The evidence continues to add up that religious liberty is under attack in our country. As an advocate for religious liberty and freedom, it is becoming evermore clear that certain elements within our culture will do anything to wipe the fingerprints of religion from our nation. Full disclosure allows me to admit that I am a Southern Baptist; so therefore, I am not a Protestant, which means that I have a strong aggressive view regarding freedom of religion in our country. This column is not long enough to submit all the mounting evidence regarding the assault that religious liberty and freedom is under today, but I will share just a few known attacks currently being leveled against religious liberty.
July 29, 2011, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, ruled with a two to one vote that in the states of Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, no one can pray in a public, federal forum in “Jesus name.” The case is now before the United States Supreme Court. The Governor of Rhode Island, refuses to call the Christmas tree in the state capitol what it is (he calls it a holiday tree), which is another example of overreach into assault on religious liberty. The Obama administration’s Health and Human Service Agency (HHS) made a decision to cut off funding for the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops program for sex trafficking victims because the Catholic group holds to pro-life beliefs, yet they scored the second highest using the HHS’s own process of evaluation. The Los Angeles Times in a story by Jenny Deam, November 26, 2011, reported that the Air Force Academy had spent $80,000.00 on an outdoor worship center to be used by pagans, Wiccans, druids, witches and followers of Native American faiths. The story quotes Cadet 1st Class Nicole Johnson, a 21 year old senior from Florida who became a pagan after entering the academy; “It is very nice to have our own space,” she said. Todd Starnes of Fox Radio reported August 3, 2011, that a course that had used the Bible as part of the material for a class that was taught for more than 20 years was stopped because of the complaint of one person. The class dealt with the biblical view of the morality of war. Breaking news hit last Friday when several news sources (including me) obtained copies of a Department of the Navy memo that was issued September 14, 2011, regarding visitors to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland. The memo dealt with the subject of: “Wounded, Ill, and Injured partners in care guidelines.” The memo details the purpose as “To provide guidelines with respect to the presence and participation of families and other partners in care.” Page four, paragraph 8, subsection f, of the memo reads: “No religious items (i. e. Bibles, reading material, and/or artifacts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit.” When word spread about this egregious assault on religious freedom, the Department of the Navy signaled they would rescind the orders in the memo. We can be thankful that word spread so rapidly on this issue, but the real issue, for me, is that we have people in the highest levels of our government who think it is the right thing to do when they issue such memos. They see nothing wrong with making decisions to cut off funding from projects that help victims of sex trafficking because the people leading in the helping agencies, such as the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops do not agree with the administration on the issue of abortion. To continue looking at how religious liberty is under attack today, school districts across the country (including Barrow County) feeling the threat of secularist’s demands, no longer call the days when schools are closed before and after Christmas “Christmas holidays,” but feeling the heat they changed the name of those days when schools are closed to “Winter Break.” Some people believe it is easier to give in to those who are on the attack than it is to stand up and continue to hold to the traditions that are found in the Judeo-Christian heritage of our nation.
On this date in 1941, we were attacked as a nation from an enemy outside our country. The attacks are coming from inside our nation now; however I still wish a Merry Christmas for all people as long as I can.
Ray Newman: Copyright 2011
This column first appeared in the Barrow County News, Winder, Ga.
December 7, 2011
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