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Teacher Forced to Remove Reagan Quote, Bible Verses From Classroom

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.”

Read more from this story HERE.

The Fall of Europe: Criticizing Islam Considered National Security Threat in Spain

WASHINGTON – As tensions continue to surge over the expansion of Shariah law both in the Middle East and in Europe, a new speech rights case has emerged in Spain where an ex-Muslim Christian convert is threatened with deportation for speaking out against Islam.

Imran Farasat, who was interviewed by WND, is a Pakistani Christian who converted from Islam in 2004, after, he said, “I realized that what I was following for 26 years of my life is not a religion but in reality is a political dictatorship which persecutes and teaches to persecute through the orders and teachings of a self-proclaimed prophet (Muhammad).”

After his conversion to Christianity, he began to speak out against Islam. He told WND, “Muslims are involved everywhere in terrorism. Christians are being persecuted in Islamic countries to the maximum level of torture and suffering and Islam is trying to invade the Western world and kill our values. Who will stop this all?”

In his legal fight, he’s represented by The Legal Project, which describes itself as working “…to protect the right in the West to freely discuss Islam, radical Islam, terrorism, and terrorist funding.”

It has a large, transnational clientele that “includes authors, bloggers, journals and politicians.”

Read more from this story HERE.

The Cost of Living in a Free Society

We often hear the phrase “Freedom isn’t Free”, and we generally attribute that cost to the sacrifice our fighting men and woman make to preserve our republic. But we should all realize that we also must pay the price at times for the privilege of living in a free society. In the wake of the devastatingly crushing news of the school shootings in Newtown Connecticut on December 14, we are left pondering what we can do as a free society to prevent this type of tragedy from ever occurring again. Perhaps we should first ask ourselves, What price are we willing to pay?

Of course the first remedy after an event like this spouted by the simpleminded media and politicians with a larger agenda is to assault the Second Amendment. We are so accustomed to this attack on our freedom that many of us immediately begin to fret about the battle to come over gun rights instead of mourning the loss of the victims of the massacre. But we never have long to wait before a “gun grabbing” senator or even a president begin to capitalize on the tragedy to promote the idea that “El número dos” from our Bill of Rights is an outdated concept that needs to be ignored, altered, or abolished outright. But would a move to remove guns from legal firearms owner’s hands ensure a safe environment for us and our children forevermore? Of course not. The worst school massacre in U.S. history occurred in Bath Township, Michigan in 1927. The deranged individual used a makeshift bomb made from commercial explosives to kill thirty eight elementary school children, two teachers and four other adults. In China, on the same day as the events in Newtown, a deranged man slashed twenty two school children with a knife. Crazy will always find a way to be crazy, and the world is full of tools that can be used to carry out such attacks. So are you willing to give up your freedom and security in the form of your firearms to provide an inadequate, destined to fail guarantee of safety as a result?

One course of action that some have promoted is increased vigilance by the state in the monitoring and control of those in our midst with mental health issues. Of course the state would first have to identify those individuals that are deemed (by them) to be a possible threat, no doubt predominantly at the public school level. And then take over their care, medication and or incarcerate them through commission to a mental health facility if they are evaluated to be a risk. While we do need to pay more attention to the folks in our society that are afflicted with mental issues that may affect that same society as a whole, forgive me if I doubt the government’s ability to address the issue while protecting constitutional and parental rights in the process. As they have already shown, they have a dismal record of addressing behavioral and developmental problems (real or make believe) among our children so far. So the question is, are you willing to give up your rights as a parent or your own personal liberty to insure that anyone with the perceived potential to go postal at some point in the future as determined by some governmental bureaucrat are contained through mandatory medication or incarceration?

Read more from this article HERE.