The Observer-Examiner

at Texas Graduation Ceremony

By Todd Starnes

Published June 02, 2011 | FoxNews.com

A federal judge has ordered a Texas school district to prohibit public prayer at a high school graduation ceremony.

Chief U.S. District Judge Fred Biery’s order against the Medina Valley Independent School District also forbids students from using specific religious words including “prayer” and “amen.”

The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by Christa and Danny Schultz. Their son is among those scheduled to participate in Saturday’s graduation ceremony. The judge declared that the Schultz family and their son would “suffer irreparable harm” if anyone prayed at the ceremony.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said the school district is in the process of appealing the ruling, and his office has agreed to file a brief in their support.

“Part of this goes to the very heart of the unraveling of moral values in this country,” Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott told Fox News Radio, saying the judge wanted to turn school administrators into “speech police.”

“I’ve never seen such a restriction on speech issued by a court or the government,” Abbott told Fox News Radio. “It seems like a trampling of the First Amendment rather than protecting the First Amendment.”

Judge Biery’s ruling banned students and other speakers from using religious language in their speeches. Among the banned words or phrases are: “join in prayer,” “bow their heads,” “amen,” and “prayer.”

He also ordered the school district to remove the terms “invocation” and “benediction” from the graduation program.

“These terms shall be replaced with ‘opening remarks’ and ‘closing remarks,’” the judge’s order stated. His ruling also prohibits anyone from saying, “in [a deity’s name] we pray.”

Should a student violate the order, school district officials could find themselves in legal trouble. Judge Biery ordered that his ruling be “enforced by incarceration or other sanctions for contempt of Court if not obeyed by District official (sic) and their agents.”

The Texas attorney general called the ruling unconstitutional and a blatant attack from those who do not believe in God — “attempts by atheists and agnostics to use courts to eliminate from the public landscape any and all references to God whatsoever.”

“This is the challenge we are dealing with here,” he said. “(It’s) an ongoing attempt to purge God from the public setting while at the same time demanding from the courts an increased yielding to all things atheist and agnostic.”

Ayesa Khan, an attorney representing the student and his parents, told KABB-TV she was delighted in the judge’s decision.

“It caused him a great deal of anxiety,” she said, referring to her teenage client. “He has gone to meet with the principal to try and talk in a civilized way about long-standing problems, and the school district has continued to thumb its nose.”

The judge did grant students permission to make the sign of the cross, wear religious garb or kneel to face Mecca. But that’s not good enough for some students at the high school.

“It’s just a big surprise that one kid can come in and change what’s been a tradition since Medina Valley started,” student Abigail Russell told KABB-TV.

Fellow student Alicia Jade Geurin agreed.

“At graduation, I would love to be able to speak from my heart,” she told the TV station. “But in this situation I feel my freedom of speech and my First Amendment is being infringed upon if I can’t say what I feel.”

But the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, hailed the judge’s decision.

“This is a high school graduation,” he told Fox News Radio. “It is not a church service.”

Lynn was critical of the attorney general’s allegation that the ruling was an attempt to purge Christianity from the public square.

“Any attorney general worth his salt would know that’s the issue and that this is not about promoting atheism,” he said. “That’s ludicrous.”

Read Fox News Radio for more on this story.

From The Liberty Institute

Judge Prevents VA from Censoring Pastor’s Prayer in Jesus Name at Memorial Day Ceremony

Judge Rules That Government May Not Discriminate Against Religious Speech.

HOUSTON, Texas, May 26, 2011 – Federal District Judge Lynn N. Hughes just granted a temporary restraining order preventing the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and its Director of the Houston National Cemetery, Arleen Ocasio, from preventing Pastor Scott Rainey from praying in Jesus’ name during his invocation at a Memorial Day ceremony sponsored by the National Cemetery Council for Greater Houston (a private, non-profit association). Pastor Rainey was told by the VA that if he did not remove a reference to Jesus in his prayer, he would not be allowed to provide the invocation.

Judge Hughes ruled that such censorship and religious discrimination violates the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment. Pastor Rainey may now provide the invocation without government interference.

In regard to the ruling, Liberty Institute released the following statement:

“We are grateful that we live in a nation where religious freedom and our veterans are honored. Hopefully now government officials will understand that they cannot intervene in a private ceremony and tell citizens what they can and cannot pray.”

View the judge’s order

Read Liberty Institute’s lawsuit (including Pastor Rainey’s prayer)

Read Liberty Institute’s news release

Southwest Missouri rabbit seller
stunned by $90,000 federal fine

Kansas City Star/The Associated Press

NIXA, Mo. | A southwest Missouri man who said he made about $200 selling rabbits has been ordered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to pay more than $90,000 for doing business without a license.

John Dollarhite, who ran Dollarvalue Rabbitry from April 2008 to December 2009, said he didn’t know he needed a license to sell bunnies.

He was told that if he didn’t pay the penalty by last Monday he could face possible litigation and civil penalties up to $10,000 for each violation. His attorney has told the agency Dollarhite rejects the proposed penalty and wants a hearing.

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who grew up in a rural area, has taken up Dollarhite’s cause. She told the Springfield News-Leader the proposed fine “defies common sense.”

“They have much better things to do with their time than go after families that have sold some rabbits for pets,” McCaskill said.

USDA spokesman Dave Sacks said the agency was trying to work out a different penalty, but he didn’t know what that would be.

The USDA learned about Dollarhite’s operation after an inspector looking at a licensed facility found that some of the animals there came from Dollarhite.

The proposed settlement said Dollarhite sold 619 animals from April 3, 2008, to Dec. 21, 2009, even after being told several times that he needed a license. He since has closed the business, which sold rabbits for $10 to $12 apiece.

Posted on Sun, May. 29, 2011 10:25 PM

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/05/29/2912955/rabbit-seller-stunned-by-90000.html#storylink=rss#ixzz1O3fPoiea

Indiana Supreme Court:
“No right to resist illegal cop entry into home”

Posted: Friday, May 13, 2011 3:56 pm
By Dan Carden dan.carden@nwi.com, (317) 637-9078

INDIANAPOLIS | Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.

In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer’s entry.

“We believe … a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,” David said. “We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest.”

David said a person arrested following an unlawful entry by police still can be released on bail and has plenty of opportunities to protest the illegal entry through the court system.

The court’s decision stems from a Vanderburgh County case in which police were called to investigate a husband and wife arguing outside their apartment.

When the couple went back inside their apartment, the husband told police they were not needed and blocked the doorway so they could not enter. When an officer entered anyway, the husband shoved the officer against a wall. A second officer then used a stun gun on the husband and arrested him.

Professor Ivan Bodensteiner, of Valparaiso University School of Law, said the court’s decision is consistent with the idea of preventing violence.

“It’s not surprising that they would say there’s no right to beat the hell out of the officer,” Bodensteiner said. “(The court is saying) we would rather opt on the side of saying if the police act wrongfully in entering your house your remedy is under law, to bring a civil action against the officer.”

Justice Robert Rucker, a Gary native, and Justice Brent Dickson, a Hobart native, dissented from the ruling, saying the court’s decision runs afoul of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“In my view the majority sweeps with far too broad a brush by essentially telling Indiana citizens that government agents may now enter their homes illegally – that is, without the necessity of a warrant, consent or exigent circumstances,” Rucker said. “I disagree.”

Rucker and Dickson suggested if the court had limited its permission for police entry to domestic violence situations they would have supported the ruling.

But Dickson said, “The wholesale abrogation of the historic right of a person to reasonably resist unlawful police entry into his dwelling is unwarranted and unnecessarily broad.”

This is the second major Indiana Supreme Court ruling this week involving police entry into a home.

On Tuesday, the court said police serving a warrant may enter a home without knocking if officers decide circumstances justify it. Prior to that ruling, police serving a warrant would have to obtain a judge’s permission to enter without knocking.

• PDF: Supreme Court ruling in Barnes v. State