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(AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)The Salt Lake Temple stands at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Oct. 5, 2019.

By Stuart C. Reid | Special to The Tribune

| Aug. 26, 2022, 12:00 p.m.

Having presided over and pastored six congregations two as a bishop for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and four as an active duty Army chaplain it is clear to me that the sinner/perpetrator, child abuse victims and society generally are better off when the confessional is protected by the government as the free exercise of religions God-given right.

In Utah there is much talk about religious freedom, particularly when it is considered operational to win this or that battle in the culture conflicts, but when the sanctity of the confessional is under attack, legislators and others go silent, or worse, many rush to get in line to rob religion of its long-standing freedoms.

Short-sighted knee jerk reactions by legislators, running roughshod over religion and its God-given rights is fundamentally un-American. One of the distinguishing characteristics of the great American experiment is the First Amendment, designed to protect against the establishment of religion and the violation of its free exercise. Those legislators rushing to rob religion of its sacred rights reveal what they truly think about religious freedom.

It is a grave mistake for the Utah Legislature or any legislative body for that matter to rob religion of its free exercise in the name of protecting victims of child abuse or any other crimes against the state. This fundamental right is precisely why the free exercise clause of the First Amendment exist at all. Very little could be more important under the First Amendment than protecting the right of confessional confidentiality.

As legislators rush to rob religion of its God-given rights, which should be protected under the First Amendment, believing they are heroically rescuing victims, especially child abuse victims, they are in fact ignorantly doing just the opposite.

If the Utah Legislature requires clergy to violate the sanctity of the confessional by reporting information about child abuse crimes obtained in the confessional, all its doing is guaranteeing in the future that sinners/perpetrators will not confess their sins/crimes, cutting off any opportunity for the clergy to influence the sinner/perpetrator to self-report their crimes to government authorities as part of their repentance process required by some religions.

How does it help child abuse victims or the general welfare of society when the clergy are forced to violate the confidentiality of the confessional? Such a situation places clergy in the predicament of either refusing to report, accepting the pain of incarceration and/or fines. Or, out of fairness, leaving the clergy no choice but to preemptively warn repenting sinners their confession of abuse crimes require clergy reporting. What an absolute tragedy for all involved, especially victims of child abuse.

There is very little that could be worse for religion than forcing clergy to violate the sanctity of the confessional confidentiality. For at least one major religion the confessional is a sacrosanct saving sacrament to be protected even under the pain of clergy death. For others, the confessional is critical for full repentance necessary for exaltation. For many religions these are of the highest stakes not to be considered cavalierly.

Victims, especially child abuse victims, are better off if sinners/perpetrators are able to confess their sins/crimes to clergy under confessional confidentiality. There is a greater chance under clergy influence that the sinner/perpetrator will not only self-report crimes, but child abuse victims will receive the necessary interventions sooner to rescue them from further harm and help them to more quickly recover from being violated.

Utah legislators should carefully consider before rushing to judgment whether they are actually helping or hurting child abuse victims by forcing clergy to report crimes they were made aware of during the confessional. From my many years of experience as a clergyman, receiving hundreds of confessions, I am more than convinced that religions God-given right to the protected confessional is better for all concerned, especially child abuse victims.

File photoSen. Stuart Reid, R-Ogden.

Stuart C. Reid, Ogden, is a former Army chaplain, LDS bishop and Utah state senator.

Original post:
If religious leaders are forced to report what they hear in private, abusers won't admit their crimes. - Salt Lake Tribune

Richard Wolfe| Community Columnist

The Chicxulub crater in Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula was formed some 65 million years ago by the impact of an asteroid. That cataclysm was believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and countless other species.

This mass extinction event was first theorized by scientists in 1980 and confirmed in the early 1990s. Beginning in December 1995, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory conducted the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) program, surveying the sky for near-Earth objects. No one was sure what we could have done about any adverse information NEAT might have provided but it nevertheless seemed prudent to keep an "eye on the sky."

Journalism as a study and a profession is the "program," so to speak, that surveys societies for potential calamities. Currently, Christian Nationalism is the societal asteroid many journalists are tracking. Its prudent to do so because Christian Nationalism is a cataclysm in the making.

The extinction of democracy is well within the realm of the possible.

Ottawa Impact is an analog to space dust, sucked along in the wake of the Christian Nationalism movement as it hurtles forth. Ottawa Impact is limited in scope, but its absolutely part and parcel to the larger theocratic plan.

In our Constitution, "freedom of religion" is the given shorthand for a rightbestowed by secular authority. The founding fathers as a group were not a church conceived or comprised deliberative assemblage. Mortal men conferred rights unto other men (non-male and non-whites excepted).

Not a part of the original Constitution which focused solely on secular matters relating to the organization and execution of governing the new nation that right is ensconced in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

The relevant text reads Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. This was designed as a prohibition, forbidding prescriptive action contemplated by the secular government. It was not meant as license to presume a preference for any one religion, indeed any one belief over another, Christianity among them.

While certain invocations of "God" or "the year of Our Lord" or "creator" appear elsewhere in the text of the Constitution those references reflect only any given writers personal inclinations toward faith. They are not an endorsement of the Christian creed. In fact, among the Constitutions scribes many, including Thomas Jefferson, were Deists, holding beliefs regarding God that were not in line with Christian doctrine.

Not surprisingly, secular primacy is inconsistent with the ethos advocated by Ottawa Impact. Their self-styled "contract" is rife with Christian Nationalist undertones. Vagueness is its hallmark and ignorance of county commission authority its defining attribute.

Non-existent is any notion of or respect for those who, like Jefferson, dont adhere to Christian dogma. For parents who greatly value a public education for their children that hews to science and history, and not Christian sensitivities. Who believe biological realities, constructive criticism and broadly diverse points of view are essential to understanding the real world in which their children must live.

Parents who shun the notion that such an education is in any way "grooming" or "indoctrination."

Parents who, despite their own personal inconvenience, support public responses to a health pandemic that has, to date, killed more than a million Americans. Who greatly value preventative steps such as mask mandates that protect their children from infection, particularly those carried by other, unvaccinated children.

Parents who support the tireless, unsung (but all too often maligned) efforts of public servants who are charged with implementing and maintaining health guidelines never before envisioned. Or at least not since the Spanish Flu decimated world populations at the turn of the last century.

Take note, fellow citizens, Ottawa Impacts objective, like that of Christian Nationalism, is nothing less than the forced injection of their preferred deity into secular governance. Which, by definition, means the exclusion of all other deities.

As of the Aug. 2, 2022, election there were 230,881 registered voters in Ottawa County. In that election only one Ottawa Impact candidate for county commissioner garnered more than 5,200 votes. Primaries for midterms are marked by very low turnout.

Lets see how Christian Nationalists fare in November when many more voters are surveying the political firmament.

Community Columnist Richard Wolfe is a resident of Park Township. Contact him at wolf86681346@gmail.com.

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Richard Wolfe: Ottawa Impact's objective nothing less than forced religious injection - HollandSentinel.com

Community Roundtable| Special to The Register-Mail

Columnist Scott Reeder writes that Christian nationalism is entering the mainstream of political discourse. What do you think of Christian nationalism?

Christian Nationalism is not really about Christianity, its about the centuries-long dominance of a social order where the superiority of whiteness, patriarchy and heterosexuality was taken for granted. A particular, narrow reading of Christianity has served, in part, to justify that social order. In the second half of the 20th century, thanks to economic expansion, civil rights, feminism and other changes, the fusion of these elements began to come apart, become visible, and open to question.

For millions who took that social order for granted, that has been a scary prospect.The result has been the culture wars, as the demand for change and the fierceness of resistance have both become stronger. Weaponized by politics, advertising and social media, voices have become ever more extreme, and fringe ideas like compulsory Christianity (including, of course, whiteness, patriarchy and heterosexuality) gain a wider hearing.But make no mistake, making Christianity the state religion would not put the genie of social change back in the bottle.Instead, it would destroy America. A state religion is profoundly antithetical to the values of the United States, explicitly forbidden in the First Amendment to the Constitution.And its creation would destroy democracy and lead inexorably to authoritarian rule. David Amor

More:Scott Reeder's column on Christian nationalism

Before we start, please define for me what a Christian is. Is it a Roman Catholic whose church teaches abortion is a sin or is it a Congregational church which supports abortion on demand? Is it a Southern Baptist who does not allow women pastors or Episcopalian which has ordained the first transgender woman as a priest at the National Cathedral?

Bandying about words like Christian nationalism conveniently omits a clear definition of what it is. For critics, all Trump supporters and conservative Christians are derisively branded with that term. Many of those who support the idea see it has simply an adherence to long-held Judeo-Christian teachings in public life. Without a precise definition, there is little point in debating the issue.

I believe Congress should make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Many secular beliefs regarding reproductive rights and gender identity have become a religion for their proponents. I object equally to the imposition of their religious beliefs on the public. Harry Bulkeley

It is easy to answer what I think of Christian Nationalism: I completely disagree with its existence because of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. There is a separation of church and state. This amendment is meant to stop the government from interfering with churches and to keep religion out of the government. Religion should not be politicized although it is becoming more so by the day. The influence of religion on todays politics cannot be denied.

One of the major problems with Christian nationalism is that it leaves out any religion that is not a Christian religion. The Christian nationalists want the United States to be an exclusively Christian nation. This is inherently wrong. These people are using the Bible to distort morality to fit their standards. In my opinion, this is a terrifying group of extremists that can be compared to white supremacists. Jeannette Chernin

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I have read Scott Reeder for years and respect his ideas and experience. So, my first reaction was that surely the Pilgrims and Puritans left England with the intent of establishing Christian commonwealths in the wilderness. Then I realized that he was referring mainly to the years 1774-1789.

There he was on solid ground. Though sessions for drafting the Constitution opened with prayers and references were made to the Almighty, the delegates took care not to give preference to any of the sects that composed American Christianity, a sentiment that was mightily reinforced in the First Amendment.

As to Christian nationalism, I dont know anyone who professes that belief. However, it is easy to understand why some Christians believe that their values are under attack, and why secularists feel the same way.

One reason our society is divided is because terms such as Christian nationalism inflame more than they explain. William Urban

During a town hall in October 2020, Donald Trump said it was entirely possible Democrats, his enemies, were Satan-worshipping pedophiles. In April 2021, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene proposed forming a new political caucus based on Anglo-Saxon and Christian ideals. The blowback was immediate, and the idea was shelved. Fast forward to August 2022. During an interview, she decried the United States was founded on Christian principles, and she proudly identified as a Christian nationalist.The political movement of Christian nationalism, which was predicated on racism and antisemitism, has been around since the 1950s. Our country's founders were explicit in their writings that the United States is not nor should be founded on any particular religion. The religious right rejoiced when Roe vs. Wade was overturned, but recent primaries and elections are showing pro-choice voters are responding to it as overreach and an attack on basic human freedoms. The type of faith Greene and others are trying to promote is steeped in hate and bigotry which is contrary to basic Christian tenets. John Hunigan

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Full disclosure: My wife and most of my family are Christian. I am, by choice, Jewish. The majority of our countrys founders and the general population is and have been members of Christian Churches, but the Bill of Rights is very specific about the keeping the government out of religion: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ...

Scott Reeder, in his article misses the last part of that statement: ... or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; His article is critical of U.S. Rep. Mary Miller because she called the Supreme Courts decision A huge win for religious liberty .... Representative Miller was completely correct! After years of court rulings against expressions of religion in the public square, but supporting the RELIGION of atheism, Coach Kennedy can pray after his games, on the field; not requiring others to join him. Charlie Gruner

This country was founded on Christian values, which to me, makes some of the founding fathers' views suspect. Why? Because religion many times is a sword in the hand of a zealot. This belief in Christian nationalism isnt new. It has sifted through this nation since this countrys inception.You can call it Christian nationalism, but I would refer to it as confirmation bias and propaganda.The southern states used the Bible to falsely conceptualize the Curse of Ham to approve of Blacks being slaves.The Confederacy used other biblical passages as well to substantiate slavery.

Whenever you put Its Gods will in front of a propagandized movement the religious sycophants will follow.And in this country, many times Christianity has been used to expediently forward a political and social belief.Andrew Jackson was notorious for exterminating, isolating and reducing the Native American population to ensure that under the protection of the government and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized and Christian community.In God We Trust. The best example of this latest religious zeal was congresswoman Lauren Boeberts speech that "The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our founding fathers intended it."Call it what you will. It reeks of manifest destiny. Stephen Podwojski

The Community Roundtable runs each Sunday and is made up of local writers. Community writers answer one question each week in 150 words or fewer.

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Roundtable weighs in on Christian nationalism in the United States - Galesburg Register-Mail

RALEIGH The Richmond Observers dynamic duo brought home a bakers dozen accolades from the N.C. Press Associations 2022 Editorial and Photojournalism Contest.

Managing Editor William R. Toler and Sports Editor Kyle Pillar received a combined 13 certificates at the NCPAs annual awards banquet held Thursday evening at the Hilton Raleigh North Hills.

Their awards included three first-place, four second-place and six third-place wins in eight categories.

Toler and Pillar swept the Sports News Reporting category, with Toler taking first and third place his first-ever awards for sports coverage and Pillar winning second place.

The winning entries were:

Toler and Pillar also placed second and third, respectively, in headline writing.

Pillars other awards included a first-place win for Sports Coverage, as well as second and third in both Sports Enterprise Reporting and Sports Feature Writing.

In the Sports Coverage win, judges commented: Great prep sports coverage. Kyle Pillar is the sportswriter you want covering your schools games.

Toler earned first place in City/County Government Reporting for a series of stories on the controversy surrounding the rezoning and air quality permit for a proposed biochar plant outside of Hamlet.

Other awards included third place in Best Video and Breaking News Coverage. The latter was for a story about a man who was fired within hours after he was caught using a racial slur on a home doorbell camera while trying to schedule family portraits.

I am extremely proud of our team here at the RO, said Co-publisher Charlie Melvin. We really do have the dream team.

The RO competed against 15 other internet-only publications in the NCPAs online division, a mixture of community and special interest news organizations, and tied with Carolina Public Press for the second-most awards in the division. NC Health News had the most with 16.

All entries had to be from October of 2020 through February of 2022, and were judged by members of the Iowa Newspaper Association. There were more than 4,000 entries submitted to the contest by more than 125 publications and news organizations.

The ceremony was hosted, once again, by UNC-TVs Shannon Vickery and awards were handed out by NCPA Past President Sandra Hurley, regional publisher for a group of newspapers in the Mount Airy area.

State Sen. Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, was honored with the William C. Lassiter First Amendment Award, which is presented to a non-journalist who has worked to keep government open and accessible to citizens and the press, and who actively defends the principles of the First Amendment and the publics right to know.

The RO, founded in 2017 by Kenny Melvin and Lance Jenkins, has won 32 awards since joining the NCPA in 2019.

Nights like this make all the late nights, road trips and time away from home worth it, Pillar, who is also a teacher at the Ninth Grade Academy, said in a Facebook post late Thursday night, thanking his wife and publishers Kenny and Charlie Melvin. Most of all, thank you Richmond County for allowing me to be your sports editor. Its truly a privilege to cover our student-athletes, families and community.

Pillar has won 16 awards in the past three years and Tolers work has been recognized with 31 accolades by both the NCPA and Associated Press since moving to Richmond County in 2014.

Click here to read about the 2021 awards.Click here to read about the 2020 awards.

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Richmond Observer honored with 13 awards in N.C. Press Association contest - The Richmond Observer

Finished movies are guarded by the First Amendment, but the act of filming them on government property isnt inherently protected activity, according to a Tuesday decision from the U.S. Court of Appealsfor the District of Columbia.

Gordy Price shot his 2018 film Crawford Road on National Park Service land without first obtaining a permit and paying a fee. After its first screening, the NPS cited him with a misdemeanor, which carried a potential sentence of up to six months in prison and a fine. The citation was dropped, but Davis Wright Tremaine First Amendment specialist Robert Corn-Revere took an interest in the matter, and Price in December 2019 sued the U.S. Attorney General(then William Barr) along with officials from the Department of the Interior and National Park Service, challenging the constitutionality of the rule.Thus, Prices indie movie about a reportedly haunted section of the Colonial National Historical Park in Virginia became the center of a legal battle over the extent to which filmmaking on government property is protected activity.

In a huge win for filmmakers, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in January 2021 sided with Price and found the scheme to be unconstitutional. She issued an injunction barring the permit and fee requirements for commercial filming and the prosecution and the imposition of criminal liability thereunder.

The statute at issue (read ithere) only required a permit for commercial filmmaking it generally exempted news gathering and non-commercial projects and Kollar-Kotelly found that amounted to a content-based restriction on Prices First Amendment rights.

Mr. Prices filmmaking at these parks constitutes a form of expressive speech protected by the First Amendment, she wrote in the opinion, adding the creation of a film must also fall within the ambit of the First Amendments protection of freedom of expression. To find otherwise, would artificially disconnect an integral piece of the expressive process of filmmaking.

The government appealed, and on Tuesday the D.C. Circuit released its 2-1 decision reversing the ruling.

We hold that regulation of filmmaking on government-controlled property is subject only to a reasonableness standard, even when the filmmaking is conducted in a public forum. Because the permit-and-fee requirements are reasonable, we reverse the order of the district court, writes Senior Circuit Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg.

Ginsburg finds that special protection only applies to communicative activities in a public forum, such as assembly, the exchange of ideas to and among citizens, the discussion of public issues, the dissemination of information and opinion, and debate. Further, he finds not every piece of government property is a public forum, and not every activity protected by the First Amendment is communicative.

[W]e are convinced that it would be a category error to apply the speech-protective rules of a public forum to regulation of an activity that involves merely a noncommunicative step in the production of speech, writes Ginsburg.

Though protected as speech under the First Amendment, filmmaking, like typing a manuscript, is not itself a communicative activity; it is merely a step in the creation of speech that will be communicated at some other time, usually in some other location, writes Ginsburg. There is no historical right of access to government property in order to create speech.

In short, Ginsburg writes, [T]he key takeaway from the preceding analysis is that, with respect to noncommunicative first amendment activity such as filmmaking, the highly-protective rules of a traditional public forum are inapplicable. The upshot is that filmmaking on all NPS land is subject to the same reasonableness standard that applies to restrictions on first amendment activity in a nonpublic forum.

Ginsburg notes that reasonableness is a low bar and, under the standard, the purposes of the NPS permit and fee scheme (raising revenue and protecting the parks) are reasonable.

Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson wrote a brief concurring opinion emphasizing the limited reach of the decision. We conclude that the regulation of most non-communicative speech on government property is subject to reasonableness review, she writes. We need not and do not explain the full contours of what does and does not constitute communicative speech.'

In a scathing dissent, Senior Circuit Judge David S. Tatel criticizes the decision to focus on the reasonableness standard. My colleagues reimagine the public forum to protect the stumping politician but not the silent photographer, to shield the shouting protester but not the note-taking reporter, Tatel writes. These distinctions find no basis in First Amendment jurisprudence. It makes no more sense to exclude certain types of speech from public forums than it does to police which squirrels may enter a conservation easement.

He argues this decision deviates from precedent that struck down similar restrictions as overbroad and antithetical to core First Amendment principles. [T]he court today upholds these restrictions on grounds untethered from our courts precedent and that of our sister circuits, Tatel writes. Because the permit and fee requirements penalize far more speech than necessary to advance the governments asserted interests, they run afoul of the First Amendment.

Tatel cites a 2010 decision in Boardley v. United States Department of Interior. Like the NPS regulations in that case, the Permit Regime burdens substantially more speech than necessary to achieve the governments significant interests in protecting NPS resources and preventing interference with park visitors, writes Tatel. He argues that because the regulations define commercial filming as any film, electronic, magnetic, digital, or other recording of a moving image by a person, business, or other entity for a market audience with the intent of generating income this kind of restriction isnt narrowly tailored enough to withstand scrutiny. (Ginsburg argued Boardley is irrelevant because it concerned the distribution of written materials, which is communicative activity.)

[T]he Permit Regime applies to an extraordinarily broad group of people, ranging from large-scale filming operations, to small documentary film crews, to individuals who take short videos on their phones and later monetize this content on social media platforms, Tatel writes. Even a park visitor who takes a five-minute video on her phone, planning to post it on YouTube and generate advertising revenue, must obtain a permit and pay a fee. Although large commercial filming projects may well involve equipment operators, filming subjects, and sustained operations that burden park resources and disturb visitors the government provides no reason to think that individuals and small groups interfere meaningfully with [these] interests.'

The court reversed Kollar-Kotellys decision, vacated the declaratory judgment and the permanent injunction, and instructed the trial court to deny Prices motion for judgment on the pleadings and to grant the defendants motion.

In a brief statement to The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday, Price and Crawford Road co-producer James Person said, We are disappointed with the decision and currently are considering our options.

If Price decides to continue his fight, the next step would be petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court. Given some of the issues Tatel raises in his dissent, including his opinion that this decision puts the D.C. Circuit in conflict with other appellate courts, it seems modern technology has created yet another free speech issue thats ripe for consideration by the high court.

Or, as Tatel puts it: Before standing outside Yosemite National Parks visitor center using a cell phone to record commentary on our national parks that will air on an advertisement-supported YouTube channel, an individual must obtain a permit and pay a fee. Before filming a protest on the National Mall, tourists must obtain a permit and pay a fee if they have any inkling that they might later make money from this footage on social media. And when the filming is spontaneous, these individuals will be criminally liable and face up to six months in prison even though they could not possibly have obtained a permit ahead of time. By stripping public forum protection from filming, my colleagues for the very first time disaggregate speech creation and dissemination, thus degrading First Amendment protection for filming, photography, and other activities essential to free expression in todays world.

More:
Indie Filmmakers First Amendment Win in National Parks Battle Reversed - Hollywood Reporter