[Singles] FW: Stop the ACLU from criminalizing Christianity!
Katherine Jones
kjones at lcps.k12.nm.us
Tue Apr 24 11:38:18 CDT 2012
________________________________
From: Liberty Counsel [alert at libertyaction.org]
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 9:54 AM
To: Katherine Jones
Subject: Stop the ACLU from criminalizing Christianity!
Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel
4/24/2012
The ACLU is relentless in their quest to censor every form of religious expression in the public square – perhaps especially in the nation’s public schools.
Together, we must meet their assault head-on before school administrators once again experience the threat of the ACLU suing them – or facing criminal charges for expressing the simplest form of religious sentiment – as has been the case many times before Liberty Counsel successfully defended their victims.
This year, the ACLU’s aggression has created an epidemic of urgent situations and I need your immediate help. Please see my important message below – Mat.
Kathy,
You may not know this, but the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has offices in all 50 states accommodating over 200 full-time attorneys and thousands of volunteers.
According to their website, their “legislative advocates are a constant presence on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures working on civil liberties issues.” Their operating expenses in Fiscal Year 2011 were a staggering $106,384,190.
Yes, you read that correctly – the ACLU spent over 100 million dollars on their misguided mission last year. By way of contrast, Liberty Counsel spent less than 4% of that amount advancing liberty, life and family. Yet, by God’s grace, we had several major triumphs over the ACLU during that time and no losses!
As I’ve said many times before, the ACLU has an enormous war chest – far larger than their single-year expenditure in 2011 – and a formidable army of seasoned litigators. They can put a lot of “boots on the ground” when they want to bully a local school system into submission!
But as daunting an adversary as they may be, Liberty Counsel will not back down from the ACLU in doing what God has called us to do! That is especially true when it comes to confronting the overt intimidation campaigns they attempt to perpetrate on America’s public school systems.
++Springtime inevitably brings blossoms and threatening letters from the ACLU!
This time of year, assaults from the ACLU come in the form of letters warning school systems to refrain from any religious expression, especially prayer, in commencement programs, school-sponsored functions, or in classrooms.
These letters often threaten expensive litigation should the recipient school systems choose to allow religious expression in their sanctioned activities.
This year, our team at Liberty Counsel is nearly overwhelmed with requests for legal advice from people all across the nation facing the threat of censorship or the oppression of their First Amendment rights by misguided school administrators who have been cowed by the ACLU’s anti-religious agenda.
Kathy, that’s why we have an urgent need right now.
++Working together, we can stop the ACLU’s attacks on public schools.
Because of a recent letter the ACLU of Florida sent to school administrators across that state, I have made it a priority to send a copy of the Liberty Counsel “Patriot’s Handbook of Religious Freedom in Public Schools” to an administrator in every school in Florida in the next 30 days.
I need your help to accomplish this important task – and to counter the ACLU’s misinformation and threats!
Right now, I need Liberty Counsel team members to sponsor 20 Florida public school administrators to receive this vital booklet. There are 3,629 public schools in Florida.
For a $30 gift you can sponsor 20 schools. Of course, you can do more or fewer, however the Lord leads you – but sponsoring 20 schools is a tremendous starting point to turn the tide in Florida.
http://www.libertyaction.org/1345/offer.asp<http://www.libertyaction.org/r.asp?U=89642&CID=345&RID=35256391>
++Liberty Counsel has fought and won similar battles in Florida many times before…
Mount Dora, Florida’s “Teacher of the Year.”
You may recall that when Jerry Buell, a highly respected public school teacher, voiced his opposition to “same-sex marriage” on his personal Facebook account last year, the 22-year teaching veteran was soon fighting for his job! Liberty Counsel successfully represented Mr. Buell, who was fully reinstated.
Northwest Florida school employees told prayer is a crime.
And, as you may also recall, a few years ago the ACLU contrived a “Consent Order” trap through which two veteran school employees in Santa Rosa County were charged with criminal contempt and faced $5,000 in fines, six months in jail, and the loss of their retirement benefits. Their “crime” was asking a blessing over a meal!
Like Jerry Buell, our clients in the Santa Rosa case were well-respected, outstanding public servants. These detestable events are further examples of the ACLU’s radical agenda to criminalize expressions of Christianity in public settings.
Tragically, these kinds of outrageous injustices are what happen when the ACLU is allowed to run roughshod over public school administrators, faculty members, students, and parents.
Please click here to learn more about sponsoring schools and/or to learn how to obtain copies of the “Patriot’s Handbook of Religious Freedom in Public Schools” for your family members, church, or civic group:
http://www.libertyaction.org/1345/offer.asp<http://www.libertyaction.org/r.asp?U=89643&CID=345&RID=35256391>
++This handbook belongs in every school in America.
As I hope you are aware, Liberty Counsel’s ultimate goal is to have these booklets in ALL of the approximately 100,000 public schools in America.
In addition to Florida, we will also include schools in Michigan and North Carolina in our next distribution to 10,000 schools.
In order to reach another 10,000 schools in Florida, Michigan, and North Carolina with the “Patriot’s Handbook of Religious Freedom in Public Schools,” I need at least 500 Liberty Counsel team members to sponsor 20 schools. A $30 gift will sponsor 20 schools.
We have already produced 100,000 books, and are prepared to produce even more, in the inspired belief that friends like you will help us get them into the hands of administrators and other decision makers in ALL of our nation’s public schools.
Please consider sponsoring 20 schools or more as, together, we impact the next generation and beyond!
http://www.libertyaction.org/1345/offer.asp<http://www.libertyaction.org/r.asp?U=89644&CID=345&RID=35256391>
The “Patriot’s Handbook of Religious Freedom in Public Schools,” containing crucial information about the rights of educators, administrators, parents, and students has never before been produced in such a compact, easy to carry format.
If you want to order copies of the handbook to distribute to local schools in your own community, click here for more information on how to order those for yourself:
http://www.libertyaction.org/1345/offer.asp<http://www.libertyaction.org/r.asp?U=89645&CID=345&RID=35256391>
Kathy, the debate over First Amendment rights within our public schools is an increasingly volatile issue and the ACLU is on the forefront of clouding the debate with threats, intimidation, and misinformation.
Please join with thousands of other God-fearing Americans and help us stand up to radical factions that seek to destroy our religious, social, and moral foundations – starting with protecting our public schools and the impressionable young people they were designed to serve.
Thank you and may God abundantly bless you!
Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel
P.S. The ACLU is a Goliath-sized organization that frequently stands against the liberties the Founders established at such a great cost. We MUST fight in our generation to defend and restore those precious, God-given liberties in this nation!
The “Patriot’s Handbook of Religious Freedom in Public Schools” is a key component in getting that message into schools all across America. Please help us today by sponsoring 20, 40, or even 100 schools!
http://www.libertyaction.org/1345/offer.asp<http://www.libertyaction.org/r.asp?U=89646&CID=345&RID=35256391>
P.P.S. If you want to learn more about the ACLU’s most recent threatening letter to Florida school administrators, please read the following excerpt from my prior message…
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++The heat is on in the Sunshine State!
For the past several years, our most intense battleground in fighting the ACLU’s assaults on the First Amendment rights of public school students, faculty, administrators, staff members, and parents has been in the State of Florida.
In recent years, we have fought and won several critical cases against the ACLU in Florida and have successfully defended our clients’ First Amendment rights.
Here is the background on our latest confrontation with the so-called “watchdogs of liberty” in Florida…
A few months ago, Florida Governor Rick Scott signed Senate Bill 98 into law. This bill allows Florida school boards to “adopt a policy allowing an inspirational message to be delivered by students at a student assembly.”
Within weeks of the law’s passage, the ACLU had their attorneys threaten school systems with “prolonged and expensive litigation” should they decide to follow the state’s new guidelines as delineated in Senate Bill 98.
I was closely following the implementation of the new Florida law since Liberty Counsel has been deeply involved in Florida public school prayer cases for many years.
Upon reading the ACLU’s letter brazenly threatening Florida school officials, I knew we needed to take immediate action!
So, we also contacted the Superintendents with our own message of how to implement SB 98. We counseled school officials to stay as close to another legal precedent as possible: Adler v. Duval County [Florida] School Board, a case I litigated for eight and half years against the ACLU, ultimately securing a great victory after four trips to the federal Court of Appeals (twice before 12 judges) and two trips to the U.S. Supreme Court. This case set the standard on these vital issues.
With the Adler victory, Liberty Counsel won the right of students to pray or give religious messages at graduation.
The case established the legal principle that public schools are free to adopt a policy that permits students or other speakers to present secular or religious messages at commencement ceremonies, including prayer.
The key to correctly handling graduation prayer or the expression of religious viewpoints in public schools is that the school administration should remain neutral – neither demanding nor prohibiting voluntary prayer and/or the expression of religious viewpoints.
Students do not lose their constitutional right to free speech when they step to the podium at graduation!
To allow a variety of viewpoints while specifically excluding religious viewpoints at graduation is neither American nor is it consistent with the Constitution. While schools should not force people to pray, neither should they force them NOT to pray!
That is why we are so aggressively pursuing the goal of getting the “Patriot’s Handbook of Religious Freedom in Public Schools” into schools all across Florida as quickly as possible.
Please click here to sponsor 20 schools or more:
http://www.libertyaction.org/1345/offer.asp<http://www.libertyaction.org/r.asp?U=89647&CID=345&RID=35256391>
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