Skip to main content
CommentaryCultureGARBC Blog Feed

Christian Students May Pass Out Fliers

By April 27, 2012July 16th, 2014No Comments

Students at an elementary school in Phoenix, Ariz., will be allowed to pass out fliers promoting a Good News Club after-school program as the result of a settlement between district officials and a Christian lawyers association, reports The Christian Post. The Alliance Defense Fund announced Thursday that the Dysart Unified School District, which had rejected the fliers because of their “religious nature” last January, had reversed their decision. “A Christian organization should have the same right to publicize its voluntary meetings as other groups do,” said ADF Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. “The district has done the right thing in approving the Good News Club fliers for distribution and revising its policies that banned religious fliers. That will allow the club and other similar groups to have the same access to publicize their events to students that all other groups enjoy.” In October 2011, Child Evangelism Fellowship Phoenix submitted a completed request form for flier approval and sample flier to the district’s community specialist to advertise a new Good News Club to meet after school at West Point Elementary School in the Phoenix suburb of Surprise, ADF stated. According to the group of lawyers, the district had already approved fliers for a wide variety of community groups, including the Boy Scouts, Cesar Chavez Foundation, Interfaith Community Care, Sun City Area Interfaith Services, Salvation Army Sun City Corps, Valley of the Sun United Way, and a number of local governments. “Although the flier contained a disclaimer that said the district did not endorse or sponsor the club or its activities, the district rejected it on the grounds that it was ‘against district policy’ because the program being promoted was ‘religious in nature,'” ADF said. In early April, the district’s Board of Education amended its policies by removing their prohibitions on fliers of a religious nature, “thereby ensuring equal access for religious groups in the future.”

Other news:

  • Kansas has become the latest battleground for special rights for homosexuals and cross-dressers, reports onenewsnow.com. Human Relations Commissions and/or homosexual activists in Lawrence, Hutchinson, Salina, Wichita, and Pittsburg have asked city governments to add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected classes. Lawrence, home to the University of Kansas, has already passed its ordinance. Liberty Counsel Action founder Mat Staver has taken a look at Hutchinson’s proposed ordinance and says churches are even impacted by it. “For example, if a church rents out any part of its facility to a person or group in the community, then that church then comes underneath this policy as well,” he explains. “Therefore, if someone wants to have a drag fest at this church, then the church can’t refuse, even though their religious beliefs will be violated.” Under the Hutchnison ordinance, dress codes would be based on an employee’s gender “expression,” not his or her gender at birth; public places, such as restaurants, hospitals, and theaters, would be required to allow men wearing women’s clothing to use the women’s restroom; and if a woman objects morally to the latter, that establishment should “encourage [her] to wait until the [male] has left the restroom.” But the attorney points out that such an ordinance represents only a fraction of the overall agenda. “This proposed policy is absolute absurdity, but it really illustrates the ultimate end-goal of the homosexual and radical so-called LGBT agenda, and that is the abolition of gender and the abolition of morality,” Staver warns. “And they ultimately believe that their agenda should trump religious liberty.” Hutchinson is scheduled to vote on the proposal May 1. Meanwhile, some members of the Kansas Legislature have gotten involved by passing a law that would not allow a local government entity to add an additional category of protection that is not already listed under the Kansas Acts Against Discrimination, which does not include homosexual special rights. The Liberty Counsel Action founder concludes that homosexual activists are trying to “hijack” the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, which “laid the foundation” for future civil rights laws.
  • The Department of Education and the Department of Justice say that 1,183,700 violent crimes were committed at American public schools during the 2009–2010 school year, but that only 303,900 of these violent crimes were reported to the police, says CNS News. By this government estimate, 879,800 violent crimes committed at U.S. public schools in the 2009–2010 school year were not reported to police. These statistics are part of a report published jointly on Feb. 22 by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. As defined by the report, “violent crimes” included rape, sexual battery other than rape, physical attack or fight with or without a weapon, threat of physical attack with or without a weapon, and robbery with or without a weapon.
  • The Obama administration has hired the former top spokesman for the Planned Parenthood abortion business as deputy assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, reports lifenews.com. Tait Sye, the former media director for the nation’s biggest abortion business, will now work in the press shop for the department that is under fire for promoting abortion funding via Obamacare and putting forward a mandate that forces religious groups to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs for their employees. Not only will the man who formerly spoke for the company that does more than one-quarter of all abortions in the United States work for the Obama administration at HHS, but he will be working on the public health portfolio, according to a Politico report, where he will represent the agency on abortion and conscience issues. He will speak on behalf of the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two leading pro-life advocates have already condemned the Obama administration for hiring the man who represented Planned Parenthood during the dustup over the mandate. Americans United for Life President Charmaine Yoest told Politico, “Personnel is policy. . . . This is one more example of how intertwined the Obama administration is with the abortion industry and Planned Parenthood. The Obama administration and HHS have demonstrated their unrelenting bias in favor of the abortion industry throughout the healthcare debate and in the way in which the law is being developed.” Family Research Council’s Jeanne Monahan remarked, “As the rest of the country is moving away from funding Planned Parenthood . . . it is a sad reflection upon Obama’s priorities that he continues to make these kinds of personnel decisions.”
  • The Republican National Committee is asking the Government Accountability Office to examine President Obama’s “misuse” of government funds to benefit his reelection campaign, reports patriotupdate.com. In an official complaint filed with the GAO, a watchdog agency, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus accuses Obama of “passing off campaign travel as official events,” using taxpayer money to fund his reelection efforts. “Given the recent excesses, waste and abuse uncovered in the General Services Administration, the GAO should be particularly sensitive to misuse of taxpayer dollars,” Preibus wrote in a letter to Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro. Priebus said “the most recent example” of abuse took place this week as Obama traveled to North Carolina, Colorado, and Iowa, three battleground states to promote student loan legislation. The RNC chairman points out that Obama delivered speeches to “cheering crowds of college students” that resembled campaign events.
  • Israel’s military chief said Thursday that other countries have readied their armed forces for a potential strike against Iran’s nuclear sites to keep Tehran from acquiring atomic weapons, reports ynetnews.com and Worthy News. Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz did not specify which nations might be willing to support or take direct action against Iran. Still, his comments were one of the strongest hints yet that Israel may have the backing of other countries to strike the Islamic Republic to prevent it from developing nuclear arms. “The military force is ready,” Gantz said. “Not only our forces, but other forces as well.”
  • Perhaps trying to send a message to gay activists who want him to do more, President Obama’s re-election website has posted a timeline of 40 specific accomplishments his administration has made for the gay community—a timeline that no doubt will be referenced both by his supporters and opponents in the coming months, reports Baptist Press. The rainbow-colored timeline begins in June 2009, when he ordered the federal government to extend some benefits to the partners of gay federal employees, and ends in March of this year, when he announced his opposition to a North Carolina constitutional amendment that would define marriage as between one man and one woman. In between, the timeline touts some of his more well-known accomplishments for the gay community, led by the repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and his legal opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act. His re-election Twitter account sent out a Tweet April 20 with a link to the website and the message: “What three years of progress for the LGBT community looks like.”

Students at an elementary school in Phoenix, Ariz., will be allowed to pass out fliers promoting a Good News Club after-school program as the result of a settlement between district officials and a Christian lawyers association, reports The Christian Post. The Alliance Defense Fund announced Thursday that the Dysart Unified School District, which had rejected the fliers because of their “religious nature” last January, had reversed their decision. “A Christian organization should have the same right to publicize its voluntary meetings as other groups do,” said ADF Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. “The district has done the right thing in approving the Good News Club fliers for distribution and revising its policies that banned religious fliers. That will allow the club and other similar groups to have the same access to publicize their events to students that all other groups enjoy.” In October 2011, Child Evangelism Fellowship Phoenix submitted a completed request form for flier approval and sample flier to the district’s community specialist to advertise a new Good News Club to meet after school at West Point Elementary School in the Phoenix suburb of Surprise, ADF stated. According to the group of lawyers, the district had already approved fliers for a wide variety of community groups, including the Boy Scouts, Cesar Chavez Foundation, Interfaith Community Care, Sun City Area Interfaith Services, Salvation Army Sun City Corps, Valley of the Sun United Way, and a number of local governments. “Although the flier contained a disclaimer that said the district did not endorse or sponsor the club or its activities, the district rejected it on the grounds that it was ‘against district policy’ because the program being promoted was ‘religious in nature,’” ADF said. In early April, the district’s Board of Education amended its policies by removing their prohibitions on fliers of a religious nature, “thereby ensuring equal access for religious groups in the future.”

Leave a Reply