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Hearing ‘Under God’ in Pledge of Allegiance Does Not Violate Rights of Atheist Students, Judge Rules

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Photo Credit: mrsdkrebs

Photo Credit: mrsdkrebs

Hearing the Pledge of Allegiance at school every day – including the words “under God” – does not violate the constitutional rights of atheist students, a state judge has ruled.

A student filed a lawsuit last year against the Matawan-Aberdeen school district in Monmouth County, arguing that the phrase “under God” fostered a climate of discrimination in the classroom because it exalted religion and made non-believers feel like “second-class citizens.”

The student and his parents – who are not identified in court papers – filed suit along with the American Humanist Association, a national group of atheists that teaches social responsibility. Attorneys argued that the student felt marginalized hearing the pledge every day “just as America’s Jews, Hindus, and Muslims would feel excluded, marginalized and stigmatized if they were told by their government on a daily basis that the United States is one nation ‘under Jesus.’”

State Superior Court Judge David F. Bauman dismissed the case in February, noting that the student was free to skip the pledge. The judge upheld a New Jersey law that says pupils must recite the Pledge of Allegiance unless they have “conscientious scruples” that do not allow it.

Quoting George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Dwight D. Eisenhower and the New Jersey Constitution, Bauman said the United States for centuries has woven small aspects of religion and references to God into its customs and traditions – not as an endorsement of any faith, but as an acknowledgement of the role religion played in the country’s founding. (Read more from “Hearing ‘Under God’ in Pledge of Allegiance Does Not Violate Rights of Atheist Students, Judge Rules” HERE)

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Student Reprimanded For Saying “God Bless America”

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A Florida high school student was disciplined after a national atheist organization took offense when he concluded the morning announcements by saying “God Bless America.”

A spokesperson for the Nassau County School District told me the student at Yulee High School deviated from the approved script on the morning of Feb. 9th and uttered the words “God Bless America” — apparently causing angst among two atheist students.

“It wasn’t part of the scripted morning announcements,” district spokesperson Sharyl Wood said. “The principal took the appropriate steps in speaking with the student and disciplining the student” . . .

Instead of reporting their angst to the principal, the atheist students reached out to the American Humanist Association. The AHA’s legal arm – the Appignani Humanist Legal Center — fired off a testy letter to the principal and school district on the students’ behalf.

“It is inappropriate and unlawful for a public school to start the school day with an official statement over the intercom stating, ‘God Bless America,’ for such a statement affirms God-belief, validates a theistic worldview and is invidious toward atheists and other nonbelievers,” the American Humanist Association wrote in a letter to the principal of Yulee High School. (Read more from “Student Reprimanded For Saying “God Bless America” HERE)

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Egyptian Student Posts on Facebook that He’s an Atheist, Sentenced to 3 Years in Jail

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Photo Credit: YahooAn Egyptian court has sentenced a student to three years in jail for announcing on Facebook that he is an atheist and for insulting Islam, his lawyer said Sunday.

Karim al-Banna, a 21-year-old whose own father testified against him, was jailed by a court in the Nile Delta province of Baheira on Saturday, lawyer Ahmed Abdel Nabi told AFP.

“He was handed down a three-year prison sentence, and if he pays a bail of 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($ 140 or 117 euros) the sentence can be suspended until a verdict is issued by an appeals court,” Abdel Nabi said, adding that an appeal was to be heard on March 9.

Abdel Nabi said his client’s father had testified against his son, charging that he “was embracing extremist ideas against Islam”.

Banna’s name had appeared in a list of known atheists in a local daily after which his neighbours harassed him, said Ishaq Ibrahim, a researcher on religion and beliefs at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. (Read more about the Egyptian student who received 3 years in jail HERE)

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Judge Nap: Idea of Chaplain for Atheist Soldiers Is ‘Political Correctness Gone Crazy’

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

The Department of Defense may soon consider adding a chaplain for atheist service members. A source told Fox News that the Military Association of Atheists and Free Thinkers planned to make the request today, floating its president Jason Torpy as the proposed chaplain.

Rep. John Fleming, R-La., who last year opposed the creation of such a position, also voiced concerns about the planned request. He told FoxNews.com he’s got to wait and see how the proposal plays out, but threatened to use legislation to block it if necessary.

“We’re only finding out about this now,” he said. Fleming said the law is clear that any chaplain needs to have an “endorsing agency” and questioned whether the applicant would have that here. “We just don’t see any avenue, but you know we’ve been surprised before by the military.”

The move would come after lawmakers, including Fleming, battled over the same issue last year.

Democrats tried, unsuccessfully, to pass legislation creating such a post in 2013. In response, Republicans offered up a measure of their own to prohibit the Pentagon from naming such a chaplain. The House approved the measure in July.

Read more from this story HERE.

Gideon Bibles Removed After Atheist Group Pressures U of Wisconsin

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The University of Wisconsin-Extension has agreed to remove all Gideon Bibles from 137 guest rooms at its conference center after an atheist group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), complained, arguing that the Bibles in the bedrooms constituted state endorsement of Christianity.

“After attempting to end the practice for several decades, the Freedom From Religion Foundation has persuaded University of Wisconsin-Extension in Madison to remove Gideon bibles from its 137 guest rooms,” the group said in a Jan. 15 statement. “In November, the complainant who encountered the bible at the Lowell Center on the UW-Madison campus complained to Madison-based FFRF, a state/church watchdog and the nation’s largest association of freethinkers (atheists and agnostics).”

Back on Nov. 4, FFRF staff attorney Patrick C. Elliott sent a letter to Chancellor Ray Cross, head of the University of Wisconsin Colleges and University of Wisconsin-Extension. (See FFRF Letter.pdf)

In the letter, Elliott wrote, “It is our understanding that guest rooms in the Lowell Center contain bibles from Gideons International. We were contacted by a concerned complainant who informs us that the bibles are in every guest room. We understand that the bibles include a statement noting that they were placed by Gideons International.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Atheists Start Billboard Campaign as Christmas Season Begins (+video)

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Photo Credit: APAn atheist organization is beginning a billboard campaign in Sacramento, California to encourage other atheists to “come out of the closet” as the Christmas season has believers turning their focus to faith in God.

According to a local ABC news affiliate, the Greater Sacramento Chapter of the Madison, Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation is erecting 55 billboards on Monday just as the Christmas season gets into full swing. The campaign, part of an ongoing endeavor titled, “Out of the Closet,” hopes to let atheists know that having God in your life is not a necessity.

“It’s because atheists are starting to speak up and they’re beginning to identify each other and find out they’re not alone,” said Judy Saint, president of the atheists’ group chapter. “There are a lot of non-believers and this time of year, they feel like they’re all alone.”

Saint said the movement is not about being anti-God but that it’s acceptable not to embrace a God. Happiness and goodness, she said, are not exclusive to having a higher being in your life.

Read more from this story HERE.

Palin Says Christmas is Being Hijacked by ‘Angry Atheists’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreFormer Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says America’s celebration of Christmas is being hijacked by “angry atheists”bent on eroding the nation’s cherished religious freedoms.

“There is a war on Christmas, a war on religious freedom in America,” Palin, author of the new book “Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas,” told Newsmax TV.

“It’s imperative we protect the heart of Christmas — and Christmas is all about good tidings and great joy — because if that’s marginalized, our ability, our right to express our faith . . . leads to an erosion of much of America’s great foundation.”

Palin says Americans are being subjected to an intimidation campaign by “angry atheists armed with an attorney who would want to kick out God from the public square . . .

“An innocent Nativity scene with a plastic baby doll representing Jesus in a hay-filled manger — that that is going to offend somebody to the degree that they can intimidate a city!”

Read more from this story HERE.

Atheist ‘Mega-Churches’ Take Root Across US, World

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Photo Credit: AP/Jae C. HongIt looked like a typical Sunday morning at any mega-church. Several hundred people, including families with small children, packed in for more than an hour of rousing music, an inspirational sermon, a reading and some quiet reflection. The only thing missing was God.

Nearly three dozen gatherings dubbed “atheist mega-churches” by supporters and detractors have sprung up around the U.S. and Australia – with more to come – after finding success in Great Britain earlier this year. The movement fueled by social media and spearheaded by two prominent British comedians is no joke.

On Sunday, the inaugural Sunday Assembly in Los Angeles attracted several hundred people bound by their belief in non-belief. Similar gatherings in San Diego, Nashville, New York and other U.S. cities have drawn hundreds of atheists seeking the camaraderie of a congregation without religion or ritual.

The founders, British duo Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, are currently on a tongue-in-cheek “40 Dates, 40 Nights” tour around the U.S. and Australia to drum up donations and help launch new Sunday Assemblies. They hope to raise more than $800,000 that will help atheists launch their pop-up congregations around the world. So far, they have raised about $50,000.

They don’t bash believers but want to find a new way to meet likeminded people, engage in the community and make their presence more visible in a landscape dominated by faith.

Read more from this story HERE.

Atheist Group Opposes Holocaust Memorial on Ohio Statehouse Grounds

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Photo Credit: daniel-libeskind.comA Wisconsin-based atheist group has expressed its opposition to a Holocaust memorial set to be built on the ground of the Ohio statehouse, arguing that its location violates the separation of church and state and calling the Star of David “exclusionary” in memorializing victims of the Nazis.

But Ohio Gov. John Kasich and proponents of the memorial say it will teach people about man’s inhumanity to man and that, contrary to the atheists’ claim, it will include all those killed by the Nazis — including U.S. soldiers, ethnic and religious minorities, homosexuals and the mentally ill.

Joyce Garver Keller, executive director of Jewish Communities, an organization that represents Jewish groups across the state, said the memorial is intended “mostly to honor those who had survived and who had come to Ohio to build a life.”

Keller said it is appropriate to build the structure on state grounds because it will “remind lawmakers and those who work in and around government of the important role and responsibility they have in speaking out in the face of hatred, anti-Semetism and genocide.”

“The Holocaust did not begin in concentration camps in the ovens with smoke stacks and mass graves,” Keller told FoxNews.com. “It began in the halls of government with the passage of laws that targeted Jews, taking their properties, their businesses, their home, their freedom and ultimately their lives.

Read more from this story HERE.

Atheist Group Seeks to Block Star of David on Holocaust Memorial

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Photo Credit: BreitbartAn atheist activist organization wants a proposed Ohio statehouse Holocaust memorial to remove the Star of David symbol, which, the group claims, is an “exclusionary” religious symbol.

According to The Columbus Dispatch, the non-profit Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), known for its activism concerning church-state separation, claimed that the inclusion of the Judaic symbol is a breach of the U.S. Constitution.

In a June 14 letter to Richard H. Finan, chairman of the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board, two FFRF officials said they have no objections to a Holocaust memorial at the statehouse, but claimed that the cut-out version of the six-pointed Star of David would be a violation of the separation of church and state as provided for in the Constitution.

“Permitting one permanent sectarian and exclusionary religious symbol… would create the legal precedent, for instance, to place an equally large or larger permanent Latin cross on Capitol grounds,” wrote Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-presidents of the Madison, Wisconsin group. Gaylor is the daughter of Anne Nicol Gaylor, author of Abortion Is A Blessing. Barker said that the Holocaust memorial, as currently proposed, would amount to a “constitutionally problematic endorsement of religion.”

The FFRF officials said the memorial excludes five million non-Jews killed in the Holocaust, including Roma Gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, and others.

Read more from this story HERE.