Recently, a US Federal Judge made a ruling that would surely surprise our Founding Fathers.  She ruled that the "National Day of Prayer" is unconstitutional!

Officially, the current Day of Prayer was instituted by our government in 1952 when it was established by Congress, but the practice stretches all the way back to the 1700's and our Continental Congress.  Presidents from George Washington, to Abraham Liconln and even Franklin Roosevelt have recognized it.

And now a liberal judge decides it's unconstitutional!

Of course, you won't be surprised to learn that this ruling is the result of a lawsuit brought by a group of atheists known as the "Freedom From Religion Foundation".  No doubt you'll also not be shocked by the fact that the ruling was issued a Democrat appointed judge, in this case Cater appointee Judge Barbara Crabb.

Our dependence on God's mercy has been recognized by our government since before the Founding Fathers even brought our current Constitution into existence, and our country's recognition of that need should not be discarded by a left-wing activist judge.

Currently, a bipartisan group of over twenty US House members have co-sponsored a resolution calling on President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to appeal this decision all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.

We need to give them our support!

In yet another instance of the consequences of redefining the family, the Catholic Archdiocese in Washinton, DC has been forced to discontinue its foster program, as it would be at legal risk for not placing children with homosexual "married" couples.

According to the new DC gay marriage law (which goes into effect on March 2nd), outside organizations that contract to provide services have to recognize gay marriages in Washington.  In other words, the religious rights of Christian groups that don't recognize homosexual "marriage" as being legitimate are being violated due to their faith. 

And of course this is in addition to the impact on the children that are helped by Christian (as opposed to state run) foster care programs, such as this one which has been around for over 80 years.

Come to think of it, this is probably not an "unintended" consequence.

Columnist Cal Thomas raises a point to ponder in the light of last week's decision by the Supreme Court which (essentially) extended First Amendment rights to corporations and unions.

He points out that, for purposes of the Constitution, the court rightly decided that these entities are comprised of citizens, so they have the rights of citizens when it comes to free speech.

The ruling came the week of the annual March for Life, which draws
thousands to Washington to mark that same court's 1973 Roe v. Wade
ruling. The march has become not so much a protest as an affirmation of
the value of all human life.

What makes the ruling and the march ironic is that the 1973 court,
in essence, downgraded a human fetus to the level of nonperson, while
the modern court has invested "personhood" in corporations. Does anyone
else see a contradiction or at least a moral inconsistency in these two
rulings?

Of course, as Thomas mentions, the difference in conclusions has a lot to do with the court making the decision...and in this case "who" was on the court.

In a preview of what a stronger European Union government will look like when it comes to religious freedom, Italians were stunned to hear that the European Court of Human Rights ruled that they had been violating the "religious and educational rights" of their children for generations by forcing them to attend school in classrooms with crucifixes hanging on their walls.

The court's decision came about as a result of a 2002 complaint:

...a Finnish-born mother of two children in the Italian school system objected to the crucifixes in their classrooms. The school principal was unmoved. Italy's Constitutional Court dismissed her complaint. So she filed a case in Strasbourg, France, and now she's won.

The Euro court's ruling hasn't exactly had the intended effect.  In fact, quite the opposite.

The response? Outrage, a swelling popular rebellion, even, against the prospect that because of one woman's agitation, the entire country may have to rid its schools of a treasured symbol that as much bespeaks Italian cultural identity as it does Christ's sacrifice on the cross.

Mayors and town councils across Italy are not only refusing to remove crucifixes from their schools, but are buying new ones and putting them up in places where they don't already hang.

America will find out how far to the left its federal judiciary has gone when the United States Supreme Court rules on whether or not a cross memorializing World War I veterans can remain on federal property.  Today, the nation'a top court considered a case, Salazar vs. Buono, commonly called the "Mojave Desert Cross" case.   

A federal district court ruled that the 5 feet by 8 feet cross in the Mojave Desert had to be removed.  The left-wing judge found that the primary effect of the cross was to advance religion, in violation of the Constitution's Establishment Clause.  The Republican-controlled Congress in 2004 enacted legislation which directed the Interior Department, now under Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, to transfer an acre of land including the cross honoring World War I veterans to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in exchange for land equal in value.   

The most out-of-touch Circuit Court of Appeals in the land, the 9th Circuit in San Francisco  --  which has most of its major decisions overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court  --  permanently stopped the government from implementing the Act of Congress.  The cross is now disgracefully covered in a plywood box, as ordered by the unelected judicial tyrants.   

CBNNEWS.COM

A New Hampshire judge ruled, Wednesday, not to ban the phrase "under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance in the state's public schools, dismissing claims by an atheist group that its inclusion was unconstitutional.

Chief Judge Steven McAuliffe decided the phrase "neither advances nor inhibits religion" and is included in the pledge to enhance student's knowledge of U.S. history and provide a sense of patriotism.

Lawmakers also decided to uphold America's Christian heritage by displaying the phrase 'In God We Trust' at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C.  Click play for more.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation filed the suit in 2007 on behalf of parents and students who refused to say the pledge because it included a reference to God. The group claimed the pledge coerced children to participate in religion by reciting the phrase.

The American Center for Law and Justice - a prominent Christian legal rights group thatparticipated in the case-- applauded the court's decision to uphold Supreme Court precedent.

"We're extremely pleased with the sound and well reasoned decision issued by the court," said Jay Sekulow, ACLJ Chief Counsel. "The court concluded that the New Hampshire statute giving students an opportunity to voluntarily recite the Pledge in school is constitutional and consistent with the First Amendment."

The court ruling stated that the pledge statute implemented by the New Hampshire school district does not persuade children in religion in any way.

Judge Steven McAuliffe, a federal judge in New Hampshire and an appointee of President George H. W. Bush, rejected the lawsuit by the infamous atheist, Michael Newdow, who has a maniacal fetish to get rid of the Pledge of Allegiance in all American schools because he is offended by the words in the pledge "Under God" and who wants references to God erased from the public square in America.  Incidentally, Judge McAuliffe was the husband of Christa McAuliffe, one of the victims of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

In this particular case, Newdow was trying to get rid of the Pledge of Allegiance in the Hanover, New Hampshire public school system.  Judge McAuliffe ruled that school children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance each morning  --  as hundreds of millions of American school children have done for decades  --  with the words "one Nation under God" does not violate the First Amendment.  He said that the pledge is voluntary and is not a prayer.  

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty represented three families from Hanover, New Hampshire and the Knights of Columbus in the case before the federal judge.  Indeed, the Knights of Columbus had spearheaded the national effort some 55 years ago to add "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The case of teenage Christian convert Rifqa Bary will be back in a Florida court room on Monday.

Bary is the 17-year-old from Ohio who converted from Islam to Christianity. She fled from her home after her parents discovered her conversion.

Bary told police her father threatened her and she could be killed. She boarded a bus in downtown Columbus and ran away from home in late July.

Her friends said it was a journey the former Muslim feared since the day she became a Christian at a Columbus church back in 2005.

"She was scared her dad would find out," said Adrianna Mancillas, a close friend of Bary. "That her parents would find out, and sometimes she would talk about being afraid of going back to Sri Lanka, and being sent back."

Mancillas is a student at Ohio State University and also led Bary to Christ.

"I wanted to protect her. I didn't want anything to happen to her," Mancillas continued. "So for me, hearing anything like that her book was found or hearing that she was threatened, things like that broke my heart."

Christians on the OSU campus were impressed with the strength of the high school girl who had to hide her faith from her family.

It is a testimony they quietly spread over the years, even off campus.

CBNNEWS.COM

Organizers of a teen abstinence summit are being sued, because of their references to the Bible. The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the "Just Wait" Abstinence Unit at the Department of Human Services in Mississippi.

The lawsuit claims Christian music and Bible teachings were part of a state-sponsored event and that Miss. Lieutenant Governor Phil Bryant was introduced as someone who was "not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

"The state of Mississippi cannot sponsor overtly religious events as part of its abstinence-only-until-marriage program," said Brigitte Amiri, Senior Staff Attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project.

"Instead of preaching, the state needs to start teaching youth how to make responsible and healthy decisions throughout their lives," she said.

The ACLU is asking a federal judge for an injunction to prevent future summits with religious activity and that the state be forced to return any federal funding used for the event.

As if the fear of big-brother needed to be underlined any further among conservative Christians, we have just that by way of  New Hampshire judge ruling ordering a home-schooled girl to spend some time attending a public school due to the "rigidity" of her mother's religious beliefs.  He suggested that the girl needed to broaden her horizons and consider other worldviews.

Excuse me, but it seems to me that the instruction of children when it comes to beliefs and a "worldview" is the sole prerogative of parents and has nothing whatsoever to do with government.  Or at least that's the way it used to be...and that Americans expect it to be.

But here you go...

The girl's mother, Brenda Voydatch, has engaged the Alliance
Defense Fund, a Christian legal group based in Scottsdale, Ariz., to
contest the ruling, in which the judge granted a request by the girl's
father, Martin Kurowski, that the girl go to a public school.