A conservative political activist and pro-family leader is outraged that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is forbidding prayer during the upcoming ceremony commemorating the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Robert Knight, a senior fellow for The American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) and a columnist at The Washington Times, recently penned a column called "Observing 9/11 without God." The columnist says Bloomberg has even topped his own endorsement of a mosque near Ground Zero by forbidding prayer during the upcoming 9/11 anniversary. 

(New York mayor's 'cowardice')

"I think the mayor is doing what many secular officials do, which is to try to appease Muslim extremists -- he's banning all religious references," Knight suggests. "Of course, that's the excuse they give in government schools and town squares during Christmas. It's like, 'Oh well -- we don't want to offend anyone, so let's just have an atheistic standard.' This is cowardice.

(Billy's Thoughts>>> So an Islam place of worship is OK with the head of New York city but nothing to do with faith which is what got New York and America through the 911 attacks. I hope the good people of New York and for sure the families who had people die in the 911 attacks will speak up.)

People in DeSoto County, Mississippi, are being urged to remain strong in their battle against those who want to stop prayers before high school football games. Parents and students did just that last Friday evening in defiance of legal threats against the tradition.

After hundreds of people in the stadium stood for the national anthem, the crowd recited the Lord's Prayer aloud to deliver a message to the atheist group Freedom From Religion Foundation -- the organization that threatened to sue if prayers over the public address system at sporting events did not end. 

(Mississippians pooh-pooh prayer ban)

(Billy's Thoughts>>> While I see nothing wrong with prayer at high school football games I believe it is not the biggest issue. If the court allows prayer before these games is that going to change our culture or what is being taught in these schools during school hours. What is needed is for parents to remove their kids from these educational camps and for God to bring a spiritual and moral change to America which can only come through him. )

Yet another major corporation has fired a well-known leadership and teambuilding trainer for writing a book on how same-gender "marriage" causes harm.

Dr. Frank Turek is the author of Correct, Not Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone. First, Cisco Systems canceled a training contract with Turek even though the sessions had nothing to do with his views on same-gender marriage. Now, Bank of America has done the same -- and in both cases, because one person complained.
 
"And he got a call from the [BOA] vice president for inclusion and diversity -- which is funny because the 'inclusion' person called to exclude him from the workforce by firing him for simply holding an opinion that's held by most Americans," explains Dr. Mike Adams, associate professor of criminology at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington.
 
Adams, who is also a conservative columnist for Townhall.com, wonders hypothetically what would happen if a conservative staff member at BOA complained of a man providing a seminar who happens to be homosexual and had written a book defending homosexual marriage.

(Christian consultant gets another pink slip)

After being threatened by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Desoto County School Board in Mississippi has decided to comply and ban prayers from football games and other school functions. Fans at a county football game on Friday, however, had different plans.

District Attorney Keith Treadway believes the law prohibits prayers over the public address (PA) system at sporting events, but Kelly Shackelford of the Liberty Institute says the Freedom From Religion Foundation is misinforming people.

"You have a right to speak a religious thought, even if it's on government property, even if it's on a PA system that's government -owned, even if it's on a public street, a public park, which are also government property," he contends.

The county school district may have decided to ban prayers at games, but parents and students did it anyway on Friday night at the DeSoto Central football game in Southaven.

WPTY in Memphis reports that following the national anthem -- in the absence of a prayer over the loudspeaker -- hundreds of people chose to recite the Lord's Prayer. "Their message, delivered quietly, was still powerful," says the ABC affiliate. 

(Football prayers -- district caves, fans pray anyway)

The FCC may have just recently done away with the remaining rules in the "Fairness Doctrine," but the head of National Religious Broadcasters is warning there are other ways in which the FCC can control speech.

Dr. Frank Wright says one such method involves localism and the push for community advisory boards for every radio and television station. "If somehow your community advisory board gave you recommendation that you didn't follow, well, at license renewal time that would pose some challenges for you," the NRB head explains.
 
Wright gives an example of how the policy might be imposed on a Christian radio station or network.
 
"Suppose you had a board that advised a Christian radio station to be more inclusive and invite other religious persuasions to give their take on different issues, and you didn't go along with that recommendation," he suggests.

(NRB: 'Localism' bad news for religious free speech)

The American Civil Liberties Union wants schools to deactivate filters on computers. 

(Legal advice to schools: Protect kids, ignore ACLU)

The ACLU complains that while the filters block student access to sexually explicit material, they also prevent them from accessing sites operated by homosexual activist groups. The Alliance Defense Fund has entered the fray, writing to seven school districts urging them to reject the ACLU's demand.
 
"School districts shouldn't be bullied into exposing students to sexually explicit materials," argues ADF attorney David Cortman, adding that the ACLU's "Don't Filter Me Initiative" would be better named the "Public School Porn Initiative.

(Billy's Thoughts>>> The good old ACLU looking out for the rights of those who might those who might harm our children. Don't you think this world would be a better place if our friends at the ACLU won't  always fighting for  the so called rights of others.)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a mayor in possession of a problem must be in want of a policy. But not all policies are created equal, and almost none are as silly or as counter-productive as the one that London mayor Boris Johnson announced on Wednesday: Children will be barred from watching shooting events at the 2012 London Olympics.

The restriction is designed to help stem London’s rising gun-crime rate, and to prevent the “glorification” of firearms. But it is predicated upon a farcical misconception, best characterized by the secretary of the British Shooting Sports Council, David Penn. “There is no link between Olympic-level shooting and crime,” he argued. “It is like saying that a thief would use a Formula One car as a getaway car.

(Billy's Thoughts>>> The problem is not guns but how guns are used. The problem also goes deeper into culture too many kids in the UK and America are growing up in broken homes, and going to schools that don't teach right or wrong or that there is a God that has a good plan for their lives. This step is not going to stop kids from doing bad things it just will make those on the left feel good and it will keep a lot of good kids from seeing  guns used in a good way.)

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend has done us a wonderful service with her Aug. 15 article in the Atlantic, "Is Rick Perry as Christian as He Thinks He Is?"
 
It's a masterpiece of liberal misuse of the Bible, which will become more frequent as the campaign heats up.

(Liberal 'gospel' exalts government)

First, only God and Mr. Perry know what Mr. Perry thinks of his own faith.  I doubt that either has shared that knowledge with Mrs. Townsend or her editors.
 
Maryland's Democrat lieutenant governor from 1995 to 2003, Mrs. Townsend starkly makes the case that being Christian means using other people's tax dollars to help the poor.
 
She penned this in reaction to Texas Gov. Perry's prayer rally in Houston on August 6.  Mrs. Townsend agrees with the atheist Freedom From Religion Foundation, which unsuccessfully sued to halt his participation in the event.
 
Throughout her piece, as befitting a member of the Kennedy family, she equates government with charity.
 
Mrs. Townsend revealed more than she probably intended in her opening paragraph:

"America is a religious nation. Polls may differ, but most find that over 80 percent of Americans say they believe in God. Fifty percent also say they go to church on Sunday, while only half of those actually do. I guess this shows that we want to look better than we actually are, at least to the public -- if not to God, who presumably knows what we're really up to."

Would a believing Christian dare use the word "presumably" to describe the capabilities of Almighty God, Whom the Bible tells us is omniscient, eternal and unchanging?  Either He is God or He isn't. "Presumably" is a weasel word implying doubt.
 
Let's move on to her view of Christian charity.

"I see a fundamental inconsistency between Perry's concerted opposition to government social programs and his promotion of himself as a Christian politician," she writes "....Christ teaches us to feed the hungry and care for the sick, not to abandon them. Perhaps Gov. Perry hasn't read that part of the Bible where Christ admonishes us to care for 'the least among us.'"

(Billy's Thoughts>>> The above piece was posted over  on  

OneNewsNow.com.  God never said in his Bible that helping those in need meant starting a government program. Besides is it Christian to spend other people's money?  If people didn't have to pay so much in taxes they would have more money to help those in need.)

 

   

 

While opposing forces continue their violent clashes, Libyan Christians are involved in spiritual warfare.

"The small group of Christians in Tripoli are meeting regularly in prayer, daily at noon for their country and for the future of Christians all throughout the country," explains Jerry Dykstra of Open Doors USA. He says the organization's representative in Libya reports that "there's not a large group. [It's] in the hundreds, probably."

GOP presidential candidate and Texas Governor Rick Perry is taking a lot of heat from some conservatives for issuing an executive order in 2007 that required middle-school-age girls to be vaccinated for HPV -- a sexually transmitted disease that is a main cause for cervical cancer. (See earlier story)

Dr. David Stevens, CEO of the Christian Medical Association (CMA), says his group sent a letter to Governor Perry at the time. While remaining neutral, the CMA told him they were not opposed to his mandate, as long it included an easy opt-out for parents -- which it did.

(Why CMA supported Perry's HPV vaccination order)

"In most states, and Texas is an example, it has to be a mandated vaccine before Medicaid and other children's programs will cover the cost of the vaccine," Dr. Stevens explains about his group's stance. "Of course, the most at-risk populations for getting cervical cancer and sexually-transmitted diseases are those who are impoverished, and therefore, sometimes difficult decisions have to be made to assure that they're going to get provision for them, while at the same time letting parents who don't want their kids to participate ... opt out."