The U.S. Navy has issued a directive ordering the removal of all Bibles from lodges and hotels run on U.S. Navy bases after complaints from an vehemently anti-Christian organization.
“The current direction is to remove all religious material from Navy Lodge guest rooms,” read an email to a Navy chaplain from The Navy Exchange Service Command (NEXCOM). “For those Navy Lodges with religious materials currently in guest rooms, the Navy Lodge General Manager will contact the Installation Chaplain’s office who will provide guidance on the removal procedure disposition of these materials.”
The American Family Association who received a separate copy of the e-mail directive confirmed the e-mail’s contents.
The violently anti-Christian Freedom From Religion Foundation has filed a complaint with the military claiming the existence of the Bibles in the hotel room meant the government was automatically endorsing the text.
Kathleen Martin, a spokesman for NEXCOM, avoided giving a direct answer to the issue when confronted by FoxNews reporter Todd Starnes.
“We looked at our policy — and realized there wasn’t a consistent policy regarding Navy Lodges,” she told Starnes. “We decided we needed to have some consistency and be consistent with the Navy.”
The Bibles were placed free by the Gideons.
County commissioners in Mobile County have stood up to anti-Christianists furious that they posted a plaque with the national motto, “In God We Trust.”
The Mobile County Commission had voted in June 2-1 to display the national motto in the Government Plaza despite the outcry of anti-Christianists who said that any reference to God is automatically endorsing Christianity.
“I strongly urge the commission to reject the display ‘In God We Trust’,” anti-Christianist Amanda Scott told the Commissioners. “It would only serve to divide Mobile on religion when we’re already so divided on other issues.”
Commissioner Jerry Carl said that the word “God” is universal to multiple faiths and that it doesn’t designate a specific faith.
Anti-Christianists and other groups responded by attempting to pay for plaques that would promote their views over everyone else but the Commissioners rejected them all, instructing those who have an issue with the national motto to take it up with Congress.
A federal judge has ordered the city of Bloomfield, New Mexico to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from city property in response to a lawsuit from anti-Christianists.
U.S. District Judge James A. Parker issued a ruling that the 3,000 pound monument violated the First Amendment because its existence meant a government “establishment of religion.”
“In view of the circumstances surrounding the context, history, and purpose of the Ten Commandments monument, it is clear that the City of Bloomfield has violated the Establishment Clause because its conduct in authorizing the continued display of the monument on City property has had the primary or principal effect of endorsing religion,” he wrote in his ruling.
The monument was placed in 2011 after the city passed a resolution allowing private citizens the right to post historical displays at the Bloomfield City Hall.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the city to make sure the reference to Judaism and Christianity was removed from public view.
“I am surprised and had never really considered the judge ruling against it because it’s a historical document just like the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights,” Mayor Scott Eckstein said to the Farmington Daily Times. “The intent from the beginning was that the lawn was going to be used for historical purposes, and that’s what the council voted on.”
The Centers for Disease Control has issued their highest alert activation over the Ebola outbreak.
Dr. Tom Frieden, CDC Director, announced on the social network Twitter Wednesday the operations center has moved to a “level one response.”
The last two times the CDC has elevated to a level one was the 2009 outbreak of bird flu and to cover the aftermath of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. The level one is basically an “all hands on deck” order to stop the outbreak of disease.
The increase by the CDC is coming in the wake of Nigerian authorities admitting they did not immediately quarantine a sick man who arrived on an airplane that later died of Ebola. At least one other person directly connected to the man died of the disease and five others are confirmed to have the virus.
“What we do know is that the Ebola virus, both currently and in the past, is controllable if you have a strong public health infrastructure in place,” President Obama said. “The countries that have been affected are the first to admit that what’s happened here is that their public health systems have been overwhelmed. They weren’t able to identify and then isolate cases quickly enough. You did not have a strong trust relationship between some of the communities that were affected and public health workers. As a consequence, it spread more rapidly than has been typical with the periodic Ebola outbreaks that have occurred previously.”
Dr. Pritish Tosh of the Mayo Clinic said that the conditions in the field to deal with Ebola are nowhere near the level of industrialized countries like the United States.
The Islamic terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has released a statement that they are planning to take over the United States.
“I say to America that the Islamic Caliphate has been established,” Abu Mosa, a spokesman for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), said in a video. “Don’t be cowards and attack us with drones. Instead send your soldiers, the ones we humiliated in Iraq. We will humiliate them everywhere, God willing, and we will raise the flag of Allah in the White House.”
A group called VICE Media, who embedded a reporter with the terrorist group for three weeks, released the video.
The terrorist group also said in their announcement that the city of Raqqa is now the capital of their newly declared Islamic nation.
The video release came the same day that President Obama authorized air attacks by U.S. forces on the terrorist group.
“To stop the advance on Erbil, I’ve directed our military to take targeted strikes against ISIL terrorist convoys should they move toward the city,” Obama elaborated, using the acronym for another name the terror group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. “We intend to stay vigilant, and take action if these terrorist forces threaten our personnel or facilities anywhere in Iraq, including our consulate in Erbil and our embassy in Baghdad.”
All U.S. airlines are now required to have authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration or another U.S. governmental agency before flying in the airspace above Iraq.
All flights are prohibited “due to the potentially hazardous situation created by the armed conflict” according to the agency.
The announcement came after two airstrikes that targeted the Islamic State militants outside of Erbil.
Officials stated that the FAA’s ban will be reevaluated by the end of the year.
The city of Overland Park, Kansas has learned a very expensive lesson about violating the religious freedom of Christians.
The city has paid $50,000 in legal fees after a court ruled the violated the rights of Christians who were handing out materials about their soccer camp at a city-owned soccer complex. The city had banned Victory Through Jesus Sports Ministries from handing out flyers on the sidewalk. The U.S. District Court ruled that there was no difference between those sidewalks and any other public sidewalk.
Gordon Hunjak of Victory Through Jesus Sports Ministries filed suit after they were threatened with arrest for continuing to hand out the materials. The city then passed a law saying that the soccer park and surrounding area was “a non-public forum.”
The city’s defense to the court was that they were trying to control litter and the flow of pedestrian traffic into the facility. The court said if that was really the case, the response of the city was excessive.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented Hunjak, said in a statement that the case should warn other cities that it is important to respect the religious freedom of citizens.
A major abortion facility in Austin, Texas closed last week as a result of the pro-woman legislation that was passed last year.
Whole Woman’s Health of Austin, which has been ending the lives of babies via abortion for over ten years, announced the immediate closure of the facility. The abortionists said they had to close because of House Bill 2.
“House Bill 2 … has forced us into yet another closure, this time because we’re unable to meet the standards of an ambulatory surgical center at this location,” a statement read.
The closing of the center comes two years after the center was fined $22,000 by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for dumping babies killed at the facility in a landfill.
A report from the University of Texas at Austin says the number of babies in Texas who have died from abortion has fallen 13% over the last year.
Nancy Writebol, the missionary with SIM USA who became infected with Ebola while working in a relief hospital in Liberia, has arrived in Atlanta to be treated at Emory University Hospital.
Doctors at Emory University Hospital have confirmed that Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly, who was transported last week, are being given a very experimental vaccine for Ebola that had never been tested in humans.
Officials say that both Writebol and Brantly agreed to be “human guinea pigs” for the vaccine and went into it knowing the side effects of the drug would be unknown.
A spokesman for Samaritan’s Purse said that both patients saw marked improvements in their conditions after undergoing the experimental treatment. Dr. Brantly has even been able to visit with his family although separated by several layers of thick glass.
SIM USA released information that said Writebol became infected while she was working to disinfect the protective suits worn by the doctors and nurses inside the isolation ward.
A video leaked online from the Chicago Islamic Center shows a local imam telling those in attendance to “wage jihad” against Israel “for the sake of Allah.”
The clips of the video were released by the Middle East Media Research Institute showing the rant from Sheikh Mohamed Elimam in July.
“Oh, those of you who want to wage jihad for the sake of Allah, Palestine is calling you and Gaza is crying out for your help,” he declares. “If you are true believers, real mujahideen, hasten to Palestine. The enemy was planted in the midst of the Arab nation and they chose Jerusalem, Palestine—the most important area—in order to be a thorn in the side of the Arab and Islamic nations. May Allah pull this thorn out and stick it down their throats. May they be sent back to their countries in shame and disgrace, Allah willing.”
The video shows those in attendance chanting for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews.
The similar message was delivered to the crowd at a pro-Hamas rally in Miami that led to a Jewish photographer having to flee because of the threat of violence.