by California anti-hate bill may block Christians and pro-lifers from joining police force
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – A California bill intended to ensure police candidates have no connection to hate groups may ultimately prevent conservative Christians and pro-life advocates from joining the force, Christian Headlines reports. Titled the “California Law Enforcement Accountability Reform Act,” bill AB 655 will be heard by the state’s Assembly Public Safety Committee on April 6.
Introduced in February by Democratic Assemblyman Ash Kalra, the bill requires background checks to be carried out on law enforcement candidates, to ensure they have not “engaged in membership in a hate group,” joined in hate group activities, or made hateful public statements, Christian Headlines reports.
The bill defines a “hate group” as an organization that “advocates for, or practices the denial of constitutional rights” of any group of persons “based upon race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability,” Christian Headlines said.
Given that abortion and same-sex marriage are constitutionally protected by Supreme Court precedent, watchdog groups California Family Council and the Pacific Justice Institute say the language of the bill is so broad it could be interpreted to exclude from the police force candidates who are pro-life or who belong to Christian churches that teach engaging in homosexuality is a sin.
“Under the guise of addressing police gangs, the bill at the same time launches an inexplicable, unwarranted, and unprecedented attack on peaceable, conscientious officers who happen to hold conservative political and religious views,” Pacific Justice Institute attorney Matthew McReynolds said in a statement.
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Colorado’s tough gun control laws failed to stop deadly Boulder shooting
(Worthy News) – Colorado has been enacting gun control laws at a rapid clip for years, and yet none of those restrictions was able to prevent Monday’s horrific attack at a Boulder grocery store.
“The misguided notion that tragedies like this will stop happening if we just pass the right laws is as dangerous as it is false,” said Reed Cooley, a spokesperson for Young Americans for Liberty. “If it were true, Colorado — which already has universal background checks, large-capacity magazine bans, and ‘red flag’ laws — would be one of the safest states in the country.”
“Colorado has every gun law known to this country … but that didn’t prevent this incident,” former FBI assistant director Chris Swecker said on Fox News.
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Pakistan Considers Death Penalty As Only Punishment For Blasphemy
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
(Worthy News) – Rights activists fear that Pakistani law enforcement authorities will make the death penalty the only punishment for blasphemy against Islam.
They said Thursday just Pakistan’s Peshawar High Court asked the country’s attorney general and provincial advocate general “to consider” removing non-lethal punishments.
The court referred to a petition clarifying that Pakistan’s Islamic court, the Federal Shariat Court, already ruled that life imprisonment went “against Islam’s injunctions.”
Supporters of the death penalty said all existing laws should be in line with Islam “as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah, under Article 227 of the Constitution.”
The developments further complicated the legal wrangling of minority Christians seeking to overturn their death sentence for blasphemy in the Islamic nation.
Last month a court in Pakistan indefinitely delayed an appeal hearing for a Christian couple on death row since 2014 after being convicted of blasphemy.
COUPLE SENTENCED
Shagufta Kausar and Shafqat Emmanuel, jailed since 2013, were sentenced to death under Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws for allegedly sending “blasphemous texts” that insulted the prophet Muhammad to a cleric.
The texts were sent via a mobile phone sim card that was registered in Kausar’s name. However, the couple denies the allegations and believes that the sim was obtained by someone using a copy of her national identity card.
Separately a Christian young man faces execution by hanging death after a Pakistani court sentenced him to death this month for allegedly sending blasphemous text messages about Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
The Lahore High Court changed the life imprisonment of 36-year-old Sajjad Masih Gill, a Seventh-day Adventist Church member, from life imprisonment into capital punishment, trial observers confirmed.
Several other Christians and others accused of blasphemy gave a similar plight. Pakistan’s Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance, and Settlement (CLAAS) told Worthy News that it hopes courts will not impose the death penalty.
“This is not the time to relive the issue of whether the only punishment for those who commit blasphemy should be the death sentence,” said CLAAS Director Nasir Saeed. “This is the time to think about how to stop the misuse of the blasphemy law, as we see every day how this law is being misused,” Saeed added.
MORE ABUSES
He said since the blasphemy legislation was amended in 1986, individuals and religious groups misused it to reach goals or settle personal grudges, mainly against religious minorities.
In 1992 the first “blasphemy murder” killed Christian Punjabi poet and teacher Naimat Ahmar, Christians said. After a few years, thousands of Muslims attacked the Christian village, Shanti Nagar, calling them blasphemers, according to CLAAS investigators.
“During the attack, 785 houses and four churches were destroyed, while 2,500 Christians were also forced to flee their village, CLAAS said in a briefing on the situation. “And the incidents continued after that with the attacks on [the areas of] Gojra and Korian, Sangla hill and Joseph colony [in] Lahore.”
“Dozens of people have been extra-judicially killed in recent years. [Those killed include] the governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, [Pakistan’s] only Christian minister Shahbaz Bhatti and Shama and Shahzad, who were burnt alive in the brick kiln factor,” CLAAS added.
“Several dozen innocent people are languishing in the country’s prisons and it takes them years and years to get justice and prove themselves innocent. “
CLAAS noted that governments so far failed to keep promises to end the misuse or effectively introduce 10 years imprisonment for a false accusation. “Instead voices against the misuse of the blasphemy law have been forced into silence.”
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Satanists sue Arkansas to have satanic statue placed next to Ten Commandments at state Capitol
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – A group of Satanists have filed suit against Arkansas, requesting that a statue of a satanic deity be installed next to the Ten Commandments monument on the state Capitol grounds, Christian Headlines reports. A federal judge has allowed the Satanic Temple group to join a case brought against the state by ACLU and the Freedom from Religion Foundation, who want the Ten Commandments monument removed but not replaced with something else.
A monument of the Ten Commandments was installed on Arkansas State Capitol using private funds in 2017: in 2015 the state passed legislation referring to the Ten Commandments as “an important component of the moral foundation of the laws and legal system of the United States of America and of the State of Arkansas.”
Now, the Satanic Temple, an IRS-recognized atheist church which has filed some seven similar lawsuits in different states, is arguing not that the commandments monument should be removed, but that a statue of a satanic winged goat idol known as Baphomet should be placed next to it.
According to the Satanic Temple, the monument to the Ten Commandments is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because it is tantamount to government approval of one religion over another. The secularists argue similarly in their request for the Ten Commandments to be removed, but the Satanists have gone further in wanting to replace the Biblical monument with a demonic idol.
Arkansas fought to keep the Satanic Temple out of the lawsuit filed by ACLU saying the Temple is a “notoriously-transparent” front for “trolling,” Bloomberg reports.