And will accelerate, if Obama wins, given the sorts of judges he’ll appoint:
Two students filed a federal lawsuit this past Monday against the publicly-funded College of Alameda alleging that school officials at the California school threatened to expel them for praying.
The events prompting the lawsuit took place in December, 2007, a press release from the Pacific Justice Institute reports.
That month, student Kandy Kyriacou visited an instructor to give her a Christmas gift. Kyriacou found the instructor alone in her shared office. When the instructor indicated she was ill, Kyriacou offered to pray for her.
The instructor bowed her head and Kyriacou began to pray. They were then interrupted by another faculty member, Derek Piazza, who entered the room and said “You can’t be doing that here!”
Kyriacou left to join her friend and fellow student Ojoma Omaga. Piazza followed Kyriacou and repeated his rebuke. The students related that they were surprised by his intimidating behavior.
Three days before Christmas, both students received letters notifying them of the college’s retroactive “intent to suspend” them. While school policy requires such letters to state factual bases for the charges, the letter only vaguely accused the students of “disruptive or insulting behavior, willful disobedience . . . persistent abuse of college employees.”
An administrative hearing reportedly found Kyriacou’s prayer worthy of discipline and threatened suspension or expulsion for further infractions.
The students turned to the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) for assistance. PJI attorneys attempted to resolve the situation through demand letters, but the college did not respond.
PJI local affiliate attorneys Steven N. H. Wood and Christopher Schweickert made a final demand that college officials rescind disciplinary letters and acknowledge the students’ right to pray, but the college refused. On Monday, Wood, Schweickert, and PJI staff attorneys filed a federal lawsuit.
“It’s outrageous,” PJI President Brad Dacus stated. “Since when does praying for a sick teacher to get well – with her consent – earn a suspension? This is not just a constitutional violation; it is a complete lack of common sense. These students were not looking for a fight, but since the school to this day insists that it can expel them if they pray again, we will have to resolve it in federal court.”
People like Piazza are legion in this country – little sneaks just waiting for a chance to denounce their neighbors for thought crimes. Think it can’t happen in a democratic society? Well, look what happened to Mark Steyn in Canada; he was hauled before a kangaroo court when someone complained that his writings offended them…he won the case, but likely only because of negative publicity. Get Obama in office and the mis-named “fairness doctrine” will ensure that cases like this don’t get widely known in the public, while Obama-appointed leftist judges dismiss out of hand cases brought on matters of religion and other liberty.
There is a lot at stake in this election – the left is playing for the whole deal; they feel they can win it all, and they are determined that once they win they will ram through their worldview. We’ve only got one option to preserve the United States from kook-left domination – and that is election John McCain President of the United States.
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