Thomas More Law Center

If Anything They Said Was True, They'd Both Be In Jail

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on April 7, 2010 - 1:26pm

Back in February, the Thomas More Law Center announced that it was filing suit to challenge the constitutionality of the recently enacted hate crimes legislation on the grounds that "the sole purpose of this law is to criminalize the Bible and use the threat of federal prosecutions and long jail sentences to silence Christians from expressing their Biblically-based religious belief that homosexual conduct is a sin."

Of course, the fact that this is patently false as the legislation contains explicit free speech and religious liberty protections isn't going to stop them from claiming that the law is an attempt to outlaw Christianity and protect pedophiles ... which is exactly what Robert Muise of the Thomas More Law Center and Rick Green of Wallbuilders did yesterday while discussing the issue on Wallbuilders Live:

Muise: We're in this [legal fight] for the long haul, and we need to be because those opponents of Christianity and the Christian view, they don't give up so quickly. They're continuing to press and fight as long and hard as they can to ensure that, you know, their really deviant sexual behavior is elevated to a special protected class as a matter of federal law and federal policy and they want to normalize it and want to silence Christians who oppose it. In fact, when you look at this, to even call it hate crimes legislation, they really want to equate the biblical teaching of homosexuality with racist speech, they want to really vilify it, demonize it, so it's no longer a participant in the marketplace of ideas. I mean this is all part and parcle of really a grand plan.

Green: I have never heard a Christian minister say "go out and do violence against a homosexual," so I don't even understand where they get ... if you get up and say "look, here's the deal, the Bible says this is a sin, no different than adultery is a sin, all these other things, the Bible speaks against this" and if you say this, that somehow that is inciting violence. I don't even get that connection.

Muise: You get the connection only because that's the rhetoric they use to silence those who oppose them. When you look at the Bible, and the Bible's words on homosexuality are quite harsh, as they are for other sinful conduct. Really, I don't know of any other situation where we've elevated deviant sexual behavior and those who engage in it to a special protected class of persons as a matter of federal law and federal policy.

Green: And including pedophiles.

Of course, the great irony of this entire discussion is that if the right-wing claims about hate crimes legislation being designed to silence Christians who speak out against homosexuality were true, then both Green and Muise would immediately be arrested for the very things they just said.

But that won't happen because their free speech and religious liberty rights have not been violated by the law, which undermines their central claim that hate crimes legislation is unconstitutional because it will silence Christians from speaking out.

In short, Green and Muise just spent a half-hour citing the Bible and railing against the "deviant sexual behavior" of gays, all while claiming that the existence of hate crimes legislation would result in anyone who cited the Bible or railed against gays being hauled off to jail .. and neither of them has been hauled off to jail.

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Religious Right Sues Over Hate Crimes Law

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on February 2, 2010 - 11:29am

I am actually surprised that it took the Religious Right this long to file suit:

A conservative civil liberties group is challenging the constitutionality of the recently enacted federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 ... The Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center says it elevates people engaged in deviant sexual behaviors to a special, protected class of persons under federal law.

The lawsuit naming U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on behalf of three pastors and the president of the American Family Association of Michigan.

All of the plaintiffs “take a strong public stand against the homosexual agenda, which seeks to normalize disordered sexual behavior that is contrary to Biblical teaching,” the Law Center said in a news release.

“There is no legitimate law enforcement need for this federal law,’ said Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center.

“This is part of the list of political payoffs to homosexual advocacy groups for support of Barack Obama in the last presidential election,” Thompson continued. “The sole purpose of this law is to criminalize the Bible and use the threat of federal prosecutions and long jail sentences to silence Christians from expressing their Biblically-based religious belief that homosexual conduct is a sin. It elevates those persons who engage in deviant sexual behaviors, including pedophiles, to a special protected class of persons as a matter of federal law and policy.”

...

The four plaintiffs are Michiagn Pastors Levon Yuille, Rene Ouellette, James Combs, and Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan.

...

Robert Muise, who is handling the case, said the new law promotes two Orwellian concepts: “It creates a special class of persons who are ‘more equal than others’ based on nothing more than deviant, sexual behavior. And it creates ‘thought crimes’ by criminalizing certain ideas, beliefs, and opinions, and the involvement of such ideas, beliefs, and opinions in a crime will make it deserving of federal prosecution."

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What Happens When Muslims Refuse to "Accept American Values"? Christians Sue for Discrimination

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on July 28, 2009 - 10:20am

Last year, I wrote a post about Gerald Marszalek, a high school wrestling coach in Dearborn, Michigan who was let go due to concerns that he had been allowing an assistant coach, a local clergyman, to try to convert Muslim students to Christianity. In that post I excerpted an article from the Detroit Free Press which is no longer available on-line:

According to Marszalek, parents and community leaders, [Principal Imad] Fadlallah and other parents have long been concerned about contacts between the wrestling team and a local clergyman, the Rev. Trey Hancock of the Dearborn Assembly of God.

Hancock, who helped Marszalek with the team for 10 years, and whose son, Paul, is now a member, confirmed that he attempts to convert Muslim youths to Christianity and that he baptized a 15-year-old Muslim student in Port Huron a few years ago.

…

Hancock insisted that he never attempted a conversion as part of his work with the wrestling team, or on school grounds. But when asked if he understood the concerns of Muslim parents, he said, "I consider it my work to pastor to anyone who is within my reach. So I can imagine they would be concerned. But is the Dearborn Public Schools going to be dictating what every pastor can or cannot do within his congregation?"

As I said at the time, the problem was not what Hancock was doing “within his congregation” but rather what he was doing in his capacity as a coach. If the roles here had been reversed and a Muslim coach had been trying to convert Christian students, you can rest assured that the Right would have gone absolutely ballistic.

That was the last we had heard of it, until today when we learned that Marszalek is now suing to get his job back:

Marszalek's attorney, Brandon Bolling, said his client coached at the school for 35 years and wants his job back.

"He was going to complete one last season to try to get to 500 wins," Bolling said.

For the record, Bolling just so happens to be an attorney for the Thomas Moore Law Center, which is a right-wing legal organization "dedicated to the defense and promotion of the religious freedom of Christians ... [by] providing legal representation without charge to defend and protect Christians and their religious beliefs in the public square."

In the organization's press release announcing the suit, they say that the case is not about a coach using his position to proselytize and convert Muslim students but rather about what happens when Muslims get all uppity:

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center commented, “We are getting a glimpse of what happens when Muslims who refuse to accept American values and principles gain political power in an American community. Failure to renew coach Marszalek’s contract had nothing to do with wrestling and everything to do with religion.”

The release also claims that "Principal Fadlallah was so upset by the conversion that he punched the student and informed him he had disgraced his family." I have been unable to find any articles that independently verify this allegation and frankly find it a little hard to believe that Fadlallah would still be Principal if he had punched a student.

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Religious Right Warns English-Arabic School 'Incubator' for Terrorists

Submitted by Anonymous on September 11, 2007 - 2:20pm

“Dual-language classes give U.S. an edge,” read the headline of an AP story printed last Tuesday in the right-wing Washington Times, lauding New York City’s 67 schools that offer instruction in English plus immersion in a foreign language to student bodies comprised of about half native English speakers and half children with a background in the other language. The two-way immersion approach has not been without pedagogical controversy, but programs in French, Spanish, Chinese, Creole, and other languages have not produced widespread criticism. That changed with the proposal of a dual-language program for Arabic.

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Racketeering Case against Militant Anti-Abortion Activists Comes to a Close

Submitted by Anonymous on May 9, 2007 - 4:33pm

According to the National Organization for Women, Joseph Scheidler once likened his militant Pro-Life Action Network to a “pro-life mafia.” Now, Scheidler is celebrating the final dismissal of a lawsuit that sought to hold his group’s (sometimes violent) intimidation activism accountable to an anti-mob racketeering law. “I’ve waited 21 years for this news!” said Scheidler. The ruling following a Supreme Court decision last year that federal racketeering laws don’t apply to organized crime without extortion or robbery.

Troy Newman, president of the current incarnation of Operation Rescue, praised Scheidler as a “true American hero.” The original Operation Rescue, run by Randall Terry, was also part of the NOW v. Scheidler lawsuit, but Terry agreed to a permanent injunction against his brand of clinic blockades and a monetary settlement back in 1998. (Terry, who declared bankruptcy to evade the settlement, found himself in the news again two years ago as the spokesman for Terri Schiavo’s parents.)

Throughout the period of militant anti-abortion protesting, when clinic bombings and murders of doctors spotted the headlines, Scheidler was unapologetic about his group’s tactics. “I’m doing what I have to do. So what? I’ve got some misdemeanors … I don’t consider myself a criminal,” he said (AP, 12/5/93). He bragged about his unusual actions, such as absconding with fetal remains (Wash. Post, 12/6/93) or picketing the homes of doctors (“Home Pickets Work,” USA Today, 10/19/95).

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Doctors' 'Conscience' as Refusal to Provide Medical Care to Lesbians

Submitted by Anonymous on April 12, 2007 - 4:10pm

While in some states, the Right is attempting to establish so-called “conscience clauses” to allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for contraceptives, one case in California finds a medical clinic – and the Religious Right – attempting to expand that principle to “conscience”-based discrimination against patients, rather than the services they seek. Doctors at an infertility clinic north of San Diego refused to provide a woman with artificial insemination services, citing their religious conviction against birth out of wedlock – and, according to the woman, citing her sexual orientation. California law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The right-wing Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing the clinic, claims this is a case about the right “to exercise your faith as a Christian.” The woman’s lawyer warned that “The next case may be about whether a doctor is willing to do a pap smear” for a lesbian.”

Other right-wing groups have filed amicus briefs in the case. Peter Ferrara of the American Civil Rights Union defended the doctor’s decision because, he said, it was based on “a commonly held view, well grounded in Christian tradition.” Brian Rooney of the Thomas More Law Center warned that the case “smacks of Nazi Germany when Hitler forced doctors to do diabolical acts that were like this.”