A saga that’s been working its way through the courts for years may finally be coming to a close. While a detailed report on the Lake Elsinore Christian Monument can be read here, here’s the quick recap: In 2012, the City Council of Lake Elsinore, California unanimously approved a $50,000 veterans’ monument to be placed in front of Diamond Stadium, a city-owned minor league baseball stadium (a mockup of which is below): That’s a soldier kneeling in front of several Christian crosses… and one Jewish star. Because only Christians have died in our country’s wars. And one Jew. And no one else, ever. The city council’s lawyer warned board members that this would be illegal, but they didn’t listen. Last July, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson issued a preliminary injunction in the case, essentially saying “This shit is illegal”: … upon consideration of the meanings of the Latin cross and Star of David, as well as Monument 2’s history, secularizing elements, and physical setting, Plaintiffs are likely to prevail on their contention that a reasonable observer would perceive Monument 2 as “sending primarily a message of” endorsing religion. That was only a preliminary injunction, though. It stopped the memorial from being built for the time being, but it wasn’t a final decision on its constitutionality. In October, Wilson heard both sides present their cases in court. And now he has issued a much more definitive ruling. According to court documents, Wilson says once again — and there’s little doubt on how strong his conclusion is — that the monument violates the law: Read more
Yesterday, in a move that is sure to embolden swaths of Muslim grievance junkies, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Google to remove the controversial short film Innocence of Muslims from YouTube. The 2-to-1 decision came when the judges found in favor of actress Cindy Lee Garcia (pictured above), who objected to the film … after learning that it incorporated a clip she had made for a different movie, which had been partially dubbed and in which she appeared to be asking: “Is your Mohammed a child molester?” If her account is true, it was an extremely douchey thing to do on the part of the film maker, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, an Egyptian-born Coptic Christian who is a U.S. citizen and who cobbled together Innocence of Muslims as a crude anti-Islam propaganda piece. Read more
Allah. Azan. Baitullah. Al Quran. Fatwa. Firman Allah. Hadith. Haji. Hukum syara’. Ilahi. Ka’bah. Kalimah al syahadah. Kiblat. Masjid. Imam. Mufti. Mu’min. Solat. Wali. Beginning this April, the government of Brunei will penalize any non-Muslims who use those words in reference to their own faith — including local Christians who refer to their God with the word “Allah.” And it’ll only gets worse from there: Read more
If you visit Bladensburg, Maryland, you’ll see a 40-foot-tall World War I memorial called “Peace Cross.” Not only is it clearly a Christian symbol, it’s on public property, maintained by the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission: In 2012, the American Humanist Association asked the Commission to take down he monument. It was perfectly fine to honor veterans, but not with a symbol that elevates one religion over all others and implies that only Christian soldiers fought in the war. That complaint led to… nothing. Which is why, yesterday, the AHA’s Appignani Humanist Legal Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of three plaintiffs: Read more
Our souls are in terrible danger from demonic warfare that is is just like HIV, warns Andrée Seu Peterson, writing for WORLD Magazine. An AIDS virus enters the body from outside and very purposefully looks for a T-cell (a white blood cell that should be minding the store against types like him) that is vulnerable. It finds an accommodating “receptor” on it and “attaches itself,” “tricking” the cell into thinking it is bringing nourishment, and then “gaining entry” and releasing its payload of destructive genetic information. So where does Satan come in? It’s when churches no longer choose to (or dare to) discriminate against women who fall in love with women, and men who fall in love with men. That’s the non-microbiology equivalent of AIDS and cancer, says Peterson. Read more
Over at Catholic Culture, founder and president Jeff Mirus thinks it’s time for a new Inquisition. No, I’m not paraphrasing him or putting words in his mouth. See for yourself: Read more
Over the last month, I wrote a few posts about how administrators at Pisgah High School in Canton, North Carolina were refusing to allow the formation of an atheist club run by 15-year-old Kalei Wilson (pronounced KAY-lee). They caved in days later, presumably from all the bad publicity: It took letters from both the Secular Student Alliance and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (along with the ACLU of North Carolina) to convince school officials to change their minds. The last time I spoke to Kalei, she told me she would be meeting with her principal to discuss the process of forming the group. Nearly a dozen students had expressed interest in joining the club and a couple of faculty members told her they would be glad to sponsor it. But that all came to a halt yesterday. Read more
Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, gave a speech yesterday at Brigham Young University. Why would Chief Baptist speak to a group of Mormons? Because, he explained, there’s a danger that affects all of them: Secularism! Read more
In May of last year, a man who’d become famous for his Jesus-inspired music became a lot more famous when it emerged he’d tried to hire a hitman to kill the mother of his three children. Now Tim Lambesis has made a confession, reports the New York Post. Read more
Bob Jones University, recently in the news for firing the Christian sex-abuse investigators tasked with investigating the college’s abuse-permissive culture, has gone back on that decision — “after much discussion and prayer,” naturally. Executive Vice President of Operations Marshall Franklin appeared on video to announce BJU’s intention to reinstate GRACE [Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment]. Not much was said about the reasons for either decision, though he indicated that the school’s “primary concern was for former students,” presumably the ones who elected to contribute to the GRACE investigation in the first place: Read more
