Prayer breakfast, our fallen ones
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I wondered why , as you claim to uphold the first amendment .
I read your policy, your statement regarding the separation of. Church and state . Yes ,,our forefathers were very careful . But this was a prayer breakfast, if you were to separate church and state, no prayers would be given at all,
May I remind you that your right to oppose the opinions of a pastor with views different than yours , stems from that very same amendment .
But that is where the road ends , and then you cross into bias. When he is forbidden to exercise them.
What made his opinions on certain issues wrong, and yours right ?
The Bible is very clear.
Never forget that the first amendment allows him the right to his opinion as much as your right to not believe in it or agree with him.
Therefore my conclusion is that you , like many new secular groups that appease the government’s new secular style Christianity have just cherry picked what you want to think is correct Christianity and incorrect Christianity.
May I also remind you that your “rights” or shall I say responsibilities under the “law” stem from a certain belief system that our forefathers derived our legal system from .
That was Israel . Yes Israel .
Look it up . Our common law courts based on Isreali practice of the past .
In other words , that is why Islam cannot happily adhere to our laws .
We have laws that clearly allow us inherent rights under the creator .
We keep that in check, by respecting a non believer the same rights .
However we do not allow basic laws to be broken under this system .
Those laws, guarantee the protection of others ( whatever their beliefs are), but Islam does not, and therefore can never assimilate to our laws . You either believe in the Republic and reserve the right to uphold it’s law or you do not.
You refer to us as a democracy on your website. Though over the past 100 years or so, democracy has infiltrated our Republic and has injured it to the point that we just might lose the Republic,
(See M S King’s, ‘Killing America, 100 year murder”), it explains in detail the 40 wounds that so called ‘democrats’ have inflicted upon our society , to weaken this republic and bring it directly into socialism, then communism.
They call it democracy, to socially engineer you. Thomas Jefferson’s liberal ideas were not of the same meaning of today’s liberals, masquerading as democrats when they are clearly socialists, many are communists.
In fact the whole civil rights movement was to burden the employer, military etc ..Martin Luther King was a Marxist . Facts not fiction.
The premise of the first Amendment is to keep government out of your personal beliefs, and because the military has become an agency of the federal government , you overreach and have now acted unconstitutionally against whomever this pastor was that you ‘disagreed with ‘ because of your own secular views that are directly in line to carry out the narrative of UN.
Your website clearly shows that Christianity is fine, as long as it is your version .
Hypocritical to say the least , as you are operating under a ‘democratic’ view, not representing the Republic at all. I think the studies into our original form of government and documents, needs a closer review.
As much as you would like to make everyone happy with the separation of church and state, you will never be able to operate under a Republic that indeed had it’s whole justice system rooted from Israeli law, as history shows.
It is difficult for all of us, but remember, the common law set forth by our forefathers recognized these inherent rights, not civil rights … Inherent rights are unalienable rights such as the first amendment and given by our creator , not the government ( civil rights , as in rights of the city… under Roman law, which are privileges given by the government, not by the creator),and can be taken away. That was the whole scam of the Democratic Party and their Marxist civil rights movement .. To give the federal government more power.
Our founders would gasp. In fact , if you really want to be fair and secular…
You would abandon this Roman Canon law, that the Vatican and their Marxist regime have infiltrated our court system with, and go back to
Common law under the Magna Carta, and natural law. Laws that are inherent under the creator .
This is the common law that you speak of , or try to , on your website, I mention Islam, and the difficulty, because when you legislate law, under a different God ,,,, different laws .
Can you see the correlation now? Even though our founders did not favor one religion over another , or a view, some clearly cannot operate under our laws, due to their origin.
In short, we are a republic which guarantees us a republican form of government in each state ( as sovereign people, no one above us except the creator) , yet you adhere to the civil laws, dictated by the overreach of the de facto corporate government that has hijacked a
America since 1871. (Canon law under the crown Vatican rule).
You just discriminated against the leader of a prayer breakfast, against his constitutional first amendment right to have his beliefs as a Christian.
You defied your own policy .. To adhere to the wishes of the Obama administration, not the Christians you claim to defend.
Sincerely ,
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
John Adams, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” 1787-1788
George Washington, letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia, May 1789
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
“The civil government functions with complete success by the total separation of the Church from the State.”
James Madison, 1819, Writings, 8:432, quoted from Gene Garman, “Essays In Addition to America’s Real Religion”
Isaac Backus, An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty, 1773
1. has a significant secular (i.e., non-religious) purpose,
2. does not have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion
3. does not foster excessive entanglement between government and religion
America since 1871. (Canon law under the crown Vatican rule).”
Dear (name withheld),
I’m not sure if you disagree with us in general or just simply don’t understand the U.S. Constitution and military regulations. The separation of church and state, part of this country since its founding, does not mean that “no prayers would be given at all” as you suggest, it simply means that the government cannot and should not be in the position of promoting one faith, or belief system, over others.
I don’t know if there’s any value in going through your lengthy message point by point, but the fact is you do not understand that when people take an oath to support the Constitution and join the military, they actually do give up some of their right to free speech. People in the military are certainly free to follow whatever religion or belief system they choose, but they are not free to promote it, in an official manner, when doing so makes it appear that the military or the government is doing so.
However, having said that, the problem with the invitation to Mr. Boykin to speak is that he is well known for lacing his speeches with homophobic and Islamophobic comments and well as spreading a Christian-supremacist message, none of which are appropriate in a U.S. military-sponsored event.
I’ll attach here a message from Col. Lawrence Wilkerson that will explain more about Mr. Boykin.
You say “the Bible is very clear.” However, many women and men in the U.S. military do not recognize the Bible as being the word of God.
You suggest that “our forefathers derived our legal system from. Israel.” I don’t know where you got that idea, but it is not only wrong, it is nonsensical.
You also suggest that people of the Islamic faith “cannot happily adhere to our laws.” I’m sorry, but I don’t know the source of these outrageous notions, but someone has given you some very bad information.
I’m sorry, but as I read on I realize I’m wasting my time and yours by attempting to reason with these outrageous ideas.
I wish you well.
Best,
Dear (name withheld) –
I am writing in response to your June 5, 2016 email to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (“MRFF”). I hope you understand that your verbose email warrants an equally lengthy response – particularly since I apparently need to provide a lesson on constitutional law. So, you may want to get comfortable, turn off your cell phone, and, if you have any hard candy, please unwrap it now.
First, I want to address the facts surrounding the rescission of Lt. Gen. Boykin’s invitation to speak at Ft. Riley. MRFF did not “forbid” him from expressing his opinions, nor do we have any problem with him being a Christian. As you said, the First Amendment protects his right to express his views – and he has published enough books to prove that he is more than capable of expressing his views.
MRFF received numerous complaints from service members at Ft. Riley as a result of inviting Lt. Gen. Boykin to speak. Lt. Gen. Boykin equates serving in the military with fighting for Christ and his speeches are nothing more than religious sermons. You admit that the military is part of the government and that the government cannot dictate religious beliefs. Therefore, allowing him to speak would be a constitutional violation. This is not a matter of merely disagreeing with his opinion, but a matter of unlawful proselytizing within the military.
Government may not coerce a person into worshiping against her will, nor prohibit her from worshiping according to it. It may not prefer one religion over another or promote religion over nonbelief. It may not entangle itself with religion. And government may not, by “endorsing religion or a religious practice,” “mak[e] adherence to religion relevant to a person’s standing in the political community.”
McCreary County v. ACLU, 125 S.Ct. 2722, 2746-47 (2005) (O’Connor, J., concurring). It should also be noted that MRFF did not rescind the invitation, nor do we have any authority to rescind such an invitation. The military leadership at Ft. Riley rescinded the invitation after evaluating the complaints we reported and the applicable law. Your claim that we have acted unconstitutionally is without merit because it erroneously presumes that MRFF is a state actor suppressing the religious expression of a civilian pastor. That is not the situation – MRFF is not part of the government and we did not unlawfully prohibit Lt. Gen. Boykin’s freedom of expression. Instead, Lt. Gen. Boykin and the leadership at Ft. Riley are state actors who planned to wrongfully endorse Christianity over other religions, or no religion.
In your email, you express a number of opinions regarding the history of our legal system, the origin of our legal rights, how our court system has been “infiltrated,” etc. You offer these thoughts in a rambling, practically incoherent manner and, while you have clearly learned a variety of legal terms, you fail to use any of them correctly. Please allow me to clarify some things for you.
The term “common law” actually refers to law that is derived from judicial precedent, rather than from a statute. Many other countries, including Israel, use a common law system. In the U.S., courts apply both common law and statutory law. Therefore, even assuming arguendo that our common law system was modeled after the system of Israel, that doesn’t mean that our forefathers adopted any part of Israeli law – it only means that some law is derived from how previous cases were decided, instead of from a published statute. How a case might be decided in Israel based on its judicial precedent is irrelevant. It should also be noted that Israel does not have a formal constitution, while the U.S. obviously does.
A plain reading of the U.S. Constitution proves that your claim that, “We have laws that clearly allow us inherent rights under the creator. We keep that in check, by respecting a non believer the same rights [sic],” is not an accurate statement of the law. There is no reference to God or any creator in the U.S. Constitution. Consequently, I have some bad news for you: all of your legal rights, including those guaranteed by the First Amendment, are granted by the government – not by any creator. Additionally, religious freedom, as provided by the First Amendment, is not a matter of Christians graciously allowing non-believers to enjoy the same constitutional rights. Non-Christians are expressly granted the same constitutional protections as Christians.
Whether you like it or not, the separation of church and state is the law – regardless of whether we want to “make everyone happy.” Although the words “separation of church and state” are included verbatim in the Constitution, the phrase “separation of church and state” was used by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association to express an understanding of the intent and function of the First Amendment: “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has stated that Jefferson’s words, “may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the [First] Amendment.” Reynolds v. U.S., 98 U.S. 145 (1879). See also Everson v. Board of Edu., 330 U.S. 1 (1947) (“In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state.”). Again, even if you were correct that our legal system is “rooted from Israeli law,” our rights derive from the Constitution – not Israeli law. Further, even if our court system has been “infiltrated” by the civil rights movement or communists or any other the other “wounds” you reference, those changes now constitute valid law. Your personal belief that America has been “hijacked” since 1871 is irrelevant to the question of what the law is.
At this point, I must address your claims that “Islam cannot happily adhere to our laws” and “some clearly cannot operate under our laws, due to their origin.” Yet again, these opinions are simply not accurate statements of either fact or law. The First Amendment does not permit us to judge whether a particular religion is deserving of its protections. These statements are ignorant, hateful, and the height of hypocrisy. How dare you attempt to criticize our actions and proclaim, “the [F]irst [A]mendment allows him the right to his opinion as much as your right to not believe in it or agree with him,” while simultaneously claiming Muslims have no such protections as a result of their “origin?!” You falsely accuse us of “discriminating” against Lt. Gen. Boykin “against his constitutional first amendment [sic] right to have his beliefs as a Christian,” yet you have no problem denying constitutional rights to Muslims due to your moronic assumption that non-Christians “cannot happily adhere to our laws.” You clearly believe that only Christians have the right of free expression.
Admittedly, the First Amendment protects your right to express your ignorant opinions. However, I sincerely suggest that if you insist on being closed-minded, you remain closed-mouthed as well.
Blessed be,
Tobanna Barker
MRFF Legal Affairs Coordinator
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Pastor Joan:
I appreciate your efforts and the information you provide should definitely be put out there, I’m afraid, to use their own expression, you are throwing pearls before swine.