INDOCTRINATION: PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND THE DECLINE OF CHRISTIANITY IN AMERICA (DVD)

Nearly 90% of Christian children attend a public school. Their families have a vested interest in all that happens there. Join Scottish filmmaker Colin Gunn, a homeschool father of seven, on the field trip of a lifetime. Driving an old school bus, Colin and family travel across America, asking questions about the origins and social impact of American's public education system. Colin asks:


•Who established the American public school system?

•Are my kids physically and morally safe in the schools?

•Are the public schools religiously neutral?

•Should Christians try to be “salt and light” in public schools?

•Can the public school system be fixed or redeemed?

Featuring interviews with whistleblower teachers, administrators, students, parents, and others, this film is part documentary, part testimonial, and totally captivating. Above all it is both an encouragement and challenge to the millions of Christians who need to know what God's Word says about the discipleship and training of the next generation.

http://superstore.wnd.com/video/Education_2/IndoctriNation-Public-Schools-and-the-Decline-of-Christianity-in-America-DVD

MORNING BELL: Faith in America—Matt Spalding, December 26, 2011

"The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time," Thomas Jefferson once wrote. "The hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them." Among the American Founders, there was a profound sense that faith and freedom were deeply intertwined.

Nowadays, we are often told that religion is divisive and ought to kept away from politics for the sake of liberty. Religion somehow is opposed to liberty, and so liberty requires a diminution of religion in the public square.

The view long consistent with our historical practice, though, is that of America's Founders, who advanced religious liberty so as to strengthen religious faith and its influence on American self-government. All had a natural right to worship God as they chose, according to the dictates of their consciences. At the same time, the Founders upheld religion and morality--to paraphrase Washington's Farewell Address--as indispensable supports of good habits, the firmest props of the duties of citizens, and the great pillars of human happiness.


Religious liberty neither settles nor dismisses the claims of reason and revelation to teach the most important things for human beings to know. But it does create a practical solution--after thousands of years of failed attempts--at the level of politics and political morality. It established a form of government that is sanctioned by human nature and open to moral reasoning, the legitimacy of which does not depend on the truth of any particular religious denomination.

This solution is possible because the American Founders recognized general moral precepts that are understandable by human reason and no less agreeable to faith in the form of a general revelation of creation. This morality common to both natural reason and divine revelation, usually termed natural law, is the philosophical ground of the American Founding.

We can see this agreement of reason and revelation in the Declaration of Independence. The liberties recognized in it are deduced from a higher law to which all human laws are answerable and by which they are limited. This higher law can be understood by man's practical reason--the truths of the Declaration are held to be "self-evident"--but also by the revealed word of God. There are four references to God in the document: to "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God"; to all men being "created equal" and "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights"; to "the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions"; and to "the protection of divine Providence." The first term suggests a deity that is knowable by human reason, but the others--God as creator, as judge, and as providence--are more biblical, and add (and were assuredly intended to add) a theological context to the document.

From the perspective of religious faith, the basic principles of the Founding, at the level of political principles, were understood to be in essential agreement with the core precepts of the Bible. That this is the case can be seen throughout the many church sermons published from the founding era. While we have never been and should not try to become a nation defined by a particular or official religious denomination, we must never forget that, as the Supreme Court said in 1952 (and reiterated in 1963, and again in 1984), "We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being."

CONTINUED:
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/12/26/morning-bell-faith-in-america/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Should Christians Support Obama by Dr David Barton (excellent points given)

Dr. David Barton is more of a historian than a Biblical speaker, but very famous for his knowledge of historical facts as well as Biblical truths. Dr. David Barton – on Obama Respect the Office? Yes.


Respect the Man in the Office? No, I am sorry to say. I have noted that many elected officials, both Democrats and Republicans, called upon America to unite behind Obama. Well, I want to make it clear to all who will listen that I AM NOT uniting behind Obama!I will respect the Office which he holds, and I will acknowledge his abilities as an orator and wordsmith and pray for him, BUT that is it. I have begun today to see what I can do to make sure that he is a one-term President! Why am I doing this? It is because: - I do not share Obama’s vision or value system for America ;

- I do not share his Abortion beliefs;
- I do not share his radical Marxist’s concept of re-distributing wealth;
- I do not share his stated views on raising taxes on those who make $150,000+ (the ceiling has been changed three times since August); - I do not share his view that America is Arrogant;
- I do not share his view that America is not a Christian Nation;
- I do not share his view that the military should be reduced by 25%;
- I do not share his view of amnesty and giving more to illegals than our American Citizens who need help;
- I do not share his views on homosexuality and his definition of marriage;
- I do not share his views that Radical Islam is our friend and Israel is our enemy who should give up any land;
- I do not share his spiritual beliefs (at least the ones he has made public);
- I do not share his beliefs on how to re-work the healthcare system in America;
- I do not share his Strategic views of the Middle East; and
- I certainly do not share his plan to sit down with terrorist regimes such as Iran. Bottom line: my America is vastly different from Obama’s, and I have a higher obligation to my Country and my GOD to do what is Right! For eight (8) years, the Liberals in our Society, led by numerous entertainers who would have no platform and no real credibility but for their celebrity status, have attacked President Bush, his family, and his spiritual beliefs! They have not moved toward the center in their beliefs and their philosophies, and they never came together nor compromised their personal beliefs for the betterment of our Country!

They have portrayed my America as a land where everything is tolerated except being intolerant ! They have been a vocal and irreverent minority for years! They have mocked and attacked the very core values so important to the founding and growth of our Country! They have made every effort to remove the name of GOD or Jesus Christ from our Society!

They have challenged capital punishment, the right to bear firearms, and the most basic principles of our criminal code! They have attacked one of the most fundamental of all Freedoms, the right of free speech! Unite behind Obama? Never!

I am sure many of you who read this think that I am going overboard, but I refuse to retreat one more inch in favor of those whom I believe are the embodiment of Evil! PRESIDENT BUSH made many mistakes during his Presidency, and I am not sure how history will judge him. However, I believe that he weighed his decisions in light of the long established Judeo-Christian principles of our Founding Fathers!!!

Majority rules in America , and I will honor the concept; however, I will fight with all of my power to be a voice in opposition to Obama and his “goals for America …” I am going to be a thorn in the side of those who, if left unchecked, will destroy our Country! Any more compromise is more defeat! I pray that the results of this election will wake up many who have sat on the sidelines and allowed the Socialist-Marxist anti-GOD crowd to slowly change so much of what has been good in America ! “Error of Opinion may be tolerated where Reason is left free to combat it.” -Thomas Jefferson GOD bless you and GOD bless our Country!

http://randysright.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/should-christians-support-obama-by-dr-david-barton-excellent-points-given/

AMERICAN MINUTE: Alexis de Tocqueville

 July 29   (Add this to your Constitutional Studies!)


Alexis de Tocqueville was born JULY 29, 1805.A French social scientist, he traveled the United States in 1831, and wrote a two-part work, Democracy in America (1835, 1840), which has been described as:  "the most comprehensive and penetrating analysis of the relationship between character and society in America that has ever been written."

In it, de Tocqueville wrote:   "Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things, to which I was unaccustomed.

In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country..."

De Tocqueville continued:  "They brought with them...a form of Christianity, which I cannot better describe, than by styling it a democratic and republican religion...From the earliest settlement of the emigrants, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved."

De Tocqueville wrote:  "Religion in America...must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it...This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or a party, but it belongs to the whole nation."

De Tocqueville observed:  "The sects that exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due to the Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God...


Moreover, all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same."

De Tocqueville added:  "In the United States the sovereign authority is religious...There is no country in the whole world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence than in America...


America is still the place where the Christian religion has kept the greatest real power over men's souls; and nothing better demonstrates how useful and natural it is to man, since the country where it now has the widest sway is both the most enlightened and the freest."

De Tocqueville continued:  "In the United States the influence of religion is not confined to the manners, but it extends to the intelligence of the people...Christianity, therefore reigns without obstacle, by universal consent..."

De Tocqueville continued:  "The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live."


In Book Two of Democracy in America, de Tocqueville wrote:  "Christianity has therefore retained a strong hold on the public mind in America...In the United States...Christianity itself is a fact so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attack or to defend it."

In August of 1831, while traveling through Chester County, New York, Alexis de Tocqueville observed a court case:  "While I was in America, a witness, who happened to be called at the assizes of the county of Chester, declared that he did not believe in the existence of God or in the immortality of the soul. The judge refused to admit his evidence, on the ground that the witness had destroyed beforehand all confidence of the court in what he was about to say...


The New York Spectator of August 23d, 1831, relates the fact in the following terms:  'The court of common pleas of Chester county (New York), a few days since rejected a witness who declared his disbelief in the existence of God. The presiding judge remarked, that he had not before been aware that there was a man living who did not believe in the existence of God; that this belief constituted the sanction of all testimony in a court of justice: and that he knew of no case in a Christian country, where a witness had been permitted to testify without such belief.'"

http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.americanminute.com/index.php?date=07-29

God Help Us: The Status of Religious Rights in the Public School System

by Diane Rufino, April 13, 2010




Young adults often wonder what their rights are in the public school system with respect to religion. On the one hand there is the First Amendment right to religion itself (free exercise and the freedom from being forced to belong to a religion established by Congress), and then are a plurality of Supreme Court decisions which have interpreted the First Amendment, there are the views of religious groups and atheist groups, and then finally there are anti-religion “watch” groups which are ever vigilante to make sure that religion (in any form) is not brought up in schools or in any other public/government-sponsored activity. And then caught in the middle of all this are the children themselves who have Constitutional first amendment rights but don’t know what they are and what they are entitled to. They rely on the school to look after their rights and they are often advised, or pressured, by parents who have strong religious views. But as our schools become diversified and as our society places a greater emphasis on diversity and a progressive new social order, there appears to be a concerted effort to maintain neutrality in classrooms on a number of areas, most notably religion. Schools cannot be seen as promoting one religion over another or showing preference to one religion over another. Students cannot be made to feel that their particular religion is inferior or is not respected. Neutrality seems to be the key.


READ MORE:  http://forloveofgodandcountry.wordpress.com/

Right to Prayer, Andy Rooney

With comments from my friend Gail,

You know, I don't always agree with everything Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes says, but this is one time he is right on the mark. When are we going to stand up and not let those who will trash our Faith, our CONSTITUTIONAL government and our right to freedom and liberties continue to rule our lives. God gave us his grace and will give us the strength to defend our rights to practice our faiths openly and honestly. Anyone who doesn't like it is welcome to their own opinions but not going to stop us from OPENLY being believers in God. I don't know about you, but I am sick and tired of atheists and non-believers (who are in the minority) dictating to believers what we can and cannot do when it comes to prayer.


The Constitution of the United States of America states in the 1st Amendment that, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Personally, I feel we have allowed our government and others who don't believe in our Christian faiths to prohibit us from the free exercise of our religion. We can't have even a moment of silence for our children to start their day in PUBLIC school with a prayer to our Creator; we aren't allowed to put up nativity scenes in or at our public buildings at Christmas; every time we turn around the liberal media, elitest or non-believers are influencing our government to not allow us to even mention the name of God or Jesus Christ in every thing public that we do. Our belief in God is the very fiber of our being both in our private and public lives. It doesn't stop when we are in or at public events. It is time to put God were he should be and that is, FIRST IN OUR LIVES AND IN EVERY ASPECT OF OUR LIVES. He is the one who gave us life in the first place through our parents.


May God forgive us and may God Bless us and America. Gail

Right to Prayer, Andy Rooney

Andy Rooney says:


I don't believe in Santa Claus, but I'm not going to sue somebody for singing a Ho-Ho-Ho song in December. I don't agree with Darwin , but I didn't go out and hire a lawyer when my high school teacher taught his Theory of Evolution.

Life, liberty or your pursuit of happiness will not be endangered because someone says a 30-second prayer before a football game. So what's the big deal? It's not like somebody is up there reading the entire Book of Acts. They're just talking to a God they believe in and asking him to grant safety to the players on the field and the fans going home from the game.

But it's a Christian prayer, some will argue.

Yes, and this is the United States of America , a country founded on Christian principles. According to our very own phone book, Christian churches outnumber all others better than 200-to-1. So what would you expect -- somebody chanting Hare Krishna?

If I went to a football game in Jerusalem , I would expect to hear a Jewish prayer...
If I went to a soccer game in Baghdad , I would expect to hear a Muslim prayer.
If I went to a ping pong match in China , I would expect to hear someone pray to Buddha.
And I wouldn't be offended. It wouldn't bother me one bit.


When in Rome .....


But what about the atheists? Is another argument.


What about them? Nobody is asking them to be baptized. We're not going to pass the collection plate. Just humor us for 30 seconds. If that's asking too much, bring a Walkman or a pair of ear plugs. Go to the bathroom. Visit the concession stand. Call your lawyer!

Unfortunately, one or two will make that call. One or two will tell thousands what they can and cannot do.. I don't think a short prayer at a football game is going to shake the world's foundations.

Christians are just sick and tired of turning the other cheek while our courts strip us of all our rights. Our parents and grandparents taught us to pray before eating, to pray before we go to sleep. Our Bible tells us to pray without ceasing. Now a handful of people and their lawyers are telling us to cease praying.

God, help us. And if that last sentence offends you, well, just sue me.

The silent majority has been silent too long. It's time we tell that one or two who scream loud enough to be heard that the vast majority doesn't care what they want. It is time that the majority


Rules! It's time we tell them, You don't have to pray; you don't have to say the Pledge of Allegiance; you don't have to believe in God or attend services that honor Him. That is your right, and we will honor your right; but by golly, you are no longer going to take our rights away. We are fighting back, and we WILL WIN!


God bless us one and all ... Especially those who denounce Him , God bless America, despite all her faults. She is still the greatest nation of all. God bless our service men who are fighting to protect our right to pray and worship God.

http://www.sodahead.com/entertainment/right-to-prayer-andy-rooney/question-661583/

Merry Christmas from NC Freedom!

Merry Christmas


The United States Code, section 5 USC 6103 declares ten national, legal, public holidays:

(a)  The following are legal public holidays:
      New Year's Day, January 1.
      Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., the third Monday in January.
      Washington's Birthday, the third Monday in February.
      Memorial Day, the last Monday in May.
      Independence Day, July 4.
      Labor Day, the first Monday in September.
      Columbus Day, the second Monday in October.
      Veterans Day, November 11.
      Thanksgiving Day, the fourth Thursday in November.
      Christmas Day, December 25.
     
Christmas Day is a Christian religious holiday so how can the federal government justify this holiday under the current political correct definition of the separation of church vs. state? We see retail stores, banks and government offices outline a policy for Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas in order to not offend some ethereal "patron".

Cincinnati attorney Richard Ganulin filed a lawsuit in U.S. district court in August, 1998 by filing a lawsuit asking the federal government to stop declaring December 25th as a holiday.

"Christmas is a religious holiday and the Congress of the United States is not constitutionally permitted to endorse or aid any religion, purposefully or otherwise, or [promote] entanglement between our government and religious beliefs."

The lawsuit was dismissed by Judge Susan Dlott who stated:
"that Christmas can be observed as a federal holiday because non-Christians also mark the holiday by celebrating the arrival of Santa Claus. Since nonreligious people also observe the holiday, giving federal workers a day off for Christmas does not elevate one religion over another."

Judge Dlott preceded her ruling with the following poem:

"The court will address plaintiff's seasonal confusion erroneously believing Christmas merely a religious intrusion.

Whatever the reason constitutional or other Christmas is not an act of big brother!


Christmas is about joy and giving and sharing it is about the child within u.s. it is mostly about caring!

One is never jailed for not having a tree for not going to church for not spreading glee!

The court will uphold seemingly contradictory causes decreeing "the establishment" and "santa" both worthwhile "claus(es)!"


We are all better for santa the easter bunny too and maybe the great pumpkin to name just a few!

An extra day off is hardly high treason it may be spent as you wish regardless of reason.

The court having read the lessons of "lynch" refuses to play the role of the grinch!

There is room in this country and in all our hearts too for different convictions and a day off too!"

I personally do not need a court case to justify the spirit of Christmas. The decision concerning how individuals celebrate the birth of Jesus is just that: an individual decision. With that thought in mind, the staff and directors of NC Freedom wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas.

David DeGerolamo
NC Freedom

You can join their mailing list at:  http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin/ea?v=0013yYWxIr3lUGnCroR4gD3wQ%3D%3D

Thomas Sowell: Forgetting the Constitution

The assurance that “separation of church and state” is in the Constitution shows our elites’ ignorance.

Politics is not the only place where some pretty brassy statements have been made and repeated so often that some people have accepted these brassy statements as being as good as gold.


One of the brassiest of the brass oldies is the notion that the Constitution creates a “wall of separation” between church and state. This false notion has been so widely accepted that people who tell the truth get laughed at and mocked.

A recent New York Times piece said that it was “a flub of the first order” when Christine O’Donnell, Republican candidate for senator in Delaware, asked a law school audience, “Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” According to the New York Times, “The question draw gasps and laughter” from this audience of professors and law students who are elites-in-waiting.

The New York Times writer joined in the mocking response to Ms. O’Donnell’s question, though admitting in passing that “in the strictest sense” the “actual words ‘separation of church and state’ do not appear in the text of the Constitution.” Either the separation of church and state is there or it is not there. It is not a question of some “strictest” technicality.


The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution about a “wall of separation” between church and state, either directly or indirectly.

That phrase was used in a letter by Thomas Jefferson, who was not even in the country when the Constitution was written. It was a phrase seized upon many years later, by people who wanted to restrict religious symbols, and it has been cited by judges who share that wish.

There was no mystery about what “an establishment of religion” meant when that phrase was put into the Constitution. It was not an open-ended invitation to judges to decide what role religion should play in American society or in American government.

The Church of England was an “established church.” That is, it was not only financed by the government, its members had privileges denied to members of other religions.

The people who wrote the Constitution of the United States had been British subjects most of their lives, and knew exactly what an “established church” meant. They wanted no such thing in the United States of America. End of story — or so it should have been.

For more than a century, no one thought that the First Amendment meant that religious symbols were forbidden on government property. Prayers were offered in Congress and in the Supreme Court. Chaplains served in the military and presidents took their oath of office on the Bible.

But, in our own times, judges have latched onto Jefferson’s phrase and run with it. It has been repeated so often in their decisions that it has become one of the brassiest of the brass oldies that get confused with golden oldies.

As fundamentally important as the First Amendment is, what is even more important is the question whether judges are to take it upon themselves to “interpret” the law to mean whatever they want it to mean, rather than what it plainly says.

This is part of a larger question, as to whether this country is to be a self-governing nation, controlled by “we the people,” as the Constitution put it, or whether arrogant elites shall take it upon themselves to find ways to impose what they want on the rest of us, by circumventing the Constitution.

Congress is already doing that by passing laws before anyone has time to read them and the White House is likewise circumventing the Constitution by appointing “czars” who have as much power as cabinet members, without having to go through the confirmation process prescribed for cabinet members by the Constitution.

Judges circumvent the Constitution by reading their own meaning into its words, regardless of how plain and unequivocal its words are.

The Constitution cannot protect us and our freedoms as a self-governing people unless we protect the Constitution. That means zero tolerance at election time for people who circumvent the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. Freedom is too precious to give it up in exchange for brassy words from arrogant elites.


— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. © 2010 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/251250/forgetting-constitution-thomas-sowell

Townhall.com

Alan Sears:  Sunrise, Sunset: Our Future is Only as Certain as Religious Freedom

As the often heated, sometimes bitter debates that characterized the Constitutional Convention roared back and forth, month after month, throughout the long summer of 1787, Benjamin Franklin found himself gazing more and more at the painted image carved on the chair used by George Washington, who was presiding over the convention.


Franklin couldn’t decide, he told those sitting around him, if the image of a shining orb was supposed to represent the dawn of a new day…or dusk, and darkness coming on the land.


“Now,” he announced with a smile, as the Constitution was finally approved and signed on September 17, “I have the happiness to know that it is a rising, not a setting sun.”

Today, 223 years later, it’s sometimes tempting to want to pull out the old chair and look again. In America, the sunrise on tomorrow is only as sure as the state of our Constitution…and today, that state is shakier than it’s been in a long, long time.

Perhaps no element of that Constitution is more endangered than the First Amendment protections of religious liberty. That cornerstone of our nation’s freedom—the dream that brought the Pilgrims and so many of the other early settlers to our Atlantic shores—is now under direct, daily assault coast to coast.

From California courtrooms to the legislative halls of Massachusetts, our First Freedom is denounced as an impediment to those who would reinvent marriage into something it’s never been, and never can be. On university campuses, it’s all but outlawed as administrative officials segregate Christian students and their activities.

In public schools, religious freedom is ignored as educators work diligently to immerse our children in an aggressively secular world view. In hospitals and clinics and pharmacies across the country, it’s a freedom often denied to those whose religious faith prohibits their participation in abortion.


For far too many Americans, their awareness of the danger is as flimsy as their knowledge of the Constitution. For most, that understanding is limited to muddled memories from high school civics classes and a carefully orchestrated falsehood fabricated years ago by the American Civil Liberties Union and pummeled relentlessly into the public consciousness ever since: “separation of church and state.”


That so-called separation, and the growing legal assault it foments against people of faith, are both so far, far removed from any intention of those who hammered out our extraordinary, unprecedented Constitution that hot Philadelphia summer of so long ago.

Of course, not even the men Thomas Jefferson (whose duties as America’s ambassador to France kept him out of the country) called “an assembly of demi-gods” were immune to the temptation to sideline the Almighty from their undertaking. So conspicuous was His absence that finally Franklin—no overtly religious man himself—asked for the floor, and, addressing Washington, offered one of the most remarkable observations in American history:



In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings?


In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered.

All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence, we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance?

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?


We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that “except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: we shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and byword down to future ages.

And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human Wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that service.

The observation—like the petty in-fighting, the global implications, and the very real danger of self-destruction—is as applicable to our nation now as it was that day.

Religious freedom is the thread by which hangs not only the document we commemorate today, Constitution Day, but the future of the nation to which that document gave birth. In our willingness to defend that freedom—through our decisions, through our votes, through our prayers—lies the answer to the ever-new mystery of that image carved on Washington’s chair.

Is it morning in America? Or is a great darkness descending?

Alan Sears:  Alan Sears, a former federal prosecutor in the Reagan Administration, is president and CEO of the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance employing a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.

Randy's Right

Real World Facts…Who Is The Man Behind The Ground Zero Mosque?


Developer Of Community Center Has Lengthy Record, With Numerous Arrests Dating Back To 1990
 
NEW YORK (CBS 2) — As the Ground Zero mosque controversy continues to simmer, questions continue about the background of the man who wants to build the $100 million Islamic cultural and religious center.


Mosque developer Sharif El-Gamal has often been reluctant to answer questions.

After he won the right to tear down the 152-year-old building blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks, El-Gamal got defensive when asked about the mosque by CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer.

Watch News Interview at link below

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/08/30/who-is-the-man-behind-the-ground-zero-mosque/

“It’s a community center, if you call it a community center, we would talk,” El-Gamal said.

Kramer reports the developer’s reluctance to talk may have been related to his prior run-ins with the law.

His most recent arrest was in 2005 for assault on a man he met while working as a waiter at Serafina Restaurant, who sublet an apartment from his brother. He reportedly punched the man, breaking his nose and cheekbone and spit on him.

El-Gamal first said he didn’t hit the man, but arrest documents obtained by CBS 2 showed he later conceded “his face could have run into my hand.”

Records showed El-Gamal also had trouble coming up with the $15,000 settlement reached in 2008, and had to pay interest . El-Gamal also has a number of other arrests on his record:

-In 1990, he was arrested in Nassau County and pled guilty to disorderly conduct.
-In 1992, he pled guilty in Nassau to DWI and paid a $350 fine.
-In 1993, he pled guilty in Nassau to attempted petit larceny and paid a $100 fine.
-In 1994, arrested for disorderly conduct in Manhattan.
-In 1998, there was another Manhattan disorderly conduct arrest.
-In 1999, yet another Manhattan disorderly conduct arrest.

A potential problem for the mosque developer is a deposition he gave in the assault case in October 2007. When asked if he was ever convicted or pled guilty to a crime, El-Gamal replied “no.”

Lately, he has been trying to resurrect his image, sitting down for a lengthy 60 Minutes interview with Scott Pelley.

When Pelley asked if it occurred to him that putting a project so close to Ground Zero would heighten tensions, El-Gamal replied “not at all.”

“I did not hold myself or my faith accountable for the tragedy,” El-Gamal said.

El-Gamal also owes over $227,000 in unpaid real estate taxes and a spokesman for the Department of Finance said interest will be added for each and every day its unpaid.

Another question surrounding the debate is whether the Muslim cleric of the mosque — Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf — knew about El-Gamal’s criminal background and unpaid taxes before partnering with him.

El-Gamal refused repeated requests from CBS 2 Monday to comment on the story.

http://randysright.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/rea-world-facts-who-is-the-man-behind-the-ground-zero-mosque/