Obama attacks Catholics again - This time Catholic Schools

by BEN SHAPIRO

Speaking in Ireland this week, President Obama stated that Catholic schools were divisive: “If towns remain divided—if Catholics have their schools and buildings and Protestants have theirs, if we can’t see ourselves in one another and fear or resentment are allowed to harden—that too encourages division and discourages cooperation.” 

On Thursday, the American Catholics for Religious Freedom fired back on President Obama’s words to 2,000 young people at the G8 Summit, stating, “President Obama’s anti-faith, secular agenda was shamefully on full display yesterday when he told the young people of Northern Ireland that Catholic education and other faith-based schools were divisive and an obstacle to peace.  All Americans of faith should be outraged by these comments which clearly telegraph the President’s belief system and are in fact at their core even anti-American.”

American Catholics for Religious Freedom points out that the media has completely ignored the story, and adds, “Secular progressives like President Obama ignore the truth that faith-based education is a component of the Religious Freedom guaranteed by the Constitution.  He can’t bear the thought that Catholic and parochial schools not only teach important values but consistently produce better educational results at lower cost than America’s failing public schools. The President’s troubling values are showing here in a way that demonstrate just how dangerous this Administration is and how committed it is to eroding the rights of all people of faith.”

And, they note, this is the same President who has attempted to cram down anti-Catholic doctrine via Obamacare. “It’s time Americans stood up for Religious Freedom, for the U.S. Constitution and against President Obama’s radical views about the place of faith in American life,” the group concludes.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/20/Obama-catholic-AMericans-religious-freedom

Christmas is No Longer Outlawed in Texas Schools!

Christmas Comes Early in Texas, As Gov. Perry Signs Religious Freedom Bill 
By Susan Jones

By law, it is now okay to say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Hanukkah" in Texas public schools.

Gov. Rick Perry signed House Bill 308 on Thursday, allowing public school students and staff to use traditional holiday greetings and display religious scenes and symbols on school property.

"I'm proud we are standing up for religious freedom in our state," Gov. Perry said. 

"Freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from religion, and people of faith often feel like they can't express that faith publicly. HB 308 works to address that by ensuring that people of all faiths are free to use traditional holiday greetings, and display religious scenes and symbols, even on school property. It ensures freedom of expression where, for many students, teachers and administrators, it's most important."

The bill states: "A school district may educate students about the history of traditional winter celebrations, and allow students and district staff to offer  traditional greetings regarding the celebrations, including: (1) "Merry Christmas"; (2) "Happy Hanukkah"; and (3) "happy holidays."

The bill specifically says that schools may display scenes or symbols associated with religious holidays -- as long as the display includes scenes or symbols of more than one religion or at least one secular scene or symbol.

Displays "may not include a  message that encourages adherence to a particular religious belief," the bill says. - 


http://cnsnews.com/news/article/christmas-comes-early-texas-gov-perry-signs-religious-freedom-bill

Attacks on Christian children on the rise in Egypt.

By: Raymond Ibrahim

Attacks on Christian children, both boys and girls, are on the rise in Egypt.

Last week, a six-year-old Coptic Christian boy named Cyril Yusuf Sa‘ad was abducted and held for ransom.  After his family paid off the Muslim kidnapper, Ahmed Abdel Moneim Abdel-Salam, he still killed the child and threw his body in the sewer of his house.  In the words of the Arabic report, the boy’s “family is in tatters after paying 30,000 pounds to the abductor, who still killed the innocent child and threw his body into the toilet of his home, where the body, swollen and moldy, was exhumed.”

Weeks earlier, ten-year-old Sameh George, an altar boy at the Coptic church of St. Abdul Masih (Servant of Christ) in Minya, Egypt, was kidnapped by “unknown persons” while on his way to church to participate in Holy Pascha prayers leading up to Orthodox Easter. His parents and family reported that it was his custom to go to church and worship in the evening, but when he didn’t return, and they began to panic, they received an anonymous phone call from the kidnappers, saying that they had the Christian boy in their possession and would execute him unless they received 250,000 Egyptian pounds in ransom money.

And about a month before this latter incident, yet another Coptic boy, twelve-year-old Abanoub Ashraf, was also kidnapped right in front of his church, St. Paul in Shubra al-Khayma district. His abductors, four men, put a knife to his throat, dragged him to their car, opened fire on the church, and then sped away. Later they called the boy’s family demanding an exorbitant amount of money to ransom the boy’s life.

While the immediate motive behind these kidnappings is money, another purpose appears to be to frighten Christian families from sending their children to church. Otherwise, why were both boys kidnapped right in front of their respective churches? (Considering that some Egyptian Islamic clerics deem church attendance as worse than attending bars and brothels, the kidnappers likely deem this the “altruistic” side of their greed and hate.)

Meanwhile, as females, Coptic Christian girls are even more vulnerable than Coptic boys.  As an International Christian Concern report puts it, “hundreds of Christian girls … have been abducted, forced to convert to Islam, and forced into marriage in Egypt. These incidents are often accompanied by acts of violence, including rape, beatings, and other forms of physical and mental abuse.”

Most recently, fourteen-year-old Agape Essam Girgis went to school accompanied by a Muslim social worker and two teachers, one of whom was a Salafi, and never returned. After protests, she was eventually “handed over to her family and the church priest where she stayed with his family for some time due to the terrible ordeal she experienced during her abduction.”  According to a Coptic bishop involved in the case, what happened to Agape—whose name is based on the biblical word for “brotherly love”—is “heart-breaking.” She was drugged and awakened to find herself in a secluded place with an elderly woman and Salafis who tried to convert her to Islam, forced her to wear the full hijab, and beat her.

A few weeks earlier, fourteen-year-old Sarah Abdelmalek was also abducted on her way to school.  Later it was reported that “Sarah was smuggled across the borders to Libya [where Coptic Christians are being brutalized] with the help of the Interior Ministry.”  The new Coptic pope said the kidnapping and forced conversion of Sarah is a “disgrace for the whole of Egypt,” adding “Can any family accept the kidnapping of their daughter and her forced conversion?”

And yet, in the last few years, some 550 cases of abduction, entrapment, rape, and forced conversion of Christian women have been documented in Egypt. Their rate has only increased after the “Arab Spring” and the empowerment of the Muslim Brotherhood—which has seen a concomitant rise is sexual harassment of all Egyptian women.  Ironically, when President Morsi was in Germany last February, he was asked to address the issue of victimized Coptic girls, only to respond by saying the idea that they were being abducted and abused was merely a rumor.

But according to Coptic Solidarity President Adel Guindy: “Any objective and fair review of the cases of forced conversion of Coptic girls, which started four decades ago but dramatically escalated after January 2011 [when the “Arab Spring” reached Egypt], will show a clear pattern of events that point to well organized ‘hidden hands’  behind the process. Amazingly, the collusion of Egypt’s security as well as judiciary authorities—in defiance of the existing laws concerning minors—shows the extent of the scheme. It is part of a ‘war of attrition’ against the Copts in their own homeland.”

Thus, as with any number of recent indicators—including an unprecedented assault on their holiest site and the codification of legal measures to oppress them—the jihad on the children of Egypt’s Christian minority is yet another indicator that a rapidly Islamizing Egypt is hostile to its oldest and most indigenous inhabitants, the Copts, and, as happened to the Jews before them,  an example in such societies of what awaits groups considered “other.”

Raymond Ibrahim is author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians. He is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

http://www.humanevents.com/2013/06/06/jihad-on-egypts-christian-children/

Valedictorian rips up speech, recites Lord’s prayer at graduation ceremony

Crowd stunned after valedictorian rips up speech, recites Lord’s prayer

A South Carolina valedictorian garnered wild applause after he ripped up his pre-approved speech and delivered the Lord’s prayer at his high school graduation on Saturday.

The act was apparently in protest of the Pickens County School District’s decision to no longer include prayer at graduation ceremonies, Christian News reported. Officials said the decision was made after the district was barraged with complaints by atheist groups.

But that didn’t stop Roy Costner IV of Liberty High School. He ripped up his graduation speech for all to see, before he started talking about his Christian upbringing, Christian News reported.

“Those that we look up to, they have helped carve and mold us into the young adults that we are today,” he said. “I’m so glad that both of my parents led me to the Lord at a young age.”

“And I think most of you will understand when I say…” he paused. “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name…”

The auditorium began to erupt with applause and cheers.

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” he continued. “For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.”

Pickens County School District spokesman John Eby said that no disciplinary action will be taken against Mr. Costner.

Attendee Logan Gibson told reporters that he thought “it took a lot of courage” to do what Mr. Costner did, Christian News reported.

As of noon Wednesday, a YouTube video of the exchange had received almost 45,000 views

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/5/crowd-stunned-after-valedictorian-rips-speech-reci/

ACLU suing to remove Weekend Veterans Graveyard

On a beach in Santa Barbara, there is a veterans group that started putting a cross and candle for every death in Iraq and Afghanistan. The amazing thing is that they only do it on the weekends.

They put up this graveyard and take it down every weekend. Guys sleep in the sand next to it and keep watch over it at night so nobody messes with it. Every cross has the name, rank and D.O.B. and D.O.D. on it. Very moving, very powerful. So many young volunteers. So many 30 to 40 year-olds as well.

The ACLU has filed a suit to have all military cross-shaped headstones removed.And that they filed another suit to end prayer from the military completely. They're making great progress. The Navy Chaplains can no longer mention Jesus' name in prayer thanks to the ACLU and our administration.

The first picture and the last picture are taken at the beach in Santa Barbara right next to the Pier.

'Heavenly Father, hold our troops in Your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us.
Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in this our time of need.  These things I humbly ask in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, Amen.'