musing minds

It is happening all across the nation. The ACLU sue city counsel after city counsel over praying in Jesus name. They don’t sue to stop all prayer, but in every case the target has been Christian prayer. They even fought for the right of a Wiccan to pray at a counsel meeting. Many times it doesn’t even take a lawsuit. They just type up a threatening letter and that does the trick. This was the case in Fredericksburg. But one man isn’t taking things lying down.

Fredericksburg City Councilman Hashmel Turner has filed suit against his fellow council members, saying the council’s newly adopted prayer policy violates his constitutional rights.

Turner is being represented by the Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit group that advocates for free expression issues.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Richmond, asks the court to rule that the city’s prayer policy is unconstitutional, and to order that Turner be allowed back into the council’s prayer rotation.

The council voted 5-1 in November to adopt a policy of offering non-denominational prayers devoid of any Christian or other specific religious references.

Turner abstained from that vote, and Councilman Matt Kelly voted against the policy.

The vote came after Turner had been excluded from the council prayer rotation for more than a year. The council got a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union in July 2004 saying that the civil liberties group would file suit if Turner continued to invoke the name of Jesus Christ in his prayers.

Turner, who is pastor at First Baptist Church of Love in Fredericksburg, had always closed his prayers before council meetings by invoking the name of Jesus Christ before the ACLU complaint.

On the same night of the November vote for the nondenominational prayer policy, Turner asked to be put back into the prayer rotation, and to give the opening prayer before the Nov. 22 council meeting.

Mayor Tom Tomzak said today he asked Councilwoman Debby Girvan to give the prayer at that meeting instead of Turner, because, “I did not want to unleash a 1,000-pound gorilla-the ACLU-on the City Council.”

However, Tomzak said he does believe Turner’s rights are being violated, and the suit filed today is “a lawsuit that I probably agree with.”

“He’s a very passionate man, a man of faith and a man of principle, and he believes his rights have been violated,” Tomzak said of Turner.

Neither City Council members nor City Attorney Kathleen Dooley had seen copies of the lawsuit earlier today.

The suit calls the new prayer policy “an unlawful attempt by the City Council to prescribe the content of prayers given at City Council meetings by Turner and other members of City Council.”

John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, said Turner approached his organization last fall, saying he believed his rights were being violated. “All he wants is to say Jesus Christ at the end of the prayer,” Whitehead said. “He’s not asking for any money. … It’s a very simple suit.”

One would think that it would be simple, yet the ACLU don’t seem to get that. Religious expression in America is under attack. It is a shame that an organization that claims to protect our rights are the number one censor of Christian religious expression. If they were trying to get rid of all prayer at counsel meetings, we would have a different argument, but they are targeting Christian prayers and individual expression. It is good to see this man is standing up for his rights. More people should do so.

Currently there is legislation, introduced by Representative Hostettler that could put a stop to these ridiculous lawsuits. Hostettler’s proposal would amend the Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. Section 1988, to prohibit prevailing parties from being awarded attorney’s fee in religious establishment cases, but not in other civil rights filings. This would prevent local governments from having to use taxpayer funds to pay the ACLU or similar organization when a case is lost, and also would protect elected officials from having to pay fees from their own pockets.

SIGN THE PETITION TO STOP TAXPAYER FUNDING OF THE ACLU

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Crossposted at Stop The ACLU

Religion, ACLU, Law

The best ever Blonde joke at Donald Sensing’s…

Lost is back!

Tonight (ABC) at 8 eastern will be a “catch-up” episode. Then, at 9 eastern, we will see the next episode… “The 23^rd Psalm”

Mr. Eko interrogates Charlie about the Virgin Mary statue, Claire begins to lose faith in Charlie when she discovers his secret, and Jack is an interested observer when Kate gives the recovering Sawyer a much-needed haircut.

Was it really Walt on the other end of the computer communication with Michael?

We might find out tonight.

We went to the Museum of Science and Industry the other day. We saw the new (since the last time we were there) U-505 exhibit. It was wonderful. The U-505 is a German Sub that was captured on June 4, 1944. It was brought to the M of S&I in 1954 and was outside in Chicago weather for years. Tours were available, accessible from inside the museum. You didn’t see the actual sub from the outside unless you were in the Space section. Then you could see it from a courtyard.
The sub was moved from its courtyard home to a new, 75 by 300 foot, 42 foot deep pit located 1,000 feet from its previous home. It is now accessible from within the museum with a two story ramp that allows one to walk completely around the sub and view artifacts associated with the sub. They also have the Enigma machine that was captured with the sub. You can take a virtual tour here.
Here’s the little guy, driving the sub…
The old model train set in the main hall has also been completely redone. The new 3,500 foot layout features the trains running from Chicago to Seattle and back again. Here’s a picture of the downtown Chicago section, with the Sears Tower in the middle.
More on the trains can be seen here. The Museum site is here.

We’re going to the Museum of Science & Industry today. As we were driving south on the Tri-State, there was a message on an over-the-lanes electronic signboard. The message said: “for traffic info log on to NBC 5 website”

How safe is that? Now, I am writing this while in the car (Treo blogging) but I am not doing the driving…

We here at Musing Minds wish you all a healthy, happy and prosperous 2006!

Update: Via Stop the ACLU:

The ACLU is calling for the investigation to be called off. They say that since the wiretaps were illegal, that is what should be investigated, not who leaked the wiretapping.

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All the outrage and coverage by the left over the “outing” of a desk jockey at the CIA. Special Investigations. Indictment of a man, not for doing the outing, but for perjury and obstruction of justice over the investigation into said outing.

Now this is worth investigating. Who did the leaking? When was it leaked? Remember that the Gray Lady said that they sat on this for “a year” before finally printing it just in time to affect the Patriot Act and their writer’s impending book release.

64% of Americans are okay with this type of surveillance including 51% that identify as democrats.

The BBC:

US investigates Bush spying leak

Bush says monitoring is part of his so called war on terror
The US justice department has opened an inquiry into how information about President George Bush’s secret spying programme was leaked, officials say.
The investigation is expected to focus on how the New York Times newspaper obtained the information.

Earlier this month, the paper reported that the National Security Agency had been conducting surveillance in the US without warrants.

Mr Bush later admitted he authorised the programme after the 9/11 attacks.

The AP:

Justice Dept. probing domestic spying leak

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak of classified information about President Bush’s secret domestic spying program, Justice officials said Friday.

The officials, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, said the inquiry will focus on disclosures to The New York Times about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Times revealed the existence of the program two weeks ago in a front-page story that acknowledged the news had been withheld from publication for a year, partly at the request of the administration and partly because the newspaper wanted more time to confirm various aspects of the program.

Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for The Times, said the paper will not comment on the investigation.

Reuters:

US probes eavesdropping leak

The U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation to determine who disclosed a secret NSA eavesdropping operation approved by President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks, officials said on Friday.
“We are opening an investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified materials related to the NSA,” one official said.

Earlier this month Bush acknowledged the program and called its disclosure to The New York Times () “a shameful act.” He said he presumed a Justice Department leak investigation into who disclosed the National Security Agency eavesdropping operation would get under way.

Justice Department officials would give no details of who requested the probe or how it would be conducted.

The disclosure of the covert domestic spying program has triggered concerns among both Democrats and Republicans, with many lawmakers questioning whether it violates the U.S. Constitution.

Note the AP headline “Domestic Spying”. Note also that the Gray Lady says that they have no comment on the investigation.

I wonder how the Gray Lady is going to [not] cover this.

Other coverage:
Michelle Malkin – FINALLY: JUSTICE DEPT. OPENS NSA LEAK PROBE
Stop The ACLU – Justice Department Opens NSA Leak Probe
Blogs For Bush – Justice Department Opens Investigation Into NSA Program Leak
Curt at Flopping Aces has a lot at – Justice Dept. Finally Investigating The Leak

Farris Hassan, a 16-year-old from Fort Lauderdale, Florida decided to take a [few] day[s] off and go to Baghdad.

Hassan, a junior at Pine Crest School, a prep academy of about 700 students in Fort Lauderdale, recently studied immersion journalism – a writer who lives the life of his subject in order to better understand it.

The teenager, whose parents were born in Iraq but have lived in the United States for about 35 years, says he wanted to travel to Baghdad to better understand what Iraqis are living through.

“I thought I’d go the extra mile for that, or rather, a few thousand miles,” he told The Associated Press.

Skipping a week of school, he left the country on Dec. 11, telling only two high school friends of his plans. His travels took him to Kuwait and Lebanon before he arrived in Iraq on Christmas Day.

(source)

His brother said that he speaks no Arabic and would have to have had a translator to even try his immersion journalism. The AP office in Baghdad that he went to called the US Embassy. Farris is now on his way home.

Reynaldo Rapalo’s attorney asked for bail for his client on the escape charge.

The judge rightly denied bail, stating that Rapalo was “a danger to this community“.

Rapalo was in jail awaiting trial in February on seven felony rape counts. This suggests to me that he was denied bail for those charges.

This is a man who was apparently denied bail on the initial charges, then he escapes, then he’s caught again. His attorney then asks for bail on the escape charge.

Why would bail ever be granted to someone on escape charges? Obviously, this person wants to be out of jail. Why reward him? Is this just some way to try to play the “get out of jail free card”?

It’s not just that this guy was a danger to the community. He is an illegal alien (he overstayed his visa), he has no ties to this country. He is a flight risk.

It’s absolutely absurd that anyone would even ask for bail under these circumstances. Good for the judge denying bail.

My five-year-old came up to me this morning and said, “Mom, if you waste a lot of energy, hogs will come into your house.”

He saw this Ad Council PSA.

The campaign was announced in March 2004 and was done by the Ad Council in conjuction with the Department of Energy. The ads are aimed at kids between 8 and 13, but they seem to work on five-year-olds too.

The ads direct you to www.energyhog.org where you can train to become an Energy Hog Buster.
We try here at home. We turn lights off in rooms we’re not in. We try to get the kids to turn off the TV when they leave a room. We keep our heat set at 66° during the day and 64° overnight.