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eBay Yanks Beck’s ‘Obama in Pee Pee’ Art Project Meant to Raise Money for Charity (+video)

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The popular online auction site eBay has yanked a piece of artwork done by Glenn Beck citing its belief that the project featured an Obama figurine floating in actual urine (it was not, however).

On Tuesday evening, Glenn Beck featured an Obama bobble head doll in a jar of yellow liquid, catalyzed by Michael D’Anouto’s painting titled, “Truth,” which features a crucified Obama and also parodies the controversial “artwork” dubbed “Piss Christ” that defaced a crucifix in a glass of urine.

Beck’s piece was meant to underscore the importance of adhering to the First Amendment and highlight the hypocrisy of those who adhere to it only when it suits them. Often, members of the Left will rail against the disparaging of figures they hold dear, but do not hold themselves to the same standard when disparaging figures others hold dear.

Beck was auctioning the jar, complete with the Obama doll, on the auction site, with all the proceeds set to go to Beck’s Mercury One charity. At the last entry its bid was up to $11,300. On Wednesday morning, however, eBay removed the auction page.

Listen to Beck’s radio team discuss:

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Shock-Jock Glenn Beck Puts Obama’s Image in … Pee Pee

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On Monday, TheBlaze alerted readers to a new painting that depicts Barack Obama as Jesus Christ crucified, adorned with a crown of thorns. The work, entitled “Truth,” is part of a larger exhibit at the Bunker Hill Community College Art Gallery in Boston titled “Artists on the Stump – the Road to the White House 2012.” This, of course, is not the first controversial rendition that has been labeled “artwork,” nor is it the first time President Obama has been likened to Christ, or in general, God.

Now, the creator of “Truth,” Michael D’Antuono, said that his “First Amendment rights should override someone’s hurt feelings” and that “we should celebrate the fact that we live in a country where we are given the freedom to express ourselves.”

After receiving roughly 4,000 angry emails over the painting, D’Antuono also said he respects “their right to express themselves” and hopes they will afford him the same.

With this in mind, Glenn Beck chose to “express himself,” during his Tuesday evening broadcast by featuring a piece of artwork of his own creation.

Watch the clip, sure to make a splash, via TheBlaze TV below:

Read more from this story HERE.

Atheist Group at Dartmouth Plans anti Mother Teresa Event

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An atheist group at Dartmouth College is planning an event aimed at skewering the reputation of the late Mother Teresa.

The Atheists Humanists Agnostics (AHA) club sent out a campus-wide e-mail announcing the program on Tuesday and promising a “full-out romp against why one of the most beloved people of the century, Mother Teresa, is as Hitchens put it… ‘a lying, thieving Albanian dwarf.’”

Mother Teresa is widely known for her life’s work of aiding the poor and comforting the sick.

The e-mail says the group plans to screen an anti-Mother Teresa film, discuss Hitchens’ book, Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, and question how the public has been “conned into thinking this woman [Teresa] was good.”

The e-mail states Teresa, who is on her way to sainthood in the Catholic church, “was not a friend of the poor,” but “was a friend of poverty.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Manager Who Posted Comments Critical of Gay Marriage on Private Facebook Account Demoted (+video)

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By Bob Unruh. A court trial is under way in the United Kingdom to determine if a Christian manager of a housing organization should be compensated for damages because his employer demoted and penalized him for stating his biblical beliefs on his private Facebook page.

Smith lost his managerial position and had his salary cut by 40 percent after his employer, Trafford Housing Trust, told him his private Facebook page posting, to which only he and his friends had access, violated its standards of conduct.

The case developed in February 2011 when Smith saw a news article titled “Gay church marriages get go ahead.”

He linked to the story and wrote, “An equality too far.”

One of his coworkers asked him to explain, and he responded: “I don’t understand why people who have no faith and don’t believe in Christ would want to get hitched in church. The Bible is quite specific that marriage is for men and women. If the state wants to offer civil marriage to the same sex then that is up to the state; but the state shouldn’t impose its rules on places of faith and conscience.” Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s a BBC update on the case:

Huckabee Tells Christians to Come Out of their Closets

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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told a Christian gathering in New York on Saturday that it is believers’ responsibility to get more involved in civic life, give a bold declaration of the life of the Gospel, and not live as if they were “recruited by the Secret Service.”

“I think a lot of Christian people tend to think they need to disassociate themselves from cultural pillars. I think it’s the opposite,” said the former presidential candidate, the keynote speaker at Saturday night’s kickoff banquet in Cicero, N.Y., for a new non-profit organization, Ten Good Men Inc.

“Christians in this country could be the most important source for good in America if they would execute their basic civic responsibilities,” said Huckabee, a Fox News Channel personality. “Many (Christians) think they were recruited by the Secret Service instead of giving a bold declaration of the life of the Gospel.”

Huckabee added that Christians should not blame “things that putrefy and get spoiled, because that’s what things do when they’re left alone and godless.” If things are dark, it’s the Christians who are going to turn the lights on, he said. “If politics is dirty in this country, it’s dirty because not enough good, clean people get involved.”

Huckabee told the 130 guests at the banquet that only about half of Christians were registered to vote, and further only half of those registered actually cast a ballot.

Read more from this story HERE.

Free Speech Dying in the Western World

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Free speech is dying in the Western world. While most people still enjoy considerable freedom of expression, this right, once a near-absolute, has become less defined and less dependable for those espousing controversial social, political or religious views. The decline of free speech has come not from any single blow but rather from thousands of paper cuts of well-intentioned exceptions designed to maintain social harmony.

In the face of the violence that frequently results from anti-religious expression, some world leaders seem to be losing their patience with free speech. After a video called “Innocence of Muslims” appeared on YouTube and sparked violent protests in several Muslim nations last month, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that “when some people use this freedom of expression to provoke or humiliate some others’ values and beliefs, then this cannot be protected.”

It appears that the one thing modern society can no longer tolerate is intolerance. As Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard put it in her recent speech before the United Nations, “Our tolerance must never extend to tolerating religious hatred.”

A willingness to confine free speech in the name of social pluralism can be seen at various levels of authority and government. In February, for instance, Pennsylvania Judge Mark Martin heard a case in which a Muslim man was charged with attacking an atheist marching in a Halloween parade as a “zombie Muhammed.” Martin castigated not the defendant but the victim, Ernie Perce, lecturing him that “our forefathers intended to use the First Amendment so we can speak with our mind, not to piss off other people and cultures — which is what you did.”

Of course, free speech is often precisely about pissing off other people — challenging social taboos or political values.

Read more from this story HERE.

75% of World’s Population Now Lacks Religious Freedom

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A new study highlights the growing global trend of religious restrictions, whether by means of government action or social trends- limiting regulations are currently affecting three out of every four individuals.

The study, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, is titled “Rising Tide of Restrictions on Religion” and showed that the percentage of the world’s population that was affected by restrictions on religion increased to 75 percent. That’s up from 70 percent the previous year.

What is equally disturbing is the rise of various countries around the globe that have enacted stricter laws governing the observances of practices of faith. The study found that the percentage of countries who adopted such measures increased from 31 percent to 37 percent.

The study lists some government restrictions which include laws against “proselytism” or “blasphemy.” It also includes laws limiting some countries citizens’ choice of religious materials, such as Uzbekistan, which only recognizes religious materials produced by the state.

Social restrictions, on the other hand are not controlled by the state and can include ostracism, mob action, or other community-based action in response to the exercise of faith. These specific social occurrences are often able to manifest due to the inaction of local authorities.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pastor Calls Out Coward Churches for Avoiding “Hot Button” Issues

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Pastor Shane Idleman is all too aware of the moral decline he sees in the United States and he’s speaking out about it. But what irritates him is the cowardice he finds in many churches when it comes to tackling “hot button” issues.

“I’m sick and tired of the passive, lukewarm, coward church doing nothing and saying nothing because it offends people. Yeah, it’s a hot button, absolutely. But if the truth doesn’t come from here (church), where does it come from?” he posed during his Sunday sermon at Westside Christian Fellowship in Lancaster, Calif.

Idleman wasn’t afraid to be blunt as he joined hundreds of other pastors throughout the country in preaching on politics just ahead of the November presidential election as part of Pulpit Freedom Sunday.

“If I were to be honest, there’s cowards in our pulpits in our nation,” he stated. “I’m going to come up here and preach about being nice to your neighbor … as limbs are being pulled from uteruses? Vacuumed out because you don’t want it (the baby)? Let’s support that, let’s fund that. It’s ridiculous!”

During his hour-long sermon, Idleman didn’t specifically speak about the presidential candidates – President Barack Obama and GOP candidate Mitt Romney – and their positions, other than to say that one calls himself a Christian when he’s “clearly not” and the other is not a Christian “because he’s in a cult.” Obama is a self-professed Christian while Romney is a Mormon.

Read more from this story HERE.

Must Watch Video: Radio Hosts Suspended for Encouraging Listeners to Put Up YouTubes Saying, “Muhammad Sucks A**”

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Yesterday, two popular radio hosts in northern California encouraged their listeners to “swamp the world” with articles and YouTube’s saying, “Muhammad sucks a**.”

They also suggested that videos be produced suggesting that “Muhammad’s a goat rapist” and that websites be set up with addresses like “MuhammadBarnLove.com.” Why? They’re convinced that this will either force the Islamic radicals to “grow up” or we’ll “get it on” and take care of the problem.

The hosts observed that Islam is a religion of submission, not peace. One host said Muslims want to “Set fire to the olive branch.”

They also stated that our “sacred principles,” namely the First Amendment, permit all Americans to “denigrate any damn religion [they] want” and that “if Mitt and his guys don’t jump on this, they aren’t fit to be dog catcher, much less President.”

Finally, they asserted that some of the supposedly offensive videos may have been “made up as an excuse to blow up stuff.”

These comments may have cost the hosts their jobs:

U.S. Press Plays Pravda

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Given the events of the last two weeks, we may expect an acceleration of media-skepticism. Let us consider just how egregiously the press has abandoned its responsibilities to the public trust in the past few weeks:

On September 11, on the eleventh anniversary of the worst attack yet endured on our shores, U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three aides were murdered, and their headquarters in Benghazi sacked. The U.S. Press unquestioningly accepted a White House explanation calling the event a “spontaneous demonstration” inspired by a poorly made anti-Islam film short that had been languishing online, all-but-ignored, for months.

Despite reports that the attackers had been chanting “Obama, we are all Osama,” (in reference to Osama bin Laden, whose America-effected demise was celebrated over 20 times during the recently concluded Democratic convention) the press duly reported the White House line, and they saw no First Amendment issues when the Obama administration asked Google (owners of YouTube) to remove the offending video. (Google refused.)

This is the same press, all the same bylines and faces, by the way, who fretted about the “chill wind” threatening free speech when then-White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer merely suggested that post-9/11 people might need to be cautious in their speech.

The press did not blink when the film’s creator was publicly identified, handcuffed, and brought into police custody for questioning about “a possible parole violation” in the middle of the night. In fact, some journalists—utterly incurious about the possible constitutional repercussions of establishing such a precedent—began helpfully arguing that sometimes free speech ought to be limited, darn it! The work of cultural darling Andres Serrano—whose overpraised “Piss Christ” showcases a photograph of a crucifix submerged in a bucket of Serrano’s own urine—was free speech and “art” deserving protection, while an execrably produced anti-Muslim short, made by a cultural nobody, was not.

Read more from this story HERE.