Onslaught of legal attacks by ACLU and homosexualists on religious liberty of Christians from the Boy Scouts to American veterans
UPDATE 9/17/09: Supreme Court decides to hear case
-- From "Ninth Circuit Stays Appeal Over Use of City Land for Scout Camp" by Metropolitan News-Enterprise Staff Writer 5/18/09
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Friday stayed an appeal in a years-long dispute over whether the [California] state Constitution allows public land to be leased to organizations that discriminate on the basis of religion or sexual orientation.
A three-judge panel . . . said it would await action by the U.S. Supreme Court before Barnes-Wallace v. City of San Diego, 04-55732, can go forward.
The plaintiffs, who identify themselves as being agnostic or gay, want to evict the Desert Pacific Council of the Boy Scouts of America from Camp Balboa in San Diego’s Balboa Park and the Youth Aquatic Center on Fiesta Island, also in San Diego, for which the scouts pay nominal rent to the city.
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From "Lesbians look to boot Boy Scouts from own facilities" by Bob Unruh © 2009 WorldNetDaily 5/6/09
The case involves a series of projects by the Boy Scouts of America in San Diego. The private organization has provided millions of dollars in improvements to public facilities in exchange for their use but faces being banned because homosexuals and lesbians who never even were exposed to the work claimed their feelings were hurt.
The organization has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and now two major public interest law firms have joined them in their request.
"Radical homosexuals are attempting to use every means possible to destroy the Scouts despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that recognized their First Amendment right to have a morally-based policy excluding homosexual involvement," said Richard Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center, which worked with the the Alliance Defense Fund on the friend-of-the-court brief.
At issue in the case are leases from the city of San Diego allowing the San Diego Boy Scouts to build and operate campgrounds and an aquatic center on city property for their use and the public's.
. . . "There were no religious symbols at the facilities."
. . . Thomas More Law Center and Alliance Defense Fund lawyers . . . argue the court's "permission ideological standing rule" now creates a new threat to faith-based organizations that choose to cooperate with the government in establishing public benefit programs by subjecting them to lawsuits from people who never even "observed" anything.
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From "Christian cross complaint targets nation's faith factor" by Bob Unruh © 2009 WorldNetDaily 5/21/09
A cross erected in the remote Arizona desert by U.S. veterans in memory of their lost World War I buddies has become the focal point for an effort by the American Civil Liberties Union to eradicate references to Christianity from America's heritage.
. . . the attack on the cross in the desert . . . now needs a favorable ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court or faces demolition.
The Mojave Desert Memorial Cross has stood for more than 75 years in honor of America's lost soldiers. It was erected in 1934 by World War I veterans who saw the image of a doughboy in the shadows on the stone hillside and wanted a place to remember their lost trench-mates from the big war.
But the ACLU, representing a man from Oregon who has alleged he might drive on the desert road in Arizona and might be offended by the cross, has won lower court rulings that the cross must cease to exist.
The cross was covered in a bag when the court's ruling was released, and later encased in a plywood box so that no one could inadvertently see the representation of Christianity, officials said.
Attorneys with the Liberty Legal Institute, which calls the case a "microcosm" of the trend of hostility towards veterans' memorials in the U.S, say the impact will reach many more memorials than just the one in Arizona.
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