Where is the USA wanting to go with the freedom of their people

The last few months in Europe we can only frown our brows. I think the Americans also would best knit their brows when everything continues to go with several groups demanding their rights but not respecting the rights of others.

Front and back of the atheist sign at the Wisconsin State Capitol. Released with a GNU license by the Freedom From Religion Foundation to represent the sign in promotion. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last year we heard a lot to do about the Christmas trees and Christmas celebrations, than we got to hear about priests , ministers and churches getting fines because they did not have their place open for everybody or did Bible Studies without a public place permit. In many places religious symbols had to disappear and they even went so far demanding religious groups not to wear t-shirts or clothing attributes with religious signs.

Sports can also not escape the race against religious symbols. Football players at Arkansas State University were ordered to either remove a Christian cross decal from their helmets or modify it into a mathematical sign after a Jonesboro attorney complained that the image violated the U.S. Constitution.

The cross decal was meant to memorialise former player Markel Owens and former equipment manager Barry Weyer, said athletic director Terry Mohajir.  Weyer was killed in a June car crash. Owens was gunned down in Tennessee in January.

The players and coaches voluntarily decided to memorialise Barry Weyer jr and Markel Owens and wanted to carry their spirits to which the university’s athletic director agreed to have that sign of their faith.

However, the athletic director being 100 percent behind our students and coaches, had no choice but to remove the crosses after he received a message from the university’s legal counsel.

“It is my opinion that the crosses must be removed from the helmets,”

University counsel Lucinda McDaniel wrote to Mohajir.

“While we could argue that the cross with the initials of the fallen student and trainer merely memorialize their passing, the symbol we have authorized to convey that message is a Christian cross.”

According to documents provided to the Fox News writer by Arkansas State, McDaniel gave the football team a choice – they could either remove the cross or modify the decal. And by modify – she meant deface.

“If the bottom of the cross can be cut off so that the symbol is a plus sign (+) there should be no problem,”

she wrote.

“It is the Christian symbol which has caused the legal objection.”

Where is that land of so called freedom going to? Ministers which do not want to perform same-sex marriages in their church also may face fines and jail, though is not everybody free to chose their own church or to go to whatever denomination he or she wants. What can be the problem then when everybody is free to choose the groups in which she or he wants to feel at ease. When the rules or attitudes do not please the person why should he become a member of such groups or go to meetings of such a group?

For certain elements negative reaction are only coming in when the media has put its eye on it. The football-team had been wearing the decals for two weeks without any complaints. That changed after September the 5th nationally televised game against the Tennessee Volunteers.

Jonesboro attorney Louis Nisenbaum sent McDaniel an email complaining about the cross decal.

“That is a clear violation of the Establishment Clause as a state endorsement of the Christian religion,”

Nisenbaum wrote.

“Please advise whether you agree and whether ASU will continue this practice.”

Ironically, the university’s legal counsel admitted in a letter that there were no specific court cases that addressed crosses on football helmets. Nevertheless, she feared the possibility of a lawsuit.

“It is my opinion that we will not prevail on that challenge and must remove the crosses from the helmets or alter the symbols so that they are a (plus sign) instead of a cross,”

she wrote in an email to the athletic director.

The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation fired off a letter congratulating the university on cleansing the helmets of the Christian symbol.

“The crosses appeared to confer State’s endorsement of religion, specifically Christianity,”

the FFRF wrote.

“The inclusion of the Latin cross on the helmets also excludes the 19 percent of the American population that is non-religious.”

FFRF co-presidents Annie Lauire Gaylor and Dan Barker went so far as to suggest alternative ways for the football players to mourn.

“Many teams around the country honor former teammates by putting that player’s number on their helmets or jerseys, or by wearing a black armband,”

they wrote.

“Either of those options, or another symbolic gesture free from religion imagery, would be appropriate.”

That suggestion set off the athletic director.

Today it looks like one group on the Americans want to tell the other group how to behave, what to wear, how to decorate and even how to grieve or how to remember others.

Have the North Americans come to consider that every citizen has to believe the same and has to behave the same?  Do they agree that only certain organizations may decide how they have to behave and what to wear? Or even may tell how others have to grieve?

Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom & no such thing as publick liberty without freedom of speech, Benjamin Franklin, 1722.

I think Freedom of speech and freedom of thought includes that everybody in the community has the right to dress how they want as long as they do not endanger the others, and that everybody has the right to feel differently as long as he or she with her feelings does not endanger those who are not yet ready to cope with such feelings. You could agree with prohibitions of older persons having ‘avances’ to too young people, but if adults want to have more intimate contacts with members of the same sex, that is their business as long as they do not force others to feel the same or to agree with their sexual behaviour. They should allow everybody else to have other feelings and to have the right to say their opinion or to exclude them from specific occasions especially for groups with a certain demand. If they are not careful soon everybody can be against restrooms or lavatories for certain specific sex-groups, so in the near future toilets for men and women separate or changing rooms for men and women separate shall be belonging to the past. In Europe men face already the difficulty that lots of women enter the toilets of men like nothing, but if they (the men) would enter a restroom for women they (the women) would cry ‘murder and fire’, though women toilets are closed and nobody can see the person doing their action whilst in the men lavatories the man often have to stand before open urinals, so that everybody can see everything – they are not given the privacy women get (I would call that discrimination).

Pamphlets for Bible reading-courses or invitations to Christian meetings with Christian symbols or with pictures of the Bible may not be given around in several states, but pamphlets which promotes ‘social justice’ and the love of Satan or with invitations for Halloween and Black Masses may be distributed to children. Would this not demand more attention from the parents? It looks more like the Americans are in the ban of “Freedom from religion”.

Freedom From Religion Foundation Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I totally agree with Mohajir that everybody grieves differently and that nobody has the right to tell their students how to memorialise their colleagues, their classmates or any loved ones they have.

While Mr. Weyer told Todd Starnes, host of Fox News & Commentary, he supports the university “100 percent”, he said he took great offense at the FFRF’s attack.

“The fact is the cross was honoring two fallen teammates who just happened to be Christians,”

he wrote on his Facebook page.

“I just have a hard time understanding why we as Christians have to be tolerant of everybody else’s rights, but give up ours.”

Freedom From Religion Foundation got this sign put up on busy 2nd Street in Harrisburg, PA. Hopefully it gets through to some people. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On the other hand lots of Americans do cry out about them being Christian and about us having to be tolerant, – showing respect for the rights or opinions or practices of others. Where is the tolerance gone for those who have certain believes? Today we can not see much of that a fair and permissive attitude toward those whose race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one’s own. It seems the citizens of the United States of America have gone far way from freedom from bigotry. What is there so much troubling the American soul that those who do not believe or have another faith than the Christians should go so much against those Christians their symbols and festivals?

How can it be that when Americans vote for their own values they want to see kept high are facing juridical departments with laws against fundamental religious freedom?

Mr. Weyer said he’s not a political man – but he is a Christian man. And I can understand him when he’s tired of having to kowtow to the politically correct crowd.

“It’s time that we as Christians stand up and say we’re tired of being pushed around,”

he said.

“We’re tired of having to bow down to everyone else’s rights. What happened to our rights? The last time I checked it said freedom of religion – not freedom from religion.”

With Todd Starnes, I also can say

Well said, Mr. Weyer. Well said.

And I dare to ask the Americans:

What happened to the aim of their ancestors who strove for spiritual development and social civilty and freedom of speech?

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Please read Mr.Todd Starnes article Football team forced to remove Christian crosses from helmets at Fox News and my article on Our World: Idaho wedding chapel to either perform same-sex weddings or face jail time and up to $1,000 in fines

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Additional reading:

1. Happiness mapping and getting over gender mapping
2. Subcutaneous power for humanity 2 1950-2010 Post war generations
3. 2013 Lifestyle, religiously and spiritualy
4. People of 2013
5. A so called man of God say Christ was wrong about marriage
6. Bishop Marriage Equality: Praying for Marriage Equality Is Blasphemy
7. Division and defrocking because of same-sex wedding
8. The Most Hated Family in America
9. Christmas, Saturnalia and the birth of Jesus
10. American atheists most religiously literate Americans
11. Some Christians do have problems with the Christian connection with Jews
12. Who are the honest ones?
13. Judeo-Christian values and liberty
14. Migrants to the West #10 Religious freedom

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If you want to read more ridiculous or strange actions against Christians:

1. 10 Commandments monument toppled in Washington
2. Verdict in for pastor arrested for reading Bible
3. High School Student Claims She Was Suspended For Saying ‘Bless You’ After Classmate Sneezed – CBS Charlotte
4. Teacher Bullies Student for Saying Bible Is ‘Nonfiction’ in Calif.; Christian Legal Group Responds
5. Harvard to host satanic black mass
6. Satanic ‘black mass’ gets green light from U.S. city
7. Okla City will not cancel pornographic play mocking Bible
8. Judge: Foreigners can sue U.S. pastor over sermons

Related articles

• ASU football players get crosses back on helmets to honor (theglobaldispatch.com)
  Arkansas State University football players will once again be permitted to place cross decals on their helmets to honor two teammates who died. The change in school policy was quick after thousands contacted the university and claimed that the ban was religious discrimination and violated freedom of speech.
  Charisma News reports that 25,000 people e-mailed ASU demanding that the football players crosses be put back in place after the American Family Association (AFA) sent an Action Alert to its 1 million supporters. An ASU player also contacted Liberty Institute, which contacted ASU President Charles Welch.

  

  “Arkansas State University football players scored a major win for religious liberties today. We asked our supporters to weigh in, they unified their voice, and religious liberty was heard. This is a victory for all Americans to celebrate. We thank the Liberty Institute for their work in this case and for so quickly reaching out to the university. And we also thank Arkansas State University for rightly protecting the religious liberties of their players by reversing their original mandate to remove the cross from the team helmet,” AFA President Tim Wildmon said in the article.

• Know Jesus Or No Jesus? The Coming Persecution Of Christians (thesleuthjournal.com)
  There is a war going on against Christians. For a long time the war has been covert and centered around  issues such as nativity scenes at Christmas. More recently, the satanic influence which is beginning to dominate American public lives is becoming demonstrably open and aggressive and this spirit has invaded the sports world where so many young people look for role models.
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  The front page news is inundated with NFL players being disciplined for lack of moral character and fiber. We hold players on the proverbial pedestal as ‘role models’ and are disappointed/betrayed when they beat their families , act financially irresponsible, and generally conduct themselves like gangsters. And then here we have a moral and responsible adult molding young men into civilized adults and teaching them self-respect, love of God and family and the ‘reward’ for this coach is the loss of livelihood by suspension. We say we want our coaches to be moral mentors, yet are disappointed by the obvious result.
• Know Jesus or No Jesus? The Coming Persecution of Christians (thecommonsenseshow.com)
  Washington Redskins quarterback, Robert Griffin III (RG3) was wearing a Christian T-shirt at a post-game press conference until the NFL said “No way,”  RG3’s shirt read “Know Jesus Know Peace” and, also, “No Jesus No Peace.”
  Michael Phillips, a sportswriter for the Richmond Times Dispatch, who was in the room tweeted: “RG3 was wearing a t-shirt that said ‘Know Jesus, Know Peace.’

  RG3 acquiesced and turned his shirt inside-out. This certainly will not earn him bonus points on Judgment Day. Yet, I cannot help wondering if the T-shirt said ” “Allahu Akbar” (الله أكبر)”, the NFL would not have dared to say a word.

• American Football Team Forced to Remove Christian Crosses from Helmets! (socioecohistory.wordpress.com)
• Football team forced to remove crosses from helmets (debatepolitics.com)
  These militant atheists have failed at life. I pity them. And they don’t have true respect for liberty, nor do they interpret the Constitution with integrity.
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  I respect the rights of atheists to be such, and find that most are quite decent human beings with whom I get along very well. I would hesitate, therefore, to lump all atheists together, as you seem to, and accuse them of having no respect for liberty.I would say, however, that there is a fringe of litigious-minded people out there, who happen to be atheists, who really do go out of their way to redefine “ridiculous.”In the case of my OP, the players on the team chose to honor a fallen teammate with the symbol of the cross – mainly because the individual who died was devoutly Christian. In my mind, that is a very thoughtful gesture, and one meant to honor who he was and what he stood for in life. I think for anyone to want to take away their ability to grieve as they see fit is not only wrong, but also cruel and not productive.

  What did this lawyer gain from his victory?

  Sometimes, we, as a society, take political correctness to absurd lengths. This is one of those times.

• Football Team Forced to Remove Christian Crosses from Helmets (tpnn.com)
  “It’s time that we as Christians stand up and say we’re tired of being pushed around,” he said. “We’re tired of having to bow down to everyone else’s rights. What happened to our rights? The last time I checked it said freedom of religion – not freedom from religion.”
• Todd Starnes: Arkansas State lifts ban on football helmet crosses (foxnews.com)
  How sad that we live in a nation where it is against the law for a university football coach to design a memorial that includes a religious icon.