A Hawaiian court has dismissed the majority of a lawsuit that a pair of anti-Christianists brought against area churches saying they were defrauding local public schools of rental fees.
Mitchell Kahle and Holly Huber had filed a lawsuit claiming that five churches had defrauded school districts by coercing them into lower fees on rents and utility charges by submitting false records.
The complaint filed in the First Circuit Court of Hawaii said the churches owe the government $5.6 million because of discounted rates and for use of the facilities longer than allowed by contracts. The anti-Christian duo filed under the state’s False Claims Act.
Judge Virginia Crandall said that there was insufficient evidence that the churches violated any laws.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the churches, says that the churches were facing frivolous claims from people who just want to harass Christians.
“The only thing these churches have done is serve the schools and bring great benefit to their surrounding communities,” ADF Senior Counsel Erik Stanley said in a written statement. “No one benefits from this suit except the two atheists bringing it, who stand to gain financially if they are successful.”
Two former Bryan College professors who rebelled against the school by refusing to sign unaltered the Statement of Faith affirming Adam and Eve are now suing the school.
The contracts of Stephen Barnett and Steven DeGeorge are demanding they be given their jobs back along with the court declaring the school’s statement of faith be declared null and void. The two former teacher claim that by affirming humans came from Adam and Eve and not via evolution the school’s board was modifying the school charter.
The school’s Board of Trustees said their statement that “we believe that all humanity is descended from Adam and Eve. They are historical persons created by God in a special formative act, and not from previously existing life forms” is nothing more than clarification of the fourth item in the school’s Statement of Faith.
Students have joined several faculty members in opposing the school’s standing on the Scripture in deciding the origin of life.
A group of cheerleaders at a school in Kountze, Texas were told by a court they can continue to display Bible verses at football games, but their attorney may still appeal the decision.
Attorney Hiram Sasser says the ruling doesn’t clearly protect the rights of the students to continue using the verses in the future.
“I don’t think it provides any protection for the religious liberties of Kountze cheerleaders in the future,” Sasser said.
The court dismissed the suit saying it was now moot because the school district had changed their policies and because the ban was repealed the cheerleaders no longer had standing to advance their case.
The suit began in 2012 when the anti-Christian Freedom From Religion Foundation threatening the school because cheerleaders would hold up banners for the football team to run through that contained Bible verses.
A Maryland county commissioner says she’s ready to go to jail for her faith in Christ.
Robin Bartlett Frazier, a Carroll County commissioner, said that she will refuse to acknowledge a federal judge’s order that the county’s meetings no longer open with prayers that mention Jesus Christ or any deity.
“If we cease to believe that our rights come from God, we cease to be America,” Robin Bartlett Frazier told CBS. “We’ve been told to be careful. But we’re going to be careful all the way to Communism if we don’t start standing up and saying ‘no.’”
The anti-Christian group American Humanist Association had filed a lawsuit in 2012 on behalf of what they claimed were three residents of the county. Judge William Quarles Jr. ruled on Wednesday the board must stop opening meetings with sectarian prayers.
The Supreme Court is currently considering a similar case.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul announced that he has filed one of the largest class-action lawsuits in history in response to spying operations by the National Security Agency against American citizens.
The suit was joined by the conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks and filed in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia.
The suit claims the NSA’s program that collects the metadata of American’s phone calls violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. The lawsuit wants the court to rule the program unconstitutional and order the government to immediately stop the program.
“There’s a huge and growing swell of protest in this country of people who are outraged that their records would be taken without suspicion, without a judge’s warrant and without individualization,” Sen. Paul told reporters.
A Justice Departments spokesman said that they expect to win the case because at least 15 other judges have ruled the program legal.
The anti-Christian Freedom From Religion Foundation continued their campaign to drive Christians out of America by filing a suit in U.S. District Court challenging the 1954 law that allows clergy members to use untaxed income to purchase a home.
U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb, appointed in 1979 by Democratic President Jimmy Carter, ruled the law “provides a benefit to religious persons and no one else, even though doing so is not necessary to alleviate a special burden on religious exercise.”
Judge Crabb is the same judge that ruled in 2008 in a suit brought by the same anti-Christian activists that the National Day of Prayer was unconstitutional.
The defendants in the case are U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and acting IRS commissioner Daniel Werfel. Neither agency commented on the case.
The anti-Christianist group Freedom From Religion Foundation is threatening the Cullman (Alabama) County Board of Education with a lawsuit if a group of citizens is allowed to pray for the schools the weekend before schools open for the year. Continue reading →
The Archdiocese of New York, Notre Dame University, and the Archdioses of Washington, D.C. are among 40 Catholic groups that filed suit today against the Obama Administration claiming their freedom of religion has been impeded.
The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. placed a statement on their website explaining the move. Continue reading →