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Petition Tag - first amendment
1. New Port Richey Attacks First Amendment Rights of Kids 
In late May 2011, members of the American Youth Movement had a booth in Sims Public park at the invitation of Sean Kline, Center for Independence, who was sponsoring a benefit to aid the challenged and to assist a young Marine corporal who lost his legs in combat.
The kids' message is anti-corporate and anti-war, but they were polite, quiet and respectful. They videotaped Mr. Kline and three city policemen approaching, demanding they leave the park because of complaints from an older veteran and corporate sponsors of the event. (See the videotape on You Tube) When the kids respectfully argued that they did nothing to justify being thrown out of a public park, the police asked for the IDs, said they were just doing their job, and that they would "trespass" the kids if they didn't leave.
In response to a complaint, the police chief after consultation with the city attorney, exonerated the police saying the kids left voluntarily, though he found no evidence to show they were creating a disturbance that would require them to be thrown out. (See articles in the Pasco Times, and New Port Richey Patch on-line.) Any reasonable person would acknowledge that the constitutional right to peacefully assemble and to petition one's government were ignored by city officials, and that no person has the right to exclude others from a big public park even if one disagrees with their message.
2. Ban hate speech in all public areas
Hate speech has been allowed for too many years, and now many different organizations are using the first amendment of the constitution as an excuse to preach hate towards other groups, especially gays and lesbians.
The last straw was the protests at dead soldiers' funerals, saying that God wanted the solders to die because of America's acceptance of Gays and Lesbians. There is no excuse to use hate speech or to preach hate, even underlying hate.
3. Message In The Music: restrict and ban overtly sexual and violent lyrics over the daytime airways
This is STAND’s campaign wager to enact the FCC to restrict and ban overtly sexual and violent lyrics over the daytime airways. Stand’s concern is for the impact that the message in our music is having on America’s youth.
The United States Supreme Court has three criteria for material to be considered obscene. An obscenity cannot be aired for any reason at any time, and has no protection under free speech laws.
1. It must insight lust in the average individual.
2. It must illustrate sexual conduct.
3.It must be bereft of any intellectual value, as in it is not artistic, scientific, literary, or political. It must be obscene for the sake of obscenity.
To compromise the values of freedom of speech, and society's need for censorship, the FCC rules allow indecent content to be aired between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. local time. This time period is known as the 'safe harbor'.
Singing and music have always played an important role in learning and the communication of culture. Children learn from what their role models do and say. According to Susan Buttross, MD, and chief of child development and behavioral pediatrics at University of Mississippi Medical Center in an article by Web MD stated, “With any type of repeated media exposure, a desensitization can occur that makes dysfunction seem normal.”
4. Preserve Religious Liberty - Amend the Lanham Act
I am requesting your intervention in a legal matter that has far-reaching implications for the future of our nation’s liberty. The Creation Seventh Day Adventist movement was recently ruled against in Federal Court for "Trademark Infringement" in the name of their Church.
Currently, Federal intellectual property law under the Lanham act allows for religious organizations to apply for and receive a trademark for their church name in various classes. Class 42 may be registered in the field of “Conducting religious observances and missionary services” as evidenced by Trademark No. 1177185 of the name “Seventh-day Adventist.”
The First Amendment implications of this are enormous. The result is that the Federal Government is presently regulating religious observances and missionary services and even handing down civil judgments against those who hold them in a registered name. This is, in the truest sense, religious persecution - the Federal Government can and will rule against you for the name of your religion if you are decided by the Court to not be within it's graces. The alternative is to "give up the name" - which is identical to the demands of past ages of persecution, i.e. "Confess that you are not a [Christian/Muslim/Pagan/etc]."
In order to do this the United States Patent and Trademark Office must decide what organization is entitled to Federal protection; in this case they must decide who is the true “Seventh-day Adventist” church. In other words, they must establish one organization above all others as the one and true Church of a given type. This is in direct violation of the "Establishment" clause of the First Amendment.
Traditionally there have been two sides to the argument of what constitutes the Church – one side argues that it is organizational succession, while the other argues that it is doctrinal succession. In the situation that has arisen, the government has been placed in the undesirable and unconstitutional position of having to decide for one side of this debate and decidedly against the other. Therefore, though one may hold to the original doctrines of Seventh-day Adventism, and though the organization may no longer holds to those doctrines, it has nonetheless been established by the State as the true and only Seventh-day Adventist church.
Because the faith of some remains unchanged that they are Seventh-day Adventists in belief and practice, they cannot in good conscience deny that name and what it stands for. This has placed before them a choice that our Forefathers never envisioned for an American on his own soil; the choice between obeying our nation’s laws and obeying the dictates of our consciences.
Nor is this the first time that this matter has arisen. In Hawaii a pastor named John Marik was held in contempt of court for maintaining that he and his congregation were Seventh-day Adventists outside of the organizational umbrella. He was sentenced to fines and jail time before finally signing a settlement agreement. Similar cases have been brought around the country, such as against Raphael Perez and the Eternal Gospel Church in Florida. While few take notice of this violation of liberty today, what will happen tomorrow?
In short, if religious observances can be enforced under civil power in the name of “Seventh-day Adventist” today, what is to stop them from being regulated under the name of “Christianity,” “Islam,” or “Judaism” tomorrow? The door is opened through this "backdoor" of calling religion a business - and thus subject to State regulation - for just such a future. For some, it is already here.
The misuse of trademark law as a means for the regulation of religious observances and missionary services is a gross abuse of the fair and well-intentioned laws of our nation, and a violation of Constitutional rights. We seek for Congress to propose an amendment to the Lanham act, preventing it from being used in such a manner as to violate the “establishment” clause of the First Amendment. This is imperative not only for the freedom of the Creation Seventh Day Adventist movement, but the liberty of future generations as well.
"If the principle is once established that religion or religious observances shall be interwoven with our legislative acts, we must pursue it to its ultimatum." - U.S. Senate Report on Sunday Mails, 1829
5. End Ideological Exclusion Now
Since 2001, the United States government has refused to grant visas to scores of foreign writers, scholars, artists, and activists on the basis of their ideas, political views, and associations. Individuals currently excluded from the U.S. include Swiss-born Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan, who was not allowed to enter the country to assume a tenured teaching position at the University of Notre Dame; Basque historian and PEN member Iñaki Egaña, who was denied entry when he tried to come to the U.S. for research on a Basque author who was a target of MacCarthyism, and Haluk Gerger, a Turkish journalist and sociologist who PEN defended and the U.S. State Department supported in the 1990s when he was jailed repeatedly for his writings on Turkey’s Kurdish minority.
Prevalent during the Cold War, ideological exclusion kept such writers as Gabriel García Marquez, Mahmoud Darwish, Pablo Neruda, and Doris Lessing out of the United States for many years. PEN believes excluding international colleagues on the basis of their ideas and opinions violates the First Amendment rights of Americans to hear these views and engage with the speakers. Ideological exclusion does not make us safer; instead, it impoverishes cultural exchange and academic and political debate, and sends a message that our country is more interested in silencing than engaging its critics.
Stand with PEN in urging the Obama administration to end ideological exclusion and allow a full and free exchange of information and ideas.
6. Once and For All, Congress leave RUSH LIMBAUGH ALONE!
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has launched an online petition to express outrage at conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh for saying he wanted President Obama to "fail."
Why does Congress feel the need to constantly meddle with Conservative talk radio?
The first amendment: " Congress shall make now laws prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
Two court cases will be held before the supreme court to hear the ruling and to make a decision on the rules of publicly displaying the Ten Commandments.
The large Texas cases took form in 2002 when a homeless atheist man named Thomas Van Orden passed by the monument, which sits next to the American Flag, American Eagle, and other religious symbols subscribed by Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and charged it of being an unconstitutional establishment of religion. The federal district court rejected his argument, ruling the state's reasons for placing the monument were clearly secular. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit also upheld the decision in 2003, and Van Orden appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.
The out come of this case will inevitably change the way the Christian religion is held in this country. The ruling of making the ten commandments illegal to have in government buildings will trickle down to it being illegal to having them displayed anywhere in public. This will most likely lead to crosses being taken down off the sides of churches and the ultimate concealment of the whole Christian faith! This clearly violates the first amendment the courts are saying the ruling would be supporting.
Please help justice prevail in this court and help protect ALL religions in this great nation we reside in. Please take time to sign this petition and put forth an effort to keep the Ten Commandments in view of all onlookers.
8. Let Yahoo Adult Groups Live
Since the acquisition of Egroups by Yahoo, Yahoo has been shutting down Adult Groups at an alarming rate. They've almost all but stopped there advertising of Adult Groups. This petition is for all the people who would like to be able peruse the Adult Groups and not have more of their First Amendment rights taken away. For some people, this is their right to be able to step into a fantasy world which in societies eyes is wrong. Who makes these rules anyway? It's not wrong to want to delve into the alternative lifestyles world. Some find their only way to do it is through this medium. As long as no laws or Yahoo's user policy is not being violated, the groups should be left alone.
