The Federal Magistrates' Court ruled that the parents of the teenager, who cannot be named, could not remove or attempt to remove their daughter from the country to marry the young man she has met only once.

Magistrate Joe Harman also ordered that the parents not assault, molest, harass, threaten or otherwise intimidate the girl or take her out of school.

In his judgement, delivered in April but revealed by Australian press on Friday, Harman said the girl's application to prevent her parents from sending her away for the marriage was one that was becoming increasingly common.

"The young person's evidence makes very clear that she has expressed to her parents that she does not want to go to Lebanon and does not want to marry the person proposed," he said.

"She has indicated also in her evidence that she is fearful for her personal safety, that she has concerns as to what will occur in relation to her mother's reaction once she becomes aware of these proceedings."

He said the girl might be suggested to have betrayed the authority of her parents by challenging the Lebanese Islamic culture in which she had been raised and this only made him more convinced of her argument.

"What has occurred is, in fact, an act of great bravery by this young woman in taking the steps this young person has taken in seeking assistance through the Legal Aid Commission," he said.

Harman found there was a psychological risk posed to the girl if he did not stop her marriage to a man who was essentially "a stranger".

He said if she was forced to go through with the union without her consent, it would render the marriage void under Australian law. •

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Calif. Student Punished for Saying 'Bless You'

“Bless you.” For uttering those words, a student at William C. Wood High School in Vacaville, Calif. was punished this week by a teacher who claimed that the student disrupted his classroom.

“It’s not … got anything to do with religion,” Wood High health teacher Steve Cuckovich told KTXL News in Sacramento. “It’s got to do with an interruption of class time.”

Rather than issue the student a warning for his alleged offense, Cuckovich decided to take 25 points off the student’s grade, the better to deter other students from mouthing “bless you” or other religious phrases that offend the teacher’s sensibility.

“The blessing really doesn’t make sense anymore,” Cuckovich explained. “When you sneezed in the old days, they thought you were dispelling evil spirits out of your body. So they were saying, ‘God bless you,’ for getting rid of evil spirits. But today, what you’re doing really doesn’t make sense.”

Parents of Woods High students disagree with the school’s health teacher. They say that what doesn’t make sense is that he would go to the extreme length of punishing a student for such innocent words.

“I think that’s ridiculous,” said parent Alan Johnson. “First, the Pledge of Allegiance. Now, preventing a kid from saying ‘bless you?’”

Wood High Principal Cliff McGraw agreed that Cuckovich went overboard in his punishment. “He realizes he there’s better ways to do that,” McGraw said. “We don’t condone that kind of punishment.”

That doesn’t mean that the health teacher will now allow students to speak the words “bless you” in his classroom. He just will find a less Draconian way to punish perpetrators, he said.

The controversy in Vacaville is just the latest example of what many in California’s evangelical community perceive as growing anti-Christian, anti-religion bigotry in the state’s public schools.

Just this month, in fact, a 3-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco sided with school officials in Poway, Calif. who ordered high school math teacher Brad Johnson to remove two patriot banners he has displayed in his classroom for 25 years, which proclaim “In God We Trust,” “God Bless America,” and “God Shed His Grace On Thee.”

Back in March, a 16-year-old high school student in El Cajon, Calif. sued the local school district after being suspended two days last year for bringing his bible to school and sharing his faith with interested classmates. •

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TEACHERS TOLD NOT TO BOW HEADS, PRAY IN PUBLIC by, Todd Starnes

A Tennessee school district is under fire after a group of middle school football coaches were reprimanded for bowing their heads during a post-game prayer and teachers were warned to hide from students if they chose to pray during a nationally organized prayer event.

Sumner County school officials sent guidelines to staff members in advance of today’s “See You At the Pole” prayer event. Christian teenagers around the nation are gathering around their campus flag poles before class to pray for their schools, the nation and each other.

“When a teacher or administrator participates in events such as See You at the Pole, it is possible for a student to confuse a teacher or administrator’s personal speech with their official speech,” read a portion of the guidelines obtained by The Tennessean.

Teachers have not been banned from praying, but if they do – it must be done out of sight and earshot of students, the newspaper reported.

Sumner County school officials declined multiple requests for interviews.

“To tell the teachers that they cannot attend ‘See You At The Pole,’ which occurs before school hours, just doesn’t seem to be constitutional,” David Landrith, pastor of Long Hollow Baptist Church, wrote on his blog. “This is the United States of America.”

Landrith said he is a “pro-school” pastor and typically doesn’t get “fired-up” about politics. However, he decided to speak out once he began hearing reports that rights of Christian students and teachers have been under attack.

“Teachers have expressed to me that it is being communicated to them that they cannot do certain things: things like wear or display a cross, have a Bible on their desk in their office, have Scripture verses displayed in their personal work space, listen to Christian music in their office, or participate in a prayer at a Christian organization such as FCA or Bible study,” Landrith said.

He also alleged that one high school has forbidden students from handing out fliers about a Bible Study.

“You can’t ban people from practicing their faith in the marketplace – whether it’s a Muslim, Buddhist, or a Christian. Christianity should not be favored over other religions. However, Christians should have the same rights as everyone else.”

The prayer warning came just days after a group of football coaches at Westmoreland Middle were reprimanded after they joined their players for a student-led post-game prayer in the end zone.

The coaches were summoned to the principal’s office after someone witnessed the coaches bowing their heads – and notified school authorities.

“The idea that a coach or teacher cannot bow their head out of respect for student-led prayer is, quite frankly, ridiculous,” Landrith wrote.

However, an attorney for the school district told Fox News Radio there is not a ban on teachers or coaches bowing their heads.

“They were not told to not bow their heads,” David French, an attorney with the American Center for Law and Justice. “They were reminded that student-led events must remain student-led. Teachers cannot give the appearance of endorsing the student’s message.”

The school’s new policy prohibits staff members from engaging in “any conduct that creates an appearance of endorsement of the organization’s or club’s messages or ideas.”

The policy was written in response to a lawsuit filed last May by the American Civil Liberties Union, alleging the school district has endorsed Christianity and violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The American Center for Law and Justice is representing the school district in the lawsuit. The ACLU declined to comment for this story.

“This whole tempest is the poisonous fruit of the ACLU tree,” French said, suggesting the school system is being especially cautious in light of the lawsuit. “It’s easy to imagine in a scenario where they are dealing with this incredibly aggressive attack from the ACLU that a public prayer would cause people to question it.”

The four coaches who bowed their heads were required to sign a letter stating that they understood the school’s policy. French said it was not a formal reprimand.

“There was no admonition against bowing,” he said. “They were asked to sign their understanding of school board policy regarding student participation.”

However, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Fox News Radio, the coaches were threatened with losing their positions of they violated the policy.

“If I fail to follow board policy, then I realize that I will not be allowed to serve as a coach,” the letter read.

So, are teachers and coaches allowed to simply bow their heads and join students in prayer?

“It’s a gray area,” French said. “It’s very contextual. With those guidelines in place, the staff members have to be cognizant of their surroundings and appearances and perceptions.”

The key, French said, is the student’s free speech rights.
“This is a policy that protects religious expression,” he said. “It doesn’t inhibit it.”

But that’s not how many Christians in the community feel about the rules.

“The House and Senate open with prayer,” he said. “The White House sponsors a National Day of Prayer,” Pastor Landrith said. “Good grief, even our presidents are sworn into office with their hands on a very visible Bible. But somehow in Sumner County our teachers cannot be a part of a student-led prayer effort?” •

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British MP: 'Force Churches to Perform Same-Sex Unions or Close Them Down'

A member of the British Parliament is urging the country’s government to ban Christian churches from performing marriages if they refuse to also perform same-sex unions.

Mike Weatherley, the Conservative MP for Hove, wrote a letter Aug. 21 to Prime Minister David Cameron saying, “As long as religious groups can refuse to preside over ceremonies for same-sex couples, there will be inequality.”

The 2004 Civil Partnership Act legalized same-sex unions in the United Kingdom but prevented couples from marrying in religious venues. Weatherley wrote that the law only acted as an “uneasy truce between those wishing to preserve the religious significance of marriage and those fighting for equality.”

Weatherley’s constituency has one of the highest numbers of same-sex households in the United Kingdom, which makes him “increasingly concerned about the inequality which exists between the unions of same-sex couples and those of opposite-sex couples in this country,” the MP wrote.

He said the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government’s proposed amendment to the 2010 Equality Act, which creates an “opt-in” system allowing places of worship to choose if they want to register same-sex ceremonies, would only create a “messy compromise.”

Weatherley said the law should instead compel churches to register civil partnerships. He suggested Cameron follow a precedent created by a set of laws compelling 11 Catholic adoption agencies to provide adoption services for same-sex couples.

“Such behavior is not be [sic] tolerated in other areas, such as adoption, after all,” he wrote.

The comment references how Catholic adoption agencies were forced to close their doors rather than be forced to go against their faith in letting gay couples adopt through them.

Weatherley added that until “we untangle” marriage and “religion in this country, we will struggle to find a fair arrangement.”

Although Weatherley’s proposal is a “minority view” it “could quickly become a main stream point of view,” warned Neil Addison, national director of the U.K.’s Thomas More Legal Centre.

Such a proposal could open the door for other places that allow same-sex marriages to impose similar regulations on churches.

According to Addison, when the United Kingdom legalized same-sex unions “those who said that Churches, Synagogues, Mosques, etc. would eventually be forced to perform same-sex marriages were ridiculed as being alarmist, but it is now a point of view that is becoming dangerously mainstream."

Weatherley’s comments have already angered certain religious leaders.

Brighton priest Fr Ray Blake accused Weatherley of ignoring the convictions of Christians, Jews and Muslims.

“The Church is a voluntary organization and if you belong to it then you abide by its rules,” said Bishop Conry, whose diocese encompasses Weatherley’s constituency, according to the Catholic Herald.

“The law in this country recognizes that there is no parity between civil partnerships and marriage. What he [Weatherley] wants is a change in the law because he is not in a position to tell the Catholic Church what to do,” he added. •

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My blessings to you and your families in these unparalleled and difficult times! -Missygirl*