Ten Commandments Pulled Off Students’ Lockers by Virginia School Administration

Floyd, VA – Liberty Counsel sent a letter to the Floyd County High School administration, requesting the reversal of their censorship of religious material posted by school students on the face of the students’ lockers. On February 23, Jacob Agee and other students who are members of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes posted copies of the Ten Commandments on the face of their assigned lockers. Very quickly thereafter, Principal Barry Hollandsworth and Assistant Principal Tony Deibler removed each copy. Jacob then met with Principal Hollandsworth, who explained that he could not permit students to use the face of their lockers for religious expression because if he did, students of all religions could use their lockers for religious expressions of their respective religions.

These acts of censorship violate the students’ right to free speech. Students at the school are generally permitted to decorate the faces of their assigned lockers without prior approval of staff or administrators. However, school officials now say that prior approval is necessary for student expressions on their assigned lockers, so that they can censor religious viewpoints. A tour of the school would quickly reveal a variety of student expressions of school spirit, support of activities, birthday well wishes, social causes, and so on. In this case, the school has opened up student lockers for student expression and is monitoring and censoring religious speech.

There is a crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion and student speech endorsing religion. While a school could prohibit all stickers on student lockers, school officials cannot selectively discriminate against religious viewpoints while allowing other secular viewpoints. This is, in fact, what the school has done in this case.

Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, stated, “Liberty Counsel stands ready to defend the legal rights of students and members of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at Floyd County High School. The school officials censored the Ten Commandments from the students’ lockers solely because they deemed them to be religious and thus impermissible. Censoring religious viewpoints of students, while permitting secular viewpoints, violates the First Amendment. Floyd County school officials must immediately reverse course.”

Best National Prayer Day Ever Say Local Virginia Leaders

By Bill Bray
 

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA  – Virginia went to its knees this week in a revival of prayer and intercession unseen since the 9/11 terror attack on the World Trade Center. Although the National Day of Prayer (NDP) events were often small and private, they were widespread and unified in purpose or prayer themes.

“In over 20 years leading this movement at the grassroots, I have never seen such deep penetration into the community as we experienced this year,” said one prominent leader privately. “It seemed like everyone was praying – and those who were not praying were aware of the spiritual power being generated!”

President Obama’s vigorous defense of prayer and his Declaration of Thursday, May 6, as the National Day of Prayer were widely celebrated as “an answer to prayer” in a year when the NDP had been broadly attacked by small atheistic organizations, Islamic pressure groups, secularists and a Federal judge in Wisconsin.

On Monday, May 10, a special meeting will be held here for local leaders to review the 2010 NDP and plan for the next major event on the prayer movement’s calendar – the Global Day of Prayer, Sunday, May 23. The Pentecost Sunday event begins with 10 nights of prayer starting next Thursday on Assumption Day, May 13.

During this next push, millions of Christians worldwide will join in the prayer countdown to Pentecost – especially in the “global south” where indigenous church growth movements are exploding the size of the worldwide Christian community.

National Day of Prayer meetings across central and northern Virginia were dispersed at thousands of prayer points, often impromptu and informally organized. Although bigger meetings were held in Washington (DC), Richmond, Lynchburg, Charlottesville and all large towns, there was much use of prayer chains, prayer websites, and 24-hour prayer watches. Nearly every county seat held some kind of public prayer event.

Public prayer for those in authority, when it was conducted onsite at church and government locations, was done mostly in small groups with little fanfare. The meetings were characterized by humility, repentance and a reliance on the Holy Spirit to restore and revive His people in every city and community.

Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia, was typical. Many joined for the first time in hundreds of churches and local prayer groups in the five counties surrounding the city. The actual public events were held in the Downtown Prayer Center opposite Charlottesville City Hall and police headquarters on East Market Street.

Prayer went on all day starting at 5 AM, but three public events were held for government workers and downtown office workers at 7:30 AM, Noon and 5 PM so that group prayer could be carried on using the “For Such a Time as This” prayer guide from the National Day of Prayer Task Force.

Banners and balloons floated outside the Downtown Prayer Center and noon hour services were held at the leading Baptist, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic churches. Nearly all local churches included the NDP announcements in bulletins and included some kind of prayer event in their parish plans.

Inside the prayer hall, circles of chairs were formed into groups of seven where participants prayed according to I Timothy 2:1-3 for leaders in the church, family, government, education, media, military and business.

The NDP events were well covered in all news media through news stories as well as in the religious media. The Christian media coverage included a three-hour special God TV, Bible Broadcasting Network (BBN), CBN, SRN, Salem Web and Victory Radio.

The U.S. Army’s decision to bow to Islamic pressure groups and disallow Franklin Graham to pray at the Pentagon National Day of Prayer event, as well as a judicial attack on the legality of the National Day of Prayer by a Wisconsin judge, contributed to a strong public awareness of the event in the media.

Logistical support for the prayer movement was provided for the NDP by (www.NationalDayofPrayer.org), WayMakers (www.waymakers.org) and the International House of Prayer movement which has a growing Virginia State organization based in Richmond.

Provided by our friends at Assist News Service

Courtesy of
http://www.christiannewstoday.com/Christian_News_Report_67.html

Virginia Governor reverses State Police Policy allowing Prayer in Jesus’ Name

 

RICHMOND – Gov. Bob McDonnell has rescinded a Virginia State Police policy that requires the volunteer chaplains to deliver non-denominational prayers at department-sanctioned events.

McDonnell’s move  reverses a 2008 directive issued by Virginia State Police Superintendent Steve Flaherty. Six of the 17 troopers who participated in the state police’s chaplaincy program resigned from their volunteer duties in protest of the policy. Despite complaints from some legislators and social conservatives, then- Gov. Tim Kaine defended Flaherty’s directive.

Flaherty had issued the directive in response to ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which determined that a Fredericksburg City Council member who is also a minister could not pray “in Jesus’ name” during an invocation that opens council meetings because the invocation is government speech. Flaherty’s directive applied only to department-sanctioned events such as trooper graduations and an annual memorial service. The policy does not apply to private ceremonies such as funerals or when counseling fellow employees and victim families.

Del. Bill Carrico, R-Grayson County, a retired state trooper, has been a vocal critic of Flaherty’s policy. Carrico has twice introduced bills aimed at reversing Flaherty’s directive, but both measures failed to get through the legislature.

Carrico commended McDonnell today and said, “I think he realized the need to rescind that to protect the constitutional rights of all those chaplains.”

Kent Willis, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, said McDonnell should not change the policy.

“The policy enacted by the state police is consistent with federal court rulings, and it serves the important purpose of preventing state police chaplains from violating the First Amendment,” Willis said in a statement. “There is no reason for the governor to bow to pressure from groups that are encouraging the police to break the law by delivering sectarian prayers at government events.”

Courtesy of
http://www.roanoke.com/news/breaking/wb/244946

ACLU asks Chesterfield to steer clear of Bible course

Edited by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
 

The ACLU of Virginia has asked the Textbook Review Committee of Chesterfield County Public Schools to drop from consideration a controversial Bible study course that may unconstitutionally promote religious beliefs in public schools.

The course, entitled The Bible in History and Literature and produced by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, was the target of an ACLU lawsuit in Texas in 2007 that resulted in a local school board agreeing not to use it. In 2008, the Craig County School Board proposed using the same course, but pulled it after the ACLU of Virginia objected. An earlier version of the course was struck down as unconstitutional by a Florida federal court in 1998.

“The ACLU does not oppose teaching about religion in public schools,” said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis. “However, we are concerned that this course is not an impartial study of the Bible, but an attempt to advocate for one set of religious beliefs to the exclusion of others.

“It is hard enough to teach something as personal and deeply felt as religion in public schools without crossing the line dividing church and state,” Willis said. “That is made doubly difficult when the curriculum itself encourages stepping over the line.

“The most important way we protect religious liberty is by keeping the powerful hand of government out of religion,” said Willis. “Public schools must neither interfere with the right of students to follow their religions beliefs nor promote particular religious beliefs.”

In court papers filed in the Texas case, the plaintiffs, who were parents of students, argued that The Bible in History and Literatureis not a serious scholarly attempt to teach the Bible, but promotes a particular interpretation of the Bible that is not even shared by most Christians in the world.

Courtesy of
http://augustafreepress.com/2010/04/23/aclu-asks-chesterfield-to-steer-clear-of-bible-course/

Virginia colleges can’t ban gay discrimination

By Larry O’Dell ASSOCIATED PRESS

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia’s attorney general has advised the state’s public colleges that they don’t have the authority to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, saying only the General Assembly has that power.

The letter sent by Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli to state college presidents and other officials Thursday drew swift criticism from Democrats and gay rights activists.

Cuccinelli said the legislature has repeatedly refused to exercise its authority. As recently as Tuesday, a subcommittee killed legislation that would have banned job discrimination against gay state employees.

“It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including ‘sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender expression,’ or like classification, as a protected class within its nondiscrimination policy, absent specific authorization from the General Assembly,” Cuccinelli wrote.

The Republican advised college governing boards to “take appropriate actions to bring their policies in conformance with the law.”

Jon Blair, chief executive officer of the gay rights group Equality Virginia, said Cuccinelli’s “radical actions are putting Virginia at risk of losing both top students and faculty, and discouraging prospective ones from coming here.”

C. Richard Cranwell, state Democratic Party chairman, said Virginia’s colleges and universities were more than capable of setting policies that work for them “without meddling from Ken Cuccinelli.”

The attorney general said his letter merely stated Virginia law, which prohibits discrimination because of “race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, marital status, or disability,” but makes no mention of sexual orientation.

Cuccinelli said the criticism was coming from people who have been frustrated in their attempts to change the law.

“None of them suggest our reading of the law is wrong. It’s people who don’t like the policy speaking up because it’s their opportunity to go on the attack,” he said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia legal director Rebecca Glenberg said colleges are bound by U.S. Supreme Court decisions not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

A spokesman for the Family Foundation of Virginia, which has opposed expanding state anti-discrimination policies to protect gays, said the criticism of Cuccinelli’s action is unwarranted.

“My understanding is all he’s done is essentially ask the universities to follow the law,” spokesman Chris Freund said. “It’s a little perplexing to see people respond the way they have.”

Virginia’s last two Democratic governors, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, signed executive orders barring state agencies from discriminating in hiring, promotions or firing based on sexual orientation. Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell, who took office in January, removed protections based on sexual orientation from his anti-discrimination order.

As attorney general in 2006, McDonnell said Kaine exceeded his constitutional authority by extending protections to gays.

Courtesy of washingtontimes.com at  
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/07/va-ag-colleges-cant-ban-gay-discrimination/

Virginia Legislature Strips Planned Parenthood Funding From its License Plate Bill

Richmond, VA (LifeNews.com) — In what pro-life advocates are hailing as a brilliant legislative move, Virginia lawmakers stripped Planned Parenthood funding from its own bill to sponsor pro-abortion license plates. The plate bill now sends the proceeds from sales of the plate to a state fund that actually helps pregnant women.

Money generated from the sales of the “Trust Women, Respect Choice” license plates was intended to go to the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

When Democrat Delegate Robert Brink brought up the bill, on the House floor in preparation for today’s final vote, the legislation said the Virginia League of Planned Parenthood would receive $15 of the $25 plate fee.

In an interesting turn of events, Delegate Todd Gilbert, a Republican, offered an amendment to the bill to change it so all funding would go to the Virginia Pregnant Women Support Fund — a move that the pro-life Family Forum group describes as a devastating blow to Planned Parenthood.

The Virginia Pregnant Women Support Fund was created in 2007 to “support women and families who are facing unplanned pregnancy” and is managed by the Virginia Board of Health. The goals are far different from Planned Parenthood’s abortion agenda as it provides funding for ultrasound machines, parenting programs, and other support.

Brink urged defeat of the amendment and Delegate David Englin argued that changing the recipient of the funding was unconstitutional, claiming court precedent.

But Victoria Cobb, the president of the Family Foundation, tells LifeNews.com that is a misreading of court decisions saying Planned Parenthood should have a chance at its response to the popular Choose Life license plates.

“Court rulings have said if one viewpoint is allowed on a license plate another viewpoint must also be allowed, but it does not address the funding aspects of the license plates,” Cobb explains.

Gilbert responded by saying that the Virginia Pregnant Women Support Fund was a better fit for the language of the plate.

He also pointed out how Planned Parenthood violates its own message of trusting women.

“Delegate Gilbert, citing Planned Parenthood’s opposition to pro-woman legislation including informed consent requirements that do exactly that – trust women – stated that plate funds if directed to Planned Parenthood would not be going to an organization in conformity with the plate’s message,” Cobb recounted.

Delegate Gilbert’s floor amendment was accepted on a 56-43 vote and the state House is expected to vote on the bill today.

Related web sites:
Virginia Family Foundation – http://www.familyfoundationblog.com

Courtesy of Lifenews at http://www.lifenews.com/state4816.html