Posted on 08/22/2011 6:16:56 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The hysterical reaction to Republican presidential hopeful Governor Rick Perry’s faith is about as overblown as his home state of Texas is big. Perry is facing a federal lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) — purportedly because Perry prayed publicly for our nation.
America is headed south to a place much hotter than Texas, and you would think national figures offering prayers for the nation would be a source of inspiration. Even still, FFRF filed the lawsuit to prevent the beckoning of blessing from the God of whom this country was founded.
Filing the lawsuit in the Southern District Court of Texas, the FFRF argued the prayer event Perry attended violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Claus. They claimed it could be “harmful or counterproductive as a substitute for reasoned action.” What does that even mean? If you put the collective brain power of the current leadership in Washington into the body of a hummingbird, it would fly backwards, and yet a call to prayer on their behalf is “counterproductive” to reasoned action?
The very concept of separation of church and state is intellectually dishonest and legally indefensible. Even still, activists attempt to two-step their way around the Constitution in hopes to eradicate America’s Judeo-Christian roots and replace them with their own “irreligion.”
The simpler solution would be for groups such as the FFRF to accept the fact that prayer has weaved its way into the moral fiber of America since her inception. British colonists fled to America to escape religious intolerance. The first prayer of the Continental Congress, in 1774, clearly laid out our founders intentions in the words: “O Lord our Heavenly Father…we beseech Thee, on these our American States, who have fled to Thee from the rod of the oppressor…desiring to be henceforth dependent only on Thee. Be Thou present…and direct the councils of this honorable assembly…All this we ask in the name…of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Savior. Amen.”
The Bill of Rights (the first ten Constitutional amendments) was ratified December 15, 1791. Amendment I speaks to the protection from federal interference in the free exercise of religion, speech, and the press, among other freedoms. Although the term “separation of church and state” cannot be found in the Constitution, activists who seem to be about as friendly as fire ants to America’s Judeo-Christian roots borrowed words from and built case law around a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to church leaders in 1802 mentioning “a wall of separation.”
The United States Supreme Court confirmed our nation’s Christian DNA in a unanimous decision February 29, 1892 – that has never been overruled. The court cited various authorities confirming the influence the Bible had on America since its founding. This decision confirmed our founders’ intentions in the Constitution’s First Amendment to protect citizens from a national religion – granting us freedom of religion – not freedom from religion.
The court ruled: “There is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all having one meaning: they affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation. These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons; they are organic utterances; they speak the voice of the entire group. These authorities were collected to support the historical conclusion that no purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or nation, because this is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation…we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth…this is a Christian nation…”
Eric Bearse, spokesman for the Texas prayer gathering Perry attended said they “expected this kind of legal harassment, but the right of Americans to assemble and pray has been established for over 200 years.” While 200 years of precedence has never stopped Progressives before, it seems there may be a more obvious reason why the man, Perry, who has a campaign winning streak ten elections long, is feared: John Sharp, a 1998 lieutenant governor opponent to Perry summed it up when he said, “Running against Perry is like running against God.”
Sharp and Perry were at TX A&M together, with history as friends, competitors, "enemies" and now friends again.
Rick Perry started as a Democrat in West Texas (that was THE only party). He served in the Texas legislature - was known as one of the "pit bulls," conservative members who sat in the lower pit of the House Appropriations Committee and bitterly fought spending increases.
Perry changed parties in 1989, joining Phil Gramm and other conservative Texas Democrats, who now had a true ideological party with a burgeoning Texas GOP.
When Perry campaigned for Lt. Gov. [1998], he and his campagin staff were in it to win and his hard-nosed style was against the "friendly" advice and request of GWB and Rove to run easy against Sharp, a popular democrat (and Aggie friend of Perry's from their A&M years together). Rove wanted to broaden Bush's base for his upcoming White House run. Perry told them where to stick their advice, because he knew the voters would vote for Bush and then cross back over and vote for Sharp (D) if he just walked through the motions like the Bush-Rove team asked him to do.
Perry won the seat for Lt. Gov. -- the first GOP elected to that office since reconstruction. Now 13 years later and into his 3rd term as Texas governor, the GOP holds a super majority. So Perry has earned his conservative spurs -- fighting both parties!
[The Bushes and Rove supported Kay Bailey Hutchison's 2010 primary challenge against Gov. Perry this last election too--which he won and then went on to win the general election]
Crap like this will only help Perry. A lot of people, who are NOT “religious” respect Christian people who have convictions and who pray, because they have a praying grandma or mama.
Sorry about my proof reading — correction:
“When you’re running against Perry, you better bring your lunch.” — John Sharp (D) who will be TX A&M’s new chancellor (with Rick Perry’s blessing).
Get over it.
It’s a good retort to the Left who hate any religion but “the continuance of Them.”
OF the current crop...I am a Perryphile! There are a lot of factions out there who are aiming to shoot him down. Just read that the lawyers are gonna go after him because of the Texas Tort Reform.
Keeping my fingers crossed.
Did you see Kinky on Imus? He has just about convinced Imus to be pro Perry! Great video exchange.
bookmark
Its time the majority of Americans who follow Judaeo-Christian religious beliefs - the vast majority of Americans - DEMAND that OUR rights be recognized and that fringe lunatics like these atheist groups and those liberal churches who support them be stopped cold.
America was founded on Judaeo-Christian principles. The overwhelming number of Founders were Christians and those few who were not, were Jewish.
There is a whole corpus of law going back to America's Founding which substantiates this viewpoint, and which modern day revisionist attorneys and judges are attempting to re-write.
The Founders believed we had basic rights that came directly from God - their view of God - and not from the state. As such, only God had the ability to revoke those basic rights, not the state. If modern day statists succeed in undermining the concept of a Judaeo-Christian America, they will have succeeded in undermining the very premise upon which our individual rights are based.
Read “Original Intent”.
Thanks for the LINK!
I never would have heard that.
It was SUPER good!
Ending with — gays and tequila...... loved it.
I think a lot of people see this ZULU and why we’re going to see an epic election in 2012.
Kinky is a decent guy.
good info on perry as a democrat.
the socialists on tv are using perry’s former democrat affiliation
without explaining why he shifted to the republican party.
The MSM isn’t going to let on but I have a feeling (strong feeling and I bet they do to) that there will be large numbers of Democrats voting for Perry.
Not only is he going to have Tea Party and “establishment” GOP votes and Independents, he’s going to pull in conservative democrats too.
agree.
there was an article here on free republic the other day
about an oregon liberal u.s. congressional representative
who was bemoaning obama’s downfall and saying that
oregon could go republican.
there’s a pervasive angst among the business class. my dentist says we’re in deep do-do.
countless stories of people who have lost well-paying careers with no hope of regaining them.
etc.
The Left will work that angle until Perry wins the election and then all of a sudden the "conservative" side of his democrat history will be "discovered." Right now the MSM must depress as much GOP primary movement toward Rick Perry as possible.
I see Perry taking California.
Crazy? Maybe. But maybe not so much.
I think they've had their fill and know they're doomed if someone doesn't pull them out of their death spiral. And Perry will keep pushing the right buttons. He just made a big statement about a "moratorium" on regulations (one of his main tenants, which includes "fair and predictable tax and regulatory policy" -- as well as his aggressive (and successful) push against lawyers and lawsuits) which should play BIG in CA!!
"US Historical Documents"
"WHEN it was first perceived, in early times, that no middle course for America remained between unlimited submission to a foreign legislature and a total independence of its claims, men of reflection were less apprehensive of danger from the formidable power of fleets and armies they must determine to resist than from those contests and dissensions which would certainly arise concerning the forms of government to be instituted over the whole and over the parts of this extensive country. Relying, however, on the purity of their intentions, the justice of their cause, and the integrity and intelligence of the people, under an overruling Providence which had so signally protected this country from the first, the representatives of this nation, then consisting of little more than half its present number, not only broke to pieces the chains which were forging and the rod of iron that was lifted up, but frankly cut asunder the ties which had bound them, and launched into an ocean of uncertainty.
"The zeal and ardor of the people during the Revolutionary war, supplying the place of government, commanded a degree of order sufficient at least for the temporary preservation of society. The Confederation which was early felt to be necessary was prepared from the models of the Batavian and Helvetic confederacies, the only examples which remain with any detail and precision in history, and certainly the only ones which the people at large had ever considered. But reflecting on the striking difference in so many particulars between this country and those where a courier may go from the seat of government to the frontier in a single day, it was then certainly foreseen by some who assisted in Congress at the formation of it that it could not be durable.
"Negligence of its regulations, inattention to its recommendations, if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals but in States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequences universal languor, jealousies and rivalries of States, decline of navigation and commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures, universal fall in the value of lands and their produce, contempt of public and private faith, loss of consideration and credit with foreign nations, and at length in discontents, animosities, combinations, partial conventions, and insurrection, threatening some great national calamity.
"In this dangerous crisis the people of America were not abandoned by their usual good sense, presence of mind, resolution, or integrity. Measures were pursued to concert a plan to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. The public disquisitions, discussions, and deliberations issued in the present happy Constitution of Government.
"Employed in the service of my country abroad during the whole course of these transactions, I first saw the Constitution of the United States in a foreign country. Irritated by no literary altercation, animated by no public debate, heated by no party animosity, I read it with great satisfaction, as the result of good heads prompted by good hearts, as an experiment better adapted to the genius, character, situation, and relations of this nation and country than any which had ever been proposed or suggested. In its general principles and great outlines it was conformable to such a system of government as I had ever most esteemed, and in some States, my own native State in particular, had contributed to establish. Claiming a right of suffrage, in common with my fellow-citizens, in the adoption or rejection of a constitution which was to rule me and my posterity, as well as them and theirs, I did not hesitate to express my approbation of it on all occasions, in public and in private. It was not then, nor has been since, any objection to it in my mind that the Executive and Senate were not more permanent. Nor have I ever entertained a thought of promoting any alteration in it but such as the people themselves, in the course of their experience, should see and feel to be necessary or expedient, and by their representatives in Congress and the State legislatures, according to the Constitution itself, adopt and ordain.
"Returning to the bosom of my country after a painful separation from it for ten years, I had the honor to be elected to a station under the new order of things, and I have repeatedly laid myself under the most serious obligations to support the Constitution. The operation of it has equaled the most sanguine expectations of its friends, and from an habitual attention to it, satisfaction in its administration, and delight in its effects upon the peace, order, prosperity, and happiness of the nation I have acquired an habitual attachment to it and veneration for it. What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?
"There may be little solidity in an ancient idea that congregations of men into cities and nations are the most pleasing objects in the sight of superior intelligences, but this is very certain, that to a benevolent human mind there can be no spectacle presented by any nation more pleasing, more noble, majestic, or august, than an assembly like that which has so often been seen in this and the other Chamber of Congress, of a Government in which the Executive authority, as well as that of all the branches of the Legislature, are exercised by citizens selected at regular periods by their neighbors to make and execute laws for the general good. Can anything essential, anything more than mere ornament and decoration, be added to this by robes and diamonds? Can authority be more amiable and respectable when it descends from accidents or institutions established in remote antiquity than when it springs fresh from the hearts and judgments of an honest and enlightened people? For it is the people only that are represented. It is their power and majesty that is reflected, and only for their good, in every legitimate government, under whatever form it may appear. The existence of such a government as ours for any length of time is a full proof of a general dissemination of knowledge and virtue throughout the whole body of the people. And what object or consideration more pleasing than this can be presented to the human mind? If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information, and benevolence.
"In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. If an election is to be determined by a majority of a single vote, and that can be procured by a party through artifice or corruption, the Government may be the choice of a party for its own ends, not of the nation for the national good. If that solitary suffrage can be obtained by foreign nations by flattery or menaces, by fraud or violence, by terror, intrigue, or venality, the Government may not be the choice of the American people, but of foreign nations. It may be foreign nations who govern us, and not we, the people, who govern ourselves; and candid men will acknowledge that in such cases choice would have little advantage to boast of over lot or chance.
"Such is the amiable and interesting system of government (and such are some of the abuses to which it may be exposed) which the people of America have exhibited to the admiration and anxiety of the wise and virtuous of all nations for eight years under the administration of a citizen who, by a long course of great actions, regulated by prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, conducting a people inspired with the same virtues and animated with the same ardent patriotism and love of liberty to independence and peace, to increasing wealth and unexampled prosperity, has merited the gratitude of his fellow-citizens, commanded the highest praises of foreign nations, and secured immortal glory with posterity.
"In that retirement which is his [Washington] voluntary choice may he long live to enjoy the delicious recollection of his services, the gratitude of mankind, the happy fruits of them to himself and the world, which are daily increasing, and that splendid prospect of the future fortunes of this country which is opening from year to year. His name may be still a rampart, and the knowledge that he lives a bulwark, against all open or secret enemies of his country's peace. This example has been recommended to the imitation of his successors by both Houses of Congress and by the voice of the legislatures and the people throughout the nation.
"On this subject it might become me better to be silent or to speak with diffidence; but as something may be expected, the occasion, I hope, will be admitted as an apology if I venture to say that if a preference, upon principle, of a free republican government, formed upon long and serious reflection, after a diligent and impartial inquiry after truth; if an attachment to the Constitution of the United States, and a conscientious determination to support it until it shall be altered by the judgments and wishes of the people, expressed in the mode prescribed in it; if a respectful attention to the constitutions of the individual States and a constant caution and delicacy toward the State governments; if an equal and impartial regard to the rights, interest, honor, and happiness of all the States in the Union, without preference or regard to a northern or southern, an eastern or western, position, their various political opinions on unessential points or their personal attachments; if a love of virtuous men of all parties and denominations; if a love of science and letters and a wish to patronize every rational effort to encourage schools, colleges, universities, academies, and every institution for propagating knowledge, virtue, and religion among all classes of the people, not only for their benign influence on the happiness of life in all its stages and classes, and of society in all its forms, but as the only means of preserving our Constitution from its natural enemies, the spirit of sophistry, the spirit of party, the spirit of intrigue, the profligacy of corruption, and the pestilence of foreign influence, which is the angel of destruction to elective governments; if a love of equal laws, of justice, and humanity in the interior administration; if an inclination to improve agriculture, commerce, and manufacturers for necessity, convenience, and defense; if a spirit of equity and humanity toward the aboriginal nations of America, and a disposition to meliorate their condition by inclining them to be more friendly to us, and our citizens to be more friendly to them; if an inflexible determination to maintain peace and inviolable faith with all nations, and that system of neutrality and impartiality among the belligerent powers of Europe which has been adopted by this Government and so solemnly sanctioned by both Houses of Congress and applauded by the legislatures of the States and the public opinion, until it shall be otherwise ordained by Congress; if a personal esteem for the French nation, formed in a residence of seven years chiefly among them, and a sincere desire to preserve the friendship which has been so much for the honor and interest of both nations; if, while the conscious honor and integrity of the people of America and the internal sentiment of their own power and energies must be preserved, an earnest endeavor to investigate every just cause and remove every colorable pretense of complaint; if an intention to pursue by amicable negotiation a reparation for the injuries that have been committed on the commerce of our fellow-citizens by whatever nation, and if success can not be obtained, to lay the facts before the Legislature, that they may consider what further measures the honor and interest of the Government and its constituents demand; if a resolution to do justice as far as may depend upon me, at all times and to all nations, and maintain peace, friendship, and benevolence with all the world; if an unshaken confidence in the honor, spirit, and resources of the American people, on which I have so often hazarded my all and never been deceived; if elevated ideas of the high destinies of this country and of my own duties toward it, founded on a knowledge of the moral principles and intellectual improvements of the people deeply engraven on my mind in early life, and not obscured but exalted by experience and age; and, with humble reverence, I feel it to be my duty to add, if a veneration for the religion of a people who profess and call themselves Christians, and a fixed resolution to consider a decent respect for Christianity among the best recommendations for the public service, can enable me in any degree to comply with your wishes, it shall be my strenuous endeavor that this sagacious injunction of the two Houses shall not be without effect.
"With this great example before me, with the sense and spirit, the faith and honor, the duty and interest, of the same American people pledged to support the Constitution of the United States, I entertain no doubt of its continuance in all its energy, and my mind is prepared without hesitation to lay myself under the most solemn obligations to support it to the utmost of my power.
"And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of Order, the Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages of the world of virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its Government and give it all possible success and duration consistent with the ends of His providence."
When I read these amazing documents, it pains me to think how stupid we are and how the education of our citizens has taken a nose dive. It’s criminal.
READ! We must get people to READ!
Thanks for posting John Adam’s words. It’s a joy to read something so full of passion, intelligence and clarity.
great post, as usual.
except for this:
“Its time for all people of faith to put their differences aside and draw a line in the sand.”
Islam in it’s own scripture, declares war on all others.
I wish Perry was MORE outspoken in his Faith.
i wish he had told that child, who asked him how old the earth was, the truth. instead of being “political”.
(Palin PROUDLY admits she is a creationist in her book,
instead of hiding it.)
and i would HAPPILY support Perry,
if he hadn’t praised Islam and quoted from the Quran approvingly, passed a HALAL meat bill for animals sacrificed in the name of Allah, etc.
As will be very clear in Egypt and Libya, in a few months,
we need a President who UNDERSTANDS Islam is evil,
not a “religon of peace”.
instead of a President who helped build Gulen Islamist schools in TEXAS with taxpayer money.
****** June 29, 2011: ...."Perry wrote in a letter dated Wednesday, “According to numerous recent media reports, American citizens and organizations, together with a coalition of violent anti-Israeli organizations from other countries, have organized efforts to breach Israel’s Maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip as early as this week.”
He continued, “The act of funding, supporting, organizing and engaging in these efforts appears to constitute participation in a naval expedition against a people with whom the United States is at peace,” as well as material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization and other violations.
Perry said at least two of the ships are registered in Delaware, including one named “The Audacity of Hope,” which was the title of President Barack Obama’s second book.
The letter concludes, “I respectfully request that the U.S. Department of Justice take immediate steps to investigate, enjoin and bring to justice all parties found to be in violation of U.S. law by their participation in these efforts.” Source
Seventeen (17) things that critics are saying about Rick Perry (a #18 is there to address your Muslim concerns)
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