{"id":29535,"date":"2016-10-27T15:27:26","date_gmt":"2016-10-27T19:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=29535"},"modified":"2016-10-27T15:27:26","modified_gmt":"2016-10-27T19:27:26","slug":"are-we-losing-our-religious-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=29535","title":{"rendered":"Are We Losing Our Religious Freedom?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday Fox News<\/a> reported the story of Eric Walsh, a lay minister<\/a> in Georgia. The State of Georgia<\/a> has asked that Dr. Walsh turn over copies of his sermons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease produce a copy of your sermon notes and\/or transcripts,\u201d Attorney General<\/a> Samuel Olens wrote to attorneys representing Dr. Eric Walsh.<\/strong><\/p>\n

…Walsh, a Seventh-day Adventist<\/a> lay minister had been hired in May 2014 by as a District Health Director with the Georgia Department of Public Health<\/a>. A week later, a government official asked him to submit copies of his sermons for review. He complied and two days later he was fired.<\/strong><\/p>\n

His attorneys said the government was curious about sermons Dr. Walsh delivered on health, marriage, sexuality, world religions, science and creationism. He also preached on what the Bible says regarding homosexuality.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He has since filed a federal lawsuit charging state officials with engaging in religious discrimination.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHe was fired for something he said in a sermon,\u201d attorney Jeremy Dys told me. \u201cIf the government is allowed to fire someone over what he said in his sermons, they can come after any of us for our beliefs on anything.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr. Walsh has assembled a powerhouse legal team comprised of Parks, Chesin & Walbert along with First Liberty Institute<\/a>, one of the nation\u2019s most prominent religious liberty law firms.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an incredible intrusion on the sanctity of the pulpit,\u201d Dys said. \u201cThis is probably the most invasive reach into the pulpit by the state that I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The First Amendment<\/a> applies to churches. The government has no right to examine or control what is preached from America<\/a>‘s pulpits. Although separation of church and state is not part of the Constitution (the concept is based on a letter from Thomas Jefferson), the Constitution states that the government does not have the right to interfere with the free exercise of religion.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time a pastor has been asked to submit his sermons to the government. About two years ago I posted an article<\/a> about a similar request in Texas.<\/p>\n

These requests are unconstitutional. We need to make sure that they are not allowed to stand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday Fox News reported the story of Eric Walsh, a lay minister in Georgia. The State of Georgia has asked that Dr. Walsh turn over copies of his sermons. The article reports: \u201cPlease produce a copy of your sermon notes … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[767,2205,1823,1972,3510,10425],"class_list":["post-29535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-civil-liberties-union","tag-first-amendment","tag-first-amendment-to-the-united-states-constitution","tag-georgia","tag-religious-freedom","tag-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29535"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29536,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29535\/revisions\/29536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}