Posts with the tag 'Christianity'
In the opinion of some, yes:
London, Jul. 21, 2008 (CWNews.com) - A decorated British police officer has filed a complaint before a local employment tribunal, charging that he has been harassed by his superiors because of his Christian beliefs.
Officer Graham Cogman,a 15-year veteran of the Norfolk police force, says that he has been subjected to complaints and investigations because he strongly resisted a campaign to encourage support for Gay History Month among the members of that force. Cogman has already been forced to pay a fine of £1,200 for alleged violations of department regulations, because he encouraged colleagues to resist the department’s pro-homosexual campaign. He now faces further disciplinary hearings on charges that he has promoted “homophobic” viewpoints.
At particular issue was an official e mail encouraging Norfolk officers to wear a pink ribbon on their uniform during gay history month (whatever that is, exactly) - Cogman refused and sent a response e mail quoting biblical passages regarding the sinfulness of homosexual acts. I don’t know what denomination Cogman is, but the basic thrust of officialdom here seems to be that pointing out dissent from reigning liberal orthodoxy is wrong - it isn’t differentiated in the news report, but it would seem that whether you use the gentle Catholic remonstrance against gay sex or the more in-your-face views of Evangelicals it is considered out of bounds to dissent from liberalism on gay issues.. My guess is that Cogman would have been fine had he kept his opinions to himself, though we don’t know what sorts of official pressure might have been indirectly placed on Cogman to toe the secularist, PC line. By daring to go behond passive resistence to what amounts to moral indoctrination (officers wearing pink ribbons on their uniform amounts to government propaganda in favor of the homosexual rights agenda), Cogman got himself in trouble.
It is said that one way to look at the conflicts of the world is to think in terms of there is the Church, and Her enemies. It is well established that any denomination which follows Christian teaching will hold that homosexual acts are disordered and never to be approved - this isn’t central to Christian faith (that would be the cross and events related to it), but it is an important point to be held because alone amongst the religions of the world, Christianity (and its base, Judaism) understand the true worth and use of sexual activity. Over centuries a set of rules were developed in order to regularise sexual activity and turn it more and more towards the act of self-donation it is supposed to be - recently, however, there has been a strong effort to disorder sexual activity and turn it more and more into an act of self-gratification. As part of a genuine respect for the body, love, marriage, sex and a true freedom in these things, Christianity hedged sex about with careful strictures…along comes the secularist to toss that all aside willy-nilly and then the leftist comes up not with the idea of toleration for people’s sins, but an insistence that the sin be called a virtule and that anyone who says otherwise must be punished.
Christianity, of course, can’t become what is wrong - the Church, that is, can’t declare wrong to be right. And so Christianity - as truly understood - will never agree to gay marriages or, indeed, any act which delays the propect of the person in question having a conversion. So to call Christinaity homophobic is to essentially call Christ’s Church an evil upon the face of the earth.
What do you think?
Tags: Christianity, homophobia, homosexuality, religious liberty
July 23rd, 2008
…but screaming like a frightened, little girl at the mention of God is the root of, well, groups like Americans United for Separation of Church and State:
The state of South Carolina faces a federal lawsuit seeking to block its plans to issue license plates which feature a bright-yellow Christian cross on a multicolored stained glass window and the words “I Believe.”
The bill permitting the license plates passed the state legislature unanimously, while South Carolina governor Mark Sanford allowed the bill to become law without his signature, CNN reports.
A similar design had been considered in Florida but was rejected because of First Amendment concerns.
“I think it allows people of faith to profess that they believe in a higher calling, they believe in God,” said South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer, who has offered to personally pay a $4,000 deposit required for the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles to begin production of the plates.
The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, is leading the opposition to the law. He claims Bauer’s involvement “more deeply confirms this is a government-sponsored program.”
“I don’t believe that these license plates will ever be on any car in South Carolina, because I think our constitutional claim is so strong,” Lynn said, according to CNN.
Individuals can ask the DMV to print plates for other faiths, for a $4,000 fee, but the request is allegedly subject to significant limits and rules not imposed for the Christian plate. Other tags could feature a religious symbol, but no words would be allowed.
“The state has made believers of non-Christian faiths feel that they are second-class citizens,” Lynn continued. “Under our Constitution, that’s impermissible.”
Andre Bauer responded by arguing that the provision of Christian plates was an issue of freedom of speech.
To me, its not so much a freedom of speech issue - though it is that - as its a freedom to not have presumptuous busy-bodies sticking their nose in where it doesn’t belong. Its a license plate, for crying out loud - if you don’t want a cross on yours, then don’t buy one. Do the people of Americans United really think that someone having a plate with a cross on it makes us all less free? Lynn claims to be a reverend - isn’t there something he could do with his time more useful to the nation and more in accordance with the convictions he claims? How many meals for the homeless could be bought with the legal fees this case will generate? And if the plates are nixed, will everyone really feel freer?
We Christians are not supposed to hate - except, of course, a healthy hatred for Hell and all its works…and I’m beginning to perceive the demonic in the absurd lengths some people go to excise all mention of God from the public square. This is just stupid, stupid, stupid - in a rational world Lynn’s case would be laughed out of court and a really wise judge would slap a fine on Lynn’s group for wasting the court’s time. Enough is enough, already.
Tags: Christianity, church and state
July 10th, 2008
From Canada:
What could Mark Steyn’s punishment look like, if he’s convicted by the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal?
It could look like this order, issued just last week by Alberta’s human rights commission, against a Christian pastor named Rev. Stephen Boission.
The kangaroo court judge in this case is a Tory patronage appointee, a divorce lawyer from Lethbridge named Lori Andreachuk, (pictured at left). That’s her expertise: divorce law. Not constitutional law; not freedom of speech or freedom of religion. And it shows.
Last November, she convicted Boissoin. Last week she ordered her “remedy”.
It is the most revolting order I have ever seen in Canada. Ever.
I’ll excerpt a few lines from her ruling:
In this case, there is no specific individual who can be compensated as there is no direct victim who has come forward…
That’s insane already. No-one was hurt. The complainant was an officious intermeddler, a busybody, the town scold, an anti-Christian activist named Darren Lund who had an axe to grind, and Andreachuk gave it to him.
Dr. Lund, although not a direct victim, did expend considerable time and energy and suffered ridicule and harassment as a result of his complaint. The Panel finds therefore that he is entitled to some compensation.
So a busybody with no standing spends time filing complaints — and gets a tax-free reward for doing so. Oh — and for his “suffering”. Not suffering at the hands of Rev. Boission, but “as a result of his complaint”. People in the community ridiculed Lund for filing the complaint — as they should. And so Andreachuk will get the pastor to pay for that. Why the hell not? Who’s going to stop her? Her political patron, Ed Stelmach?
Mr. Boissoin and [his organization] The Concerned Christian Coalition Inc. shall cease publishing in newspapers, by email, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the Internet, in future, disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals.
There’s a lot there, starting with a small but telling point. Darren Lund is a not a medical doctor. He’s a professor. But Andreachuk refers to him as Dr. Lund. Stephen Boissoin is a pastor. But Andreachuk calls him “Mr. Boissoin”. No “Rev. Boissoin” for her.
But look at the staggering order there. Boissoin can never — ever — communicate anything “disparaging” about gays. It’s a lifetime ban — and it applies to every conceivable medium, including his private e-mails.
But nothing “disparaging”? That means nothing critical.
She didn’t order him not to communicate anything “illegal” or even anything “hateful”. She ordered him to say nothing disparaging. Ever. For the rest of his life.
A divorce lawyer from Lethbridge with a second-rate patronage job just ordered a Canadian pastor to stop communicating to anyone, ever, about gays. Not to stop “hate speech” — whatever that malleable legal definition is. She just told him to shut up, period.
Its from Canada, but this is precisely what the left wants to bring to the United States - and if we don’t stop them, cold, it is whaat they will do. They don’t want the free play of ideas amongst thinking people, but unthinking acceptance of liberal orthodoxy in all matters. In the United States they are handicapped by the First Amendment and a staunch desire for liberty amongst the American people…but if, say, they ever get a solid, leftist majority on the Supreme Court, you just watch them push this sort of thing through via judicial fiat.
Each election matters; each battle matters and as we’re dealing with people who’s concept of freedom is sexual license coupled with slavery in all other matters, we daren’t compromise. Its fight for freedom, or become the mindless robots of liberalism.
Tags: Christianity, Conservatism, gay rights, liberal lies, liberalism, religious liberty
June 8th, 2008
Given that Obama’s so-called Catholic Advisory Council is made up exclusively of people who dissent from Church teaching on abortion, embryonic stem cell research and school vouchers, it is important that Obama ensure that no overtly anti-Catholic or anti-religious people are on his team. Given Obama’s problems with Wright’s racist anti-Americanism, it is also important that he make it clear that genuine people of faith have a place at the table - unfortunately, Obama’s team makes room for the bigots on matters of religion - from the Catholic League:
Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented today on the religious divide which is splitting Sen. Obama’s supporters:
“The secularization of the Democratic party, which first became evident in the 1972 presidential race, was openly challenged by Barack Obama when he spoke at the 2004 Democratic presidential convention. To his credit, he has since galvanized people of faith to rally to his side, but ever since his problems with Rev. Wright he has come under fire by radical secularists. In short, there is a tug of war going on among Democratic activists pitting the secularists against the faithful.
“In today’s Chicago Tribune, Katha Pollitt not only criticizes Rev. Wright, she takes the opportunity to smear almost the entire nation. She says that ‘thanks to Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., the Democrats have got religion and everything that goes with it—weirdness, wrath, insult, blowhardiness, vanity, paranoia, divisiveness and trouble.’ Her hatred of religion wouldn’t matter so much if she were simply a writer for the Nation. However, she is also a prominent supporter of Sen. Obama: She joined hands with Frances Kissling, a notorious anti-Catholic, to endorse him in a publicly signed statement.
“We know where Pollitt is coming from. After all, any person who likes Catholic bashing is well known to the Catholic League. For example, when the Brooklyn Museum of Art displayed a portrait of Our Blessed Mother adorned with elephant dung and pictures of vaginas and anuses, she opined that ‘The Holy Virgin Mary is a funny, jazzy, rather sweet painting.’
“Obama is not responsible for Pollitt’s bigotry and he does not need to renounce her. But what he must do is start the purge—he must rid his ranks of those who want to silence religion. First out of the box to aid him must be Catholics. They can cite what Pope Benedict XVI recently said in Washington: ‘Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted.’ Purging the Pollitts from his base would reassure the faithful that they have a place in his campaign.”
Regardless of what else happens, we must ensure in America that the rights of the overwhelming majority - Christians - are protected against discrimination and are assured that at the highest levels of American government there are only people with a deep and abiding respect for the religious beliefs of the American people. We daren’t let happen here what happened in Europe - where religion was forced out of the public square until apathy overtook the people, and now Europe is in demographic crisis for lack of faith.
Among the many problems with the Democratic party is the unfortunate way they make a home for some of the worst sorts of anti-religious bigots - people who drip with contempt and hatred for the divine and for those who believe in God. It is all well and good for a President to say he’s with us, but we must rest assured that the people he appoints to bureaucratic and judicial office will not in any way, shape or form countenance anti-religious bigotry - and we can only be sure if we know in advance that such people are unwelcome prior to a person taking office.
Tags: anti-religious bigotry, Barack Obama, Christianity
May 14th, 2008
No surprise - and it entirely explains why the social structure of the United States, in spite of many glaring problems, is fundamentally one of the healthiest in all the Judeo-Christian West:
In preparation for the next gathering of the Catholic bishops around the world, the Catholic Biblical Federation has conducted an extensive survey regarding how the Bible is read in 13 different countries. The survey reports that the U.S. is the one of most Bible-believing nations and the one that is most interested in the Scriptures.
The survey was held to obtain a sense of the influence of the Scriptures to assist the bishops in their October 5-26, 2008 synod on “The Word of God in the Life and the Mission of the Church”.
Thus far, 13,000 interviews have been held in the United States, the United Kingdom, Holland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, and Russia. According to Vatican analyst Sandro Magister, the results released on April 28 “cover the entirety of the adult population” and the results pertaining solely to Catholics will be published at a later date. Results from Argentina, South Africa, the Philippines, and Australia are still being collated.
In Magister’s view, the results of the survey show that, “the Bible is not present and influential in all countries in the same way. The wave of secularization produces very different effects from region to region. In the United States and in Italy, these effects appear to be more contained than in other countries of Western Europe, among which France emerges as the most de-Christianized nation.”
The Bible is present in many houses in Italy and the U.S., 75% and 93% respectively, but in France less than half of the people have a Bible at home.
However, the only place where the Scriptures have been read in the last year is the United States, which comes in at 75%. Despite high ownership, Italian Bible reading is reported at 27%, and in Spain the number falls to 20%.
All Christians owe a debt of gratitude in this to our Evangelical brothers and sisters who have been intense in their missionary zeal to get the Bible into as many hands as possible, and getting people to actually read it; I think the ready availability not only of the Bible, but of people willing to take the time to teach it explains why the United States is so deep in the scriptures - and our depth of religious knowledge is what keeps us from the worst aspects of the post-Christian Culture of Death. I think, also, that our liberal friends understand this, and understand that the greatest stumbling block to remaking us in the image of the EU is that too many Americans have access to truth, and thus don’t fall for the left’s siren song.
In the ongoing and intensifying culture war, the best defense for our civilization is a citizenry ever more informed about who we are, where we come from and what is the basis of our civilization. The rock of our way of life is The rock, as it were, and just so long as a majority of us know this, so will we be well-positioned to beat back the efforts of the left to destroy our civilization.
Tags: Bible, Christianity
May 5th, 2008
Interesting:
Rev. John Hagee, the controversial pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, has lauded Pope Benedict XVI in a Washington Times essay and thanked him for the speeches he made during his U.S. visit. Hagee praised what he called Pope Benedict’s “moral vision for America,” especially the Pope’s affirmation of Christian participation in the public square.
In his Washington Times essay, Rev. Hagee also repeated his denial of accusations he has made anti-Catholic statements. Hagee insisted he has been “quite zealous” about condemning what he said was the “past anti-Semitism of the Catholic Church.” However, he claimed his view of the Catholic Church had been caricatured.
Hagee praised Pope Benedict’s many public statements about the role that “our Judeo-Christian faith” can play in contemporary life.
“As an evangelical Protestant I happen to disagree with Pope Benedict on many issues of Christian doctrine and ritual,” Hagee wrote. “But when it comes to his moral vision for America and the world I have one thing to say in response to the Pope’s visit: Amen.”
Hagee said that evangelical leaders believe faith must not be confined to “churches on Sunday morning.” Rather, Christian values can help build a more just and humane society. Hagee said the Pope “speaks for all of us” when he said “any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted” and called for Christian participation “in the exchange of ideas in the public square.”
My erring brother, Hagee, has made a gracious gesture in keeping with the true Christian spirit - and while I retain many differences of opinion with Hagee, I choose to accept this olive branch and let bygones be bygones. At a time when religion, as a thing, is under full scale assault, those of us who believe must remain as united as possible, and I’m not going to gnaw a bone of resentment just for the sake of keeping angry.
Tags: Benedict XVI, Catholic Church, Christianity, Hagee
May 5th, 2008
Just astounding:
London, Feb 26, 2008 (CNA).- A committee in the British House of Commons will investigate Catholic schools following the Bishop of Lancaster’s instructions to schools to place crucifixes in every classroom and stop “safe sex” education, the Independent reports.
Patrick O’Donoghue, Bishop of Lancaster, had circulated a 66-page booklet instructing Catholic schools to stop “safe sex” education. Bishop O’Donoghue wrote, “The secular view on sex outside marriage, artificial contraception, sexually transmitted disease, including HIV and AIDS, and abortion, may not be presented as neutral information.”
Additionally, he told the schools not to support charities that support abortion. He singled out Amnesty International, which recently renounced its neutrality on abortion and now favors the abortion of children whose mothers were raped in war zones.
The government’s investigating committee is chaired by Labour Party member Barry Sheerman, who is reportedly concerned the Church is adopting a “fundamentalist” line.
“A lot of taxpayers’ money is going into church schools and I think we should tease out what is happening here,” he added. “We seem to have a shift in emphasis on the ground despite what the reasonable voices of the leadership are saying,” Sheerman said.
Why does Sheerman get to decide who is reasonable? This is the thing which is really bothersome about this - a politician is going to bring pressure on a religious body to toe the government line because the politician has arrogated to himself the right to decide what is reasonable, and what isn’t. Now, if Mr. Sheerman thinks the Church wrong; that is fine. If Mr. Sheerman thinks that the Church is so wrong that it should not receive any government funding in Britain, then he may move a bill in Parlaiment to do just that. But to use a government committee as an attempt to browbeat the Church into doing the secularists’ will, that is an abominable infringement upon the rights of the people.
Chesterton said a very long time ago that, in the end, there is the Church, and her enemies - and Mr. Sheerman is demonstrating this to us in very stark terms. It isn’t enough for the Sheermans of the world to have all sorts of taxpayer funded programs to promote the leftist agenda - arrogantly self assured about their moral superiority, lefists insist that no one be allowed to dissent from their worldview. Britain, like the rest of Europe, is far gone down the road to socialist slavery - but this is the sort of world that the left wants to bring to the United States; a government controlled world of enforced political correctness. You want it, you can have it - all you have to do is “hope for change” in 2008, rather than learn and think.
Tags: anti-Christian actions, Catholic Church, Christianity, religious freedom
February 27th, 2008
Geesh:
London, Jan 11, 2008 (CNA).- A British Airways employee who sued her employer after it required her to cover up a cross necklace while she worked has lost her religious discrimination lawsuit, WorldNetDaily reports.
Nadia Eweida, a check-in worker at Heathrow Airport and a Coptic Christian, was sent home after refusing to remove the cross necklace. British Airways said the necklace was a violation of the company’s dress code.
Eweida charged her employer with religious discrimination, saying that the company allowed religious employees like those adhering to Islam or Hinduism to wear faith-related clothing, jewelry, religious markings, or other items.
The Reading Employment Tribunal had previously ruled against Eweida, but she appealed the decision.
The 56-year-old Eweida, who was placed on unpaid leave, reacted to the ruling, saying, “I’m very disappointed. I’m speechless really because I went to the tribunal to seek justice. But the judge has given way for BA to have a victory on imposing their will on all their staff.”
The story goes on to note that other religions - Islam, Hinduism, etc - are allowed to display their religious symbols because, supposedly, they can’t be concealed, as a cross can. And so, translation: “Look, we’re a post-Christian corporate body and we really don’t like to be reminded of religion at all…but as the other religions might blow something up or cut of a head or two, we’ve decided that we can only discriminate against Christians…”.
Tags: Christianity, religious discrimination
January 14th, 2008
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