Tagged: ACLU

Christianity Under Attack in America

by

November 7, 2013

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According to information released at a May 9, 2013 press conference  by the families of Navy SEALs killed in an August 2011 helicopter shoot-down in  Afghanistan, “military brass prohibited any mention of a Judeo-Christian G-d”  and “invited a Muslim cleric to the funeral for the fallen Navy SEAL Team VI  heroes who disparaged in Arabic the memory of these servicemen by damning them  as infidels to Allah.”

The accusations arose over a “ramp ceremony” held at Bagram Airfield in  Afghanistan as flag-draped caskets of the dead soldiers were loaded onto a plane  for transport back to the United States.  The shocking words of the  Muslim cleric, revealed in later translations, were spoken at a memorial service  meant to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their  country.  They were yet another example of the abject disrespect of  Christians and Christianity endemic to the Muslim world.

Here at home, Christianity and Christian religious practices are also under  attack, but in more subtle ways and under a misinterpretation of the principle  of freedom of religion.  In the United States, that legal doctrine is  cited to marginalize Christian prayer and traditions, while, at the same time,  dramatically accommodating and even expanding Muslim religious  practices.  Myriad examples exist.

During the recent government shutdown, Catholic priests were warned that they could be arrested for celebrating  Mass, even if performed on a voluntary basis.  Under Secretary of  Defense Chuck Hagel’s direction and determination was that priests do not  “contribute to the morale” and “well-being” of military  personnel.”  Thus, offering of the sacraments was prohibited and the  Eucharist placed under lock and key.  Curiously, no mention was  made of curtailing religious freedom for Muslim service members or furloughing  imams.

This prohibition against Christian religious practice is not limited to the  military.  Police throughout the land also frequently come down hard  against Christians.  In 2010, a group of students from the  Arizona-based Wickenburg Christian Academy were ordered by a police officer to cease their quiet  prayers on the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.  The  officer cited a statute that prohibits demonstrations on the steps, but no  official policy bars prayer at that location.

In June of 2010, David Wood and two other Christian missionaries were arrested by Dearborn, Michigan police at the annual  Arab festival for discussing Christianity on a public sidewalk outside the  event. The men, who have since been acquitted, were charged with disturbing the  peace and spent the night in jail.

Contrast these incidents with a massive public display of praying Muslims  during the annual Muslim Day Parade in New York City. Muslims, who are  protected each year during the event by Muslim NYPD officers, are free to engage  in mass prayer, even prostrating themselves on the streets of midtown Manhattan.  Vehicular traffic halts and participants freely harass non-Muslims who attempt  to pass through the area on foot.

Meanwhile, the ACLU has been at the forefront of an extensive effort to ban  Christian prayer from public schools under the “separation of church and state”  provision of the First Amendment.  This is a signature issue for  the “civil rights” organization.  However, for Muslim prayers, the  organization reverses its interpretation and fights for student rights to engage  in prayer.

For example, when Carver Elementary School in San Diego instituted a  15-minute prayer period during class time for Muslim students in 2004, the  ACLU endorsed the practice. ACLU spokesman Kevin Keenan said the  group supported Muslim prayer under the First Amendment’s prohibition against  impeding religion.  In this way, the ACLU was “honoring constitutional  standards for freedom of religion.”

Again in 2010, the ACLU mustered only mild to nonexistent concern when  6th-graders from a Wellesley, Massachusetts’s middle school took  a field trip to a local mosque at the Islamic Society of  Boston Cultural Center and engaged in prayer.  Parents were told that  students would learn about the architecture of the building and observe a midday  prayer service.  But once at the mosque — which is associated with the  Muslim Brotherhood, known supporters of Islamic terrorism — students were told  by a mosque official that “Allah is the only G-d” and taught how to recite the  midday prayer.  After being encouraged to join the Muslim men, some of  the boys prostrated themselves to Allah.

Meanwhile, in Michigan, Dearborn public schools have a policy of accommodating Muslim prayers at school during  school hours, as well as ignoring unexcused absences for Muslims to leave school  early for Friday prayers.  Yet, in 2009, after a Muslim organization  complained about permission slips given to Christian students to attend off-site  afterschool Bible study, issuance of the slips was discontinued.

In addition to police, the ACLU, and schools, U.S. courts have also sided  with the Islamic religion and against Christianity.  In 2001, the  Byron Union School District in Byron, California instituted a three-week unit on  Islam for 7th-graders.  Students took Muslim names, recited  Islamic prayers, and celebrated Ramadan.  When parents sued the school  on the grounds that the course was “officially endorsing a religion,” the U.S.  Supreme Court rejected their appeal, leaving intact an earlier ruling by  the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that deemed that the unit did not  violate the Constitution and had an “instructional purpose.”

In 2009, the same court of appeals upheld a ban by Henry Jackson High School officials in  Everett, Washington against an instrumental performance of Ave Maria at a 2006  commencement ceremony.  A student futilely challenged the school’s  determination that the song was “an obvious religious piece” at a graduation  that should be “strictly secular.”

Government entities also bear down on the Christian  religion.  After allowing baptisms in Sinking Creek in the Ozarks for  an almost uninterrupted 50-year span, the National Park Service in August  notified Gladden Baptist Church in Salem, Missouri that permits would now be required in advance of baptism  ceremonies in the waterway.  The requirement was later rescinded in  response to the intervention of local Congressman Jason Smith.

And this month, in Ovid, Colorado, the director of a city-owned cemetery  initially refused to inscribe the Ichthus or “Jesus fish” on the  tombstone of a local preacher’s wife on the grounds that some people might be  offended.  Despite the fact that the cemetery is filled with  headstones inscribed with religious symbols and Biblical verses, city officials  refused to come to the family’s aid.  The cemetery director defended  his position with a logic-defying hypothetical: “What if someone wanted to put a  swastika?” — thereby disrespectfully equating a representation of Christ with a  symbol associated with Nazi Germany.  The city reversed itself only  after public outcry and media attention.

The instances listed above make it readily apparent that the First Amendment is often conveniently misinterpreted to  buttress the assault on the Christian religion and its expression, practice, and  traditions.  In this way, Christianity is being insidiously expunged  from public life using false legal pretenses.  The legitimate  interpretation of the provisions of the First Amendment, which include  prohibitions against government interference in public religious expression and  the establishment of a national religion, has been twisted to prohibit Christian  prayer in public places and schools.  This is a false reading of  “separation of church and state.”

Yet, as the instances listed above and many others illustrate, this  interpretation doesn’t apply to “mosque and state.”  Freedom of  religion has come to mean no freedom for the practice of Christianity but ample  freedom to practice Islam.  If the war on Christianity in America  isn’t halted soon, Barack Obama’s statement that “[w]hatever we once were, we  are no longer a Christian nation,” will certainly become a reality.

 

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