2—Cleveland Daily Banner—Sunday, January 3, 2016
www.clevelandbanner.com
Scalia dismisses concept of religious neutrality
METAIRIE, La. (AP) — Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia said
Saturday the idea of religious
neutrality is not grounded in the
country’s constitutional traditions and that God has been good
to the U.S. exactly because
Americans honor him.
Scalia was speaking at a
Catholic high school in the New
Orleans suburb of Metairie,
Louisiana. Scalia, who was
appointed by President Ronald
Reagan in 1986 is the court’s
longest serving justice. He has
consistently been one of the
court’s more conservative members.
He told the audience at
Archbishop Rummel High School
that there is “no place” in the
Mom ordered
to appear in
federal court in
abduction case
country’s constitutional traditions for the idea that the state
must be neutral between religion
and its absence.
“To tell you the truth there is
no place for that in our constitutional tradition. Where did that
come from?” he said. “To be sure,
you can’t favor one denomination
over another but can’t favor religion over non-religion?”
He also said there is “nothing
wrong” with the idea of presidents
and others invoking God in
speeches. He said God has been
good to America because
Americans have honored him.
Scalia said during the Sept. 11
attacks he was in Rome at a conference. The next morning, after a
speech by President George W.
Bush in which he invoked God
and asked for his blessing, Scalia
said many of the other judges
approached him and said they
wished their presidents or prime
ministers would do the same.
“God has been very good to us.
That we won the revolution was
extraordinary. The Battle of
Midway was extraordinary. I
think one of the reasons God has
been good to us is that we have
done him honor. Unlike the other
countries of the world that do not
even invoke his name we do him
honor. In presidential addresses,
in Thanksgiving proclamations
and in many other ways,” Scalia
said.
“There is nothing wrong with
that and do not let anybody tell
OBITUARIES
Paul Bellinghiere
a diesel mechanic.
Survivors include his children:
Timothy Jason Liner, Christina
Marie Wilson, Joshua William
Liner, Patrick Richard Liner,
Elizabeth Christina Willis and
Emily Coleen Liner; and grandchildren: Jason Gavin and
Addison Grace Liner, Zoey
Elizabeth and Evan Alexander
Wilson and Caleb Samuel Willis.
Visitation will be held at
Companion Funeral Home today,
Jan. 3, 2016, from 2 until 4 p.m.
The funeral will be held at 4 p.m.
today.
You are encouraged to share a
memory of Timothy and/or your
personal condolences with his
family by visiting his memorial
web page and guestbook at
www.companionfunerals.com.
Paul Bellinghiere, 79, of
Cleveland, died on Saturday,
KNOXVILLE (AP) — A federal Jan. 2, 2016, at his home.
judge in Knoxville has issued a
There will be no public service
temporary restraining order at this time.
against a mother accused of
Companion Funeral Home has
charge of these arrangements.
parental abduction.
The Knoxville New Sentinel
reports Alma Soto Soto is from
Mexico. She is accused of fleeing
to the U.S. with her son after a
2013 break-up with the father,
Eugenio Garduno Guevara.
After Soto turned up two years
later in Texas, the father invoked
the Hague Convention on international child abduction and the
U.S. State Department became
involved. Soto fled Texas, resurfacing in Knox County in May
when she filed a petition with the
juvenile court seeking to establish
custody of the boy.
That petition claimed the
Hauge Convention did not apply
because the boy had habitually
resided in the United States with
Soto for over two years and was
therefore no longer a resident of
Mexico subject to the international child abduction agreement.
The State Department stepped
in, serving notice that the father’s
claims usurp the juvenile court’s
authority.
A federal complaint filed Dec.
11 sought emergency action to
bar the mother from again fleeing
and return the boy to Mexico.
Earlier this week, Chief U.S.
District Judge Tom Varlan issued
a temporary restraining order
against the mother. He also
ordered the Marshals Service to
track Soto down and serve her
with a notice to appear in his
courtroom Jan. 12.
Varlan noted it is unusual for
the court to issue a restraining
order before a complaint is formally served, but he said there
was a danger Soto would flee once
informed of the federal court
action. That flight risk was also
the reason he turned to the
Marshals Service for help.
Pastor: Man who
carried gun into church
was calmly disarmed
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — A
Fayetteville city councilman says
an armed stranger who walked
into his church during a New
Year’s Eve service handed over
his rifle and prayed with the pastor before police arrived.
The Fayetteville Observer
reports that the unidentified man
entered Heal the Land Outreach
Ministries about 11:40 p.m. as
City Councilman Larry Wright
was delivering his sermon to
about 60 people.
Wright says the man was carrying the rifle in one hand, pointed
up, and an ammunition clip in
the other.
The 57-year-old retired soldier
says when he asked the man if he
needed help, the stranger was
calm. The man began crying and
was invited to sit on the front
pew.
Wright says police were planning to take the man to a mental
health facility.
GBI investigates
officer shooting man
after police chase
ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia
Bureau of Investigation is holding
an investigation after a man was
shot by police following a lengthy
car chase.
GBI spokesman Scott Dutton
said in a news release Saturday
that trooper Brian Blankenship
shot 35-year-old Thomas Edward
Cauthorn IV in the arm. The
shooting occurred Friday afternoon.
The chase started in Marietta
when officers responded to a call
for a suspicious person trying to
set propane tanks on fire at a
Walgreens.
you that there is anything wrong
with that,” he added.
Scalia’s comments Saturday
come as the court prepares to
hear arguments later this year in
a case that 6