It Begins… Feds Force Small Town Bank to Remove Christian Symbols & Christmas Buttons …Update: Bank Fights Back & Wins
Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, December 17, 2010, 10:42 AM
More Hope and Change For a New America…
The government warned a small town bank this week to remove the Christian symbols from its counters and off its website.
KOCO reported:
A small-town bank in Oklahoma said the Federal Reserve won’t let it keep religious signs and symbols on display.
Federal Reserve examiners come every four years to make sure banks are complying with a long list of regulations. The examiners came to Perkins last week. And the team from Kansas City deemed a Bible verse of the day, crosses on the teller’s counter and buttons that say “Merry Christmas, God With Us.” were inappropriate. The Bible verse of the day on the bank’s Internet site also had to be taken down.
“I don’t think there should be a problem with them displaying whatever religious symbols they want to display,” said Amy Weierman, a Perkins resident.
Specifically, the feds believed, the symbols violated the discouragement clause of Regulation B of the bank regulations. According to the clause, “…the use of words, symbols, models and other forms of communication … express, imply or suggest a discriminatory preference or policy of exclusion.”
UPDATE: The bank fought back and won.
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Published May 21, 2012 at 12:19 am - 55 Comments
tim commented:
And what is on the US currency? “In God we trust”. What does the Fed. Reserve feel about that?
I’m an atheist and I don’t have a problem with religious displays, the Fed. shouldn’t either.
Leave us alone!
bigkahuna commented:
Wearing burkas, Kurans, yelling alla ahhhhkbar, and having prayer rugs for all waiting on the floor are encouraged though !
Alec Rawls commented:
So Sharia compliant investment and lending practices must all be illegal.
But of course the only “discriminatory preferences” our Obama-government is concerned about suppressing (however unreal) are Christian preferences. Just as blacks CAN’T discriminate against whites in these leftists’ minds (however overtly racist black discrimination, hate crimes, etcetera are), so too Muslims CAN’T discriminate against non-Muslims (even as they terrorize and murder).
PB-in-AL commented:
Did the bank president tell these Fed agents to mind their own business: look at the books and shut up about anything else?
If not he should have.
John commented:
Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion nor PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF………………….
So how did we get to this point?????????
JimR commented:
If they were Muslim symbols, they would express a discriminatory preference or policy of exclusion, not to mention a desire to kill or convert infidels. As Christrian symbols, they do not.
In my religion, the color blue is the basis of evil and we of the warmer colored faiths find it terribly offensive. The Government should eliminate blue so that I’m not offended.
greenfairie commented:
The people of that town should march back in that bank and put everything back up. The Feds are at war with Christianity and it’s time for the people to start fighting back.
chris commented:
This is a small example of what one gives up when getting into bed with the government today.
A much bigger example is the take over of the private university system and the program to exterminate God from the campus. It is done one small power grab at a time by one little bureaucrat after another.
One little example: Villanova, an institution founded and by the Augustinian order and a university at which all are welcome but is a proud Catholic community has to get a federal waiver because there are crosses (an integral part of the stone architecture) on the building in which ROTC is headquartered.
So, the benevolent government grants a waiver to the supplicant as long as that peon stays in line. And, others are on notice to strip all modern buildings of a cross or create a budget to fight “your” government.
dunce commented:
These inspecters report to obama. This is the muslim policy prescribed in the koran not any bank regulation. If obama owes his allegiance to the constitution and not to mecca he can issue an order to stick to the banks books
and stop enforcing dhimmintude.
Right is Right commented:
And all these years I thought Christmas was a FEDERAL holiday. Doh!
No Man commented:
Abolish the Fed.
#4 You are 100% correct. The bank president should tell the examiners to go to hell.
Meanwhile, because the Fed kept rates too low so long and the Fed NMA and Fed HLMC bought and sold to investors $2 trillion in subprime loans for “low-to-moderate income” perpetrators to buy homes they should not have owned (read CRA), the economy is in the tank.
Rock commented:
Maybe its time for people to gather at events like this and run the little bureaucratic scum out of town. The last thing these little night crawlers want is to be exposed to the light of day. Our town, our money our values non of their god hating business. Stop this BS be prepared for these low life’s arrival in your communities and force them to operate in the public view. These people are cowards who operate behind the cloak of darkness that their job provides them, deny them this shelter. This administration by design or foolishness has created a atmosphere that emboldens these God hating anti-American trash talking heathens.
Would be an interesting turn of events if a administration that cannot protect our borders would find the need to have to protect their slimy pack dogs.
greg commented:
Maybe it is time to start identifying the names of the inspectors and drawing attention to them very personally. By hiding behind the guise of fed inspector they can put out any pc stuff they want to and not feel accountable for their actions.
donh commented:
JESUS SAVES !
Ginger commented:
Let’s lower the deficit by abolishing the Fed! And while we are at it let’s do away with the UN! And…… the IRS! And Barry Soetoro! ( I mean the latter in fun)
Id like to ship him back to Kenya where he is soooooooo adored.
Keith in Seattle commented:
Clear violation of the first amendment. Feds: PISS OFF!
Mark1957 commented:
That is outrageous, they had no right to do that.
I just sent a link to Freedom Watch and I hope that the Judge rips them a new one.
Sally commented:
F them!
Redwine commented:
“…team from Kansas City deemed a Bible verse of the day, crosses on the teller’s counter and buttons that say “Merry Christmas, God With Us.” were inappropriate. The Bible verse of the day on the bank’s Internet site also had to be taken down.”
If the Feds can do this, who’s to say they won’t go after any private business to remove religious content?
Totally unconstitutional.
TheTriGuy commented:
Sue the Fed for this clear violation of the constitutional rights of the owners of that bank. ( And for the lefties on this list, please don’t say that it’s in the contract the bank signs or agrees to with the Fed. No entity can sign away their constitutional rights no matter what they sign. That is case law!) Then at the same time, the judge can also rule that the Fed itself is unconstitutional. Seems like a win-win to me!
Stuart commented:
I am not at all religious, but so help me crap like this is actually driving me toward Christianity.
Maybe it’s because I am reacting to the unfairness of this current crop of government bullies, or maybe it’s something deeper. I don’t know, but it is said that the Lord works in mysterious ways.
RickZ commented:
So why is there a Christmas tree in the White House?
kansas commented:
Until someone says to them “Hell no” this will continue. Stop complaining and start refusing their demands.
Practical Jane commented:
Another very good reason to Abolish the FED.
Jeb60 commented:
Time to abolish the Federal Reserve, PERIOD!
Liz commented:
I just returned from the library where two young ladies were playing religious Christmas carols on their flutes. It was very nice to hear.
I was surprised since this was in Edmond OK, where our city flag has a blank spot where a cross used to be. The ACLU sued the city a while back to get the cross removed. It’s gone, but the city never replaced it, so everyone knows what was originally there.
midlandewing commented:
Agree with jeb60
Graham Davis commented:
And our national motto is and has been since adopted by congress in 1956……..
In God We Trust.
Liz commented:
By the way, should the Fed Reserve KC be required to take down the word “Christmas” on their website? Of course, that means that they would have to work on that day…
http://www.kc.frb.org/aboutus/kcfedinformation/holiday-schedule.cfm
Bruce commented:
Why does “It’s A Wonderful Life!” spring to mind?
Bruce commented:
Well then, don’t like these fed workers have Christmas day off is that’s they way they feel.
Andreas K. commented:
I thought there was this thing called “Constitution” that prevented the government from doing exactly that?
darcy commented:
The fed has got to go. Until then, by whatever means possible, this action by the fed must be reversed.
If it takes protests at all 12 federal reserve banks and all other regional branches, like the one in Helena, MT — sit ins, sleep ins, lawsuits, whatever it takes, this policy must be reversed.
This is outrageous and WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.
We will go to an all-cash society before we permit the government to DICTATE to us that our religious symbols are no longer part of our free-exercise of religion. It’s time for some very hard measures to be exerted against this tyranny.
Marybel commented:
FIGHT BACK! One victory at a time. Go OK!
darcy commented:
“The Federal Reserve does not supervise or regulate credit unions. Federally chartered credit unions are regulated by the National Credit Union Administration, while state-chartered credit unions are regulated at the state level.”
There are two approaches to this. One: Since there are millions of bank customers who are rightly furious over this fed policy, we have the numbers to make a huge stink about it and get it reversed. This is what we MUST do. Failing that, we move to approach two: Tell your fed bank member that you are withdrawing your funds from their institution BECAUSE of the feds ANTI-CHRISTIAN policy and will move all your financial transactions to a non-member bank or credit union.
But remember, at some level all financial institutions are regulated at the national or at the state level also; once our GOVERNMENT succeeds in eliminating the free-exercise of religion at fed-member banks, they will move on to ALL other banks and credit unions, under one pretext or another.
Remember, the goal of this government has morphed into one in which it seeks to crush all memory of our Founding, and that includes our Constitution and the Bill of Rights because they are incompatible with the ruling principle of liberalism: non-discrimination.
” . . . [N]on-discrimination, if followed consistently, means that no distinct society or culture can exist, no distinct human individual or human family can exist, no distinct species or organism can exist. Nothing can exist, since all things, in order to exist, must be different from, and thus be distinguished and discriminated from, other things.” (Lawrence Auster, writing today at http://amnation.com/vfr.) I recommend you visit for more on what he has to say on this latest DIKTAT.
darcy commented:
One more note: All of these efforts by the fed to extinguish Christianity (and our Bill of Rights) are directly linked to its goal of the NAU, the precursor to the one-world government as promoted by Peter Singer of Princeton, and George Soros, to name but two who are in the forefront.
See this report released today:
Obama Quietly Erasing America’s Borders, at
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=240045
Rose commented:
They came for the Christians and we didn’t do anything, because we weren’t Christians….
Well, one day soon, Jesus is coming for the Christians, and guess what! …
SaintGeorgeGentile commented:
This is not a sarcastic post.
I am an atheist.
I am outraged!
Joel commented:
This is just another small bite out of the apple. There have been thousands of these types of things during the past twenty years.
I am just as guilty as the next guy….But until we (the God fearing American people) start to stand up against all this bull…., it will continue bit by bit until it is to late.
How many times do we read about similar issues at schools and other places? Many, many times.
Our next opportunity will be the 2012 election cycle…our voices must be heard. It will take a lot of money and people getting active….go to that tea party event, speak with your family and friends about how you’re mad about where America is headed.
darcy commented:
http://secure.afa.net/afa/activism/TakeAction.asp?id=389
You can do something. Follow the above link.
Ladue Pundit commented:
“…the use of words, symbols, models and other forms of communication … express, imply or suggest a discriminatory preference or policy of exclusion.”
Christianity does not discriminate or exclude. This should be fought. Until then, keep up the decorations.
The war on Christmas is a war on God.
tommy mc donnell commented:
if the fed spent as much time checking out the financial decisions banks are making there wouldn’t so many of them failing. more people will be offended by removing these displays than would be offended by the bank displaying them. that seems to be the political correctness crowd’s goal, offend the maximum number of people. i hope the bank has the guts to tell the fed to go take a high into a low bucket and stick to what it is suppose to be regulating, banking activities not christmas displays.
Marybel commented:
Resolved http://www.paynecountybank.com/
Carl McPherson commented:
check out the bigger picture and news coverage clip about this as well.
http://tinyurl.com/FedBigPicture
tysm commented:
Standup and tell the Feds to pound sand.
wanumba commented:
Quietly, newly minted dollar coins do not have “In God we trust.” While the noisy media distracts, the Left quietly mobilizes the bureaucracy to implement changes.
It’s quite the twisty legalistic Leftie presumption to decide that a Christmas greeting is “exclusionary.” No one is denied services in any measure, no one is even required to mutter a response. But the Left spends quite a bit of time training people to have a knee-jerk emotional reaction of anger at supposed “intolerance.”
Skinner commented:
#44 – Resolved
Yes, the Fed reversed this.
One overzealous Fed inspector (wanker).
The Equal Credit Opportunity Act, “as interpreted by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, does not apply to jewelry or other personal items displayed in the workplace,” Hoenig said today in a statement.
Senior Kansas City Fed officials conferred with the Fed in Washington before allowing the bank to restore the Christian symbols, the community bank said in a statement on its website.
raybojabo commented:
“The examiners came to Perkins last week. And the team from Kansas City deemed a Bible verse of the day, crosses on the teller’s counter and buttons that say “Merry Christmas, God With Us.” were inappropriate”
These Commie Rat-Bastards have names don’t they?
1rst ammendment:” 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. ” It seems that the Fed has made its own law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.
Background
Tom commented:
Armed insurrection is the only way we are going to stop this and take our country back folks….the time is coming, very soon.
IOpian commented:
I was born in the same county and have been around and through Perkins all of my life. My uncle lived there, my parent’s college friends lived there, my mother still lives near there. It is the bank examiner’s views that are locally extremely inappropriate.
Judy commented:
I live in Perkins, Ok and I am so proud of this community. The Government has picked on the wrong town. I hope this has started the ball rolling to stop all the stupidity our Government has started against Christians. I feel we have defeated the giant. Merry CHRISTmas everyone and Praise God.
Iconoclast commented:
Those who have not read “Unexpected Consequences” are encouraged to do so. In this novel, a campaign takes shape in which arrogant statists – especially Federal bureaucrats and leftist politicians – begin to be executed by those they have wronged. One of the ways this becomes possible is by the release of data files identifying the faceless ones, along with their residences, etc. I’m not advocating such a campaign, but perhaps if the Wikileaks people did a data dump on Federal personnel files, the exposure and consequent realization of their personal vulnerability would make such as this stooge a bit less eager to act the tyrant.
darcy commented:
Exactly, Iconoclast. Nameless, faceless, but with their heads exploding with the power of their office, they seek to extinguish all remnants of America as founded.
Well, all I can say is good luck with that. They do not know with whom they are dealing. We are not going to be trampled upon by a bunch of god-hating nimcompoops whose only reason for living is to kill off all vestiges of our Christian culture and heritage. Idiots. I guess they didn’t get the memo about how God wins in the end. Pity them on the last day.
MamaGriz68 commented:
We’ve been letting them get away with this for too long. See what happens when people stand up to the oppressors? Stand up folks!
Marybel commented:
Thank God Oklahomans haven’t lost touch with the reality of the Bible and the Constitution and the fact that they are connected by faith in God. Brick by brick, my friends.
Kenneth Brown commented:
I am so sick of the people that discriminate in the name of tolerance? God and the Christian traditions are part of the very fabric of this nation and to deny that is in fact un-american! We are a christian nation above all. We can’t deny that. On the flip side of this if a bank displays quotes from say the Koran thats there right, it’s not the Fed’s responsibility to “regulate” that. What kind of outrage would we hear about if the Fed asked to remove quotes from the Koran?? GOD HELP US!