NEWYORK COLLEGE SCRAPS BAN ON ' RELIGIOUS SERVICES '

A Christian law firm settled another case of alleged religious discrimination in which a church was not allowed to use facilities at a Binghamton, N.Y., college.
According to the Alliance Defense Fund's announcement on Tuesday, attorneys reached a favorable settlement with Broome Community College on behalf of North Pointe Church. The church can now access campus facilities.
"Churches shouldn’t be discriminated against for their beliefs," said ADF Litigation Counsel Daniel Blomberg. "We are pleased that Broome Community College now recognizes the constitutional right of churches and other religious groups to meet in public meeting facilities on the same terms as other groups."
The lawsuit against the community college was filed in February after North Pointe Church was barred from renting space on campus. Although the church had been holding meeting there for several months, a few members of the public complained to the college about a church meeting in a public facility, according to ADF.
ADF lawyers stated in their arguments that the college's policy banning "religious services" violates First Amendment rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion as well as Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection under law.
The college has agreed to scrap its ban and allow equal access to campus facilities as well as reimburse legal fees and costs. The settlement prompted ADF lawyers to file a voluntary dismissal of the lawsuit with the court Tuesday.
The Broome College case is just one of numerous cases of religious discrimination on college and university campuses that ADF has been fighting.
A legal alliance of Christian attorneys, ADF has set up the Center for Academic Freedom to address the religious liberties, particularly that of Christian students, that are being attacked across the country.
"There's something terribly wrong on American campuses when Christian students are silenced or punished for speaking their most basic beliefs, when Christian student groups are denied access to facilities or to funds on the same basis as any other student group, and worst of all when Christian students are compelled to participate in activities that violate their deepest beliefs or even compelled to believe things that violate Scripture as a condition for getting a degree," said David French, senior legal counsel for ADF.
According to the legal group, nearly 50 major universities and colleges have had their discriminatory policies legally challenged by the ADF Center for Academic Freedom. And in all of those cases, ADF has been successful in having policies changed or removed.

ALICE COOPER BANNED FROM GIG FOR ANTI-CHRISTIAN VALUES

Alice Cooper, of “School’s Out for Summer” and “I’m 18” fame, was told that his show can’t go on in Finland. Cooper and his band were booked to perform at Tampere Areena Oy, an arena in Tampere, Finland Dec. 11.
However, the owners of the arena cancelled the event when the supposedly dark nature of Cooper’s “Theatre of Death” show came to light.
Harri Wiherkoski, managing director of the arena said that "artists who express suspicious values from Christianity's point of view cannot be allowed to perform at the venue."
He also told reporters that his venue doesn’t “arrange concerts where Satanism or non-god-worshipping occurs."
Concert promoter Kalle Keskinen, said “We never imagined that a rock veteran who has performed in Finland in four separate decades without any problems and who has spoken in public of his own religious convictions would not be allowed to perform at Tampere Areena in 2009."
Keskinen said the concert will probably be moved to nearby Espoo, however this is contingent on Alice Cooper’s approval, he said.
Cooper, who is a practicing Christian, told Cross Rhythms magazine last year that he reconciles his stage persona with his personal faith without problem.
“As a Christian, I don't declare myself as a 'Christian rock star.' I'm a rock performer who's a Christian. Alice Cooper is the guy who wants to entertain the audience - it happens that he's a Christian. Alice (the character I play on stage) began life as a villain and he remains one. There's a villain and a hero in every Shakespeare play," he said.
" Alice is no more dangerous than a villain in a cartoon or a Disney film. We have fun with him. He snarls and wears make up. He's punished for his crime and he comes back on the stage in white top and tails. We put on a good show. I've always put limits on Alice because I believe there's a certain amount of Alice that's a gentleman. He'd slit your throat, but he'd never swear at you. And there's always a punchline; he may kill you, but he'll slip on a banana peel. I get right-wing Christians down on me and I always ask them the question: 'If I was doing Macbeth, would it be OK?' And they always say that's Shakespeare so of course. I say that's about four times more violent than anything I do on stage."

FIJI : CHURCH RULES NO PANTS ON SUNDAY

THE strict observance of Sunday worship has resulted in men on a Bua island not being allowed to wear pants on Sunday.
The Sunday ban also forbids travel and the hanging of clothes on lines.
Galoa Village headman Josefa Baleinasiga said the ban was enforced so that the islanders could learn to respect the significance of Sunday as a holy day.
Mr Baleinasiga said the Methodist Church and the vanua also decided to impose the ban as a means of bringing good fortune to the people.
"The ban is meant to bring good luck to the island as we respect the day of the Lord," he said.
"You can see that often misfortune befalls us because we don't respect His commandments that there be no work performed on Sunday except worship.
"Before our islanders used to go diving on Sunday, and there was a lot of travelling and it was difficult to separate the days all the days were the same.
"Now on Saturdays the clothes line in the village is full as the villagers know they can't hang anything out on Sunday."
As a mark of respect, men can only wear a sulu or sulu vakataga on the day; travelling by outboard from the island is forbidden.
"But we make exceptions during emergencies for the sick so it's not a ban that hasn't been well thought out."
A villager who requested anonymity said the ban was too restrictive because it limited movement.
"We can't understand how wearing a sulu vakataga on Sunday will help us forge closer relations with the divine," he said. "At times too for the school children who come home for the weekend, the best time to return to their hostel in Labasa or Savusavu is on Sunday - so that is getting in the way."
Mr Baleinasiga said anybody who breached the ban would be chastised by the vanua.

MORMON CHURCH INVESTIGATES BAPTISM OF OBAMA'S MOTHER

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is investigating the posthumous "baptism" of President Barack Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, as a "serious breach" of religious code, a spokeswoman said.
Church records published by a liberal blog, Americablog, show that Dunham, who died in 1995, was baptised last June 4 in Provo, Utah, and received endowment, another sacrament, a week later.
"The offering of baptism to our deceased ancestors is a sacred practice to us and it is counter to Church policy for a Church member to submit names for baptism for persons to whom they are not related," said spokeswoman Kim Farah in an emailed statement. "The Church is looking into the circumstances of how this happened and does not yet have all the facts. However, this is a serious matter and we are treating it as such."
Mormons believe that souls cannot enter heaven without undergoing baptism and other sacraments, and that those sacraments can be given by proxy after death. The practice of posthumous baptism by proxy has caused controversy in the past, as when Jewish groups raised objections to the baptism of victims of the Holocaust.
According to "doctrinal background" provided by an LDS spokesman, "well-meaning Church members sometimes bypass this instruction and submit the names of non-relatives for temple baptism. Others — perhaps pranksters or careless persons — have submitted the names of unrelated famous or infamous people, or even wholly fictitious names. These rare acts are contrary to Church policy and sometimes cause pain and embarrassment."

LUTHERAN GAY CLERGY PROPOSAL PASSES FIRST HURDLE

MINNEAPOLIS — A proposal to allow people in same-sex relationships to serve as clergy in the country's largest Lutheran denomination has passed its first hurdle.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's national convention began Monday in Minneapolis. A proposal likely to get a final vote Friday would let individual congregations hire gays and lesbians in committed relationships as pastors.
Critics of the proposal moved Monday to require a two-thirds supermajority of the 1,045 voting delegates for approval, rather than a simple majority. But the effort fell short, with only 43 percent of delegates supporting it.
ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson says the majority versus supermajority vote shouldn't be seen as strongly indicating the debate's ultimate outcome.