Is Our Religious Freedoms at Stake?

The first part of Amendment 1 in the Bill of Rights states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there of;

Its ludicrous how Judges and other law makers have found a way to pervert the meaning of those words and fooled the people into thinking it means separation of church and state, no where does it even hint at that. And though those words couldn't possibly be any easier to understand I will simplify it even further to remove any remaining doubt what so ever of the intent of what was written.

Congress shall make no law, zero, none, NO LAW means NO LAW.

Respecting, bias, giving favor over another.

An establishment of religion, that means Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, and so on, NOT God or Jesus Christ. God and Jesus are not a religion. A religion is a set of beliefs. This country was founded on Judeo Christian principles so I did not include Muslim, Buddhism, or other anti Christian religions.

(or) Prohibiting the free exercise there of. To stop, hinder, interfere with religious practices, whether to pray, read the Bible, display religious signs or any other means of religious expression.

Now lets take it as a whole one more time:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there of;
It states Congress (government) can not favor any particular religion or interfere with religion BUT it does not mention in the least bit that religion can't get involved in government.

Two things led me to write this, a recent incident in the Ohio House and the Hate Crimes Bill.

On May 8Th in the Ohio House ministers were asked to tone down their prayers and remarks concerning political matters. What law did they violate? Amendment 1 states nothing against this but state guidelines insist on ministers submitting their speech at least three days prior so it could be reviewed.
My questions are many. How was such a rule passed, who passed it, why would you enforce such a rule that breaches freedom of speech and interferes with religion?
Two Democrat State Reps, Robert Hagan of Youngstown and Chris Redfern of Catawba Island walked out in protest of the prayer led by the minister. Equally as alarming is Republican Representative Matt Huffman of Lima who didn't have enough spine to defend the right of prayer and freedom of speech and cowarded as the prayer was given.
House Clerk Laura Clemens warned the practice of minister led prayer could be eliminated.

As for the Hate Crimes Bill I am concerned for many reasons. There are laws already against discrimination based on race, color, national origin, age, and sex. It was expanded to include people with disabilities and sexual orientation. But now they want to expand it even further beyond federally protected activities. How far will they go? How will this new addition to the Hate Crimes Bill be misinterpreted? Are we close to not being able to preach that homosexuality is wrong?
Its really redundant to have any kind of Hate Crimes Law. There is already laws against murder, assault etc..., are we suppose to punish the lawbreaker twice and are we now elevating a group of people over another?
Furthermore if this law is passed it could infringe on our religious beliefs and have the government policing our pulpits. No where does it say in the Bible you should not allow a person the right to live and live freely but it does say homosexuality is wrong and as believers we should warn and tell others about how this lifestyle is immoral. Could that last statement be construed as a Hate Crime because I said homosexuality is wrong?
This bill if passed goes directly against the First Amendment and will erode our religious freedoms even further.
Carey Masci

A Sad Christmas Story

And yet another sad story of how America is marching down the path of doom and communism.
This was taken from a Yahoo news story, it is abbreviated:

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ST. ALBANS, W.Va. - Christ is missing from Christmas in this small town. The community's holiday display has a manger with shepherds, a guiding star, camels and a palm tree, but no baby Jesus, Mary or Joseph
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Besides the obvious reason why the story is unsettling what I find completely ironic is that the towns name is SAINT Albans. Are we now close to having the ACLU, the Communist-Democrats, Liberal-Homosexual movement start renaming our towns and cities by removing words such as Saint? Why do you laugh? If they can remove Christ and the freedom of religious expression which this country's foundations were based on, Judeo-Christian principles, anything is possible.

Upon further research I found out who St. Alban was. The below paragraph was taken from: www.stalbanswestwood.com

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Alban is the earliest Christian in Britain who is known by name and, according to tradition, the first British martyr. He was a soldier in the Roman army stationed at Verulamium, a city about twenty miles northeast of London, now called St. Albans. He gave shelter to a Christian priest who was fleeing from persecution, and was converted by him. When officers came to Alban's house, he dressed himself in the garments of the priest and gave himself up. Alban was tortured and martyred in place of the priest, on the hilltop where the Cathedral and Abbey Church of St. Alban now stands. The traditional date of his martyrdom is 303 or 304, but recent studies suggest that the year was actually 209, during the persecution under the Emperor Septimius Severus.
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Are we close to this kind of martyrdom here? Don't think it can't happen here history always repeats itself. If they removed Christ from the manger they could remove you as they did many years ago to a man named Alban.

Merry Christmas,
Carey