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President Obama has told us he is "remaking" America. Indeed he is. Every aspect of America.
We are now learning that his nominee for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, ruled against a Christian ministry's right to publicly display a Bible verse on a privately owned billboard on Long Island, New York.
She ruled to uphold a lower court's ruling against Pastor Kristopher Okwedy. The pastor's ministry had purchased space on a billboard and was featuring Bible verses that condemn homosexual behavior. Not commentary. Just the verse.
One of the verses featured was the King James version of Leviticus 18:22, which reads, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: It is an abomination."
Sotomayor and two other judges on a panel ruled that the signs should have been taken down and that the pastor did not have the right or the freedom to express Scripture in that way. Or at least those Scriptures.
Every time I, or others, say publicly that the so-called hate crimes bills that legislators are addicted to passing will ultimately be used to suppress freedom of speech on the part of pastors who preach the biblical teaching which condemns homosexual behavior, we are met with outrage and denial from the homosexual activists, from the Governor's office to the Legislature to the street.
This is how religious censorship begins. It seems insignificant to the general public, but line by line, law by law, a case is built against what the elite do not want said in any kind of public discourse.
In the early 70s I spent time in Poland with a number of local pastors, helping to establish and build Christian churches. At that time they were still under the oppression of the old Soviet Union. Freedom of religious expression and speech was greatly suppressed. Pastors and Christian leaders were persecuted, not just socially, but physically, simply because of their expression of Christian faith. They were beaten, often, as a result of trumped up charges over some infraction of the law. I lived in their homes with them and I personally saw the scars on the backs from beatings while they were in jail.
I don't think the American people will ever allow our country to go that far, however these things happen as a result of an accumulation of small advances by those who oppose certain freedoms. The pastors I lived with and worked with, all remembered better times, when they had greater freedoms.
Our 'Establishment Clause' is often quoted and used against Christians having too much freedom of expression in schools and government institutions, yet they have now used this premise against Christian expression in the private sector.
The story I have linked is fairly in depth and does a good job explaining how the case has developed.
There is further evidence that Sotomayor, on what is called "first impression" cases--those that a court has never taken up before, shows a pattern of issuing summary orders, which are unpublished, on controversial cases, as she did recently in the reverse discrimination case involving the firefighters from New Haven.
Because they are first impression cases, she simply refuses to study and analyze those questions on issues that may result in a result that she doesn't like.
Judicial activism.
She has advocated this approach in prior speeches and seminars, we should not be surprised at her positions or her nomination. She fits the profile candidate Obama promised if elected.
I doubt this will get much national attention. But it should.
In this, we have witnessed the denial of free speech to a pastor who was quoting Scripture, not making commentary, in a public place. It is suppression of free speech, selectively applied because the judges did not like the speech---the message.
Please do not tell me that hate crimes laws will not be used against pastors who believe and teach the biblical position on homosexual behavior.
This is not a time for people of faith and conservatives to remain silent.
We are now learning that his nominee for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, ruled against a Christian ministry's right to publicly display a Bible verse on a privately owned billboard on Long Island, New York.
She ruled to uphold a lower court's ruling against Pastor Kristopher Okwedy. The pastor's ministry had purchased space on a billboard and was featuring Bible verses that condemn homosexual behavior. Not commentary. Just the verse.
One of the verses featured was the King James version of Leviticus 18:22, which reads, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: It is an abomination."
Sotomayor and two other judges on a panel ruled that the signs should have been taken down and that the pastor did not have the right or the freedom to express Scripture in that way. Or at least those Scriptures.
Every time I, or others, say publicly that the so-called hate crimes bills that legislators are addicted to passing will ultimately be used to suppress freedom of speech on the part of pastors who preach the biblical teaching which condemns homosexual behavior, we are met with outrage and denial from the homosexual activists, from the Governor's office to the Legislature to the street.
This is how religious censorship begins. It seems insignificant to the general public, but line by line, law by law, a case is built against what the elite do not want said in any kind of public discourse.
In the early 70s I spent time in Poland with a number of local pastors, helping to establish and build Christian churches. At that time they were still under the oppression of the old Soviet Union. Freedom of religious expression and speech was greatly suppressed. Pastors and Christian leaders were persecuted, not just socially, but physically, simply because of their expression of Christian faith. They were beaten, often, as a result of trumped up charges over some infraction of the law. I lived in their homes with them and I personally saw the scars on the backs from beatings while they were in jail.
I don't think the American people will ever allow our country to go that far, however these things happen as a result of an accumulation of small advances by those who oppose certain freedoms. The pastors I lived with and worked with, all remembered better times, when they had greater freedoms.
Our 'Establishment Clause' is often quoted and used against Christians having too much freedom of expression in schools and government institutions, yet they have now used this premise against Christian expression in the private sector.
The story I have linked is fairly in depth and does a good job explaining how the case has developed.
There is further evidence that Sotomayor, on what is called "first impression" cases--those that a court has never taken up before, shows a pattern of issuing summary orders, which are unpublished, on controversial cases, as she did recently in the reverse discrimination case involving the firefighters from New Haven.
Because they are first impression cases, she simply refuses to study and analyze those questions on issues that may result in a result that she doesn't like.
Judicial activism.
She has advocated this approach in prior speeches and seminars, we should not be surprised at her positions or her nomination. She fits the profile candidate Obama promised if elected.
I doubt this will get much national attention. But it should.
In this, we have witnessed the denial of free speech to a pastor who was quoting Scripture, not making commentary, in a public place. It is suppression of free speech, selectively applied because the judges did not like the speech---the message.
Please do not tell me that hate crimes laws will not be used against pastors who believe and teach the biblical position on homosexual behavior.
This is not a time for people of faith and conservatives to remain silent.