#349 (10/15) - "Religious Freedom Restrictions on the Rise—Even in the U.S."

FYI -1) There are just 22 days before the election; are you praying for it and our nation? (go to http://www.truthinaction.org/index.php/40-days-of-prayer/?src=TIA-10.2); 2) Be sure YOU are REGISTERED to VOTE; 3) Try to either read the book (you can get it from your library)"Obama's America" or see the movie    "2016"( http://personalliberty.com/2012/09/21/the-movie-that-could-defeat-obama/) I promise you, you will not understand our President's worldview until you do.; and 4) You might also try to get a copy of the book, "Divider-In-Chief"; you can also go to the follow site to read a lengthy excerpt from it: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1621570118/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1621570118&linkCode=as2&tag=null07-20#reader_1621570118
PRAYER REQUEST: For the next Presidential Debate, 10/16, that : a) it will clearly reveal the policies each candidate will pursue; b) that Americans will discern the truth of that from what they've been told by political ads and media spin; and c) that the moderator will not pursue any biased agenda in the questions he asks either candidate.
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Related News Item: ''Firefighter Terminated for Sending Christian Messages on Department Email'', Friday, October 12, 2012

Washington state firefighter has been fired after 17 years on the job because he sent emails with religious content from his department account. Capt. Jon Sprague, who started the Spokane County Christian Firefighter Fellowship two years ago, received his official letter of termination on Wednesday from the Spokane Valley Fire Department. Sprague said he was merely using the most efficient way to communicate with members of his fellowship and caused no harm. It’s not like I can just walk next door and talk to another employee about some of these things," Sprague said. "We have 10 fire stations and three different shifts. The only real way is to communicate is that way." The emails, Sprague said, were sent only to the 46 members of his fellowship and no complaints had been received.
• Please pray for Captain Sprague who has been charged with insubordination by violating a direct rule in sharing news with the Firefighters Fellowship, and for the other members of his group.
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(article below by Thomas Bell, October 10, 2012 http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/10/religious-freedom-restrictions-on-the-rise-even-in-the-u-s/)

The Pew Forum recently released a noteworthy report demonstrating that religious restrictions worldwide are on the rise.

Pew found that between mid-2009 and mid-2010, religious restrictions increased in every major region of the world. Because of this increase, in 2010, 75 percent of people worldwide lived in countries that have either high government restrictions on religion or high social hostilities toward religion, up from 70 percent for the year ending in mid-2009.

Pew reports that 66 percent of countries experienced some increase in government-endorsed restrictions on religious practice, and 10 new countries were added to the list of places with high levels of these restrictions. Among those countries with high government restrictions are Syria, Iran, and Egypt—all of which have made international headlines this year for oppressive policies and actions toward religious minorities.

The negative trends in religious liberty worldwide present an opportunity for the United States, which prides itself on its constitutionally protected freedom of religion, to advance religious liberty. Heritage scholar Jennifer Marshall wrote in a 2009 report that religious liberty “is an American success story that should be told around the world.… One of the major reasons for the success of the American experiment is that it balanced citizens’ dual allegiances to God and earthly authorities without forcing believers to abandon (or moderate) their primary loyalty to God.” However, Marshall explained, this aspect of the American order is often misunderstood, a notion confirmed in the Pew report.

Pew found that on both of the study’s measures of religious freedom—government restrictions and social hostilities—the U.S. moved up more than one point on a 10-point scale. The result: The U.S. is now classified as having a moderate level of government restrictions on religion (2.7, up from 1.6) and is now at the high end of moderate hostility toward religion (3.4, up from 2.0).

This is especially concerning given that Pew’s report chronicles the status of religious liberty in the U.S. two years ago, which means that it does not include some of the most recent high-profile conflicts, such as the Obama Administration’s anti-conscience mandate and the Chick-fil-A controversy this past summer.

[For more examples of religious discrimination against Christians in the U.S., see excerpts from Thomas Messner’s article below.]

While Americans certainly do not face the same kinds of persecutions for faith that millions of others around the world do, we can hardly advance a model of religious liberty if we either misunderstand or half-heartedly embrace religious liberty at home. Marshall wrote in 2010, “Condemning and curtailing religious persecution is a critical goal, but religious freedom includes much more. Our vision of religious liberty must be robust.”

Given the negative trend in Pew’s findings, perhaps we’d better have this conversation sooner rather than later.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

- Thomas Bell is currently a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm.
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"Chick-fil-A Latest Example of How Same-Sex Marriage Threatens Religious Freedom",
by Thomas Messner, July 30, 2012; http://blog.heritage.org/2012/07/30/chick-fil-a-latest-example-of-how-same-sex-marriage-threatens-religious-freedom/

"Same-sex marriage combined with nondiscrimination policies will result in significant discrimination against individuals and institutions that hold to the belief that marriage is—and should be defined in law as—the union of one man and one woman." ... "However it turns out, though, the Chick-fil-A situation certainly adds to the growing list of cases illustrating how individuals and institutions that continue to support marriage as one man and one woman will likely face a variety of significant burdens:

•A Christian photographer in New Mexico who refused to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony was hauled before a human rights tribunal and forced to pay nearly $6,700 in attorneys’ fees to the complainant;
•Christian charities have been forced to stop providing foster care and adoption services because they cannot in good conscience comply with laws that would require them to violate beliefs about marriage and family;
•Boy Scouts of America has lost equal access to public facilities and programs because of its position on open homosexuality;
•A graduate student claims that she was expelled from a public university counseling program after she conscientiously objected to counseling a potential client seeking assistance regarding a homosexual relationship; and
•A Christian organization at a public university was denied official recognition because it required officers and voting members to adhere to traditional Christian teachings, including a prohibition on extramarital sex.

This is not “live and let live.” This is the state—and sometimes private citizens and the culture at large—punishing people who refuse to recant their belief that marriage is the union of a husband and wife. This kind of thing happens because proponents of same-sex marriage declare support for marriage as one man and one woman to be a form of irrational prejudice and bigotry similar to racism. In this view, support for marriage as one man and one woman is the kind of belief that should be purged from public life through legal, cultural, and economic pressure..."

[bold and italics emphasis mine]