The Gaytheist Agenda

The contested 43-foot cross will stay atop Mt. Soledad in San Diego despite a efforts to have it removed.

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“The court finds the memorial at Mt. Soledad, including its Latin cross, communicates the primarily nonreligious messages of military service, death and sacrifice,” wrote U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns in his decision filed Tuesday. “As such, despite its location on public land, the memorial is constitutional.”
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“If you want to put a cross on your front lawn . . . we will be the first to defend you,” said David Blair-Loy, legal director of the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties. “When the government is sponsoring and endorsing the preeminent symbol of one religion, that’s when we have a problem.”
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The cross is also displayed “along with numerous purely secular symbols in an overall context that reinforces its secular message,” the judge said.

Although walls with other religious symbols, such as the Star of David, have been added to the Mt. Soledad display, they are dwarfed by the large cross, Blair-Loy said. “It is a 43-foot cross on one of the highest points in San Diego,” he said. “If the cross is not a religious symbol, I don’t know what is.”

Why is it so many people attempt to claim giant Christian crosses and even Nativity creches are secular symbols? Furthermore, where does the judge get the idea that because the cross is displayed with secular symbols it “reinforces” it’s secular nature? If I put up a Star of David, a pentacle and a Crescent Moon, then surrounded them with myriad secular items would that make them all suddenly secular? If someone, such as PZ Meyers, were to take one and hold it hostage or desecrate it, I doubt people would be calling it a secular symbol then.

But of course it’s only a secular symbol when it suits the needs of people who want to skirt the law.

 

Of course given that it’s Florida I’m not the least bit surprised. That’s the state that gave us a proposed “marriage protection” law that would not only harm same sex couples but unmarried opposite sex domestic partners, particularly retirees and Jim Naugle, the mayor who wanted to install special public toilets that had time-locks that opened after a predetermined amount of time so gay men would stop having sex in them. The fact that his own police told him that there was no problem with gay men having sex in public restrooms didn’t stop Naugle’s campaign for the toilet stalls, which cost $250,000 apiece.

And from the Newswire:

Florida: OEO Finds Palm Beach County School District Discriminates Against DP’d Employees

WPB’s Scott E. Graham apparently murdered; Palm Beach Post dehumanizes him as “homosexual activist”

Ft. Lauderdale Cops Hesitate to Call Blatant Gay-Bash A Hate Crime

Now we come to Ponce de Leon high school, which I wrote about previously. This is the school the ACLU had to sue because the school was claiming LGBT students were part of a “secret illegal organization” and harassing students who had any form of gay pride clothing or symbols displayed on their property. The Judge has spoken and ruled that principal David Davis led a “relentless crusade” against homosexuality at the school.

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During the two-day trial in May, Davis testified that he believed clothing, buttons or stickers featuring rainbows would make students automatically picture gay people having sex.
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Davis has serious issues and has obviously been hanging out too long with the likes of Peter LaBarbera. I don’t think of straight people having sex every time I see a teenage girl with ” I love Joey” written on her notebook or a woman with an engagement ring on. But then I’m not perpetually obsessed with what other people are doing in their bedrooms like certain factions are so…

He went on to admit that while censoring rainbows and gay pride messages, he allowed students to wear other symbols many find controversial, such as the Confederate flag.

Of course he did. Because something that says “I’m happy with who I am” is evil while a symbol of racism and oppression of black people is perfectly acceptable. If you’re someone who is unacquainted with rational thought.

The written ruling was released two months after student Heather Gillman and the American Civil Liberties Union won a free-speech lawsuit that cost the school district $325,000.

Davis has since been replaced as principal.

At least something good has come of that fiasco. Now if they could do something about the rest of the bigoted homophobes in the state things might begin to improve for LGBT citizens of Florida.

 

When it comes to laws designed to protect certain groups of people, laws that protect religious people are good, while laws that protect LGBT people are bad. At least in the eyes of religious people. The worst thing is that they don’t see the inherent disconnect and bigotry in fighting against laws that protect us while supporting similar laws that protect them. Take this, for example.

ACLU Urges House Committee to Fix Flawed Workplace Religious Freedom Act (2/12/2008)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: (202) 675-2312, media@dcaclu.org

Washington, DC – The American Civil Liberties Union today called on the Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions subcommittee of the House Education & Labor Committee to fix the flawed Workplace Religious Freedom Act (WRFA). As written in the 110th Congress, the legislation threatens the personal and civil rights of religious and racial minorities, women, LGBT individuals, and persons seeking reproductive health care.

The stated goal of the Workplace Religious Freedom Act is to revise and strengthen existing requirements on employers to accommodate the religious practices of their employees. However, the current language may have a much broader impact than intended, permitting employees to claim that they do not have to comply with state or local civil rights laws.

The current WRFA would strengthen the hand of police officers who want to pick and choose who they will protect, as well as emergency health care workers and mental health counselors who could abandon patients because their care conflicts with the worker’s religious beliefs. This legislation would make it significantly harder to get health or safety information or services. Employees would be even more likely to claim that their religion prohibits them from providing contraceptive care or HIV prevention counseling – even if the employer has no one else to provide those services. In most cases, the courts have correctly rejected these claims. The current WRFA language, however, is designed to protect these individual’s dangerous actions.

Said Christopher Anders, senior legislative counsel with the ACLU Washington Legislative Office: “The Workplace Religious Freedom Act would allow employees, for the first time since the Civil Rights Act of 1967, to use civil rights as a weapon against others. Passing this bill without the needed fixes will jeopardize not only our rights, but also our public safety and access to health care. Civil rights protections are meant to be a shield, not a sword.

“Congress can, and should, pass legislation tightly focused on strengthening federal requirements that employers accommodate workplace scheduling changes so employees can observe religious holidays, or permit them to wear religious clothing, beards or hairstyles. These two areas account for nearly three-fourths of all the religious accommodation claims rejected by federal courts in the past 25 years. A narrowly tailored bill could address these issues without any of the completely avoidable harm the WRFA could cause if passed as written.”

It seems that legislation that is vague and allows for personal bigotries to cause discrimination and harm to others, such as LGBTs, atheists and people who are not of the same faith of the practitioner, is acceptable to some. Yet many people are fighting against ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, claiming that it would violate their “deeply held religious beliefs” and force them to hire LGBT people against the tenets of their religion. Strange they continue to think their rights (to arbitrarily discriminate in the name of their chosen religion) are so much more important than ours (to have equal Human and Civil Rights) .

I don’t by any means support discrimination against people who are religious. At the same time people cannot think they can use their religious beliefs to discriminate against others. Rights must be provided equally and fairly, or else our nation is a failure.

It appears the Tangipahoa Parish School Board takes a long time to learn it’s lessons, because the ACLU is in the process of suing them for the seventh time for violating the civil rights of students.

In the 1990s, the ACLU sued the board on behalf of anonymous plaintiffs who were upset over prayer policies in the schools. Parents complained that youngsters were routinely pressured to take part in prayers at football games and other school events. In one case, a football coach instructed the players to bow their heads, touch someone nearby and recite the Lord’s Prayer.

The ACLU won that case. A few years later, the board got the bright idea to paste a disclaimer in its science books, warning the kids about evolution. The board lost that one, too.

Now the board is back in court again. This time, the issue is prayer before board meetings. In August 2007, the board adopted a policy stating that clergy from “religious congregations with an established presence in the local community” will be invited to give invocations prior to school board meetings. The board president gets to decide who makes the cut, essentially giving him veto power over the prayers.

“Yet again the Tangipahoa Parish School Board has indicated that it favors some residents over others, and would rather waste taxpayer money on litigation than follow the law,” Marjorie R. Esman, Executive Director of the ACLU Foundation of Louisiana, said in a press release. “The Constitution does not permit school boards to endorse or promote religion, because the government must remain neutral to religion. The Tangipahoa Parish School Board is well aware of this bedrock legal principle, but chooses to flout the law rather than to obey it.”

This new lawsuit marks the seventh time the ACLU has sued the Tangipahoa board. Many of the lawsuits have been filed on behalf of anonymous plaintiffs. They fear reprisal if their names were made public…

Many of the plaintiffs have remained anonymous fearing reprisal, yet it’s always RW Christians crying “persecution”. This school board has been sued six times previously for illegally imposing Christianity on students, yet it’s always RW Christians crying “persecution”. It’s obvious that RW Christians have no real concept of the word persecution. I also have the sneaking suspicion that the ACLU is not yet done with the Tangipahoa Parish School Board.

The evil ACLU is oppressing poor Christians again. This time they’ve swooped in to keep the name of Jesus from being spoken in public forum prayers.

“It’s very troubling for the government to dictate what kind of prayers Christians can or cannot offer in the public forum,” says Dr. Gary Cass. “Jesus taught His disciples to pray to the Father in His name. To require Christians to not pray in the name of Jesus Christ is asking them to pray contrary to their faith. By what authority does the Government deny Christians their First Amendment right to pray according to the dictates of their conscience?”

Reverend Hashmel Turner, a member of the Fredericksburg, Virginia city council, was threatened with lawsuits by from many secular anti-Christian groups, including the ACLU, for his Christian prayers during a council meeting. Turner was apart of a rotation of all the council members who would take turns praying at the council meetings. His case is currently making it’s way to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals on March 19, and would allow Christians the right to pray “in Jesus’ name” in the public forum. This case will have a tremendous impact on city councils and state legislatures throughout the United States.

Yes, Jesus taught the disciples to pray in his name (I’ll play along here). But he also said:

Matthew 6:6-7 (New International Version)

6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.

Accordingly, public prayers are against the teachings of Jesus and it shouldn’t be an affront to anybody for them to be banned from the meetings.

“Just because somebody objects to praying in Jesus’ name does not mean that should Christians must deny their faith to accommodate another person’s opposing beliefs.

Herein lies the problem. People like Dr. Cass cannot understand that not imposing their faith on others is not the same as denying it. He is being asked to do the former, not the latter.

“Over 80% of American’s self-identify as Christians, but Hindu’s, Muslim’s and Jew’s have all prayed in the public forum and no one has restricted the content of their prayers and the ACLU has not threatened them.

Maybe nobody has asked the ACLU to step in, assuming the prayers offered up by Hindus, Muslims and/or Jews have in any way violated the ruling that prayers must be non-sectarian. If somebody wants the ACLU to help them they must first ask. The ACLU is not, as claimed, an anti-Christian organization and it does not take delight in searching for ways to restrict the rights of Christians. It works to ensure the civil rights of everybody, of every faith, or no faith. The problem is that those who wish to impose their faith on everyone are to blind to see that.

“The majority of Christians are subjected to non-Christian prayers, why are Christians told what they can or cannot pray? This is simply anti-Christian bigotry and an attempt to deny free speech for Christians,” said Cass.

Christians can pray anything they want, anywhere they want, as often as they want–silently. They just can’t impose their prayers on others whenever and wherever they want, particularly on the taxpayers dime. And that’s what just kills people like Dr. Cass.