Constitutional Rights

Exactly One year Later: Child Who Was Taken Now HOME

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Nov 192011

Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare

FRIDAY ONE YEAR AGO – A 3-year-old girl was taken from the only home she knew and loved and placed with strangers – extended family who had never bothered to visit her or get to know her. Her adoptive parents fought for her in court and experts said she would be traumatized by the forced move, but the court decided that was okay and moved her anyway.

After almost five months, on APRIL 13TH, the adoptive parents got a call to come and get their little girl right away. There was a problem, and she had to be moved from the home she had been placed in. They left immediately, driving a couple hours to get her. When she saw them, she ran into their arms and said she was ready to go “home” – “Can I go home?” she asked – Adoptive mom wept – but daughter held her tears until after they had left the building, then wept freely. The people she had been with had told her that her adoptive parents were wolves, and would eat her -

Fortunately, she wasn’t physically hurt during the five months. But she was, indeed, emotionally traumatized. She was NOT okay. She had been told there were monsters in the closet who would come eat her if she cried, and she reported that she had been locked in a storage shed. She was only three so it’s still hard to say what actually happened, but it is known that things were not well – as evidenced by the emergency request by social services for the adoptive parents to go after her.

TODAY – A YEAR TO THE DAY she was taken from them – the Adoption was finalized and no one can take her away again!

PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION – Kids of tribal heritage need protection EQUAL to any other child in the U.S. – PLEASE sign this White House Petition. If we can get 25,000 signatures by mid-December, the White House will review the petition and give a response!

Children such as the child in this story have no voice – there are many advocating for ICWA, but no other national organization advocating for Children and families who, as US citizens, do NOT want to be under the jurisdiction of tribal government. Please help by bringing their needs to the attention of those in the federal Government.

It is a little complicated to sign this petition – it is on a White House Website and Lord knows they can’t make anything uncomplicated. But we need your help to do this – Please click the below link, register, and SIGN this petition and ask others to as well! – Thank you!

http://wh.gov/bvZ

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Event Took Place Friday, November 19, 2010

Dec. 9, 2010

CAICW Friends;

An adoptive mother made her first contact with CAICW on Facebook about 1am Saturday morning, November 20, 2010, only hours after she had lost her little girl…

“They just took my baby after 3 years…her sobbing is forever etched in my soul. She wanted us to save her and we couldn’t..devastated.”

She then wrote to friends:

“Please sign this petition..the despair on her face pushes me to help destroy this law. She didn’t want to go and was looking for us to protect her and we couldn’t…I can’t remember ever feeling so worthless.”

Saturday, November 20th, 2010, was National Adoption Day. On this day, a small girl, denied the right to be adopted by the only mother she’d ever known, spent the first day in her memory in foster care, frightened and alone amongst strangers. She was denied the right to be adopted solely because of her heritage. In America, having even a small bit of Indian heritage can mean not having the same rights and opportunities for adoption that other children receive.

Saturday, November 20th, was also her adoptive mother’s birthday. Her mother wrote on Facebook, thanking her friends for their love and prayers, and said that the best gift was people signing the petition.

We will be taking the petition with us when visiting Congress in DC at the end of January. The purpose of the Petition is to show Congressmen that people are concerned about this law and want it changed to reflect the best interest of children, not government expediency. We want to the rights of parents and children respected. We encourage families that have been affected by ICWA to join us.

If you aren’t able to join us in DC, I urge everyone to obtain the legislative drafts we have available and talk to as many of your US Senators and Representatives and you can, as well as you legislators on the State level. We need to be pushing our representatives on both the federal and state levels to pass protective legislation for these children. No more pretending that what they have decided to do with children of heritage is acceptable or even constitutionally legal.

Finally – CAICW needs financial support. Please help us to:

* Stay in Contact with Families,
* Publish the Newsletter,
* Research Case Law,
* Update & maintain the CAICW.org Website,
* Develop a legal Defense Fund,
* Continue to Educate Federal and State Officials,
* Educate the Community through Facebook and Twitter,
* Speak to and Connect with family-oriented Organizations

All Children need to feel safe. Help CAICW to Advocate, Educate, Assist, & Defend.

http://www.caicw.org/pleasedonate.html

- Please see these sites for more information, and please share these important links:

Read Letters from Families: http://www.caicw.org/familystories.html

How You Can Help: http://www.caicw.org/HowYouHelp.html

Follow CAICW on TWITTER: http://twitter.com/CAICW

Join CAICW on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fbCAICW.org

EMAIL: writeus@caicw.org

Thank you all for your prayers and support -

Lisa Morris
Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare (CAICW)
PO Box 253
Hillsboro, ND 58045

CAICW – Christian Evangelism and Ministry – Gal. 2:10, “All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.”

Liberty Counsel: U.S. State Dept Promoting Anti-Israel Propaganda

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Aug 292011

"Restoring Courage" with Glenn Beck in Israel

Liberty Counsel
NEWS RELEASE
Contact: PUBLIC RELATIONS DEPARTMENT – 800-671-1776 or Media@LC.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 29, 2011

U.S. State Department Promoting an Anti-Israel Propaganda Agenda

www.LC.org

Washington, DC – The U.S. State Department is promoting an anti-Israel propaganda campaign. The extent of the campaign and the misinformation raises serious concern. The most recent misinformation surfaced last week when the U.S. issued a “warning” to all U.S. citizens the day of Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Courage” event on August 24 in Jerusalem.

On the same day, the Consulate General of the United States released an “Emergency Message” stating that

“Jerusalem is under a heightened Security Alert.” U.S. citizens in Jerusalem were told to “exercise extra vigilance and avoid large crowds during upcoming rallies and religious holidays, particularly in and around Jerusalem’s Old City.”

The “warning” continued:

“On Wednesday, August 24, 2011, there will be a rally held near the south east [sic] corner of the Old City.” The areas where the “Restoring Courage” event was being held “are off limits to official U.S. Government personnel from 4:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. on that day due to recent clashes in the area.” http://Jerusalem.usconsulate.gov/wms-082411.html.

Beck’s event began at 5:00 p.m. in the exact area referenced above.

“As one who spoke at Glenn Beck’s event outside the Southern Wall of the Old City on August 24, I can say that the U.S. State Department’s ‘warning’ was false political propaganda designed to advance an anti-Israel agenda,” said Mat Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law.

“There had been no ‘clashes’ in the area prior to the ‘Restoring Courage’ event, and there were none during or after the event,” said Staver. “When U.S. citizens who attended Glenn Beck’s event learned of the State Department’s ‘warning,’ they were outraged because they knew it to be untrue,” Staver added.

Staver also said,

“At the event I spoke with Israelis who work in the highest level of government. If anyone would have had intelligence suggesting danger, these people would have, and yet they appeared at the event.

The District of Columbia is far more dangerous than Jerusalem or the entire nation of Israel. As of August 26, there were 71 murders in the District, down from a high of 479 in 1991. In all of Israel last year there were 139 homicides, but in the District there were 132. Considering only Jerusalem, the number of homicides or violent crimes pales compared to the District.

The U.S. Consulate General for Jerusalem issued a press release promoting a folk rock concert, funded by U.S. tax dollars, to “promote dialogue and mutual understanding between Palestinians and Americans” held in Jerusalem and the “West Bank” only one month prior to Beck’s event. http://jerusalem.usconsulate.gov/pr_072011.html.

The same website lists 7 pro-Palestinian programs and no pro-Israeli programs. http://jerusalem.usconsulate.gov.

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Conservative – The new cool

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Jun 012011

By J. Matt Barber

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive. – C.S. Lewis

Comedian Jim Wiegand – aka “Jim Wiggins, the last hippie in America” – is a throwback to a bygone era. The hilarious 70-year-old wisecracker is known for, among other things, a quite liberal worldview. He’s also known for raising Joe Wiegand, his rebellious, good-for-nothing son. Apart from sharing both a sharp sense of humor and mutual love and admiration, father and son see eye to eye on little else.

Joe, a good friend of mine, isn’t a rebellious good-for-nothing in the conventional sense. He’s a 40-something Illinois-based GOP strategist, a Teddy Roosevelt impersonator without equal and a buttoned-up evangelical Christian.

The elder Mr. Wiegand can’t figure out where he went wrong. He jokes that when Joe was a youngster, he once discovered magazines hidden under the boy’s mattress. He was shocked to find his son looking at such smut: National Review.

Hippies once were the counterculture. Liberals were the nonconformist rebels, boldly wearing unwashed anarchy on tattered sleeve. They loudly and proudly raged against the establishment machine.

Today, they are the establishment machine.

All of our ruling-class institutions – academia, courts, government, media and entertainment industries – are teeming with closed-minded, hard-left ideologues who seek to “fundamentally transform America.”

Consider that, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, self-identified liberals outweigh their conservative counterparts in the mainstream media by a 5-1 margin.

Likewise, a 1999 North American Academic Study Survey (NAASS) of students, faculty and administrators in colleges and universities throughout the United States determined that five times as many college faculty members vote Democratic as Republican. In fact, 72 percent described themselves as “to the left of center,” while a mere 15 percent identified themselves as “right of center.”

One can only imagine that in the ensuing decade, the ideological disparity has increased. Ask any kid in the halls of academia, and he’ll tell you, with few exceptions, that professor so-and-so is a liberal so-and-so.

Still, liberals – or “progressives,” as they prefer to be called – persist in laboring under an embarrassing misconception: They honestly believe they remain the nonconformists. It’s precious.

In fact, today’s liberals are nothing of the sort. They compliantly conform – like little windup, patchouli-daubed lemmings – to a carnival-prize caricature of what they imagine nonconformity to look like. You know, the usual stuff: neo-Marxism, environmentalist activism, sexual relativism, big-government nanny statism, an actions-without-consequences rendering of reproductive rights, and other such populist nonsense. Simply put, today’s progressive nonconformist conforms.

Indeed, the “Stepford Wives” have become the “Stepford Lesbians.” The prudish, judgmental church lady has swapped spots with the easy – yet somehow self-righteous – birth-bashing feminist.

So what is a young person – brimming over with that instinctive, defiant impulse to rebel against “the man” – to do?

Well, in this up-is-down, spend-money-to-save-money world, conservatives have become the contemporary nonconformists. Today’s rebellious youth are telling the progressive establishment to put its moral-relativist, redistributionist party-line pig swill in its well-used chamber pipe and smoke it.

Kids: Really want to get under your obnoxiously “tolerant,” Volvo-driving, MSNBC-watching folks’ skin? Try this: Go to church, abstain from premarital sex, join the Young America’s Foundation, attend a Tea Party rally, enroll at Liberty University, listen to Rush Limbaugh and vote Republican.

You’ll have them writhing in their Birkenstocks.

I’ve often said that President Obama could either be the best thing to happen to America or the worst. The best insofar as this man’s policies are so radical, so extreme that, in keeping with Newton’s third law of motion, the “opposite reaction” might well trigger Republican rule in perpetuity.

First, the bad news: So far, Mr. Obama is the worst. Now, the good news: I believe he has awakened a sleeping giant in the millennial generation (ages 18 to 29). Today’s counterculture is rejecting the tired progressive policies pushed by this president and his secular-socialist sycophants.

For instance, a 2010 Marist Institute for Public Opinion poll determined that nearly 60 percent of millennials believe abortion is “morally wrong,” a nearly 10-point increase over the more progressive baby-boomer generation. The tide is turning.

Similarly, a recent survey from Harvard University’s Institute of Politics found that millennials are worried sick about their futures. Yet President Hopey Changey and Democrats in Congress continue to play back-alley dice with their lives via incomprehensible deficit spending and a national debt that swells annually by the trillions.

Do you think these kids won’t rebel as the clouds quickly darken?

Winston Churchill once observed,

“If you’re not a liberal at 20, you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative at 40, you have no brain.”

Liberalism is emotion-based and rooted in soaring, knee-jerk notions of “social justice.” Conservatism is logic-based and rooted in reality.

Today’s rebellious youth have the heart part down. I’m glad to see they’re developing some brains.

Matt Barber is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action.

Secret recording of TSA threatening passenger Four Parts (Video)

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Nov 232010

Secret recording of TSA unlawfully detaining, interrogating and threatening passenger – Four Parts

Part 2 – Passenger appears to know what the law is – and politely requests throughout ordeal for the TSA to clarify why they are questioning him. They never respond. Did they refuse to answer his question because they couldn’t? Did they know there was no law that required him to answer them? Were they having a slow day, and he happened to show up to play with? Once one of them starts messing with a passenger, do the others tend to feel they need to support that TSA officer, even if he was wrong?

Part 3 – After threatening over and over to take him to the police, they finally do. Perhaps they thought that by threatening him, he would submit out of desire to get over this and get back on the plane. But he called their bluff.

They finally take him to the police – who appear to politely look over his paperwork – and then simply let him go. He had done nothing wrong. He broke no laws. Do the police mind the TSA wasting their time on this type of thing? Maybe they don’t end up taking innocent people to the police too often. Most people do what ever the TSA asks – both because they don’t know the law, and because they just want to get on the plane and get to where they are going.

Apparently, this man worked for the Campaign for Liberty – a Ron Paul group – and the money was from the sale of t-shirts at an event. This man had, indeed, answered every question truthfully. He knew the law, knew his rights, and knew the TSA had no legal reason to detain and question him.

Finally – CNN reported on the recordings and the unlawful detention.

Nat’l Adoption Day: All Children Deserve To Feel Safe, but Some Children aren’t allowed Adoption.

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Nov 202010

Please help us Advocate, Educate, Assist, and Defend

http://www.firstgiving.com/caicw/Event/AdoptionRetainerFund

Deborah Maddox, acting Director of the BIA Office of Tribal Services in 1993, once said Congress intended the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)

“to protect Indian children from removal from their tribes and to assure that tribes are given the opportunity to raise Indian children in a manner which reflects the unique values of Indian culture.”

Advocates of ICWA point to the devastation suffered by children of tribal heritage when, years ago, they were forcefully removed from homes they loved and forced to stay at boarding schools. The trauma those children and families experienced was, indeed, devastating.

However, in the implementation of the ICWA, the exact same thing has been happening to children in reverse. What has to be acknowledged is that we live in a migratory, multi-cultural society. This means that many children who fall under the jurisdiction of the Indian Child Welfare Act have more than one heritage, and many times are predominantly of another heritage, and/or have family who not only haven’t any connection to the Indian Reservation, but have specifically chosen not to participate in the reservation system.

Though some argue that ICWA has safeguards to prevent misuse, scores of multi-racial children have been negatively affected by its application. Letters from birth parents, grandparents, foster families, and pre-adoptive families concerning their children hurt by misapplication of ICWA can be read at ~ http://www.caicw.org/familystories.html

There is no inborn difference between persons of tribal heritage and other persons. Any emotionally healthy child, no matter their heritage, will be devastated when they are taken from their familiar homes and forced to live with strangers.

Even children of 100% tribal heritage can be devastated if taken from the only home they know and love, no matter the heritage, and placed into a home they know nothing about.

In the words of Dr. William Allen, former Chair, US Comm. On Civil Rights (1989) and Emeritus Professor, Political Science MSU;

“… We are talking about our brothers and our sisters. We’re talking about what happens to people who share with us an extremely important identity. And that identity is the identity of free citizens in a Republic…” (Re: The Indian Child Welfare Act, September 20, 2008, Wahkon, MN)

Consequent to this Congressional error in understanding the practical aspects of the ICWA, dozens of adoptions are held up every year. Some of these adoptive homes have had the children since infancy and are the only homes the children know. However, even simple adoptions can be expensive and many families aren’t prepared for this additional impediment. Time and again families have contacted the Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare (CAICW) to ask for help because they don’t have the funds needed to hire attorney’s to defend their children. Some families, after mortgaging their homes and having nothing else to use, have been forced to give up the fight for their children.

- Children have been removed from safe, loving homes and been placed into dangerous situations by Social Services.
- Some Indian and non-Indian families have felt threatened by tribal government.
- Some have had to take out additional mortgage on their homes and endure lengthy legal processes in attempt to protect their children.
- Equal opportunities for adoption, safety and stability are not available to children of all heritages.
- The Constitutional right of parents to make life choices for their children, for children of Indian heritage to associate freely, and for children of Indian heritage to enjoy Equal Protection has in many cases been denied.

Saturday, November 20, 2010 is National Adoption Day. Support Families nationally in defending their children from unreasonable impediment to their adoptions by helping raise $50,000 for ten $5000 Attorney retainer fees for ten Adoptive Families. These would be families that are in the midst of adopting children they have had physical custody of over a long term or from infancy, or stable ‘relative families’ attempting to retain or regain custody within the extended family – whether or not said family is enrollable with a tribe.

The “Fund Attorney Retainers for 10 Families” Drive begins on National Adoption Day, November 20, 2010 and ends on December 31, 2010. The Fund website can be found through FirstGiving.com at http://www.firstgiving.com/caicw/Event/AdoptionRetainerFund

The Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare (CAICW) has been advocating for families affected by the Indian Child Welfare Act since 2004 and is the only National org advocating for these families. Our advocacy is both Judicial and Legislative, as well as a prayer resource and shoulder to cry on.

Funds raised from this event will be used to assist up to 10 families in obtaining the legal assistance they need in order to complete their adoptions.

Additional informational links:

Legal and Constitutional concerns re: ICWA http://www.caicw.org/icw.html

Letters from Affected Families: http://www.caicw.org/familystories.html

ICWA Case Law: http://www.caicw.org/caselaw.html

Illegal to Advertise for a Christian Roommate?

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Oct 232010

Apparently, it is now illegal to advertise for a Christian roommate.

A civil rights complaint has been filed against a 31-year-old Michigan woman who posted an advertisement on a bulletin board in her church seeking a Christian roommate.

Someone had seen the ad – in the church – with the words “Christian roommate wanted” and contacted the Fair Housing Center of West Michigan.

The case was then turned over to the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, which filed a housing discrimination charge. According to the ‘Fair Housing’ Center, the ad

“…expresses an illegal preference for a Christian roommate, thus excluding people of other faiths.”

FHCWM Executive Director Nancy Haynes told Todd Starnes of Fox News that “It’s a violation to make, print or publish a discriminatory statement. There are no exemptions to that.”

Haynes said this woman could face several hundreds of dollars in fines and “fair housing training so it doesn’t happen again.”

Harold Core, director of public affairs with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, appears to agree. While noting there are exemptions in law for gender when there is a shared living space, he told the Grand Rapids Press that the Fair Housing Act forbids people from publishing ads stating a preference of religion, race or handicap with respect to sale or rental of a dwelling.

Haynes, who said officials plan on pursuing the matter because “We want to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” asks, “If you read it and you were not Christian, would you not feel welcome to rent there?”

Describing the case as “outrageous,” her attorney, working for the Alliance Defense Fund, said this is a blatant violation of her First Amendment right to freely associate and

“Christians shouldn’t live in fear of being punished by the government for being Christians. It is completely absurd to try to penalize a single Christian woman for privately seeking a Christian roommate at church — an obviously legal and constitutionally protected activity.”

Having already sent a letter to the state asking the authorities to dismiss the case as groundless, he went on to say,

“The First Amendment guarantees us Freedom of Religion and we have the right to live with someone of the same faith. The Michigan Department of Civil Rights is denying her rights by pursuing this complaint.”

The ADF is representing this woman free of charge.

After an outcry arose over the apparent injustice of the charges against the woman, Haynes seemed to have backtracked from her earlier statement concerning an illegal preference for a Christian roommate – excluding people of other faiths. Haynes told 24 Hour News 8 the woman has every right to seek and live with a Christian roommate — but advertising for it publicly, even on a church bulletin board, violates federal law.

“She can be a Christian and she can even use that as a criteria for who she wants to rent to. She just can’t state that. Because to state that is a violation of the Fair Housing Act,” she said. “There are certain exceptions that apply. She can actually, in practice, not rent to a non-Christian. But she can’t make the statement. The statement alone is a violation of the act. What she can do in practice she can’t make a statement about.”

Haynes now claims someone in the congregation was offended and filed a complaint.

She also spoke with a little less severity concerning the charges, explaining that the action is administrative, not criminal. The center asks for a response to try and negotiate a settlement. If they can’t, it’s possible that the Michigan Department of Civil Rights would determine if a violation happened and perhaps recommend a hearing.

“I found (the woman and her attorney’s) response very offensive. We’re not punishing her for being Christian at all. If you’re in the business of renting, it’s a business transaction that’s held to a standard under federal, state and local law.”

The state does want the woman to get training in federal law, and reimburse the Fair Housing Center $300 for the time it took them to ‘investigate.’

Here are some of my thoughts about why I find this so upsetting:

This was a private note on a church bulletin board. No financial transaction was involved. We are told about a so-called separation of church and state but this appears to mean the state will not allow any Christian activity associated with any state activities but the state is perfectly willing to intrude and penalize church affairs and activities.

If not directly this certainly indirectly impacts on how, and with whom, we live in our own private homes. The government claims she can choose to live only with a Christian but just can’t say that is what she is doing. But not being able to say or put up a notice probably will severely limit her choices of potential Christian roommates and have a direct and potentially negative impact on her living situation.

If she can choose to live only with a Christian but can’t say that is what she is doing , what impact does this have on her First Amendment guarantees of free speech and association?

The people of this church now have to consider and deal with the fact that they have a secret government informer in their midst. If a Christian in the church was offended by the note there is clear scriptural direction on how to deal with it–go to that person privately, take several others with you, bring it to the church and finally suffer wrong before going to secular authorities. [Matthew 18:14-17 and I Cor. 6:2-8]

This woman is expected to pay the costs of the investigation. I’m sorry but this reminds me of the requirement in Iran that family members pay for the bullet that executed a relative in order to get the body returned for burial. What is the difference between this reimbursement and a civil or criminal fine except that there isn’t a judge, jury or stipulated statute amount. What if the investigative cost was $10,000 instead of $300? Who decided this amount?

She is expected to go and get training in federal law so this doesn’t happen again. This sounds like a simpler, abbreviated form of government reeducation. Where do we know this from?

The government says this is a violation of federal, state and local laws. This is surely because of federal mandates on the state and local governments raising questions about the role of federalism and how it is being perverted by federal grants and their associated mandates.

Maybe this case is so outrageous simply because it raises the question of what can’t the government do if they chose to?

“Equality” and “Justice”

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Oct 032010

What we mean by the words “equality” and “justice” tells much about our basic understanding of how the world should function. Our country was founded with a focus on equal opportunity. Today the use of the word “equality” often focuses on a concept of equal results. Likewise the word “justice” meant standards of law impartially applied to all. Today the word is often used to imply the need for a “just” result. It is impossible to have both equal opportunity and equal results.

A simple analogy is a foot race. Most foot races are very carefully designed to provide equal opportunity. Runners start at the same time with equal distances to run and equal track conditions. Unequal results are expected. A race designed to provide equal results would have to be designed very differently with a continuously readjusted handicapping procedure including different starting times, distances or track conditions in order to try to achieve equal results i.e. everyone finishing at the same time.

If we as a society move from our original concept of equality and justice to new definitions focusing on results, it will have dramatic implications. Mandating equal results requires much more, and much stronger, government. It also has very predictable and negative affects on individual incentives and achievement.

Neither position should cancel our voluntary desire or Christian duty to help those who are in need of our support.

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