MTA ‘Freedom Ticket’ could make some commutes cheaper – Fox5NY

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - It's a long haul for security guard Richard Smith to get from Rosedale, Queens, to his job in Manhattan via MTA bus and subway. He could take a Long Island Rail Road train and cut his commute in half, but that would cost almost three times more. But Patricia Goodson, who lives in nearby Locust Manor, decided to make that trade-off.

Many New York City residents face this dilemma in parts of southeast Queens and Brooklyn, where access to subway lines is limited.

Andrew Albert, chair of the NYC Transit Riders Council and a non-voting board member of the MTA, says the solution could be in something called the Freedom Ticket, which the MTA has agreed to test out.

As the name implies, the Freedom Ticket would give the commuter the freedom to ride whatever mode of transportation meets their needs in a given area. The ticket would allow unlimited free transfers across LIRR and MTA bus and subway lines for a flat rate. While it hasn't been determined what that rate would be, it would be significantly less than the cost of separate tickets.

Right now, for example, a peak ride from Locust Manor to downtown Manhattan costs nearly $13 each way in combined LIRR and MetroCard fees.

Albert says the LIRR stations expected to participate in the pilot would include Atlantic Terminal, East New York, and Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn; and Locust Manor, Laurelton, Rosedale, and St. Albans in Queens.

The MTA says there is no official timeline for the Freedom Ticket pilot could start, but transit advocates hope it is in place by the fall.

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MTA 'Freedom Ticket' could make some commutes cheaper - Fox5NY

Report: Freedom on downswing – Rutland Herald

Basic freedoms of expression and association are on the decline around the world, the United States said Friday in a report that warned of worsening conditions for opposition groups and human rights activists.

In a departure from past practice, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declined to announce the report in-person or to speak about it publicly as his predecessors have done. Human rights groups and some lawmakers decried that decision and said it raised concerns that the U.S. was backing away from its traditionally vocal advocacy on human rights.

Corruption, use of torture and discrimination against minorities have gotten worse in some parts of the world, the report said.

It laid out concerns about sexual abuse of women, growing crackdowns on the media and internet freedom, suppression of political opposition groups and the inability of people to choose their own governments.

Tillerson, in a letter to Congress about the report, did not address any specific human rights concerns, but said promoting rights and democracy is a core element of U.S. foreign policy.

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Report: Freedom on downswing - Rutland Herald

Paul Ryan’s Misguided Sense of Freedom – New York Times


New York Times
Paul Ryan's Misguided Sense of Freedom
New York Times
He went on to argue that Obamacare abridges this freedom by telling you what to buy. But his first thought offers a meaningful and powerful definition of freedom. Conservatives are typically proponents of negative liberty: the freedom from constraints ...

and more »

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Paul Ryan's Misguided Sense of Freedom - New York Times

NRB head: Islam, homosexuality trumping Christians’ freedom – OneNewsNow

The host and leader of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) Christian Media Convention in Orlando, Florida, impressed to attendees that Islam and homosexuality are increasingly undermining the constitutional rights of Christians throughout America.

NRB President Jerry Johnson began this weeks convention in the Sunshine State by talking about the three major areas of his organizations ministry.

"Our mission is threefold: Advancing biblical truth, promoting media excellence and defending free speech," Johnson proclaimed Monday night, according to The Christian Post (CP). "Religion, that's NRB. Speech, that's NRB. Press, that's NRB. I don't know another group that does all three. Some do religion, some do speech and some do press."

Johnson then turned to the foundational document from which Americans liberties are derived a document he dubbed as Americas birth certificate, more commonly known as the Declaration of Independence, which he cited:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," Johnson quoted from the 241-year-old document.

However, NRB went back another 250-plus years to commemorate the freedoms that Americans still hold dear five centuries later by tapping into famous theologians and authors to address the crowd.

NRB is celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation at this year's convention, which is featuring such speakers as Devon Franklin, R.C. Sproul, Lee Strobel and Eric Metaxas, CPs Jeannie Law reported from the Florida conference. The theme verse for NRB's Proclaim 17 conference comes from Leviticus 25:10, which says, Proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants."

Homosexuality and Islam challenging Christianity

The Christian leader then warned Christian journalists, broadcasters, leaders and other communicators within the media world that there are two threats believers in America must take very seriously.

"We speak frankly here, the liberty and the freedom [part] is being challenged for us as broadcasters on two fronts sexuality and Islam," Johnson told the gathering of Christian communicators.

Addressing the LGBT agenda

Johnson went on to remind the Christians in attendance how their and their audiences traditional values have been trampled to accommodate the increasingly influential politically correct LGBT agenda.

"For now, the U.S. government has decided that same-sex marriage is legal, Johnson recounted to crowd. President Donald Trump also recently endorsed the legalization when he told CBS' 60 Minutes that these cases have gone to the Supreme Court; they've been settled and he's fine with that."

The leader of NRB then talked about why the legalization of same-sex marriage poses major obstacles for Christians in the workplace.

[The problem is that Christian artists shouldnt be forced to] make the cake, provide flowers, do the pictures and sing the songs," Johnson stressed before highlighting several NRB guests this year.

Former Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin J. Cochran, who was terminated for expressing his biblical beliefs about homosexual behavior, was mentioned by the NRB head before he shared about the how the Benham Brothers were kept from hosting their own show on HGTV over some alleged remarks that were considered by some as being anti-gay.

"People are penalized for this," Johnson expressed in dismay while reflecting on the Christian mens prematurely ended careers.

The problem with Islam

Johnson also addressed how terrorism and violence are only part of the problem concerning Islam.

"But it's the intolerance It's the sharia It's the blasphemy codes," NRBs leader voiced to the Florida crowd. "Is there any country where the majority is Islam [and] it's safe for someone to convert from Islam to Christianity? Is there any culture dominated by this worldview, where you can critique Muhammad or the Quran? It is absolutely antithetic to freedom of speech, freedom of religion or freedom of the press, and we must be aware of this and alert to this."

The various ways in which Islam has infiltrated all parts of the glove to threaten the very values, freedoms and safety of people everywhere was then discussed.

"It is a fact in Canada and in the U.K., you can be censored, you can be fined [and] your license can be pulled," he stressed.

Continuing on the same note, Johnson shared how a member of the NRB was fined and had his license revoked north of the border for using the word Muslim instead of Islam during a program.

"I'd say the quickest way to lose freedom of speech is to not use freedom of speech, use-it-or-lose-it!" the media expert asserted. "We will make NRB for the First Amendment, what the NRA is for the Second Amendment."

He then emphasized how NRB will not back down to such bullying tactics that are geared to forward the politically correct agenda endorsing Islam in the media.

"If you're taking away these freedoms, NRB is a fight club and you better get used to it! Johnson exclaimed. Nixon wasn't paranoid they were really out to get him. Wake up. They are really out to get you.

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NRB head: Islam, homosexuality trumping Christians' freedom - OneNewsNow

Dirty words? Conservatives, liberals and accurate descriptions when reporting on religious freedom – GetReligion (blog)

My follow-up post gushed all over Gjelten's piece on the religious freedom debate:

So why do a third post? Because of the excellent discussion generated by a reader's question about Gjelten's story.

The question came from Anton Karidian:

I replied:

And GetReligion editor Terry Mattingly chimed in:

Finally, Gjelten took the time to respond:

Obviously, the conservative vs. liberal terminology did not stand out to me when I read the story originally. Perhaps I am just accustomed to seeing the sides characterized that way. As a reminder, this was the opening on Gjelten's piece:

As I read it,Karidian's criticism is that a label ("conservatives") is applied to one side of the debate but not the other. Gjelten, meanwhile, defends his description of religious conservatives but fails to explain, unless I'm missing it,why he doesn't label LGBT advocates as "liberals."

What might be a possible solution, if one sees a problem? One might be to change "conservatives" to "people of faith" in that second paragraph. Elsewhere in the story, perhaps a more specific identifier such as "evangelicals" might be applied to those pushing religious freedom legislation. Of course, the term "evangelicals" brings its own set of complexities as far as defining exactly who falls under that umbrella.

What do you think, dear reader? Was the original language fair and accurate? Do you see a need for any tweaking in how such labels are applied? Might one's response be tied, to some degree, on whether that person sees "conservatives" or "liberals" or both as dirty words?

By all means, please join the conversation by commenting below or tweeting us at @GetReligion.

Image via Pixabay.com

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Dirty words? Conservatives, liberals and accurate descriptions when reporting on religious freedom - GetReligion (blog)

If the president goes to war against freedom of the press, who wins … – The Boston Globe

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, during a news conference at the White House.

President Trump makes no secret of his loathing for the news media. Crude and juvenile attacks on journalists scum, slime, crazy, moron, disgusting, sleaze were a mainstay of his presidential campaign. But the media bashing has grown even more menacing during his first weeks in the White House.

In a bizarre and rambling press conference on Feb. 16, Trump lambasted the press for peddling fake news and trafficking in hatred. In a tweet the next day, he labeled The New York Times and four broadcast networks the enemy of the American people. He repeated the enemy language when he addressed a gathering of conservative activists in Washington a few days later. The president denounced news organizations for reflecting their own agenda and not the countrys agenda, and insisted that they shouldnt be allowed to use unnamed sources in their reporting.

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The fake news doesnt tell the truth, said Trump. He warned: Were going to do something about it.

There is nothing new about presidents venting and worse at the press. The Obama administration harshly attacked Fox News, wiretapped thousands of Associated Press phone calls, and prosecuted James Risen of The New York Times to make him to break a vow of confidentiality. Richard Nixon had a secret enemies list. In the nations early years, John Adamss Federalists indicted editors and publishers of newspapers friendly to Thomas Jefferson. But Trumps assault on the news media is unprecedented in the modern era. No president has come to office after a long campaign in which he so routinely, angrily, and publicly savaged the press; no president has devoted such a large chunk of his first weeks in office to high-profile media bashing; and no president in living memory has used such incendiary language the enemy of the people to characterize American journalists.

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In fairness, Trumps aggression so far has been restricted to rhetoric speeches, tweets, and lashings-out at news conferences. No newspapers have been prosecuted, and no journalists have been rounded up. Apart from barring some disfavored news organizations from briefings, what Trump calls his running war with the press has consisted to date of blistering and slanderous trash talk.

The president made the announcement in a tweet.

But we are only in Week 6 of Trumps administration. If the president is this belligerent toward the media now when no catastrophe has erupted and his White House is not embroiled in scandal what can we expect when a genuine crisis breaks out, and Trump is enraged by media coverage he considers unfair? If the least criticism today, before anything has gone seriously wrong on his watch, can provoke him to such demagoguery, how will he react when stinging headlines reveal serious negligence, corruption, or incompetence in the White House?

The modern First Amendment is very strong, and reporters count on its shelter. But the modern presidency is very strong, too, and the impact of the bully pulpit has never been greater. Who will prevail if the commander in chief, clothed in the immense power of a 21st-century president, sets his mind to whittling back the protections of the First Amendment?

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There is no way to know before it happens. But the last time a US president pushed hard to strip the press of protections it took for granted, it didnt go well for the press.

Exactly a century ago, Woodrow Wilson, having embarked on a foreign war with Germany, embarked on a domestic crusade against dissent and criticism in the media. In a speech to Congress, Wilson declared that American troops abroad would make the world safe for democracy. In the selfsame speech he warned that any disloyalty on the home front will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression.

AP Photo

Woodrow Wilson delivers a declaration of war to a joint session of Congress.

He was as good as his authoritarian word. Wilson pulled out the stops to whip up public sentiment against antiwar dissenters, especially Socialists, and against vindictive immigrants who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life. He pushed for and signed the Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917 and 1918, which made it a crime to utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the federal government. The law empowered the postmaster general to block any publication deemed insufficiently patriotic; dozens of periodicals were put out of business.

No help came from the courts. In 1919, the publisher of a German-language Missouri newspaper was hauled into federal court for printing a series of editorials and articles opposing Wilsons war policies. Jacob Frohwerk was convicted of violating the Espionage Act and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Frohwerk appealed to the Supreme Court, pleading his right to publish under the First Amendment. The justices unanimously ruled against him, on the grounds that his writings might prove persuasive to some readers.

Eventually the war ended. Wilson left the White House, and the Supreme Court revived the First Amendment. No president since Wilson has launched a serious jihad against dissent and the free press. Today, the idea of an editor going to prison for merely criticizing the government seems comfortably far-fetched. Then again, until last week, so did the idea of a president, just weeks into his presidency, defaming the national media as the enemy of the American people.

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If the president goes to war against freedom of the press, who wins ... - The Boston Globe

Between the Lines: Freedom And Its Messy Consequences – Vermillion Plain Talk

Ive been struggling while crafting this weeks column.

I know that no matter how precise I am with my wording, there may be some who will believe after reading this that Im doing a 180 on something I expressed on this page just a little over a month ago.

In a column I typed out shortly after the Womens March was held in downtown Vermillion, I wrote: Freedom of expression is one of the cherished things that distinguishes the United States from the rest of the world. We shouldnt be surprised when happenings in our nation or our community compel people to make their voices heard. Even when we dont agree with the message.

Recent happenings in Pierre, and further north in North Dakota, are requiring a bit of clarity be added to that statement. Ive always been a big believer that the most effective forms of expression are somewhat controlled, non-violent activities, with no looting, no property damage, nothing like that.

I know there are some that will disagree with my assessment. After Michael Brown was shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, that community erupted with outrage, compassion and street protests. The response from many corners of the news media included condemnations of bad elements" among the protesters who resorted to property destruction as their demonstration of resistance.

Count me among those who will never understand how wanton property destruction, or looting, or rioting can be justified to make a point. And yes, I realize the Boston Tea Party could be labeled as an early example of protest combined with property loss, but somehow the act of throwing a few crates of tea into a harbor seems pretty mild when compared to watching, for example, rioters slash and burn a business youve spent years building, or having a mob pull you from your truck and smash your head with concrete, as we all remember watching during the Rodney King riots.

Those riots stemmed from the acquittal of four white Los Angeles Police Department officers in the beating of King in 1991. They lasted over five days in the spring of 1992, and left more than 50 people dead and more than 2,000 injured.

I know it sounds like Im saying that "good" protesters march, carry signs and make their voices heard, but anyone who smashes, burns or vandalizes contaminates the otherwise defensible show of democratic expression. I also know that someone may just as easily point out that property destruction as a tactic of resistance has a long history and is frequently effective.

Theres another type of protest-related property damage that we need to talk about: the unintentional damage that can have far-reaching, detrimental effects.

This is what I fear has just occurred at Standing Rock in North Dakota. The nearly year-long Standing Rock protest, which gained steam in the final months of 2016, as thousands of protesters traveled to the site from across the country, achieved its ends for a brief time when the Army Corps of Engineers denied Energy Transfer Products (ETP) a permit to build a portion of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The Standing Rock Sioux allegedly feared the pipeline had the potential to contaminate the Missouri River, the source of the tribe's drinking water. Now they fear a new problem. The garbage left behind by the activists.

Standing Rock protestors, who gathered by the thousands to voice their concerns about an oil pipeline they claimed would contaminate the Missouri River, have left a garbage wasteland behind, which, if not cleaned up in time, will contaminate the Cannonball River and Lake Oahe.

Thousands of protesters moved in and out of the Dakota Access site over the past few months. According to numerous news reports, theyve left behind an estimated 200-plus large truckloads of garbage, an enormous amount of human waste, and dozens of abandoned cars, buses, trucks and other vehicles that had either broken down or run out of gas.

According to recent piece in the Washington Times, the Standing Rock Sioux, private sanitation companies and other volunteers involved in the cleanup estimate that it could take weeks to clear all the abandoned tents, camping gear, supplies and trash now littering the camp.

The looming winter thaw threatens to make the area even more of ecological mess. Without proper remediation, debris, trash, and untreated waste will wash into the Cannonball River and Lake Oahe, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said in a statement.

Standing Rock protestors may have been successful in drawing public attention to their cause, but they were not able to stop the pipeline. Earlier this month, Energy Transfer Partners announced that Dakota Access, LLC (Dakota Access) has received an easement from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to construct the pipeline across land owned by the Army Corps on both sides of Lake Oahe in North Dakota.

The release of this easement by the Army Corps follows a directive from President Donald Trump to the Department of the Army and the Army Corps to take all necessary and appropriate steps that would permit construction and operation of the Dakota Access pipeline, including easements to cross federal lands.

With this action, Dakota Access now has received all federal authorizations necessary to proceed expeditiously to complete construction of the pipeline. A federal judge was scheduled to hear arguments this week about whether to stop the final bit of construction on the pipeline.

The Standing Rock protest also gained the attention of lawmakers in Pierre. Gov. Dennis Daugaard won approval from state senators last week for sweeping additional powers to respond to public protests such as North Dakota has faced over an oil pipeline. The concern is that TransCanada will face protests in South Dakota when the company builds the Keystone XL oil pipeline through the states western half from Montana to Nebraska.

The legislation, SB 176, now goes to the House of Representatives. If it becomes law, it would allow South Dakotas governor to declare public safety zones where entry and exit would be controlled and trespassers would face one year in jail for the first offense and one year in prison for the second and subsequent offenses.

The proposal also would make standing outside a stopped vehicle on a highway an act of crime if it happened in an off-limits area.

Whether or not you agreed with the message that activists at Standing Rock were trying to send, their actions have had substantial consequences. They have caused millions of dollars in property damage, they have threatened the environment of the Missouri River waterway which flows our way, and they are potentially changing the rules to be followed in should similar types of protests ever be planned in South Dakota.

Maybe part of the problem is assuming protest can always be a neat, tidy thing. It clearly cannot, and it clearly, at times, can be messy.

All I can do is once again repeat a snippet from my earlier column: Want to accomplish something? Reach out to those you disagree with. Talk with them. The worst thing we can do is simply dismiss people who think differently as being racist, sexist, privileged, out of touch, ignorant, and so on. Change comes from building relationships, not with people you agree with, but with those whose views are different.

Our best hope is that Standing Rock, despite its unintended consequences, will spark this kind of conversation. Hopefully, the discussions will continue. Hopefully, they will be fruitful, and they wont be destructive.

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Between the Lines: Freedom And Its Messy Consequences - Vermillion Plain Talk

Former President George W. Bush speaks out about freedom of press – KEYT

George W. Bush speaks out about...

Former President George W. Bush has stayed rather quite since leaving the oval office, but Wednesday night he spoke to a sold out crowd and answered several questions about the current political climate.

Mister Bush was at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley to promote his new book, Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chiefs Tribute To Americas Warriors. During the sit down discussion he answered several questions about his book as well as chimed in on some current political hot topics.

One of the first political topics that came up was his stance on freedom of press.

I absolute believe in a free press as should every other American believe in free press because the press holds people to account. Power is very addictive and its corrosive therefore there needs to be an independent group of people that hold you to account, said Mister Bush.

Bush said that when he made those same remarks to another media outlet this week, his statement was taken out of context.

So I answered that question and of course the headlines were Bush criticizes Trump. So of course, I needed to say there should be a free and independent press but it got to be accurate, said Mister Bush.

The Nations 43rd President also went on to say he has no intention to criticize his successors.

Its a hard job, and I think if a former president is out there second guessing it is going to make it harder and I want anybody who is president to succeed we are all in this together, said Bush. People say why. First of all the office of the president is more important than the occupant, and I believe it undermines the office of the presidency. Secondly I understand there is a lot of critiques and I dont want to make the presidents job worse.

The primarily republican audience applauded what mister bush had to say.

It was wonderful to hear the humor in the president and the mission of his heart and why he put it to paper and how he feels about the veterans. I am a big supporter of military as well, said Marissa Couhlan of Malibu.

I think it really was a conversation with the president. Just the tone he was using the verbiage that he chose and it really made everything relatable and I just like the way he connected back with the youth and how there is hope for the country, said Joanne Prociuk of Santa Clarita.

What you got to understand is that our nation goes through divisive and tough times, but there is something unique about us, there is a spirit you cant extinguish and that is why I am so optimistic about the spirit of the country, said Bush.

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Former President George W. Bush speaks out about freedom of press - KEYT

The President’s Slave Who Found Freedom on the NH Seacoast – New Hampshire Public Radio

Ona Judge, a runaway slave who evaded George Washington himself, lived most of her on New Hampshires Seacoast after gaining her freedom. Her story isn't well known, but there are many who are working to keep Judges history and the history of the black community in Portsmouth alive.

While Judge isnt a household name, in 18th-century Portsmouth, she was infamous. She was a slave of Martha Washingtons the first ladys personal handmaid. So when Judge escaped from Philadelphia one May night, it didnt take long for word to reach her masters. The presidents slave had been spotted in New Hampshire.

Ona Judge gave a couple of interviews, and left some correspondences behind, but theres a lot of conjecture in her story. Historian Erica Dunbar spent years researching the runaway for her book, Never Caught. She says that Judges decision provides insight into her conviction.

"When she made the decision to flee to New England," explains Dunbar, "she gave up the knowledge that she would ever see her family again. That was a huge thing to let go of as a 22 year-old woman. And what she traded that in for was a life of uncertainty."

New Hampshire was a strategic choice, but it wasnt Judges choice. Once she decided to flee, she put her life in the hands of a well-connected black community. They would have known that Boston and New York City were out of the question for a slave from the most prominent household in the country. But Portsmouth was small and easily accessible Judge could take a ship straight from Philadelphia. And the port city had abolitionist leanings and a large free black community. There, Judge could be protected.

"We can find in correspondence that she lodged and stayed with free blacks who helped her find employment, who gave her a roof over her head, and allowed her to try and put together a life for herself in Portsmouth," Dunbar says.

That life wasnt easy. Judge was a fugitive slave. Local newspapers ran daily ads for runaways and bounty hunters were always on the lookout. That, and the President himself was searching for her. She spent most of her self-emancipation looking over her shoulder. She did domestic work for white families in Portsmouth, and eked out a living. It was in stark contrast to the life she would have lived in Martha Washingtons company, according to JerriAnne Boggis, director of the Black Heritage Trail in Portsmouth.

"She would rather die a free woman than live in the lap of luxury. And thats the other thing, its the presidents house!" Boggis emphasizes, "She didnt leave Mr. Who-Knows-What in Who-Knows-Where, she left the house of the presidency. The prestige of that."

Driving around the city one cold February morning, JerriAnne imagines the Portsmouth of 200 years ago.

Pulling up to the Strawberry Banke museum, Boggis gestures to the frozen, gravelly ground. Buried a few feet below us is the original dock, where Judge would have disembarked after a five day journey from Philly. From there, she would have been secretly welcomed into Portsmouths black community.

"They had slave auctions, actually, right on docks sometimes," Boggis says, "So its part of this uncovering of the black history here."

We drive past buildings that were once the homes of free blacks, and on to the massive John Langdon House. Langdon was Governor when Judge lived in Portsmouth and hes often credited with warning her of Washingtons hot pursuit. But Boggis has another idea.

"You just cant imagine that he would run out to find Ona wherever she is to say, Hey, theyre coming from you. Its more likely," Boggisguesses, "that the servants are hearing this and saying, Well, weve got to go and warn Ona that, Hey, hes in town. Better keep a low profile.

At the end of the day, standing by the African Burial Ground Memorial, Boggis says that stories like Judges are a window into an unseen Portsmouth history.

"Mostly what I do," says Boggis, "is really connect the history to whats going on now and how this information really changes how we see New Hampshire, how we see New England, how we see America."

Valerie Cunningham - the founder of the Black Heritage Trail and author of Black Portsmouth explains that their goal is to incorporate the black perspective into the history of Portsmouth.

"Its not true to say that there is so little documentation of the black past," Cunningham explains, "Its just been overlooked because it has not been considered relevant, or important. Once you start looking, you find little clues and big clues all around - as they say, hidden in plain sight."

Being hidden in plain sight is a metaphor for Ona Judges own life maintaining her anonymity while trying to lead a normal existence. But that life is getting a different treatment in modern Portsmouth. On March 5th the Temple Israel Social Hall, the Black Heritage Trail will be hosting an Ona Judge living history event and talk with author Erica Dunbar.

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The President's Slave Who Found Freedom on the NH Seacoast - New Hampshire Public Radio

Lent is time to relive exodus from slavery to freedom, pope says – Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Like the people of Israel freed from the bondage of slavery, Christians are called to experience the path toward hope and new life during the Lenten season, Pope Francis said.

Through his passion, death and resurrection, Jesus "has opened up for us a way that leads to a full, eternal and blessed life," the pope said at his weekly general audience March 1, Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent for Latin-rite Catholics.

"Lent lives within this dynamic: Christ precedes us with his exodus and we cross the desert, thanks to him and behind him," he said.

On a warm and sunny morning, the pope held his audience in St. Peter's Square. Arriving in the popemobile, he immediately spotted a group of children and signaled several of them to come aboard for a ride. One by one, the three girls and one boy climbed into the popemobile and warmly embraced the pope.

In his main audience talk, the pope said that while Lent is a time of "penance and even mortification," it is also "a time of hope" for Christians awaiting Christ's resurrection to "renew our baptismal identity."

The story of the Israelites' journey toward the Promised Land and God's faithfulness during times of trial and suffering helps Christians "better understand" the Lenten experience, he said.

"This whole path is fulfilled in hope, the hope of reaching the (Promised) Land and precisely in this sense it is an 'exodus,' a way out from slavery to freedom," the pope said. "Every step, every effort, every trial, every fall and every renewal has meaning only within the saving plan of God, who wants for his people life and not death, joy and not sorrow."

To open this path toward the freedom of eternal life, he continued, Jesus gave up the trappings of his glory, choosing humility and obedience.

However, the pope said that Christ's sacrifice on the cross doesn't mean "he has done everything" and "we go to heaven in a carriage."

"It isn't like that. Our salvation is surely his gift, but because it is a love story, it requires our 'yes' and our participation, as shown to us by our mother Mary and after her, all the saints," he said.

Lent, he added, is lived through the dynamic that "Christ precedes us through his exodus," and that through his victory Christians are called to "nourish this small flame that was entrusted to us on the day of our baptism."

"It is certainly a challenging path as it should be, because love is challenging, but it is a path full of hope," Pope Francis said.

- - -

Follow Arocho on Twitter: @arochoju.

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Lent is time to relive exodus from slavery to freedom, pope says - Catholic News Service

I believe in freedom of expression within legal limits: Manohar Parrikar – Economic Times

NEW DELHI: Amid a raging controversy over free speech, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today said he supports freedom of expression, but within the legal framework.

"I believe in freedom of expression but it has to be within reasonable legal framework," he said.

On the sidelines of a DRDO event, Parrikar was asked to comment on the controversy surrounding Delhi University student Gurmehar Kaur who had launched a campaign against RSS-backed ABVP.

The defence minister, however, clarified that his comments were not related to any particular incident.

The 20-year-old Kaur became the centre of a controversy after she launched a social media campaign against the ABVP which has been under attack after some of its members were allegedly involved in violence at Ramjas College on February 22.

She allegedly received rape threats following the campaign and drew criticism from a Union minister and a BJP MP.

On the issue of the alleged leak of question papers of an army recruitment examination, Parrikar said the defence ministry has recommended a CBI inquiry as the case has inter-state ramifications.

On Monday, the army had ordered a high-level court of inquiry (CoI) into the alleged question paper leak.

Referring to the Kabul blasts and possible use of chemical weapons, he said that the army should be well-prepared to tackle any challenge.

"As per the reports which are coming from the southern and northern parts of Afghanistan, I have seen photographs of the local population having suffered from blisters.... (due to possible use of some chemical weapons). At this moment, I don't have a confirmation on this matter but the photos are quite distressing," he said.

The minister said India will have to be prepared for any kind of nuclear or chemical attack, adding the armed forces must remain alert and prepared for any challenge.

More than a dozen people were killed in two terror attacks in Kabul yesterday.

The near-simultaneous attacks struck the Afghan capital around noon on Wednesday. First, a suicide car bomber targeted a police station in western Kabul. The explosion was followed by a gun battle between the police and several attackers.

In the second attack, a bomber detonated explosives outside offices of the intelligence service in eastern Kabul.

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I believe in freedom of expression within legal limits: Manohar Parrikar - Economic Times

NPR Largely Misses Critical Distinction on Religious Freedom vs. LGBTQ Rights – Religion Dispatches

However well-intentioned, NPRs latest foray into religious freedom falls victim to several false equivalencies and ends up leaving the reader/listener vulnerable to the problematic arguments of those pushing for the right to discriminate againstLGBTQ people.

CorrespondentTom Gjeltenmakes what appears to be an honest, good-faith effort to offer a general backgrounder on the state of religious liberty, but several key omissions and questionable language undercut his effort to providebalance.

First, the good. Gjelten does include a dissenting religious voice, Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry,which challengesthepreferred conservative framing that this issue is being waged betweenreligious individuals andnon-religious individuals.Its true that its almost solelyreligiousinstitutions that have taken up the mantle of opposing LGBTQ equality or womens access to contraception, but there aremany otherswhodisagree.

AndGjelten is, of course, correct in framing both freedom of religion and the pursuit of equality as central tenets of American culture. But as we have documented here atRD, todays religious freedom fighters are waging a very different battle than did this nations Founders when theyconsidered the concept of freedom of religion important enough tobe included in the very first amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

But the confusion begins to mount when Gjelten begins to discuss real-world examples. He writes:

If a football coach is not allowed to lead his team in a public prayer, or a high school valedictorian is not given permission to read a Bible passage for her graduation speech, or the owner of a private chapel is told he cannot refuse to accommodate a same-sex wedding, they might claim their religious freedom has been infringed.

This lack of specificity undermines the whole project to illuminate the reader. Is the football coach at a public or private institution? Is the valedictorian? And the private chapel is a phrasethat may well warrant its ownarticle, as chapel clearly evokesa religious entity or space, though in the eyes of the lawits simply a business like any other.

But even these vague hypotheticals offer a more concrete illustration of potential harms done to those who claim religious freedom than Gjeltens piece provides about the concrete harms done to same-sex couples who are denied service because of someones sincerely held religious belief. The article makes no mention of real-life cases of religiously justified anti-LGBT discrimination,like the 2014 case in Michigan where a pediatrician refused to treat a six-day-old infantbecause the child had two moms. SinceMichigan does not include LGBT people in its nondiscrimination law, the refusal of service, which the doctor reached after much prayer, was entirely legal.

To fairly illustrate the competing claims of discrimination at the heart of this issue, its necessary to illuminate the practical impact of whats at stake for parties on each side of the issue. Its not just about wedding cakes and church services.

Illustrating that point, Gjelten thenfocuses on the 2004 Massachusetts Supreme Court decision that embraced marriage equality (using the preferred term of equality opponents, claiming the court redefined marriage), which prompted Catholic Charities to voluntarilycease providing adoption services in the state,citing a sincerely held religious belief that barred the organization from placing foster or adoptive childrenwith same-sex parents.

But here, as in the earlier examples, Gjelten omits a key detail regarding the public/private divide:the reason Catholic Charities (in Massachusetts and other states, like Illinois) was subject to the states nondiscrimination law in the first place is because the agency maintained contracts with the state to provide child welfare services. Adoption isno doubt a worthy cause for a faith community and thestate to engage in, but those two entities have vastly different constitutional responsibilities when it comes to how theytreat citizens hoping to provide loving homes to children.

Catholic Charities has what it perceives to be a divine order to serve and protect the vulnerable, including childrenwhose families of origin cannot care for them. But Catholic doctrine formally denounces same-sex parents, and despite some disagreement among Catholic Charities leadership, the agency determined that such doctrine must dictate policy.

The state, on the other hand, is constitutionally barred from denying access to services (including adoption) based on a persons faithor, in Massachusetts and Illinois, on a persons perceived or actual sexual orientation. By extension, the state cannot formally endorse a particular faith practices understanding of morality or appropriate parental qualities, unless those characteristics happen to align directly with a compelling state interest. (This is precisely the reason why, as Gjelten notes, Mississippis sweeping 2016 religious freedom law earned itself afederalinjunction.)

Buttheres a fairly simpleand reasonablesolution to this wholeconundrum, though it requires the very distinctions between the public and private spaces Gjelten fails delineate. The First Amendments prohibition on state establishment of religion can reasonably be read to mean that government agenciesand, crucially, publicly funded entitiesshould create policy based on the public interest, not on any particular religiousdoctrine.

Look, if Catholic Charities wants to deny me, a queer woman, the opportunity to adopt a child, that is their right. As a religious entity founded on and adherent to Catholic doctrine, I understand that, even if I disagree with the decision, this nations promise of free exercise of religion protects faith-based entities from engaging with those who dont share their beliefs.

Simultaneously, however, as a citizen I enjoy equal protection under the law, which includes access to state-funded agencies that provide social services, including adoption. Im OK with Catholic Charities refusing to serve me because of my identity, but I cannot justify my tax dollars funding an agency that actively discriminates against me.

Yet the reader of this NPR piece might leave with only the vague sense that the government is telling a religious institution what it can and cant believe in or act on. Without mention of the finer distinctions the reader is clearly being done a disservicewhich in this case happens to benefit religious freedom advocates. Or, for those who balk at the use of scare quotes in that phrase, lets call them discriminationists.

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NPR Largely Misses Critical Distinction on Religious Freedom vs. LGBTQ Rights - Religion Dispatches

The Spirit of Michael Novak, a Friend of Freedom – The Weekly Standard

Early morning on February 17, word was getting around that Michael Novak had passed away in his sleep, and email klatsches were forming. In mine, one of his close friends wrote that "the generosity of Michael's friendship allowed him to obscure the fact that he was among the few truly great men that any of us have known." We all piled on with fervent assents. That a man of such towering achievements should also be a down-home, kindly friend (even "cuddly," discerning women would attest) was so unusual that we had pretended he was just one of the guys.

Which is not to say that Michael was modest. He wrote more than 40 books and countless essays on everything under the sun and many things beyond the sun. He promoted his ideas assiduously, through 50 years of nonstop lecturing, debating, and classroom teaching and in everyday small-talk that never stayed small when he was around. He was driven by a firm conviction that he was in possession of singular talents for educating and improving mankind. Early in my time as president of the American Enterprise Institute, I told Michael that he had exactly 12 minutes, not a minute more, to summarize his current work for a gathering of trustees and donors. He cheerfully agreed and then, as he warmed up at the podium, spoke for 50 minutes (on baseball and American democracy) to a rapt and appreciative audience.

And Michael was ardent for recognition and honorswhich, among friends, he never bothered to conceal, treating praise simply as evidence that his labors were indeed moving the world. As he lay dying, a visitor noticed that his daughter, Jana, was reading him the numerous emails she was receiving attesting to his great works and influence. Enough testimonials, the visitor interjected, it is time to turn to larger matters. Michael mustered a smile and said: No, no, read them all! Which was his way of telling everyone assembled that the Novakian spirit they knew and loved was still burning strong.

Michael's combination of ambition and friendliness was more than personal disposition. His thinking and writing, too, were at once aggressive and gentle, tough-minded and irenic. This was an expression of his intellectual position and Catholic faithas I tried to explain in remarks at a dinner in honor of Michael on his retirement from AEI in 2010, printed below. Here let me elaborate with words of his own.

Michael was a Reagan Democrat, proud of his ethnic (Slovak-American) roots and upbringing in working-class Johnstown, Pennsylvania. In the 1970s, his intellectual migration from left to right was inspired by the left's (and the Democratic party's) abandonment of working-class sentiments and aspirations for a new-age progressivism that he regarded as utopian and effete. Accordingly, his conservatism was sinewy, and distinctly non-libertarian. Human freedom, for Michael, was not an abstract good but rather a social artifactthe fruit of lived experience, grounded in family and community, and demanding continuous struggle against the forces of moral entropy. Democratic capitalism is the preferred political system for more than its palpable material benefits: It is the most auspicious arena for the incarnate struggles among groups and nations and within the human heart. Economic prosperity is evidence that the struggles are going well for the time being. "Free to choose," when we gain it, is an obligation.

I thought of Novak the Reagan Democrat last election night, November 8, 2016, when the early returns from western Pennsylvania were beginning to upset expectations of a Hillary Clinton triumph. (Johnstown's Cambria County, heavily Democratic in party registration, went 66 percent for Donald Trump.) In my political set, sharply divided between Trump supporters and opponents, we had learned to be circumspect about election preferencesbut when I reached Michael he was bluntly at the barricades. "If America is going to come apart into those who went to college and those who did not," he said, "I want to be with the folks who did not go to college."

I did not question Michael in any detail, but am certain that he was not rooting for the Trumpsters as if they were the Steelers. I think he regarded the Trump revolt as the rough-hewn, extravagantly flawed, internally conflicted agency of freedom in its latest struggle. But in Michael's conception the struggle is a noble one, because freedom is at once contingent and divine, and it can succeed only by attaching itself to human goodness. That is the teaching of the stem-winding conclusion of his address at Westminster Abbey on receiving the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 1994:

No one ever promised us that free societies will endure forever. Indeed, a cold view of history shows that submission to tyranny is the more frequent condition of the human race, and that free societies have been few in number and not often long-lived. Free societies such as our own, which have arisen rather late in the long evolution of the human race, may pass across the darkness of time like splendid little comets, burn into ashes, disappear.

Yet nothing in the entire universe, vast as it is, is as beautiful as the human person. The human person alone is shaped to the image of God. This God loves humans with a love most powerful. It is this God who draws us, erect and free, toward Himself, this God Who, in Dante's words, is the Love that moves the sun / and all the stars.

Michael was one of the last remaining (a few are still with us) of those giants who collaborated directly with Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II on the great liberal achievements of the 1980sthe defeat of Soviet communism and the expansion of economic freedom and prosperity in much of the West and beyond. Today we are once again beset by violent totalitarianism, economic stagnation, angry social divisions, and an abundance of unpleasant options. Many conservatives, and many young people, seem to think we have lost our grip and fallen away from a halcyon past. In the face of such despair, Michael Novak's legacy is that the struggle for freedom is ever present, ever changing, and ever in need of active, tough-minded idealism.

Christopher DeMuth Sr. is a distinguished fellow at Hudson Institute.

'The Total Novak Phenomenon'

Michael Novak and his work during the past 35 years have been abundantly feted. Celebrants have expounded on his brilliance, his prolificacy, and his influence. But brilliance and industriousness, although highly important virtues, are not nearly as rare as the total Novak phenomenon. And influence, although highly admired, is not a virtue at allit puts Michael in the company of Eliot Spitzer and Peter Singer. So I would like to take a different tack and remark on Michael's character, in particular his ambition and his bravery.

He spent the first 20 years of his professional life in academics. To the brilliant and industrious, university life offers wonderful opportunities for achievement and fulfillment. Michael could have continued to hold the best chairs at the best schools and to win all the teaching awards. But the academy favors work on discrete, manageable problems "in the literature" and can punish departures from certain orthodoxies. At some point in the 1970s, Michael decided that he would go after bigger game.

I have often marveled that in the midst of the Jimmy Carter administration, the hardheaded businessmen on the American Enterprise Institute's Board of Trustees would countenance the appointment of a theologian, and moreover a theologian with a colorful paper trail in left-wing politics and Democratic party electioneering. But it was Michael who took by far the greater risk in accepting the offerthrowing away tenure and respectability for God knew what (but He wasn't talking, not even to Michael).

Since then Michael's vocation has been the conquest of momentous, difficult, contentious problems. Problems with large practical and political components, where his philosophical learning provided a foundation but everything else was left to his own wits and experience. Today we recognize the moral architecture of democratic capitalism because Michael built it for useven the terms were unknown before he and Irving Kristol started their work.

And, since publication of The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism in 1982, he has provided many elaborations and applications: on the moral architectures of economic development, of escape from the welfare trap, of nuclear deterrence, of the corporation and business-as-a-calling, and of the income tax, intellectual property, mediating structures, ethnic politics, and even sports (the last however limited to Notre Dame football). If you listen in on Michael debating the progressive income tax with a professional economist, you will get an idea of the moral clarity he has brought to questions that everyone knew to be terribly complicated and endlessly nuanced.

Along the way he has dispatched many cherished liberal shibboleths and theological wrong-turns. In his 2001 book, On Two Wings, he grafted back the second wing of faith onto the long-prevailing narrative (even at AEI) of the American founding as a secular exercise in institutional ingenuity. Bravest of all, he has provided religious instruction to Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

What Michael's greatest projects have had in common is audacity. In taking them on, he was committing himself to originality, which risked failure, and to unflinching truth-telling, which risked elite derision if he succeeded. His brilliance may have given him the confidence to take the big risks; his industriousness may have been inspired by fear of failure. But they alone cannot explain what Michael achieved. They had to be coupled with gutssheer obstinate confrontational Johnstown guts.

Michael's toughness is often masked by his sweet, magnanimous disposition. Don't be fooled. If you have watched him make a big concession in a debate, or respond sympathetically to a hostile questioner, or provide a generous account of an opposing view in a book or essay, then you know that his kindliness is often the sign that serious intellectual vivisection is about to commence.

And then there's his vast philosophical mastery: He already knows Argument 27 better than the other guy, and he also knows that it is conventionally trumped by Argument 8but he also knows that it is completely annihilated by Argument 131 C, which he derived himself 15 years ago.

But most of all, Michael's sweet magnanimity is genuine and in fact reflects the ambition and bravery of his intellectual position. For it expresses his certainty that there is good in human naturegood that calls for earnest entreaty on its own terms. Among career pundits and haut thinkers, nothing could be more politically incorrect, more embarrassingly nave. Yet in Michael's choices of projects, and in the particulars of his arguments, one sees three overarching propositions constantly at work:

First, that man for all his failings is ardently concerned to know what is right and just.

Second, that politics for all its flaws is capable of pursuing social betterment and sometimes finding it.

Third, that reason for all its frailties can help us find our way.

To dedicate a lifetime to such propositions in late-20th-century America one had to be not only brave but downright reckless. That the endeavor has proven so astoundingly fruitful is reason to doubt the cynicism of the age and to work, as diligently as he has, for a return of the better angels.

Christopher DeMuth, July 2010

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The Spirit of Michael Novak, a Friend of Freedom - The Weekly Standard

Lawmaker prayer group focuses on religious freedom – The Tennessean

State lawmakers have a new prayer group they can join, the Tennessee Legislative Prayer Caucus. Holly Meyer / The Tennessean

Members of the Tennessee Prayer Caucus pray during their meeting at the office of Rep. Kevin Brooks.(Photo: Joe Buglewicz / For The Tennessean)Buy Photo

With their heads bowed, a small group of state lawmakers stood in a loose circle in the middle of a legislative committee room as their colleague, Rep. Mark Pody, led them in prayer.

"We want to invite the holy spirit here, father, to the Capitol. On the floor today, that the words that are said, father, that there's no mean-spiritedness. Father, that we could just focus on you," said Pody, a Wilson County Republican.

Those who gathered on a recent Thursday morning in Legislative Plaza are members of a relatively new prayer group for lawmakers, the Tennessee Legislative Prayer Caucus. It's focused on preserving religious liberty and upholding the country's Judeo-Christian values, its website says.

Pody alluded to that purpose as he continued his prayer.

"Father, across this great nation, Lord, there is, your word's coming under attack as it has throughout the centuries. We just pray for a rising up and revival across this country."

It's about prayer, not partisanship or advocating for legislation, Podysaid. The prayer group is open to all lawmakers regardless of party, he said. In addition to Pody, the group's leadership includes at least three more Republicans and one Democrat.

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"We're just going to stay focused on prayer in general and our religious freedom that way," Pody said.

The prayer groupstarted quietly about halfway throughlast year'slegislative session with just afewlawmakers, but they decided to expand it this year and raised its public profile,hoping more legislators would attend their weekly meetings, Pody said.

They welcomed country music artist Ricky Skaggs for thefirst meeting of the new legislativesession in January.While the star power helped draw a standing-room only crowd, Pody saidthey will try to keep the prayer group for lawmakers only.

Prayer at the Capitol

While weekly attendance varies, nearly 30 lawmakers, largely Republicans,are listed as members on the prayer caucus' website. Rep. Brenda Gilmore, D-Nashville, is among them. She did not attend the Feb. 9 prayer caucus, but said in a telephone interview that shejoined the group because she believes prayer has a role in solving issues facing Tennesseans, including poverty and criminal justice problems.

I recognize in order for us to make a difference in Tennesseans lives, really affect real change in the quality of life, its going to take prayer and its going to take all of us working together, Gilmore said. God is not partisan.

God is not partisan.

The prayer caucus isnt the only prayer or devotionalgroup at the state Capitol. Andlawmakers are within their rights to use prayer groups to exercise their freedom of religion, said Kent Syler, a political science professor at Middle Tennessee State University.

It becomes a problem if they start to try to blur the line between church and state and it also becomes a problem if they seek to use their office to promote one religion over another, Syler said.

Pody, and other members of the caucus, have said thats not theintention of the prayer group.

But Cody made clear that he doesn't set aside his Christian beliefs while performing his duties as a lawmaker, and he said his constituents are well aware of that. He's sponsored bills on religion-tinged issues, including legislation that would definemarriage as strictly between one man and one woman.

"There is no separation for me. Everything I do is going to be based on scripture. How I vote is going to be based on my biblical values as well as the Constitution, but I believe that my biblical values are the first things that I would turn to," Pody said.

The group is tied to the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation, a Virginia-based nonprofit that describes itself as neither partisan nor political. The foundation's website says it protects religious freedom and challenges "anti-faith trends impacting legislative, legal and cultural issues" through a national network of citizens and leaders.

The foundation's platform focuses on conservative religious issues, including keeping prayer in public schools and advocating for states to pass their own religious freedom restoration acts. It also is a big advocate for the national "In God We Trust" motto. Lea Carawan, the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation's executive director, was not available for comment.

"When you look at the Congressional Prayer Caucus'website there is certainly a theme of Christianity under attack," Syler said.

One of the foundation's initiatives is to establish state legislative prayer caucuses, which are modeled after the Congressional Prayer Caucus formed in 2005. Lawmakers in more than 20 states have formed prayer caucuses, the foundation's website says. Secular groups, including the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the American Humanist Association, have voiced opposition to the national and state caucuses in the past.

Pody said thenational foundation reached out to him to start the prayer group at the state house.Hethinks the national network is a plus for the state prayer group, and he used the preservation of"In God We Trust" as an example.

"Across the nation, it seems that people are saying we can't even have the word God in anything we're doing in our government buildings," Pody said. "It is on our money, 'In God We Trust.' It is passed at the capitol in Washington both the house and the senate, reaffirming that 'In God We Trust' is our national motto. We want to make sure we keep that in each of the states as well."

State lawmakers often communicate with legislators in other states, Syler said. Frequently, policies or other mechanisms on a wide variety of issues are tried in one state and then introduced in Tennessee, he said.

The wider spread the prayer caucuses are the more impact they can have on both the desire to get like-minded legislators together to exercise their religious freedoms and it can also help them push an agenda more effectively should they go down that path, Syler said.

The small group that gathered for the prayer group s Feb. 9 meeting prayed together for about 10 minutes. A chorus of "amen" followed a brief silence. But before the lawmakers rushed off to tackle the days business, Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver led them through a few bars of a well-known hymn.

Then sings my soul my savior God to thee. How great thou art. How great though art."

Reach Holly Meyer at hmeyer@tennessean.com or 615-259-8241 and on Twitter @HollyAMeyer.

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Lawmaker prayer group focuses on religious freedom - The Tennessean

Ramjas College and Gurmehar Kaur row: Debate rages on freedom of speech a day after social media backlash – Firstpost

A day after Lady Shri Ram College student Gurmehar Kaur pulled out of thecampaign against violent clashes at Ramjas College following social media backlash, former cricketer Virendra Sehwag took to Twitter on Wednesday to clarify his position on the ongoing row.

Sehwag, whose tweet on Gurmehartriggered an outrage on social media, claimed that his tweet "plain fun" and was not intended to target Gurmehar.

Sehwag had earlier tweeted a picture of him in a style similar to Gurmehar's video with a placard that read: "I didn't score two triple centuries, my bat did."

Meanwhile, cricketer Gautam Gambhir came out in support of Gurmehar on Wednesday saying that freedom of expression is absolute and equal for all.

Not to be outdone, BJP minister Anil Vij from Haryana told ANIthat those supporting Gurmehar were pro-Pakistan and should, therefore, be thrown out of India.

A war of words erupted betweenthe BJP and the Congress and the Left parties amid hundreds ofuniversity students and teachers taking out a protest marchagainst Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on Tuesday. Here's a look at all that was said about the clashes on the Delhi University campus on Tuesday.

Gurmehar Kaur pulls out of campaign

After receiving rape threats, 20-year-old Gurmehar decided to distance herself from the students' campaign on Tuesday. Gurmehar, in a series of tweets, said that she would not be participating in the AISA march but encouraged everyone to go attend it in huge numbers.

Union minister Kiren Rijiju

Union minister Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday said his remark on who was "polluting" the mind of an Army martyr's daughter was aimed at "the Leftists" and clarified that she was free to express her views. Rijiju's comment came a day after he questioned whether someone was polluting Gurmehar's mind thatdrew flak from the Opposition.

"I stand by my comments. Anybody who tweets on social media platform should be careful. But anyone with a contrary view should be allowed to speak. Gurmehar is a young girl and she should be allowed to speak her mind," he told reporters. "When I said somebody is polluting her (Gurmehar's) mind, I meant the Leftists," he said.

The Union Minister of State for Home said if there was any threat to Kaur, it should be dealt with sternly. "But someone is playing politics over the issue," he said. He went on to describe Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal as an "anarchist", and said that he was siding with some students who were creating turmoil in Delhi University. The minister asked the Congress to stay away from the universities as they have "no ideology".

Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor also came out in support of Gurmehar. Congress leader and author took to Facebook to share his "brief reflections on Sehwag's picture tweet responding to the words of Gurmehar Kaur". He said, "I am disappointed that my cricket hero Virender Sehwag chose to enter the wholly politicised debate over Gurmehar Kaurs words by saying 'I didnt score two triple centuries, my bat did'."

Javed Akhtar

Veteran lyricist Javed Akhtar on Tuesday hit out at Rijiju for his remark against Gurmehar Kaur, calling it "grossly biased".

Mr minister , you have condemned the left by falsely accusing them for celebrating soldiers killing n not a word about AVBP. Grossly biased Javed Akhtar (@Javedakhtarjadu) February 28, 2017

He also took a dig at Sehwag and wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt, who trolled Kaur after her campaign "I am not afraid of ABVP" went viral.

"I don't (know) about her but Mr Minister I know who is polluting your mind," the 71-year-old lyricist added.

Robert Vadra

Robert Vadra on Tuesday tweeted saying, "Way to go Gurmehar Kaur, for taking on the fascists."

AICC general secretary Janardan Dwivedi

Talking about politicisation of the recent events at Ramjas College, senior Congress leader Janardan Dwivedi on Tuesday said students movements these days were "pre-planned" and not "self-inspired".

Students clash with police at Ramjas College in Delhi. File photo. PTI

Expressing concern over deteriorating atmosphere on college campuses across the country, he said it was not just the question of freedom of expression but more serious issue was the future of the coming generations.

"Today, the atmosphere in educational institutions in the country is being vitiated in the same manner as that in the society, which is being divided on caste and communal lines... It is not the question of only freedom of expression. It is also the question of academic atmosphere in educational institutions and the future of our coming generations as well as the larger interests of the nation that need to be kept in mind," he said.

Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid react

JNU students' leader Umar Khalid on Tuesday said, "Sehwag played for BCCI, he does not represent India. The thousands of students and teachers who came out in Delhi University today, they represent India a vision of a New India based on equality, justice and freedom!"

"The moment you write anything against Sangh (RSS) on social media, trolls surround you like bees from all sides. But when it comes to coming out on the streets, ABVP can at most muster up 150-200 people in support of their fascist ideology," he added

Kanhaiya Kumar, who had also joined the protests against ABVP demanded "non-violence" on campuses.

Vidya Balan speaks for freedom of expression

On the Gurmehar Kaur row, actress Vidya Balan on Wednesday said,"I don't want to say much about this. I think what we really need to do is respect people's freedom of expression. 'He said something she said something', all are right in their places. But I don't want to add anything more, everyone has the right to express what they feel."

(With inputs from agencies)

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Ramjas College and Gurmehar Kaur row: Debate rages on freedom of speech a day after social media backlash - Firstpost

‘Assault on freedom of expression’: Die Welt journalist’s arrest in Turkey condemned – The Guardian

The arrest of Deniz Ycel is the latest in a broad crackdown on the media in Turkey after Julys failed coup. Photograph: Karlheinz Schindler/AFP/Getty Images

Opposition officials and human rights groups have condemned the arrest in Turkey of a German newspaper correspondent as an assault on freedom of expression and attempt at intimidating foreign press in the country.

Deniz Ycel, a Turkish-German journalist for Die Welt, was formally arrested on the order of a Turkish judge on Monday pending a trial on charges of propaganda and incitement to hatred. He has been held since 14 February.

Germanys foreign ministry summoned the Turkish ambassador to Berlin on Tuesday, with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, having described the arrest decision as bitter and disappointing.

Turkey now has the dubious honour of being the worlds biggest jailer of journalists, and free media in the country is in its death throes, said John Dalhuisen of Amnesty International. We are urging the Turkish authorities to release Deniz Ycel and all other journalists in pre-trial detention immediately and unconditionally, and to cease this assault on freedom of expression and dissident voices. Journalism is not a crime the media blackout in Turkey must end now.

Ycel was arrested after reporting on the hacking of the private emails of Berat Albayrak, Turkeys energy minister and the son-in-law of the countrys president, Recep Tayyip Erdoan.

The court also accused him of propaganda on behalf of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK), a designated terror group fighting an insurgency against the Turkish state, partly because of an interview he conducted two years ago with Cemil Bayk, one of the PKKs founders.

The journalists arrest was the latest in a broad crackdown on the media in Turkey after a failed coup last July. But it was the first time a German journalist was arrested in what was interpreted as an attempt to intimidate the foreign press reporting from inside the country.

This verdict is a message to foreign journalists and journalists who are reporting from Turkey to international media outlets, said Sezgin Tanrkulu, a MP with the opposition Republican Peoples party (CHP) who is monitoring the lawsuit against Ycel.

The CHP said there were now 152 journalists in custody in Turkey including Ycel, and that 173 media organisations had been closed down since the attempted coup, including magazines, newspapers, radio stations, news agencies and websites. More than 2,500 journalists have been laid off because of the closures and 800 journalists have had their press cards cancelled by the authorities, according to Bar Yarkada, a CHP MP who monitors the trials of journalists.

The Turkish authorities argue the broad purge, which has affected tens of thousands of civil servants, police and military officials, judges, academics and journalists, is a necessary measure to eliminate security threats after the failed coup. But critics say it has gone far beyond that purpose and that it aims to stifle dissent in the country.

In April, Turkey is heading to the polls to vote in a referendum on a presidential system that will give broad powers to Erdoan.

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'Assault on freedom of expression': Die Welt journalist's arrest in Turkey condemned - The Guardian

Follow the Path of the Freedom Riders in This Interactive Map – Smithsonian

By Rebeca Coleman

smithsonian.com February 28, 2017 12:16PM

Even though the Civil War marked the end of slavery, African-Americans fought for equal rights throughout the century that followed. In the post-Reconstruction era, Jim Crow laws arose and the American South became a region of two segregated societies whites and African Americans. Attempts to tear down this system in the courts bore little to no fruit. In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that separate but equal accommodations in public places were legal, enshrining a public policy that stayed on the books for decades.

The decision in Brown v. Board of Education that overturned Plessy marked one of the first major victories of the ever-growing Civil Rights Movement. That decision was followed by the Interstate Commerce Commissions (ICC) decision to ban segregation on interstate bus travel and then in 1960, the Court ruled that the terminals and waiting areas themselves, including restaurants, could not be segregated. The ICC however, neglected to truly enforce its own rules and jurisdiction.

In 1961, a group of black and white individuals decided to take their frustration with the permanence of segregation, and the federal governments disinterest in putting an end to the discrimination, to a further level. They decided to test the limits of Jim Crow laws by riding two buses together into the Deep South. Two groups, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) sponsored the Freedom Riders on their nonviolent protests of Southern segregation.

On May 4, 13 CORE and SNCC members embarked on their Freedom Ride through the American South with plans to engage in nonviolent protest and ensure that desegregation in public locales was being enforced. Many were seasoned protesters; some had even been arrested before. The overall goal was increasing awareness and decreasing segregation.

Their story, as told in the map above is one of resilience and perseverance. Some of the names are recognizable, including Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, and John Lewis, while some of the Riders themselves, such as Diane Nash and Henry Thomas, are lesser-known. Facing threats from the Ku Klux Klan and Bull Connor, these protestors played a crucial part in bringing the cruelties of the Jim Crow South to a national audience.

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Follow the Path of the Freedom Riders in This Interactive Map - Smithsonian

In Religious Freedom Debate, 2 American Values Clash – NPR

Protestors and LGBT activists rally outside of Trump International Hotel, this month in Washington, DC. Drew Angerer/Getty Images hide caption

Protestors and LGBT activists rally outside of Trump International Hotel, this month in Washington, DC.

The collision of two core American values freedom of religion and freedom from discrimination is prompting a showdown in legislatures and courts across the country.

For some conservatives, religious freedom means the right to act on their opposition to same-sex marriage and other practices that go against their beliefs. LGBT advocates and their allies, meanwhile, say no one in the United States should face discrimination because of their sexual orientation.

President Trump is said to be considering an executive order to bar the federal government from punishing people or institutions that support marriage exclusively as the union of one man and one woman. The language is similar to a bill expected to be reintroduced by Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah called the First Amendment Defense Act.

After a widely circulated draft order aroused considerable opposition from the LGBT community, no further action was taken. Asked recently whether such an order might still get signed, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said only that Trump "will continue to fulfill" commitments he had made. Advocates for executive action say they do not expect new developments until Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, has been confirmed.

The debate's heart: What "exercising" one's religion means

Under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Congress is barred from enacting "an establishment of religion," but neither can it prohibit "the free exercise thereof." The question under current debate is what it means to "exercise" one's religion.

If a football coach is not allowed to lead his team in a public prayer, or a high school valedictorian is not given permission to read a Bible passage for her graduation speech, or the owner of a private chapel is told he cannot refuse to accommodate a same-sex wedding, they might claim their religious freedom has been infringed. Others might argue that such claims go against the principle of church-state separation, or that they undermine the rights of LGBT people to be free from discrimination.

Legislation either to uphold LGBT rights or to limit them in the name of protecting religious freedom has advanced in several states, and further court battles are likely.

One of the thorniest cases involves Catholic Charities, whose agencies long have provided adoption and foster care services to children in need, including orphans. Under Catholic doctrine, the sacrament of marriage is defined as the union of a man and a woman, and Catholic adoption agencies therefore have declined to place children with same-sex couples.

When Massachusetts (and other jurisdictions) redefined marriage to include same-sex couples, making it illegal to deny adoption to them., the Catholic agencies closed down their adoption services and argued that their religious freedom had been infringed.

"One of the major activities of the [Catholic] church, going way back, was to look after the orphans," says Stanley Carlson-Thies, founder of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance. "For that to be illegal unless the religious people change their standard, seems to me ... unfortunate."

But to the LGBT community and its supporters, a refusal to place a child for adoption with a same-sex couple is unacceptable discrimination against people on the basis of their sexual orientation. Those who oppose anti-discrimination efforts are often portrayed as out of step with the growing public acceptance of same-sex unions.

"I can't think of a single civil rights law that doesn't have some people who are unhappy about it," says Karen Narasaki, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. "But once the country has said, 'Well, we believe that people who are LGBT need to be protected from discrimination, then how do you make sure that happens?"

The commission's report on the religious freedom vs. anti-discrimination debate, published last September, came down squarely on the anti-discrimination side. The commission recommended that "civil rights protections ensuring nondiscrimination" were of "preeminent" importance and that religious exemptions to such policies "must be weighed carefully and defined narrowly on a fact-specific basis."

When you have two important American principles coming into conflict with one another, our goal as Americans is to sit down and try to see if we can uphold both.

Charles Haynes of the Newseum's Religious Freedom Center

The commission chairman at the time, Martin R. Castro, went further with a statement of his own, saying, "The phrases 'religious liberty' and 'religious freedom' will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance."

The commission report sparked a protest letter signed by 17 faith leaders, arguing that the report "stigmatizes tens of millions of religious Americans, their communities and their faith-based institutions, and threatens the religious freedom of all our citizens."

One of the signers, Charles Haynes, director of the Religious Freedom Center at the Newseum Institute in Washington, says religious conservatives are entitled to make claims of conscience.

"We may not like the claim of conscience," Haynes says, "but you know, we don't judge claims of conscience on whether we like the content of the claim. We are trying to protect the right of people to do what they feel they must do according to their God. That is a very high value."

Haynes himself says LGBT rights and same-sex marriage "are very important" but that supporters of those causes "cannot simply declare that one side wins all."

"Nondiscrimination is a great American principle it's a core American principle as is religious freedom," Haynes says. "When you have two important American principles coming into tension, into conflict with one another, our goal as Americans is to sit down and try to see if we can uphold both."

Exercising "freedom to worship" in life

Not all faith leaders are convinced, however, that the push for LGBT rights is jeopardizing the religious freedom of people who hold conservative beliefs about sexuality and marriage.

During a recent appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations, Bishop Michael Curry, leader of the Episcopal Church in the United States, said he has witnessed the persecution of Christians in other parts of the world and doesn't see anything comparable in the United States.

"I'm not worried about my religious freedom," Curry said. "I get up and go to church on Sunday morning, ain't nobody stopping me. My freedom to worship is protected in this country, and that's not going to get taken away. I have been in places where that's been infringed. That's not what we're talking about."

Curry's reference only to "freedom to worship," however, missed the point, according to some religious freedom advocates. They say they want the freedom to exercise their faith every day of the week, wherever they are even if it means occasionally challenging the principle of absolute equality for all.

"We can't use equality to just wipe out one of the [First Amendment] rights," Carlson-Thies says, "or say you can have the right, as long as you just exercise it in church, but not out in life."

Carlson-Thies is one of several conservatives who support a "Fairness For All" initiative to forge a compromise between advocates for LGBT rights and religious freedom, but the effort has had little success so far. The LGBT community and their allies have been cool to the notion of compromising their cause, while a group of more strident religious freedom advocates made clear their own opposition to the recognition of sexual orientation as a status worthy of civil rights protection.

Legal analysts are divided in their assessment of the debate. A federal judge, ruling on a Mississippi religious freedom law, concluded that by protecting specific beliefs, the bill "constitutes an official preference for certain religious tenets," and may therefore be unconstitutional. Other laws and proposals, however, are written in support of beliefs held by several different religions and thus may not run afoul of the First Amendment's bar on "an establishment of religion."

John Inazu, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis whose book Confident Pluralism lays out an approach that might help bridge differences between LGBT and religious freedom advocates, says efforts at reconciliation face long odds.

"There were efforts early on about some kind of compromise," he tells NPR in a recent interview. "I think those are less and less plausible as time goes on and as sides get factionalized. It's hard to see in some of these cases how there would be an outcome that is amenable to everyone, and so I think we're seeing these cases with us for a long time."

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In Religious Freedom Debate, 2 American Values Clash - NPR

Freedom Caucus chair says he’d vote against draft ObamaCare … – The Hill

The chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus told CNN Monday he would vote against any ObamaCare replacement bill that includes refundable tax credits, calling them another "entitlement program."

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) was referring to a draft of an ObamaCare replacement bill created Feb. 10 and leaked last week.

It's unclear how much it has changed since two weeks ago, but the draft includes a refundable tax credit, based on age and not income, to help people buy health insurance.

"A new Republican president signs a new entitlement and a new tax increase as his first major piece of legislation? I don't know how you support that do you?"

Meadows's comments represent the difficulty Republicans face in coalescing around an ObamaCare replacement. He indicated that other members of the caucus may vote against the repeal bill if it contains the refundable tax credit.

The caucus has asked leadership to take up a 2015 ObamaCare repeal bill that was vetoed by President Obama. They have said they won't vote for any bill that is "weaker" than the 2015 bill.

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Freedom Caucus chair says he'd vote against draft ObamaCare ... - The Hill