{"id":10364,"date":"2011-12-28T19:58:34","date_gmt":"2011-12-29T00:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=10364"},"modified":"2011-12-28T19:42:51","modified_gmt":"2011-12-29T00:42:51","slug":"texas-alabama-arizona-groups-ignore-threats-from-wisconsin-atheists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/texas-alabama-arizona-groups-ignore-threats-from-wisconsin-atheists","title":{"rendered":"Texas, Alabama, Arizona groups ignore threats from Wisconsin atheists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thousands of Texans, including the state attorney general and the governor, presidential hopeful Rick Perry, have sent a clear message to Wisconsin atheists who enjoy intimidating small towns into removing nativity scenes.<\/p>\n<p>The message is the same from an American Legion post in Montana, a city council in Pennsylvania\u00a0and a federal judge in Arizona:\u00a0<em>Go home!<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2011\/12\/texas-crowd.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-10558\" title=\"texas crowd\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2011\/12\/texas-crowd.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"316\" \/><\/a>At least 5,000 Texans showed up at a pre-Christmas\u00a0rally supporting Henderson County officials who have refused to comply with the group&#8217;s demand that they remove a nativity scene from the Athens, Texas, courthouse lawn.<\/p>\n<p>Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said that if the Wisconsin atheists sue as threatened, his office would come to the county&#8217;s defense. Texas&#8217; governor, Rick Perry, also said he would intervene to support the county, reported the <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mysanantonio.com\/news\/local_news\/article\/Governor-supports-Henderson-County-Nativity-scene-2422964.php\" target=\"_blank\">San Antonio Express-News<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The governor&#8217;s office &#8220;strongly supports the right of Henderson County to display a Christmas Nativity scene on public property,\u201d said Lucy Nashed, deputy press secretary for Perry&#8217;s office. \u201cWe have fought the Freedom from Religion Foundation before and won. Our founding principles give citizens freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. Faith and freedom helped build this nation, and faith cannot and should not be removed from public life.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10617\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10617\" style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2011\/12\/rick_perry_110816_620x350-e1325100537490.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10617\" title=\"rick_perry_110816_620x350\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2011\/12\/rick_perry_110816_620x350-e1325100537490.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10617\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Texas Governor Perry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Last summer, the Wisconsin atheists attempted to block Perry from organizing a prayer rally at Reliant Stadium in Houston.\u00a0That complaint filed in July alleging that Perry&#8217;s \u201cinitiation, organization, promotion and participation as governor in a prayer rally\u201d violated the \u00a0<em><strong><a href=\"First Amendment was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Gray Miller.\" target=\"_blank\">Continued on page 2<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thousands of Texans, including the state attorney general and the governor, presidential hopeful Rick Perry, have sent a clear message to Wisconsin atheists who enjoy intimidating small towns into removing nativity scenes. The message is the same from an American Legion post in Montana, a city council in Pennsylvania\u00a0and a federal judge in Arizona:\u00a0Go home!&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[674,32,976],"tags":[2248,1938,1277],"class_list":["post-10364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheist","category-christian","category-free-speech","tag-free-speech","tag-jan-brewer","tag-rick-perry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Texas, Alabama, Arizona groups ignore threats from Wisconsin atheists<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/texas-alabama-arizona-groups-ignore-threats-from-wisconsin-atheists\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Texas, Alabama, Arizona groups ignore threats from Wisconsin atheists\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Thousands of Texans, including the state attorney general and the governor, presidential hopeful Rick Perry, have sent a clear message to Wisconsin atheists who enjoy intimidating small towns into removing nativity scenes. The message is the same from an American Legion post in Montana, a city council in Pennsylvania\u00a0and a federal judge in Arizona:\u00a0Go home!&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/texas-alabama-arizona-groups-ignore-threats-from-wisconsin-atheists\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-12-29T00:58:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-12-29T00:42:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/12\/texas-crowd.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Texas, Alabama, Arizona groups ignore threats from Wisconsin atheists","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/texas-alabama-arizona-groups-ignore-threats-from-wisconsin-atheists","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Texas, Alabama, Arizona groups ignore threats from Wisconsin atheists","og_description":"Thousands of Texans, including the state attorney general and the governor, presidential hopeful Rick Perry, have sent a clear message to Wisconsin atheists who enjoy intimidating small towns into removing nativity scenes. The message is the same from an American Legion post in Montana, a city council in Pennsylvania\u00a0and a federal judge in Arizona:\u00a0Go home!&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/texas-alabama-arizona-groups-ignore-threats-from-wisconsin-atheists","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-12-29T00:58:34+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-12-29T00:42:51+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/12\/texas-crowd.jpg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/texas-alabama-arizona-groups-ignore-threats-from-wisconsin-atheists","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/texas-alabama-arizona-groups-ignore-threats-from-wisconsin-atheists","name":"Texas, Alabama, Arizona groups ignore threats from Wisconsin atheists","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/texas-alabama-arizona-groups-ignore-threats-from-wisconsin-atheists#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/texas-alabama-arizona-groups-ignore-threats-from-wisconsin-atheists#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/12\/texas-crowd.jpg","datePublished":"2011-12-29T00:58:34+00:00","dateModified":"2011-12-29T00:42:51+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/texas-alabama-arizona-groups-ignore-threats-from-wisconsin-atheists#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/texas-alabama-arizona-groups-ignore-threats-from-wisconsin-atheists"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/texas-alabama-arizona-groups-ignore-threats-from-wisconsin-atheists#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/12\/texas-crowd.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/12\/texas-crowd.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/texas-alabama-arizona-groups-ignore-threats-from-wisconsin-atheists#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Texas, Alabama, Arizona groups ignore threats from Wisconsin atheists"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10364"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10625,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10364\/revisions\/10625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}