If anyone needs a glimpse of what a second Obama term might look like, they could do no better than to look at Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York City's despotic enforcer of political correctness and defender of a far-left secularist order. Bloomberg's radical promotion of the homosexual agenda has included allowing pornographic parades in front of Saint Patrick's Cathedral, and before the Legislature changed state marriage law, he suggested that anyone could skirt the law by simply changing their sex on their birth certificate. He has been insistent on allowing Muslims to build a mosque at Ground Zero, but refused to allow prayers and the participation of Christian and Jewish clergy at the tenth anniversary ceremonies commemorating the 9/11 attack. All the world knows that the New York Fire Department was the first responder that tragic day, with scores heroically giving their lives. But the statist despot whose peeves and preferences govern New York also announced that there wasn't enough room to include New York firemen at the 9/11 tenth anniversary ceremonies.
He has insisted that the Orthodox Jewish tradition of gender separation is "obviously not permitted," and while he imposes criminal penalties on those not observing speech codes when it comes to the homosexual community, he has publicly complained that his neighbors at the American Irish Historical Society are "people that are totally inebriated and hanging out windows."
The Mayor demands television and radio air time to tell New York parents how they should dress their children for school, given weather conditions. He has threatened a severe limitation on the number of establishments permitted to serve alcohol, and he has mandated salt limits in the recipes of New York City cooks and chefs.
Throughout the United States many faith communities rent space in public school buildings on weekends or when the facilities are not in use. Now, Bloomberg has decided that even that association threatens the militant secularism he wants enforced in New York City Public Schools. While every other civic and non-profit organization will be free to rent space in the schools, faith communities are to be banned.
Bloomberg is a classic example of a totalitarian statist with a secularist agenda to impose. His regime offers a frightening glimpse of an America planned by the Obama regime when they are freed of reelection concerns.
From WorldNetDailyBy Bob Unruh
Rental ban called unconstitutional, damaging
A federal judge has suggested that churches in New York have a solid argument under the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses of the United States Constitution to be allowed to rent public school facilities like other organizations, and she has issued a temporary restraining order allowing that to continue for another 10 days.
“Churches help communities; evicting churches hurts communities. Empty buildings offer nothing to communities that need hope,” said Jordan Lorence, of the Alliance Defense Fund. “The court’s order is a message of hope for fundamental freedoms in New York City because it means that, for the time being, the city must welcome churches as it does other groups. ADF will continue to fight this battle relentlessly until the city no longer unconstitutionally prohibits activity for purely religious reasons.”
The organization has been fighting for the churches – mostly small congregations that don’t own their own properties and instead rent local school auditoriums and other facilities on weekends – and on Feb. 3 asked for an order halting evictions that were scheduled to take place at this point.
The case alleges violations of the First Amendment that have not been addressed.
The case, Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York, has pitted the small groups of worshipers against the behemoth structure of the city education department.
The judge, Loretta A. Preska, wrote, “Because I find that plaintiffs have demonstrated irreparable harm and a likelihood of success on the merits of their Free Exercise Clause and Establishment Clause claims, the court issues this temporary restraining order enjoining defendants from enforcing that part of Chancellor’s Regulation D 180 that provides: ‘No permit shall be granted for the purpose of holding religious worship services, or otherwise using a school as a house of worship.’”
Many New York City church members have been protesting the city’s plans to evict them ever since the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the free speech case. A bill to compel the city’s Department of Education to allow worship services passed the state senate recently and continues its path through the legislature.
“This order from the court in no way should stop efforts by the New York Legislature to overturn this policy,” Lorence explained. “The courts have consistently ruled that the Constitution does not require New York City to ban religious worship services, so the city or the state legislature is free to repeal the policy.”
In general, court decisions have affirmed the obligation of governments to treat the religious fairly, and to rent to religious groups on the same basis as they rent to other groups. But earlier, Marge Feinberg, spokeswoman for the city’s schools, said, “Our view is that public school buildings, which are funded by taxpayers’ dollars, should not be used as houses of worship.”
But senior producer and host of the Truth in Action ministry’s radio program Jerry Newcombe says George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson might be of another opinion.
“The same men who wrote the First Amendment also adopted the Northwest Ordinance, which says, ‘Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged,’” he said.
Newcombe said American schools traditionally had a role in moral and religious training.
“To the founders, the schools were to teach Christianity,” he said. “Now, they have converted the schools into what Bill Clinton even said is bad: Religion-free zones.”
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