Free Speech

An Oklahoma Christian youth group is filing a lawsuit against the Owasso Public Schools system where it holds meetings because the school district is blocking its efforts to promote its club using the same method as other community groups.

Owasso district is prohibiting the "Kids for Christ" club at Northeast Elementary School from distributing fliers, making announcements and signs, and holding open house-type events to meet interested students.

The district does, however, allow groups such as the Boy Scouts and the YMCA (which stands for the Young Men's Christian Association) and businesses such as Baja Jacks Burrito Shack to promote their activities through such means. more >>

Anti-Sharia groups said their right to free speech is being compromised after a Tennessee Hotel canceled their conference, where they planned to discuss possible measures to protect the U.S. Constitution against Islamic laws.

The Sharia Awareness Action Network is "following a dual track of legal action and seeking a new venue" for its first national conference on Sharia, titled "The Constitution or Sharia: Preserving Freedom Conference," according to the group’s website. The conference's host, Hutton Hotel, reneged on its $8,000 contract to accommodate the event scheduled for Nov. 11, citing a potential risk to their employees.

SAAN Chairman William J. Murray believes the change of heart infringes on the group's right to express their sincerely-held beliefs. more >>

Leaders of a support organization for persecuted Christians are relieved that the group has been exonerated by the United Kingdom’s Charity Commission after being accused of campaigning against Muslims in Britain.

Barnabas Aid has been exonerated by the U.K. commission, which regulates charities in England and Wales, from any wrongdoing in passing out one of the group’s Operation Nehemiah booklets, Slippery Slope.

Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, international director of Barnabas Aid, told The Christian Post that while his writings address problems with Islamic extremism, the group's material such as the booklet, does not promote hatred toward Muslims. more >>

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an atheist lawsuit whose objective was to prohibit Illinois students from observing a “moment of silence” at the beginning of the school day.

Buffalo Grove High School student Dawn Sherman, the daughter of well-known atheist Rob Sherman, brought the lawsuit saying that the mandatory “moment of silence” interfered with her schoolwork and learning opportunities.

In 2007, the Illinois legislature amended a bill that mandated a “brief moment of silence” for reflection or prayer at the beginning of each school day. more >>

SANTA ANA, Calif. – Ongoing violence against Christians in Iraq has produced an accelerated exodus of believers recently and numbering in the hundreds of thousands over the last 10 years, said Open Doors USA officials.

Members of the Orange County, Calif.-based organization that provides help to persecuted believers in Jesus worldwide say that while the world’s attention has shifted to such countries as Syria, Egypt, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the mass movement of Christians in Iraq continues unabated.

Before the Gulf War in 1991, the number of Christians was about one million, stated Open Doors in a news release. “That number fell to an estimated 850,000 in 2003 at the start of the U.S.-led invasion that ended the Saddam Hussein regime. Since then the numbers have plummeted. more >>

Gay rights activists plan to protest at a New Jersey board of education meeting on Tuesday after a school teacher described homosexuality as a sin on her Facebook account. Though supporters of the teacher, Viki Knox, say her First Amendment rights should be protected, her opponents are calling on the school board to take away her job.

According to the Facebook page for Garden State Equality, an organization dedicated to supporting gay rights, the protest is being organized to tell the school board in Union Township that “it is wrong for a teacher to spew anti-LGBT hatred on Facebook in her official capacity as a teacher.”

“Ms. Knox went out of her way several times in her vicious tirade to identify herself as a teacher and to communicate as a teacher, not as a private citizen,” said Steven Goldstein, the chair and CEO of GSE, in a comment posted on GSE's Facebook page. “And in the role of teacher on Facebook, she communicated her bile to students. That is the line she crossed here – that is why the school should take action.” more >>