Mildred Rosario is the sixth grade teacher who was fired for telling an eleven-year-old student that a classmate who had drowned was in heaven. Her story is one of amazing faith.

I was not exposed to her case in New York City until June 16th when an article appeared in the Washington Times about a teacher in the Bronx who had been fired when an eleven year old student asked her if a classmate who had drowned was in heaven. Although the loss of a classmate to tragedy is not uncommon in the New York City schools, there was no grief management team sent to the class when the student, Christopher Lee, died. No attempt was made by the school or the school district to counsel the students in the school about the death of their classmate. Mrs. Rosario had no help whatsoever from the school district in dealing with this tragedy and relied on what she knew best, her strong faith in God.

She told the child who asked, that yes, Christopher had gone to heaven. Other children then asked her what heaven was like. She told the children she would discuss it only with those who wanted to hear. She told the children if they didn't want to ask or discuss the subject to go work on the computers or look at books. In the next four or five minutes she answered the questions of students about Christopher and about heaven. For this act of kindness and sincerity she was fired by the Board of Education of New York City.

I was appalled by what happened to her and was about to pick up the phone to try to contact her when I instead received a call from the Rev. Dr. Melvin Walker in New York. Rev. Walker had read literature I had mailed to every church in New York in support of the Religious Freedom Amendment. He was calling for help on behalf of Mrs. Rosario. He invited me to a press conference to be held in the Bronx on Thursday, June 18th. I agreed to go and also began calling my contacts in the Congress to see what could be done from Washington, DC.

The Bronx community was united in their stand for Mrs. Rosario. The Bronx is predominately African American and Hispanic. Both groups were represented. Again and again the African American pastors said that Mrs. Rosario being fired for her faith was not a Hispanic issue, but an issue of freedom to express one's faith that transcended racial boundaries. During the news conference I met Mrs. Rosario for the first time and her faith overwhelmed me. She knows in her heart that she did nothing wrong in helping the young children in her care She acted as best she could as a teacher in helping them deal with their grief in the loss of a fellow student.

Hispanic evangelical leaders planned a demonstration in front of the New York City Board of Education headquarters located in Brooklyn on Tuesday, June 23rd and Rev. Miguel Rivera requested that I return to New York and speak at the demonstration. I agreed even though my Spanish leaves much to be desired.

During my conversations with Mrs. Rosario, her attorney and Rev. Rivera I learned amazing facts about the Board of Education's discharge of Mrs. Rosario. First, they fired her within one week! This despite the fact that the Board of Education had never punished a teacher who was a member of the Man-Boy Love Association, a pedophile group. Being a pedophile in the schools of New York City is apparently OK, but expressing one's Christian faith is not! In fact, one school board member told Mrs. Rosario, "Your Jesus cost you your job".

I was outraged as were most of the social conservatives I know. The first congressman to act was my good friend, Majority Whip Tom DeLay. Congressman DeLay holds the number three post in Congress behind Speaker Gingrich and Majority Leader Armey. He wrote a letter to Governor Pataki demanding Mrs. Rosario be reinstated immediately. Additionally, at my request, he scheduled a news conference in Washington, DC for Thursday, June 25th to show the support of the congressional leadership for Mrs. Rosario.. This was a brave move for Congressman DeLay as there are no Republican congressmen from the Bronx or Brooklyn. All seven congressmen from those areas are very liberal Democrats .... all of whom voted against the Religious Freedom Amendment.

On Tuesday, June 23rd I left my home in Virginia at 5:30 AM and headed for the airport. By 8:30 AM I was in bumper to bumper traffic headed from the New York Airport to the Board of Education Building in Brooklyn. By the time I got to the site of the demonstration there were hundreds of people waiting. The closer we came to the time of the demonstration the more people showed up. The police had about ten officers present and had blocked off space for 100 demonstrators. Soon they were forced to move the barricades twice as more than 1,000 appeared in support of Mrs. Rosario. The police, not realizing they were dealing with Christians, called for reinforcements. By 11:00 there were more than 100 police officers including a plain clothes goon squad which the New York City force keeps to "handle" demonstrators. A fire truck was moved in with high pressure hoses and an ambulance was parked at the end of the street. The situation was laughable!

The demonstration was covered by every New York TV and radio station as well as by every newspaper. Even the national media was present. (I had sent out a fax blast to over 100 media connections we have stored in our computer to make sure this received national attention.) A representative of the Rutherford Institute was the only Washington type present other than myself. The Rutherford Institute had agreed to work on Mrs. Rosario's case.

At the demonstration her attorney announced the first legal moves, the pastors announced the churches were praying for her and her family and I announced the meeting with congressional leaders in Washington. I told the demonstrators that, "This is not going to stop for the Board of Education when this demonstration stops, this is going to continue until we win; this will become their worst nightmare unless Mrs. Rosario is reinstated."

Several of Mrs. Rosario's sixth grade students came to the demonstration and jumped onto the platform to give her a hug. Tears were in their eyes as they were reunited!

As the demonstration ended in prayer and the Christians went to their homes and their jobs the police looked really stupid standing arm in arm in two fifty-man lines to protect the Board of Education Building. The fire truck and the ambulance moved off unused! What the police did not see the press did: Board of Education employees came to the windows and gave a thumbs up to the demonstrators!

Our ministry purchased the tickets for Mrs. Rosario to come to Washington on June 25th. I met her and the leader of the Hispanic evangelical community, Dr. Diaz, and others at the airport and escorted them to the Capitol building. Rev. Dr. John Boyd and Rev. Walker were also present and we met in advance with Congressman DeLay and others.

Because of the number of media expected we held the press conference outdoors in an area called the Grassy Triangle near the House side of the Capitol Building. The press was so thick that the podium could not be seen for the microphones! When the Majority Leader or the Majority Whip show up at a press conference the media knows it is important and they show up too. I salute Congressman DeLay for his courageous comments and actions!

Congressman DeLay stunned the news media when he opened the press conference in prayer. Many of the reporters still had their mouths open when Congressman DeLay concluded the prayer. This certainly set a tone for the press conference.

Congressman DeLay referred to Mrs. Mildred Rosario as a courageous woman who was a victim because of her faith and referred repeatedly to the perverts and criminals the New York City school system has kept in their employ including a member of the North American Man-Boy Love Association.

Other congressmen to step forward at the press conference were Joe Pitts (R-PA), J.C. Watts (R-OK), Ernest Istook (R-OK) and Bob Riley (R-AL). Other congressman including Robert Aderholt of Alabama were also present. The Rev. Dr. Boyd talked about the deterioration of the New York schools since prayer was removed 35 years ago. The new president of Conservative Women For America, Mrs. Pate, and Gary Bauer, President of the Family Research Council were also present.

Mildred Rosario was the star of the press conference. She told the simple truth, that she was a simple 6th grade teacher doing the best she could to help her students deal with the death of a classmate. She told the media she could not understand why she had been fired, with no hearing, with no due process, just because she had mentioned God once in a classroom and then only in response to a student's question.

My point to the media was simple: the Supreme Court has ruled "one free pass" in sexual harassment is OK. An employer or supervisor can do what he wants once -- it is the second time that gets him in trouble. Why was this woman fired the first time she mentioned God in the classroom? Secondly, why didn't the school system send a grief counselor to deal with these students if they did not want the teacher to handle a situation the best way she knew how? Third, the Board of Education caused even greater grief to these students by taking away their beloved teacher just days after they lost a classmate to a tragic accident.

Because of the demonstration in New York, the news conference in Washington and other actions we are winning more and more allies to help get Mrs. Rosario's teaching job back. If you would like to send her a letter of support to Mildred Rosario, her address is: (Mrs. Mildred Rosario, C/O Church Administration, 377 Route 17 South, Hasbrouck Heights, NJ 07604)

Virtually every Democrat plus 28 liberal Republicans voted against the Religious Freedom Amendment on June 4, 1998. The RFA won the majority of the votes. The final was 224 to 203 in our favor, but a majority was not enough. Because this was a Constitutional Amendment and not a bill, we needed a two-thirds vote in our favor in the House before the RFA could even be considered by the Senate.

The lies of the liberals were astounding! Congressman Chet Edwards of Texas once again said that the RFA would allow Satanism in the schools. That was his theme as he led the charge against the RFA. I have news for him, Satan is alive and well in the schools now--it is God the Supreme Court kicked out!

Is this the end of the Religious Freedom Amendment? NO!

Of the 27 Constitutional Amendments that have passed, most have taken from three to five votes in the House before passage. We will have another vote on the RFA in the next session of Congress as long as godly men such as Dick Armey and Tom DeLay are in the House leadership. Of course, if the liberals win the House this November there will be no vote in the next session. But, I do not believe that will happen. I am trusting God that we will have a second vote on the RFA in the next session and that we will increase the number of votes for the RFA!

We now have a base of 224 congressmen to work with ... We only need about 60 more votes to win next session. We must just keep up the pressure! Remember the votes on partial birth abortion! Every year we are getting closer to overturning President Clinton's veto of the partial birth abortion bill. This time we may lose by only one vote in the Senate -- we could even win! We are getting closer because we are not giving up on banning partial birth abortion. Likewise we must not give up on the RFA. We must bring it up again and again.

Many of you may have seen me on CNN on June 17th, the 35th anniversary of the removal of prayer from our schools. The CNN news team followed me into the halls of Congress and they were present when I told Congressman Istook that we must continue the fight and he agreed that we would!

W now have a history of successes to back us the next time. For the first time a school prayer amendment passed in a sub-committee. For the first time ever a school prayer amendment passed the full Judiciary committee. For the first time ever congressional leadership agreed to a vote on the floor of the House. We must now carry that record of victories with us into the next session of Congress and build on it.

There is a dark side ... Christian teachers continue to be fired if they show their faith in Jesus when they are at work. See the related story about Mrs. Mildred Rosario. We must stand with her and we must fight for the RFA to protect brave brothers and sisters in Christ like her.

It appears that less than twenty atheists showed up on the steps of the Supreme Court to "celebrate" the removal of school prayer 35 years ago. Just in case they plan to exaggerate, we had a film crew present! As usual the atheists were there to lie. One atheist told a news crew that all of the school shootings during the past 18 months were done by Christians. It is, of course, documented that every one of the shootings were done by atheists, occultists or Satanists. The last shooter in Oregon actually had a Satanic web site he managed!

Our ministry purchased a full page ad in the Washington Times to greet the atheists with the truth. I told it like it was, comparing the atheist philosophy with the "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" philosophy of the Satanists. The ad was clear and showed that the true philosophy of the atheists "evolved" from the words of the serpent to Eve in the third chapter of Genesis!

I have access to many hours of video of the atheist demonstration and of their convention in Washington, DC. I am in the process of editing the material to show the atheists for what they are and what they really believe. We hope to be able to ship the videos sometime in late July or early August. If the video is good enough and we can raise the money we will attempt to show it on TV in selected markets, even in cities the atheists plan future conventions in!

Because the atheists held their convention in Washington our ministry received a lot of media attention. In fact, we received more attention from the media than did the atheists. Our full page ad actually caused CNN to do a positive story on us about the 35th anniversary of the removal of prayer from our schools.

ABC Nightline also did a story featuring the dishonesty of members of my atheist family who are missing. (See related story)

On June 1st, ABC Nightline ran a full 30-minute story on the bizarre disappearance of my three family members who are atheists. My mother, Madalyn Murray O"Hair, my brother, Jon Murray, and my oldest daughter, Robin Murray all vanished sometime in August or September of 1995. The police made virtually no effort to find them. The atheists who took over their property in Austin did not even file a missing persons report.

In the ABC Nightline story it was revealed that a large amount of money which my brother is accused of taking with him when he disappeared actually went through a bank in the same small New Jersey town where the new atheist president, Ellen Johnson, lives. In addition, my brother left $100,000 of gold coins he had purchased from a coin dealer sitting in the dealer's safe; he never returned to pick them up.

Many times I have criticized the authorities for failing to look for my missing family members. Although they were profane atheists who damaged this nation, as citizens they deserved the equal protection of the law. At last the authorities are looking into their disappearance. By authorities I do not mean the police, but rather the IRS. Now that it appears there was money laundering and that huge amounts of money, perhaps millions, was moved out the United States, the IRS wants its share. An IRS investigator has already visited my office trying to track them down. (Sort of figures doesn't it.) Too often today the authorities are not interested in crimes unless property can be seized for their benefit.

On a cable TV news show in June the Majority Leader of the Senate, Trent Lott (R-MS) told it like it was. He said that homosexual behavior was sin. He further said that like any other kind of compulsive behavior, such as alcoholism, homosexual behavior was treatable.

What an uproar there was! The news media jumped on the story figuring they would be able to knock Trent Lott out of his leadership! First they went to Dick Armey, the Majority Leader of the House and asked him what he thought of Trent Lott's "bigoted" remarks. Much to the surprise of the national news media Congressman Armey not only said he agreed with Senator Lott but quoted two Scriptures to back Lott up. He quoted from memory 1Cor 6:9-11 and 1 Cor 6:18-20.

The only homosexual left in the Congress, Congressman Barney Frank, demanded an apology. The media pressured Senator Lott, but he would not back down. Worse, the media could not find anyone in a congressional leadership position that disagreed with Senator Lott., but a week later they were still trying. Senator Don Nicklesof Oklahoma is the assistant Majority Leader. On Fox News Sunday he was hounded by questions about Lott's comment on homosexuals. Senator Nickles stood firm with the Majority Leader and with the Bible. He told the reporters the plain facts as the Bible tells them, that homosexual behavior is a sin.

Within two weeks the media hype against Senator Lott had died down and I believe a real change had occurred in American politics. Just ten years ago any congressman or Senator who called homosexual behavior a sin would have been driven out of office, forced to resign. Something has happened. The vast majority of Americans agree with Trent Lott that homosexual behavior is a sin, a vice, no different than any other sexual addiction including the use of prostitutes. A man that gives his life to God can be healed! Send Senator Lott a word of encouragement as he stands for what is right. His address is: Senator Trent Lott, The Capitol #S-230, Washington, DC 20510.