A former veteran lost his position as a substitute teacher at a Massachusetts high school after he lectured a student who said it wasn’t necessary to stand up during the Pledge of Allegiance.
Lt. Col. Joe Bellavia, who had been working as a substitute teacher at Wakefield High School, recounted the incident in a letter to The Wakefield Daily Item. He said he overheard a female student talking about her Constitutional rights and that she didn’t have to stand for the recitation of the pledge.
Bellavia said he turned to the student and addressed her with “firmness and conviction.”
“You indeed have the right not to stand and it’s because of people like me who spent 25 years protecting the freedoms that you now enjoy and take for granted and that my son gave his life to preserve,” he recounted in a letter to the newspaper.
Bellavia’s son, Joseph, was killed in 2003 while serving in Iraq. He was a 1994 graduate of the high school. The younger Bellavia was a staff sergeant in the 101st Airborne. He died during an ambush outside of Baghdad.
“The least you can do is show some respect and gratitude by standing,” he told the student. According to the newspaper, the student left the classroom, began crying and complained to the principal.
Bellavia told WBZ the principal, Kimberly Smith, told him his services were no longer needed at the high school and suggested he consider substituting at the middle or elementary schools.
Wakefield School Superintendent Joan Landers released a statement to the media indicating she stood behind the student – writing that the “student had not done anything wrong but that it was a sensitive issue for Mr. Bellavia.”
“In my view, this incident is about respect,” Landers wrote. “All of us in the school department have only the highest respect for Mr. Bellavia as a veteran and a Gold Star parent. We owe a duty as well, however, to respect the rights of the students who are in our care. Balancing those rights is not always easy but we have to do the best we can.”
As for Bellavia, he told the newspaper it was just easier for the school system to let him go. “Believe me,” he said. “For the $60 per day, it was not worth the disrespect that was shown to me.”
But Bellavia wonders whatever happened to teaching students about loving their nation and the flag.
“Is respect for our country and its flag a thing of the past,” he asked. “There was a time when the citizens of this country were proud of their heritage and the sacrifices made by so many that resulted in the freedoms we now take for granted.”
Bellavia told the newspaper he bears no grudge against the student “Still I have to wonder,” he said. “Where is she getting these ideas?”
Todd Starnes is a reporter for FOX News Radio and a best-selling author.
An anti-Christian organization is calling on the Army to remove a cross from a hospital at Fort Carson – outside Colorado Springs.
The cross is part of an emblem that includes the Latin words, “For God and humanity.” It’s been used by the Evans Army Community Hospital for more than 40 years. But the Military Religious Freedom Foundation said the emblem must be removed because it violates the separation of church and state.
“We think it’s completely unconstitutional on one hand,” said Mikey Weinstein, founder of the group, in an interview with FOX 21. “On the other hand, we believe it completely emboldens that we should be rightfully fighting.”
Weinstein said dozens of soldiers have complained about the cross.
Lt. Col. Steve Wollman told the Associated Press Fort Carson commanders will review the complaint, but he noted that references to doctors serving God and humanity predate Christianity. Wollman adds that the cross is both an emblem of mercy and a symbol used by medieval pilgrims to mark their camps.
Weinstein disputes that argument – saying the cross is symbolic of the Crusades and could offend Muslims.
This continues to add more fodder to the argument that we are Crusaders,” Weinstein told Huffington Post. “It’s exactly what fundamentalist Muslims want.”
“I would consider that to be unbelievable garbage and crap the pilgrims carrying those crosses were headed down the holy land and engaging in wholesale slaughter of Christians,” Weinstein told FOX 21.
The phrase “For God and humanity” dates back to the Hippocrates, considered to be the father of western medicine.
Weinstein was recently successful in having Christian evangelist Franklin Graham banned from participating in an upcoming National Day of Prayer service because of comments he made about Islam.
Todd Starnes is a FOX News Radio reporter and best selling author.
A Georgia lawmaker is calling for a Congressional investigation into the Pentagon’s treatment of Christians.
Rep. Jack Kingston, (R) GA, said Christianity is treated like a “red-headed stepchild” in the nation’s capitol and blamed political correctness for a series of recent incidents where prominent Christian leaders have been banned from participating in military events.
“Rescinding the invitations to people as high profile as Franklin Graham and Tony Perkins sends a huge message downstream to all the military chaplains that certain sermons are no longer going to be welcome in the Pentagon circles,” Kingston told FOX News Radio. “If you want to get along, you have to go along.”
Graham was recently removed from his position as a speaker at the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer event. The Pentagon said it would be inappropriate for him to speak after calling Islam an “evil and dangerous religion.” Perkins was allegedly disinvited to speak at Andrews Air Force Base because of his opposition to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” In addition, the National Day of Prayer Task Force was told not to attend the Pentagon’s upcoming prayer event.
Kingston said he was especially concerned that there’s been a major policy change at the Pentagon and it’s “almost going by unnoticed by Congress.”
“If the military says, ‘Look, God is no longer welcome. We just want good thoughts by military chaplains,’ well, that’s fine,” Kingston said. “But let’s have a Congressional decision in the matter.”
Kingston represents a district with four military installations and he said it’s evident there is an aversion to Christianity in official religious services.
“I can tell you the prayers are really no longer prayers they are just sort of good thoughts for the day, inspirational messages,” he told FOX News Radio. “But they have very few references to the Lord and you will never hear ‘In Christ name we pray.’”
Since President Obama was inaugurated his administration has been criticized by Christian conservatives for what they perceive as a lack of respect. The First Family initially wanted to remove a Nativity from the East Room of the White House, but recanted. He also declined to hold a White House ceremony marking the National Day of Prayer – instead offering a proclamation.
“The president declared we are no longer a Christian nation,” Kingston said. At best he has a lot of religious ambivalence himself. We’re going to have to realize that the Commander in Chief isn’t going to stand there for the traditional Judeo Christian celebrations and observations. At the same time we can’t let one person take that away from our history and our traditions in America. The only way that’s not going to happen, though, is the people in the pews are going to have to stand up and speak out.”
And at worst?
“Either way he’s ambivalent about what his religion is,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anybody who really knows what his religion is. When George Bush said Jesus Christ is his best friend, he was ridiculed for it. Maybe the president is trying to avoid that sort of attack.”
Kingston said Christians should be concerned about recent developments at the Pentagon and said the nation’s capitol has almost become a “religion-free zone.”
A Congressional hearing, he said, would resolve the issue once and for all.
“If Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid think this is a good thing, let them come out of the closet and say so,” he said. “Let’s not let this decision be made my Pentagon bureaucrats.”
Todd Starnes is a FOX News Radio reporter and best-selling author.
Franklin Graham is once again under attack from Muslims who are now demanding that Congress ban the Christian evangelist from speaking at a National Day of Prayer service on Capitol Hill as a Republican lawmaker demands an investigation on the Pentagon’s treatment of Graham and other Christian leaders.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations urged lawmakers to rescind the invitation originally extended to the son of Billy Graham. It comes days after the Pentagon banished Graham from their National Day of Prayer events. A military spokesman called Graham’s participation inappropriate — even though he is honorary chairman of the National Day of Prayer.
“Speakers such as Franklin Graham reflect a message of religious intolerance, rather than the more American message of differing faiths united in sharing support of our nation’s founding principles,” Corey Saylor, of CAIR, told AOL News.
Graham once called Islam a “very evil and wicked religion.” He defended those comments on FOX News and refused to apologize for his remarks.
Complaints by Muslim military personnel and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation led to Graham’s ouster. MRFF Spokesman Mikey Weinstein told AOL that Graham is an “Islamophobe, an anti-Muslim bigot and an international representative of the scourge of fundamentalist Christian supremacy.”
Shirley Dobson heads the National Day of Prayer Task Force and defended Graham’s participation.
“Suggesting Mr. Graham should be removed from a National Day of Prayer event because of his religious opinions is absurd,” she said. “No one understands better the need for prayer at this critical juncture in our nation’s history.”
“Moves to exclude any member of this great family from this prayer event represent everything that is wrong with the agenda of political correctness that is rampant in our country,” Dobson said. “Our nation’s founders wouldn’t have tolerated it, and neither should we.”Graham has at least one supporter in Congress. Rep. Kingston, (R) GA, called for congressional hearings over the military’s decision to ban not only Graham but also the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins.
Perkins had been scheduled to speak at a national prayer event at Andrews Air Force Base in February. However, the FRC president was “disinvited” over his opposition to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Kingston told CNSNews.com that he believes both decisions were about political correctness.
“I am concerned about it,” he told the news outlet. “It shows that the Pentagon is using a systematic practice of weeding out preachers and leaders of the clergy who are willing to give biblically-based messages and sermons which might ruffle some feathers in the diplomatic circles in which they are very concerned.”
The Pentagon also disinvited the National Day of Prayer Task Force from attending events – including Dobson, the wife of Focus on the Family Founder James Dobson.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gave a vigorous defense of the evangelist on Facebook: “It’s truly a sad day when such a fine patriotic man, whose son is serving on his fourth deployment in Afghanistan to protect our freedom of speech and religion, is disinvited from speaking at the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer service.”
Perkins, who is a veteran, told Newsmax.com: “This decision is further evidence that the leadership of our nation’s military has been impaired by the politically correct culture being advanced by this administration. Under this Administration’s watch we are seeing the First Amendment, designed to protect the religious exercise of Americans, retooled into a sword to sever America’s ties with orthodox Christianity.”
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