IRS Harassment
The firestorm continues around the Internal Revenue Service‘s alleged politically-motivated manipulation of non-profit organizations’ applications for tax-exempt status. Now ABC News reports the career-bureaucrat who ran the IRS’s tax-exempt organizations division has been promoted, and now heads its Affordable Care Act division, where most of private citizens’ medical and financial information will pour, as “Obamacare” is implemented and government’s intimidating powers are alarmingly expanded.
Add to these revelations a letter sent to the White House by Franklin Graham, asserting that the IRS is improperly targeting religious charities for investigation, including the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the global relief agency, Samaritan’s Purse. Mr. Graham’s complaint is one of similar allegations by churches and charitable organizations. May God help us!
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/17/official-in-irs-scandal-to-run-obamacare-division/
Close All Pot Shops
Issuing a unanimous ruling, the California Supreme Court has recently affirmed the right of local governments to ban pot shops. Justice Marvin Baxter, writing for the state high court, said marijuana dispensaries “may pose a danger of increased crime, congestion, blight, and drug abuse.”
Pro-family leaders in California applaud this ruling and now urge city and county officials to close all pot shops. Drawing from documented sources, Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com, says “Today’s marijuana is much more mind-altering than decades ago. Smoking pot regularly causes brain abnormalities in teens and young adults, and harms people’s lungs faster than smoking cigarettes. Most of those frequenting pot shops are ‘recreational users’ posing as ‘medicinal users.’”
See his short-video and documented facts at MarijuanaHarmsFamilies.com.
Rights and Wrongs of Re-defining Marriage
Marriage is defined as: the institution whereby men and women are joined in a special kind of social and legal dependence, for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family. Yet, Delaware has become the 11th state to reject that historic definition and recognize homosexual-unions as legal marriages.
This is not simply about letting two individuals live however they choose. Rather, it’s about radically reshaping society by legally forcing others to accept, approve and accommodate activities to which they morally object.
Business owners are told they have to change their beliefs or expose their businesses to fines or closure. Christian hospitals and social service organizations are suddenly told they must change their doctrines or close their doors. And parents don’t even have a right to be notified when a school system teaches their children content that radically conflicts with their moral beliefs! This is wrong.
Religious rights will suffer by re-defining marriage.
Celebrating Jerusalem Day!
This year, May 8th is Jerusalem Day in Israel. This minor national holiday there commemorates the reunification of Jerusalem and the establishment of Israeli control over the Old City, in June of 1967.
When Israel declared its statehood in 1948, in accord with the UN Partition Plan, it immediately was attacked by six of its Arab neighbors. Jordan took control of east Jerusalem and the Old City, and after months of fighting, a cease fire was established before the Jews could dislodge the Jordanians. The Jewish residents were forced out, while the occupying Jordanians demolished 58 synagogues and denigrated the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
This state of affairs changed in 1967, as a result of the Six-Day War, where Israel again defended its citizens and captured the Old City of Jerusalem, liberating the ancient Temple Mount and Western Wall. Jerusalem Day celebrates this historic reunification!
See this helpful video: The Israeli Palestinian Conflict: 10 Myths Preventing Peace
Religious Freedoms Faltering?
Millions of Americas participated recently in the National Day of Prayer. Many met in houses of worship, others met in hotel ballrooms, and some even gathered around flag poles at local city halls. Religious belief and practice form the foundation of a healthy civil society and should be safeguarded in our laws and culture.
Alarmingly, some religious freedoms are faltering, due to increasingly antagonistic actions by the current Administration toward the role of faith in the public square. Even military chaplains are now being threatened with court marshal trials, if they share their religious beliefs in counsel with a non-believer.
Protecting the freedom of individuals and organizations to live out their faith in public ways—not trampling religious liberty through coercive government dictates—can ensure that more people enjoy the benefits of religious practice and service, as intended by our Founders and guaranteed in our Constitution.
