I wonder what our founding fathers and those who fought and died for America would think now. They believed in America’s greatness: through its freedoms, by checks and balances on power and unwavering commitment to strong Judeo-Christian values. They were willing to die for “faith, hope and the American way.”
The sad truth is their heirs have squandered that inheritance. We have embraced socialism maintaining only a facade of democracy. We have surrendered our freedoms without a shot being fired. The constitution has been replaced by whatever the ruling class deigns.
Most Americans falsely believe that our founding documents enshrine a doctrine separating church and state. The Establishment Clause actually prohibits the government from creating a state religion, yet it is establishing a religion of radical secularism. The Free Exercise clause prohibits government meddling in religion, yet it does exactly that by restricting any such exercise in the public sphere. It wasn’t always this way.
Now God is a threat to be managed in the new order. As with past socialist regimes, one approach is to rewrite history or in this case, the Declaration of Independence. Our president habitually omits the words “endowed by their Creator” when quoting it on the source of all truth.
A new tact was unveiled this week – co-opting God. God once again exists (sometimes), but now is called upon to shower His blessings upon those murdering the most defenseless among us. This, done on a scale far exceeding anything the Nazis ever thought of. Our president has jumped from denial of God to unabashed, in-your-face blasphemy.
This heralds a new and more aggressive attack on religious freedom. As Robert Royal explains in his piece yesterday, the direction is doubling down on big government’s prohibition against actually living your faith (as illustrated by the HHS mandates). The new attack demonizes you for simply having your faith. From Royal’s article at The Catholic Thing:
Many things happen in modern societies that render a decent human being all but speechless. So many, in fact, that sometimes it seems the better part simply to let them pass and to move on. That seems to be what has already happened with President Obama’s outrageous speech just three days ago to Planned Parenthood – the first such speech by a sitting president in American history. But it must not be allowed to pass or be forgotten. Not for a moment.
It’s not just the historical precedent that’s worrisome, bad as that is in a country deeply divided over abortion. It’s the way the President of the United States has settled into describing all those Americans – more than half of the population, if recent surveys are to be believed – who call themselves pro-life and act on their belief as threatening “basic rights when it comes to women’s health.” He has used similar language on multiple occasions in defending the HHS mandates.
The president may not regard this as “demonizing opponents,” something he professes to abhor. Way back when the powers at Notre Dame were still innocent enough to invite Obama to receive an honorary degree – which is to say, before the university had to join other institutions, Catholic and not, in a lawsuit to defend themselves from Obamacare – he said:
Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause. . . .the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.
It sounded nice, but I myself did not believe he meant it then. And now, it’s even clearer. One slice of American citizens regards the rest of us as the functional equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan. Who else would dream of denying others “basic rights”? By using this sort of inflammatory language and pushing it hard on wedge issues – Obama and others use it increasingly on gay “marriage” as well – he may be gaining brownie points in certain places, but he is sowing discord in the body politic. Remember when there weren’t red states and blue states, only the United States?
The Catholic bishops and anyone else worried over religious liberty should not take this latest development lightly. You can live with a person you think mistaken on one or more issues, who is essentially of good will. You cannot tolerate the Ku Klux Klan.
Read the whole article Coming Soon: The KKKatholic Church.
UPDATE: Some of you gentle readers, may think all of this is “over-the-top”. I respectfully submit for your consideration this breaking news item: Obama administration may court-martial the act of sharing the Christian faith… INCLUDING CHAPLAINS.
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