Student Back in Class After Being Suspended Over Pro-Life Shirt

10/28/05 Citizenlink.org

A Georgia high-school student was back in school today after being suspended earlier this week for refusing to take off his pro-life shirt, the Associated Press reported.

Brian Ramirez's black sweatshirt read, "Abortion is Homicide." When a teacher asked him to take it off, he refused and was sent to the principal's office. Assistant Principal Coley Krug told him he would get no credit in class every day he wore the shirt.

"It's just something I feel very strongly about," Ramirez said. "I just don't think people understand or take the time to understand my point of view."

Krug said Ramirez was being disciplined because he disobeyed his teacher's request.

Laura Nurse, a spokeswoman for Gwinnett County schools, said the incident will not be in Ramirez's school records.

"Once the issue was fully investigated," she said, "it was determined that there was no substantial disruption in the classroom, nor was there any disciplinary or dress code infraction."

Ohio Library Backs Off its Attempt to Shut Out Religious Speech

Family Policy Network (www.familypolicy.net)

The president of Liberty Counsel says an Ohio library has settled in a lawsuit over its policy which banned controversial speech. Mat Staver says in May his legal firm asked the Newton Falls Library for use of their community room to give presentations on the biblical perspective of marriage. Staver says they included in the application the fact that there would be prayer and scripture reading. “This particular library policy said that if the program deals with a controversial subject, then all sides of the issue must be presented,” he explains. “After we filed our application, the library director sent the application back and denied the application – and in the denial section he said the reason is that we were dealing with a controversial subject.” Staver says it is ridiculous for the library to have a policy like this because it lends itself to censorship. So they filed a federal lawsuit, and the library quickly agreed to remove the policy removing all sides to be presented in discussions of “controversial” issues. “The library now has agreed to repeal that offending language and enter into a court-approved settlement so that this kind of a policy does not resurface again,” he says. Liberty Counsel plans to now go back to the Newton Falls Library to give its marriage presentation.

MY JOURNAL ENTRY FOR TODAY:

October 13, 2005

I heard people – both who were presently in seminary or who finished seminary – say to me: “Be careful when you go to school. Make sure to reserve some time everyday away from your theological studies so you can spend time with the Lord so you won’t become unspiritual.” While these dear people are sincere in their advice, unfortunately, there’s a faulty assumption that has become underlain with such thinking. And that is this: that somehow intellectual pursuits of God automatically will tend one towards becoming less spiritual. Granted, the Scriptures do say that knowledge puffs up (1 Corinthians 8:1). But attaining it doesn’t have to lead to a hardness of heart. On the contrary, as I try to contemplate the greatness and grandeur of the Lord Almighty through my academic studies, I CAN’T HELP but fall to my knees in wonder and amazement of how awesome He is! Intellectual study, if we approach it correctly, can make us become more worshipful of the King of Kings! Theological study should lead to worship which might entail me popping in a CD and singing to Him, or it might involve going out and sharing with a complete stranger on High Street next to OSU, or it might involve mowing my neighbors grass. I have done all of these things before, 2 of which I just did today. But not only do these things qualify as worship; I may also choose to worship Him by picking back up my big, thick, difficult-to-read at times, heady theological book and re-engage in the necessary discipline of further study in order to make myself better equipped (2 Timothy 3:16), allowing His glory to transform me, chiseling me into a sharper, more finely-tuned instrument in my Master’s hands, for His wonderful purposes and pleasure! By His Grace, may He always be glorified through my life!

“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-39 NIV)

Amen.

Dr. Dobson to Set the record straight on Supreme Court nominee Miers

by Pete Winn, associate editor of CITIZENLINK, October 10, 2005
Focus on the Family broadcast will clear up the controversy over what information he possesses.

Dr. James Dobson will devote his Wednesday and Thursday Focus on the Family radio programs to answering critics who have dogged him over comments he made last week concerning Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers.

The founder and chairman of Focus on the Family spoke to listeners from his heart just days after Miers was nominated by President Bush, saying he supported her in part because of things he had been told by White House adviser Karl Rove.

"I can't reveal it all," Dobson said at the time, "because I do know things that I'm privy to that I can't describe because of confidentiality."

Over the weekend, Dobson was the talk of the talk show circuit over those comments, with some critics demanding to know if he had been assured whether Miers would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman and ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicated they were troubled by Dobson's comments.

"The Senate Judiciary Committee is entitled to know whatever the White House knew," Specter said on ABC's "This Week." "If Dr. Dobson knows something that he shouldn't know or something that I ought to know, then I'm going to find out."

"If assurances were given of how any nominee, whether this nominee or anybody else . . . how they're going to vote in an upcoming case, I would vote against that person," Leahy said, also on ABC.

A third member of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., was pointed in his criticism of the administration."Karl Rove should let the public know what kind of assurances he gave James Dobson," Schumer said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Meanwhile, CNN reported -- flatly and incorrectly -- that "Dobson has indicated he was told privately how he would vote on certain matters."

During the taping of Wednesday's broadcast, Dobson said his critics would get answers, but "Sen. Schumer and his colleagues are just going to have to wait until Wednesday."

"Dr. Dobson is being deluged by requests from national media to talk about Harriet Miers and talk about what Karl Rove told him," said Focus on the Family Senior Vice President for Government and Public Policy Tom Minnery. "He'll be explaining that to everybody."

Minnery added that Dobson does have more to say about the issue, and plans to have guests on his program who will also talk about Miers and her qualifications.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
To find a local station that carries the Focus on the Family broadcast, click here. Or listen here to Wednesday’s program online. (Click here to listen to Thursday’s broadcast when it becomes available.)

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James Dobson speaks deeply from the heart and asks for your prayers. Listen here.