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Lorrie's Talk News Radio - Store Merchandise
Thanks for visiting our online shop! Find what you're looking for yourself or great gifts for your friends. You'll find unique merchandise with my art on t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, stickers, and more.
School: Lil’ Wayne is fine, but Jesus is not
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Feb. 1, 2013: In this file photo, recording artist Lil Wayne meets fans and celebrates his contemporary street wear apparel brand TRUKFIT at his hometown Macy's, in New Orleans. (AP/Invision)
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Jan. 30, 2009: Rapper Lil Wayne arrives on the red carpet for the ESPN Next Big Weekend Super Bowl XLIII party in Tampa, Fla. (AP)
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March 8: Rapper Lil Wayne is sentenced in Manhattan criminal court to a year in a New York City jail for having a loaded gun on his tour bus in 2007. (AP)
Officials at Robert E. Clark Middle School in Bonner Springs confiscated and destroyed the fliers the student had already posted, attorney Matt Sharp alleged.
Sharp, an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom, filed the lawsuit against the Unified School District No. 204 last week on behalf of the seventh grade girl, known in court documents as “KR.”
The school allows a variety of other posters to be displayed – including one promoting a popular rapper. A poster of Lil’ Wayne posted contained the words “Good Kush and Alcohol,” the lawsuit alleges.
In September the student posted fliers to promote a “See You At the Pole” rally. The event was part of a national day of prayer when students gather around the flagpole of their school at the beginning of the day to pray for the school, students and staff.
Some of the fliers included Bible verses referencing John 3:16 and Romans 5:8 – two well-known passages of Scripture in the New Testament.
The student posted the fliers in hallways at the school on Sept. 20. Later that night, she returned to the school for a dance and was confronted by Chellie Bonebrake, a school counselor.
The lawsuit alleges that Bonebrake “forcefully” told the girl that the fliers were “illegal” because they were a “violation of the separation of church and state.”
“The child was humiliated in front of her friends,” the lawsuit alleges.
After the confrontation, the fliers were taken down and destroyed by school officials.
The following week, the girl tried to hand out materials inviting students to the prayer gathering, but became afraid because of the “likely consequences if she was caught,” according to the lawsuit.
Neither Bonebrake nor Rick Moulin, the principal of the middle school, returned my calls seeking comment.
Dan Brungardt, superintendent for the Bonner Springs/Edwardsville schools, said Monday he had not seen or heard about the lawsuit.
He also said the district had not received any complaints from parents or students about anything regarding posting fliers before the prayer event.
Brungardt said the event was announced over the school's intercom system.
"We can't encourage students to go, but we did announce it," Brungardt said.
The district has a policy prohibiting distribution of religious materials on school grounds because "different entities request to distribute information to students constantly. If all entities who requested were allowed it would be disruptive to the school environment," Brungardt said in an email.
Sharp said that policy is a violation of the First and 14th Amendments as well as the Kansas Preservation of Religious Freedom Act.
“Students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate,” he said. “Non-disruptive, private student expression is protected by the First Amendment. Religious speech is fully protected by the First Amendment.”
The school allows a variety of other posters to be displayed – including one promoting a popular rapper. A poster of Lil’ Wayne posted contained the words “Good Kush and Alcohol,” the lawsuit alleges.
Doug Bonney, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, said he was not familiar with the lawsuit, but he questioned whether the counselor had the authority to stop the student from handing out the fliers. Bonney said the school could be faulted if the student's posters were singled out because of their content.
"If in fact the school did prohibit the student from posting a religious message because it was religious, where a secular message would be allowed to stay up ... then the school might have some problems," Bonney said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/12/03/school-lil-wayne-is-fine-but-jesus-is-not/
Obama Admin Moves Vatican Embassy, Citing Security Concerns
The Obama administration has decided to shut down the free-standing American embassy to the Holy See. The offices for the Ambassador to the Vatican will be moved onto the grounds of the larger American embassy to Italy, in a separate building.
The move is being justified as a result of the security reviews that followed the attacks on our embassy in Benghazi last year but five former American envoys are strenuously objecting, reports John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter :Justified primarily on the grounds of enhanced security, the move is described by former U.S. Ambassador James Nicholson, who's also a former Secretary of Veterans Affairs in the Bush administration and a former chair of the Republican National Committee, as a "massive downgrade" in U.S./Vatican ties.
"It's turning this embassy into a stepchild of the embassy to Italy," Nicholson said.
"The Holy See is a pivot point for international affairs and a major listening post for the United States," he said, "and to shoehorn [the U.S. delegation] into an office annex inside another embassy is an insult to American Catholics and to the Vatican."
Nicholson, who spoke in an interview Wednesday with NCR, joins former Bush envoys Francis Rooney and Mary Ann Glendon as well as Raymond Flynn, the first Clinton ambassador, and Thomas Melady, who served the first President Bush, in objecting.
Nicholson called the security argument a "smokescreen."
"That's like saying people get killed on highways because they drive cars on them," he said. "We're not a pauper nation ... if we want to secure an embassy, we certainly can." He said protection at the current location is "state of the art."
Flynn described the move as part of broader secular hostility to religious groups, the Catholic church in particular.
"It's not just those who bomb churches and kill Catholics in the Middle East who are our antagonists, but it's also those who restrict our religious freedoms and want to close down our embassy to the Holy See," Flynn told NCR.
Flynn said he can't see any "diplomatic or political benefit to the United States" from the relocation and called it "shortsighted."
CatholicVote considers the move to be "an unmistakable slap in the face."
Moving our Ambassador to the Vatican inside of our Italian Embassy sends a clear message: the diplomatic post doesn’t matter much to the United States.
"It's another manifestation of the antipathy of this administration both to Catholics and to the Vatican – and to Christians in the Middle East. This is a key post for intermediation in so many sovereignties but particularly in the Middle East. This is anything but a good time to diminish the stature of this post. To diminish the stature of this post is to diminish its influence."
"The State Department has for a long time wanted to do this. It came up when I was an ambassador. I explained the folly of this and it went away. But now they seem determined to do this. The perception is [with this action] that the United States is showing a lack of appreciation for the relevance of its diplomatic partner in the Vatican."
But the current U.S. Ambassador Ken Hackett said, "I see no diminishing in the importance of the relationship at all."
Obama’s call to close Vatican embassy is ‘slap in the face’ to Roman Catholics
People crowd St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, on occasion of the celebration of the Easter mass Sunday, March 31, 2013. Pope Francis is celebrating his first Easter Sunday Mass as pontiff in St. Peter's Square, which is packed by joyous pilgrims, tourists and Romans. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
The new offices will be in a separate building on the property, Breitbart reported.
And while U.S. officials are touting the relocation as a security measure that’s a cautionary reaction to last year’s attacks on America's facility in Benghazi, several former American envoys are raising the red flag.
It’s a “massive downgrade of U.S.-Vatican ties,” said former U.S. Ambassador James Nicholson in the National Catholic Reporter. “It’s turning this embassy into a stepchild of the embassy to Italy. The Holy See is a pivot point for international affairs and a major listening post for the United States, and … [it’s] an insult to American Catholics and to the Vatican.”
Mr. Nicholson — whose views were echoed by former envoys Francis Rooney, Mary Ann Glendon, Raymond Flynn and Thomas Melady — also called the justification for closing the existing facility a “smokescreen,” Breitbart reported.
“That’s like saying people get killed on highways because they drive cars on them,” he said in the report. “We’re not a pauper nation … if we want to secure an embassy, we certainly can.”
Moreover, the existing facility has “state of the art” security, he said.
Mr. Flynn, meanwhile, said the administration’s announcement reflects a hostility toward the Catholic Church.
“It’s not just those who bomb churches and kill Catholics in the Middle East who are our antagonists, but it’s also those who restrict our religious freedoms and want to close down our embassy to the Holy See,” he said in the National Catholic Reporter. “[There’s no] diplomatic or political benefit to the United States” from the relocation at all, he added.
Catholic Vote, a publication for the Church community, called the move “an unmistakable slap in the face” that clearly communicates that the United States cares little for the diplomatic facility.
And Mr. Nicholson went on, as Breitbart reported: “It’s another manifestation of the antipathy of this administration both to Catholics and to the Vatican — and to Christians in the Middle East. This is a key post for intermediation in so many sovereignties but particularly in the Middle East. This is anything but a good time to diminish the stature of this post. To diminish the stature of this post is to diminish its influence.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/26/obamas-call-close-holy-see-embassy-slap-face-catho/
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