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Teacher Forced to Remove Reagan Quote, Bible Verses From Classroom

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A New York public school teacher who advised a school Bible Study club has filed a civil rights lawsuit against her school district after she was forced to remove all religious content from her classroom — including a quote from former President Ronald Reagan.

Joelle Silver, a veteran teacher in the Cheektowaga Central School District in western New York, said she received a “counseling letter” signed by her superintendent that ordered her to remove all religious-themed items from her classroom or else she could be fired.

The eight-page letter informed the teacher that “your rights to free speech and expression are not as broad as if your were simply a private citizen.”

Among the items that had to be removed were a poster with an inspirational Bible verse superimposed over an American flag and inspirational messages she had written on sticky notes kept on her desk, according to court documents obtained by Fox News.

The school district also ordered her to remove a quote from former President Ronald Reagan which read in part — “If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under.”

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Federal Judge blocks Obama from forcing Catholic businesses to provide birth control

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Photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

A Colorado business owned by a Catholic family does not have to comply with President Barack Obama’s new healthcare mandate that private employers provide employees with insurance coverage of birth control, a Colorado federal judge ruled on Friday.

District Judge John Kane in Denver temporarily blocked the government from the enforcing the contraception requirement against the religious owners of Hercules Industries Inc, a private manufacturer of heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment.

The ruling only affects this plaintiff but opens the door for any company to seek relief on religious grounds. Lawyers for the Department of Health and Human Services argued that a temporary exemption for Hercules would interfere with the government’s ability to implement the law. But Kane was not persuaded.

“This harm pales in comparison to the possible infringement upon (the Newland family’s) constitutional and statutory rights,” the judge wrote. He noted that the government had already created numerous exceptions for religious employers, exempting over 190 million health plan participants.

The law posed an imminent harm to the company’s owners by forcing them to support contraception, sterilization and abortion in violation of their religious beliefs or face steep fines, Kane said.

Read more from this story HERE.