Can the pastor say that??

Can your pastor legally preach about homosexuality as sin? Is your church at risk for losing its tax-exempt status because it calls gluttony a sin? Will you find police in the pulpit for speaking against strip clubs, pornography or local casions?

What can you say and what can't you say in our country? The First Amendment provides us a great opportunity to speak the truth and to argue ideas in the public square. It does not allow us to yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater. It doesn't allow us to lie about somebody else (despite what the linked article below states). Really, this is one of the greatest gifts our Founding Father's gave to us.

But it's hated around the world.

You get a glimpse of that through what Mark Steyn is going through up north. That trial has birthed an article from Canada in the International Herald Tribune (it's subtitle: "the global edition of the New York Times." That says a lot.) titled "Hate speech or free speech? What much of the West bans is protected in U.S."

As you read the article, you can see why the clamps are coming down upon our nation (unjustifiably but they're squeezing nonetheless). Ironically, it is because of things like Freedom of Speech that Steyn wrote America Alone and Bill Bennett wrote America: The Last Best Hope (vol I & II). Freedoms are eroding around the world which is why we are so hated; we will not, as yet, permit such a thing in our land.

At the same time it's why foreign folks are busting down the doors to get in.

Will our free speech remain or will our pastors be arrested and our churches closed? Stay tuned...