FACTOID THINKER: Things that make me go hmmmmm...Freedom to believe, not freedom to practice

Soooooo, anyone notice lately the FACT that there are increasing numbers of cases in the courts and media regarding freedom of speech? This is one such item of news that peeked my interest: Court Lets City Restrict Church Use of Schools.(Benjamin Weiser, NY Times, June 2, 2011). A legal battle that has been going on somewhat quietly since 1995 in New York, to challenge the freedom of speech of one church is spilling over towards a ban of all churches from using public schools as their venue for worship services.

Here's a brief excerpt...click on the above link to read the full article...it's an interesting must-read:

"Deciding 2 to 1, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said the city had “a strong basis to believe” that allowing the religious services to be conducted in schools could be seen as the kind of endorsement of religion that violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

“When worship services are performed in a place,” Judge Pierre N. Leval wrote for the majority, “the nature of the site changes. The site is no longer simply a room in a school being used temporarily for some activity.”

“The place has, at least for a time, become the church,” he wrote, adding that the city’s policy imposed “no restraint on the free expression of any point of view.” Rather, it applied only to “a certain type of activity — the conduct of worship services — and not to the free expression of religious views associated with it.”

Judge John M. Walker Jr. dissented, saying the ban on religious worship services violated the First Amendment’s free speech clause...Judge Leval wrote that “the fact that New York City’s school facilities are more available on Sundays than any other day of the week means that there is a de facto bias in favor of Christian groups who want to use the schools for worship services."...The Bronx church and others using the city’s schools, he wrote, “tend to dominate the schools on the day they use them.”

“They use the largest rooms and are typically the only outside group using a school on Sunday,” he wrote."

HMMMMMMMMMM.........."Then they took your freedom of speech, your freedom to preach, your freedom to think. What's next? Your freedom to blink?...Silent weapons, QUIET WARS, World War 3, earthquakes, riots, wars. you can't see THE HANDWRITING IS ON THE WALL. And what does it read? Babylon is gonna fall, is gonna fall!.." ( Corey Red )

Matthew 24:9-14
Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.