UPDATE: 6/25/2010: Looks like the state commission will be shuttering the Nampa Classical Academy. In a unanimous vote, the school will have their charter revoked effective June 30, 2010. This seems to be more a case of bullying and a means to silence a detractor than a legitimate closure. The Idaho Statesman reports:
NCA leaders urged the Idaho Public Charter School Commission to give them more time to prove financial soundness and a new willingness to cooperate with the commission. But commission members needed virtually no discussion before accepting the hearing examiner’s recommendation.
...
“Bad day for charter schools,” NCA board member Erik Makrush said loudly as school representatives left the meeting room. He was quickly admonished by commission chairman Bill Goesling.
Just keep your mouth shut, your eyes down, and move along; nothing to see here, folks...
As I have mentioned before, the current interpretation of the separation between church and state is not the original intent of the First Amendment. It was borne from a 1947 Supreme Court ruling. Here is a good primer on the history.
There is a public charter school in the Nampa area that wanted to use the Bible as a source for history and literature. Idaho officials origionally gave approval but then later changed their minds. The school sued for the right to use the text but it was dismissed.
The headmaster and seven board members have since left over the issue. And now the Idaho Public Charter School Commission then moved to shut down the school siting financial instability as the reason. Hmm...
Personally, I don't buy it. She just looks... lost. It's as if she thought there would be ooo's and ahh's of support at her initial statement and when she received none, she tried to elaborate on what she meant. I think the audience at the Catholic Community Conference knew exactly what she meant. They just didn't believe she meant what she said. Based on her actual policies and voting history, I don't blame them. via cnsnews.com.
Another article posted at RWN. Here's a summary, follow the link below to read the whole thing.
Many of the pilgrims who fled to America in the first place did so because of religious persecution. With that in mind, the Founding Fathers protected our religious liberties with the First Amendment. It reads:
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.
Yet, because of liberals who are hostile to Christianity, we've turned the plain meaning of the Constitution on its head. Instead of protecting religious liberties, the First Amendment has been used to oppress the freedom of religion. Here's a great example of how that works from Georgia:
Preston Blackwelder proudly showed off a painting of his grandmother that had hung next to the front door of his Port Wentworth home.
She was the woman who led him to God, Blackwelder said Friday.
And with that firm religious footing, Blackwelder said it would be preposterous to stop praying before meals at Port Wentworth's Ed Young Senior Citizens Center near Savannah because of a federal guideline.
"She would say pray anyway," Blackwelder said of his grandmother. "She'd say don't listen."
But Senior Citizens Inc. officials said Friday the meals they are contracted by the city to provide to Ed Young visitors are mostly covered with federal money, which ushers in the burden of separating church and state.
For now. Of course this is the logical result. If the life of an unborn child is meaningless then why not use them for medical experiments? Shoot, for that matter, why not pay women to get pregnant on purpose for the sole purpose of harvesting? The total disregard for human life is disgusting.
The University of Wisconsin Hospitals have dropped plans to establish a late-term abortion facility at the publicly funded Madison Surgery Center that would be used to provide "fresh fetal body parts" to researchers at the institution, according to reports today from American Life League and the Alliance Defense Fund.
Confirmation came in a letter from Assistant Attorney General Kevin Potter, who wrote to a lawyer who had expressed opposition to the plan.
"It is my understanding based on recent information from the UW that they have now abandoned plans to provide late-term abortion services at MSC (Madison Surgery Center)," Potter said.
Potter's letter continued, "Should you obtain information that the MSC is in fact performing such services using state funds or if you believe that a crime is currently being committed, you may wish to contact us or the local law enforcement agency or district attorney's office."
ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman said Christians and other pro-life medical students and staff "shouldn't be forced to compromise their beliefs to maintain their positions."
There's a bull's-eye being hung on Christian prayer right now, and one of the attorneys who wages war for the right of Americans to express their faith publicly says on this 2010 National Day of Prayer it's because of a national atmosphere that encourages atheists to make their demands.
"The radical secular, militant atheists are feeling empowered right now," Mike Johnson, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund told WND.
The ADF is one of the premiere organizations that fights for civil and religious rights in the United States and is made up of thousands of lawyers who take on cases as they develop.
Johnson cited two recent developments that reveal a growing antagonism in the United States toward Christian prayer – even though the Continental Congress recognized the value of prayer even before the United States became a nation.
Those situations are the recent "disinvitation" issued by the Pentagon, refusing Rev. Franklin Graham, renowned evangelist and son of Christian legend Billy Graham, permission to participate in a prayer event at the Pentagon because some Muslims didn't like his beliefs.
The second situation is the ruling from a federal judge in Wisconsin that the National Day of Prayer as recognized for hundreds of years and especially as formalized in recent decades is unconstitutional. It's a decision that is being appealed.
In my opinion, this was never about the 1st Amendment's Establishment Clause. This was about someone who saw an opportunity to have a symbol of Christianity removed from his sight. In this case, the cross was originally erected to honor soldiers that had died in WWI. In decades past, symbols of Christian faith used in this way would not have needed defending. As more individuals get further and further from God, the country as a whole will become more accepting of this kind of challenge. More of these attacks on both faith and heritage will take place. Eventually the ruling will likely go the other direction. The question, then, is when?
The U.S. Supreme Court today raised the bar for those who express an "offense" because of the Christian faith, determining that the Mojave cross in California can remain on the knoll of rock where it has been for more than seven decades.
In the majority opinion delivered by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court said, "The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm. A cross by the side of a public highway marking, for instance, the place where a state trooper perished need not be taken as a statement of governmental support for sectarian beliefs. The Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of religion’s role in society."
The Mojave Cross, encased in plywood to prevent people from seeing the symbol
Kennedy was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Roberts and Alito filed additional concurring opinions. Antonin Scalia filed a concurring opinion that was joined by Clarence Thomas. Opposing the ruling were John Stevens, Ruth Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer.
This article was emailed to me by someone else in my church. It is long but worth reading. A link to the full original post at American Vision follows this excerpt:
Imagine the following scenario: At church this Sunday, while reviewing the list of announcements and upcoming events for your church, your pastor added, “Oh, and don’t forget: on Sundays we have our regular target practice. Make sure to bring your rifles. Make sure to bring your pieces to church.”
Absurd, right? Not so. It used to be the American way. For example, a 1631 law in Virginia required citizens to own firearms, to engage in practice with them, and to do so publicly on holy days. It demanded that the people “bring their pieces to the church.” Somewhere along the line we have lost this mindset. Today the ideas of church and arms are assumed to be at odds, as if loving your neighbor has nothing to do with the preservation and defense of life and property.
But the idea of Christian society and an armed, skilled populace actually have deep historical roots. Alfred the Great codified the laws of England in the 9th Century, often resorting to biblical law in order to do so (where he departed from biblical law, the integrity of his famous law code is quite poor). Alfred applied the Deuteronomic laws of kings that forbad a standing army (Deut. 17), and as a result developed a national defense based on militia:
By the Saxon laws, every freeman of an age capable of bearing arms, and not incapacitated by any bodily infirmity, was in case of a foreign invasion, internal insurrection, or other emergency, obliged to join the army.…
This required and encouraged an armed citizenry:
Every landholder was obliged to keep armor and weapons according to his rank and possessions; these he might neither sell, lend, nor pledge, nor even alienate from his heirs. In order to instruct them in the use of arms, they had their stated times for performing their military exercise; and once in a year, usually in the spring, there was a general review of arms, throughout each county.
