A church pastor, late to the Sunday service, crashes through the door of a Concord bar, and the congregation inside turns to look. A second pastor, Stu Light, stands on the piste with a foam sword in hand. He calls out to the first pastor: “I look forward to killing you.”
At the Church of the Sword, where belief in a god or gods comes secondary to espousing principles of self-sufficiency and arming oneself, the greeting could be considered their version of “peace be with you.” After all, one of the holy texts of the 5-year-old, nontheistic, New Hampshire-born religion is Sun Tzu’s Art of War.
“We believe in an active struggle against those who would deprive us of life and liberty. We believe in studying and applying the martial path in the judicial and legislative arenas, as well as in self-defense,” says a sampling of the church’s statement of beliefs.
So when the town of Westmoreland said last year, and the Cheshire County Superior Court agreed this year, that the Church of the Sword isn’t a real religion – and therefore doesn’t qualify for a religious tax exemption – they took it as an attack on their freedom and struck back. (more…)
According to a recent press release from the NH ACLU, Alton town selectmen had a local activist arrested for daring to speak out at a meeting. Jeffrey Clay was supposedly given five minutes to address the board, but two minutes in was interrupted by the rude selectmen who voted to close public input when they did not like what Clay had to say to them. He was demanding they resign, accusing them of corruption, so they proved his claim and had him arrested:
The Laconia district court threw out the obviously illegal charge of “disorderly conduct”, and the ACLU has filed suit in civil court. As NH ACLU head attorney Gilles Bissonnette points out in their press release announcing the suit,
Sadly, these types of free speech violations still occur in 2015. In a free society, governmental officials are required to tolerate harsh criticism and even a demeaning attitude towards them—including viewpoints that can feel like “character assassination”—and cannot discriminate based on these critical viewpoints. As the U.S. Supreme Court has held, “[a]s a general matter, … in public debate, our own citizens must tolerate insulting, and even outrageous, speech in order to provide adequate breathing space to the freedoms protected by the First Amendment.” Thus, speech directed to and about the government is singled out for protection because speech—including opinions about how well or badly officials carry out their duties—lies at the very heart of the First Amendment.
At last month’s public tax assessors’ hearing, Shire Free Church minister Mark Edge gave a rousing speech and then the Keene tax assessor board refused to explain their reasons for denying the Shire Free Church a tax exemption in 2015. Next step is an appeal to superior court. We dropped our case from last year so we could bring attorney Brandon Ross on to assist from the beginning in 2015. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest on this attack on religious freedom. Here’s the video:
Local liberty activists are manning a bitcoin outreach booth at this year’s Cheshire Fair, going on through Sunday. Thus far several bitcoin wallets have been installed, already surpassing the three we had installed last year. Many folks have asked questions and still more are open to accepting an informational flier about the awesome cryptocurrency.
If you’ve been wondering about bitcoin, drop in and see us at the fair! We’ll get you hooked up with a free bitcoin wallet for your smartphone and if you want, you can try out the original Keene bitcoin vending machine!
Derrick J helps two interested young men install bitcoin wallets on Friday morning.
Is there really religious freedom? The state claims in their documents that religions are exempt from taxation. Now, three liberty-oriented churches in New Hampshire are going to court appealing the tax exemption denials of tax assessors statewide. The Concord Monitor’s Nick Reid reported recently on the Church of the Sword, Peaceful Assembly Church, and Shire Free Church‘s efforts to stand for religious freedom:
