Religious Liberty

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With the bar shooting in KC where the victim was Indian not Middle Eastern as well as the recent desecrations of Jewish cemeteries , it reminded me of another killing of innocents in a KC suburb, Overland Park, near a Jewish Community Center in 2014 while a play, To Kill A Mockingbird, was going on. The perp was a Neo-Nazi and the FBI determined it was a hate crime executed with illegally purchased weapons through a straw purchase.

Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting

As he was led away, he made antisemitic remarks, according to witnesses. A police official confirmed that the gunman used a Remington Model 870 shotgun in the shootings, and several other weapons, including a handgun, were also recovered from his car. Investigators were also determining whether an assault rifle was also used.[1][2][10][11][12] In a press conference, the Federal Bureau of Investigation stated that it was "determined" that the motivation for the shootings was antisemitism.[4][13] Several items were seized from the suspect's home in Aurora, Missouri, including three boxes of ammunition, a red shirt with a swastika symbol, antisemitic publications (such as Mein Kampf written by Adolf Hitler), a list of kosher places, directions to synagogues, and a printout of the KC Superstar competition at the community center.[14][15][16]
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The three people killed were all Christians. At least one was Catholic.

BTW, there is this opinion article from Fox (non-fake) News:

Trump is headed to the White House. Did we just elect our first Jewish president? (Fox)
 
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IrishLax

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connor_in

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The Ninth Circuit Just Ruled Coaches Can be Punished For Praying on a Football Field

A Washington state high school football coach who was punished for taking a knee at the 50-yard line for a post-game prayer violated the U.S. Constitution, according to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

A three-judge panel ruled the Bremerton School District was justified in suspending Coach Joe Kennedy after he took a knee and prayed silently at midfield after football games.

"When Kennedy kneeled and prayed on the fifty-yard line immediately after games while in view of students and parents, he spoke as a public employee, not as a private citizen, and his speech therefore was constitutionally unprotected," the 9th Circuit wrote.

Kennedy, who served as an assistant coach at Bremerton High School from 2008-2015, was ordered to refrain from bowing his head, taking a knee or doing anything that could be perceived as praying on public school property.
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When Coach Kennedy prayed on the field, he did so voluntarily and never forced players to join him.
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NorthDakota

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IrishLax said:
Disgraced reporter cuffed for string of anti-Semitic bomb threats - NY Daily News

Anti-Semitic bomb threat suspect ranted about ‘awful white women’ - NY Daily News

This is crazy. Apparently he was trying to frame his ex or something. Also, allegedly an anti-Trump communist per some crap I saw somewhere because I know someone will ask. Not sure if true, just what I saw on Facebook. You usually expect anti-Jew hate crimes from Muslims or Nazis not black-dude-revenge-plot.
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There's apparently a black dude in Grand Forks ND spraypainting nazi stuff on vehicles and homes of his ex girlfriend and her new boo.

Pretty weird world man.
 
Old Man Mike

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The "religious neutrality" philosophy of America is a huge issue with far too many variant situations to write specifically into law. It is also an extremely slippery slope. I taught at a State university, and the position of WMU was at least "generally" clear --- just don't favor any specific religion in your professional paid-by-WMU behaviors no matter how small or benign you think that they are. When you're seen as a representative of WMU, or anytime publicly that you do not specifically state that your soon-to-happen religiously specific actions are NOT to be linked to the university, then you, as a WMU employee should not engage in such actions.

I agreed with that philosophy and left my religiosity to situations where my role as a WMU professor could not be viewed as having any relevance to the situation (example: serving at Mass or a Communion Service, giving a talk not under my University "title", etc.).

What that Coach did seems, honestly, minor --- but you can't do it. He'd have to be pretty dense not to know that, so I assume that he did. He therefore weighed his actions and was prepared for the consequences. If he was/is surprised, then he's unusually out-of-touch. There are plenty of ways for him to evangelize without breaking with the American (awkward) way on this topic.

People should also remember that the law cannot define even a "major religion" except on some arbitrary criteria. Someone once sarcastically said: "The Definition of a Cult is any Religion smaller than the one that you belong to."
 
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Why Notre Dame Reversed Course on Contraception (The Atlantic)

Notre Dame announced on Tuesday that faculty, students, and staff will be able to obtain coverage for contraceptives through their university-sponsored insurance plans. The surprise decision is a reversal of the school’s announcement last week that it would discontinue birth-control coverage in light of new religious-freedom protections put in place by the Trump administration.
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Repealing the Johnson Amendment is part of the Tax bill.

Thousands of faith leaders ask Congress to protect Johnson Amendment (NCR)
More than 4,000 religious leaders have signed a letter urging Congress to maintain the Johnson Amendment, a law barring pulpit politicking that President Donald Trump has vowed to gut.

“As a leader in my religious community, I am strongly opposed to any effort to repeal or weaken current law that protects houses of worship from becoming centers of partisan politics,” reads the letter faith leaders who support church-state separation plan to deliver to Congress on Wednesday Aug. 16.

“Changing the law would threaten the integrity and independence of houses of worship.”
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Repealing the Johnson Amendment: legal and ecclesiological problems (NCR)

Both before and after his election as president, Donald Trump promised to get rid of the Johnson Amendment, which forbids tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from endorsing or opposing political candidates. At the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 2, he promised to "totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution."
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President Trump, Oct 12, 2017:
"I pledged that in a Trump administration, our nation's religious heritage would be cherished, protected and defended like you have never seen before."
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Justice Antonin Scalia:
And the Founding Fathers would be astonished to find that the Establishment Clause — which they designed to insure that no one powerful sect or combination of sects could use political or governmental power to punish dissenters — has been employed to prohibit characteristically and admirably American accommodation of the religious practices (or more precisely, cultural peculiarities) of a tiny minority sect. I, however, am not surprised. Once this Court has abandoned text and history as guides, nothing prevents it from calling religious toleration the establishment of religion.
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President Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast:
It was the great Thomas Jefferson who said, the God who gave us life, gave us liberty. Jefferson asked, can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God. Among those freedoms is the right to worship according to our own beliefs. That is why I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution. I will do that, remember.
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President Trump, May 3, 2017, after signing Executive Order, "Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty", limiting the IRS to "vigorously promote religious liberty":
“I am signing today an executive order to defend the freedom of religion and speech in America, the freedoms that we wanted, the freedoms that you fought for so long,” the president said in a Rose Garden ceremony. “The federal government will never ever penalize any person for their protected religious beliefs.”
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and,

"Under my administration, free speech does not end at the steps of a cathedral or a synagogue or any other house of worship. We are giving our churches their voices back and we are giving them back in the highest form."
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The Establishment Clause:
The Establishment Clause together with the Free Exercise Clause form the constitutional right of freedom of religion that is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The relevant constitutional text is: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

The Establishment Clause was derived from a number of precursors, including the Constitutions of Clarendon, the Bill of Rights 1689, and the Pennsylvania and New Jersey colonial constitutions. An initial draft by John Dickinson was prepared in conjunction with his drafting the Articles of Confederation. In 1789, then-congressman James Madison prepared another draft which, following discussion and debate in the First Congress, would become incorporated into the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. The second half of the Establishment Clause includes the Free Exercise Clause, which allows individual citizens freedom from governmental interference in both private and public religious affairs.

The Establishment Clause is a limitation placed upon the United States Congress preventing it from passing legislation respecting an establishment of religion. The second half of the Establishment Clause inherently prohibits the government from preferring any one religion over another. While the Establishment Clause does prohibit Congress from preferring or elevating one religion over another, it does not prohibit the government's entry into the religious domain to make accommodations for religious observances and practices in order to achieve the purposes of the Free Exercise Clause.
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(above from Wikipedia)
 
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