The progressive war on Christmas/Christianity

[TemplarKormac]

Oh I see. Because it hasn't happened to you (I don't believe you're Christian) then it isn't happening to ANYONE.

Uh huh.

Meanwhile, in the real world:

A federal judge threatened “incarceration” to a high school valedictorian unless she removed references to Jesus from her graduation speech.
City officials prohibited senior citizens from praying over their meals, listening to religious messages or singing gospel songs at a senior activities center.
A public school official physically lifted an elementary school student from his seat and reprimanded him in front of his classmates for praying over his lunch.
Following U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ policies, a federal government official sought to censor a pastor’s prayer, eliminating references to Jesus, during a Memorial Day ceremony honoring veterans at a national cemetery.
Public school officials prohibited students from handing out gifts because they contained religious messages.
A public school official prevented a student from handing out flyers inviting her classmates to an event at her church.
A public university’s law school banned a Christian organization because it required its officers to adhere to a statement of faith that the university disagreed with.
The U.S. Department of Justice argued before the Supreme Court that the federal government can tell churches and synagogues which pastors and rabbis it can hire and fire.
The State of Texas sought to approve and regulate what religious seminaries can teach.
Through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, the federal government is forcing religious organizations to provide insurance for birth control and abortion-inducing drugs in direct violation of their religious beliefs.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs banned the mention of God from veterans’ funerals, overriding the wishes of the deceased’s families.
A federal judge held that prayers before a state House of Representatives could be to Allah but not to Jesus.

Read more at Persecution of Christians on rise ? in U.S.

Nonsense.

For decades Establishment Clause jurisprudence has been very clear as to what is permissible and what is not with regard to religion in schools. After all these years and scores of cases, if a given school district’s legal staff don’t know what is Constitutional and what is not by now, the blame rests solely with the school district.

And employers with some tenuous religions affiliation are employers first, they are subject to the same labor laws as any other employer, including regulatory policy concerning compensation, which is what paying employees’ premiums for health insurance is, just like a wage, salary, or paid time off. What’s afforded the employee is between the employee and the health insurance company alone, it’s no business of the employer. And the argument that laws requiring employers provide comprehensive health coverage with regard to contraception is a ‘violation’ of the Free Exercise Clause fails, as religion cannot be used as an excuse for not obeying the law. See: Employment Division v. Smith (1990).

This ruling compares the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause. This has nothing to do with prayer in schools! Daggum Clayton, anything will do these days, won't it?

You're reaching.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Please, like you would know "reasonable". You can't make an argument to save your life.

Yes, Christians in the US are persecuted....not to the degree that they are in other countries, yet, but that's not for want of trying.

Persecution like this?
Texas judge rules for cheerleaders in Bible banner suit

And in North Carolina we have HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION DRHJR10194-MM-54

A JOINT RESOLUTION TO PROCLAIM THE ROWAN COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA, 1 DEFENSE OF RELIGION ACT OF 2013.
SECTION 1. The North Carolina General Assembly asserts that the Constitution 31 of the United States of America does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws 32 respecting an establishment of religion. 33
SECTION 2. The North Carolina General Assembly does not recognize federal 34 court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the State of North Carolina, its public 35 schools, or any political subdivisions of the State from making laws respecting an 36 establishment of religion.

And I'll guess Rowan County isn't going to choose Ba'hai as their official religion.

Let's look at the bigger picture here.

Obama Admin. Backs Off in Bible Publisher Suit Over Birth Control Mandate

 

[ShaklesOfBigGov]

Really? Name a time in the past 3 months where someone has said something bad about Christmas.

And....................if there really was a war on Christianity, then why are you guys still so numerous? Even to the point where you've got your own little inbred bunch of retards in a division of Christianity called the Westboro Baptist Church?

Your reasoning is flawed. You don't have to kill Christians to persecute them. If you think that there isn't any persecution, just listed to Joe, he can't resist taking shots at religion and namely Christians whenever he gets the chance.

Actually, you generalize too much, not all of us are like those idiots in Westboro. They can burn for all I care.

Some idiot posting their particular bias on a messageboard doesn't equal persecution either. Stopping people from being able to worship as they please, targeting a specific belief system to jail people or kill them, THAT'S persecution, and I've yet to see any of it here in the US. Have we stopped people from building Christian churches? Have we thrown any Christians in jail strictly because of their beliefs? Have we killed any Christians because of their beliefs?

And..........................I wasn't comparing you to the Westboro Baptist church, I was saying that Christians are so numerous that they have even managed to multiply to the point where something like Westboro exists.

If Christians were truly persecuted, whackjobs like them would have been put out of business a while ago.

Let's take it from a point of view that's more relatable to the secular view and easier to understand. What would the perception be if a small minority allowed homosexual couples to display affection, just don't display that in public where they might find such display offensive. Would that be considered attacking someone's personal freedom? I'm sure they would be viewed as being intolerant and homophobic.... what does then say of a minority who is easily offended and intolerant of Christians openly displaying their beliefs in public?

It's interesting how tolerance ( which is really about "allowing" someone the freedom to openly express their views even if we don't agree with it ), is now replaced with being more "political correct" towards one ideological view. Being offended has nothing to do with it, it's more about silencing a view (belief) of a particular group of people they don't agree with. How we often forget the first amendment regarding religion also continues on to say: nor prohibit the free exercise thereof.

 

[ShaklesOfBigGov]

Oh I see. Because it hasn't happened to you (I don't believe you're Christian) then it isn't happening to ANYONE.

Uh huh.

Meanwhile, in the real world:

A federal judge threatened “incarceration” to a high school valedictorian unless she removed references to Jesus from her graduation speech.
City officials prohibited senior citizens from praying over their meals, listening to religious messages or singing gospel songs at a senior activities center.
A public school official physically lifted an elementary school student from his seat and reprimanded him in front of his classmates for praying over his lunch.
Following U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ policies, a federal government official sought to censor a pastor’s prayer, eliminating references to Jesus, during a Memorial Day ceremony honoring veterans at a national cemetery.
Public school officials prohibited students from handing out gifts because they contained religious messages.
A public school official prevented a student from handing out flyers inviting her classmates to an event at her church.
A public university’s law school banned a Christian organization because it required its officers to adhere to a statement of faith that the university disagreed with.
The U.S. Department of Justice argued before the Supreme Court that the federal government can tell churches and synagogues which pastors and rabbis it can hire and fire.
The State of Texas sought to approve and regulate what religious seminaries can teach.
Through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, the federal government is forcing religious organizations to provide insurance for birth control and abortion-inducing drugs in direct violation of their religious beliefs.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs banned the mention of God from veterans’ funerals, overriding the wishes of the deceased’s families.
A federal judge held that prayers before a state House of Representatives could be to Allah but not to Jesus.

Read more at Persecution of Christians on rise ? in U.S.

Nonsense.

For decades Establishment Clause jurisprudence has been very clear as to what is permissible and what is not with regard to religion in schools. After all these years and scores of cases, if a given school district’s legal staff don’t know what is Constitutional and what is not by now, the blame rests solely with the school district.

Actually the "Establishment Clause" was settled by definition through those that were familiar with our original Framers intent regarding religion, not some recent judges "guess work" on the topic over the last 50 years.

January 19, 1853 Congress of the United States of America
as part of a Congressional investigation, records the report of Mr. Badger of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

The [First Amendment] clause speaks of "an establishment of religion". What is meant by that expression? It referred, without doubt, to that establishment which existed in the mother-country ... endowment at the public expense, particular privileges to its members, or disadvantages or penalties upon those who should reject its doctrines or belong to other communions, -- such law would be a "law respecting an establishment of religion..."

They intended, by this amendment, to prohibit "an establishment of religion" such as the English Church presented, or anything like it. But they had no fear or jealousy of religion itself, nor did they wish to see us an irreligious people...

They did not intend to spread over all the public authorities and the whole public action of the nation the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistic apathy. Not so had the battles of Revolution been fought and the deliberations of the Revolutionary Congress been conducted.


We are a Christian people...not because the law demands it, not to gain exclusive benefits or to avoid legal disabilities, but from choice and education; and in a land thus universally Christian, what is to be expected, what desired, but that we shall pay due regard to Christianity.

March 27, 1854 Congress of the United States of America
received the report of Mr. Metacham of the House Committee on the Judiciary:

What is an establishment of religion? It must have a creed, defining what a man MUST believe; it must have rites and ordinances, which believers must observe; it must have ministers of defined qualifications, to teach the doctrines and administer the rites; it MUST have tests for the submissive and penalties for the non-conformist. There never was as established religion without ALL these....

At the adoption of the Constitution... every State...provided as regularly for the support of the Church as for the support of the Government....
Down to the Revolution, every colony did sustain religion in some form. It was deemed peculiarly proper that the religion of liberty should be upheld by a free people. Had the people, during the Revolution, had a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle.

At the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, not any one sect [denomination]. Any attempt to level and discard all religion would have been viewed with universal indignation. The object was not to substitute Judaism or Mohammedanism, or infidelity, but to prevent rivalry among the [Christian] sects to the exclusion of others.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Your reasoning is flawed. You don't have to kill Christians to persecute them. If you think that there isn't any persecution, just listed to Joe, he can't resist taking shots at religion and namely Christians whenever he gets the chance.

Actually, you generalize too much, not all of us are like those idiots in Westboro. They can burn for all I care.

Some idiot posting their particular bias on a messageboard doesn't equal persecution either. Stopping people from being able to worship as they please, targeting a specific belief system to jail people or kill them, THAT'S persecution, and I've yet to see any of it here in the US. Have we stopped people from building Christian churches? Have we thrown any Christians in jail strictly because of their beliefs? Have we killed any Christians because of their beliefs?

And..........................I wasn't comparing you to the Westboro Baptist church, I was saying that Christians are so numerous that they have even managed to multiply to the point where something like Westboro exists.

If Christians were truly persecuted, whackjobs like them would have been put out of business a while ago.

Let's take it from a point of view that's more relatable to the secular view and easier to understand. What would the perception be if a small minority allowed homosexual couples to display affection, just don't display that in public where they might find such display offensive. Would that be considered attacking someone's personal freedom? I'm sure they would be viewed as being intolerant and homophobic.... what does then say of a minority who is easily offended and intolerant of Christians openly displaying their beliefs in public?

It's interesting how tolerance ( which is really about "allowing" someone the freedom to openly express their views even if we don't agree with it ), is now replaced with being more "political correct" towards one ideological view. Being offended has nothing to do with it, it's more about silencing a view (belief) of a particular group of people they don't agree with. How we often forget the first amendment regarding religion also continues on to say: nor prohibit the free exercise thereof.

No one is taking issue with ‘public displays of religion,’ the issue only concerns itself with violations of Establishment Clause jurisprudence, where persons of faith seek to conjoin church and state, by enacting measures that lack a secular motive, or attempting to promote religion through legislative means, or where there is an excessive entanglement between church and state. See: Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971).

Moreover, no one is seeking to ‘silence’ a view or belief, as the Constitution prohibits conjoining only church with state, as the First Amendment applies to government alone. And that the Constitution prohibits citizens attempting to codify their religious dogma, there is no Free Exercise Clause violation.

 

[koshergrl]

Yes, people are taking issue with public displays of religion. So shut the fuck up, you lying piece of shit.

 

[HUGGY]

Yes, people are taking issue with public displays of religion. So shut the fuck up, you lying piece of shit.

Nice talk "Church Lady".. !!!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62Qfbrc1jdo]Could it Be..... - YouTube[/ame]

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Yes, people are taking issue with public displays of religion. So shut the fuck up, you lying piece of shit.

More unsubstantiated nonsense.

Anyone can go anywhere in America and engage in religious expression, be that a public or private venue.

One may not, however, seek to have that religious expression codified, endorsed, or otherwise promoted by the state in the context of official state policy.

Children praying in public school at the behest of the administration or nativity scenes on government property sanctioned and paid for by the state are un-Constitutional because the state is endorsing religion, absent a secular purpose, manifesting an excessive entanglement with religion and government.

These appropriate prohibitions in no way interfere with the free expression of a given faith, as nowhere in the religious tenets of any faith is one required to pray in school as a component of official religious ritual or observance.

 

[koshergrl]

It's not unsubstantiated. It's been substantiated by usmb members alone, a thousand times. Jillian maintained that her son shouldn't have to listen to Christians preaching on street corners; and I don't even know how many claim that Christians shouldn't be allowed to teach...joe maintains (like all good commie fascists) that religion belongs under cover of night, in the confines of one's own home...behind blacked out windows.

So shut up, you lying anti Christian piece of shit.

 

[American_Jihad]

 

[American_Jihad]

Obama Pushes Funds for Islamists —- Trashes Their Christian Victims

May 10, 2013 By Faith J. H. McDonnell

...

Responding to Carson’s testimony at a House Subcommittee on Africa hearing in July 2012, Subcommittee Chairman, U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ), remonstrated that poverty alone does not drive people to violence. And in any case, Boko Haram is well funded by outside Islamists. “Heavy machine guns” and “buses and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns” are just the latest examples to show that Boko Haram is not just a motley crew of impoverished, marginalized local Muslims. In February 2013 it was revealed that hundreds of Boko Haram members had trained for months in terrorist camps in northern Mali with the local “Ansar Dine” al Qaeda of Mali. Their former chef, explained that he cooked for over 200 Nigerians who had “arrived in Timbuktu in April 2012 in about 300 cars, after al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) swept into the city.”

In its 2013 Nigeria briefing, human rights group Justice for Jos +, a project of Jubilee Campaign USA, remarked, “Ironically, in northern Nigeria, it is Christians who are totally disenfranchised politically, economically, and socially in their own states and by their own ethnic groups due to their religious identity.” This is worse than just “political marginalization,” Mr. Carson! Justice for Jos + continues, “Christians are regarded as inferior to Muslims and suffer ongoing, systematic and comprehensive discrimination even by local and (Sharia) state governments.”

As in many Islam-dominated regions, the northern Nigerian Sharia state governments require permits to construct new churches or repair old ones. But churches are disappearing from the northern Nigerian landscape because the permits are not granted and the existing churches are being demolished or burned in anti-Christian riots and Boko Haram attacks. “The Muslim community is so determined to prevent Christians from having churches to meet in, that when selling land to Christians they commonly include the proviso ‘Not to be used for a bar, a brothel, or a church’ on official deeds,” Justice for Jos + reveals.

...

In April 2012, former Asst. Secretary Carson told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that the US would soon open a consulate in Kano, one of the full-Sharia northern states, to join the U.S. Embassy in Abuja and the existing consulate in Lagos. Three months earlier, Boko Haram had carried out numerous simultaneous attacks on the security agencies in Kano – police stations, army barracks, intelligence headquarters – leaving some 200 dead. What a great place to build a new U.S. consulate. Kano is about 200 miles from Abuja. About half as far as Benghazi is from Tripoli.

Obama Pushes Funds for Islamists ?- Trashes Their Christian Victims | FrontPage Magazine

 

[koshergrl]

Bullshit.

Persecution Around the World « Persecution of Christians & Persecuted Churches

By your retarded logic, any time that anyone is persecuted, then they would disappear altogether.

Follow along with the thread Kaiser Twit...................we're talking about Christians being persecuted in America.

That's funny, because the post I was responding to didn't specify. It maintained that there's no persecution of Christians.

Not that it matters, there's perseuction of Christians in America as well, and good examples were provided.

And in case any of you fruit loops want to try to say "nobody wants to shut down all public displays of Christianity!" there's this, in this thread:

Quote: Originally Posted by Dot Com
Quote: Originally Posted by koshergrl
So do you maintain that it doesn't happen anywhere?

Because of course that would be a lie.

Well it's a lie in this country, as well. We're continually targeted and marginalized. The fact that we still get to vote and participate in mainstream society is a testament to the fact that the majority continues to strike down attempts by leftist scum to criminalize Christianity and erode our freedoms.

But they'll find ways around that........see OP.


oh for fuck's sake. We just don't want you Tebowing every chance you get.


Lol. It's such a non-argument. Tax dollars pay for Rick Perry to hold his stadium revival meetings so he can babble on repetitively "like the pagans do", Obama's inaugural festivities devolved into a prayer fest, but they are persecuted and marginalized, because World Net Daily reports on what the Family Research Council claims
__________________

 

[boilermaker55]

You know the crowd. the CINO..."christians in name only."

Yes, people are taking issue with public displays of religion. So shut the fuck up, you lying piece of shit.

Nice talk "Church Lady".. !!!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62Qfbrc1jdo]Could it Be..... - YouTube[/ame]

 

[koshergrl]

Marginalization:...."We don't want you tebowing" "Church lady" "Religousity is a mental illness"....

Every single thing I said is true, and you know it.

 

[Obamanation]

To me this is pretty simple. Christians believe in a value system -- God, family, Country, and hard work.

Progressives believe in secularism --- self, if it feels good it is good, I refuse to be responsible or accountable, and everything should be handed to me.

You can easily see why progressives have such an issue with Christians.

 

[Agit8r]

self, if it feels good it is good, I refuse to be responsible or accountable.

like "hiking the Appalachian Trail" as the kids are calling it nowadays

 

[ABikerSailor]

Marginalization:...."We don't want you tebowing" "Church lady" "Religousity is a mental illness"....

Every single thing I said is true, and you know it.

Quick question Kaiser Twit....................how the fuck is Tebow or the SNL version of the church lady in any way influencing the persecution of religion?

We laugh at you, yet we allow you to breed.

 

[editec]

There ARE Christians in the world who truly ARE being persecuted for their religon

American Christians laying claim to their victimhood are about as sympathetic to me as those chickenhawks who attempt to steal VALOR from real veterans.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

There are different types of persecution, editec, but generally I agree with you that persecution in America is not the same as persecution in a 10/40 window nation. Those are the hot zones whereas America is just beginning to heat up.

One thing I'd like to mention as it is Mothers Day. The families in America are made up of democrats and republicans and everything in between. The animosity and hatred that is coming from the democrat party concerning Christian evangelicals and support of Israel is worse than I have ever seen it.

It is splitting families up because the liberals are taking this same hatred into their own families and are targeting their own christian relatives with slander. This is very sad.

My heart goes out to the mothers of America who have divided families and don't know what to do about it. The reality is that in every nation that has ever been taken over by communism - the christians have been turned into the government by their own communist family members.


Jesus said there would come a day that your own family members would turn you in and you would be arrested and some would be put to death for their faith. This has traditionally been the case throughout the history of communism. I remember the testimony of a chinese christian who said her communist brother sat beside her on a bus one day after years of not seeing him. He said to her don't you recognize your own brother? She said, you turned our parents in and caused them to be put to death for their christian faith. You are no longer my brother.

In Romania during communist rule - christians were reported on by neighbors, communist family members. In Russia, same thing, in China, same thing, in communist NK the average life span of a christian is less than 90 days. This is the reality of communism and the reason that Martin Luther King Jr. preached communism was the number one enemy of the Jesus Christ and his followers. Number one. I would say that today we have two enemies. Communism and Islam. Still communists are the number one persecutors of Christians in the world today. When you see a liberal focusing on the slander of Christianity on message boards - speeches - etc. you've just seen a communist in action. - Jeri

 

[ShaklesOfBigGov]

Some idiot posting their particular bias on a messageboard doesn't equal persecution either. Stopping people from being able to worship as they please, targeting a specific belief system to jail people or kill them, THAT'S persecution, and I've yet to see any of it here in the US. Have we stopped people from building Christian churches? Have we thrown any Christians in jail strictly because of their beliefs? Have we killed any Christians because of their beliefs?

And..........................I wasn't comparing you to the Westboro Baptist church, I was saying that Christians are so numerous that they have even managed to multiply to the point where something like Westboro exists.

If Christians were truly persecuted, whackjobs like them would have been put out of business a while ago.

Let's take it from a point of view that's more relatable to the secular view and easier to understand. What would the perception be if a small minority allowed homosexual couples to display affection, just don't display that in public where they might find such display offensive. Would that be considered attacking someone's personal freedom? I'm sure they would be viewed as being intolerant and homophobic.... what does then say of a minority who is easily offended and intolerant of Christians openly displaying their beliefs in public?

It's interesting how tolerance ( which is really about "allowing" someone the freedom to openly express their views even if we don't agree with it ), is now replaced with being more "political correct" towards one ideological view. Being offended has nothing to do with it, it's more about silencing a view (belief) of a particular group of people they don't agree with. How we often forget the first amendment regarding religion also continues on to say: nor prohibit the free exercise thereof.

No one is taking issue with ‘public displays of religion,’ the issue only concerns itself with violations of Establishment Clause jurisprudence, where persons of faith seek to conjoin church and state, by enacting measures that lack a secular motive, or attempting to promote religion through legislative means, or where there is an excessive entanglement between church and state. See: Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971).

Moreover, no one is seeking to ‘silence’ a view or belief, as the Constitution prohibits conjoining only church with state, as the First Amendment applies to government alone. And that the Constitution prohibits citizens attempting to codify their religious dogma, there is no Free Exercise Clause violation.

Clearly "establishment" is about government promoting one particular DENOMINATION and forcing others to conform to that particular DOCTRINE, with penalties towards those who don't comply. There has NEVER been such establishment of Christian doctrine to be found in the United States. Read the intent of what the Founders had in mind, if you want to educate yourself on the history behind the initial interpretation of the First Amendment.

By forcing the removal of ALL religious symbols and displays on government property, and not allowing the freedom of any religion to be displayed, you are in fact "establishing" atheism.

You ARE of course aware the United States Supreme Court building's east side has a depiction of Moses holding the Ten Commandments, aren't you? So much for this view of "violation" conjoin church and state with the First Amendment. Doesn't appear that our Founders really agree on that view.