Obamacare's Threats to Religious Freedom

When the Framers were putting together the Constitution in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, they knew the states would not adopt it without written guarantees that the new central government would respect natural rights. The supporters of the Constitution promised political leaders in the states that the written guarantees would soon be added as amendments, and they were. By late 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified and added to the new Constitution.

The purpose of the Bill of Rights was to assure all in America that their natural rights—areas of human choices for which a permission slip from the government cannot be required and in which the government cannot coerce compliance with its wishes —would not be impaired by the federal government. Since the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the natural rights protected in the Bill of Rights generally have been insulated from interference by the states, as well.

All natural rights are of paramount importance to all persons. They are individualized personal gifts from the Creator and have been recognized as such in American law since Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed with them by Him.

One of those rights guarantees the free exercise of religion. Indeed, the Free Exercise Clause in the First Amendment was written to ensure that the new government could not coerce persons to behave differently than their religious views informed their consciences or punish them for not conforming to a government-mandated religious orthodoxy. Generally, for almost 230 years, the federal government left us alone to choose freely our religious practices and to worship as we believe. Until now.

Rear Admiral Lee Addresses Restrictive Regulations on Religious liberty

May 7, 2013

Over the last several days we’ve watched the Pentagon double timing in their efforts to get ahead of the fallout from the April 23rd meeting between anti-Christian activist Mikey Weinstein and senior Air Force officials. In the meeting, discussion surrounded a forthcoming Air Force policy on religious expression that Lt. Gen. Richard C. Harding said “will be a panacea to all religious issues.” Many in the Christian community have sought to make sense of the Pentagon’s confusing statements this past week — particularly the most troubling line: that “religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense.” Coercion has always been prohibited. But another Air Force statement said “members are free to express their personal beliefs as long as it does not make others uncomfortable.” Uncomfortable is obviously subjective. The Pentagon later claimed that evangelism is not included in their definition of proselytization.

However, a well-respected Rear Admiral as well as an avalanche of recent attacks on religious liberty in the uniformed services completely contradict the official line put out by the Pentagon. Yesterday, video was released of the speech given by Coast Guard Rear Admiral William Lee at the National Day of Prayer service on Capitol Hill. The Admiral boldly declared that he had disregarded the rules and gave a Bible to a service member who had attempted suicide. He went further and pledged not to abide by the restrictive regulations. To a standing ovation, Admiral Lee promised not to back down from “my right under the Constitution to tell a young man that there is hope.”

After listening to his speech and reading the steady stream of reports about suppression of religious expression, I don’t see how one can dismiss these concerns as rising from some kind of conspiracy theory being pushed by Christian groups. In reality, the concerns stated by Christians in the military are the result of an environment of increasing religious hostility that has been created by restrictive regulations at the behest of activists like Mikey Weinstein. Several weeks ago, Defense Secretary Hagel was grilled about them in a Congressional hearing — but said he knew nothing about it. A conspiracy? No. An environment created by Mikey Weinstein’s influence over military regulations and compliant leaders? Yes.

Urge Pentagon to scrub plan to court-martial Christians.
Sign the Petition! Go to: http://bit.ly/12e5B6u

Video courtesy of GOD TV & the National Day of Prayer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXPtXPJLnJY

Urge Pentagon to scrub plan to court-martial Christians.
Sign the Petition! Go to: http://bit.ly/12e5B6u

Nations Obituary

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the
University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the
Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: “A democracy is always
temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent
form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until
the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous
gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority
always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from
the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally
collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a
dictatorship.”

“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the
beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200
years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.”
The Obituary follows:

Born 1776, Died 2012
It doesn’t hurt to read this several times.
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in
St. Paul , Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning
the last Presidential election:

Number of States won by: Obama: 19 Romney: 29
Square miles of land won by: Obama: 580,000 Romney: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million Romney: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Obama: 13.2 Romney: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: “In aggregate, the map of the territory
Romney won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens
of the country.

Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low
income tenements and living off various forms of government
welfare...”

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the
“complacency and apathy” phase of Professor Tyler’s definition of
democracy, with some forty percent of the nation’s population
already having reached the “governmental dependency” phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million
criminal invaders called illegals - and they vote - then we can say
goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

It is a BIG LIE to claim that the 1st amendment possesses two OPPOSING “clauses” respecting the treatment of religion. The framers believed that the church was GOOD & made people moral & law-abiding, as necessary pre-requisite to limited government & rule of law-—WHICH requires citizens to be “law-abiding”. That’s why Karl Marx hated religion & compared it to “opium” in its effect on “the People”, ie, religious people aren’t quick to disobey laws, steal, cheat , kill & bear false witness against their neighbors —ie, what commie revolution requires to implement “change”
Framers believed in a free & independent church & a free & independent press as a check & balance against government power—to keep the People informed & moral.
There was NO NEED to have a clause forbidding a national church because the Constitution did not enumerate the national government with the power to set one up. Without a grant of power to the national government to set up a national church, they couldn’t set one up——not because the first amendment forbids it. At the time the Constitution was ratified, there WERE official state churches! Madison’s argument basically was “let’s avoid debating which church should be the national church, because somebody will be disappointed & will not ratify this darned thing...so let’s just leave it to the states so that’s one less thing to fight about.” (It was in this same spirit that the compromise about how to count the slaves in the Census was made-—as slave states wanted to count them. but the free states did not want to count them at all...so they resolved to partially count them)
There is only ONE COGENT THOUGHT in the first amendment , respecting religion & the church—and that one thought is “freedom of the CHURCH”.
“an establishment of religion” means “a CHURCH or other place of worship”. Madison used the terms “an establishment of religion” & “a religious establishment” interchangeably in his writings to mean “a CHURCH”. It’s important to note that Madison did NOT say “the establishment of religion”, but instead , he said “AN establishment of religion” to mean “church”.
In modern language, what Madison said was “Congress shall make no law having to do with a CHURCH or other place of worship—or prohibiting the free exercise of these religious establishments”. This was not meant to be two opposing “clauses” but one long sentence reinforcing the same idea-—ie freedom of the CHURCH from interference from the new national government. You don’t guarantee free exercise unless you think that religion is GOOD.
It simply is NOT true that the first amendment protects us “from” religion, but only protects “freedom of conscience”. Government does not & cannot read our minds.
People know what we think only if we tell them by using written or spoken words. Freedom of “speech” protects the spoken word, whereas freedom of the “press” protects the published/printed/written word—thus it protects our thoughts & beliefs. Freedom of the CHURCH means something different—and churches also have freedom of speech & press as a “right” along with everybody else. You don’t lose your right to speech and press just because you cross the threshold into a church..... and government does NOT have any right to tax a church as punishment for free speech or press or tell a church it cannot endorse any candidate. If newspapers& individuals may endorse candidates or causes—so may a religious leader endorse candidates or causes or call for moral laws.
The Church has no coercive power; we live under the secular law made with checks & balances by people we elect to make such laws. There is no reason for government to protect us from churches & certainly no reason why protections FROM religion would be put into a bill of individual rights! The secular law protects us from each other. The Constitution protects us from the government by enumerating individual rights & limiting government powers. The Constitution is the law that the national government must obey, not the law that the national government can use on behalf of the press or politicians to push church/religious influence into a closet.
When the press argues against letting churches speak or influence politics—it’s because the press has a conflict of interests in trying to limit the influence of the church over hearts & minds so that it may have more influence. But the Constitution protects ‘freedom of the CHURCH” every bit as much as it protects “freedom of the PRESS”. It meant for the CHURCH to have an influence on people & politics & law-making. ALL laws “impose morality”. Even a simple speeding ticket imposes morality.
Instead of worrying about churches & religion, we should be worried about judges voting to grant courts unconstitutional powers—including allowing judges the power to decide how much power judges & courts have over other branches of government, which includes judges illegal AMENDING state & national constitutions. It’s one thing for a court to over-turn a marriage law...but another thing to illegally amend the Constitution to create a constitutional right to same sex marriage based on twisting the idea of ‘equal protection of the laws”. Why don’t courts say that different tax brackets violates ‘equal protection”? You’ll never see a liberal court strike down tax brackets or define “rich” or decide where the tax brackets should be!
Lawmakers get away with writing ex post facto laws, Bills of attainder, denying bail to people such as George Zimmerman—a married man with a job who wasn’t any “flight risk”.....allowing something such as the “endangered species act” to supercede & supplant laws made by every Congress & president after that law was passed, etc—thus letting 1970s lawmakers govern long after they’ve left office!
We don’t need to be protected from nuns with guns...we need protection equally from each other & from government infringing on our true rights. Nobody knows what we believe unless we tell them—& nobody has any power to make us believe something we don’t believe. People are free to ignore preachers & not go to church on Saturday or Sunday. But if voters want Christmas as a national holiday because most people are Christian in the U.S. it does NOT violate the Constitution to have that national holiday, just because some people are against it—just like some people are against any & all laws or holidays.
The Constitution is NOT “neutral” about churches & religion. PERIOD! You guarantee “free exercise” of theCHURCH because you believe that churches & religion are GOOD & necessary for a “free” society!

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