Rally is a Huge Success
By William J. Murray

What a day it was, and we have it all on film! The police say the West Monroe High School Stadium had a record crowd. The stadium was built for 12,000, but more than 15,000 people came to hear Mat Staver, myself and others challenge the ACLU on January 30th.

Once again the ACLU is attacking a small Southern town, just as they did in Pontotoc, Mississippi. The New York-based ACLU leadership just hates the fact that Southerners like to gather together and pray. As a result this vile group files lawsuits to punish people of faith financially.

Just a look at one of the main elements of the lawsuit and it is clear what a stretch it was for the ACLU to file the lawsuit.

After some students were injured in a bad automobile accident, the principal of the school announced the accident on the intercom and then asked students to pray for those injured. The ACLU says that his concern for his students was a "violation of separation of church and state." Let’s face some hard facts. The people that run the ACLU are just plain nuts. They want to regulate the speech of others.

The ACLU is against freedom of speech. They claim to stand for free speech, yet they demand the right to approve public speech. In the ACLU view, pornography--even child porn--is protected free speech, but public prayer is to be forbidden.

The people of West Monroe are ready to fight the ACLU.

Mat Staver is the chief attorney of the Liberty Counsel and he has prepared a statement about the West Monroe situation which I have reprinted below.


What Do The Super Bowl and The ACLU Have In Common?
By Mat Staver

It was a chilly afternoon on Super Bowl Sunday. Standing in the end zone, I scanned across the field and up into the stands above me. I was amazed at the size of the crowd. They cheered and sometimes roared as they clapped and thrust their arms toward the sky. During the midst of the celebration a large crane hoisted from behind the stadium a huge wooden cross so that it was visible to all inside the football stadium. No, this wasn't Atlanta and the occasion was not the Rams versus the Titans. This was Monroe, Louisiana, and the occasion was student prayer and the ACLU's attempt to stop it.

Approximately 15,000 students, parents and pastors gathered for a community prayer rally in the West Monroe High School Rebels' football stadium on a cold Super Bowl Sunday afternoon. This was the largest crowd that had ever gathered in the stadium. The stands on both sidelines and both end zones were packed. The crowd had to occupy much of the infield.

Pastors from all denominations united, putting aside their denominational differences for a brief Sunday afternoon. The community rallied together when it realized that the precious freedom it had long enjoyed was under attack by the ACLU, and its evil twin sister, Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

For years, students at Monroe and West Monroe schools prayed at football games and over the intercom. Recently, the ACLU filed suit. I attended the prayer rally on Super Bowl Sunday to pledge the support of Liberty Counsel to assist the School Board in defending this case. I was amazed and encouraged as I stood on the platform to address the gathering.

Tim Todd of Revival Fires Ministry and publisher of the Truth For Youth Bible gave such an electrifying introduction of Bill Murray that even PeeWee Herman could have followed with a spit fire presentation of the Gospel. Scores of young people attended the event. Bill Murray, the son of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, addressed the enthusiastic crowd. Bill was a little boy when his mother brought suit to remove prayer from school in 1963. In the 1980s Bill became a Christian, and for the past twenty years, he has been on a mission to share the gospel of Jesus rather than persecute those who believe in Him.

The battle we face in America is a spiritual one that takes many different physical forms. For some years the bombs have been dropping all across America, but now a bomb dropped in the backyard of Monroe and West Monroe, Louisiana. Instead of gathering their marbles and going home dejected, this community has decided to take a stand and fight. What the devil has meant for evil, God can use for good.

Liberty Counsel will defend the school against the attack by the ACLU. Students on public school campuses retain their constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion when they enter the schoolhouse gate. The founders didn't intend to remove all religion from the school system. In fact, the first compulsory education law known as The Old Deluder Satan Act required students to attend school so that they could learn how to read the Scriptures. The first Congress realized that religion and morality were necessary to good government and that schools were the primary means of inculcating religion and morality in the future generation.

Originally, public schools were not hostile toward religion, but indeed were the incubator for religious faith and morality. But some people might say, as one Methodist minister in Monroe told his congregation, we shouldn't allow students to pray in public school because a Hindu, a Muslim, or even a Satanist might use the opportunity to pray.

My answer to that is, "so what." Think about the prophet Elijah when he was confronted with the prophets of Baal. He told the three hundred prophets of Baal to pray to their God. Elijah alone would pray to his God and then he said he would wait and see which one answered by fire. We shouldn't be afraid to put our faith alongside non-Christian belief. If we are that afraid of our faith, then we need to be more grounded. I think God can stand up for Himself. Just let me have the opportunity to exercise my faith.

The Constitution does not guarantee freedom from religion but freedom of religion. The Constitution prevents the government from controlling religion, but doesn't prevent people of faith from influencing government and sharing their faith in public. But someone might say you should pray privately in your closet.

Obviously you should pray in your closet, but that doesn't mean you should refrain from praying in public. If that is the case, then ministers must discontinue praying from the pulpit.

When Jesus talked about praying in your closet, He was referring to those who wore their religion on their sleeve and tried to dangle it in front of somebody else to show how pious they were, when in reality they never did pray in their closet but only had a form of outward showmanship.

The framers of the Declaration of Independence understood that the purpose of government was to protect our God-given, pre-existing liberties. If Thomas Jefferson were to attend the University of Virginia which he founded and was told he could not pray, he would have dismantled that university brick by brick. In fact, Thomas Jefferson required students at his public university to attend chapel.

How many body bags must we fill with students before we understand the simple truth that our government was based on religious principles of morality and virtue? If we allow groups like the ACLU and others to remove our country's firm foundation, then we will collapse. I was encouraged to see the citizens of Monroe, and particularly their young people, stand hand in hand with a united front. As I beheld this awesome event, I was encouraged that the twenty first century has the potential to be much greater than the twentieth century. If God's people who are called by His name will humble themselves and pray, and after praying, take a stand in their community, then we can again be proud to live in America.

Mat Staver can be contacted at:

Liberty Counsel
P.O. Box 540774
Orlando, FL 32854

(800)671-1776

PROJECT MEGIDDO
By William J. Murray

In December of 1999 I sent a special alert to all of the supporters of the Religious Freedom Coalition about the FBI Project Megiddo.

The Project Megiddo report was sent to 20,000 law enforcement officials in the United States and warned of possible year end violence from "religious" radicals. The FBI defined "radicals" as those who believe in the Second Coming of Christ.

The FBI report also said that those who "stock or store" food or believe the Constitution gives Americans a right to own firearms are prone to violence. Throughout the Project Megiddo Report the terms "right wing," "right wing movement" and "right wing extremists" were used.

At no time did the Project Megiddo Report refer to any danger from Muslim extremists, yet the only arrests actually made for possible terrorist acts around New Year’s Day involved Muslims! Muslim extremists were caught bringing explosive devices into the United States from Canada and there is evidence that they planned attacks in Seattle, New York and Washington, DC.

The Muslim terrorists were caught by the U.S. Customs Service and not by the FBI. The FBI, by order of the Clinton/Gore White House, was so busy spying on Christian conservatives that they had no time or manpower to work on the real threats to U.S. Security.

At the time my alert was sent out I asked that supporters of the RFC sign petitions to Speaker of the House Hastert demanding hearings. Those petitions to the Speaker were delivered and I and other Christian leaders are still pushing for hearings to be held as to why the FBI resources were wasted on Project Megiddo.


PLANNED PARENTHOOD MAKES HUGE "PROFIT"

Planned Parenthood (PPFA) claims to be a non-profit organization. PPFA files an annual 990 tax return required by the IRS for non-profit 501(c)[3] organizations.

In the PPFA 98-99 tax return, the organization showed a profit (income over expenditures) of $125.8 million.

YES, you read that right, a profit of $125,800,000.00.

During the 1998-99 accounting period, the organization also increased its assets such as buildings and stock portfolios by $131.5 million, to a total of $536.3 million. In other words PPFA has assets of more than half a billion dollars.

Here is the kicker: During the same accounting period this "non-profit" organization received $176.5 million dollars from county, federal, state and county governments!

Of the $176.5 million coming from various governments, a staggering 75%, or $132 million, came from various federal programs originally set up by the Democratic Congress which the Republicans have not been able to cut because of government shutdown threats from the Clinton/Gore White House.

PPFA claims that they keep this government money "separate" from abortion spending, and that it is only used for "women’s health." We know this is a lie. The money is spent at the "health clinics" where abortions are performed. PPFA charges for those abortions.

In other words, the government pays PPFA for the examination of a pregnant woman, and then the woman pays PPFA for the abortion.

I urge you during this election year to attend any public events put on by your congressman and ask him directly what he plans to do about this outrage.

Planned Parenthood (PPFA) is just a huge money making business with half a billion dollars in assets. Yet presidential candidates Al Gore (D) and John McCain have called the Right to Life Committee a "business." In the mind of Al Gore and John McCain taking life for a profit is not a business, but saving lives while not making a dime somehow is a business. Strange.


ATHEIST CONVENTION IN SAN FRANCISCO

The American Atheist Convention will be held in San Francisco, California this year.

As usual the atheists plan to hold their convention during the time Christ spent in the grave before His victory over death for us. The atheist convention will start on Good Friday afternoon, April 21 and will end on Easter Sunday.

In the past I have purchased newspaper ads as large as a full page to tell the atheists about Jesus and have set up witnessing teams to counsel them. To do this I need church help in San Francisco. As of March 1st, I have been unable to talk a single pastor in the San Francisco area into helping.

We need help in the San Francisco area to counter the lies the atheists will tell about our Lord. Please pray for our mission to that city during the atheist convention.


GOVERNOR
BUSH

On Friday, February 26, 2000 my wife, Nancy, and I met with Governor Bush of Texas. This was the first time I had met with Governor Bush in several years. Our meeting came at a time when Senator John McCain, who is also running for president, unleashed a horrible attack upon myself and other conservative Christian leaders in Virginia where I live.

The level and intensity of Senator McCain’s attacks on conservative Christians startled me. Having worked in Washington for many years I knew of the Senator’s volatile temper, but even I and others that have worked with him were astonished by the attacks which compared us to racists such as New York’s Al Sharpton.
Your whole family will enjoy and find much to think about in The Fourth Wise Man. This video is a fictional drama set in Biblical times and told in gently comic terms. It tells of the life of a "wise man" or Magi, named Artaban. After spending many years studying Bible prophesies, he finally sees in the heavens a sign which he hopes will lead him to the newborn Messiah.

But Artaban arrives too late; Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus have already left Bethlehem. For thirty-three years he pursues Jesus, only to miss him at every turn. The story culminates on Easter Sunday, as Artaban, old and dying, finally encounters the new King, bringing peace to his life. A deeply moving experience examining what true faith really means. Starring Martin Sheen and Alan Arkin.

Color, 72 minutes.

This video is available from the Religious Freedom Coalition for $20.00 which includes postage and handling. Send check or money order to Religious Freedom Coalition, P. O. Box 77511, Washington, DC 20013. Please indicate offer 00N03 on your check.

For credit card orders please call (800) 650-7664.