- Aug 18, 2003
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Dayton Daily News/AP
Bobby Ross, Jr.
BALCH SPRINGS, Texas For years, senior citizens gathered at the Balch Springs Community Center on Monday mornings to enjoy a gray-haired gospel band known as "Silver Threads" and hear an inspirational message from the Rev. J.B. Barton.
Until a few weeks ago, nobody seemed to mind.
But then three residents said they were offended by religious activity at the city-owned center. So, officials in the Dallas suburb put a stop to it.
"The bottom line and the central issue was the fact that the city operates a public-funded community center, not a church," said David Berman, attorney for Balch Springs, a city of 19,000 southeast of Dallas.
The ban on gospel music, preaching and blessings before meals at the center drew an immediate backlash from senior citizens such as Marcelline Green, 75, who recently picketed outside City Hall with a sign that read "Don't mess with Grandma. She's mad."
"Our rights are being taken away from us," said Green, one of 16 plaintiffs in a civil rights lawsuit filed against the city in federal court. "We are being discriminated against by the minority."
In the 20-page lawsuit filed last month by the nonprofit Liberty Legal Institute, the plaintiffs argue that Balch Springs officials violated their constitutional rights of free speech and religious expression. They "desire to engage in voluntary and non-disruptive religious speech and expression at the center," the petition states.
"Citizens don't lose their First Amendment rights because they are in public or in a public building," said Jeff Mateer, an attorney with Liberty Legal Institute, a Plano-based firm that handles religious freedom cases.
In response to complaints from seniors who like the religious programming, Balch Springs modified the ban. The city now allows voluntary prayer and gospel music to continue, but bars any minister from delivering "a sermon, an inspirational or a devotional at the center."
The compromise is spelled out in a two-page memo posted on the center's door. The memo states that the city must maintain "the constitutional wall which prevents an intermingling of religious activities and local government."
But allowing the music back without the preaching didn't satisfy everyone.
"I think they're trying to throw us a bone to see if we'll take the bone and run with it, but we're not," said Barney Clark, a 77-year-old World War II veteran who plays guitar for the Silver Threads.
"I fought for love of freedom and country," said Clark, a plaintiff along with his wife, Peggy. "And here I've got old and useless, they say, and I ain't got no freedom no more."
continued here
Bobby Ross, Jr.
BALCH SPRINGS, Texas For years, senior citizens gathered at the Balch Springs Community Center on Monday mornings to enjoy a gray-haired gospel band known as "Silver Threads" and hear an inspirational message from the Rev. J.B. Barton.
Until a few weeks ago, nobody seemed to mind.
But then three residents said they were offended by religious activity at the city-owned center. So, officials in the Dallas suburb put a stop to it.
"The bottom line and the central issue was the fact that the city operates a public-funded community center, not a church," said David Berman, attorney for Balch Springs, a city of 19,000 southeast of Dallas.
The ban on gospel music, preaching and blessings before meals at the center drew an immediate backlash from senior citizens such as Marcelline Green, 75, who recently picketed outside City Hall with a sign that read "Don't mess with Grandma. She's mad."
"Our rights are being taken away from us," said Green, one of 16 plaintiffs in a civil rights lawsuit filed against the city in federal court. "We are being discriminated against by the minority."
In the 20-page lawsuit filed last month by the nonprofit Liberty Legal Institute, the plaintiffs argue that Balch Springs officials violated their constitutional rights of free speech and religious expression. They "desire to engage in voluntary and non-disruptive religious speech and expression at the center," the petition states.
"Citizens don't lose their First Amendment rights because they are in public or in a public building," said Jeff Mateer, an attorney with Liberty Legal Institute, a Plano-based firm that handles religious freedom cases.
In response to complaints from seniors who like the religious programming, Balch Springs modified the ban. The city now allows voluntary prayer and gospel music to continue, but bars any minister from delivering "a sermon, an inspirational or a devotional at the center."
The compromise is spelled out in a two-page memo posted on the center's door. The memo states that the city must maintain "the constitutional wall which prevents an intermingling of religious activities and local government."
But allowing the music back without the preaching didn't satisfy everyone.
"I think they're trying to throw us a bone to see if we'll take the bone and run with it, but we're not," said Barney Clark, a 77-year-old World War II veteran who plays guitar for the Silver Threads.
"I fought for love of freedom and country," said Clark, a plaintiff along with his wife, Peggy. "And here I've got old and useless, they say, and I ain't got no freedom no more."
continued here
A freight train is bearing down on radical secularists and they don't even hear it. If granny wants gospel music and a preacher at her Senior Center, she is going to get gospel music and a preacher. Anyone who stands in her way is going to be squashed.
WWII vet Barney Clark probably remembers the newsreels of FDR singing "Onward Christian Soldiers" on the deck of the HMS Prince of Wales and isn't about to have anyone tell him where and when he can listen to gospel music or to a minster.
All these people remember when it wasn't illegal to put up a Nativity Scene on the town green, when it wasn't illegal for a coach to say a prayer before a HS football game, when it wasn't illegal to display the Ten Commandments in a courthouse.
Because those restrictions didn't affect them much, they let those infringements on freedom slide. But the radical left has taken the fight to them, to their Senior Centers and nursing homes.
And they will fight back. Nobody bucks the Senior lobby and gets reelected to talk about it.
Btw....the children of seniors don't like this either. Even if they are secular themselves, they don't want anyone messing with what gives their parents enjoyment in their waning years.
