Will Supreme Court Stand for Our Freedoms?
By Gina Miller
AMericanClarion.com
Back in September on this broadcast I reported on a stupidly wrong ruling by a three-judge panel ofCalifornia’s 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. You may recall the story. From my September radio blog broadcast,
“The communist Left’s campaign to drive every hint of God from our nation’s classrooms continues. In case you missed the story from a couple of weeks ago, the latest twist in the case of the assault on one teacher’s freedom of speech has been a blow dealt by the notoriously leftist 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled that school district authorities did not violate the teacher’s right to freedom of speech when they ordered him to remove patriotic banners from his classroom that included the name of God.
This ordeal began back in 2007 when Brad Johnson, a math teacher in San Diego’s Westview High School of the Poway Unified School District, was ordered by the school’s principal to remove the banners.”
One
of Mr. Johnson’s banners displayed the phrases,
“In God We Trust,” “One Nation Under God,” “God
BlessAmerica,” and “God Shed His Grace On Thee,”
and another had the line from the Declaration of
Independence, “All Men Are Created Equal, They
Are Endowed By Their Creator.” He had been
displaying those banners in his classroom for 25
years for the first banner and 17 years for the
second, but in ’07, the politically correct,
anti-Christian principal ordered him to take
down the banners, because they mention the name
of God.
Besides the obvious violation of Mr. Johnson’s rights, another truly crummy aspect to this story is the fact that the same school district allows teachers in other classrooms to display Tibetan prayer flags, pictures of Buddha, the Dalai Lama, Muslim leader Malcolm X, and even the lyrics to John Lennon’s anti-religion song, “Imagine.”
In this California school district, anything goes, except the name of God. In a state wherelawmakers have mandated the pushing of the radical sodomite agenda to indoctrinate the state’s captive audience of public school children with a pro-homosexual curriculum, any hint of the Lord is extremely offensive to the minions of Hell who run that state.
Not being an easily-cowed Christian, Mr. Johnson sued the school district for violating his First Amendment rights, and he prevailed in the court of a federal judge. As WND reported at the time,
“A federal judge in California has handed down a scathing ruling against a school that required one of its teachers to remove signs celebrating the role of God in American history from his classroom walls.
… ‘May a school district censor a high school teacher’s expression because it refers to Judeo-Christian views, while allowing other teachers to express views on a number of controversial subjects, including religion and anti-religion?’ posited U.S. District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez in his judgment. ‘On undisputed evidence, this court holds that it may not.’
He continued, ‘That God places prominently in our nation’s history does not create an Establishment Clause violation requiring curettage and disinfectant for Johnson’s public high school classroom walls. It is a matter of historical fact that our institutions and government actors have in past and present times given place to a supreme God.’
The judge further reprimanded the school, stating that while teachers at the district ‘encourage students to celebrate diversity and value thinking for one’s self, [they] apparently fear their students are incapable of dealing with diverse viewpoints that include God’s place in American history and culture.”
That was a solid and correct ruling and a refreshing one in light of so many anti-Christian court rulings nowadays. But, school district leaders were not going to tolerate the presence of God’s name that easily, so they filed an appeal to the 9th Circuit which quickly shot down the lower court’s ruling with a hypocritical, dead-wrong ruling of its own.
Now, the Thomas More Law Center, which is representing Mr. Johnson, is appealing the 9thCircuit ruling to the Supreme Court. From a Thomas More press release on Tuesday,
“He displayed the banners pursuant to a 30-year school district policy that permitted teachers to maintain classroom displays of non-curricular messages that reflected their personal opinions and values. In effect, the school district designated classroom walls as forum for the expression of the teacher’s private opinions and viewpoints.
However, in 2007 school officials ordered Johnson to remove his banners because they promoted a ‘Judeo-Christian’ viewpoint.
In an outrageous case of double standard, school officials allowed other teachers to display non-Christian religious displays in their classrooms.
… Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center, commented, ‘This case is a prime example of how public schools across our nation are cleansing our classrooms of our Christian heritage while promoting atheism and other non–Christian religions under the guise of cultural diversity.’
Continued Thompson, ‘The Ninth Circuit Court’s rationale in allowing the Tibetan Prayer Flags and references to other religions while outlawing America’s patriotic slogans that mention God is unconvincing. Brad Johnson was simply exercising his free speech rights in a forum created by the school district to inform students of the religious foundations of our nation.’
Attempts to get a rehearing in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals failed, and so the Law Center pursued its only remaining option– a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari (appeal) to the United States Supreme Court.”
Now, our God-given, First Amendment-protected rights are at the mercy of the Supreme Court of the United States. Even though this case is representing a lone teacher in California, it truly represents each of us in America, because of the implications of precedent. If the High Court refuses to hear the case or rules against Mr. Johnson, it would be a major blow to freedom of religion, speech and expression for all Americans, not to mention, it would be unconstitutional for the Court to rule against the First Amendment.
This year, the Supreme Court must also rule on the constitutionality of the clearly unconstitutional individual mandate in the atrocious Obamacare legislation. One disappointing bit of news is that the Court has just refused to consider a hearing to determine if Elena Kagan should recuse herself from the case, since she has a conflict of interest, having reportedly helped create and defend the Obamacare legislation when she was acting as Obama’s Solicitor General Cheerleader.
It is a frightening time in our nation’s history when we see our Supreme Court just a single swing vote away (Justice Kennedy) from undoing our country as founded. And, if Barack Obama (or whatever his name is) is somehow reelected (by hook and crook), then we are looking at the prospect of his being able to tip the Court over to a radical leftist, firm majority. He has already appointed two unqualified, radical leftist women to the Court in his first term. As the Judicial Watch website noted last November,
“Obama’s two Supreme Court appointments (Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan) also have documented histories of bias and favoring liberal causes or favored groups. Sotomayor was a top policy maker at the leftist Puerto Rico Legal Defense and Education Fund and a member of the open-borders National Council of La Raza. Her race-conscious and activist judicial philosophy was in full force during her Supreme Court debut when she introduced a pair of new terms aimed at describing illegal immigrants in a more friendly and politically correct way.
Kagan is a liberal activist and political operative with no experience as a judge. This month Judicial Watch obtained internal documents that indicate Kagan was involved in crafting Obamacare during her time as solicitor general. This is important because Kagan will likely participate in the Supreme Court’s upcoming deliberations to review the constitutionality of the controversial healthcare law. As the president’s top advocate Kagan was responsible for drafting the measure’s defense in the event of a legal challenge.”
We are certainly living in dangerous times for the future of America. I am weary of watching with dread the actions of our government and courts, but I pray that the Supreme Court will do the right thing this year: defend our freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and drive a stake through the heart of the hellish socialized medicine law of Obamacare.