US: Govt Calls preaching Clear and Present Danger

Evangelist Arrested for Preaching Near Liberty Bell from Repent America on Vimeo.

Click to read full story from World Net Daily

By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
Liberty Bell engraving that states: "Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."

A panel of judges at the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today heard arguments that free speech should be allowed on public property at the site of the famous Liberty Bell, which itself quotes from the Bible in stating, "Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."

The arguments came in a case involving Michael Marcavage, a minister whose work includes street preaching. He was fined and put on probation for preaching to the public on a sidewalk outside the Liberty Bell center after a trial in which government prosecutors described his message and actions as a "clear and present danger."

The case began in October 2007 when Marcavage, director of the Repent America ministry, was arrested by supervising U.S. Park Ranger Alan Saperstein.

Marcavage ultimately was charged with violating a so-called "verbal permit" and "interfering with agency functions."

It was Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Goldberg during the June 2008 trial who argued Marcavage's peaceful preaching presented a "clear and present danger." Goldberg asked the judge to send a message not only to Marcavage but to anyone who would stand on public property and share their beliefs without government permission.

According to Marcavage, Independence National Historical Park Law Enforcement Specialist Donald Reed recently reaffirmed that free speech activities are banned on any of the public sidewalks surrounding the park that align city streets without first obtaining government permission. Even with a permit, the activities must be confined to a designated "free speech zone."

"In Philadelphia, the birthplace of American freedom, at the site of the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, freedom is under attack by the very government that was established here to protect it," Marcavage said.

"The blessings of liberty that God bestowed upon our nation continue to be lost while the Gospel of Jesus Christ is silenced," he continued. "If the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the ruling and finds that the federal government can ban Americans from speaking to others on matters that are important to them in the public forum or without advanced government permission, then this could very well be the final nail in the coffin of our freedoms."

Marcavage told WND that based on their questioning, the three appellate judges – Michael Fisher, Thomas Hardiman and Robert Cowen – appeared to wonder about the prohibition of a Gospel message when other protesters with another message were left untouched. He noted commercial speech also was taking place in the same area where he was arrested.

"We obviously hope that what they revealed through the very hard questioning will be favorable toward freedom," Marcavage told WND.

He said it is "absurd" that Americans have to fight for the right to speak freely on a public sidewalk near Independence Hall, where much of the work writing the U.S. Constitution was done, and adjacent to the exhibit of the Liberty Bell, one of the best-known symbols of freedom in the world.

Repent America is an evangelistic organization based in Philadelphia whose leaders "know that there is a literal hell and a lake of fire where the unsaved will burn for all eternity; therefore, we act upon this truth without reservation and GO OUT into the communities of America declaring the Word of God and proclaiming the Good News."

WND reported earlier when Marcavage brought, with the help of private practice attorney C. Scott Shields, a complaint against the government over the speech infringement. That case is on hold while the current case is on appeal.

Marcavage was restricted from preaching even though Komen Breast Cancer walkers were "utilizing the same sidewalk as a forum for expressing their opinions and viewpoints," court records reveal.

"However, Mr. Marcavage was told that he couldn't stand on the … block and express his viewpoint and was instead given a verbal permit to express his viewpoint in another part of the Independence Mall, far away from where the Breast Cancer walkers were expressing their viewpoint," court records said.

6.9 magnitude Earthquake Hits China

BEIJING -- A series of strong earthquakes struck a mountainous Tibetan area of western China on Wednesday, killing at least 400 people and injuring more than 10,000 as houses made of mud and wood collapsed, officials said. Many more people were trapped and the toll was expected to rise.

The largest quake was recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey as magnitude 6.9. In the aftermath, panicked people, many bleeding from their wounds, flooded the streets of a Qinghai province township where most of the homes had been flattened. Students were reportedly buried inside several damaged schools.

Paramilitary police used shovels to dig through the rubble in the town, footage on state television showed. Officials said excavators were not available and with most of the roads leading to the nearest airport damaged, equipment and rescuers would have a hard time reaching the area. Hospitals were overwhelmed, many lacking even the most basic supplies, and doctors were in short supply.

Downed phone lines, strong winds and frequent aftershocks also hindered rescue efforts, said Wu Yong, commander of the local army garrison, who said the death toll "may rise further as lots of houses collapsed."

With many people forced outside, the provincial government said it was rushing 5,000 tents and 100,000 coats and blankets to the mountainous region, at around 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) -high and where night time temperatures plunge below freezing.

Workers were racing to release water from a reservoir in the disaster area where a crack had formed after the quake to prevent a flood, according to the China Earthquake Administration.

The Wednesday quake, which struck at 7:49 a.m. local time (2349 GMT, 7:49 p.m. EDT), was centered on Yushu county, in the southern part of Qinghai, near Tibet, with a population of about 100,000, mostly herders and farmers.

The USGS recorded six temblors in less than three hours, all but one registering 5.0 or higher. The China Earthquake Networks Center measured the largest quake's magnitude at 7.1. Qinghai averages more than five earthquakes a year of at least magnitude 5.0, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. They normally do not cause much damage in the sparsely populated province.

Residents fled as the ground shook, toppling houses made of mud and wood, as well as temples, gas stations, electric poles and the top of a Buddhist pagoda in a park, witnesses and state media said. The quake also triggered landslides, Xinhua said.

"Nearly all the houses made of mud and wood collapsed. There was so much dust in the air, we couldn't see anything," said Ren Yu, general manager of Yushu Hotel in Jiegu, the county's main town. "There was a lot of panic. People were crying on the streets. Some of our staff, who were reunited with their parents, were also in tears."

More than 100 guests of the hotel, which was relatively undamaged, were evacuated to open spaces such as public squares, Ren told The Associated Press by phone. After transporting guests to safety, hotel staff then helped in rescue efforts in other buildings, Ren said.

"We pulled out 70 people, but some of them died on the way to the hospital," Ren said, adding other survivors were put in tents in the hotel yard while they awaited assistance.

The death toll rose to about 400 by afternoon, according to China Central Television. Emergency official Pubucairen, who goes by only one name, was quoted as saying that the number of injured has risen to more than 10,000. The official said rescuers were treating the injured at hospitals, race tracks and sports stadiums.

President Hu Jintao sent a vice premier to supervise rescue efforts and more than 5,000 soldiers, medical workers and other rescuers were mobilized, joining 700 soldiers already on the ground, Xinhua said. A message of sympathy also came from the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of the often fervently Buddhist Tibetans who is reviled by Chinese leaders.

Click to read Full Story from Fox News

Christian Singer Song writer Jennifer Knapp Announces She Is Gay

 Jennifer Knapp is a lesbian. Kind of. She resists the label, insisting that it feels unnatural and foreign, that she’s just the Jennifer Knapp she’s always been, just with a significant relationship with a woman. As Knapp sings on “Inside,” the track from Letting Go that “I play when I get angry,” what Knapp fears the most is that “I know they’ll bury me / Before they hear the whole story.” Her sexuality is certainly part of why Knapp left music and dropped out of sight to the other side of the world for nearly a decade. She fell in love with her girlfriend (whose name she chooses to not reveal), and after eight years together, there’s no denying that anymore. But there were also conflicts with her business partner (with whom she had a hand in the early Christian music career of Katy Hudson, who has gone on to kiss her own girls as Katy Perry). Music had become about work instead of about joy. And then there was the rift between her faith and her sexuality. “I thought I had to exchange one for the other,” she says.

It’s a struggle familiar to most gay people, even those who haven’t had to make room for sex and God, often uncomfortable bedfellows. Choosing to come out can still mean choosing away from family and friends who just can’t accept us as well as making institutions like marriage and parenthood exponentially more difficult to access. For Knapp, the process of bringing faith and sexuality into a coherent self required her to step away from her life and career in the U.S. The music that had spoken through her voice and hands became completely alienating. “I would think, I don’t even have a right to sing a song I wrote, because I am a hypocrite,” she says. Knapp spent her first three years as “a PlayStation guru,” and, when she tired of that, spent four years working at everything but music. She didn’t even pick up a guitar until her last year in Sydney. “I was building something new, starting something fresh,” she says. “I had to go someplace that would completely redefine my perspective of who I was in the universe.”

Knapp no longer feels like being gay and being Christian are in opposition, even if others do. “I’m quite comfortable to live with parts of myself that don’t make sense to you,” she says. She acknowledges that such peace is hard-won in her community. “I keep running across people living closeted, who have literally chosen one or the other,” Knapp marvels. And she knows she risks losing some of her biggest fans when word of her sexuality goes public. “I think it’s going to be shocking and feel like a betrayal to some people who live their spiritual lives through the music they listen to,” says Knapp. That’s part of why she’s decided to come out in advance of the record — she doesn’t want people to love her music and then discover that their own values won’t let them sing along full-throated.

This is just a piece of an interview that Jennifer did with ADVOCATE.com.  It is very sad that some who call themselves Christians are living their lives against the teachings of the bible and believe that there is nothing wrong with it. Then in turn spreading this false teaching that God accepts anything that you do and it is not a sin to just live your life as you choose with no consequences. But there are.....

^{Leviticus 18:22}

²² " 'Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.

1 Corinthians 6:9, 10

⁹Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders ¹⁰nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

^{Romans 1:24-28}

²⁴Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. ²⁶Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.  

  

If it is OK to live this kind of lifestyle then why are these scriptures in the bible? Why was Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed if this kind of lifestyle is not sinful in the eyes of God?

It is said that people who practice homosexuality (especially men) have a higher risk of contracting HIV and AIDS. If this lifestyle is OK then why are there more chances to catch a life threatening disease and die from it than a normal man and woman relationship?

Because you are taking out of the context of what God created it for and they are using it for their own selfish desires. Ms. Knapp believes that being Gay and having a relationship with God can go hand in hand. How can this be, when God cannot even look upon sin? So how can you be hand in hand with him? 

We brothers and sisters in Christ need to lift Jennifer Knapp up in prayer, and that she see that what she is living is a lie and that she is being deceived by Satan. Not just pray for Jennifer but also Ray Boltz another Christian Artist that just in the past 2 years came out that he was Gay and he believes the same as Jennifer that it is ok and that God loves us and accepts us no matter what. We are sure that there are many more out there who are believing the lies like Jennifer and Ray are. And WE must pray for them and ask in Jesus name that the veil of deception be torn from their eyes and that they see the TRUTH For The TRUTH will Set you Free.