An anti-Christian group is demanding that the state of Iowa rescind funding for a park in Sioux City that would have a Christian theme.
The virulently anti-Christian Freedom From Religion Foundation has sent a letter demanding the state’s Vision Iowa Board rescind a $140,000 grant awarded to The Shepherd’s Garden. The park with a Christian theme is due to be completed in the downtown Sioux City area by the end of the September.
The park, which will have a stone path with Bible Verses and prayer stations available to visitors, will also have a significant amount of green space, trees and flowers. Vision Iowa authorities say the funding is going to develop the green space and agricultural aspects of the park, not the religious aspect.
Tina Hoffman, the Communications Director for the Iowa Economic Development Authority, which oversees Vision Iowa, said that the contract for the grant has not been drafted but will be written to explicitly prohibit government funds from paying for any of the religious elements of the park.
The ban in Maryland on prayers at government meetings praying in Jesus’ name has been lifted by a judge following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling the prayers are Constitutional.
U.S. District Court Judge William D. Quarles, Jr., had previously told the Carroll County Commissioners they could not pray at meetings after a lawsuit from the anti-Christian American Humanist Association. The group had claimed the Commissioners were endorsing a religion by praying.
Quarles had ruled with the anti-Christianists, saying that no specific deity could be mentioned in any kind of official capacity in the meeting.
Commissioner Robin Bartlett Frazier said that the judge’s order was infringing on [her] First Amendment rights of free speech and religion.
“I’m willing to go to jail over it,” Frazier declared. “[I]f we cease to believe that our rights come from God, we cease to be America. We’ve been told to be careful. But we’re going to be careful all the way to communism if we don’t start standing up and saying ‘no.’”
The Carroll County Commissioners opened their meeting on Tuesday with a prayer in Jesus’ name.
A Maryland county commissioner says she’s ready to go to jail for her faith in Christ.
Robin Bartlett Frazier, a Carroll County commissioner, said that she will refuse to acknowledge a federal judge’s order that the county’s meetings no longer open with prayers that mention Jesus Christ or any deity.
“If we cease to believe that our rights come from God, we cease to be America,” Robin Bartlett Frazier told CBS. “We’ve been told to be careful. But we’re going to be careful all the way to Communism if we don’t start standing up and saying ‘no.’”
The anti-Christian group American Humanist Association had filed a lawsuit in 2012 on behalf of what they claimed were three residents of the county. Judge William Quarles Jr. ruled on Wednesday the board must stop opening meetings with sectarian prayers.
The Supreme Court is currently considering a similar case.
Over 500 residents of Sandpoint, Idaho took to the streets to protest an anti-Christian group attempting to get a Ten Commandments monument removed from a public area.
Most of the residents were upset that the Wisconsin-based anti-Christian Freedom From Religion Foundation, which targets Christians and Christian emblems nationwide, would be trying to come into their town and have something removed that the community doesn’t want to see gone.
“I don’t like this at all,” resident Gladys Johnson told the Bonner County Daily Bee. “There’s no way someone can come into our town and dictate what goes on here.”
The FFRF sent a letter last November to the mayor of Sandpoint taking issue with the monument being on public property. The people who sent the letter do not live or have never been to Sandpoint.
The monument was placed in Farmin Park after being donated to the city by the Fraternal Order of Eagles. The city says they have no current plans to remove it but are working with the Eagles to find an alternative location.
A vehement anti-Christian group is targeting Wisconsin’s governor because he tweeted a reference to the Bible on the social media networks Twitter and Facebook.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation released a statement calling on Governor Scott Walker to immediately remove the reference from his social media account. The group’s co-Presidents say because the tweet came from the official account of the Governor, it means the state is endorsing Christianity.
Walker had written “Philippians 4:13” which reads, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
“This braggadocio verse coming form a public official is rather disturbing,” the FFRC wrote in their letter. “As governor, you took an oath of office to uphold the entirely godless and secular United States Constitution.”
The governor’s office has not commented on the anti-Christian group’s demand.
A group of Muslims attacked Christian farmers near Kano, Nigeria on Sunday, killing more than 100 and injuring dozens more.
The attackers also destroyed all the property of the Christian farmers, burning their homes to the ground.
The admission of the deaths by the government was complicated by the additional news this was the second straight week of Christian farmers being slaughtered by Muslim groups.
Chenshyi village chief Nehu Moses told journalists that gunmen slaughtered the church’s pastor, his wife and then gunned down their children. After that, they ransacked through the area killing at least 50 in his village.
Local government acting chairman Daniel Anyip told Time that at least three villages were destroyed during the assault.
A Christian missionary from Australia is being held captive by the North Korean government on unknown charges.
75-year-old John Short, a missionary to Hong Kong for 50 years, was taken into custody a day after arriving in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. Short’s family says that police came to his hotel to question him and then later returned to place him under arrest.
While no charges were mentioned for the arrest, Short was believed to be carrying Christian tracts written in the Korean language.
Short has been arrested previously in China for giving out Christian materials including Bibles written in Chinese.
Short is the second Christian missionary known to be held by the North Korean government. American Kenneth Bae was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor after being convicted of committing hostile acts. Bae provided Christian materials to North Korean Christians.
Australia has no embassy in North Korea and usually works with the Swedish embassy on international matters. The Swedish embassy says they have had no contact with North Korean officials about Short.
The anti-Christian Freedom From Religion Foundation is at it again. This time, they’re targeting hotels that are connected to state universities and demanding that Gideon Bibles be removed from the rooms.
“We atheists and agnostics do not appreciate paying high prices for lodging, only to find Gideon Bibles in our hotel rooms, sometimes prominently displayed,” FFRF Co-President Dan Barker wrote in a statement obtained by Fox News.
The Bibles were given by the Gideons to the Lowell Center, a lodge owned by the University of Wisconsin-Extension in Madison.
The FFRF claimed a lodge guest was terrified by the presence of the Holy Bible in their room.
“As you may know, the mission of the Gideons is to ‘win the lost for Christ,’” the FFRF’s attorney wrote in a letter to the university. “The Gideon’s [sic] efforts to proselytize have frequently brought about conflict with non-religious persons and persons from minority faiths.”
The University of Wisconsin then immediately removed all Bibles from the rooms.
A cross that has been the centerpiece of a veteran’s memorial near San Diego since 1913 will be destroyed because a federal judge agreed with anti-Christanists that the presence of the cross violates the constitution.
The 29 foot Latin Cross standing at the memorial replaced the original cross in 1954. The Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial contains 3,000 granite plaques individually honoring war heroes from every American war including Iraq and Afghanistan.
Congress made the memorial a “national memorial honoring the United States Armed Forces” in 2004. Congress noted the memorial was “replete with secular symbols” and other faiths including 18 Stars of David. Congress said the cross was a plurality of faiths.
The ACLU proceeded to continue their efforts to remove Christianity from society by suing to remove only the cross from all the religious symbols at the site. A U.S. District Court judge rules for the removal but stayed the order to give defendants a chance to appeal.
The anti-Christian activist group American Humanist Association is suing allegedly on behalf of two students accusing teacher Gwen Pope and the Fayette Missouri R-III School District of violating the Constitution by allowing a Christian club to meet before the start of the school day.
The lawsuit says the teacher committed the crimes of praying for an injured student, organizing a project to feed hungry children and was cavorting with a Methodist.
Pope is no longer teaching at the school but was the sponsor of the Fellowship of Christian Students at Fayette High School. The group has gathered since 2010 to meet and pray before the start of the school day along with reading the Bible.
The anti-Christian group says the two unnamed students had faced “unwelcome encounters with the classroom prayer sessions.” Apparently the students could see their classmates inside the classroom as they walked past in the mornings.
The group also said the teacher having a Bible in her possession “violates the Establishment Clause as a student would reasonably perceive it as her promoting her religious views to her students.”
The school superintendent told Fox News that he cannot comment on the suit because they had not yet received a copy but that they will defend their students’ and teachers’ First Amendment rights.
