U.S. Supreme Court Issues Good Ruling, Sides with Religious Liberty

Religious Freedom, ,

Since 1999, the New York town of Greece has opened its monthly city meetings with prayer offered by a volunteer.

In 2007 two of the local residents, Linda Stephens and Susan Galloway, attended one of the town’s meetings, which was opened with a Christian prayer. The two ladies later sued the town, alleging that “continued Christian prayer at the opening of town meetings is unconstitutional.”

The lawsuit progressed through federal court before finally being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Today the court ruled–once again–that it is permissible to open public meetings with prayer.

Alliance Defending Freedom, who argued successfully before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Greece, stated that “the practice of town councils to acknowledge America’s religious heritage and invoke divine guidance and blessings upon their work has always been constitutional.”

We have written before about calls to prayer and prayer at public meetings during the early days of our nation. To read more about this story by our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom, click here.

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Heritage Foundation Busts Marijuana Myths

Marijuana

Last week the Heritage Foundation released a concise summary of seven common myths about marijuana and why each one is incorrect.

The myths Heritage Foundation addresses are:

  • Myth #1: Marijuana is harmless and non-addictive.
  • Myth #2: Smoked or eaten marijuana is medicine.
  • Myth #3: Countless people are behind bars simply for smoking marijuana.
  • Myth #4: The legality of alcohol and tobacco strengthen the case for legal marijuana.
  • Myth #5: Legal marijuana will solve the government’s budgetary problems.
  • Myth #6: Portugal and Holland provide successful models of legalization.
  • Myth #7: Prevention, intervention, and treatment are doomed to fail—So why try?

These are common myths–many of which we have discussed on our blog in the past. One of our most popular blog posts of all time tackles questions concerning the number of people who have died from marijuana, and we recently wrote about a study released a few weeks ago demonstrating that even casual marijuana-use can cause brain damage.

Heritage Foundation writes:

“[M]arijuana is not as dangerous as cocaine or heroin, but calling it harmless or non-addictive denies very clear science embraced by every major medical association that has studied the issue. . . .

“Mental health researchers are also noting the significant marijuana connection with schizophrenia, and educators are seeing how persistent marijuana use can blunt academic motivation and significantly reduce IQ by up to eight points, according to a very large recent study in New Zealand.”

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Marijuana may be a lot of things, but “harmless” simply is not one of them.

Click here to read Heritage Foundation’s full list of marijuana myths.

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U.S. Senator Introduces Bill to Spy Out “Hate Speech”

Current Events,

The American Family Association has issued a statement about a piece of legislation rolled out last month by Democratic Senator Edward Markey.

From AFA:

May 1, 2014

Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) has introduced legislation for the federal government to monitor and analyze speech on the Internet, television, and radio looking for anything it considers “hate speech.”

The Hate Crime Reporting Act of 2014 (S.2219) would capture Internet and other telecommunications that the government interprets as encouraging hate crimes based on gender, race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

This is a bad bill, even to the liberal Boston Herald editorial staff. It mandates that the government monitor and analyze speech and press statements that are protected by the First Amendment. The wording is deliberately fuzzy, so that although it sounds like it only addresses constitutionally unprotected speech, it reaches much further.

(more…)

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