Tag Archives: Mississippi

Pastor Jailed Over Pro-Life Outreach Exonerated

A Mississippi pastor who took a stand for the unborn and was arrested for it 4 years ago has been exonerated on all the charges against him.

Pastor Steven Joiner of Columbus Church of the Nazarene came upon a protest by Pro-Life Mississippi in his city.  He parked at a nearby business and walked over to thank them for their standing up for life.  Joiner joined the group’s protest.

A police officer then approached the group and told them to leave saying they were blocking traffic. Pastor Joiner said he had a First Amendment right to stand on a public sidewalk.  The pastor was arrested for “failure to obey a police officer.”

The pastor was initially convicted on charges of violating the city’s Parade and Handbill ordinance.  An appeals court overturned that verdict.  The pastor then sued for his right to protest.

The court ruled that the pastor’s rights were violated, ordered the city to pay $10,000 in damages and attorney fees.  The city was also ordered to amend their law to protect free speech.

“The notion that one man can constitute a parade and that small groups of individuals need to seek permission and a permit from the government before they can open their mouths on a public sidewalk is repugnant to the Constitution and undermines the foundation of this nation,” Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Mississippi Asks Supreme Court to Uphold Abortion Law

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court asking them to hear the case involving a Mississippi law regarding admitting privileges for doctors who perform abortions.

The law passed the Mississippi legislature in 2012 that would require abortionists to have board certification and obtain hospital admitting privileges.  The second part was aimed to allow women who are injured by the abortionist to be rushed to local hospitals for further treatment.

Supporters say the bill is aimed to protect the lives of the women who choose to have an abortion.

The state’s lone abortion center, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, immediately filed suit saying they would not be able to meet the law’s requirements.  Eventually they said that the state did not have the right to pass laws that would close all abortion facilities in the state.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans struck down the law.

Mississippi Attorney General Hood says a similar law was upheld by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, so the Supreme Court needs to weigh in to fix the conflict.

Mississippi Passes The “Jesus Take The Wheel Act”

The Mississippi legislature has passed the “Jesus Take The Wheel Act” which would allow drivers of mid-size church vans of up to 30 people to avoid having to obtain a commercial driver’s license.

The bill was designed to help smaller churches that have limited resources.

This just allows small churches, some don’t have people with commercial licenses at all, and they can pick a person to drive the bus,” Democrat Rep. Robert Johnson of Natchez told the Clarion-Ledger.

The church bus drivers will also not be required to have the state passenger transport endorsement, which is a requirement of most Mississippi bus drivers.

However, CDL drivers in the state are not happy about the law.

“I think this bill is trading the safety of everyone on the road for the convenience of those operating church vehicles,” CDL driver Troy Coll said. “Since the bill covers vehicles up to 30 passengers, we’re not just talking vans with extra rows of seats – these are buses, with long frames and much larger blind spots than passenger vehicles.”

“Obtaining a CDL is not especially difficult,” Coll added, “but the testing does increase the level of scrutiny on drivers, and the medical requirements prevent individuals with poor vision/hearing/motor control or untreated diabetes from driving large vehicles full of vulnerable passengers.”

Mississippi Men Convicted of Hate Crime

Three young white Mississippi men are heading to federal prison after being convicted of what one person called violence as evil as the worst of pre-civil rights days.

James Craig Anderson, 20, was killed by a group of men who has been targeting blacks they believed were homeless or drunk.  Anderson was in a parking lot of a hotel in Jackson, Mississippi when he was deliberately run over by a man driving a Ford truck.  The murder was caught on surveillance video.

The driver of the truck, Deryl Paul Dedmon, will spend 50 years in prison after being convicted of the hate crime.  He will serve that sentence concurrent with whatever a Mississippi state judge issues as punishment for Dedmon’s guilty plea to capital murder and a hate crime.

The family of the victim decried the evil of the “strangers with eyes full of hatred.”  Barbara Anderson Young, sister of the victim, told the killers, “My God have mercy on your sinful souls.”

Dedmon’s associates also are heading to prison.  John Aaron Rice was sentenced to 18 ½ years, and Dylan Wade Butler to seven years.

Seven others are still awaiting sentencing for their role in targeting blacks and homeless people for physical assault and abuse.

Mississippi Lawmakers Propose Making Bible State Book

Three Mississippi lawmakers are fighting to make the Bible the official state book.

Rep. Tracy Arnold of Boonville, who is also a pastor, introduced a proposal in the House to “recognize the value of the Scriptures.”  Two state senators, Tom Miles of Forest and Michael Evans of Preston, introduced a similar bill in the state senate.

“Me and my constituents, we were talking about it and one of them made a comment that people ought to start reading the Bible,” Evans told AL.com.

“The Bible provides a good role model on how to treat people,” Miles added to the Associated Press. “They could read in there about love and compassion.”

The state currently does not have any book designated as the official state book.

The Bible has been lauded in the past by many politicians including former President Ronald Reagan, who declared 1983 the national “Year of the Bible.”

“Many of our greatest national leaders—among them Presidents Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, and Wilson—have recognized the influence of the Bible on our country’s development,” Reagan stated. “The plainspoken Andrew Jackson referred to the Bible as no less than ‘the rock on which our Republic rests.’”

“Today our beloved America and, indeed, the world, is facing a decade of enormous challenge,” he continued. “There could be no more fitting moment than now to reflect with gratitude, humility, and urgency upon the wisdom revealed to us in the writing that Abraham Lincoln called ‘the best gift God has ever given to man . . . But for [without] it we could not know right from wrong.”’

Mississippi Court Rejects Injunction Over Police Harassment of Christians

A federal judge in Mississippi has denied a request against the Jackson, Mississippi police department, which has been harassing pro-life Christians.

Police have been targeting Christians who are protesting outside the state’s last abortion facility for harassment.

“[Our] request that pro-life advocates receive injunctive relief from harassment by the City of Jackson, Mississippi Police Department was denied by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi Jackson Division,” wrote Tom Ciesielka of the Life Legal Defense Foundation. “Despite hours of supportive testimony and a long and well documented history of police misconduct, Judge Carlton Reeves denied a preliminary injunction prohibiting the city police from further persecution of peaceful pro-life protesters.”

The police have been arresting the Christians for the most minor of accusations.  For example, Christians have been arrested if a sign they were carrying touched the ground, with the police claiming that because it touched the ground they were “obstructing a public sidewalk.”

“We are very concerned about the potential for police mistreatment of our clients as this case awaits its day in court,” added Life Legal Defense Foundation Executive Director and President Dana Cody in response to the court’s denial of a preliminary injunction. “It is very disappointing that the district court did not acknowledge that a police department that is already behaving with impunity might perceive this as an opportunity to continue illegal harassment of private citizens exercising their constitutionally protected freedoms.”

Anti-Christianists Threaten To Sue Mississippi School

A virulent anti-Christian organization is threatening a Mississippi school district after a pastor delivered a prayer and sermon at a convocation for teachers this month.

The American Humanist Association sent a letter to the superintendent of the Jackson Public School District on Monday claiming they were representing an anonymous teacher who attended the event.  The AHA claims the teacher said attendance at the event was mandatory.

The speaker was Pastor Roy Maine, who works as an electrician in the district.  He was invited to deliver an opening prayer and he offered words of exhortation during his invocation.

The anti-Christian group says their anonymous client described the event as “one long church service.”

Attorney Monica Miller of the anti-Christian group said that if the school does not bar the use of religious speech at events they could file a lawsuit.

“This letter serves as an official notice of the unconstitutional activity and demands that the school district terminate this and any similar illegal activity immediately. To avoid legal action, we kindly ask that you notify us in writing within two weeks of receipt of this letter setting forth the steps you will take to rectify this constitutional infringement,” Miller wrote.

The school district acknowledged receiving the letter but did not offer a public response to the letter’s content.

Mississippi Abortion Law Struck Down

A Mississippi law that would have shut down the state last abortion clinic was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court even though it had the same provisions as other states where the constitutionality was upheld.

A three judge panel with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that the law was unconstitutional because it would mean women would need to travel to another state to kill their babies via abortion.  That, the court said, would cause an “undue burden” on the women who wanted to end their child’s life.

The court also said the state is “obligated” to uphold the “right” for women to kill their babies via abortion.

The Mississippi law was modeled on a Texas law that requires all abortion clinics to have abortionists with admitting privileges at a local hospital should a complication arise during the procedure.  All hospitals in the area of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization had refused to work with the abortionists.

The judge who dissented in the case said states are not required by the Constitution to provide abortion clinics, but rather to ensure the safety of anyone that wanted to operate a clinic within their state.

Tornadic Storms Kill 11 On Second Day

A tornadic storm system that killed 18 people across Arkansas, Oklahoma and Iowa Sunday killed an additional 11 people in the deep south on Monday.

Officials say that the storm also left tens of thousands without power from Kentucky through Georgia.

Massive damage was reported in Tupelo, Mississippi when a twister carved a two-mile long path that destroyed all the buildings in its path.  Officials estimate the tornado was likely an EF-3 but final determinations will have to be made by the National Weather Service.

Another twister struck Louisville, MS, 90 miles northeast of Jackson, MS.  The Winston Medical Center in the city sustained tornado damage and patients in the area have to be triaged on the ground.

States of emergency were put in place for Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.

Mississippi Could Be First State With No Abortion Provider

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit is about to decide if Mississippi will be the first state in the nation that will not have an abortion provider.

The court is considering a 2012 law that would require all abortion clinics that kill more than 10 babies per year via abortion to have physicians that are certified in obstetrics and gynecology and have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.

The law was passed in April 2012 but pro-abortionists have been challenging the law in courts since passages.  They were able to get a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction in 2013 saying it was likely unconstitutional because it would close the state’s only clinic.

Governor Phil Bryant said his intent to sign the law was to “make Mississippi abortion free.”

The 5th Circuit is the same court that upheld a Texas law with the same restrictions as the Mississippi law.  That law closes all but six clinics in Texas.

The pro-abortionists say they will “fight to the end” to make sure women can kill their babies in Mississippi via abortion.