A victory for 'freedom to worship over intolerant secularism'

Seems the tide is shifting in Britain!
From the UK's DAILYMAIL:

Town hall chiefs have been handed the power to hold prayers at the start of council meetings in defiance of the courts.
Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles yesterday signed an order giving local authorities the right to maintain the centuries-old tradition.
He stepped in after the High Court last week backed a controversial campaign to abolish acts of worship during town  hall meetings.
Christians and politicians reacted with dismay after a judge banned a council in Devon from putting prayers on the formal agenda. Atheist former councillor Clive Bone started the case against Bideford Town Council in July 2010, claiming he had been ‘disadvantaged and embarrassed’ when prayers were recited.
However, Mr Pickles signed a Parliamentary Order yesterday that should render the judgment irrelevant and protect the freedom for councils to pray.
He said the Government’s Localism Act allows councils to do  anything an individual can unless specifically prohibited by law.

The right to pray can be exercised by major local authorities in England from today, and by parish councils by the end of March.

Mr Pickles said reversing the ‘illiberal ruling’ was a victory for ‘localism over central interference’ and ‘freedom to worship over intolerant secularism’. [my emph]

Prime Minister David Cameron has urged people to remember that the UK is a Christian nation and Tory Party Chairman Sayeeda Warsi gave a speech at the Vatican this week saying Europe should speak up for Christianity. [Her Majesty] The Queen also voiced her most outspoken and personal defence of faith this week.

The intervention is also part of a simmering row between politicians and the judiciary over so-called ‘judicial activism’.
Ministers have grown increasingly frustrated by judges over interpreting the law to deliver verdicts which are widely regarded as lacking common sense.
Judges are widely accused of seeking to make law themselves in areas like human rights legislation.

Pickles for PM! 

ORIGINAL:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2102915/Eric-Pickles-signs-order-let-councils-say-prayers-meetings.html#ixzz1mk8Pi2iR

The Marine Memorial vs The Offended Atheist

Courts - POLITICS

Supporters of a war memorial cross deemed unconstitutional last year by a federal court plan to ask the Supreme Court to reverse the decision, amid a growing fight nationwide over the use of religious symbols to honor fallen troops. A nonprofit legal firm, Liberty Institute in Washington D.C., planned to file its petition Thursday to preserve the 43-foot cross on federal land atop San Diego's Mt. Soledad -- the same day the group called on combat veterans and supporters to demonstrate at the picturesque site overlooking the Pacific Ocean in the suburb of La Jolla. The Supreme Court has signaled a greater willingness to allow religious symbols on public land, and the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill last month that writes into law the propriety of displaying such markers at war memorials. Last year's ruling by the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals capped two decades of legal challenges over the 1913 monument, which became a memorial to Korean War veterans. A number of other military memorials on public lands across the country have been challenged in recent years by civil liberty activists and atheists who say they violate the separation between church and state. The Supreme Court in 2010 refused to order the removal of a congressionally endorsed war memorial cross from its longtime home atop a remote rocky outcropping in California's Mojave Desert. But Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-San Diego, said he is not relying on the courts. He introduced the bill passed by the House in January that would codify the existing practice of allowing religious symbols at military monuments established or acquired by the federal government. Hunter said he drafted the bill with the Mt. Soledad monument in mind but it goes beyond that. "This isn't just about San Diego," Hunter told The Associated Press. "This about the rights of members of the military to adorn gravestones and war memorials to honor those who fought in wars with whatever the heck they want to have there, period. If you want to take down a war memorial cross or take any kind of religious symbolism off any war memorial because you say it's unconstitutional, then you would have to take the crosses off every headstone in national cemeteries from Arlington to Fort Rosecrans." Hunter said opponents have been getting out of hand, challenging even personal memorials, like a pair of unsanctioned crosses on a remote rocky hilltop on the Marine Corps base of Camp Pendleton put up by individual Marines to honor fellow fallen troops. The crosses are surrounded by thousands of rocks carried up by Marines, some of which are accompanied by handwritten messages. Opponents complained about the crosses, which cannot be seen by the public, after The Los Angeles Times wrote a story about them on Veteran's Day 2011. "It's getting old, getting burdensome and costly," Hunter said. "It's time to put an end to it." Members of the American Civil Liberties Union that won the lawsuit in the 9th Circuit said the bill ignores the Constitution, which they argued was written to ensure government monuments do not exclude people based on their beliefs. "Congress cannot, by definition, authorize the government to violate the Constitution," said David Loy, the ACLU's legal director in San Diego. "It's unconstitutional for the government to sponsor and maintain this particular cross that is visible for miles. The point of a war memorial or veterans' memorial is to remember all veterans." 

FOUND ON:   http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/09/group-to-ask-supreme-court-to-save-war-memorial-deemed-unconstitutional/?test=latestnews#ixzz1ltLwiDpM

Militant Secularism

A fantastic piece by Britain's ONLY Muslim Peer (House of Lords) and the leader of the British delegation to the Holy See. The piece, found in the Telegraph, is about the deracination and division of British and European culture caused by secular extremism.
Sure to rock a few rock-head's boats.
Enjoy!

By Baroness Warsi

9:23PM GMT 13 Feb 2012

Today I have the honour of leading the largest ministerial delegation from the United Kingdom to the Vatican – our reciprocal visit following the momentous State Visit of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI in September 2010.

We will be celebrating the decision Margaret Thatcher took 30 years ago to restore full diplomatic relations between our countries. The relationship between the UK and the Holy See is our oldest diplomatic relationship, first established in 1479. And today, thanks to the great success of the Pope’s visit, it is one of the strongest too.

But this trip is about more than a Valentine’s Day “love in” with our Catholic neighbours. This is about recognising the deep and intrinsic role of faith here in Britain and overseas. For a number of years I have been saying that we need to have a better understanding of faith in our country. Why? Because I profoundly believe that faith has a vital and important role to play in modern society. But mistakenly, faith has been neglected, undermined – and yes, even attacked – by governments in recent years.

When I met the Holy Father in 2010 he told me that he had heard what I had been saying and urged me to carry on making my case robustly. So today, I am taking a renewed message to the Vatican City; one which I want to ring out beyond the Vatican walls.

I will be arguing that to create a more just society, people need to feel stronger in their religious identities and more confident in their creeds. In practice this means individuals not diluting their faiths and nations not denying their religious heritages.

This is a message I’ve delivered on these pages before. But today I will be taking the argument one step further. I will be arguing for Europe to become more confident and more comfortable in its Christianity. The point is this: the societies we live in, the cultures we have created, the values we hold and the things we fight for all stem from centuries of discussion, dissent and belief in Christianity.

These values shine through our politics, our public life, our culture, our economics, our language and our architecture. And, as I will say today, you cannot and should not extract these Christian foundations from the evolution of our nations any more than you can or should erase the spires from our landscapes.

My fear today is that a militant secularisation is taking hold of our societies. We see it in any number of things: when signs of religion cannot be displayed or worn in government buildings; when states won’t fund faith schools; and where religion is sidelined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere.

It seems astonishing to me that those who wrote the European Constitution made no mention of God or Christianity. When I denounced this tendency two days before the Holy Father’s State Visit in September 2010, saying that government should “do God”, I received countless messages of support. The overwhelming message was: “At last someone has said it”.

That so many people felt moved to write showed just how uneasy they were at the rising tide of secularism.

For me, one of the most worrying aspects about this militant secularisation is that at its core and in its instincts it is deeply intolerant. It demonstrates similar traits to totalitarian regimes – denying people the right to a religious identity because they were frightened of the concept of multiple identities.

That’s why in the 20th century, one of the first acts of totalitarian regimes was the targeting of organised religion.

Of course there is a crucial caveat to all of this. I am not calling for some kind of 21st century theocracy. Religious faith and its followers do not have the only answer. There will be times when politicians and faith leaders will disagree. What is more, secularism is not intrinsically damaging. My concern is when secularisation is pushed to an extreme, when it requires the complete removal of faith from the public sphere. So I am calling for a more open confidence in faith, where faith has a place at the table, though not an exclusive position.

When we look at the deep distrust between some communities today, there is no doubt that faith has a key role to play in bridging these divides. If people understand that accepting a person of another faith isn’t a threat to their own, they can unite in fighting bigotry and work together to create a more just world.

All the major religions ask their followers to stand up for their neighbours. Doing so doesn’t make you less of a Christian, less of a Jew, less of a Muslim – it makes you more of one.

So when I have my second audience with the Holy Father tomorrow afternoon, I will not just be looking back on his remarkable visit. I will be giving him my absolute commitment to continue fighting for faith in today’s society. I hope this is something we can share in and I hope it reinforces this extraordinary relationship between the UK and the Holy See.

The Baroness at a conference