Pastor: No Hate-Crime Charge Devastates Torture Victim’s Family

West Virginia Logan County officials hesitate on no-brainer charge of hate-crime in a recent captive torture case. Prosecutors now back pedaling by saying focus is on the most serious crimes.

Warning: Torture description can be disturbing.

From AP:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Representatives of several black churches appealed to prosecutors Thursday to pursue hate-crime or civil-rights charges against six white people accused of torturing a black woman over several days.

Logan County prosecutors say they have not ruled out hate-crimes charges but are focusing on the counts already filed, including some such as kidnapping and sexual assault that have tougher maximum sentences. Federal prosecutors, meanwhile, have not sought civil- rights charges.

“The family is aghast and totally devastated by the findings of the Logan prosecutor that this barbaric, heinous, despicable (crime) is not one of racial hatred,” said the Rev. Emanuel Heyliger of the Ferguson Memorial Baptist Church in Dunbar.

Logan County Prosecutor Brian Abraham urged patience.

“We’re still working the case even today,” he said. “I’ll make that determination when the investigation is concluded, but I want to focus on the most serious crimes that carry the stiffest penalties.”

Authorities also said the fact that Megan Williams knew one of her alleged attackers played a role in their decision not to pursue hate- crime or civil-rights charges at this time. Heyliger, speaking at a news conference outside the Charleston hospital where Williams is being treated, rejected that explanation Thursday.

“Whether she was known by or known to any one of these perpetrators, that is no reason why this case should not be treated as it should, and that is as a hate crime,” said Heyliger, who was joined by representatives of another Dunbar church and an association of black churches in Charleston.

Williams, 20, of Charleston, was held captive for more than a week at a ramshackle trailer in Logan County, where she was tortured, sexually assaulted and forced to eat animal droppings, according to criminal complaints.

Her captors choked her with a cable cord, stabbed her in the leg while calling her a racial epithet, poured hot water over her, made her drink from a toilet and beat her, according to the complaints.

West Virginia’s hate-crime statute carries a penalty of up to 10 years prison.

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Did U.S. Founders Want a ‘Christian Nation’?

A survey conducted by the First Amendment Center shows that a majority of Americans believe that the country’s founders intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation.

By ALEXANDER
TheScroogeReport.com

Sept. 13, 2007

Oh, my goodness…what an ignorant country we live in! Or at least that’s what some would have you conclude from this survey. How dare anyone desire a Christian nation or foundation!

I have a T-shirt I wear once in a while. It’s red with a U.S. flag on it and in the front it says:

IT’S FREEDOM OF RELIGION…NOT FREEDOM FROM RELIGION!

On the back is the First Amendment (with the highlighted words in bold here):

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

The USA Today jumped on the opportunity to point out how erroneous it is for that majority of Americans who think in terms of a “Christian nation” in a story published Wednesday.

While the story goes on the premise that the poll can be interpreted, as the headline reads, “Most think founders wanted Christian USA,” I’m sure the founders didn’t want to legislate Christianity into the Constitution. They simply knew that they themselves were not the beginning and end of building a good and prosperous nation. The Lord’s word rang true enough for them that they could use His principles as a starting block. Where else could they begin?

The founders themselves were well aware of religious oppression. It is the reason many left Europe. So why would someone knowing full well the horror theocracy could reign on people, write any religion into the Constitution?

They didn’t. However, many knew the resurrecting power of a personal relationship with Jesus. That’s different from religion and that is the right they were trying to protect.

Take what you want from the survey, but I suggest not taking the offshoot spins from the results as gospel.

That’s found in the Bible.

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State of the First Amendment 2007 Survey

USA Today – Most think founders wanted Christian USA
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That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God, and that government of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.—Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863

Image and excerpt from The Presidential Prayer Team.