Christ Jesus prayed that all those who would believe in Him would be ONE, just as He and the Father are ONE; that they be brought to complete unity so that the world would know that He was sent by the Father. (John 17:20-23)
Heaven Is Our Destination Where We Will Be ONE With The Lord Forever
Today, we are in The Season Of The Last Generation. The Birth Pains that Christ Jesus spoke about are currently under way, including natural and unnatural disasters. They will be ever increasing. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. Social, economic and political turmoil will be ever increasing, causing people's hearts to be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life. An apostasy within the Church of God is currently under way. This will all reach a climax with Satan revealing his Antichrist and requiring that everyone worship him; That every one receive his "mark" in order to buy or sell; The new currency of the New World Order, the New Tower of Babel.
Today, it is criticalthat those who have a heart for God are aware of what God is doing and speaking today. God is opening up His Word like never before in preparation for The Time Of The END. I exhort you to open up your heart and your eyes to see what He is doing and your ears to hear what God is speaking at this time. My prayer is that we will be able to stand before the Son of Man at His appearing, without fault and with great joy. I encourage you to read David Wilkerson's book, America's Last Call at davidwilkersontoday.blogspot.com. Also, Google, Tommy Hicks Prophecy, 1961 for a view of the End Times.
Tom's books include: Called By Christ To Be ONE, The Time Of The END, The Season Of The Last Generation, Worship God In Spirit And In Truth, Daniel And The Time Of The END, and Overcoming The Evil One. They are available at amazon.com. They can also be read without cost by clicking on link: Toms Books.
To receive Christ Jesus as a child by faith is the highest human achievement.
Today, the Bride Of Christ is rising up in every nation in the world! Giving Glory to Her Savior and King, Christ Jesus!
Today, the world is Raging against God, Rushing toward Oblivion! Save yourself from this Corrupt Generation!
Today, America is being ground to powder because of it's SIN against God!
By Grace Olumayowa Aideloje Love, I can describe it in many ways: the only reason the Father gave His Son; the four-lettered word that clearly defines God; the most used, most misused, most abused, and most misunderstood word in the world today.
For us Christians, love is the foundation, structure, and finishing of Christianity. It is the whole essence. Even faith, the almighty requirement for our victory, cannot work without love. This is the only thing God is asking of us.
He wants us to love Him as He’s loved us, in the four dimensions mentioned in Luke 10:27 (KJV). “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind…”
This means we must have a God-first lifestyle. He expects to be the center of our lives and first in all our considerations. He wants us to place Him above all else including ourselves; to love what He loves and hates what He hates.
He also demands that we identify with Jesus openly, without any sense of shame or fear. We can’t be ashamed of someone we are crazily in love with. This kind of love does not come by power or might. It comes by the Spirit of God shedding it in our hearts. Therefore our prayer at all times must be: "Lord, shed your love abroad in my heart by the Holy Ghost."
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has gone out of his way in recent weeks to assure Jordan's King Abdullah that Israel is committed to the peace treaty between the two countries, repeating a pledge to even prevent Jews from praying at their holiest site - the Temple Mount - in response to Jordanian demands.
But the Jordanian government has been striking a far less conciliatory tone, with ministers calling on the king to revoke the peace treaty with Israel. Last week, following the deadly attack at a Jerusalem synagogue, Jordan's parliament held a minute's silence and dedicated a special prayer - in honor of the two terrorists, who MPs hailed as "heroes". In a TV recent interview, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), one Jordanian MP provided an insight into just how hostile Jordanian parliamentarians are towards their country's "ally."
Speaking to Roya TV, MP Rudaina Ati praised "the (Jerusalem synagogue) operation" for sending "a clear message to the Zionist entity and to Stink-iyahu," referring to Israel with the term used by belligerent Arab states who refuse to recognize the existence of an independent Jewish state.
"The (Jews) must reconsider what they are doing, because they always violate treaties and abide by none," she continued, playing to anti-Semitic tropes popular in the Arab world. Ati called on Arabs to use violent "resistance" to "liberate Palestine from the colonialist Jews," and stated that she believes in "the right of return" - referring to the demand to flood the Jewish state with millions of descendants of Palestinian Arabs who fled during the 1948 War of Independence, effectively liquidating the Jewish state.
She even went so far as to caution the Palestinian Authority not to soften its stance or make any concessions to Israel. "The Palestinian Authority must not defend the interests of the filthy Jews on the land of Palestine," she declared.
Conservative commentator and radio show host Mark Levin didn’t sugarcoat his reaction to the riots that broke out after the grand jury’s decision not to charge police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, 18, in Ferguson, Mo.
“Brown was shot because he assaulted a police officer, attempted to take the officer’s pistol resulting in two close-range gun shots in the police cruiser, and then turned around and charged the officer as he was being pursued,” the mercurial Levin wrote yesterday on his Facebook page.
The president proclaimed a national holiday in 1863, urging gratitude amid Civil War woes.
By
STEPHEN M. MCLEAN
It would be wonderful if Thanksgiving 2014 could take place in a year of broadly enjoyed prosperity at home and tranquility abroad, but that is not to be. All the more important, then, to recall that when Thanksgiving became a national holiday in 1863, the country faced far graver circumstances.
In early spring of that year, the war that had split the United States seemed destined for a disastrous outcome. Union defeats throughout 1862, culminating with the horrific loss at Fredericksburg, demonstrated the nation’s precarious position. President Lincoln struggled to address the military and political challenges confronting the country.
Yet Lincoln was also concerned with the soul of his nation. He gave voice to the convictions that lead to the creation of Thanksgiving in two proclamations. The first was on March 30, and in it he sought to share with his countrymen his sense of personal humility, calling for a national day of “Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer”:
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“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God.
“We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
“Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”
That summer proved to be the turning point in the Civil War, with Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg. Though the rebellion appeared to be receding, Lincoln was under no illusions. Enormous risks and challenges lay ahead. The war’s end was nowhere in sight, but once it had ended, as Lincoln would later observe in the Gettysburg Address, the “great task,” the “unfinished work” would need to start with reuniting a nation.
Amid the signs of promise in 1863, it was time to thank the God whom Lincoln credited for both personal and national success. In October, the president issued an invitation asking all Americans to join him in expressing gratitude for their deliverance. He also asked that amid their celebration, people request God’s grace for the families who had borne the worst of the brutal war.
In his proclamation establishing the Thanksgiving national holiday, President Lincoln said:
“The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God. . . .
“I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged.”
On Thanksgiving, President Lincoln’s thoughts are worth recalling in a nation grown more prosperous and powerful than the 16th president could have ever envisioned. They are particularly relevant when so many of its sons, daughters and their families still bear the burden of protecting democracy, and when on the home front so many are anxious about the direction of the country and the economy.
Amid happy and grateful Thanksgiving celebrations, we would do well to reflect also that the United States remains, as it was in Lincoln’s time, a nation with a boundless capacity for renewal.
Mr. McLean is a partner in Arsenal Capital Partners, a private-equity firm in New York.
“My God will meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 4:19 (NIV)
“Thanks, but no, thanks.” That’s a response given when someone can choose not to accept a gift. But – what about the things we are given over which we never had a choice? Where we were born – our biological family members – our physical appearance. We may not perceive them as gifts or feel grateful for them, yet the bottom line of contentment in life is gratitude for whatever we have. True thanksgiving comes from a heart of contentment. It is in wanting what we have rather than in having what we don’t.
Paul says in Philippians 4:12 that he has “learned the secret of being content in any and every situation”. (my emphasis) How? By the power of Christ in him he shares in verse 13, “I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.”
To encourage us he states a wonderful promise in verse 19, “My God will meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus.” What do we need? As followers we need to be like Him – to choose in loving obedience to do the will of God by accepting whatever circumstance and thanking Him for it.
We may never feel gratitude for things we cannot change, but we can thank God in faithful assurance that He will use them for His good purposes and His glory – the fulfillment of His promise in Romans 8:28-29 that He is working everything to conform us to the image of Christ.
Therefore, let us say, no matter what, “Thanks, and yes, thanks!”
It is so wonderful in these troubling times that town elders and the politicians who are running this show didn’t hang up something offensive, like “Happy Thanksgiving.” Or “Merry Christmas.”
“Season’s Greetings” just hits that sweet spot, like sugared holiday cookies that celebrate everybody’s special season, made-up or not. Cookies shaped like Stars of David, the continent of Africa, Christmas trees, crescent moons and fists of black power.
That’s when you really have a parade! It’s enough to bring tears to your eyes. Which is why everybody brought along their gas masks.
Now I realize that some in the media have taken grave exception to people referring to the riots in Ferguson as the “Ferguson riots.” And I must say that I agree with them. They really are not the “Ferguson riots.”
President Barack Obama will forever rightly hold a distinguished place in American history. That can never be taken away from him.
But it is also true that he owns every single bit of these riots over the tragic killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown. He owns the discontent. He owns the ignorance. He owns the mayhem. He owns the looting.
This rioting, it’s not about Ferguson. It’s not about Michael Brown. It’s not about Darren Wilson.
After all, an independent grand jury evaluated all the evidence, heard from all the witnesses and asked every question 12 responsible Americans could possibly think up. And they determined that, however unfortunate, Brown’s death was not a police murder.
The American grand jury system is not perfect and has not always been above and beyond corruption. But this system of justice works better than any other system of justice devised by man. And the fact that all these looting rioters haven’t the faintest knowledge of this proves that Mr. Obama has personally failed miserably at educating and leading the very people he swears he wants to help the most.
The truth is that these riots are about so much more than Brown. They are about the monstrous discontent over every aspect of life for so many people finally boiling over.
Mr. Obama ran and won two presidential campaigns on promises that he would heal these very people. It was either stupidity or dishonesty to make such reckless promises to such vulnerable people just to win a couple of political elections.
The rioting lays bare the complete failure that is this presidency. In the end, the only thing this president has accomplished is proving that the American people, for all their flaws, would elect a black president. And then re-elect him despite a very disappointing first four years.
Nothing better encapsulated Mr. Obama’s personal failure like the split screens carried on every channel showing the president addressing the situation from the White House alongside images of the situation unfolding in Ferguson.
“We are a nation built on the rule of law,” he said as protesters smashed the windows of a police cruiser and rocked it back and forth, trying to tip it over.
“We do have work to do here,” he said as protesters surged toward police lines and smoke began billowing toward them.
And the police, Mr. Obama said, “they need to work with the community, not against the community.” Meanwhile, hissing canisters of tear gas skittered down the street.
The protesters, they must understand, justice “won’t be done by throwing bottles.” Just then, somebody gets hit in the head with a bottle.
This, the president said, is “an opportunity for us to seize the moment and turn this into a positive situation.”
Beside him, on the screen, a reporter is trying to talk into the camera, wearing a gas mask. “If we can get some water,” the reporter chokes.
Another reporter asks on air for the network to invest in better gas masks.
Luckily for everyone, President Obama took only one question and quickly exited the stage.
• Charles Hurt can be reached at charleshurt@live.com, and on Twitter at @charleshurt.com.
Members of a Hamas terror ring in the West Bank, run from the organization’s headquarters in Turkey, sought to carry out an array of major attacks, including on Jerusalem’s main soccer stadium and its light rail line, the Shin Bet security service said Thursday.
The Shin Bet announcement confirmed a Times of Israel report last week that said Israel had arrested dozens of members of a Hamas terror network operating throughout the West Bank. The network, Pa officials said, was funded and directed by Hamas officials in Turkey who have set up a de facto command center in the Muslim country.
More than 30 Hamas operatives were arrested during the month of September, the Shin Bet said Thursday. The majority were recruited while studying in Jordan and trained in either Syria or the Gaza Strip, which they entered via tunnels from Sinai.
The Shin Bet said the ring was preparing to kidnap Israelis in Israel and abroad, enter Israeli villages, detonate car bombs, perpetrate roadside attacks, and execute a major terror attack in Teddy Stadium, where the Israeli soccer team Beitar Jerusalem plays its home games.
The Shin Bet asserted that the plan was evidence of an “indefatigable” desire on Hamas’s part to rehabilitate its terror infrastructure in the West Bank and to tug Israel into a sharp military response, which might indirectly lead to the toppling of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s regime, which is “one of Hamas’ goals.”
Israel has appealed to the NATO coalition — of which Turkey is a member – and to the US leadership to take steps against Ankara for enabling Hamas terrorists to operate and plan terror attacks against Israelis from its territory.
“It is unthinkable that a NATO member should host a terror organization that trains and prepares terror attacks in its territory,” sources in Jerusalem said. Turkish officials vehemently denied the allegations, with diplomats calling the Israeli claims “lies and deceit,” Ynet reported.
“Turkey holds dialog with Hamas but would not under any circumstances allow a terror group to operate from its territory,” an official said. He ascribed the allegations to Israeli parties “who will do anything to torpedo efforts to settle the disputes between the countries and turn over a new leaf.”
Most likely, you’ve said it. “I’ll be praying” has become a common response when hearing about the misfortune of others. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the American Pastor who remains imprisoned in Iran, and friends who recently passed away despite the prayers of family and friends. What good was prayer for them? Was the time and effort worth the results?
It didn’t take long for the God of indisputable love to respond to my questions. At His prompting, I turned to Philippian’s 4:6 (NLV): “Don’t worry about anything; instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience His peace which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” He continued to speak through my thoughts:
Nowhere in that verse is there a promise for the kind of answer you seek. There is instead an admonition to pray and remember with thanks all I have done. I do not want you to focus on your request or the hoped-for answer because I offer much more than an answer. I offer peace. Not just ordinary peace –the kind that accompanies a sigh of relief at the words,” the cancer is gone,” or “the missionary has been released from years of captivity.” No, not that kind of peace. It’s the hard to understand peace when the cancer has not gone away, and the missionary remains imprisoned; but the heart and mind are at rest.
The value of prayer is not connected to a desired result. I want you to pray in obedience to my Word. Sometimes I will say, yes, other times, no; but I will always offer Peace.
Rob and Linda Robertson did what they believed was expected of them as good Christians.
When their 12-year-old son Ryan said he was gay, they told him they loved him, but he had to change. He entered "reparative therapy," met regularly with his pastor and immersed himself in Bible study and his church youth group.
After six years, nothing changed. A despondent Ryan cut off from his parents and his faith, started taking drugs and in 2009, died of an overdose.
This undated photo provided by Linda Robertson shows her son Ryan, who died in 2009.
AP
"Now we realize we were so wrongly taught," said Rob Robertson, a firefighter for more than 30 years who lives in Redmond, Washington. "It's a horrible, horrible mistake the church has made."
The tragedy could have easily driven the Robertsons from the church. But instead of breaking with evangelicalism -- as many parents in similar circumstances have done -- the couple is taking a different approach, and they're inspiring other Christians with gay children to do the same.
They are staying in the church and, in protesting what they see as the demonization of their sons and daughters, presenting a new challenge to Christian leaders trying to hold off growing acceptance of same-sex relationships.
"Parents don't have anyone on their journey to reconcile their faith and their love for their child," said Linda Robertson, who with Rob attends a nondenominational evangelical church. "They either reject their child and hold onto their faith, or they reject their faith and hold onto their child. Rob and I think you can do both: be fully affirming of your faith and fully hold onto your child."
It's not clear how much of an impact these parents can have. Evangelicals tend to dismiss fellow believers who accept same-sex relationships as no longer Christian. The parents have only recently started finding each other online and through faith-oriented organizations for gays and lesbians such as the Gay Christian Network, The Reformation Project and The Marin Foundation.
But Linda Robertson, who blogs about her son at justbecausehebreathes.com, said a private Facebook page she started last year for evangelical mothers of gays has more than 300 members. And in the last few years, high-profile cases of prominent Christian parents embracing their gay children indicate a change is occurring beyond a few isolated families.
James Brownson, a New Testament scholar at Western Theological Seminary, a Michigan school affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, last year published the book "Bible, Gender, Sexuality," advocating a re-examination of what Scripture says about same-sex relationships. His son came out at age 18.
Chester Wenger, a retired missionary and pastor with the Mennonite Church USA, lost his clergy credentials this fall after officiating at his son's marriage to another man. In a statement urging the church to accept gays and lesbians, Wenger noted the pain his family experienced when a church leader excommunicated his son three decades ago without any discussion with Wenger and his wife.
The Rev. Danny Cortez, pastor of New Heart Community Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in California, was already moving toward recognizing same-sex relationships when his teenage son came out. When Cortez announced his changed outlook to his congregation this year, they voted to keep him. The national denomination this fall cut ties with the church.
In the United Methodist Church, two ministers with gay sons drew national attention for separately presiding at their children's same-sex weddings despite a church prohibition against doing so: The Rev. Thomas Ogletree, a former dean of the Yale Divinity School, ultimately was not disciplined by the church, while the Rev. Frank Schaefer went through several church court hearings. He won the case and kept his clergy credentials, becoming a hero for gay marriage supporters within and outside the church.
"I think at some point moms and dads are going to say to their pastors and church leadership that you can't tell me that my child is not loved unconditionally by God," said Susan Shopland, the daughter of a Presbyterian missionary who, along with her gay son, is active with the Gay Christian Network.
Kathy Baldock, a Christian who advocates for gay acceptance through her website CanyonwalkerConnections.com, said evangelical parents are speaking out more because of the example set by their children. Gay and lesbian Christians have increasingly been making the argument they can be attracted to people of the same gender and remain faithful to God, whether that means staying celibate or having a committed same-sex relationship. The annual conference of the Gay Christian Network has grown from 40 people a decade ago to an expected 1,400 for the next event in January.
Matthew Vines, author of "God and the Gay Christian," has attracted more than 810,000 views on YouTube for a 2012 lecture he gave challenging the argument that Scripture bars same-sex relationships.
"These kids are now staying in the churches. They're not walking away like they used to," Baldock said.
The collapse of support for "reparative therapy" is also a factor, Shopland said. In June of last year, Alan Chambers, the leader of Exodus International, a ministry that tried to help conflicted Christians repress same-sex attraction, apologized for the suffering the ministry caused and said the group would close down.
At a conference on marriage and sexuality last month, a prominent Southern Baptist leader, the Rev. Al Mohler, said he was wrong to believe that same-sex attraction could be changed. Baldock, The Marin Foundation and the Gay Christian Network all say Christian parents have been reaching out to them for help in notably higher numbers in the last couple of years.
"If it doesn't work, then parents are left with the question of what is the answer?" Shopland said. "If I can't change my kid into being a straight Christian, then what?"
Bill Leonard, a specialist in American religious history at Wake Forest Divinity School, said church leaders should be especially concerned about parents. He noted that many evangelicals began to shift on divorce when the marriages of the sons and daughters of pastors and "rock-ribbed" local church members such as deacons started crumbling. While conservative Christians generally reject comparisons between the church's response to divorce and to sexual orientation, Leonard argues the comparison is apt.
"The churches love those individuals and because they know them, those churches may look for another way," Leonard said.
Some evangelical leaders seem to recognize the need for a new approach. The head of the Southern Baptist public policy arm, the Rev. Russell Moore, addressed the issue on his blog and at the marriage conference last month, telling Christian parents they shouldn't shun their gay children. Mohler has said he expects some evangelical churches to eventually recognize same-sex relationships, but not in significant numbers.
Linda Robertson said the mothers who contact her through her Facebook page usually aren't ready to fully accept their gay sons or daughters. Some parents she meets still believe their children can change their sexual orientation. But she said most who reach out to her are moving away from the traditional evangelical view of how parents should respond when their children come out.
"I got a lot of emails from parents who said, 'I don't know one other parent of a gay child. I feel like in my community, I don't have permission to love my child,'" she said. "They have a lot of questions. But then they're going back to their churches and speaking to their pastors, speaking to their elders and speaking to their friends, saying, 'We have a gay child. We love them and we don't want to kick them out. How do we go forward?'"
My comments: Christ Jesus never stops loving anyone, no matter what they do. He is always encouraging them to come to Him and find Wholeness. He will always accept REPENTANCE for any Sin. Homosexuality is only one Sexual Sin Christian parents find their children involved in. Christians should accept homosexuals as they do all unbelievers-- and they are unbelievers. There are no homosexual Christians, just as no one can willfully Sin and be a Christian. A Christian is someone who once was a Sinner, but now Saved by Grace and TRANSFORMED by the Power of the Spirit of God into a child of God.
Mankind has the propensity, because of his Sin Nature, to Sin. Chrsit Jesus came to Save mankind from their Sin--all who would put their Faith, Hope and Trust in Him. He is Almighty God and He can change all who are willing to change, and all who are willing to allow Him to change them into a child of God. He changed the murderer Saul, into Paul, a great Christian and a great evangelist. NOTHING is impossible for God. There is hope for every homosexual just as there is hope for every sinner. But Christ's Way is a NARROW Way and only a few find it [Matthew 7:13-14].
Today marks the beginning of the Nepalese Gadhimai festival, where hundreds of thousands of animals are expected to be sacrificed in the name of the Hindu goddess.
The festival, which takes place every five years at the border town of Bariyarpur, sees men armed with traditional swords behead animals including goats, chickens, pigs and buffalo. The last festival, which took place in 2009, saw over a quarter of a million animals killed and CNN are reporting that this year the number of sacrifices are expected to double to 500,000.
The festival is the world’s largest mass animal sacrifice, and the event has attracted widespread criticism. This year a campaign to ban the festival was launched with supporters including Brigitte Bardot and Joanna Lumley who petitioned Nepal's president to end the "cruel tradition".
'Speech does not lose 1st Amendment protection simply because the listener believes it is false'
Bob Unruh A federal judge has refused to allow an Islamic expert to use his court to criticize a bus advertisement that seeks to raise awareness of Islam’s teachings against Jews, arguing the First Amendment does not permit the government to be “arbiters of truth.”
AFDI filed suit when SEPTA refused to run its ads, which have included photos of a terrorist about to behead an American and a prominent Muslim leader meeting with Adolf Hitler.
The judge said longstanding Supreme Court precedent “instructs that political speech does not lose First Amendment protection simply because the listener believes that it is false or disagrees with the message it advances.”
“Allowing the state to restrict political speech based on an assessment that it is false or inaccurate, offends bedrock First Amendment principles,” the judge said.
AFDI is led by author and Atlas Shrugs blogger Pamela Geller, and author and Jihad Watch Director Robert Spencer.
One of the ads states: “Islamic Jew-Hatred: It’s in the Quran. Two thirds of all US aid goes to Islamic countries. Stop the Hate. End all aid to Islamic countries.”
It presents the IslamicJewHatred.com website address and an image of Haj Amin al-Husseini and Adolf Hitler with the caption, “Adolf Hitler and his staunch ally, the leader of the Muslim world, Haj Amin al-Husseini.”
The transportation district, seeking to defend itself from accusations it violated the First Amendment, had proposed bringing in an “expert” to testify.
Jamal J. Elias, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an “eminent scholar of Islam and Muslim society,” was to offer two opinions regarding “alleged inaccuracies” in the ad.
First, Elias intended to testify that referring to Haj Amin al-Husseini as the “leader of the Muslim world” was “manifestly false.”
And he planned to express his opinion that the statement “the Quran teaches Jew-hatred” is “unfair” or “erroneous.”
The judge’s opinion said the testimony from Elias won’t be allowed.
He ruled the First Amendment does not allow the government to be the “arbiters of truth” regarding matters of public concern.
The judge’s ruling in the case, handled by the American Freedom Law Center, said, “Allowing the state to restrict political speech based on an assessment that it is false or inaccurate offends bedrock First Amendment principles.”
Robert J. Muise, senior counsel for AFLC, said it would be “perilous to permit government censors to be the arbiters of truth regarding politics, history, religion, or other similar matters of opinion.”
David Yerushalmi, AFLC co-founder, added: “We are encouraged by the judge’s ruling, which was loyal to the First Amendment and tracked our motion on every point. It is important to have a judge who understands the importance of this constitutional guarantee, particularly when, as in this case, the freedom of speech is pitted against political correctness.”
AFLC said a court hearing on its request for a preliminary injunction is expected within weeks.
The lawsuit against the transportation agency and its general manager seeks “to protect and vindicate fundamental constitutional rights.” It asks for an order that the defendants are violating the U.S. Constitution by restricting speech.
The transit agency said it disallowed the ad because it “tends to disparage or ridicule any person or group of persons on the basis of race, religious belief, age, sex, alienage, national origin, sickness or disability.”
AFLC, however, said the message “is timely in light of the fact that many Jews (and Christians) are being persecuted in Islamic countries in the Middle East, and many of these countries receive aid from the United States.”
“Moreover, the Israel/Palestinian conflict has drawn intense international media attention as Hamas is using human shields (mostly innocent women and children) to protect its rockets from Israel’s defense forces as the Islamic terrorist organization continues its deadly attack of Jews in Israel.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/11/islamic-jew-hatred-ad-gets-judicial-support/#kLWI2x2vQ4o4dSsu.99
