Thomas More Law Center

The Sword and Shield for People of Faith

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From The Church Militant Website

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THOMAS MORE LAW CENTER BATTLES ANTI-CHRISTIAN BIGOTRY, SECULARIZATION

by Christine Niles

Catholic founder Richard Thompson speaks with Church Militant on his fight to restore America’s moral foundations

In the face of widening anti-Christian bigotry, one non-profit is pushing back against the secularization of America.

The Thomas More Law Center, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is a law firm that specializes in protecting religious freedom, free speech and other civil rights. Its cases include a first-of-its-kind lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a federal refugee resettlement program in Tennessee, claiming it is a violation of the 10th Amendment and the principles of state sovereignty. It provides all legal representation free for those cases it accepts.

Richard Thompson, founder of the Thomas More Law Center and a devout Catholic, sat down with Church Militant to speak about his organization and its work.

Our mission “is to promote and restore America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and moral values, including the sanctity of human life, the religious freedom of Christians, and now also the sovereignty and independence of the United States of America,” Thompson told Church Militant.

Thompson, a prosecutor for a number of years, founded the Thomas More Law Center after realizing how the U.S. Supreme Court is wielding its power to contribute to America’s moral decline.

“Nine, unelected judges holding lifetime appointments were determining all the major issues facing the country,” he commented. “They had an agenda that was attempting to de-Christianize America.”

“Starting back in the 1960s, they ended school prayer; they ended Bible reading; they ended the moment of silence in schools because they said children might use that moment of silence to pray, and that was not allowed,” he explained. “They also stopped displaying the Ten Commandments on school walls because the Court said, even though the Ten Commandments are just there without any kind of teaching lesson, children might stop, read, meditate upon and follow the Ten Commandments, and they said this was not appropriate.”

“All this happened by Supreme Court fiat,” Thompson noted, “so we realized the battle had to be fought in the court rooms, and that’s why the Thomas More Law Center exists.”

On the Tennessee refugee resettlement case currently being litigated, he commented, “Several of the states that have opted out of that program still have to pay for all of the welfare benefits of that program that used to be paid for by the federal government.”

Catholic Charities is making “anywhere from 90 million to 110 million dollars a year” off resettling refugees. These organizations “now take over the function of the state, and they get money for each refugee they bring in, so there is this conflict of interest that, the more refugees that can come into the state, the more money they get,” he said.

Another major case for the Thomas More Law Center involves a lawsuit filed against 14 pro-life demonstrators by the N.Y. Attorney General. During depositions, the law firm discovered that “there was a direct feed from the abortion facility to the attorney general’s office, where they were videotaping what was going on in the streets; then they came down against these 14 individuals.”

A surprising discovery was that George Soros is funding the same abortion facility as well as the N.Y. attorney general. “Pro-life sidewalk counselors are being attacked by law enforcement who owe allegiance to the people that contribute to them,” Thompson observed, “and many times they are the people that support abortion.”

Individuals who need help may contact the Thomas More Law Center, which will vet the requests to determine if they fall within their mission and they have the resources to take on the case. “Our legal assistance is without charge; it’s all free,” Thompson explained. “We depend on donations to keep our organization going.”

He vows to continue the fight against secularism, even in the face of overwhelming odds. “The battles are all across the country,” he said. “The culture is being undermined by secularists who have tons and tons of money.”

Thomas More Law Center Will Provide Legal Assistance To Students On National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day

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   ANN ARBOR, MI – The Thomas More Law Center (“TMLC”), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is again collaborating with American Life League’s annual National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day which will take place this Friday, April 20. TMLC lawyers will defend, without charge, the right for students to wear their pro-life t-shirts. Students requiring legal assistance from TMLC should contact Margaret at Life Defenders via email at mhaislmaier@all.org or by phone at 571-398-9904.

   American Life League has spearheaded National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day (“NPLTD”) for over two decades. The goal of NPLTD is to empower young people to witness to the dignity of all human beings by wearing their favorite t-shirt with a pro-life message. Students are encouraged to post pictures on social media wearing their t-shirts and use the hashtag #NPLTD18.

   This year’s featured t-shirt was designed by two teenage brothers, who created the shirt to resemble a nutrition label found on most packaged food products. The purpose of the design is to show the value of the preborn, the elderly and people of all abilities as being worthy of the right to life. The design features the “ingredients” as virtues needed to be pro-life: courage, compassion, charity, hope, understanding, and perseverance. View this year’s t-shirt design by clicking here.

   TMLC proudly stands with American Life League to support the students choosing to participate in the National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day.

Thomas More Law Center Offers Free Legal Assistance to Student Organized Pro-Life Walk Outs

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   The Thomas More Law Center (“TMLC”), a national, public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has announced that it will provide legal guidance to students participating in a national pro-life walk out organized by California teen Brandon Gillespie.  With the pro-life walk out, Gillespie seeks to answer the question of whether “Not One More” applies to all children, regardless of their age or birth status.

   The walkout is scheduled to take place on April 11, 2018 at 10:00am and last for 17 minutes to honor the lives of the millions of children lost to abortion. In March, approximately 3,000 public schools across the nation gave students permission to walk out of classes to protest gun control laws as an expression of their free speech. In response, Brandon Gillespie, announced his plans for a comparable free speech pro-life demonstration. To view Gillespie’s tweet click here.

   Students seeking to participate in the pro-life walkout should follow standard school policies and get the necessary permission from their school prior to the walk out.

   Richard Thompson, TMLC President and Chief Counsel stated that the “Law Center will provide legal help, free of charge, to students as they prepare to exercise their constitutional rights to stand up for life and to students who encounter a pro-abortion double standard at their schools.” 

 

9/11 Survivor And Humble Christian Sued By The New York Attorney General Finally Tells Her Story In Court

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   ANN ARBOR, MI – Over eight months after first being sued by the New York Attorney General, and after a marathon preliminary injunction hearing that stretched over four weeks, Angela Braxton, a pro-life Christian and side walk counselor, finally took the stand late last week to explain why she spent years regularly ministering outside of a large abortion facility in Jamaica, Queens.

   Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who complained about “a sense of entitlement by protestors to run their mouth,” named Braxton and more than a dozen other Christians as defendants in his federal lawsuit filed last June. The lawsuit asked a federal court to impose a sixteen-foot buffer zone around the abortion premises and levy draconian fines, attorney fees and compensatory damages against the defendants. 

   The Thomas More Law Center (“TMLC”), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is defending Braxton and co-defendant Jasmine Lalande, another Christian sidewalk counselor, in the lawsuit. Tyler Brooks, TMLC’s lead attorney in the case, who conducted the direct examination of Ms. Braxton, commented, “It is a privilege to be able to defend these two brave individuals against the Attorney Generals’ unconstitutional assault on free speech.”      

   Richard Thompson, TMLC’s President, added, “After over a dozen witnesses called during the four-week hearing, the only picture of our clients emerged was that they were two humble Christian women peaceably making the last chance effort to save the lives of unborn children.”

   In her moving testimony, Braxton described growing up in Brooklyn, New York, including being among the first African-American students bused to majority white schools as part of desegregating the New York City school system. She also explained having suffered numerous miscarriages as a young woman—an emotional experience that made her realize the preciousness of all life.        

Her Life Changed After 9/11

   Braxton further told the Court how her life changed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. On that day, Braxton was working on the 80th floor of One World Trade Center. Braxton detailed for the Court the harrowing experience of trying to escape the burning building until she made it to the underground mall below the World Trade Center Complex. While trying to make her way out of the mall, she suddenly felt rumbling, which she would later learn was caused by the collapsing of Two World Trade Center above her. The force of the building’s collapse caused her to be “thrown around like . . . being thrown up in a tornado,” Braxton testified. In that moment, Braxton said, “I’m screeching for God not to let me die.”

   An Associated Press photographer took an iconic photo of the debris-covered Braxton as she escaped from the fallen tower. That photograph now hangs in the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.  To view the photo, click here.

   Following the 9/11 attacks, Braxton turned to faith and became a Christian. Several years later, she felt called to start ministering to patients entering abortion clinics. In her testimony, Braxton explained why she used to spend Saturday mornings trying to speak to women who might be contemplating abortion:

   “I believe because of what I went through as far as wanting so many children….It’s the worst thing. It’s never healed. You always long for them.  And I wanted other people to know that.  But more importantly, God saved me when I was a sinner. Christ died for me. He gave me a new heart, and He gave me a heart to love Him, to love my neighbor….Why wouldn’t I love my neighbor enough [to share this]? That’s my belief, and I believe God’s Word is true.”

   Braxton, who has numerous medical conditions linked to her injuries from 9/11, also described being fearful of how a victory by the Attorney General in this lawsuit would prevent her from continuing to evangelize and spread the Gospel. If the fees sought by the Attorney General are assessed, Braxton said she would lose her apartment, but she courageously added: “I know God would provide.” 

   Federal District Court Judge Carol Bagley Amon will hear oral arguments on the Attorney General’s motion for a preliminary injunction on May 10, 2018 at 2:00 PM.  Yet to be decided is TMLC’s motion to dismiss the Attorney General’s case, which was filed on July 17, 2017.

New York State Attorney General’s Office Complicit in Fake Facebook Profile to Persecute Pro-Life Sidewalk Counselors

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ANN ARBOR, MI – In startling courtroom admissions during cross examination by Thomas More Law Center (“TMLC”) attorney, Tyler Brooks, the New York Attorney General’s star witness admitted she created a fake Facebook page pretending she was a pro-life Christian to develop dossiers and entrap pro-life sidewalk counselors who appeared in front of the Choices Women’s Medical Center (“Choices”) in New York City’s Jamaica neighborhood. She then passed on the information to the Attorney General’s Office, which was already well aware of her fraudulent activities.

The startling testimony came during a hearing last Thursday (2/15), conducted by U.S.  Federal District Court Judge Carol Bagley Amon, to determine whether she should grant Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s request for a preliminary injunction prohibiting pro-life sidewalk counselors from coming within sixteen feet of the Choices premises. The hearing before Judge Amon continues tomorrow (2/21), and is expected to last several more weeks.

During last Thursday’s cross-examination by Brooks, the witness admitted creating the Facebook page under the fake name of Shelly Walker. The witness described her elaborate scheme to entrap the unwary pro-life counselors named in the Attorney General’s lawsuit. She went to great lengths to invent an entirely fictitious identity; using someone else’s photo she had found on the internet, listing her occupation as a bank teller and stating she was from Saginaw, Michigan, even posting weather reports from Saginaw, as if she were there. 

Moreover, in order to make her Facebook personality of Shelly Walker appear legitimate, she sent out hundreds of friend requests, friending hundreds of pro-lifers throughout the country. She purposely searched out pro-life and conservative groups and even claimed to be a supporter of Ted Cruz and Father Frank Pavone, an ardent pro-life Catholic priest. She fabricated an emotional personal story of being talked into an abortion by her husband, who she later divorced (none of it true).

In real life, she’s a Choices escort leader who is strongly pro-abortion.  She does not share any conservative or pro-life views. Nevertheless, she created this fake persona of Shelley Walker to appear as a concerned pro-life advocate to gather information on and entrap pro-life counselors. In fact, she sent a friend request to Angela Braxton, one of TMLC’s clients in this lawsuit.  Braxton, not realizing this was really one of the Choices escorts, accepted her friend request, thinking Walker was a pro-life advocate like herself.

She also admitted that she shared the information of the targeted pro-life counselors with the Attorney General’s Office.  The Office never told her to stop or to delete the information based on her fraudulent Facebook postings. In fact, the Office outfitted her with a concealed video camera to record pro-life counselors in front of Choices. Ironically, just three weeks ago, in an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered, the Attorney General highlighted his crack-down on fake identities, impersonations and fraud on the internet. Read the transcript of the interview here.

On June 20, 2017, the Attorney General held a press conference in front of the Choices Center where he announced his lawsuit against fourteen pro-life sidewalk counselors, claiming they violated the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (“FACE”), the New York State Clinic Access Act and City laws. His lawsuit asked the Court to create a sixteen-foot buffer zone around the Choices premises and to levy fines, attorney fees and compensatory damages against the defendants. 

During the press conference, the Attorney General boasted that he had dropped out of school at seventeen years of age to work at an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C.  Astonishingly, the Attorney General claimed, “We are not a nation where you can choose your point of view,” and that pro-life Christians “run their mouths” with “unlawful, un-American rhetoric.”

The Thomas More Law Center is a leading pro-life national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. TMLC represents two of the fourteen persons sued by the Attorney General.

Richard Thompson, TMLC’s President and Chief Counsel, commented upon the courtroom revelations of the Attorney General’s star witness: “I’m appalled at the Attorney General’s lack of respect for the First Amendment and his Offices’ encouragement and use of fraudulent means to obtain information so that he can persecute peaceful pro-life citizens who have become the voice of the voiceless. He has forsaken his responsibilities as an independent law enforcement officer and is now acting as an agent of the abortion industry.” 

New Jersey Middle School Instructs Students Islam Is the “True Faith” – Thomas More Law Center Files Federal Lawsuit [Must See Video]

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January 24, 2018

     ANN ARBOR, MI – The Thomas More Law Center (“TMLC”), a national nonprofit public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, filed a federal lawsuit yesterday evening in the New Jersey District Court against several officials and teachers of the Chatham Middle School and the School District of the Chathams, located in New Jersey.

     The lawsuit, claiming several violations of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, was filed on behalf of Libby Hilsenrath and her minor son. Seventh-grade students at Chatham Middle School were forced to endure Islamic propaganda and an explicit call to convert to Islam through a disturbing set of videos in their World Cultures and Geography class.

     TMLC’s affiliated New Jersey attorney, Michael Hrycak, filed the lawsuit. TMLC staff attorney, Kate Oliveri, the principle drafter of the federal complaint, observed: “The Board of Education and other Defendants are waging a war against the religious protections afforded by the First Amendment. They attack religious liberty by enticing young school children with a direct call to convert to Islam and providing a step-by-step guide on how to effect that conversion.”

     One of the videos, linked in this press release, seeks to convert students to Islam and is filled with the Islamic religious beliefs presented as facts, as well as pure Islamic propaganda.  This five-minute video ends with the prayer “May God help us all find the true faith, Islam. Ameen.”  

     This video includes the following phrases as facts:

  • “Allah is the one God who created the heavens and the earth, who has no equal and is all powerful.”
  • “Muhammad (Peace be upon him) is the last & final Messenger of God. God gave him the Noble Quran.”
  • “Lo, We have sent thee (O Muhammad) with the truth, a bringer of glad tidings and a warner.”
  • “What is the Noble Quran? Divine Revelation sent to Muhammad (S) last Prophet of Allah. A Perfect guide for Humanity.”
  • “The Noble Quran: Guidance, Mercy and Blessing for all Mankind.”
  • “The Noble Quran: Without any doubt and an eloquent guide from Allah.”
  • “The Beautiful Quran: Guidance for the wise & sensible.”
  • “Islam: A shining beacon against the darkness of repression, segregation, intolerance and racism . . .”

     This propaganda video also contains excerpts from the Quran stating that Islam is “perfected” religion and the only religion for mankind. And it ends with a call to conversion: “May God help us all find the true faith, Islam.”

     However, just as shocking is the background music which includes the poem “Qaseedah Burdah” in Arabic, describing Christians and Jews as “infidels” and praising Muhammad in gruesome detail for slaughtering them:

  • “He [Muhammad] kept on encountering with them (infidels) in every battle until they looked like meat put on butcher’s bench (they were the lesson for those who were willing to encounter with the Muslims)” (parenthetical in original).
  • “It is as though the religion of Islam was a guest that visited every house of those (infidels and was) extremely desirous for the flesh of enemy. . .” (parenthetical in original).
  • “(The Muslims made their) white shining swords red (with the blood of infidels) after they were plunged; (and the majority of) enemies were having black hair (i.e., most of them were young).” (parenthetical in original).

 See 5-minute video here

     Seventh-grade students were also instructed to view a subtle propaganda cartoon video, 5 Pillars, which included bright, multi-colored words quoting the Islamic conversion creed: “There is no god except Allah and Prophet Muhammad is His messenger.” The video concludes with text containing contact information for the students of Chatham Middle School to set up their own mosque tour.

     Clearly, seventh graders were given a sugarcoated, false depiction of Islam. They were not informed of the kidnappings, beheadings, slave-trading, massacres, and persecution of non-Muslims, nor of the repression of women — all done in the name of Islam.

     Richard Thompson, TMLC President and Chief Counsel remarked, “What would people say if our public schools taught Christianity as the true faith? After watching this video, I can’t imagine any reasonable person saying this is not Islamic indoctrination. Chatham Middle School made a mockery of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.”

     Continued Thompson, “When Libby Hilsenrath brought her concerns to the school board’s attention, on February 6, 2017, they were disregarded. And when she appeared on the Tucker Carlson Show on February 20, 2017 to express her concerns to the Nation, the school community pilloried her. Clueless school administrators across our Nation are allowing this type of indoctrination to take place, and it’s up to vigilant and courageous parents like Libby Hilsenrath to stop it.”

     Because of Libby Hilsenrath’s attempts to get the Board of Education to remove the videos and end the Islamic indoctrination of her son and the other seventh-grade students, she was subjected to a barrage of personal attacks from her own community: “hateful,” “ignorant,” “intolerant,” “racist,” “closed minded,” and the list goes on. These attacks significantly intensified after she appeared on the Tucker Carlson Show.

Click here to read the entire Federal Complaint