Dear Denny,

Fortunately I am blessed to have a brother like Robert to articulate some of the more bumbling sentiments that somehow get mangled in translating expression;

_________________
Mike Balog

Hi Bro Mike, Denny, and Doug,

I wanted to express also that I am not in any way trying to elevate one ministry over another and apologize if I came off that way. ALL of our ministries are valid expressions of the body. We need each other. I appreciate everyone in ministry. I greatly enjoy the testimonies of what God is doing in the lives of the Saints and through the Saints.

God Bless,

-Robert

_________________
Robert Wurtz II

Blessings to all of you guys.

Denny

_________________
Dennis Green

Center for Law and Policy
Press Release
Justifying Effort to Jail Christians, Officials Make Baseless Claims

American Family Association
P.O. Drawer 2440
Tupelo, MS 38803
1-662-680-3886

For Immediate Release: 12/22/2004

Tupelo, MS - “We have videotape of the entire incident, the city has a videotape of the entire incident, the facts are before the nation, and the unimpeachable facts conclusively establish that this City is out of control.” – Brian Fahling, AFA Center for Law and Policy Senior Trial Attorney.

Philadelphia city officials now claim that a videotape of the events leading up to the arrests of 11 Christians does not reflect one of the Philly 11, Michael Marcavage, allegedly interrupting an onstage performance at the “Outfest” where the events took place.

City officials told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the video did not show the start of the confrontation, when they allege Marcavage tried to interrupt an onstage
performance with his preaching. They maintain that he then disobeyed a police order to move to the perimeter of the "block party" to avoid the potential for violence.

AFA senior trial attorney, Brian Fahling, called the claim “absurd,” saying, “the videotape made by the independent film company out of San Francisco (Enough Said
Productions) is complete and the city knows it. We have videotape of the entire incident, the city has a videotape of the entire incident (taken by a police officer), the truth is before the nation; and the unimpeachable facts conclusively establish that the City of Philadelphia is utterly out of control.”

“The good news is that the videotape speaks for itself; neither the city nor the state or federal courts can change the truth seen in that video,” said Tim Wildmon,
president of the American Family Association. “This case is historic for all the wrong reasons and we will not idly stand by to watch this unprecedented persecution
of Christians.”

The Christians were arrested on October 10 for praying, singing, and reading scripture during an annual “gay pride” event known as “Outfest” in Philadelphia.
Tuesday a city prosecutor argued to a judge that Bible verses are “fighting” words. The charges include three felony (criminal conspiracy, ethnic intimidation, and
riot) and five misdemeanor charges. If convicted, they could face up to 47 years in prison.

_________________
Dennis Green

[url=http://www.afa.net/clp/philly4.asp]http://www.afa.net/clp/philly4.asp[/url]

[b]The Philadelphia Four[/b]
Act Now! After reading below, please contact Assistant Attorney General, R. Alexander Acosta, at the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice and ask him to investigate this profound abuse of power and violation of constitutional rights.

Assistant Attorney General
R. Alexander Acosta
U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Office of the Assistant Attorney General, Main
Washington, D.C. 20530

Phone:(202) 514-2151
E-mail: [email protected]


Please pray for the Philadelphia Four: Michael Marcavage, Mark Diener, James Cruse, and Dennis Green.

Eleven Christians were arrested on October 10 for praying, singing, and reading scriptures during an annual "gay pride" event known as "Outfest" in Philadelphia. Four out of the eleven were ordered on Tuesday, December 14 to stand trial because they were seen quoting scripture on a video. The charges include three felony (criminal conspiracy, ethnic intimidation, and riot) and five misdemeanor charges. If convicted, they could face up to 47 years in prison! The Philadelphia judge and prosecutor have labeled the Bible hate speech and called Bible verses "fighting words." The Pink Angels, homosexual activists, did everything they could to obstruct, impede, and frustrate the Christians from sharing the gospel in a public forum, yet no arrests or citations were placed on the Pink Angels.

This is the clearest example of anti-Christian bigotry by city officials in the last century!


Video Footage

The following video footage from “Outfest” shows Michael Marcavage with a bullhorn attempting to sing and speak the gospel. The people in pink are the Pink Angels, and they are using 10 feet tall Styrofoam boards surrounding the Christians to block their signs, impede their movement, and prevent people from seeing them. The loud noises you hear are the Pink Angels blowing whistles and horns to drown out the Christians’ message.

Video - Windows Media Format [url=http://www.afa.net/clp/videos/Philly11.wmv]video[/url]

American Family Radio - AFA Report
Audio - Windows Media Format (12/15/2004)[url=http://www.afr.net/audio/afaReport/rpt121504.wma]http://www.afr.net/audio/afaReport/rpt121504.wma[/url]
Interview with AFA Center for Law & Policy attorney Joe Murray: The Ringing of the Liberty Bell falls on deaf ears: Federal Courts refuse to aid 11 Christians

Homosexual man writes to support us
Click here to see the letter
[url=http://www.afa.net/clp/philly4_email.asp]http://www.afa.net/clp/philly4_email.asp[/url]

_________________
Dennis Green

[url=http://washingtontimes.com/culture/20041228-102341-4050r.htm]http://washingtontimes.com/culture/20041228-102341-4050r.htm[/url]

Criminalized thoughts?


By Amy Doolittle
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


Jokes about political correctness have been around for more than a decade, and many Americans now take for granted conflicts over manger scenes on public property and Christmas carols in public schools. Hostility toward religious expression is no joke, however, to advocates concerned that "hate crimes" laws could be used to rob Americans of religious freedom, which they say is already the case in some parts of Europe.
Exhibit A: Ake Green, a Swedish pastor who was arrested for speaking against homosexuality from his church pulpit.

While American hate-crime laws currently punish criminal acts motivated by bigotry, William Murray, chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition, says the principle behind such statutes could be "worse than a slippery slope" toward restricting fundamental freedoms.
"In the '40s, '50s, '60s and even '70s, we were taught that the difference between the free world and the communist bloc was that in the free world if you committed a crime, you were going to go to jail for what you did, but in the Soviet Union and other countries, you would go to jail for what you thought," Mr. Murray said.
"Hate-crimes laws are not really hate-crimes laws — they are really hate-thought laws," Mr. Murray says. "We have a movement in the entire Western world ... for people to go to jail for what they think."
It is not mere speculation to think that hate-crimes laws could be used to quash free speech, he says, citing an October protest in Philadelphia.
On "National Coming Out Day," a Christian group held a demonstration on a public walkway outside a homosexual-activism event called "Outfest." Protesters at the Oct. 10 event were informed by police that they could stand wherever they wanted, since the festival was being held on public sidewalks. However, when their demonstration was interrupted by a group called "the Pink Angels," the police ordered the Christian group to relocate and later arrested them.
Ten of the demonstrators were held for 21 hours and released; one member of the group was held for 10 days because of confusion involving an outstanding parking ticket. All were charged with eight criminal counts, including "ethnic intimidation," a second-degree felony.
The Philadelphia case, says Mr. Murray, is the perfect example of the "hate crime" mentality gone bad.
The movement from a "hate crime" to a "hate thought" is "worse than a slippery slope," Mr. Murray says. "A slippery slope you go down slowly — this thing is a cliff. These people were peaceably demonstrating, but they were demonstrating for something that was politically incorrect."
That the Philadelphia demonstrators were charged with a hate crime based on speech does not fall in line with the specifics of Pennsylvania's law against ethnic intimidation, says Brain Fahling, attorney for the protesters. He says they will not be convicted of the charged crimes because they didn't commit them.
"The ethnic-intimidation law has conduct associated with it, which means that to be guilty of it requires something more than speech," Mr. Fahling says. A videotape made by an independent San Francisco film company of the protest and subsequent arrest shows no hate actions at all, says Mr. Fahling, just a group of people proclaiming their religious beliefs.
"There is nothing in that videotape that would demonstrate that my clients did anything other than exercise the rights the constitution allows them to exercise," he says.
But Christians aren't the only ones who think that hate-crimes law should not dictate thoughts. Joe Perez, owner and contributing writer of the Gay Spirituality & Culture blog (www.gayspirituality.typepad.com) says he understands that every person has a right to speak what he or she thinks to be true, even if it makes him uncomfortable.
"Hate speech is not a behavior that I ... want to see made illegal. The line that's drawn in the United States is generally between the speech that is simply offensive to a great number of people and speech that incites violence within a group — and that's a line that I feel comfortable with," Mr. Perez says. "If someone says that I think a group is wrong, or a group is acting immorally, or a group is wicked, or evil or condemned to hell, I may find that offensive and objectionable, but I don't think it should be illegal."
In fact, as Mr. Perez argues that condemning Christians for speaking against homosexuals is no different than condemning homosexuals for speaking against Christians.
"Can you imagine the outrage if a Christian fundamentalist intruded in a private gathering of queer activists, overheard a speaker say, 'Fundamentalism represents an abnormal, a horrible, cancerous tumor in the body of society,' reported him to the authorities, and then the laws of our land permitted the speaker to be arrested and imprisoned for a month?" he writes on his Web log. "That speaker would become a martyr and hero to the cause, a victim of the unjust, evil times in which we live and rage would ferment against our 'enemies' and all that they represent."
Mr. Perez also warns that laws that punish ideas are not only unfair, but are counterproductive.
"Using the laws of a state to imprison folks who do not understand or agree with us, or who say mean-spirited things, cannot create a culture that makes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender folks safer and more secure," he says. "Instead, it will taint all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activism with the stench of extreme political correctness gone amok."

_________________
Dennis Green

Every one need s to know that these brothers and sisters would certainly sense a conviction and leading of the Holy Spirit to do something like this. The legal process is just and unavoidable process in the working out or makeing full proof of that work. I usually take people and thier callings by faith and try hard not to judge another mans servant, so to speak.However in Cincinatti Oh a preacher was arrested and charged for hate speach crimes because he preached in a church, from a pulpit against homosexuality. The case is still in the process.So guess what?Like it or not we'er in a bigger battle than what most christians realize. If we don't exercise what legal rights we have now, in America it'll be against the law to preach against sin.Best thing is to take these things serious not letting satan accuse the brothers motives to your hearts and just pray for them and support them in any other way you feel a conviction to.

_________________
D.Miller

We had to appear in court on Wednesday, Jan 5 to find out when our court date would be.

The court then told us that they had not yet scheduled our trial and that we would have to return next week. That's a six hour drive for two of us. We are thankful that the Bail Comissioner did grant the request of our attorney that we be allowed to be absent next week for the formality.

Our Attorney has also filed a motion that the condition of bail that prohibits us from ministering at homosexual events be rescinded.

Please pray to that end.

_________________
Dennis Green

BTW did you know that it says to use strong persuasive aguements to compell them to come in? What the church of Jesus Christ fails to see is that thier blood(EVERYONE WE PASS EVERY DAY) will be required at our hands if we won't speak up.Mk16:15 GO into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation./Matt 28:GO therefore... I wonder if he was asking us or commanding us , now I'm playing the fool.

_________________
D.Miller

I don't know if this has been addressed yet so if it has please disregard it. I received this in an e-mail this morning from a fellow believer who knows nothing about the discussions of this thread. They are quite concerned about the handling of this by the [url=http://www.afa.net/clp/ReleaseDetail.asp?id=81]Justice Department [/url]

God Bless,

-Robert

_________________
Robert Wurtz II