Tag: Freedom From Religion Foundation

Coach Deion Sanders Under Attack For Sharing His Christian Faith With Players

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, PoliticsLeave a comment

“Colorado head coach Deion Sanders has yet to officially appear on the sidelines for the Buffaloes after taking the job in December, but he’s already at the center of controversy over his religion.

Sanders was known for expressing his strong belief in God when it came to his coaching style at Jackson State. When he left the Tigers for the Colorado gig, he was mocked for saying that God had sent him to become the coach of Jackson State but left the job anyway.

With kickoff to the 2023 Buffaloes season just months away, Sanders is now in the middle between two religious groups. One group wants Colorado to force him to stop preaching his religious beliefs to his players, while another one warned the university that telling him to do so could infringe on his rights.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation sent the University of Colorado a letter on Jan. 24 about Sanders’ references to Christianity and claimed they were contacted by residents who were concerned players were potentially being pressured to pray during their team meetings.

The letter also pointed to one prayer in question, which read “Lord, we thank You for this day, Father, for this opportunity as a group. Father, we thank You for the movement that God has put us in place to be in charge of. We thank You for each player here, each coach, each family. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”

The group called on the university to teach Sanders about “his constitutional duties under the Establishment Clause” and to “ensure that Sanders understands that he has been hired as a football coach and not a pastor.” The letter urged the school to provide the group that the coach “will not continue to proselytize to his players or subject them to coercive team prayers,” according to The Christian Post.

The school would respond to the letter the next week, saying Sanders was “very receptive to this training and came away from it with a better understanding of the University of Colorado’s policies and the requirements of the Establishment Clause,” according to the Deseret News. The school said if a player had a problem with prayers in the future, it would direct them to the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance.” (Courtesy FoxNews.com)

Who is the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), and why should they be concerned about Collegiate Football Teams participating in prayer?

According to their website:

“The purposes of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., as stated in its bylaws, are to promote the constitutional principle of separation of state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.”

Down here in Dixie, we still pray at school functions…and that fact drives that idiotic bunch of atheists up in the Great White North, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, absolutely nuts. So much so, that they have made it their mission in life, to sue every school that dares have any sort of prayer at any event, on campus or off.

The FFRF has achieved a modicum of success in our court system. However, at least in the South, school organizations such as the Fellowship of Christian Students and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes are still flourishing.

I remember back in elementary school, every morning we began school by singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” and then, reciting The Pledge of Allegiance. Even remembering that ritual today, I find comfort in it.

In the South, at least in the Mississippi County in which I live, the school day still begins with the recitation of the Pledge, which is led by a group of students, standing around a microphone in the Principal’s Office.

Unfortunately, that is no longer the case in many schools around our blessed land.
Nowadays, good old-fashioned American Patriotism is not considered Politically Correct by the Far Left Democrats who are in charge of our Education System.

And, the same Far Left Democrats have screaming hissy fits over any violation of the mythical “Separation of Church and State”, a phrase which does not appear in our Constitution, or any other legal and binding document for that matter.

So, what is the cause of this 180 degree turn from where we were, as a mostly cohesive society, based on love of God and Country, which I remember so fondly from my childhood, to where we are now as a country comprised, to a certain extent, of individuals, who believe in relative morality, situational ethics, and a malleable Constitution?

Learned individuals have been trying to discern exactly what has caused this Societal and Cultural Decline, and in the process, they have blamed it on everything from poor schools to poverty to malnutrition.

Being a simple man, (Hey, that would make a great title for a rock song. Oh, wait. It was. Never mind.) I believe that because Americans have wanted, for at least 3 generations now, to give their children everything materialistically possible, they have to a great extent, ignored their children’s spirituality.

God’s Word tells us that we, as parents, should

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” – Proverbs 22:6 (ESV)

The Obama Administration and the Biden Administration have tried to step in and fulfill the role of “parent,” making the situation that I’ve been describing even worse.

And now, Coach Deion Sanders is being reprimanded for sharing his faith with the young men in his charge, as Christian Americans have done since the beginning of our Sovereign Nation.

Just like the high school football coach who won his job back thanks to a ruling by the Supreme Court, Coach Sanders has the right to pray in front of his team or to walk out to the 50 yard line and kneel in prayer.

Christian Americans have rights, too.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The War Against Christianity: Atheist Organization Has IRS Monitoring Churches in Arizona

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics4 Comments

 

American ChristianityIn the “Left Behind” Christian Novel Series about the Rapture and subsequent Tribulation, people who become Christians after the Rapture find themselves abused by a repressive government, who keep tabs on Believers through informants.

That’s just fiction, right?

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

ChristianPost.com reports that

An Arizona-based legal group has filed a lawsuit in federal court demanding that the Internal Revenue Service divulge information about an agreement it made with an atheist organization regarding the monitoring of churches.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative group based in Scottsdale filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia earlier this month.

ADF’s complaint charges that the IRS has failed to honor a Freedom of Information Act request made by the Alliance regarding the details of an agreement between the tax collecting federal body and the Madison, Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation.

“As of the date of this complaint, Defendant has failed to: (i) determine whether to comply with the request; (ii) notify Plaintiff of any such determination or the reasons therefor; (iii) advise Plaintiff of the right to appeal any adverse determination; and/or (iv) produce the requested records or otherwise demonstrate that the requested records are exempt from production,” reads the complaint.

“Plaintiff is being irreparably harmed by reason of Defendant’s unlawful withholding of records responsive to Plaintiffs’ FOIA request, and Plaintiff will continue to be irreparably harmed unless Defendant is compelled to conform its conduct to the requirements of the law.”

In 2012, the FFRF sued the IRS demanding that they enforce the Johnson Amendment, a provision that strips a church or its tax exemption if it is openly involved in political activity.

Last summer, the FFRF and the IRS reached an agreement wherein the federal body would make an effort to enforce the Johnson Amendment when violations are brought to their attention. But the IRS has not disclosed the details of that agreement.

“This is a victory, and we’re pleased with this development in which the IRS has proved to our satisfaction that it now has in place a protocol to enforce its own anti-electioneering provisions,” said FFRF co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor in a statement.

Last November the group Judicial Watch, which is representing ADF in its complaint, filed its own FOIA lawsuit against the IRS demanding “any and all records” relating to the agency’s “monitoring of churches and other tax exempt religious organizations.”

Judicial Watch had filed a FOIA request earlier that year, but the IRS failed to provide them with a response. Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said in a statement last November that he found it “troubling that the IRS seems set to rely on a group of atheists to point them toward churches that might have criticized politicians.”

“And it is even more disturbing that the IRS would violate federal law, The Freedom of Information Act, in order to keep secret its monitoring of Americans praying together in church,” continued Fitton.

Regarding the April complaint brought against the IRS, ADF Litigation Counsel Christiana Holcomb said in a statement that “Americans deserve to know what the IRS is up to.”

“The agency’s unwillingness to produce these records only furthers the perception that it makes secret deals with activists that it wishes to hide from the public,” said Holcomb.

Who is the Freedom of Religious Foundation (FFRF) and why should they be concerned about monitoring Christian Churches in Arizona?

According to their website:

The purposes of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., as stated in its bylaws, are to promote the constitutional principle of separation of state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.

Incorporated in 1978 in Wisconsin, the Foundation is a national membership association of more than 17,000 freethinkers: atheists, agnostics and skeptics of any pedigree. The Foundation is a non-profit, tax-exempt, educational organization under Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3). All dues and contributions are deductible for income tax purpose.

What Does the Foundation Do?

• Publishes the only freethought newspaper in the United States, Freethought Today

• Sponsors annual high school, college and grad student essay competitions with cash awards

• Conducts lively, annual national conventions, honoring state/church, student, and freethought activism

• Sponsors an online forum for members

• Bestows “The Emperor Has No Clothes” Award to public figures for “plain-speaking on religion”

• Promotes freedom from religion with educational books, literature, music CDs

• Provides speakers for events and debates

• Maintains a Web site at http://www.ffrf.org

• Broadcasts Freethought Radio

• Places freethought billboards and bus signs

…First Amendment violations are accelerating. The religious right is campaigning to raid the public till and advance religion at taxpayer expense, attacking our secular public schools, the rights of nonbelievers, and the Establishment Clause.

The Foundation recognizes that the United States was first among nations to adopt a secular Constitution. The founders who wrote the U.S. Constitution wanted citizens to be free to support the church of their choice, or no religion at all. Our Constitution was very purposefully written as a godless document, whose only references to religion are exclusionary.

It is vital to buttress the Jeffersonian “wall of separation between church and state” which has served our nation so well.

Funny.  Jefferson was a faithful attendant of Sunday Church that was held at the Capitol Building.  He once explained to a friend while they were walking to church together:

No nation has ever existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I, as Chief Magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example.

He also proclaimed

I have always said and always will say that the studious perusal of the Sacred Volume will make us better citizens.

But, I digress…

Back in August of 2011, this same bitter bunch of Atheists sent a letter to the Schools Superintendent of Desoto County, Mississippi, insisting that the pre-game prayer, spoken over the stadiums’ loudspeakers, a tradition held in DeSoto County as long as anyone can remember,  be silenced.

DeSoto County Schools went along with the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s request, despite the disappointment of many students and parents.

And that’s when Americans started organizing.

Y’see, teammates traditionally would take a knee after the game to thank the Lord for a good game and His blessings and to pray for those injured during the game.  And their parents were bound and determined that their young men were not going to have that freedom taken away from them.

So, the next Friday night, instead of the coach telling the team to take a knee, the quarterback did.

Earlier, on Friday morning, students and parents held a prayer walk outside DeSoto County Schools.

As the bright, blessed day gave way to the dark, sacred night in DeSoto County, parents and students began to pray.

According to student Paige Lewis:

If they’re saying that we can’t pray over a loudspeaker, then we’re going to pray alone.

Earlier in the week, The Freedom From Religion Foundation had sent a second letter to School Superintendent Milton Kuykendall.  They not only asked the district to stop praying before school events, but also demanded an apology for the comments the superintendent made in a letter sent out earlier this week.

Cheeky, huh?

These bitter whiners were upset that Kuykendall wrote:

In my opinion, most people do not realize that this organization out of Wisconsin doesn’t really care if we have prayer in our schools. They see an opportunity to try and accuse us of breaking the law and therefore give them a chance to sue our district and win a lawsuit and take millions of our funds. This is money that is needed to pay teachers and educate our students.

In March of 2013, the Governor of Mississippi signed into law, State House Bill 683

What this law does is to allow students to initiate prayers in school and at student activities, to reference their religious beliefs in their schoolwork, both their assignments completed at school and their homework, as well. The bill also allows Mississippi’s students to speak to their classmates about their faith, to “give their witness” as we believers refer to our own personal testimony as to what God has done in our lives.

I make no bones about it. I am a Christian American Conservative. I pray daily. As I write this, I have just returned from a Church-Sponsored “Small Group Meeting” in someone’s home on a Tuesday night.

If it were up to Barack Hussein Obama and the rest of Modern “Liberals”, I would be forced to leave my faith every Sunday morning at the church door. What they don’t understand, is, the Author and Finisher of my faith is not Obama or anyone else up there on Capitol Hill, the Main Stream Media, or any self-proclaimed Liberal Political Pundit and newly-minted “Biblical Expert”.

I answer to Someone waaay about their pay grade.

Liberals, or “Progressives”, do not understand Christians at all. They believe that our faith is something that can be taken off and put back on again, as one would a shirt.

Groups like the FFDF believe that using the Obama Administration’s IRS to monitor Christian American Churches is somehow going to impede the sharing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ by Christian Americans.

They don’t have a clue.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The War Against Christianity: Obama’s IRS to Investigate Churches For the “Wrong Kind” of Political Speech

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, PoliticsLeave a comment

americanchristianflagsThis week, the bitter members of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) and the Internal Revenue Service reached an pact with the Devil, errr…”settlement” regarding “limiting” the First Amendment Rights of American Churches.

Christianpost.com reports that

The Internal Revenue Service has reached a lawsuit settlement agreement with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, agreeing to investigate churches that violate a federal law that activist groups often cite in an attempt to silence them by threatening their tax-exempt status.

“This is a victory, and we’re pleased with this development in which the IRS has proved to our satisfaction that it now has in place a protocol to enforce its own anti-electioneering provisions,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said in a statement last week, following which the Alliance Defending Freedom asked the IRS to release all documents related to it.

The lawsuit, Freedom From Religion Foundation v. Koskinen, accused the IRS of failing to investigate churches the way the atheist group would like. Despite the agreement, only a court has the jurisdiction to close down the case.

Gaylor added: “Of course, we have the complication of a moratorium currently in place on any IRS investigations of any tax-exempt entities, church or otherwise, due to the congressional probe of the IRS. FFRF could refile the suit if anti-electioneering provisions are not enforced in the future against rogue political churches.”

The FFRF release says the ADF annual “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” event promotes violation of the Johnson Amendment, which authorizes the IRS to regulate sermons and requires churches to give up their constitutionally protected freedom of speech in order to retain their tax-exempt status.

The ADF called the IRS-FFRF agreement yet another act of secrecy by the tax agency.

“Secrecy breeds mistrust, and the IRS should know this in light of its recent scandals involving the investigation of conservative groups,” ADF Litigation Counsel Christiana Holcomb said in a statement. “We are asking the IRS to disclose the new protocols and procedures it apparently adopted for determining whether to investigate churches. What it intends to do to churches must be brought into the light of day.”

Last year, the IRS admitted to targeting Tea Party and other conservative organizations for tax-exempt status violations. Lois G. Lerner, former director of the Exempt Organizations Division of the IRS, told reporters that several organizations carrying the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their exemption applications were singled out by IRS agents for additional reviews between 2010 and 2012.

The IRS claims it is temporarily withholding investigations of all tax-exempt entities because of congressional scrutiny of its scandals, but the ADF says no one knows when it will decide to restart investigations based on any new or modified rules that it develops.

“The IRS cannot force churches to give up their precious constitutionally protected freedoms to receive a tax exemption,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley, who heads the Pulpit Freedom Sunday event. “No one would suggest a pastor give up his church’s tax-exempt status if he wants to keep his constitutional protection against illegal search and seizure or cruel and unusual punishment. Likewise, no one should be asking him to do the same to be able to keep his constitutionally protected freedom of speech.”

So, just what is the Freedom From Religion Foundation?

According to David Horowitz’s discoverthenetworks.org:

 

Founded in 1978, the nonprofit, tax-exempt Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) consists of more than 13,000 members and calls itself “the largest association of freethinkers (atheists and agnostics) in the United States.” Its mission is “to promote free thought and to keep state and church separate.”

According to FFRF, religion invariably has been a negative force in human societies. “The history of Western civilization shows us that most social and moral progress has been brought about by persons free from religion,” the organization says. “… In modern times, the first to speak out for prison reform, for humane treatment of the mentally ill, for abolition of capital punishment, for women’s right to vote, for death with dignity for the terminally ill, and for the right to choose contraception, sterilization and abortion have been freethinkers [i.e., atheists and agnostics], just as they were the first to call for an end to slavery.”

FFRF promotes its message through a variety of vehicles, including a weekly national radio program; a newspaper titled Freethought Today; a “freethought billboard campaign”; scholarships “for freethinking students”; high-school and college “freethought essay competitions” with cash awards; annual national conventions honoring a “Freethinker of the Year” for state/church activism; and the sale of educational products, bumper-stickers, music CDs, winter solstice greeting cards, and books promoting “freethought.” The Foundation also provides speakers for events and debates on subjects related to religion, and has established a “freethought book collection” at the University of Wisconsin Memorial Library.

Most significantly, FFRF initiates lawsuits that center around issues involving religion in the public square. As of mid-2009, the Foundation had filed nearly 30 First Amendment lawsuits over the course of its history. It also “keeps several Establishment law challenges in the courts at all times.”

FFRF’s very first lawsuit, filed in the late 1970s, successfully challenged the use of a religious cancellation by the Post Office of Madison, Wisconsin. That decision set national precedent.

The Foundation is led by its co-presidents, Dan Barker and his wife, Annie Laurie Gaylor. Barker was a Christian preacher for 19 years before renouncing his faith in 1984. Gaylor, who earned a journalism degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1980, co-founded FFRC with her mother and the late John Sontarck in 1978. She is author of the books Woe to the Women: The Bible Tells Me So (1981), and Betrayal of Trust: Clergy Abuse of Children (1988). She also edited the 1997 anthology Women Without Superstition: No Gods, No Masters. Today she edits FFRF’s newspaper, Freethought Today, which is published ten times annually.

Per gallup.com, 92% of Americans believe in God and 76 % of Americans proclaim their Christianity. Therefore, it stands to reason that only 8% of Americans are Atheists.

This little organization out of Wisconsin, the FFRF, has made money from suing 57 American high schools and other entities for daring to exercise their Christian Faith in public.  I would like to know, because I’ve researched, and the actual amount is nowhere to be seen, how much these bitter snobs have made off of their endeavors.  They are not as noble as they claim.

“Rogue” churches? What in the name of all that’s Holy does that mean?

I’ll tell you what it means, brothers and sisters. It means that we are living under, as I have written before, a “New Fascism.”.

As long as your place of worship “knows its role and shuts their mouth” (as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson used to say), concerning immoral, unethical, anti-Christian policies of the Obama Administration,  you will be allowed to keep your tax exempt status.

No politics, except “the right kind”, will be allowed.

In other words, to use my hometown as an example, Democratic Representative Steve “I inhaled” Cohen, can go speak on Sunday in any Black Congregation in Memphis, but if  Republican Senator Ted Cruz  of Texas comes in town and speaks at Bellevue Baptist Church, they will be investigated by Obama’s Scandal-Ridden Storm Troopers from the Internal Revenue Service.

Are we still in America?

After Lenin and the Bolsheviks took over Mother Russia, Russian Orthodoxy, the predominant faith in Russia, was persecuted almost to extinction within 20 years. The Communists slaughtered hundreds of thousands of priests, sisters, and brothers.

Between 1917 and 1937, more than 50 million people were murdered by KGB extermination squads or in death camps, and 8 million people died of starvation in man-made famines designed to consolidate Communist power. All land was confiscated by the state.

Those who were left alive were allowed to live under Communist totalitarian control to help rally the people to fight the Nazi German invasion in 1939.

The Commies let some churches stay open if they were licensed by the Communist government. Of course,they were very limited in what they could do: they could celebrate liturgies and the sacraments, but they could not teach Russian Orthodoxy to children or to adults.

The Orthodox Church became just another a highly regulated arm of the Soviet government, and all newly ordained priests and bishops became agents or cooperators of the Secret Police (KGB). The sacraments of baptism and marriage, as well as funerals, were usually performed only after substantial fees were paid.

In all levels of the Soviet School System, Students were forced to learn and believe atheism as scientific truth. This belief system was reinforced in all youth organizations, as well.

There were no private Christian schools or clubs.

The fear of persecution and government reprisal during the period in which Joe Stalin ruled Russia (1927-52) made parents afraid to tell their children about the Triune God.

It only took two generations for Russia to become an atheistic society.

Freedom of religion finally came back to Russia in 1991. However, by then, less than 25% of the population were Christians.

As it stands today in the former Soviet Union, less than 0.50% (one-half of one percent) practice any faith at all.

Are we headed in that direction?

I mean, look at the brazenness of  The Obama Administration. Never in my wildest dreams, could I imagine an agency of OUR government, telling the Pastor of a Church what they can speak about!

My Lord.

Did any of us ever think that this would happen in a land founded by Christian men and women?

The U. S. House Judiciary Committee wrote the following in 1854,

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… In this age, there can be no substitute for Christianity… That was the religion of the founders of the republic and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants.

When you tell a Liberal that the Founders of our country were Christians, they always bring up Thomas Jefferson, claiming he was a Deist…or something.

Here is what Jefferson had to say about it:

The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man.

The practice of morality being necessary for the well being of society, He [God] has taken care to impress its precepts so indelibly on our hearts that they shall not be effaced by the subtleties of our brain. We all agree in the obligation of the moral principles of Jesus and nowhere will they be found delivered in greater purity than in His discourses.65

I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others.

I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ.

Jefferson, while President, allowed church services to be held on Sunday mornings in the Capitol Building, which he attended. The practice continued until 1848.

So, what can we do about this encroaching darkness, brokered by an administration who is seeking to turn us into a Marxist nation, with limited personal freedoms, dictated by the State?

President Ronald Reagan said,

I believe with all my heart that standing up for America means standing up for the God who has so blessed our land. We need God’s help to guide our nation through stormy seas. But we can’t expect Him to protect America in a crisis if we just leave Him over on the shelf in our day-to-day living.

One of those whom Obama’s IRS has attacked in the past, Rev. Billy Graham, once remarked,

Prayer is simply a two-way conversation between you and God.

My fellow Americans, it is high time we started a National Conversation with Our Creator.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

The War Against Christianity: The Siege of Santa Monica

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics9 Comments

Atheists may only be a small percentage of our population, however, in some of their minds, they believe that they are the overwhelming majority.

The latest battlefront in the War on Christianity is raging in California, where local Grinches are trying to keep Christmas from happening.

Damon Vix didn’t have to go to court to push Christmas out of the city of Santa Monica. He just joined the festivities.

The atheist’s anti-God message alongside a life-sized nativity display in a park overlooking the beach ignited a debate that burned brighter than any Christmas candle.

Santa Monica officials snuffed the city’s holiday tradition this year rather than referee the religious rumble, prompting churches that have set up a 14-scene Christian diorama for decades to sue over freedom of speech violations. Their attorney will ask a federal judge Monday to resurrect the depiction of Jesus’ birth, while the city aims to eject the case.

“It’s a sad, sad commentary on the attitudes of the day that a nearly 60-year-old Christmas tradition is now having to hunt for a home, something like our savior had to hunt for a place to be born because the world was not interested,” said Hunter Jameson, head of the nonprofit Santa Monica Nativity Scene Committee that is suing.

Missing from the courtroom drama will be Vix and his fellow atheists, who are not parties to the case. Their role outside court highlights a tactical shift as atheists evolve into a vocal minority eager to get their non-beliefs into the public square as never before.

National atheist groups earlier this year took out full-page newspaper ads and hundreds of TV spots in response to the Catholic bishops’ activism around women’s health care issues and are gearing up to battle for their own space alongside public Christmas displays in small towns across America this season.

“In recent years, the tactic of many in the atheist community has been, if you can’t beat them, join them,” said Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center and director of the Newseum’s Religious Freedom Education Project in Washington. “If these church groups insist that these public spaces are going to be dominated by a Christian message, we’ll just get in the game — and that changes everything.”

In the past, atheists primarily fought to uphold the separation of church and state through the courts. The change underscores the conviction held by many nonbelievers that their views are gaining a foothold, especially among young adults.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released a study last month that found 20 percent of Americans say they have no religious affiliation, an increase from 15 percent in the last five years. Atheists took heart from the report, although Pew researchers stressed that the category also encompassed majorities of people who said they believed in God but had no ties with organized religion and people who consider themselves “spiritual” but not “religious.”

“We’re at the bottom of the totem pole socially, but we have muscle and we’re flexing it,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation. “Ignore our numbers at your peril.”

Per discoverthenetworks.org:

Founded in 1978, the nonprofit, tax-exempt Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) consists of more than 13,000 members and calls itself “the largest association of freethinkers (atheists and agnostics) in the United States.” Its mission is “to promote free thought and to keep state and church separate.”

According to FFRF, religion invariably has been a negative force in human societies. “The history of Western civilization shows us that most social and moral progress has been brought about by persons free from religion,” the organization says. “… In modern times, the first to speak out for prison reform, for humane treatment of the mentally ill, for abolition of capital punishment, for women’s right to vote, for death with dignity for the terminally ill, and for the right to choose contraception, sterilization and abortion have been freethinkers [i.e., atheists and agnostics], just as they were the first to call for an end to slavery.”

The Foundation is led by its co-presidents, Dan Barker and his wife, Annie Laurie Gaylor. Barker was a Christian preacher for 19 years before renouncing his faith in 1984. Gaylor, who earned a journalism degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1980, co-founded FFRC with her mother and the late John Sontarck in 1978. She is author of the books Woe to the Women: The Bible Tells Me So (1981), and Betrayal of Trust: Clergy Abuse of Children (1988). She also edited the 1997 anthology Women Without Superstition: No Gods, No Masters. Today she edits FFRF’s newspaper, Freethought Today, which is published ten times annually.

The FFRF has filed a complaint against the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, making the claim that the ministry’s activity during the election season violates its tax exempt status.

From ChristianPost.com:

Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based organization, argued in its filed report that BGEA’s “vote biblical values” ad campaign violated the IRS’ rules on religious groups and political campaigning.

“BGEA, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, has run full-page ads publicizing Billy Graham’s call for the electorate to ‘vote biblical values,'” said FFRF in a statement last week. “The ads have appeared in several ‘swing state’ newspapers in preparation for tomorrow’s heated presidential election. Throughout the month of October, BGEA published articles favorable to Romney, which included a statement by Billy Graham.”

Brent Rinehart of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association provided The Christian Post with an official statement regarding the “Biblical Values” ad campaign.

“The ads intentionally do not mention any candidate, political party, or contest, urging instead for readers to cast votes for candidates-at all levels-based on their support for biblical values,” reads the statement in part.

Here is the ad in question:

On Nov. 6, the day before my 94th birthday, our nation will hold one of the most critical elections in my lifetime. We are at a crossroads and there are profound moral issues at stake. I strongly urge you to vote for candidates who support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman, protect the sanctity of life and defend our religious freedoms. The Bible speaks clearly on these crucial issues. Please join me in praying for America, that we will turn our hearts back toward God.

The FFRF is afraid of that message. 

Why? Because just like a lot of other Liberals, “those who claim to be the most tolerant of all of us, are actually the least tolerant of all.”

And, as God’s Word reminds us…

…The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

Psalm 14:1 (ESV)

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obamacare and the FFRF: Intolerance in Action

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics4 Comments

Those oh-so-tolerant individuals of the Freedom From Religion Foundation are at it again.  This time they’re down in Dallas:

A new billboard along Interstate 30 is upsetting some Catholics. It urges members to quit the church.

The billboard is part of a national atheist campaign by the Freedom from Religion Foundation. It also says the Roman Catholic Church should put women’s rights over bishops’ wrongs.

It’s a dig at dozens of federal lawsuits by Catholic dioceses including those in Dallas and Fort Worth. They want to do away with an Obama Administration mandate that requires employers, including church-owned institutions like hospitals, to provide employees insurance coverage for birth control, something the church doesn’t believe in.

“I don’t like them imposing their religious beliefs on other people who don’t have those beliefs,” said Terry McDonald with the DFW Coalition of Reason, a local atheist group.

The Dallas Diocese said it has been getting phone calls about the sign located along westbound I-30 near Highway 360.

“It’s all been women who’ve called in to say they were offended and upset by the billboard,” said Annette Gonzales Taylor with the Catholic Diocese of Dallas.

The diocese believes the Freedom from Religion Foundation is in the wrong lane.

“We’re very offended that an entity that has no knowledge or understanding of the church would erect a billboard of this nature,” Gonzales Taylor said. “The issue is truly about religious liberty and protecting the church’s right to adhere to our faith principals.”

McDonald questioned that response.

“When you read that there’s a high percentage of Catholic women who use birth control, I wonder who’s complaining,” he said.

Last week, the FFRF released a 30 second spot  featuring Julia Sweeney.  A humanist named Mriana wrote the following for GodDiscussion.com:

This week the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) released an ad featuring Julia Sweeney, which they call “great experiment to storm the “Bishops’ Bastille”” countering the Catholic bishops’ war on contraception. This ad is part of their “Stand Up for Religious Freedom” and “Quit the Catholic Church” campaigns.

The 30-second spot, according to the FFRF, received various responses thus far and it will run 1200 times during a two-week period.

We’re getting a lot of phone calls at the FFRF office in response. Some callers are giving our female receptionists a hard time, making unprintable comments. But others are our kind of folks, such as a grandmother in Pennsylvania who said she was raised Catholic but is “98 percent atheist,” and is disgusted by the Catholic Church’s attempt, as she put it, to “put canon law over civil law.”

A kind man living in a remote area of North Carolina caught us on MSNBC’s Hardball With Chris Matthews. Another North Carolinian called after seeing Julia’s spot on a rerun of the The Daily Show and said people have forgotten the need for a strict separation between state and church. I couldn’t help replying: “It might sound strange for an atheist to say this, but hallelujah, brother.” He laughed and said, “Amen, sister.”

FFRF’s Facebook page received 500 new likes over the weekend, but request that people join them if they really like them.

The FFRF lists the various shows that will feature the ad through July 4, and updates the page frequently. The FFRF listed the times the ad will air as expected times for when the ad will air and listed as Eastern Time on a 24-hour clock and they are guaranteed over 42 million viewers.

In the ad, Julia says:

“Hi, I’m Julia Sweeney, and I’m a cultural Catholic. I am no longer a believer and I even wrote a play about it called “Letting Go of God.” But I wanted to let you know that right now Catholic Bishops are framing their opposition to contraceptive coverage as a religious freedom issue. But the real threat to freedom is the Bishops, who want to be free to force their dogma on people who don’t want it. Please join the Freedom From Religion Foundation and help keep church and state separate. [FFRF’s name, toll-free number and website are displayed throughout the ad.]

Actually the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Obama Administration have a lot in common.  The Administration doesn’t seem to care for Christians, in general, and Catholicism, in particular, much either.

Catholic.org reports that

Obamacare compels Catholics to participate in anti-life activities, no matter how much they are opposed to it. Not only is this evil, but it is coercive and tramples upon our God-given, First Amendment protected, right to freedom of religion and conscience.

How does this happen?

Obamacare considers contraceptives, sterilizations, abortifacients, and abortion as “preventative services” under its definition of “health care”. The underlying presumption is that pregnancy is a disease. When people pay into the Obamcare scheme, whether as taxpayers or through their insurance, their dollars will be used to finance these procedures, some of which must be provided for free to all women. The people have no choice – the individual mandate means everyone pays.

It is ironic that a national federalized healthcare plan would make anti-life procedures absolutely free while still requiring people to pay out-of-pocket for lifesaving procedures and medications.

Worse, there is no means to allow supposedly free people to opt out of paying into such plans. Now, even your parish priest must pay for insurance or pay a penalty that will one way or another go into a system that uses his money to fund anti-life procedures.

Of course the Bishops of the Catholic church have raised this point on behalf of all Catholics, other Christians and people of good will, but the Obama administration has ignored their pleas.

Per Gallup, 78% of Americans proclaim their Christianity, 92% believe in God, and Liberals are the smallest political ideology in the nation, consisting of only 21%, compared to 40% for Conservatives and 35% for Moderates.

So, once again, what we are experiencing is the “Tyranny of the Minority”.

I thought Liberals were supposed to be the tolerant ones?