The couple sat close together with her right hand clasped in his left hand and her left arm cradling the 8-month-old daughter whose conception cost the woman her job.
The couple’s sin, according to her former employer, Southland Christian School in St. Cloud, Fla., is fornication — having sex before they got married.
Jarretta Hamilton and her husband of 16 months, Samuel Treftz, told TODAY’s Ann Curry Monday that the termination violated federal anti-discrimination laws. In addition, they allege in a pending lawsuit, the school’s principal, Jon Ennis, invaded Hamilton’s privacy by telling other teachers and the parents of her students the exact reason she was fired.
Hamilton said her problems are all the result of her being honest. A widow with five children from her first marriage, she had gotten work as a teacher at Southland Christian School in January 2008. Meanwhile, she also met Treftz, and they planned a Feb. 20, 2009, wedding.
In April 2009, Hamilton and Treftz went together to Ennis and told him she would be taking maternity leave in the fall. She says Ennis first complained that it was difficult for the school to cover women on maternity leave.
“I was only requesting a standard six weeks maternity leave, and as the conversation progressed, he said, ‘I’m just trying to do the math here. When did you get married?’ ” Hamilton told Curry.
“I said Feb. 20,” she continued. “He said, ‘Well, did you conceive prior to marriage?’ I answered and I told him, ‘Yes.’ ”
Oh man, this is good.MONROE, OH (FOX19) - An iconic and massive statue of Jesus in Monroe, OH was destroyed after being struck by lightning Monday night.
The six-story statue was a well-known landmark on Interstate 75 since 2004, and was called "King of Kings" by members of Solid Rock Church, where it stood.
The lightning strike set the statue ablaze just after 11 p.m., Monroe police dispatchers said.
The 62-foot tall and 40-foot wide statue weighing 16,000 pounds quickly became engulfed in flames after the lightning strike. Fire crews were on the scene for several hours to put out the fire, but no one was injured.
The statue, also nicknamed "Touchdown Jesus" because of the way its arms were outstretched, is made out of wood and Styrofoam. The statue also had a steel frame anchored in concrete and fiberglass. The steel frame was all that remained after the fire. According to 911 calls, the lightning struck the right hand of the statue.
The fire spread to the attic of an adjacent amphitheater, but no other buildings at the church were affected. Fire chief Mark Neu says the fire caused $700,000 in damage to the statue and amphitheater. Neu says he believes the church has insurance.
The statue was scheduled to undergo a new paint job this summer after suffering some wear and tear during the harsh winter.
The pastor of Solid Rock Church says the church does plan to rebuild the statue.
DES MOINES, Iowa —An influential group of religious conservatives said Monday it would sit out the fall gubernatorial election as promised after candidates it favored lost in last week's Republican primary.
The Iowa Family Policy Center's decision was a blow to Republican Terry Branstad, who had banked on support from religious conservatives in his race against Democratic Gov. Chet Culver. The group said neither major party candidate met its standards.
Danny Carroll, chairman of the Iowa Family Policy Center, said in a statement that Republican officials were pushing conservatives to support Branstad. His group had said earlier it would not support the former governor if he won the primary.
"After nearly a week of calls for blind partisan unity from Republican loyalists, the Iowa Family PAC today reaffirmed their intention to withhold support from either major party candidate for governor in 2010 unless one or both of them illustrates a fundamental transformation," Carroll said in the statement.
Despite pressure from Republicans, Carroll said, "Our commitment to Biblical principles and the constitutional rule of law is not the result of any political affiliation, nor is it something that changes depending on the names on the ballot."
Religious conservatives are important to most Republicans seeking statewide office because they make up such a large percentage of Iowa's GOP voters.
Polling conducted during the last round of presidential caucuses in 2008 showed that six out of 10 who attended Republican caucuses described themselves as evangelical Christians.
Although the Iowa Family Policy Center is withholding its support, Steve Scheffler, who heads the influential Iowa Christian Alliance, has backed Branstad.
Trustee opposes funds for theater over gay Jesus
A Michigan community college trustee says he opposes funding "evil things," citing school support for a theater group that once performed play depicting Jesus and his apostles as gay Texans.
Grand Rapids Community College is working to close a $3.5 million budget deficit.
At a meeting Monday, Trustee Richard Ryskamp objected to $60,000 budgeted for three groups, including $19,000 for the Actors' Theatre.
In 2003, the troupe presented Terrence McNally's play "Corpus Christi."
Ryskamp says the school should consider if groups it funds "are meeting a standard of decency."
President Steven Ender says the college doesn't censor the theater. A trustees vote on the budget is expected in June.
A Catholic priest at a Dominican Republic resort town wants to destroy artwork in his parish because the painting shows angels with “a homosexual expression”. This confuses the faithful, he argues.The painting named "Allegory of the Virgin of Carmen," was concluded 12 years ago by Dominican artist Roberto Flores. The artwork adorns the interior of the church of “Our Lady of Carmen” in the mountain community of Jarabacoa, an agricultural and tourist center located in the Dominican Republic.The priest Johnny Duran sparked the controversy surrounding the painting, after promoting the adoption by the Jarabacoa City Council of a resolution that revokes an earlier statement by the same council that designated the mural as municipal heritage.Explaining his reason to revoke the previous decision and destroy the mural, the priest argues that the church congregation feels uncomfortable by the painting and that the mural does not inspire religious sentiments because the angels there depicted have a “diabolical, homosexual look” in their faces. Further, he contends that it is not clear whether the angels are male or female.
Not long ago, Comedy Central censored the depiction of the Islamic prophet Mohammad from their hit show South Park because a few Muslim extremists were so offended that they “warned” the South Park created could be killed. Now several Christian groups are feeling left out.
Comedy Central recently announced their plans to develop a thirty minute comedy cartoon called “JC” which depicts Jesus as an everyman trying to escape from his father’s shadow. This depiction, which seems to have more to do with parenting than religion, has offended several Christian groups. Now, the Family Research Council, the Catholic League, Parents Television Council, The American Alliance of Jews and Christians, and Radio host and Glenn Beck wannabe Michael Medved have come together to form a group called “Citizens Against Religious Bigotry.”
On Thursday June 3rd, the group released a statement calling for advertisers to boycott Comedy Central over depictions of Jesus. Their website specifically mentions the recent controversy over the depiction of Mohammad as a catalyst for this push to censor the depiction of Jesus.
Man, I just posed this question on think atheist dot com. (Fireborn over there) I am an Atheist and I do 'believe' in and I have seen a 'ghost'. Long story short, met a chick at a bar, went back to her place, saw a 'ghost' dog, a few mins later she comes in and mentions 'the dogs'. Two dogs were killed on the property about A year (? +/-) previous..
Now yes, I had had a few at the bar. I was not 'drunk'. This was the FIRST incident of many, not just with witnessing the dogs, with that house. With THAT house ONLY. I have not claimed to have seen anything else before or since that house. But there were alot of things that went on in that house that could not be just explained away.
We both moved out of that house and my occurrences stopped. I can not say about her.
In my opinion, 'ghosts' are energy (in the electrical sense), with the new theory of quantum energy, there is obviously things we do not understand about energy
Sometimes I wax on about energy and the like, because you're right - we are learning more and more about energy and it seems almost natural that living creatures might have some kind of 'energy signal' or something that we currently attribute to ghosts, simply because we don't understand it fully yet. It's fun to think about, but it's not enough, even with personal anecdotal evidence, for me to actually assert that ghosts are real.
I work at a drive-in theater and everyone in the area, plus the majority of the people who work there, contend that the place is haunted. Personally, I've heard what sounded like kids laughing up in the booth at night and I've also been looking at a wall when a paper towel dispenser seemed to violently fall off and away from the wall I was looking at. My experiences added to all of the other experiences people have claimed to have seem like a mountain of evidence. In fact, it might seem like I'm almost willfully rejecting the possibility of ghosts, given that there are accounts, at times corroborated, that date back decades.
The problem, of course, is that there is already a predetermined expectation of paranormal activity that people have about the place, so when wind blows through the 60 year old, poorly maintained building and it makes a sound, people are already listening for kids giggling. When a paper towel dispenser falls off a wall that it's fallen off of several times because it keeps getting improperly mounted, people already have that idea of it being flung off the wall by some attention seeking apparition.
Anyway, I'm not trying to say my situation is the same as yours, I guess I mostly just wanted to respond because I can see the logic behind your speculations about ghosts and energy, I just don't think it makes sense to positively say that ghosts exist because we are learning more about energy and may possibly discover something about energy in the future that could scientifically explain ghost stories.
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