Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[Earned Media]

On Wednesday, August 27, police officers brutally arrested two teenage girls, ages 15 and 17, near Senator Obama’s Denver hotel. The young women, Julia Giacopuzzi and Jayne White, were writing messages in sidewalk chalk on the public sidewalk when the police officers rushed in and violently arrested the girls without warning or provocation. 

The girls are members of the pro-life youth organization Survivors, and were in Denver during the Democratic National Convention to call attention to Senator Barack Obama’s pro-abortion position as part of A Prayer for Change. 

Throughout the DNC, the youth of Survivors were using sidewalk chalk throughout the city of Denver with the permission of City Attorney David Fine and Denver Deputy Chief of Police John Lamb. It was understood by the young women that sidewalk chalk was an accepted medium, and they were given no warning by the police before being cuffed and dragged away.

Jayne White, age 17, was rushed from behind by a police officer and pushed face-down on the ground. He slammed his knee into the back of the young woman’s neck as she lay on the concrete without resisting. The officer forcefully pulled her arms behind her back and cuffed her. 

Miss White states, “I was peacefully sidewalk chalking when I was forcefully pushed to ground by a police officer from behind. As I was being cuffed on the ground, the police officer pushed his knee into the back of my neck. I was pulled roughly off the ground and taken away. I was given no warning to stop and was completely shocked when I was arrested. My back was throbbing from his knee.”

Julia Giacopuzzi, age 15, was surprised by a police officer twisting her arms behind her back and using them to lift her off the ground to be handcuffed.

Miss Giacopuzzi comments, “As I was sidewalk chalking, I was rushed by a police officer without warning and lifted up off the ground and was cuffed. I was then dragged by the police into the Westin Hotel.”

Read more here.

[From me]

I’m very pro-life but I’ve been critical of many of the protests I’ve seen.  But I don’t get how you can be arrested when you got permission for writing on a sidewalk with chalk.  My daughter writes on our driveway all of the time.  When you have wackos out to assassinate Obama, why are the police concerned about a couple of girls writing in chalk?  They look like real threats to national safety.

Also, why hasn’t the national media picked up on this?  Where is the ACLU?

What do you think?

[USA Today]

Bradley LaShawn Fowler of Canton, Mich., is seeking $60 million from Zondervan, based in Cascade Township, and $10 million from Nashville-based Thomas Nelson Publishing.

Fowler filed the suit in federal court against Zondervan on July 7, the same day U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook Jr. refused to appoint an attorney to represent him in his case against Thomas Nelson.

Fowler filed a suit against Thomas Nelson in June. He is representing himself in both claims. 

“The Court has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of these claims,” the judge wrote.

Fowler, 39, alleges Zondervan’s Bibles referring to homosexuality as a sin have made him an outcast from his family and contributed to physical discomfort and periods of “demoralization, chaos and bewilderment.”

Read more here.

[From me]

Why don’t overweight people sue for the references on gluttony?  How about the National Enquire suing for the verses on gossip?  Why not have Budweiser sue about the verse on being drunk?  Why not Mothers Against Drunk Driving sue for the verses where Paul tells Timothy to drink a little wine?  

I get convicted daily when I read the Bible.  I’m not going to sue–I’m going to change my life to become more like Jesus.   I hope the ACLU backs the publishers!

What do you think?

[HT] Bill Grandi & Ruth Turner

[WBAL & WND]

Public schools in Somerset County, MD will no longer allow the Gideons on school grounds to distribute Bibles.

For years, The Gideons, an international Christian organization, has been passing out Bibles to interested fifth-graders. But Stephanie Kayhan says when she moved to the county three years ago, she was shocked by the Bible distribution.

Kayhan says she is a practicing Christian, but she is against Bibles being passed out on school grounds because it blurs the line between church and state. She contacted the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU then wrote a letter to the school board, stating that the distribution was unconstitutional.

About the Bibles, she said: “I don’t have a problem with them, I have a problem with them being in the schools.

Supporters of the Bible giveaways say no child was ever forced to take one.

Read more here and here.

[From me]

I remember getting my Gideon Bible when I was in 5th grade.  No one forced me to take it.  I don’t get why a Christian woman would go to this extreme.  

What do you think?

[KSDK]

The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri has filed a lawsuit against the city of Poplar Bluff after a library worker claims she was disciplined for failing to work at an event to promote a Harry Potter book. Anthony Rothert with the ACLU in St. Louis says the woman, Deborah Smith, is a Southern Baptist who believes the Harry Potter series popularizes witchcraft and the practice of the occult.

He says she was suspended without pay for 10 days when she refused to work at a library event on July 21, 2007, for the release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” He says Smith, who has a pacemaker, was given arduous tasks, like emptying out a book drop-off box, upon her return, and quit on her doctor’s recommendation.

He says the lawsuit filed in federal court in Cape Girardeau Tuesday alleges violations of her civil andFirst Amendment rights and seeks unspecified damages. There was no immediate response from Poplar Bluff’s attorney.

Source here.

[From me]

Don’t even get me started on Harry Potter and the Occult.  If this had been another religious person, I guarantee the library officials would have accommodated her.   I’ll say this for the ACLU–they are consistent.  Good for them.

What do you think?

[Yahoo]

Florida drivers can order more than 100 specialty license plates celebrating everything from manatees to the Miami Heat, but one now under consideration would be the first in the nation to explicitly promote a specific religion.

The Florida Legislature is considering a specialty plate with a design that includes a Christian cross, a stained-glass window and the words “I Believe.”

Rep. Edward Bullard, the plate’s sponsor, said people who “believe in their college or university” or “believe in their football team” already have license plates they can buy. The new design is a chance for others to put a tag on their cars with “something they believe in,” he said.

If the plate is approved, Floridawould become the first state to have a license plate featuring a religious symbol that’s not part of a college logo. Approval would almost certainly face a court challenge.

The problem with the state manufacturing the plate is that it “sends a message that Florida is essentially a Christian state” and, second, gives the “appearance that the state is endorsing a particular religious preference,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

Read about it here.

[From me]

Come on ACLU.  Just when we agreed on something last week you go off and do this.  I wouldn’t put one of these on my car but to think that a tag is endorsing a religion is crazy.  There are tags for every college and sports team.  Now, I don’t want one on my car just because if I’m driving wild I don’t want to be a bad witness.

What do you think?