The following articles are compiled by:

Leo Wong

Leo@WatchmenWatching.com

Quran for courtroom oaths gets green light  

Source: WorldNetDaily.com

January 18, 2007 -- A ruling from a state appeals court has reopened a case prompted because a Muslim woman wanted to use a Quran – a book that an expert on Islam says allows Muslims to lie under compulsion – on which to swear her oath of honesty in a court hearing.

The lawsuit was filed by Sydiah Mateen with help from the American Civil Liberties Union in 2005 after she was denied permission to use a Quran to take the courtroom oath in a case in North Carolina.

Requirements vary from state to state, but North Carolina requires an oath either with a hand on the "Holy Scriptures" or by swearing by God they are telling the truth.

But the lawsuit seeks to expand the state's existing definition of "Holy Scripture," which was changed from "Gospels" about 20 years ago, to include the Islamic writings.

Without taking a position on the merits of the case, the state Court of Appeals said the dispute should be resolved in the courtroom.

Superior Court Judge Donald L. Smith had dismissed the claim a few months after its filing, saying there was no dispute to resolve because the testimony from Mateen was finished.

But Jennifer Rudinger, who heads the ACLU state chapter, said the government is required to allow individuals to be sworn in "on the holy text that is in accordance with their faith." It was the ACLU that brought the issue to the appeals court.

After Mateen's experience in the courtroom, officials with the Al-Ummil Ummat Islamic Center attempted to donate copies of the Quran, but the judges declined to accept them, saying state law does not consider an oath on the Quran as legal.

The JihadWatch.org website, however, asked: "How can we be sure he will be telling the truth if he swears on the Quran? The Quran tells Muslims that they may utter unbelief if 'under compulsion.'"

Comments:  Another example of the godless ACLU budding in other people’s business.  If there’s an opportunity to fight a legal battle involving God and the Bible, the ACLU will be there at the head of the battle field.  ACLU should be more rightly translated “Anti-Christ Liberal Usurpers”.  It does Satan’s dirty work and as secret agent Maxwell Smart used to say “and loving it”.

So, a Muslim can appear in court and swear by his Quran and it’s up to the judge or jury to decide if he’s telling the truth?  Of course, we all know that even if a witness swore by the Holy Bible to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, the witness can still be cited by the judge for perjury.  Such contempt for the court can garner the liar a few months or years in a jail cell or, in the case of a civil lawsuit, can have costs assessed against the defendant or a plaintiff’s case to be dismissed due to lack of credibility.  This news story is about accommodating Islam in the courtroom and makes a mockery of the American justice system.

Recent studies by social scientists have found that the common folks tell lies each and every day.  The percentage is quite high.  Some people lie so regularly that they can’t discern the truth from the lies.  They believe their own lies such that they’re utterly convinced it was the truth.  Human liars learned it from the Devil, the father of liars.  Of all the lies of the Devil, the most fatal is that mankind is essentially good and God will judge our good deeds versus the bad and if the good outweighs the bad, we’re going to Heaven. Religious people actually swallow this lie hook and sinker!  John 8:[44] Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. Revelation 21:[8] But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. 

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Wide berth allowed on teaching about homosexuality

Source: Washington Post

January 18, 2007 -- Montgomery County's overhaul of its sex education curriculum, which has inspired a lawsuit, petition drives, national news coverage and the formation of fiercely polarized community groups, was itself inspired by two words buried deep within the regulatory code of Maryland, which advises school systems to teach "sexual variations."

The county school system invoked those regulations in defense of disputed new lessons that introduce students to sexual orientation and transgenderism in grades eight and 10.

Neither Maryland nor Virginia requires school systems to teach about sexual orientation, state officials said. Maryland's stipulation that schools teach sexual variations as one of several "areas of emphasis" in health classes is open to broad interpretation.

Montgomery's new curriculum, approved last week for field tests this spring, goes deeper into sexual and gender identity than most other Washington area school systems have dared, judging by an informal survey. Some Northern Virginia systems don't teach about sexual orientation, and Maryland systems generally broach the topic in less detail or at the request of a curious student. Information from D.C. schools was not available.

"Everyone's watching Montgomery right now, in no uncertain terms," to see whether the new curriculum survives an expected legal challenge, said Jean-Marie Navetta, spokeswoman for Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, a national nonprofit organization. If the lessons emerge intact, they could be replicated.

Comments:  The homosexual agenda is like a brakeless runaway train that can’t be stopped until an irresistible object gets in its way and derails it.  That will be God who will pour out His wrath against the dykes and sodomites of this world.  Sodom and Gomorrah of old were destroyed by fire and brimstone from Heaven and cities such as San Francisco, Vancouver, etc., will face the same ending.  It’s bad enough that adults indulge in sexual perversions, but to foist the filth on the young kids, now that’s blatant child abuse.  Their impressionable minds will be bombarded with images that will scar them for a lifetime.  They’ll ask their Mom and Dad, “Why are two men locked in lip-to-lip embrace?” and “Why is Rosie O’Donnell so enamored with Ellen Degeneres?” and “Why did Mr. Anderson, our gym teacher, take a year off and returned last Monday and we’re to call him/her Ms. Crumple?”

This so called enlightened Western society is spirally down the toilet of depravity.  Decency and morality have taken direct hits year by year and month by month.  How can this sick world get any worse?  Who will hold the leaders of society responsible for defiling our children?  As Christians, are we on our knees pleading with God to hold back the tide of immorality?  Or have we resigned ourselves to accepting evil as the norm?  Contrary to what liberal Christians who have their heads under the sand and exclaiming that this world is getting better and better, we’re mired knee deep in spiritual quick sand.  If Jesus doesn’t rapture us soon, how will our faith withstand this present evil world?

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Is President Bush’s road map still relevant?

Source: Jerusalem Post

January 18, 2007 -- After reiterating their support of the road map plan, Secretary Rice and FM Livni repeatedly stressed the need for a 'political horizon' during their meeting in Jerusalem earlier this week. As Livni put it, there is a "need to explore and to find a way to promote a process based on two pillars. One, of course, is the political horizon for the Palestinians, and the other is giving Israelis security. This is going to be part of any process."

Do you believe the road map is still relevant? Is there a need for a new plan?

Larry Derfner: Nobody ever believed in the road map except maybe Bush, who seems able to talk himself into believing anything that is in his interest to believe. I think Rice is too rational to have ever thought the road map had a chance, but, like everyone else on the Bush administration's payroll, along with all the others who have to stay on Bush's good side - such as Israeli and Palestinian Authority leaders - she has to pretend publicly that the road map has some connection to reality in the Middle East.

Comments:  Good question.  Is the road map in tatters and fit for the recycle bin?  First off, anything that was created by the Americans would not be trusted by the Arab world.  If the Israelis thought the road map would work, then the Arabs had their suspicions.  Call it paranoia or plain distrust.  The road map, like the 1993 Oslo Accords, just didn’t pan out.  It ought to be shredded into pieces and burned for heat.  God doesn’t want man to force Israel into a peace accord with her enemies.  God intends that His Son Jesus to return to Earth and grant worldwide peace for Israel and all nations.  Instead, the Gentile nations contrive to snooker Israel out of her God given land and for what?  A flimsy sheepskin document that guarantees Israel peace and security in exchange for giving almost the entire store away to enemies sworn to exterminate every Jew in the Holy Land?  Call it insanity of the worst kind or whatever, but Israel’s leaders are actually exploring new ways for the Gentiles to enter into peaceful co-existence with the Jewish State.