LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This WSW article talks about the 'whitewash of systematic bigotry' perpetrated at the USAF Academy. An excerpt:

If leaders at the US Air Force Academy—which trains young men and women to serve as officers in a branch of the US military—promote and tolerate religious discrimination against non-Christians, and openly espouse evangelical views in the course of official academy functions, this is clearly a violation of these Constitutional protections against the “establishment” of religion.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

The Washington Post talks about ongoing efforts by religious groups to erect more religious monuments in government buildings:

Within hours of yesterday's Supreme Court decision allowing a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol, Christian groups announced a nationwide campaign to install similar displays in 100 cities and towns within a year.

"We see this as an historic opening, and we're going to pursue it aggressively," said the Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Washington-based Christian Defense Coalition, which organized vigils outside the Florida hospice where Terri Schiavo died this year.

Although disappointed that the court ruled in a related case that two Kentucky counties could not hang framed versions of the Ten Commandments in their courthouses, Mahoney said the Texas decision was sufficient to "open up a whole new frontier" for preserving the United States' "Christian heritage."

Groups on both sides of the issue predicted that the pair of Supreme Court rulings, rather than clarifying a gray area of the law, would spawn more disputes over Ten Commandment displays in parks, town halls and courthouses. They said the displays are now the front line of a proxy war, standing in for the bigger issue of the place of religion in public life.

Here's the website of the "Christian Defense Coalition": Renew America. It's an interesting look at a parallel universe.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

Here's today's cultural warfare update from solarbird. Topics include:

* Decision against divorced Wiccan couple upheld by higher court. Both want to raise their son in their faith, but a lower court ordered in the divorce decree not to "expose" their child to their religious beliefs because that might "confuse" him since he goes to a Catholic school. An appeal is in process to the Indiana Court of Appeals.

* Focus on the Family calls the end-of-term Ten Commandments decisions "dangerous."

* Focus on the Family complains about CDC school survey about sexual activity.

* Focus on the Family report on "threats to religious liberty" -- including marriage rights, abortion rights, and "secularism in culture."

* "Christian" groups plan to install 100 Texas-like Ten Commandments displays in cities across the country, in reaction to the recent Supreme Court rulings.

* Concerned Women for America blacks the new GBLT-themed television cable channel LOGO as an "assault on children."

* The Traditional Values Coalition attacks the latest Supreme Court decisions as "attack[s] on religious freedom."

She also includes the following update on Love in Action from Focus on the Family's webfeed:

( Frightening Love in Action Update )

I hope you all find this informative.