Love This NewsBusters Interview with Mom

Loved This was a great interview with NewsBusters about Mom’s new book:

The topics for discussion were her new book “Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas,” Martin Bashir, Santa Claus, and Charlie Brown.

NEWSBUSTERS: Tell us what you were trying to achieve with your new book “Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas.”

SARAH PALIN: Honestly, it’s easy to lose track of the true meaning of Christmas. Beyond the “Jesus is the reason” type slogans, there are deep truths that should permeate our lives the entire year – good tidings of great joy we all need to hear, especially in times like this.

NEWSBUSTERS: Early in the book you wrote, “An angry atheist with a lawyer is one of the most powerful persons in America.” Please explain.

PALIN: This takes a little explaining about how our rights are normally protected, about why and who can sue a city, county or school. I go into this deeply in the book, but here’s the bird’s eye view.

Normally, a person can’t sue a public entity for a violation of constitutional rights unless he or she has a concrete injury. In other words, someone would have to show how the action of the public institution harmed his legally protected interests. For example, if you’re told not to speak, your right to free speech is violated. If you’re prohibited from holding a Bible study, your right to free exercise of religion has been compromised. In these examples, the power of the state is forcing you into silence or subjection.

But there’s a double standard at work. If someone is offended by a religious expression or speech in a public setting, then courts have allowed that offended person to sue — even if they weren’t censored, made to pray, or coerced into compliance with a different belief system, and even when they have a right to speak out and try to change public policy. Not only can people sue over hurt feelings, many times they’ve won.

This means people can silence their fellow citizens for no other reason than the fact that they were offended. This should stop.

Read it all here.

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