High court won’t hear Kent schools Bible-club case

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear the case between Kentridge High School, located in Kent, Wash., and two former students who fought to form a Bible study group that excluded non-Christians from becoming voting members.

“Obviously we were disappointed,” said Tim Chandler, legal counsel for the former students. “We were hoping the Supreme Court would resolve it.”

The school in 2003 denied a charter for the group, called Truth, saying its membership requirements discriminated against students who refused to sign a statement accepting Jesus as their personal savior. Truth founders argued that the school denied their First Amendment rights and violated the Equal Access Act by preventing them from forming a group according to their religious beliefs.

Truth’s founders filed their case with one major question in mind: Can a school district refuse to charter student organizations that restrict membership based on religion?

District and appellate courts responded with a resounding “yes.”

Usually when the Supreme Court refuses to hear a case, that means it’s over, but a legal loophole means this six-year battle might stick around.

Lawyers for the two former students say they might refile the case — starting over in U.S. District Court — with a different legal question: Did Kentridge High School already allow something similar?

Attorneys are researching whether some boys’ and girls’ groups — what Lind calls “vestiges of an older age” — at the school might have once limited their membership based on gender, putting them in a similar legal situation as Truth.

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Guns invited to church

A man with a firearm listens to Pastor Ken Pagano during the “Open Carry Celebration” at New Bethel Church in Louisville, Ky. Photo: Reuters

A gun-toting Kentucky pastor says it’s OK to bring your weapon to church – at least for one day.

Ken Pagano asked his flock to bring their handguns – in holsters – to New Bethel Church in Louisville for an event celebrating the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to bear arms.

As the event started on Saturday, about 40 people – many carrying small firearms – sat in the Pentecostal church sanctuary.

“We really didn’t know what to expect as far as turnout,” Pagano said before the service started. “I think we’ve got more media than anybody right now.”

The pastor said high summer temperatures in Louisville may have been keeping church members at home.

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Silencing the Christians: Valedictorian takes case to high court

The Rutherford Institute is taking the case of a valedictorian’s graduation speech to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The lawsuit involves Brittany McComb’s speech at the 2006 Foothill High School graduation ceremony in Henderson, Nev. John Whitehead heads The Rutherford Institute.

“She was asked by school officials to talk about what was the most important thing in her life, and she wanted to mention her Christian beliefs — and they told her she couldn’t do that in her speech,” he notes. “So the day of her speech came and she decided to do it, and just as she got one of the so-called ‘God’ words out and wanted to talk about Christ, the microphones were turned off by school officials.”

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Christian blocked from evangelizing at Arab festival

A law firm that defends and promotes Christian heritage and moral values has filed suit on a behalf of a Sudanese Christian who recently was barred from handing out Christian literature in the streets of Dearborn, Mich.

For the last five years, Pastor George Saieg and his volunteers had descended on Dearborn during its annual Dearborn Arab International Festival to pass out literature and share the gospel. Pastor Saieg is a founder and director of the Arabic Christian Perspective, which ministers to Muslims. An estimated 30,000 of Dearborn’s 98,000 residents are Muslims.

Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Ann Arbor-based Thomas More Law Center, says at this year’s event, police told Saieg there would be restrictions on where he could conduct his activities. “They said, ‘We’re not going to allow you to walk the streets with your group. You’re going to have to be in one place. And people would have to approach you for your ability to pass out literature,’” he points out.

 

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Tipton to head state Pentecostals

Members of Mississippi’s United Pentecostal churches have a new leader.

David Tipton Jr. was elected superintendent of the Mississippi District of the United Pentecostal Church International during the district’s annual minister’s conference last month in Raymond.

“I’m humbled that my fellow ministers would choose me as superintendent of a great district,” Tipton said in a news release, “and I love Mississippi from Corinth to Waveland and from Pascagoula to Southaven.”

Tipton has served as pastor of the Pentecostals of Grenada for 14 years. He’s also been the executive director of promotions and publications for the Home Missions Division of the UPCI, chairman of the Revival and Evangelism Committee, sectional youth director, sectional Sunday school director and on the Church Growth Committee.

As district superintendent, the top elected UPCI government leader in Mississippi, Tipton will serve the 400-plus ministers in Mississippi and represent them on the General Board when they convene at the World Evangelism Center in St. Louis.

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Homosexuals angry with Obama for minimal provision

A Christian pastor and staunch opponent of same-sex “marriage” says President Obama threw a bone to homosexual activists Wednesday, but they’re acting like “playground bullies” because he’s not moving quickly enough to enact their top priorities.

President Obama signed a White House memorandum Wednesday to provide benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. Homosexual activists are unimpressed with the move because the benefits do not include access for same-sex partners to health and retirement plans. The federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, signed by President Clinton in 1996, prohibits the government from extending health and retirement benefits to the partners of homosexual employees.
Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr., chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, believes President Obama issued the directive in order to placate homosexual activists who are upset that the Obama Justice Department defended DOMA in a legal brief earlier this month — a move that was at odds with Obama’s campaign pledge to repeal DOMA.

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Abortionist Killed: National News — Abortionist Kills Woman: Ignored

HYANNIS, Mass. — Abortionist George Tiller’s death brought an outpouring of national media headlines and Congressional condolences to his family by a resolution approved by the U.S. House. Laura Hope Smith’s death at the hands of an abortionist was and continues to be ignored and her mother’s effort to bring it to the attention of her senator was stonewalled.

“Where was the press when my daughter Laura died at the hands of an abortionist?” asks Eileen Smith, Laura’s mother. A media search shows mostly news reports from nonprofit organizations, religious news and other alternative media.

Laura’s death was mentioned 10 months later in one major publication, The Boston Globe, when the abortionist was indicted for manslaughter. It was 6 weeks before her local paper, the Cape Cod Times, mentioned Laura’s death, although it sought out her mother for a two-hour interview just 2 days after Laura’s death. Smith says the local newspaper rationalized delaying a report on Laura’s death so it could corroborate it with an autopsy report.

“Since when has news been postponed in lieu of reporting facts except in the abortion deaths of the mothers?” asks Smith. “I have to believe that it is only because the media’s bias toward abortion determines what makes news,” she said.

“If Laura had died falling off a bike or in a car accident, it would have been in the paper the next day,” she said. “My daughter walked into that abortion facility healthy and she left dead,” Smith said.

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Survey: Family time eroding as Internet use soars

NEW YORK (AP) – Whether it’s around the dinner table or just hanging out in the den, U.S. families say they are spending less time together.

The decline in family time coincides with a rise in Internet use and the popularity of social networks, though a new study stopped just short of assigning blame.

The Annenberg Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California is reporting this week that 28 percent of Americans it interviewed last year said they have been spending less time with members of their households. That’s nearly triple the 11 percent who said that in 2006.

These people did not report spending less time with their friends, however.

Michael Gilbert, a senior fellow at the center, said people report spending less time with family members just as social networks like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are booming, along with the importance people place on them.

Five-year-old Facebook’s active user base, for example, has surged to more than 200 million active users, up from 100 million last August.

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Swine Flu Spread at Dayton Apostolic Church Youth Trip

Two Dayton Public School students have swine flu, also know as H1N1 flu virus.  The first case was confirmed in a Butler High School sophomore on 1 June.  He was apparently exposed to the virus during a Memorial Day Kings Island trip.  The trip was organized by the Light Street Apostolic Church, and the boy likely contracted the virus from a 15-year-old Clark County girl who went on the church trip as well.

Ohio had 38 confirmed cases as of 10:30 am on 8 June.

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