Get Up, Stand Up: Christian, Arizona school board member sues district for right to quote the Bible

ABOVE: Heather Rooks, plaintiff in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. (undated photo)

GLENDALE, Arizona (CC) - In a continuation of the worldwide trend of Christians standing up for their rights to exercise their religion in public, a school board member in Arizona, Heather Rooks, sued the Peoria Unified School District last week for the right to quote the Holy Bible at board meetings.

The complaint states that Rooks was ordered by the school district, this past summer, to stop quoting from the Bible at the board's civil gatherings.

Classified as a civil rights action, the lawsuit raises federal questions under the United States Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1871, the Arizona Constitution and Arizona's Free Exercise of Religion Act.

Rooks' filing recalls that a plethora of public officials, including former Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and President Joe Biden have routinely recited the Bible while exercising official duties.

"When President Biden addressed the nation in 2021 after withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan, he said that military members have drawn inspiration from the Book of Isaiah, when the Lord says, 'Whom shall I send. . .who shall go for us?' And the American military has been answering for a long time: "Here am I, Lord. Send me,'" her legal document declares.

"When President Lincoln addressed the nation at his second inauguration in 1865, he reminded Americans that the Book of Matthew teaches 'the Almighty has His own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offences for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh,'" the legal filing continues.

"And when President Washington resigned his command of the Continental Army in 1783, he quoted Micah 6:8 in praying that 'God would have you and the State over which you preside...to do Justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves, with. . .the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion.'"

In the last few years, courts worldwide have seen a dramatic uptick in Christians, and adherents to other religions, filing lawsuits against defendants they claim are attempting to cancel Almighty God in favor of Anti-Christian agendas and public polices placed in schools, universities, libraries, sports, organizations, corporations and a host of other entities and industries.

Christians all over the globe are getting up, standing up for their rights.