Category Archives: Church & State

Obama Regime Endorses Hateful, Anti-Christian Extremism

May 3

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“Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces.”

“We MUST vigorously support the continuing efforts to expose pathologically anti-gay, Islamaphobic, and rabidly intolerant agitators for what they are: die-hard enemies of the United States Constitution. Monsters, one and all. To do anything less would be to roll out a red carpet to those who would usher in a blood-drenched, draconian era of persecutions, nationalistic militarism, and superstitious theocracy.”

– Mikey Weinstein, hateful, anti-Christian extremist, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, supporter of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which inspired Floyd Corkins to try to murder the staff at Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.

Let these words sink in.

These are some of the angriest, most vulgar and vile, and certainly some of the most hateful remarks ever directed at American Christians. American Christians serving in the military, risking their lives for liberty, by the way.

These are among the most hateful, disgusting, incendiary remarks we’ve ever seen. And Barack Obama’s military leaders agree with them. Breitbart.com reported this week that Weinstein will be a consultant to the Pentagon to develop new policies on religious tolerance, including a policy for court-martialing military chaplains who share the Christian Gospel during spiritual counseling of American troops.

That created such an uproar that the government backtracked and toned down its anti-Christian threat.

But do not let down your guard. The times are ominous and the hour is late. The persecution of the Church is in a full sprint. And President Obama — the most radical and antagonistic president ever, against religious freedom — is encouraging it.

This latest outrage is not surfacing in a vacuum. Recently it was learned that a U.S. Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief identified “Evangelical Christianity” and “Catholicism” as examples of “religious extremism” like al-Qaida, Hamas, and the Klu Klux Klan.

Col. (Ret.) Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, said: “Men and women of faith who have served the Army faithfully for centuries shouldn’t be likened to those who have regularly threatened the peace and security of the United States. It is dishonorable for any U.S. military entity to allow this type of wrongheaded characterization. It also appears that some military entities are using definitions of ‘hate’ and ‘extreme’ from the lists of anti-Christian political organizations. That violates the apolitical stance appropriate for the military.”

These troubling developments are reminders that the so-called “progressive movement” represents anything but progress. Progressivism — as Democrats define it — is taking America backward, coursening the culture, spreading hate and fascism. They have no intention of competing fairly in the marketplace of ideas, preferring instead to lie, demonize, and destroy their opponents as “enemies.” It’s part of the politics of destruction, a hideous practice all too characteristic of the Clinton and Obama administrationws.

Posted in America, Church & State, Constitution, Culture, Homosexual Agenda, The Left

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Phoenix ready to take a radical left turn

Feb 26

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If you own a business, please be sitting down when you read the latest proposal. The new ordinance being fast-tracked by Mayor Stanton is a disaster for local small businesses in the City of Phoenix. For the first time, any business with one or more employee will be subject to criminal penalties of up to a Class 1 misdemeanor, the highest misdemeanor one can receive.

The proposal requires all businesses that operate in Phoenix to accommodate any individual that wants to express their personal gender or identity. If for example, a man wanted to use the woman’s bathroom in order to express himself then the business owner will be required to allow him to do that or face a criminal penalty and civil litigation. A criminal penalty that will be enforced by the City of Phoenix.

This is a difficult thing to discuss. It opens the door to individuals claiming you are a bigot, old fashioned and someone who condones discrimination. Nothing could be further from the truth. I believe in full transparency and you, the citizens, have every right to know what your leaders are up to. And, you need to know about it before it passes next week. Click here to read the ordinance (see “2013 Proposed Human Relations Ordinance changes”)

The language of the ordinance is so broad; the floodgates of litigation against businesses will be opened. What’s worse, the business community has not even been made aware of this and almost all of the elected leaders in the City were unaware of these proposed changes until last week. This tactic of ramming through such dramatic changes without input from community that will be impacted the most, our local small businesses, shows a total disregard for our business community. This lack of transparency must stop immediately. I have sent a letter and called on the City Manager to immediately notify all businesses in the City of Phoenix of these changes-before the vote next week. Click here to read the letter.

This proposed ordinance should be continued to allow all affected parties an opportunity to comment and have their voices heard. Discrimination is deplorable and we should not stand for it. However, the proposed changes are poorly crafted and go after a non-existent problem.

If this ordinance passes as it is expected to do, business will be forced to hire more lawyers than employees.

My best to you and your family,

Sal DiCiccio, City Council member, Phoenix

Posted in Arizona, Church & State, Constitution, Culture, Faith & Freedom, Families, Religious Freedom, Taxpayers, The Left

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9th Circus Rules against Gilbert Church’s Religious Freedom

Feb 10

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A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against religious freedom Friday when it allowed the Town of Gilbert to infringe up on the First Amendment rights of Good News Presbyterian Church.

Judge Paul Watford, in his dissent, said the sign ordinance is unconstitutional because it favors political and ideological signs over signs promoting events, like those the church used:

“Gilbert’s sign ordinance violates the First and 14th amendments by drawing content-based distinctions among different categories of non-commercial speech.”

The church’s attorney is considering whether or not to file an appeal.

Rev. Clyde Reed said, “We thought we had a solid case, but the 9th Circuit said it wasn’t solid enough.”

The right reverend was being kind to the court. Everyone knows the “9th Circus” is a major player in the left-wing transformation of the western part of the nation. This court is never going to issue a fair ruling on any social issues, such as the sanctity of life, marriage, or religious freedom. It’s a biased court, and that’s why it is also the most overturned appeals court in America.

Good News Presbyterian’s fight with the town started eight years ago when Gilbert officials told the church it was posting signs advertising worship services in public rights of way too early. The church tried to accommodate the city, but the city refused to be satisfied.

The church filed a lawsuit in 2008 and said its First and 14th amendment rights were being violated.

Watford agreed, but the other two judges on the panel said the “restrictions are based on objective factors relevant to the creation of the specific exemption and do not otherwise consider the substance of a sign.” As such, the law is constitutional, they wrote.

In 2009, the 9th Circus upheld a lower court decision against the church’s request for an injunction to block enforcement of the ordinance. The Appeals Court sent the case back to the local court so it could weight constitutional considerations in the case. The district court upheld its earlier ruling, as did the 9th Circus Friday.

Jeremy Tedesco, legal counsel for the church, and from Alliance Defending Freedom, said: “To us, it’s a very simple case of content-based discrimination.”

Posted in Arizona, Church & State, Culture

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Cong. Quayle Fighting Obama’s Unconstitutional Power Grab

Jun 27

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By Arizona Cong. Ben Quayle

President Obama is attempting to compensate for his lack of leadership with unprecedented assertions of personal power. He won’t work with Congress, so he’s decided to ignore it entirely.

I believe the debate that ensued after President Obama’s edict on immigration has glossed over the worst part of it: the fact that it was done without even the slightest input from the legislative branch. President Obama in effect declared that because he didn’t agree with the law, he wouldn’t enforce it. The constitutional implications are vast. What is to stop the president from ending the enforcement of other sections of criminal law, or for that matter, any part of the law?

The day after I sent you my last update, I flew back to Washington and introduced a bill to nullify this unconstitutional power grab. My bill, which has already picked up nearly 30 co-sponsors, would keep these policy changes from taking effect, and would bar the use of these kinds of power grabs in the future. I discussed my bill with Neil Cavuto on Fox Business Network, as well as Fox and Friends. Enjoy the clips here: Neil Cavuto – Fox and Friends

I’ve told you many times in this newsletter about my work to hold the Obama Administration accountable for the tragic “Operation Fast and Furious.” The issue once again came to the forefront this week. Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa has been pressing the Obama Administration to surrender subpoenaed documents on the operation, but Attorney General Holder has repeatedly stalled efforts to hand over the documents.

Because of this, Chairman Issa threatened to hold a contempt of Congress vote against Holder if the documents weren’t handed over by Wednesday of last week. Rather than comply with this legitimate Congressional investigation, President Obama declared that the documents would not be handed over by invoking executive privilege. Executive privilege exists to protect vital national security secrets, not to protect the President from the wrongdoing of his own administration. Once again, the President has abused his power in the worst way.

Chairman Issa responded by holding a contempt vote on the Oversight Committee, and it passed. House leadership has pledged to hold a contempt vote on the Floor of the House this week. This is just what I’ve been asking for the last several weeks, and I will eagerly vote to hold the Attorney General in contempt when the vote occurs. These continued abuses of power must not go unanswered, and the Administration’s attempts to avoid accountability must not continue.

Later in the week I introduced a resolution with my colleague Trey Gowdy of South Carolina calling for the appointment of an outside special counsel to investigate recent national security leaks to the news media. Senator McCain introduced a similar resolution in the Senate.

The New York Times and other outlets have recently written stories having to do with American cyber warfare programs against the Iranian nuclear enrichment program, the American anti-terrorism drone campaign and terrorists being targeted by our armed forces. The information leaked was highly-sensitive and classified. Many speculate that these leaks were made to bolster the national security credentials of the Obama Administration.

In response to the leaks, Attorney General Holder appointed two investigators to supposedly find out who was responsible. The problem is that, as members of the administration themselves, these investigators are faced with a blatant conflict of interest that will compromise their ability to properly carry out the investigation. One of them even donated $4,300 to President Obama’s campaigns. An investigation of this magnitude must be carried out by a special counsel with unquestionable objectivity. I hope the House will join with me in calling for this kind of investigation.

Posted in America, Arizona, Church & State

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America’s Most Biblically-Hostile U. S. President: Barack Hussein Obama

Mar 26

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When one observes President Obama’s unwillingness to accommodate America’s four-century long religious conscience protection through his attempts to require Catholics to go against their own doctrines and beliefs, one is tempted to say that he is anti-Catholic. But that characterization would not be correct. Although he has recently singled out Catholics, he has equally targeted traditional Protestant beliefs over the past four years. So since he has attacked Catholics and Protestants, one is tempted to say that he is anti-Christian. But that, too, would be inaccurate. He has been equally disrespectful in his appalling treatment of religious Jews in general and Israel in particular. So perhaps the most accurate description of his antipathy toward Catholics, Protestants, religious Jews, and the Jewish nation would be to characterize him as anti-Biblical. And then when his hostility toward Biblical people of faith is contrasted with his preferential treatment of Muslims and Muslim nations, it further strengthens the accuracy of the anti-Biblical descriptor. In fact, there have been numerous clearly documented times when his pro-Islam positions have been the cause of his anti-Biblical actions.   Listed below in chronological order are (1) numerous records of his attacks on Biblical persons or organizations; (2) examples of the hostility toward Biblical faith that have become evident in the past three years in the Obama-led military; (3) a listing of his open attacks on Biblical values; and finally (4) a listing of numerous incidents of his preferential deference for Islam’s activities and positions, including letting his Islamic advisors guide and influence his hostility toward people of Biblical faith.

1. Acts of hostility toward people of Biblical faith:

• April 2008 – Obama speaks disrespectfully of Christians, saying they “cling to guns or religion” and have an “antipathy to people who aren’t like them.” 1
• February 2009 – Obama announces plans to revoke conscience protection for health workers who refuse to participate in medical activities that go against their beliefs, and fully implements the plan in February 2011. 2
• April 2009 – When speaking at Georgetown University, Obama orders that a monogram symbolizing Jesus’ name be covered when he is making his speech. 3
• May 2009 – Obama declines to host services for the National Prayer Day (a day established by federal law) at the White House. 4
• April 2009 – In a deliberate act of disrespect, Obama nominated three pro-abortion ambassadors to the Vatican; of course, the pro-life Vatican rejected all three. 5
• October 19, 2010 – Obama begins deliberately omitting the phrase about “the Creator” when quoting the Declaration of Independence – an omission he has made on no less than seven occasions. 6
• November 2010 – Obama misquotes the National Motto, saying it is “E pluribus unum” rather than “In God We Trust” as established by federal law. 7
• January 2011 – After a federal law was passed to transfer a WWI Memorial in the Mojave Desert to private ownership, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the cross in the memorial could continue to stand, but the Obama administration refused to allow the land to be transferred as required by law, and refused to allow the cross to be re-erected as ordered by the Court. 8
• February 2011 – Although he filled posts in the State Department, for more than two years Obama did not fill the post of religious freedom ambassador, an official that works against religious persecution across the world; he filled it only after heavy pressure from the public and from Congress. 9
• April 2011 – For the first time in American history, Obama urges passage of a non-discrimination law that does not contain hiring protections for religious groups, forcing religious organizations to hire according to federal mandates without regard to the dictates of their own faith, thus eliminating conscience protection in hiring. 10

• August 2011 – The Obama administration releases its new health care rules that override religious conscience protections for medical workers in the areas of abortion and contraception. 11
• November 2011 – Obama opposes inclusion of President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous D-Day Prayer in the WWII Memorial. 12
• November 2011 – Unlike previous presidents, Obama studiously avoids any religious references in his Thanksgiving speech. 13
• December 2011 – The Obama administration denigrates other countries’ religious beliefs as an obstacle to radical homosexual rights. 14
• January 2012 – The Obama administration argues that the First Amendment provides no protection for churches and synagogues in hiring their pastors and rabbis. 15

• February 2012 – The Obama administration forgives student loans in exchange for public service, but announces it will no longer forgive student loans if the public service is related to religion. 16

2. Acts of hostility from the Obama-led military toward people of Biblical faith:
• June 2011 – The Department of Veterans Affairs forbids references to God and Jesus during burial ceremonies at Houston National Cemetery. 17
• August 2011 – The Air Force stops teaching the Just War theory to officers in California because the course is taught by chaplains and is based on a philosophy introduced by St. Augustine in the third century AD – a theory long taught by civilized nations across the world (except America). 18
• September 2011 – Air Force Chief of Staff prohibits commanders from notifying airmen of programs and services available to them from chaplains. 19
• September 2011 – The Army issues guidelines for Walter Reed Medical Center stipulating that “No religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading materials and/or facts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit.” 20
• November 2011 – The Air Force Academy rescinds support for Operation Christmas Child, a program to send holiday gifts to impoverished children across the world, because the program is run by a Christian charity. 21
• November 2011 – The Air Force Academy pays $80,000 to add a Stonehenge-like worship center for pagans, druids, witches and Wiccans. 22
• February 2012 – The U. S. Military Academy at West Point disinvites three star Army general and decorated war hero Lieutenant General William G. (“Jerry”) Boykin (retired) from speaking at an event because he is an outspoken Christian. 23
• February 2012 – The Air Force removes “God” from the patch of Rapid Capabilities Office (the word on the patch was in Latin: Dei). 24 • February 2012 – The Army orders Catholic chaplains not to read a letter to parishioners that their archbishop asked them to read. 25

3. Acts of hostility toward Biblical values: • January 2009 – Obama lifts restrictions on U.S. government funding for groups that provide abortion services or counseling abroad, forcing taxpayers to fund pro-abortion groups that either promote or perform abortions in other nations. 26
• January 2009 – President Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of state asserts that American taxpayers are required to pay for abortions and that limits on abortion funding are unconstitutional. 27
• March 2009 – The Obama administration shut out pro-life groups from attending a White House-sponsored health care summit. 28
• March 2009 – Obama orders taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research. 29
• March 2009 – Obama gave $50 million for the UNFPA, the UN population agency that promotes abortion and works closely with Chinese population control officials who use forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations. 30
• May 2009 – The White House budget eliminates all funding for abstinence-only education and replaces it with “comprehensive” sexual education, repeatedly proven to increase teen pregnancies and abortions. 31 He continues the deletion in subsequent budgets. 32
• May 2009 – Obama officials assemble a terrorism dictionary calling pro-life advocates violent and charging that they use racism in their “criminal” activities. 33
• July 2009 – The Obama administration illegally extends federal benefits to same-sex partners of Foreign Service and Executive Branch employees, in direction violation of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. 34

• September 16, 2009 – The Obama administration appoints as EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum, who asserts that society should “not tolerate” any “private beliefs,” including religious beliefs, if they may negatively affect homosexual “equality.” 35
• July 2010 – The Obama administration uses federal funds in violation of federal law to get Kenya to change its constitution to include abortion. 36
• August 2010 – The Obama administration Cuts funding for 176 abstinence education programs. 37
• September 2010 – The Obama administration tells researchers to ignore a judge’s decision striking down federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. 38
• February 2011 – Obama directs the Justice Department to stop defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act. 39
-• March 2011 – The Obama administration refuses to investigate videos showing Planned Parenthood helping alleged sex traffickers get abortions for victimized underage girls. 40

• July 2011 – Obama allows homosexuals to serve openly in the military, reversing a policy originally instituted by George Washington in March 1778. 41
• September 2011 – The Pentagon directs that military chaplains may perform same-sex marriages at military facilities in violation of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. 42

• October 2011 – The Obama administration eliminates federal grants to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for their extensive programs that aid victims of human trafficking because the Catholic Church is anti-abortion. 43

4. Acts of preferentialism for Islam:
• May 2009 – While Obama does not host any National Day of Prayer event at the White House, he does host White House Iftar dinners in honor of Ramadan. 44
• April 2010 – Christian leader Franklin Graham is disinvited from the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer Event because of complaints from the Muslim community. 45

• April 2010 – The Obama administration requires rewriting of government documents and a change in administration vocabulary to remove terms that are deemed offensive to Muslims, including jihad, jihadists, terrorists, radical Islamic, etc. 46

• August 2010 – Obama speaks with great praise of Islam and condescendingly of Christianity. 47
• August 2010 – Obama went to great lengths to speak out on multiple occasions on behalf of building an Islamic mosque at Ground Zero, while at the same time he was silent about a Christian church being denied permission to rebuild at that location. 48
• 2010 – While every White House traditionally issues hundreds of official proclamations and statements on numerous occasions, this White House avoids traditional Biblical holidays and events but regularly recognizes major Muslim holidays, as evidenced by its 2010 statements on Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha. 49
• October 2011 – Obama’s Muslim advisers block Middle Eastern Christians’ access to the White House. 50
• February 2012 – The Obama administration makes effulgent apologies for Korans being burned by the U. S. military, 51 but when Bibles were burned by the military, numerous reasons were offered why it was the right thing to do. 52

Many of these actions are literally unprecedented – this is the first time they have happened in four centuries of American history. The hostility of President Obama toward Biblical faith and values is without equal from any previous American president.

–Wallbuilders

Posted in Church & State, Obama

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America’s Obama Wounds & the Constitution

Feb 7

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From the Rush Limbaugh program …

RUSH: Hey, here’s a shock from the Associated Press just now, breaking news: “Appeals court rules that California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages is unconstitutional.” Voter-approved. People in California — can you say Prop 187? — have voted again, and an appeals court has said, “Ah, ah, ah, ah, you can’t do that, that’s unconstitutional.” Why even bother to have elections in California? Why even bother to go through this process? This is letting the guys in the black robes decide everything.

We were talking in the last hour about the area of common ground. What do we have to agree with people like Obama and the whole Democrat Party? We don’t. There aren’t any areas of commonality, folks. We have a Democrat Party led by a man whose avowed aim is to change America, transform it. And his biggest impediment is the Constitution. That’s the single biggest obstacle he’s got. I wish I could tell you the biggest obstacle he’s got’s the Republican Party, but sadly that’s not the case. The biggest obstacle Obama has is the Constitution. The Constitution gets in his way.

Grab audio sound bite number 28. Here’s a proud member of this new progressivism, a proud member of the Democrat Party and the American left who think the Constitution here is an obstacle, it’s an impediment. And you know why? Because it doesn’t say what the government can do. The Constitution is a document that empowers citizens. It empowers the individual over the state, and that is despised by people like Obama. That’s despised by most Democrats. It is the state, many doofuses believe an altruistic state, which is to have dominion over citizens. Citizens are a bloc of nameless, faceless robotic parts to be collectively controlled and manipulated and shaped and formed by the altruistic state.

The Constitution has proscriptions against government. The Bill of Rights tells government what it cannot do. Obama and his buddies have a name for this. They say the Constitution is a set, if you will, of negative liberties, negative liberties from the point of view of the government. If you believe government should be all powerful, the Constitution’s your enemy, it’s an impediment. And that’s why Obama, whenever he can, is just ignoring it, such as recess appointments when there are no recesses. Such as telling the Catholic Church and other religious institutions — from the same bunch that runs around and talks about separation of church and state. The only time they care about that is when a religious conservative is about to win office or a religious conservative has a set of values and issues. Then we hear about separation of church and state.

When Obama wants to tell the Catholic Church what it must sell, what it must make available to people, and the things that it must do go counter to every moral underpinning it has, that’s not separation of church and state. No, that’s the church not knowing what’s good for it; that’s the church standing in the way of the state; that’s the church getting in the way of the state doing what it wants to do. And that’s really the root of all this, that obstacle that the Constitution is, is at the root of what Obama’s attempting to do here with the Catholic Church and contraceptives. It must provide abortion education in its schools. It must do these things as part of Obamacare. Obamacare itself, taken as a whole, has as its premise that the Constitution is wrong, that the Constitution’s flawed.

I mentioned this last week. We now have some audio. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the US Supreme Court was on Egyptian TV. She’d never say this on American TV, by the way. Not yet. But on al-Hayat TV, this is what she said to the Egyptians as they put together a constitution and reorganize their country.

GINSBURG: I would not look to the US Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the constitution of South Africa. That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary. It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done.

RUSH: Don’t model whatever you’re doing after the US Constitution. Why not? The greatest document in the history of mankind, preceded of course by the Magna Carta. Why not? Why not? Because, ladies and gentlemen, the Constitution is an impediment to people like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Constitution tells her what she cannot do, and everybody else in government. The Constitution raises up the individual over the state, enshrines the whole notion of the pursuit of happiness, which you may think that’s just a throwaway phrase. That’s normal, everybody wants to pursue happiness, everybody wants to be happy.

When your founding documents mention that that is one of the fundamental aspects of creation, therefore that’s one of the fundamental aspects of our human spirit, the right to pursue happiness, no government shall impede that or get in its way. It is a major reason why this country has become a superpower in so few years, compared to all the other nations that have been on the earth for thousands of years, all the other civilizations. Yes, it’s freedom, but it’s the definition of that freedom vis-a-vis the state. Right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. It is fundamental. There’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She’s speaking for the regime. She’s speaking for Obama. Don’t model it after the US Constitution. No, no, no. There’s not enough about human rights, no basic human rights in the US Constitution.

No basic human rights? That’s another term that’s been bastardized and now means something entirely different from what its true book or definition meaning is. The US Constitution spells out human rights better than they’ve ever been spelled out before. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the ACLU’s top lawyer before she became a justice. They despise the US Constitution. It’s a problem. Obama doesn’t like it. And you know what they’re replacing it with? By the way, we have conversations on this program and we have since this program’s founding. This particular program’s founding was August 1st of 1988. And a lot of people think we live in a democracy. We don’t. We live in a representative republic where theoretically the people have a say in what the government does.

A democracy is pure majority rule, and that’s what Obama is attempting to set up, a pure democracy, no representation, no republic, a pure democracy where the majority runs the show regardless. They couch all this in the need for basic human rights and civil rights. But of course when you look at what they do it’s the denial of all of that and the elevation of the state over the individual who, in their perfect world, would cease to exist. The individual would be part of a conglomerate, faceless, practically nameless, just numerical, numbered robots who are plugged into various places by the state as part of their collective, part of the command-and-control that they, and only they, have the intelligence and the understanding to be able to run.

By the way, this appeals court decision is a Ninth “Circus” Court of Appeals decision, which says that the California vote on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. What is “unconstitutional” about it? It was a California ballot initiative. It was approved. It had the right number of signatures. It passed muster. You can’t get these propositions on the ballot until they pass muster! You can’t get ‘em on and put ‘em up to a vote until they have the right number of certified, authorized signatures. All that was done. The people of California voted to ban same-sex marriage. “The Ninth Circus, in a 2-1 decision, found that Proposition 8 — a 2008 ballot measure that limited marriage to one man and one woman — violated the US Constitution.” Just like they say abortion is legal and constitutional. It isn’t in there! It was found and created in 1973 by judges. It’s not in the Constitution. And now same-sex marriage is said to be constitutional. The Ninth Circus says so. This is the kind of assault on the Constitution and on our culture that’s taking place being sponsored by the American left.

 

Posted in America, Church & State, Marriage, Obama, Socialism, The Left

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Americans Outraged by Obama’s Attack on Religious Freedom

Feb 3

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“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government — lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.” — Patrick Henry


Christians across America – including Arizona – are outraged at President Obama’s mean-spirited attack on religious freedom through an Obamacare mandate.

On Jan. 20 Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, made an announcement shocking for its attack on religious organizations and religious freedom. She said:

“Today the department is announcing that the final rule on preventive health services will ensure that women with health insurance coverage will have access to the full range of the Institute of Medicine’s recommended preventive services, including all FDA-approved forms of contraception.”

This includes contraception – opposed by the Catholic Church – and Plan B drug which induces abortion. The rule goes into effect this August.

Under Obamacare, all employers must provide this coverage or pay a fine. Religious organizations are being given a year to comply.

Colorado Christian University and Belmont Abbey College, North Carolina are already filing lawsuits against HHS over this unconstitutional mandate.

The Phoenix Diocese of the Catholic Church said it will civilly disobey. Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted said in a Jan. 25 letter::

“We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law.”

“Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God-given rights. In generations past, the church has always been able to count on the faithful to stand up and protect her sacred rights and duties. I hope and trust she can count on this generation of Catholics to do the same.”

Chuck Colson, of Breakpoint Ministries, spoke of the greater problem – Obama’s unprecedented attack on religious freedom:

“I’ve told you that the Obama Administration is intentionally restricting religious freedom. I’ve told you we are in danger of losing the right to exercise our faith in public.

“Well, maybe I’ve been too understated. The attack is relentless.

“Every Christian, not just Catholics, should be outraged by the Obama Administration’s decision. The regulations represent a move to define religious liberty in the narrowest possible terms.

“Folks, we’ve got to stand with all Christians and protest the Administration’s outrageous assault on religious liberty. Our religious freedom is in grave peril.”

Rev. Albert Mohler Jr., a Baptist leader, spoke for evangelical Protestants when he said:

“In actuality, the Obama Administration trampled religious liberty under the feet of the leviathan state, forcing religious employers to do what conscience will not allow. Religious organizations such as schools, colleges, and hospitals will be required to pay for services that they believe to be immoral and disobedient to God.

“The edict from President Obama to religious institutions is this — violate conscience and bend the knee to the government, or face the consequences.

“The inclusion of Plan B and other forms of ‘emergency contraception’ raises the stakes considerably, since the issue of abortion is now unavoidable. Will evangelical colleges and institutions now comply with a law we know to be both unjust and unconscionable?”

U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) made an important point when he said the exemptions are not the main point of contention: “The problem is not that religious institutions do not have time enough to comply, It’s that they are forced to comply at all.”

Members of Congress agree.

Earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2012. The bill is designed to repeal the narrow religious exemption included in the federal rule. Arizona’s entire congressional delegation needs to sign on to and pass this bill to put a stop to Obama’s outrageous and unprecedented attack on religious freedom.

Posted in America, Arizona, Church & State, Health Insurance, Life, Obama, Socialism, The Left

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The Truth about Church & State

Apr 23

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The phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the United States Constitution.
 
Anytime religion is mentioned within the confines of government today people cry, “Separation of Church and State”. Many people think this statement appears in the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution and therefore must be strictly enforced. However, the words “separation”, “church”, and “state” do not even appear in the First Amendment, which reads…
 
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” 
 
The statement about a wall of separation between church and state was made in a letter on January 1, 1802, by Thomas Jefferson to a church (the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut). The congregation heard a widespread rumor that the Congregationalists, another denomination, were to become the national religion. This was very alarming to people who knew about religious persecution in England by the state established church. Jefferson made it clear in his letter to the Danbury Congregation that the separation was to be that government would not establish a national religion or dictate to men how to worship God.Jefferson’s letter from which the phrase “separation of church and state” was written to affirm first amendment rights. Jefferson wrote:
I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.
 
The reason Jefferson chose the expression “separation of church and state” was because he was addressing a Baptist congregation; a denomination of which he was not a member. Jefferson wanted to remove all fears that the state would make dictates to the church. He was establishing common ground with the Baptists by borrowing the words of Roger Williams, one of the Baptist’s own prominent preachers. Williams had said:
 
When they have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the Church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the candlestick, and made his garden a wilderness, as at this day. And that therefore if He will eer please to restore His garden and paradise again, it must of necessity be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world…
The “wall” was understood as one-directional; its purpose was to protect the church from the state. The world was not to corrupt the church, yet the church was free to teach the people Biblical values.
 
The American people knew what would happen if the State established the Church like in England. Even though it was not recent history to them, they knew that England went so far as forbidding worship in private homes and sponsoring all church activities and keeping people under strict dictates. They were forced to go to the state established church and do things that were contrary to their conscience. No other churches were allowed, and mandatory attendance of the established church was compelled under the Conventicle Act of 1665. Failure to comply would result in imprisonment and torture.
 
The people did not want freedom FROM religion, but freedom OF religion.
 
The only real reason to separate the church from the state would be to instill a new morality and establish a new system of beliefs. Our founding fathers were God-fearing men who understood that for a country to stand it must have a solid foundation; the Bible was the source of this foundation. They believed that God’s ways were much higher than Man’s ways and held firmly that the Bible was the absolute standard of truth and used the Bible as a source to form our government.
 
Government was never meant to be our master as in a ruthless monarchy or dictatorship. Instead, it was to be our servant. The founding fathers believed that the people have full power to govern themselves and that people chose to give up some of their rights for the general good and the protection of rights. Each person should be self-governed and this is why virtue is so important. Government was meant to serve the people by protecting their liberty and rights, not serve by an enormous amount of social programs. The authors of the Constitution wanted the government to have as little power as possible so that if authority was misused it would not cause as much damage. Yet they wanted government to have enough authority to protect the rights of the people. The worldview at the time of the founding of our government was a view held by the Bible: that Man’s heart is corrupt and if the opportunity to advance oneself at the expense of another arose, more often than not, we would choose to do so. They firmly believed this and that’s why an enormous effort to set up checks and balances took place. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. They wanted to make certain that no man could take away rights given by God. They also did not set up the government as a true democracy, because they believed, as mentioned earlier, Man tends towards wickedness. Just because the majority wants something does not mean that it should be granted, because the majority could easily err. Government was not to be run by whatever the majority wanted but instead by principle, specifically the principles of the Bible.
 
Our U.S. Constitution was founded on Biblical principles and it was the intention of the authors for this to be a Christian nation. The Constitution had 55 people work upon it, of which 52 were evangelical Christians. We can go back in history and look at what the founding fathers wrote to know where they were getting their ideas. This is exactly what two university professors did.Donald Lutz and Charles Hyneman reviewed an estimated 15,000 items with explicit political content printed between 1760 and 1805 and from these items they identified 3,154 references to other sources. The source they most often quoted was the Bible, accounting for 34% of all citations. Sixty percent of all quotes came from men who used the Bible to form their conclusions.That means that 94% of all quotes by the founding fathers were based on the Bible. The founding fathers took ideas from the Bible and incorporated them into our government.

If it was their intention to separate the state and church they would never have taken principles from the Bible and put them into our government. An example of an idea taken from the Bible and then incorporated into our government is found in Isaiah 33:22 which says, “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king…” The founding fathers took this scripture and made three major branches in our government: judicial, legislative, and executive. As mentioned earlier, the founding fathers strongly believed that Man was by nature corrupt and therefore it was necessary to separate the powers of the government. For instance, the President has the power to execute laws but not make them, and Congress has the power to make laws but not to judge the people. The simple principle of checks and balances came from the Bible to protect people from tyranny. The President of the United States is free to influence Congress, although he can not exercise authority over it because they are separated. Since this is true, why should the church not be allowed to influence the state?
 
People have read too much into the phrase “separation of church and state”, which is to be a separation of civil authority from ecclesiastical authority, not moral values. Congress has passed laws that it is illegal to murder and steal, which is the legislation of morality. These standards of morality are found in the Bible. Should we remove them from law because the church should be separated from the state?
 
America’s founding fathers who formed the government also formed the educational system of the day. John Witherspoon did not attend the Constitutional Convention although he was President of New Jersey College in 1768 (known as Princeton since 1896) and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. His influence on the Constitution was far ranging in that he taught nine of fifty-five original delegates. He fought firmly for religious freedom and said…
God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty may be inseparable and that unjust attempts to destroy the one may in the issue tend to the support and establishment of both.
In the 1947 Everson case, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black cited no precedent while running with an ACLU amicus brief to declare “separation of church and state.” He completely misconstrued the meaning of the phrase, which does not appear in law or Constitution. By his own personal bias, Black parroted the atheist line promoted by the ACLU. Since then, media, the courts and educators have incorrectly propagated this myth — at the expense of history, intellectual honesty and freedom.In October 1961 the Supreme Court of the United States removed prayer from schools in a case called Engel v. Vitale. The case said that because the U.S. Constitution prohibits any law respecting an establishment of religion officials of public schools may not compose public prayer even if the prayer is denominationally neutral, and that pupils may choose to remain silent or be excused while the prayer is being recited.
 
For 185 years prayer was allowed in public and the Constitutional Convention itself was opened with prayer. If the founding fathers didn’t want prayer in government why did they pray publicly in official meetings? It is sometimes said that it is permissible to pray in school as long as it is silent. Although, In Omaha, Nebraska, 10-year old James Gierke was prohibited from reading his Bible silently during free time… the boy was forbidden by his teacher to open his Bible at school and was told doing so was against the law.The U.S. Supreme Court with no precedent in any court history said prayer will be removed from school. Yet the Supreme Court in January, 1844 in a case named Vidal v. Girard’s Executors, a school was to be built in which no ecclesiastic, missionary, or minister of any sect whatsoever was to be allowed to even step on the property of the school. They argued over whether a layman could teach or not, but they agreed that, “…there is an obligation to teach what the Bible alone can teach, viz. a pure system of morality.” This has been the precedent throughout 185 years. Although this case is from 1844, it illustrates the point. The prayer in question was not even lengthy or denominationally geared. It was this: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country.”
 
What price have we paid by removing this simple acknowledgment of God’s protecting hand in our lives? Birth rates for unwed girls from 15-19; sexually transmitted diseases among 10-14 year olds; pre-marital sex increased; violent crime; adolescent homicide have all risen considerably since 1961 — even after taking into account population growth. The Bible, before 1961, was used extensively in curriculum. After the Bible was removed, scholastic aptitude test scores dropped considerably.

Posted in Church & State

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