A federal judge in Oklahoma has dismissed a lawsuit brought by atheists against a Ten Commandments monument in the state capital.
The anti-Christian group American Atheists, based in New Jersey, filed suit on behalf of an anonymous woman who claimed about the installation of a monument to the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Oklahoma capitol building.
The State Capitol Preservation Commission argued that the woman had only seen the monument once and had traveled to the capitol solely for the purpose of being offended by the monument.
U.S. District Judge Robin Cauthron ruled that the woman lacked standing to sue because she could not prove that she had suffered any personal injury from the display.
The monument has faced suits in the past. The ACLU sued in August 2013 claiming the presence of the display was unconstitutional.
Residents of Guthrie Oklahoma were shaken up Sunday when a 4.0 magnitude earthquake struck around 10:25 p.m. local time.
The quake was centered around 3 miles south southwest of Guthrie, 25 miles north of Oklahoma City.
The U.S. Geological Survey says that the quake was the eleventh to his the state on Sunday.
The quake comes on the heels of a report in Geophysical Reseach Letters that says Oklahoma could see more frequent and stronger earthquakes.
The study, which is headed by a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survery, says that it’s possible magnitude 6 quakes could strike the state. The report shows 3,639 earthquakes in Oklahoma between late 2009 and 2014, an increase of 300 times previous decades.
Most struck around 3 miles underground along the Nemaha and Wilzetta fault zones.
A major anti-Christian organization has sent letters to school districts across Oklahoma threatening them if they do not stop Bible distributions in their schools.
The anti-Chrsitian Freedom From Religion Foundation sent letters to 26 school districts after they were told Gideon International had given Bibles to schools for students who wanted to read them.
“It is unconstitutional for public school districts to permit the distribution of Bibles as part of the public school day,” the letter, written by Staff Attorney Andrew Seidel, reads. “Courts have uniformly held that the distribution of bibles to students at public schools is prohibited.”
The anti-Christian group then compared the Gideons to child predators.
Jamison Faught of the Gideons told New American that the giving of Bibles is voluntary.
“We don’t force Bibles on anybody. We simply ask if anyone would like them,” he said.
None of the schools have yet responded to the anti-Christian group’s demands.
The US Geological Survey is reporting a cluster of earthquakes in northern Oklahoma.
The USGS said four earthquakes were recorded around Cherokee and Helena, Oklahoma since late Wednesday. The biggest was a 4.3 magnitude quake centered five miles away from Cherokee at 9:08 a.m. Thursday.
The courthouse in Cherokee reportedly suffered damage as a result of the 4.3 quake.
Amanda Kutz, office manager for the Alfalfa County Sheriff’s Department, said that no one was injured but that plaster is coming off interior walls and that their third floor’s ceiling was damaged.
The USGS says three other quakes between 2.9 and 3.8 have been recorded since Wednesday.
Oklahoma is being shaken with a series of earthquakes including two towns that had significant quakes in back to back days.
Medford, OK received the stronger of the quakes. The U.S. Geological Survey says that a 4.2 magnitude quake struck 13 miles southeast of Medford on Tuesday around 10 a.m. The same area received a 4.3 magnitude earthquake on Monday.
The quakes coincide with two quakes in the town of Perry. According to the Oklahoma Geological Survey, a 2.5 magnitude quake hit Perry on Monday followed by a 4.0 magnitude quake around dawn Tuesday morning. (The USGS recorded the quake at 3.8 magnitude.)
An earthquake was also recorded in Helena, OK, at 3.0 magnitude, while a 3.3 magnitude quake was registered near Guthrie.
A positive impact from the quake was that it shook Pleasant Vale Elementary School in Enid, Oklahoma where the students were studying plate tectonics and earthquakes.
A new bill from an Oklahoma state senator will protect public schools in the state from lawsuits by anti-Christian groups for teaching non-sectarian Bible classes.
Senator Kyle Loveless introduced Senate Bill 48 that will declare any school that offers a “religious elective” impervious to lawsuits. The bill will allow “no liability as a result of providing an elective course in the study of religion or the Bible.”
The senator explained to a local newspaper that he was spurred to introduce the bill after anti-Christianists attacked the Mustang School District that had planned to offer an elective about the history of the Bible.
“The district projected that there were going to be between 20-30 students interested in the elective. In actuality, 180 students signed up,” he said. “They were extremely disappointed in having the class canceled.”
“I don’t see anything wrong [with a provision] that gives local school districts the ability to study the historical aspects of the Bible. That’s my reasoning for the bill. It is not a forced class and this would not be a ‘Sunday School’ type course. We are not endorsing one religion over the other,” he continued.
He says that there’s no violation of church and state to teach about the history of a historical religious book.
An abortionist who has been operating since the 1980s is facing charges connected to providing abortion-inducing drugs to women who were not actually pregnant.
Nareshkumar G. Patel of Warr Acres, Oklahoma was arrested in his clinic and taken ot the Oklahoma County jail for processing.
“This type of fraudulent activity and blatant disregard for the health and well-being of Oklahoma women will not be tolerated,” said Attorney General Scott Pruitt “Oklahoma women should be able to trust that the advice they receive from their physicians is truthful, accurate and does not jeopardize their health.”
The investigation was sparked by the death from cancer of a woman named Pamela King. During her autopsy, it was discovered she had not been pregnant at a time she had an abortion performed by Patel.
An undercover investigation sent in three women who were not pregnant. Patel told the women after an ultrasound that they were pregnant and charged them $620 for abortion inducing drugs.
Patel has been the center of controversy in the past. In 1992 he burned 55 fetuses in a field near Shawnee, Oklahoma, and was never charged by police for his action.
After complaints from anti-Christian groups, an Oklahoma school board has dropped an elective course on the Bible proposed by the head of the craft chain Hobby Lobby.
The Mustang School Board has approved in April the “Museum of the Bible” curriculum that Steve Green presented to them. The class would show the Old and New Testament’s impact on American society.
The virulent anti-Christian groups Freedom From Religion Foundation and Americans United for Separation of Church and State claimed the curriculum was unconstitutional because it spoke positively about Christianity.
“The topic of a Bible course in the Mustang School District is no longer a discussion item nor is there a plan to provide such a course in the foreseeable future,” the school’s superintendent wrote, according to reports. “All students who were pre-enrolled in the elective had their schedules changed to a Humanities course or they were afforded the opportunity to select another elective.”
Officials with the Museum of the Bible seem unfazed by the outcome of the bigoted attack against them by the anti-Christian groups.
“We understand Mustang’s decision to withdraw the new, elective Bible course from consideration,” said course representative and editor Jerry Pattengale. “Museum of the Bible remains committed to providing an elective high school Bible curriculum and continues work on an innovative, high-tech course that will provide students and teachers with a scholarly overview of the Bible’s history, narrative and impact.”
The largest earthquake to shake Kansas since a series of small quakes began to shake the state last year struck Wednesday.
The 4.8 magnitude quake struck about 25 miles southwest of Wichita around 3:40 p.m. local time. The quake followed a 2.6 magnitude quake on Tuesday.
Sharon Watson of Kansas Emergency Management said only minor damage was reported throughout the region. One home reportedly had its foundation cracked by an uprooted tree.
Oklahoma officials reported no damage.
Kansas has recorded more than 90 earthquakes since 2013 according to the Kansas Geological Survey.
An admitted Satanist drove his vehicle into the Ten Commandments monument outside the Oklahoma state house, breaking it into pieces.
Michael Reed, Jr., says that Satan told him to destroy the monument and then urinate on it.
Reed destroyed the monument on Thursday and then walked into the Oklahoma City Federal Building on Friday stating that he was going to kill President Obama. He was taken into custody by the Secret Service for the threats.
Reed reportedly was placed into a mental hospital and is being indefinitely detained.
The ACLU, which had been actively trying to remove the monument, issued a condemnation of the action while still attacking Christians and those who support the monument.
“The ACLU of Oklahoma and our clients are outraged at this apparent act of vandalism,” it stated. “Our Oklahoma and federal Constitutions seek to create a society in which people of all faiths and those of no faith at all can coexist as equals without fear of repressions from the government or their neighbors. Whether it is politicians using religion as a political tool or vandals desecrating religious symbols, neither are living up to the full promise of our founding documents.”
Several elected leaders, including Governor Mary Fallin, have said they will pay money from their own pockets to rebuild the monument.