Liberty in Peril If Prop 8 Isn’t Upheld by Supreme Court?

Christians Targeted For Beliefs on Gay ‘Marriage’ – Is The Church Responsible?

The Dark, Intolerant, And Abusive Nature Of The Gay Agenda

The Agenda to Silence Christians

‘Gay’ Jihad

Canada Offers Sobering Warning Of What Happens To Religious Liberty When Gay Marriage Is Legalized

If the Supreme Court Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage, What Next?

From our nation’s founding until the Supreme Court ruling on Engel vs. Vitale in 1962, school children across the country began their day with a prayer like this:

“Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country.”

How shockingly “offensive” to ask God to bless us, huh?

Until 1963, students could voluntarily choose an elective such as “New Testament Survey,” which studied the most influential book in history (especially Western Civilization).   Teachers could read from the Bible in a historical context, and teach children to recite “The Lord’s Prayer” (seeing as it’s the most well-known poem in the world).

But now, no more.  American school children have no idea of where common cultural references such as “David vs. Goliath,” “The Golden Rule” or “going the extra mile” come from.   The have no frame of reference for understanding why the Reformation was such a pivotal point in European history, how Henry VIII’s break away from Rome was so significant, and the reason why the Puritans and Separatists were so intent on escaping to the New World.   Children today aren’t taught where Thomas Jefferson got the phrase “Nature’s God” for the Declaration of Independence, or why our founders built our nation on the idea that unalienable rights come from our Creator.

They have no idea of an absolute moral standard – a Natural Law – which no man, woman, king or president is above.

And that’s exactly how tyrants want it.  If there is no recognized authority above the state, the state reigns supreme in people’s lives, and can do as it pleases with no accountability.

Pope Francis witnessed this first-hand in Argentina, and he offered this warning:

In a 2011 book,  Cardinal Jorge Maria Bergoglio, the new Pope Francis, stated that parents have a right to raise their children in accordance with their religious beliefs and that sometimes when the government intervenes to deprive young people of that religious element, it can produce terrible consequences, including “cases like Nazism” whereby many students were indoctrinated with views alien to those espoused their parents.

The book, in Spanish, is entitled Sobre El Cielo Y La Tierra (On Heaven and Earth), by Jorge Bergoglio and Abraham Skorka, the latter an Argentinan rabbi. The book is in interview-style and Skorka asks the cardinal a variety of questions throughout 29 chapters.

In Chapter 18, “Sobre la educacion” (On Education), the future Pope Francis says, “In the Bible, God presents himself as a teacher. ‘Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them in my arms,’ it says.  A believer is obliged to raise his children. Every man and every woman has a right to educate their children in their religious values.”

“When a government deprives children of this formation, it can lead to cases like Nazism, whereby children were indoctrinated with values opposite to those of their parents. Totalitarianism tends to take over education so it can use the water for its own mill,” said then-Cardinal Bergogolio.

Read more at CNS News

Why Christians Should Care About School Choice

IndoctriNation: A Powerful Film for Christian Parents

Why is the Church Silent on Education?

School Forces Child to Remove ‘God’ From Veteran’s Day Poem: ‘Separation of Church & State’

Calif. Teacher Punishes Students for Saying ‘God Bless You’

Second-grader suspended over drawing of Jesus

Judge rules against student’s religious expression

ACLU suit forces NJ students to cover, avoid religious symbols by using side door to auditorium

God & Country Banned in Public Schools?

Canada Violates Religious Liberty, Forces Private Catholic Schools To Teach Moral Relativism

Exiled from Vanderbilt: How Colleges are Driving Religious Groups off Campus

View on YouTube

Freedom of association is under assault on campus.   Across the country, universities are using “non-discrimination” policies to force student groups to admit members and leaders who do not share the core values and beliefs of the group.

In practical terms, that means Republican groups would be required to allow Democrats to join and apply for leadership positions, pro-life groups would have to include pro-abortion activists, and religious groups would be forced to admit those who oppose their religion and seek to destroy their group through a “hostile takeover” with their own members.

Todd Starnes writes at Fox News Radio:

Vanderbilt University has informed a small Christian student organization that it will no longer be recognized as a student group because it requires its members to have a personal commitment to Jesus Christ, according to email correspondence provided to Fox News.

“It just shows how radical the Vanderbilt administration has become in enforcing a policy that is nonsense,” said Kim Colby, senior counsel for the Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom. “A lot of jaws dropped when we saw how far the Vanderbilt administration was taking this.”

Colby told Fox News the Christian group did not want to be identified because “they just don’t want to be caught in the crossfire of the culture wars.”

The group reached out to the Vandy chapter of the Christian Legal Society so others would know what had happened, Colby said.

“They are a small group of students who want to gather together and worship God,” she said. “That’s basically all they want to do.”

According to email correspondence from the university, the group’s constitution was not approved because the university took issue with a requirement that leaders have a “personal commitment to Jesus Christ.”

[...]  Colby said the student group has decided not to comply with the university’s demands.

“They’re going to leave campus rather than take those five words out of their constitution,” Colby told Fox News.

Colby said it’s becoming clear that Vanderbilt University is specifically targeting Christian organizations.

Read more at Fox News Radio

Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated incident.  Similar policies are being adopted across the country:

Rollins College has determined that a Christian student organization is in violation of the school’s nondiscrimination policy because the group requires its leaders to be followers of Christ.

The college’s board of trustees voted unanimously not to exempt the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship from the policy – meaning the Christian group will no longer receive funding and will not be recognized as an official campus organization.

Read more at Fox News Radio

Will your alma mater or child’s university be next?   Go to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education to learn more.

College Shuts Down Dorm Room Bible Study

University Punishes Pro-Life Student Instead of Vandals Who Destroy His Display

Woman Suspended From University Job For Signing Pro-Marriage Petition

Student Counselor Fired for Religious Views on Homosexuality Loses Lawsuit

Remediation for Those the Tolerant Left Won’t Tolerate

Is Academic Bias Against Conservatives Real? An Amazing Admission

Bias and Bigotry in Academia

How Radical Professors Indoctrinate Students

A Warning For Parents of New College Students From a Closet Conservative Insider

We hate you. Now give us your kids so that we can turn them against you.

Brainwashing U: Colleges’ sick ‘orientation’ game

The High Cost of College and What it Does to Your Children

Radical Speech: Dave Barry Talks About Politically Correct Campuses

Justice Department: Home Schooling not a ‘Right’

View at CBN News

Illegal aliens – including drug dealers and other criminals – are welcome to come across the border in droves, according to this administration.

But a Christian family fleeing persecution in the form of fines, jail time and the confiscation of their children?   Not worthy of asylum, according to our Justice Department.  And why?  Because parents don’t have a fundamental right to direct the upbringing and education of their own children, our own government argues.

THIS is why the Parental Rights Amendment is so desperately needed!

CBN News reports:

The U.S. Justice Department says home-schooling is not a fundamental right.

That was the argument the Obama administration made in federal court against an evangelical Christian family from Germany seeking asylum in the United States.

Germany broadly forbids home-schooling. So the Romeike family was forced to flee the country or risk losing their five children to the German government, which was trying to force them to put their children in public schools.

The Homeschool Legal Defense Association is working on the Romeike family’s behalf.

Michael Farris, founder and chairman of HSLDA, wrote about Germany’s home-school ban in his blog saying, “It is thought control. It is belief control. It is totalitarianism dressed up in politically correct lingo.”

Read more at CBN News

Mary Jackson explains at the Baptist Press:

The Romeikes fled Germany in 2008 after authorities fined them thousands in euros and forcibly took their children because they homeschool. In 2010, a U.S. immigration judge granted the Romeikes political asylum — the first time this status was granted based on compulsory schooling laws. The judge found the family has legitimate fear of persecution in Germany, where a small group of Christian homeschooling families have already been jailed, fined and stripped of their children.

[...]  At a German public school, the children were bullied for their Christian beliefs. The Romeikes found school textbooks filled with inappropriate content. Still, Uwe says, “We knew that homeschooling would not be an easy journey.” The Romeikes came to the U.S. when “all other doors seemed to close.”

In Tennessee, Uwe teaches piano while the children play basketball and take science classes at a local co-op. Uwe says the uncertainty they face now hardly compares to the fear of “waking up with the police at your front door, there to take your children … not knowing if you will ever get them back.”

Read more at the Baptist Press

Deportation of German homeschool family affects US homeschool freedom

Petition: Grant permanent asylum to the Romeike family, who face prosecution in F.R. Germany for homeschooling their children

USA Trying to Deport Christian Homeschooling Family Knowing They Face Persecution

German Homeschooling Family Flees to US

Flashback: US grants home schooling German family political asylum

German Christian fathers put in jail for shunning explicit sex ed

Want To Tell The State To Stick It? Homeschool Your Kids

Crackdown on Homeschooling in the Near Future?

Threat to Parents’ Rights a Bigger Issue than Rights of a Child

Daniel Smyth writes at the Washington Times about a new scheme in New York to use anti-discrimination laws to force pro-lifers to either compromise their convictions or go out of business:

New York could soon shut down Catholic and other health care providers for not offering or referring for abortions. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, with enough support in the New York state legislature, could sign a reproductive health act (RHA) this year. Among other actions, the act would declare that New York “shall not discriminate against the exercise of…[abortion] rights…in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.”

The New York State Catholic Conference argues this “no discrimination of abortion rights” provision could “permit state regulators…to require support for abortion from any agency or institution licensed or funded by the state.” As the state grants medical licenses, New York could deny licenses to — and thus shut down — such institutions as Catholic and other hospitals or clinics that refuse to support abortion. New York could also deny these institutions Medicaid payments and other funding, which some of these institutions need for financial stability.

Other provisions in New York’s RHA would establish abortion on demand in New York. For instance, the RHA would permit abortions until birth, allow public funding of abortion and repeal the requirement of parental notifications for minors’ abortions.

Read more at the Washington Times

Sadly, this is only the latest example in a larger agenda to attack and marginalize people of faith:

Catholic adoption agencies have been forced to close their doors in Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., because their religious beliefs about marriage were deemed unacceptable by their jurisdictions.

A graduate student in Michigan was expelled from a counseling program because her religious beliefs about marriage were deemed unacceptable by school officials.

Christian pharmacists in Illinois were told to find other professions because their religious beliefs regarding when life begins were deemed unacceptable by the state.

Private business owners are facing enormous fines because their beliefs about when life begins have been deemed unacceptable by the federal government.

Pastor Louie Giglio did not deliver the closing prayer at President Obama’s inauguration ceremony because his religious beliefs about marriage were deemed unacceptable by the administration.

[...]  Compared with others around the world, people of faith in America enjoy extraordinary freedoms. Our lives are not in danger. We do not face imprisonment or torture for holding unpopular convictions.

Yet when people of faith are restricted from fully participating in society — owning businesses, entering the medical profession or providing much-needed charitable services — an intolerable trade-off has occurred. The government has exceeded its boundary, and the figurative wall between church and state must be strengthened.

[...]  The tide has turned, and we have begun to see the emergence of a state-created orthodoxy. It deems support for traditional marriage unacceptable. It discredits those who believe that life begins at conception. It disfavors their faith — held for centuries by their predecessors — and creates a regulatory framework to prevent them from fully participating in the public square.

When the government says, “You can believe whatever you want, but you will be penalized if you exercise those beliefs,” we have entered dangerous territory. We cannot allow a religious litmus test to determine who may participate in American life. We must defend the Constitution not only in form, but also in effect.

Read more at the Washington Times

Obama’s Coercive Secular State Leaves No Room For Freedom of Religion

Obama Campaign Ad Claims His Policies Based On Faith, ‘Following God’s Command’

Barack’s Bigoted, Secularist Social Engineering

Big Government is the rival and enemy of religion

Christians Called to Civil Disobedience Against Unjust Rulers

God our Provider vs. The State

The radical gay left could give lessons in bullying, which is a shame, since I have several wonderful conservative gay friends who oppose this kind of behavior, and these disgusting tactics give the gay community a bad name.

Since the owner of “Sweet Cakes by Melissa” bakery in Oregon declined to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony, the bullies have been out in full force.

Trolls came in droves to spam the bakery’s Facebook page with hateful, threatening and pornographic comments and images (all in the name of “love” and “tolerance,” of course).    They went after anybody who dared post comments of support.   They harassed the bakery’s recommended vendors, family and friends, and spammed their Yelp and other business review pages with hate and slander.

They “doxed” the family – who have small children – by publicly posting their personal information where identity thieves and dangerous people could find it:

They sent activists after Aaron and Melissa’s personal Facebook pages to harass them:

Someone even created a fake impersonator page in an attempt to slander them, by posting a racist, homophobic quote and claiming that it was Aaron and Melissa who said it (warning, foul language):

The conveniently cropped screen shot has since gone viral, and a reporter at the Examiner gave false confirmation that the quote was real.

What they’re NOT showing you is the whole picture (click to enlarge):

Notice, the impersonator page only has 8 “likes,” while the REAL page had over 600.  Notice also that under “Recent Activity,” it says “joined Facebook,” meaning that the impersonator page was only recently created, while the REAL page has been on Facebook since 2010.

The impersonator page, which used images lifted from their website, was only online for a couple of hours – long enough to post a couple of disgusting quotes and take screen shots to outrage the gullible.

The REAL page looks like this:

Several boycott pages have also been set up on Facebook, as well as one specifically designed to bully, called “Sweet Cakes by Melissa is run by Homophobes,” which uses the same photos as the real page in order to confuse people.   Facebook insists the page doesn’t violate their terms of service and refuses to take it down.

Sadly, much of the bullying has come from Christians who blame this family for the treatment they’re receiving and claim that they deserve it.  ”Just bake the cake! What’s the big deal?” “Who are you to judge?” “People like you are why gays hate Christians!” “Jesus loves gays, and you should, too!”  They compare the owner to the Westboro Baptist freaks, even though he NEVER said he hates gays or called them an “abomination,” or anything of the sort.  He simply politely said, “I’m sorry, I don’t make cakes for gay weddings.” When they asked why, he explained it violated his faith.  And now some Christians are harassing him for it.  It’s really sad.  There IS a balanced approach between the ridiculous claim that “God hates gays” and just caving to the entire leftist agenda.

This honestly has nothing to do with Aaron and Melissa or cake. They’re just the pawns these radicals needed to make a frightening example out of anybody that dared to stand in their way. I recommend that Christians and conservatives read Saul Alinsky’s “Rules For Radicals,” so they understand the playbook tactics that are being used against us. My friend Barbara Curtis, a former radical leftist who became a Christian author and mother of 12, did a book study to help Christians understand what we’re dealing with.

Most of us innocently living our daily lives have no idea how cruel and dangerous these people can be if you end up in their cross-hairs. I hope the church is waking up to the fact that the enemy we are dealing with is VERY real, and ignoring the problem is not the answer. Neither is throwing our own under the bus, as many Christians are apt to do to save their own hides. We can’t afford to be naïve and think, “If we just give them everything they want, they’ll leave us in peace.” No. They want to destroy us and everything our faith stands for. They don’t need a provocation to come after us. Our mere existence is a threat.  That is the reality.

I hope the church is beginning to wake up and realize that we are ALL on the front lines of the culture war now.  Even a small family bakery is no longer safe and off-limits.

Thankfully, this family is also receiving lots of support from Christians, conservatives and libertarians (some of whom are gay) who recognize that nobody should be intimidated by government and harassed by bullies for exercising their 1st Amendment conscience rights.  Even if you disagree with their particular stand on this issue, it’s important to remember that someday YOU might be bullied and coerced because of YOUR convictions, whatever they are.

It’s also important to recognize that there are many people who support gay marriage who do NOT condone bullying of this sort.  There are some people who are genuinely hurt and offended, who will probably show up to protest, and who just need to be reached out to with love and respect. It’s a great opportunity to start a conversation, but that can only happen in a civil atmosphere where both sides feel safe.

No wonder the left does everything it can to make sure that this debate is hyper-emotionalized and anything BUT civil.  

Slew of online hate reviews plagues ‘Sweet Cakes’ bakery

Oregon AG Investigates Christian Bakery For Refusing To Bake Wedding Cake For Gay Couple

Gay Activists Demand Boycott, Investigation Of Christian Company For Refusing To Print Gay Pride T-Shirts

Intolerant Gay Activists Target Chick-Fil-A With Massive Intimidation Campaign

Were Christians Being ‘Unloving’ Towards Gays By Supporting Chick-Fil-A?

Christians Targeted For Beliefs on Gay ‘Marriage’ – Is The Church Responsible?

The Dark, Intolerant, And Abusive Nature Of The Gay Agenda

The Agenda to Silence Christians

‘Gay’ Jihad

Canada Offers Sobering Warning Of What Happens To Religious Liberty When Gay Marriage Is Legalized

Obama White House Embraces Anti-Christian Bully Dan Savage Who Attacked Christian Students

Schools Promoting Homosexuality to Students Under Cloak of “Anti-Bullying” Campaign

“We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.” ~ Nancy Pelosi

That “free” healthcare they shoved down our throats is going to come as a real punch to the gut for families like mine! Our budget is strapped enough as it is, and now we’ll be slammed with thousands of dollars in fines because we’ve chosen to cash pay our providers.

We haven’t been able to afford health insurance for the past three years.  I’d like to just buy catastrophic coverage like you can for other insurance (car, home), but nooooo, you HAVE to buy comprehensive for stuff you don’t want (drug detox, psychotherapy, etc.) which is more than a mortgage payment, and you’re not allowed to shop across state lines for a better deal. They take away your choices and box you in until you have NO CHOICE but to go on a government plan. And that’s EXACTLY the agenda here – they want to bankrupt the insurance industry by taking away their customers and forcing everyone onto single-payer.

This HURTS poor and middle class families, and they don’t give a damn, because they want to force us all into government healthcare.  It’s infuriating!

Matt Cover reports at CNS News:

In new, final regulations issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said that parents must pay a federal fine under Obamacare if their children or dependent spouses are uninsured for any part of the year.

[I]f a child goes without government-defined health insurance coverage for any month of the year, their parent must pay a fine to the government, regardless of whether they claim the child as a dependent or not.

The only thing that matters to the IRS is whether the parent could claim the uninsured child as a dependent.

The same rule applies for an uninsured spouse if the couple files a single tax return. If they file a joint return, both parents are liable for the fine.

[...]  Uninsured adult family members use the full per-person cost of $695 per person when calculating their penalty, while uninsured children are penalized half of the adult cost – $347.50 per child. The amount of penalty parents may face will change every year after 2016, the IRS said, and parents will face a phased-in penalty between 2014 and 2016.

For 2014, parents could face a penalty of either $47.50 per child – under 18 – up to $285 total.

For 2015, the per-child penalty is $162.50 per child up to $975 total.

For 2016, the per-child penalty is $347.50 per child up to $2,085 total.

The per-person penalty is capped at $2,085 for 2016, but that cap will rise with inflation every year thereafter.

While the per-person penalty is capped each year, families can still owe more if their income is high enough because the law states that families must pay the greater of either the per-person penalty of 2.5 percent of their taxable income.

Read more at CNS News

What can you do to avoid the fines?   Just put that $20,000 in extra cash you have laying around to good use:

In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year.

Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS.

The IRS’s assumption that the cheapest plan for a family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan.

The examples point to families of four and families of five, both of which the IRS expects in its assumptions to pay a minimum of $20,000 per year for a bronze plan.

Read more at CNS News

For middle-class families that are barely making it right now, this is going to drive millions of them into poverty and forced dependence on the welfare state. It infuriates me how many Christians supported this travesty because they bought the lie that this is “compassion!”

Buy Insurance Or Pay A Fine – Rules for Obamacare’s Individual Mandate Officially Released

Craigslist Ad Shows Obamacare Hitting Youth Voter Like a Club

Check Out the Obamacare Mandate Fines…

New ObamaCare rules spell out who will be exempt from fines for failing to be insured

HHS Mandate Takes Effect, Struggling Business Owners Hit With Fines Violating Their Religious Freedom

A small, family-owned bakery in Oregon is being investigated for “discrimination” by the Oregon Department of Justice because their faith compelled them to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony.

A woman and her mother came into the bakery asking about wedding cakes.  During the course of the conversation, the baker, Aaron, asked the groom’s name.  He was told that there was no groom – rather, a second bride.  At this point, he apologized and explained that he did not make cakes for homosexual weddings.

The woman apparently left in a huff, and her mother came back to give Aaron a piece of her mind.  A few days later, Aaron discovered that a formal complaint had been filed against him for “discrimination,” by the lesbian partner who hadn’t even been present for the discussion.   The Oregon Attorney General is now investigating.

Listen to Aaron tell his story to radio talk show host, Lars Larson.

Once upon a time in America, the exchange of goods and services was voluntary, unhappy customers were satisfied with taking their business elsewhere, and signs that said “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone” actually meant something.

Now, the government wants to tell business owners who and what they must serve, regardless of their convictions.  But the sacrament of marriage is particularly sacred and holy to people of faith, and to redefine it in any way is a sin.  To take part in a ceremony which seeks to redefine that sacrament would be a violation of this baker’s faith.

Obviously, Aaron has no problem serving gay customers for occasions like holidays and birthdays.   This woman had bought a cake from him once before, and had been served with no issue.   If she hadn’t been happy with the service, she wouldn’t have come back.

But this time,  the customer was asking Aaron to participate in a ceremony which violated his faith.  He has a 1st Amendment right to abstain, and the customer has a right to be unhappy about it and never buy there again, but not to force him to accommodate her wedding against his conscience.

A quick peek at their website reveals the reason why this customer’s disgruntled fiance chose to make an intimidating example out of Aaron and his family:

No small business should be bullied into acting against their conscience.  I bet if he refused to bake a cake for a Westboro Baptist or Klan rally, nobody would bother him.  Or a cake to promote a candidate or cause he doesn’t agree with.  Or a Muslim “wedding” with a 6-year-old bride.   The only difference here is that he dared to refrain against a liberal pet agenda.

People have a right to discriminate against certain behaviors they find offensive.  They have a right to not be bullied by the government for honoring their conscience.   The Oregon Attorney General should be ashamed of wasting taxpayer money and pursuing such a spurious complaint.  Please show them your support!

Christians Targeted For Beliefs on Gay ‘Marriage’ – Is The Church Responsible?

The Dark, Intolerant, And Abusive Nature Of The Gay Agenda

The Agenda to Silence Christians

‘Gay’ Jihad

Canada Offers Sobering Warning Of What Happens To Religious Liberty When Gay Marriage Is Legalized

They waited until after the election to allow the full impact to hit.  Now people are about to discover “what’s in it.”

Todd Beamon reports at Newsmax:

The White House issued new rules on Wednesday regarding the individual mandate requirements of Obamacare, stressing those that allow for exemptions from the requirement to buy insurance.

The new rules sought to play down the scope of Obamacare’s unpopular individual mandate requirement, The Hill reports.

The exceptions, detailed by the Internal Revenue Service and the Health and Human Services Department, were included in regulations that also outlined the process by which the IRS will calculate penalties for not having insurance, The Hill reports.

The individual mandate requires most taxpayers to buy insurance or pay an IRS fine. It remains one of Obamacare’s most politically unpopular provisions — and it formed the basis of the case argued before the U.S. Supreme Court last year.

HHS called the individual mandate provision a system of “shared responsibility” payments.

But the penalty for not having insurance “applies only to the limited group of taxpayers who choose to spend a substantial period of time without coverage despite having ready access to affordable coverage,” the agency said in a fact sheet provided to The Hill.

Read more at Newsmax

Who decides what is “ready access to affordable coverage?”  Bureaucrats, of course!   Busybodies who decide whether or not health insurance is “affordable” for your budget, no matter what other demands you may have on it.

What if that “affordable coverage” includes something that violates your faith, like abortion?   Tough luck, honey!   You’ll be forced to buy it against your conscience, because Washington has decided that your “right” to “free” healthcare supersedes your unalienable 1st Amendment rights.

Of course, the central planners aren’t as perfect and omniscient as they think they are, and already a huge “glitch” has appeared:

Some families could get priced out of health insurance due to what’s being called a glitch in President Barack Obama’s overhaul law. IRS regulations issued Wednesday failed to fix the problem as liberal backers of the president’s plan had hoped.

As a result, some families that can’t afford the employer coverage that they are offered on the job will not be able to get financial assistance from the government to buy private health insurance on their own. How many people will be affected is unclear.

The Obama administration says its hands were tied by the way Congress wrote the law. Officials said the administration tried to mitigate the impact. Families that can’t get coverage because of the glitch will not face a tax penalty for remaining uninsured, the IRS rules said.

“This is a very significant problem, and we have urged that it be fixed,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, an advocacy group that supported the overhaul from its early days. “It is clear that the only way this can be fixed is through legislation and not the regulatory process.”

But there’s not much hope for an immediate fix from Congress, since the House is controlled by Republicans who would still like to see the whole law repealed.

The affordability glitch is one of a series of problems coming into sharper focus as the law moves to full implementation.

Read more at Newsmax

Check Out the Obamacare Mandate Fines…

New ObamaCare rules spell out who will be exempt from fines for failing to be insured

Craigslist Ad Shows Obamacare Hitting Youth Voter Like a Club

Another ObamaCare Medicare Gimmick

HHS Mandate Takes Effect, Struggling Business Owners Hit With Fines Violating Their Religious Freedom

Why is our military imposing the intolerant demands of Secular Humanism on our troops?   How is it any different than Sharia law, which seeks to suppress all religious expression at odds with its own ideology?

Todd Starnes reports at Fox News:

Religious liberty advocates are denouncing the U.S. military’s order to remove a steeple and dismantle Christian crosses from an Army chapel in Afghanistan.

“We can confirm that those items were removed from the chapel,” said a spokesman for the ISAF Joint Command. “These items were removed out of respect for the beliefs of other faiths.”

The Pentagon confirmed to Fox News that cross-shaped windows on the chapel were boarded up – until they can be replaced with non-offensive doors. Click here to read our original story.

The chapel, located at Forward Operation Base Orgun-E, became the subject of controversy after an atheist soldier complained and the president of American Atheists sent a letter to the Pentagon.

“Soldiers with minority religious beliefs and atheists often feel like second-class citizens when Christianity is seemingly officially endorsed by their own base,” American Atheists president David Silverman told Fox News. “We are very happy the Pentagon and the Army decided to do the right thing.”

A military spokesman told Fox News the cross was literally dismantled and will be removed from the base to be in “compliance with Army regulations and to avoid any misconception of religious favoritism or disrespect.”

[...]  Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, of the Family Research Council, told Fox News a Christian cleansing of the military is under way.

“I don’t think you can categorize it any other way,” he said. “There is a strong effort, led partially by the Administration as well as by atheist groups to destroy the identity of who we are as a nation and that means robbing us of our history.”

Boykin said he fears that the attacks on the Christian faith of soldiers could destroy the morale and the readiness of the military.

“In the long term, the greatest casualty of the conflict in Afghanistan is probably going to be the First Amendment rights of the American soldiers and the faith upon which America was founded,” he said. “I’m very concerned what the administration is doing to the military on a number of fronts. This is another indicator of how we are trying to impose a liberal agenda upon the people that are protecting the very rights of all Americans to be able to worship freely.”

Hiram Sasser, director of litigation for Liberty Counsel, wondered why Christian soldiers must hide who they are.

“Why are we ashamed of one of the major reasons our Nation is the most generous and self-sacrificing for the benefit of others that the world has ever known – our inherently Christian benevolence,” he told Fox News. “We have freed the oppressed, fed the hungry, and restored nations throughout the world without anything in particular to show for it other than the satisfaction of making the world better than we found it for the sake of goodness and doing the right thing.  Why should we hide a major motivation that compels Americans to do this?”

Ron Crews, the executive director of the Chaplain Alliance, told Fox News he was extremely disappointed to hear the news.

“I’m so concerned that the military is caving in to an organization that does not understand the First Amendment,” Crews said. “Christians have every right to exercise their faith in the military.”

Read more at Fox News

If these Atheists were as tolerant and “respectful of other faiths” as they claim, they wouldn’t have a problem with a Christian chapel being designated with a cross symbol.

Military Chaplains, Veterans Report Increasing Censorship Of Religious Speech, Expression

Obama Apologizes To Rioting Afghans Who Killed U.S. Solidiers

Flashback: U.S. Military Defends Burning Bibles In Afghanistan

Postal Service Requires Packages to Troops be Sharia-Compliant

Three Things The West Doesn’t Understand About Islam