Free Speech

A sheriff in Onslow County, N.C. is taking heat from a national atheist organization after he purchased an advertisement in the local newspaper declaring that “the Truth of God” is greater than the opinions of those who hold doctoral degrees.

"I don't make it any secret. I am a Christian, and I'm referred to by the reporters with the local papers as a 'devout Christian.' I think there's only one way to be a Christian, and that is to be exactly what you feel like Christ wants you to be,” said Sheriff Ed Brown in an interview with The Christian Post on Monday.

The advertisement, which is written in letter format and is addressed to “All Decent and Respectable Citizens of a Decent and Respectable Society,” features the county sheriff's logo and is signed by Brown. In the ad he states that American citizens have a tendency to trust men who are highly educated rather than God (though he mistakenly refers to them as those with “doctrinal” degrees rather than those with “doctoral” degrees). more >>

Emma Sullivan, 18, has decided not to issue a letter of apology to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, she announced on Sunday via Twitter.

The Shawnee Mission East senior made headlines last week when she tweeted that the governor “sucked” and that (hashtag) “heblowsalot.” She tweeted her comments when she was participating in a Youth in Government program last week in Topeka, Kan., in which her fellow students listened to Brownback give a speech.

Brownback’s office saw the tweet when doing their daily monitoring of the social media atmosphere for any mentions of the governor. When the office came across Sullivan’s tweet, they immediately complained to the high school about the student’s “disrespectful” statement. more >>

The horrendous pepper spraying of peaceful student protesters on the University of California Davis campus has become an Internet meme, and almost overnight, gone viral.

The meme is mischievously named “Casually Pepper Spray Everything" or "Casually Pepper Spraying Cop," and it has popped up all over the Internet, depicting police officer Lt. John Pike, well, casually pepper spraying everything.

Many of the pictures show the officer, who has since been placed on administrative leave for his actions, spraying anything from famous artwork, such as Picasso’s “Guernica” and Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory,” to spraying celebrities, like Glenn Beck, Lindsay Lohan, and Gandhi, among others. more >>

A church in Tennessee plans to be the site of an anti-Sharia conference next week after organizers were forced by a Nashville hotel to cancel the group’s first-ever national event.

Pastor Maury Davis of Cornerstone Church in Madison told The Christian Post that he allowed the Sharia Awareness Action Network to rent the church for the event because the group will provide an educational experience and not simply an opportunity for “hate speech” as some have claimed.

Hutton Hotel backed out of its $8,000 contract to accommodate the event scheduled for Nov. 11, citing potential security issues and a risk to its employees. more >>

The Chinese government is enforcing tighter restrictions on social media and instant messaging.

A statement released Wednesday by the Communist party central committee signals a new initiative to rein in a growing surge of free speech on “Weibo” microblogs - a Twitter-like social media platform that has given Chinese citizens an unprecedented opportunity to previously taboo topics and criticize the government.

The document, carried by the official government newspaper The People’s Daily, stated that the government plans to “strengthen guidance and administration of social internet services and instant communication tools, and regulate the orderly dissemination of information.” more >>

Two parents from New Jersey who named their children "Adolf Hitler" and "Aryan Nation" have officially lost custody, despite the court not finding any proof of physical abuse.

It has been reported that the court ruled it can take away children from parents without cause.

"The judge and [the Division of Youth and Family Services] told us that there was no evidence of abuse and that it was the names! They were taken over the children's names," said Hitler's and Aryan's father, Heath Campbell, according to NBC 10 News in Philadelphia. more >>