Tag Archives: Moral Decline

Satanic Temple Sues For Abortion “Religious Exemption”

The Satanic Temple has filed a lawsuit in Missouri with the intention of obtaining a “religious exemption” to the state’s requirement of women waiting 72 hours before obtaining an abortion.

The New York-based group had stated last summer they planned to launch a series of lawsuits in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision.  They target what they consider “pro-life” parts of laws that they claim violates their beliefs.

The group sent letters to women who belong to their group that were aimed to be presented to abortion clinics when the workers mention the 72 hour rule.

“As an adherent to the principles of the Satanic Temple, my sincerely held religious beliefs are: My body is inviolable and subject to my will alone. … My inviolable body includes any fetal or embryonic tissue I carry so long as that tissue is unable to survive outside my body as an independent human being,” it reads in part.

The group’s suit on behalf of a woman called “Mary” says she went to a Planned Parenthood facility for an abortion and was denied in violation of her Constitutional rights.

“I personally would have liked to have the procedure done as soon as possible,” “Mary,” who is stated to be 12 weeks pregnant, told reporters. “But with all the difficulties, how hard it is do this, it’s been put off for several weeks. If you’re right on the edge of the state you’ve got to go 500 miles just to get to St. Louis, and you have to make arrangements.”

The group claims the action violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

“We have theocrats pushing an agenda through legislation, and it’s time we show that other people have different values and are just as deserving as protections,” Satanic Temple leader Doug Mesner, who also goes by the name Lucien Greaves, told the Daily Beast. “We’re not making Christians get abortions if they feel it’s wrong. They put a burden on us.”

Fewer Americans Claim To Be Christians

A new poll from the Pew Research Center shows a decline in the number of Americans who identify themselves as Christians.

The survey showed the percentage of Americans who identify as Christians fell almost 8 percent, from 78.4% to 70.6%.

The survey showed that the decrease is because of millennials leaving the church.  Since 2007,  the number of millennials who say they are unaffiliated with any faith has increased 10 percentage points.  More than one-third of millennials say that they have no faith.

However, the number of those who say they have no faith does not mean there has been an increase in atheism; the poll showed only a ride from 1.5% to 3%.  A Pew researcher noted that many who said they have no faith were just choosing to not identify as religious.

“It’s not as if young people today are being raised in a way completely different from Christianity,” said Greg Smith, Pew’s associate director of religion research and the lead researcher on the new study. “But as adults they are simply dropping that part of their identity.”

Gregory Jones, senior strategist for leadership education at Duke University, cited a different survey that showed 70% of youth pastors have no theological education and said perhaps the problem is that students are not being engaged intellectually by leaders on issues that matter to them. Jones said it leaves the youth bored with church.

“If it is the case that millennials are less ‘atheists’ than they are ‘bored,’ then serious engagements with Christian social innovation, and with deep intellectual reflection (and these two things are connected), would offer promising signs of hope,” Jones said.

Nashville Sex Club Claims To Be Church To Locate Near Christian School

A Nashville club that allows adults to come in and commit acts of adultery and other sexual sins claims it’s going to be using a new facility as a church to try and avoid city zoning laws that prohibit adult-oriented businesses within 1,000 feet of schools and churches.

The group, called The Social Club, recently purchased a former medical office next to the Goodpasture Christian School.  The leaders of the school and parents of the students who attend protested at a Metro Nashville Council meeting where an amendment to the bill was made that prohibits the club from opening.

The Christian school is less than 1,000 feet from the building as are two other churches.

The Club then submitted new paperwork to the city calling themselves the United Fellowship Center.  A former dance room is now called the “sanctuary.”  Other rooms that had sexually oriented names now are being called the “handbell rooms” or  “prayer rooms.”

“They can sue us and say they want an injunction to stop us from operating, and we can say we have some tenets of the church sort of like the Ten Commandments,” club attorney Larry Roberts told Washington Post.

Roberts also claims the head of the organization has become an ordained minister.

“As of right now, a church is a use that is allowed by right at this location under the zoning classification, and if it has passed all relevant codes then we will have to issue the use and occupancy letter,” city Zoning Administrator Bill Herbert told the Christian Post.

If the club is found not to be operating as a church after it is allowed to open, the Council would then have to take action to close the club.

Gangs Vow Unified Attacks on Baltimore Police

Baltimore police investigators have confirmed that the city’s three biggest gangs are joining together to attack police following the funeral of Freddie Gray.

The Bloods, Crips and the Black Guerrilla Family have formed what’s being labeled a “partnership” to “take out” the police.

Spokesmen for the Baltimore police would not officially say the threat is connected to the death of Freddie Gray but the coordinated assaults on police officers began shortly after the end of Gray’s funeral service Monday in Baltimore.

The news of the unification of the gangs backs up a previous warning this year from the FBI that the Black Guerrilla Family gang was targeting “white cops” in the state.  A member of the BGF was caught in a Baltimore area police station with a gun in January in what he said was a “security test” of the precinct ordered by gang leaders.

The gang members have been posting on social media their actions against police, flashing gang colors and signs amid the rioting.  They’ve shown kicked in car windows, evidence of looting and other actions while demanding “Justice for Freddie.”

Members of the Nation of Islam said they had brokered the deal between the gangs.

“I can say with honesty those brothers demonstrated they can be united for a common good,” Nation of Islam minister Carlos Muhammad told The Daily Beast.

“At the rally, they made the call that they must be united on that day. It should be commended.”

The incidents involving the gangs in Baltimore are having national impact.  Both the NYPD and the LAPD have announced their officers are on heightened alert over the threats.

Controversial “Sex Box” TV Show Cancelled

A television program that featured people having sex in a box just feet away from a panel of therapists and commentators in a soundproof box has been cancelled by the WE TV network because of low ratings.

The network said the show did not attract the “large numbers of viewers”but that they are considering ways to chance the show for a return to the air.  The show previously featured two adults having sex and then talking about it just after the act with therapists and show hosts.

The producers of the show claimed that there was nothing improper or pornographic about the show.

The show had been condemned by Christian groups across the nation who had been calling for a boycott of WE TV because of the program.  The Parent’s Television Council had started an online petition to stop the program before it aired.

The network’s response was for people to “watch before you judge”.

The PTC released a statement Friday praising the cancellation and declaring victory in their effort to remove the show.

“The program from its very outset was an affront to families, toxic to advertisers, and a clear demonstration of a badly-broken business model that forces every cable/satellite subscriber to pay for unwanted and unwatched cable networks,” stated PTC President Tim Winter.

“PTC members and other pro-family groups who signed petitions against the show are to be congratulated for their successful activism.”

Abortionist Investigated After Patient Death Given “Tiller Award”

Fellow abortionists are honoring an Ohio abortionist who has been investigated over the death of a woman during a late-term abortion.

Abortionist Lisa Perriera will receive the “Tiller Award” by the organization Physicians For Reproductive Health.  The group gives two awards annually to abortionists. The first is the Rashbaum award, given in honor of William Rashbaum who “trained hundreds of medical students, residents and doctors” in the practice of abortion.

The Tiller Award is given in honor of the late George Tiller who burned the bodies of aborted babies in an on-site incinerator.  This award “recognizes a physician early in their career who provides abortions while demonstrating leadership and courage, even in the face of adversity.”

Perriera had been under a spotlight this year after a woman died following a late-term abortion at her clinic.  Lakisha Wilson, 22, went into cardiac arrest on March 21, 2014 at the clinic and was pronounced brain dead at a local hospital.  She was kept alive for a week on machines until her organs could be donated.

The Ohio Department of Health and the Ohio Medical Board both said complaints against the abortionist for her role in the woman’s death were “unsubstantiated.”  The state attorney’s office did not take action on a criminal complaint.

Pro-life groups are not staying silent about abortionists celebrating their practices.

“Clearly, the Physicians for Reproductive Choice are engaged in a public relations campaign to make Perriera appear to be the victim when the truth is that she is the victimizer,” said Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue. “The true victims are her dead patient, a dead viable baby that Ohio laws should have protected, Wilson’s motherless son, and her grieving family.”

“These despicable actions reveal how abortion groups are more concerned about protecting their dwindling number of abortionists than they are about the lives of the women they falsely purport to serve,” he added to Christian News.

Vandals Deface Pro-Life Display At Clarion University

Vandals defaced and destroyed crosses that were part of a pro-life display at a Pennsylvania university.

Students for Life at Clarion University played the crosses.  The 350 crosses were part of a display called “Cemetery of the Innocents” and each represented 10 aborted children that day.

Overnight, a number of the crosses were pulled out of the ground and thrown in trashcans.  Others were defaced with messages indicating their connection to activists against a recent Indiana religious freedom law.

The crosses were also placed in a manner that is a traditional anti-Christian placement.

“[All] 350 crosses were pulled up and re-inserted in inverted fashion, a well-known anti-Christian symbol,” the group Students for Life reported. “Additionally, red paint was splattered on crosses and signs. Even eerier was the mock bloody footprints of an infant painted in front of the display.”

“Pro-Choice” was written on the sidewalk near the mock footprints of an infant.

University police claim they are investigating the act.

“I ask that as a community of educators and students, we come together and reflect upon our commitment to our rights and responsibilities of expression,” university President Karen Whitney said in a statement. “I ask that we use dialogue and discussion to engage very differing viewpoints in ways that leave all of us better for the experience.”

The display has since been restored.

Christians Counter Wiccan Prayer At Iowa Legislature

A group of Christian legislators refused to attend the opening of Thursday’s session for the Iowa Legislature because a Wiccan priestess gave the invocation.

Wiccan Deborah Maynard, who says she’s a “Unitarian Universalist”, prayed to the universe and the earth.  Democratic Representative Liz Bennett of Cedar Rapids who invited the Wiccan speaker said she wanted people to know the statement made by Maynard would be “inclusive.”

The chamber was half empty for Maynard’s talk as Christian legislators attended a prayer rally.

“We feel that this is completely out of sync with the traditions of our state and our nation to seek guidance from the occult,” Michael Demastus, pastor of Fort Des Moines Church of Christ, told reporters. “We believe it is just not a good idea.”

He said that as Maynard spoke, “I was praying for her salvation. I was praying that she would come to know the one true God.”

One Christian legislator said he stayed in the chamber but turned his back on the priestess while she delivered her talk.

“I thought to myself, ‘What would Jesus do?’” Rep. Rob Taylor (R-West Des Moines) stated. “Jesus would be in the chamber from my perspective. He would passively protest and then He would seek that individual out and have a peaceful conversation with them about why His way was the best way, and so that is what I did today.”

Taylor said he offered to Maynard the chance to learn about the one true God.

Kanye West Fans Publish Bible Replacing God With West’s Name

Rapper Kanye West is known for not being very humble.  He has recorded a song called “I Am A God” and has referred to himself as “Yeezus.”

Now, his fans are literally placing him in the place of God.

“The Book of Yeezus” claims to be a “Bible for the modern day” and replaces every mention of God with Kanye West.

“What if the Bible, the most singularly significant publication in the ancient canon of Western tradition, were updated to reflect our modern society? What would it look like? What we came up with was an interventionist art, coffee-table novelty, that will appeal to both Kanye fans everywhere and those made curious by this enormous cultural phenomenon,” the people who produced the “Bible” stated.

One of the authors has been lashing out at critics who say the book is blasphemous and heretical.  He said that there is nothing wrong with upsetting people around the world and that anyone who’s upset is just making the choice to be angry.

The author also refused to tell the Christian Post if he and his co-writers were Christians.

“What’s happening is this natural innate sense of spirituality and feeling like you’re part of the greater aluminum that’s actually a constant now and so we’re always looking for that feeling and so in this modern culture… they come together and we found Yeezus or Kanye to fill that void,” the unnamed author told CP.

Woman Who Abandoned Baby Sentenced To 20 Years

An Indiana woman who threw her newborn baby in the trash after giving birth will be spending 20 years in prison.

Purvi Patel, 33, was arrested in 2013 after she arrived at an Indiana hospital following the birth of her child.  She denied being pregnant but her injuries made it obvious to hospital personnel that she had just given birth.  Patel then admitted she had been pregnant after an affair with a co-worker.

Patel claims because her Hindu family is against pre-martial sex so she panicked when she gave birth and threw the child into a dumpster behind a shopping center.  She claimed the baby was stillborn, however doctors were able to show the baby had been born alive and could have survived if given medical attention.

The defense claimed she had been trying to induce her own abortion using drugs but that failed.  Under Indiana law, it is feticide to induce premature birth with the intent of causing death except in the case of approved abortions.

“You, Miss Patel, are an educated woman of considerable means. If you wished to terminate your pregnancy safely and legally, you could have done so,” the judge said. “You planned a course of action and took matters into your own hands and chose not to go to a doctor.”

Lila Rose of Live Action said there was a high level of irony in the case.

“If an abortionist had destroyed this defenseless little person at 28 weeks, there would be no controversy,” she said. “But since the baby managed to be born, to breathe, and then to be killed at the exact same age, law enforcement is scrambling to see justice served.”