Rising Persecution of U.S. Christians
Friday, September 21, 2012 (2:58 am)
By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Worthy News)– A joint report by Liberty Institute and the Family Research Council shows that anti-Christian persecution is not only increasing in America, but that it's coming from our own government.
"There are children being prohibited from writing Merry Christmas to the soldiers, senior citizens being banned from praying over their meals in the Senior Center, the VA banning the mention of God in military funerals, numerous attempts to have veterans memorials torn down if they have any religious symbols, such as a cross, and I could go on and on," said Liberty Institute Founder Kelly Shackleford.
"Religious hostility is the red light on the dashboard that tells us we have a problem and that violence will come next if not fixed," Shackleford said. "The recent attacks on the faith-based Family Research Council and the attack on the Sikhs are recent examples alone."
Many public facilities are also masking American Christianity, according to ACLJ senior counsel David French.
"One of the most strident examples: the misuse of the Establishment Clause to attempt to ban any mention of God from historical markers, monuments or even museum exhibits. This represents an effort to whitewash God from American history and change our national identity."
French said that though the Obama administration has contributed to this, it didn't begin with his inauguration; in fact, anti-Christian persecution has been stewing here in America for decades.
"While the Obama administration launched its own unprecedented assault on religious liberty through Obamacare, the attack on Christian expression is the result of cultural changes that have been taking place for decades … the trend began with the advent of the sexual revolution and the mainstreaming of the 1960s counterculture. As leftist radicals have progressed through the academy, media, churches and government, the trend has only accelerated."
Shackleford said a plethora of new court cases has sped-up this trend.
"The seeds for these attacks were dropped in Supreme Court opinions in the ’40s and it really began to take off in the 1960s. The thing that is shocking now, and different, is that the attacks have dramatically picked up speed. There can be as many as 100 new attacks in a month. While Liberty Institute has the highest win rate of any group in the country at over 99 percent, we just can’t currently cover all these with our current resources."
Other examples of anti-Christian persecution by the U.S. government in the joint report are:
- Federal judges who threatened to incarcerate a high school valedictorian unless she removed all references to Jesus from her graduation speech and who decided that prayer before a state House of Representatives couldn't be to Jesus.
- Public school officials who prohibited students from handing out gifts containing religious messages and who stopped another student from handing out flyers inviting classmates to a church event.
- The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs ban against any mention of God in veterans’ funerals, despite the desires of families of the deceased.
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