Republican Wacko Should Resign Now

This is going to be a nasty article and some of you won’t like it. I don’t care. I’m finding myself really pissed off at the retard who will be representing our side in the Missouri Senate Primary. His name is Todd Akin and he seemed pretty decent until his dogma shut down his brain. He needs to resign.

Akin was asked this weekend during a television interview about his view on whether or not abortion should be allowed in the case of rape. His answer was this:

“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

By which he meant that victims rarely get pregnant from “legitimate rapes.” He then stated that he thinks abortion should be banned in the case of rape.

Uh... f*ck you.

First of all, what is a legitimate rape? And what kind of piece of sh*t would believe that rape comes in degrees of legitimacy? I hate the word “insensitive,” but I can’t imagine a better use for it than the way Akin just smeared rape victims. This is so reminiscent of Texas gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams, who obnoxiously said about the rain: “It’s a lot like rape. As long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”

That a human being would utter either of these statements is frankly incomprehensible to me. How f*cked up do you need to be to believe that only certain rapes matter or that rape is something women should enjoy? Where does the Republican Party keep finding these sex-obsessed troglodytes?

Secondly, what is this crap that somehow the female body “has ways to shut the whole thing down”? Where does this medical quackery come from? If a doctor said this, they would lose their medical license for incompetence. If a teenager said this, we would laugh at them for being stupid. Yet here a grown “man” says this? This is dogma, this is not science. This is a man who believes in witchcraft, who sees women as unclean deceivers, and who fears the atheists under his bed. This is not a man whose judgment can be trusted. This is the kind of crap which gives Christians a bad name.

Akin, of course, apologized for this obscenity, but this is one of those moments where you can’t un-ring a bell. We now know what he believes, and this is not a man I would want near any female I knew and I sure as heck don’t want him in a position to represent my side of the aisle on women’s issues. He is unfit and needs to resign.

And let me say, this is exactly why young professional women will never vote Republican, but that’s not even what bothers me here. What bothers me is that a man with a Fourteenth Century understanding of sexual relations could be chosen to serve in the United States Senate. He needs to resign. If he doesn’t, I will support McCaskill.

Conservatives need to rid themselves of these people.

And while I’m at it, let me say that if you believe women should be forced to carry children to term when they’ve been raped, then you are wrong. There is no legal or moral justification for your position. You are suggesting sexual slavery. You are suggesting that you have the right to victimize these women every single day until they give birth because you think your religion tells you to use the force of law to control others. You are wrong.

UPDATED: It is now being reported that Akin will resign. Good. But there's one more bit to add to the story. The mouth-breathers at the Family Research Council have been giving strong support to Akin throughout the day. Their president Tony Perkins claims this is nothing more than an attempt to distract from the record of that unclean woman Claire McCaskill and Satan’s workshop at Planned Parenthood. Pathetic. Seriously, if you don't see the problem with this, then there is something wrong with you.

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This Is The Day Which The Lord Gaea Hath Made

The town of Steubenville, Ohio is the latest victim of the ban on Christian symbols in any monument, public space, or official document. One of Steubenville's most visible landmarks is the Franciscan University's Christ the King Chapel. Naturally, the church has a very visible cross. But the actual cross is not what the secularists were complaining about. Their beef was with the city's official seal which depicted the chapel, complete with cross.

The Steubenville city fathers caved in, and removed the offending pictorial cross from the city seal and stationery. The Freedom From Religion Foundation had complained that the historical depiction of the chapel and cross on the city's official logo was oppressive and exclusionary. Their exact words are: “Steubenville is a theocracy and is a Christian city where non-Christians are not favored citizens. The city may not depict the university chapel and cross, because to do so places the city's imprimatur behind Christianity. This excludes non-Christians and violates the Constitution.” Steubenville officials had attempted to argue, quite logically, that the depiction was historical and that the Christian nature of the depiction was secondary and insignificant. But they were shouted down, and that argument has met with mixed success nationwide.

The anti-Christians would undoubtedly like to remove the cross from the physical chapel itself, but since it is on private land owned by the Catholic Church, that isn't going to happen for a few years yet. The secularist removal of all things Christian has been a slow but growing movement, with more success than it deserves. So far, they have succeeded in removing clearly Christian symbols and monuments from land which is indisputably public land. Their success in removing even historical depictions of Christian landmarks on public documents is still in its early stages.

California has, of course, led the way in the attacks on Christian symbols appearing in anything official from the cities and counties. The depiction of an historical California mission on the official logo of the City of Los Angeles was altered to remove the cross. But it was a very small depiction on the logo to start with, so it wasn't immediately obvious to anyone viewing the change. The change in the prominent depiction in the seal of the County of Los Angeles is much more apparent.

As you can see from the illustration of the old seal, one section contains a stylized depiction of the Hollywood Bowl with a cross and two stars above it. The Hollywood Bowl had been the site of California's largest gathering of Christians for Easter sunrise services (non-denominational, but definitely Christian) for over eighty years. Times change, and in 2010, the services were canceled for lack of financial support. But the successful attack on the depiction on the County seal had begun far earlier than that.

In 2004, the ACLU took up the cause of the secularists and filed suit against the depiction of the cross on the seal. Historical preservationists argued that it could be replaced by a depiction of an historic Los Angeles Catholic mission (either San Gabriel or San Fernando) complete with cross as an integral part of the depiction of the building. What they finally got was a stylized depiction of a California mission building with no cross. Note the unidentifiable old Spanish-era building which replaced the stylized Hollywood Bowl and cross.

OK, at least they got rid of all that “religious stuff,” right? Well, not exactly. Who is that figure, prominently illustrated in the center of both the old and new county seals? A local Indian girl bringing food to the Catholic settlers? A young farmer's daughter showing off her abundant wares derived from the farmlands of Southern California? Nope. It is a depiction of the Roman Goddess Pomona, the symbol of fertility and abundant crops. If that ain't religion, what is it? But you can rest easy. Pagan gods are no threat to freedom from religion. Only oppressive Christians are a danger which must be eliminated. Note that the Hollywood Bowl (with two stars but no cross) was moved up a spot. So something had to go. They removed the politically-incorrect depiction of an oil well, in a county where the gasoline-fueled internal combustion engine is king.

The introductory illustration (top of the page) is the Mt. Soledad Memorial Cross. It came under attack in the 90s. There has been litigation ever since. Located in San Diego, the cross was erected as a tribute to fallen soldiers. In fact it was first constructed in 1913 by veterans and was called “The Veterans Memorial.” Non-Christians managed to live their lives in the shadow of the memorial for nearly eighty years before anti-Christian forces determined that the cross was an official government endorsement of oppressive Christianity.

Seeing the writing on the wall, the City of San Diego sold the property to the private non-profit Mt. Soledad Memorial Association in 1998 which converted the land to a specifically Korean War memorial. That wasn't good enough for the ACLU, which complained that the land wasn't offered for public sale to all comers. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, and the case went to the United States Supreme Court which just recently refused to hear the case. Negotiations are still ongoing based on the Ninth Circuit findings, but the cross is in serious danger of being removed permanently to satisfy the tender sensibilities of the non-religious. The Supreme Court might yet have to rule one way or the other, since its ruling (per Justice Scalia) was that negotiations subject to the Ninth Circuit ruling were still in process, and therefore the case was not yet ripe for a full Supreme Court hearing.

A somewhat different result occurred up north in San Francisco. The Mt. Davidson cross was first erected in 1923 on the highest point in San Francisco. It was destroyed and rebuilt, bigger each time, until it became the tallest free-standing cross in America. The land was originally owned by the prominent Sutro family, but was deeded over to the city after the first cross was erected for “public purposes.” It is lighted one day a year—Easter. The first lighting occurred when President Franklin D. Roosevelt threw a “golden switch” in Washington, DC.

But Christian oppression symbolized on public land is a no-no according to the ACLU, the American Jewish Congress, and the omnipresent Americans United for Separation of Church and State. As the lawsuits proceeded, the unthinkable happened. Proposition F was placed on the San Francisco ballot demanding retention of the cross. 68% (yes, you read that right) of the San Francisco population voted to retain the cross and to complete the pending sale of the cross and adjacent land to the Armenian-American Council of Organizations of Northern California. This time, unlike San Diego, it worked, because the city had put up the land for open bids, all comers. The Ninth Circuit confirmed the legitimacy of the sale. The Armenians purchased the cross and the land to convert it to a memorial to Armenians massacred in Turkey. Needless to say, the Turkish community was not happy.

Even the California deserts are not immune. A small cross on a low hill in the Mojave Desert was erected on private land in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. In 1994, the land became part of the Mojave National Preserve and it was time for the lawsuits to begin. It got very silly. At one point, a wooden structure was built around the cross to prevent the sensitive from viewing it while the litigation was pending. That same year, Congress recognized the ongoing attack on historical but religious symbols on public land, and created the Land Transfer Act, designed to grant more land elsewhere in exchange for private ownership of less land where the historical/religious item was located.

Naturally, the ACLU and its anti-religious allies filed suit to stop the land transfer back to the VFW and to void the Land Transfer Act. Their argument was that even after transferring the land to a private organization, its presence in the midst of federal land “implied” government ownership. Even liberal Justice Elena Kagan found that argument specious, and voted with four other justices to uphold the Act and allow the cross to remain. The Court ruled that destruction of historical but religious objects versus historical preservation had created a “dilemma” which the Land Transfer Act solved.

So, it's win a few, lose a few. And here endeth the lesson for Sunday, August 5, 2012 AD (in the year of our Lord).

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Everything's Up To Date In San Francisco

They've gone about as fer as they can go. OK, so that was originally "Kansas City," but it seemed to fit. And before you ask, that sign wasn't seen in front of a Chick-fil-A restaurant (if you can't read it, click on it to enlarge it). Still, those pesky Catholics just don't seem to get it. St. Nancy Pelosi has frequently announced the Catholic view of gay marriage, but the Pope and the curia just keep on disagreeing with her. When will the Catholic leaders wise up?

Not any time soon, apparently. Pope Benedict XVI has just appointed Bishop Salvatore J. Cordileone as Archbishop of the San Francisco diocese. Cordileone (whose name translated means "Sal the Lion Heart"), currently chairs the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Subcommittee on the Defense and Promotion of Marriage. Outside of California, he is largely known for his defiant stand on Obamacare mandates. Inside California, he is known for his active support for Proposition 8, the traditional marriage amendment that is being considered at the United States Supreme Court.

Undoubtedly, St. Nancy must be having the vapors. How could the Pope appoint a new archbishop for San Francisco who is so out-of-sync with the crypto-Catholic views of the Pelosians? Recently, Cordileone took a strong stance against the Pelosi/Obama moves to gut the Defense of Marriage Act. For that, he has predictably been denounced as supporting a view of gay rights "that is akin to racism." Well, what traditional conservative or religious point of view hasn't been called racism?

Cordileone gave a nod to his Christian allies recently by saying: "If you take marriage apart, everything comes unraveled. It's been frayed at the edges, and now moving more and more toward the center. But you take marriage out, it all comes unraveled. It all comes tumbling down. And again, the evangelicals, they understand that. They understand this is an attack of the Evil One at the core institution." That produced a Pelosi reaction which countered that the Bishop had gone too far. "The Evil One." What an archaic belief. Still, there are those of us who believe that Satan is the great liar, and the greatest lie he tells is that he doesn't exist. But we aren't Pelosians.

I'm beginning to like the sound of that. The Pelosian Heresy. Hmmmm. Well, never mind, we have to move on. Like so many religious opponents of gay marriage, Cordileone has been denounced as a hater of gays and lesbians. They can't cite a single instance of his ever having said or done anything approaching that, but the current fashion is to equate opposition to gay marriage with hatred of gays. His stance on gay marriage is strictly theological and practical, without any venom for the participants in the ceremonies. For instance, “How well we as a society protect and promote marriage and the family is the measure of how well we stand for the inviolable dignity and good of every individual in our society, without exception. The consequences for our future—especially that of our nation’s children—cannot be greater and must not be ignored.”

In his letter to the Judiciary Committee considering the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Cordileone wrote: "Children have a 'fundamental human right' to a mother and father and redefining marriage would lead to attacks on the religious liberty on those who defend traditional marriage." One can take the position that same-sex parents can provide the same nurture as opposite-sex parents (and many have). But where's the alleged hatred for gays?

Says Cordileone: "In places where marriage’s core meaning has been altered through legal action, officials are beginning to target for punishment those believers and churches that refuse to adapt,” said Cordileone. Any non-conforming conduct and even expressions of disagreement, based simply on support for marriage as understood since time immemorial, are wrongly being treated as if they harmed society, and somehow constituted a form of evil equal to racism." And he's correct. Canadian and Australian courts have already punished pastors who refused to perform gay marriages. One in England was put on probation on the condition that he never again preach any "hateful" Biblical sermon on homosexuality without first submitting it to a government panel for approval or disapproval.

Can't happen here? Bet me! Look at how First Amendment religious freedom is already being entirely ignored by the Obama administration in its promotion of Obamacare birth-control mandates. This administration and liberal courts all over the country believe that nebulous "human rights" trump religious freedom every time.

During the Proposition 8 campaign, the main religious target was the Mormon Church. They are still a relatively small minority in the former Golden State, and it was easier to attack them as homophobes than to attack the large number of evangelicals and Catholics who had taken very public stands in favor of traditional marriage. The thing is that several prominent Mormons put big bucks into the pro-Prop 8 campaign, and they were easy to isolate and defame.

So how does Cordileone actually feel about gays and their relationship to the Catholic Church? Here's a sample: “I think the challenge for us in the church is to help people who are in a situation of sexual orientations where they feel alienated from the church and sometimes experience it very directly. We need to learn, continue to learn, how to be welcoming, let them know that we love them and we want to help them, and that our stand for marriage is not against anyone but its because we believe this is foundational for the good of our society. “ Pretty hateful, huh?

I don't see the new archbishop excommunicating St. Nancy for her views on marriage and abortion any time soon the way a couple of bishops have denied communion to certain prominent Kennedy family members. But I'd love to see it, personally, in the cathedral. And I'm not even Catholic.

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Running Around Like Liberals With Their Heads Cut Off

Not that long ago, I had never heard of Chick-fil-A. If San Francisco has one of their restaurants, it's news to me. But now that the radical left (usually posing as the "gay community") has decided that the owners of Chick-fil-A are dangerous bigots, I thought I might look into it.

Oh, the horror of it all. The company was founded in the South by a family of good old-fashioned Southern Christians. Churchgoers all, they believe in observing the day which the Lord hath made, and despite losing one day in seven of business, the restaurants are closed on Sundays so the family and all their employees can attend church. How primitive! They are also not particularly shy about expressing their personal Christian views and values, but do not make that an integral part of their business operations. Most of that didn't cause them much negative publicity.

Then they made the big mistake. In response to a question from an interviewer doing a piece on the history and growth of the company, the CEO of Chick-fil-A, Dan T. Cathy, did the unthinkable. He voiced his opposition to the liberal cause du jour. Cathy stated that his company (basically, his family) doesn't accept the concept of gay marriage. In no time at all, The New York Times and all its fellow-travelers in the mainstream media denounced the family, the company and the restaurants as homophobic. Great indignation and threats of boycotts immediately followed as the liberals discovered that the Cathy family is violently opposed to all things gay and beautiful.

What did Cathy say that so incensed the uber-tolerant left? "As it relates to society in general, I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.'" I've heard much stronger messages being thundered from Baptist pulpits, but it doesn't leave a lot of doubt as to how the Cathys feel about gay marriage. And so what?

What The Times and the leftist claque missed was what else Cathy had to say. "We do not discriminate against gays. We would never refuse service to a gay person. We appreciate their business, and welcome their patronage. We would never deny employment to a person because he is gay." That tolerance is not returned by the ever-incensed left and gay lobby. "Shut 'em down." Democrats in cities dominated by leftists who are doing their best to bring down Western civilization are looking into current Chick-fil-A business permits and are determined to prevent any future growth of the company in their oh-so-tolerant cities.

For expressing the family's personal and religious opposition to gay marriage, the left has decided to act as if the Cathys and Chick-fil-A are using their profits (which are considerable) to fund some sort of gay holocaust. Thinking that opposing gay marriage is tantamount to wanting all gay people dead, big city Democratic leaders nationwide have condemned the mote in the Cathys' eyes. They simply will not tolerate intolerance (is that some sort of internal inconsistency?). Begone, Chick-fil-A, and take your Bibles and scriptures with you!

Mayors in several of the nation's biggest cities have spoken out against Chick-fil-A, but the biggest irony comes from Chicago's mayor, Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel indignantly stated that Chick-fil-A does not reflect "Chicago values." One can only hope he's right. Chicago values seem to include rapidly-rising murder rates, crony socialism, and thoroughly dishonest politics. Still, Emanuel has an ally that he recently welcomed to town. Calypso Louis Farrakhan has brought his Nation of Islam shock troops to Chicago to stop the violence.

Emanuel welcomed Farrakhan and condemned Chick-fil-A all on the same day. How his head didn't explode is beyond me. The Cathys welcome gays, but oppose gay marriage. Farrakhan espouses a strange and cultish but fundamentalist Islamic view of gays and gay marriage. Farrakhan's best plan for gay marriage is to burn down the church in which the marriage is being performed, preferably with the groom-groom or bride-bride couple inside along with all those tolerant congregants supporting them. But hey, Farrakhan's black, so it's important to overlook his slightly eccentric views.

From a personal point of view, the only chicken I really like is the deep-fried kind, preferably with grease dripping down my arms as I savor the crispy skin and internal tenderness of a drumstick. That's not what Chick-fil-A serves. Theirs is basically a healthy menu of baked chicken and chicken sandwiches. Their waffle fries are not quite so healthy, but who cares? On Wednesday last, I had an appointment in Bakersfield, so I went out of my way to see if there might be a Chick-fil-A in the area. Sonofagun, there was one just three blocks from my appointment. I very purposefully decided to have lunch there.

For those of you who haven't tried Chick-fil-A, I highly recommend it. It's not elegant, it's just plain good food, nicely-packaged, and pleasantly served. And more than that, I am hoping that many of you are intolerant of intolerance (there we go again). Former Governor (and presidential candidate) Mike Huckabee is promoting August 1 as "Eat at Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day." It's a counter-demonstration well worth participating in. You will be supporting free speech and freedom of religion by doing so, and you don't have to oppose gay marriage to see the correctness of it.

I'm not Mike Huckabee's biggest fan by any means. Nor am I a fan of his co-sponsor of the counter-boycott, Rick Santorum. But since the Huffington Post has declared that Mike Huckabee is "not necessarily a good ally for Chick-fil-A," I will temporarily suspend my lack of enthusiasm for him.

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The Wall Comes A'Tumbling Down

At last, we have a major liberal declaring that the wall of separation between church and state is a misreading of the Constitution and historically incorrect. Following in the footsteps of Chief Justice Roberts who declared a mandate a tax, this constitutional liberal scholar declares that political issues are moral issues. And where better to look for moral guidance than the churches? She even said so from the pulpit. And who is this mystery liberal? None other than First Lady Michelle Obama.

Appearing in the role of lay pastor at the African Methodist Episcopal Church's forty-ninth general conference in Memphis, Michelle told the gathering: “To anyone who says that church is no place to talk about political issues, you tell them there is no place better—no place better. Because ultimately, these are not just political issues, they are moral issues.”

Aside from specifically endorsing political candidates or ballot measures, many of us conservatives have been saying the same thing for decades. We have been called “religious zealots” and “fascists” for doing so. But when Michelle speaks, the sheeple listen. And let's face it, Michelle wasn't talking about moral issues, she was talking about following Barack Hussein Obama, the self-appointed messiah. That takes the moral ground out from under her argument and turns it into the very politicization of religion that the Founders actually intended to prevent when they instituted both secular government and freedom of religion.

Says Bill Donahue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights: “Michelle Obama followed in the footsteps of her husband yesterday when she called for the politicization of religion.” In the spirit of “if you can't lick 'em, join 'em,” Donahue went on to say: “Since the Obamas have taken the gloves off—in effect calling for Americans not to be restrained by separation of church and state legalisms—others should follow suit. I hope that the bishops, priests, evangelical ministers, and the orthodox members of all religions are taking note.” Amen, Brother!

Neither Donahue nor I call for the pulpits to become political forums. But quite simply, religion has a major role in our political lives. It was the churches of the 1800s that led the people toward the eradication of that great stain on American freedom—slavery. It was the churches of the mid-1900s that fostered the Civil Rights movement, eliminating de jure segregation of the races and culminating in the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education. We are simply saying that for most Americans, moral and religious issues are intertwined, and speaking of them in church is a perfectly valid constitutional exercise. If an issue which contains moral and religious ramifications is preached from the pulpit seems to favor or disfavor a candidate or party, so be it.

Obamacare is a perfect example of what we mean, and what Michelle doesn't mean. The Catholic Church (and my own Missouri Synod Lutheran Church) have declared the mandate/tax/penalty which requires religious institutions to participate in birth control measures such as abortifacients to be an absolute violation of religious freedom. Though it has not yet come to it, they are suggesting future civil disobedience, just as their predecessors did with slavery and segregation. They would be crossing the line by saying “defeat Obama” or "vote for Candidate X because he will vote against Obamacare.” But raising the issue is a religious imperative that leaves the congregants to draw their own conclusions using their own individual consciences.

What Michelle wants from the pulpit is “Vote for my husband. He's black, he's beautiful, and he knows what's best for you because he is in personal contact with the deity. Do this in remembrance of him, and ye shall be saved.” Of course there's that little matter of the Obamas' marriage and twenty years of faithful attendance at a church where Barack's pastor and mentor boomed from the pulpit: “No, no, no. God damn America.” Somehow, I don't think that Michelle's understanding of religion and politics is the same as mine. How about you?

I'll be around during the Fourth of July week holding down the fort while Andrew takes a mini-vacation. When you're not too full of hot dogs and hamburgers, and after your barbecue fire has safely died down, come and join me.


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God Loves Criminals, Satan Doesn’t (Quasi-Open Thread, Vent Away Folks)

According to a new study, people who believe in Heaven commit more crimes than people who don’t. But people who believe in Hell commit fewer crimes than nonbelievers. Interestingly, this proves conservatism right. Read on. . .

This study was done by two professors at the University of Oregon and the University of Kansas. They studied data collected by the World and European Values Surveys conducted between 1981 and 2007 from 67 countries. This included 143,197 respondents.

After standardizing the crime rates in each country, the study authors came to the conclusion that people with a professed belief in Heaven and Hell had different crime rates. Specifically, they found that those who believe in Hell committed fewer crimes than average people, but those who believe in “a loving God” committed more crimes than average people.

So what does this tell us? Well, it tells us that liberals misunderstand human nature. Liberals believe that human nature can be changed by education, i.e. encouraging people to be better. But if that were true, then this study would have turned out differently. Think about it. This study isolated true believers from the rest of the population. Those people, presumably, are most susceptible to changing their behavior based on encouragement/ education because they believe that God has told them the way, and they believe he is offering them a reward for acting appropriately. Yet, not only did they not prove to be more law abiding, they actually proved to be more likely to commit crimes. That is the exact opposite of what liberal beliefs would predict. And if God can’t make true believers change their minds, then what chance does the government have changing minds?

Now look at the other group. This was the group which feared punishment. Through their belief in Hell, they were presented with the idea that if they did not behave, they would be punished. This resulted in a decrease in crimes. This is what conservatives have long advocated -- that human nature cannot be changed, but it can be controlled by providing negative consequences for misbehavior.

Putting this together tells us that it is hopeless to try to change human nature, but that human nature can be controlled. However, the only incentive which will result in such control is fear of punishment -- offering a reward will actually have the opposite effect. This flies in the face of liberalism, which claims that punishment is not effective, that only rewards can change behavior, and that human nature can be changed but, contradictorily, people are powerless to control their impulses.

As for why offering a reward would have the opposite effect, I suspect that anyone offering a reward is seen as unlikely to punish you. Indeed, if God will forgive you, then you really don’t need to worry about changing, do you? It’s the same way with the government. When a legal system only wants to reform you, it sends out the message that there is no longer any need to fear punishment and you can live as you wish. Ditto with an over-indulgent parent spoiling a child or a permissive boss losing control of the company. When there is no fear of a negative consequence, people take advantage of that.

So what all of this tells us is that liberalism reads human nature wrong in all areas (soft on crime, consequence free handouts, the elimination of shame, permissive child rearing), and not only will liberal policies fail, but they will make things worse by sending the wrong message.

But then, you knew that already.

OT: We're on ObamaCare and Holder contempt watch today. We highly recommend that everyone get some Tea and Birthday cake (Happy Birthdays T-Rav and tryanmax) and wait for the good news! And if tea isn't your thing, then prepare a Commentarama-tini! Bev will provide the recipes.

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Final Blow To Secularism In Turkey?

I doubt that any of our readers have failed to notice that secular Turkey, a longtime American ally, is being swept up in the Islamist cause along with the rest of the Middle East. Relations with the United States have been chilling over the past decade, and the pattern has accelerated rapidly since the Arab Spring began. Now one of the major symbols of secular tolerance may be about to fall.

Hagia Sophia, once the greatest cathedral in all of Christendom, may very well be facing the possibility of becoming a megamosque. Built in Constantinople (modern Istanbul), the cathedral remained in Christian hands until 1453, at which time the conquering Ottoman Turks finally succeeded in bringing down the walls of Byzantium and brought Islam into the cathedral. Christian priests were tossed out or killed, and many of the Christian relics and icons were destroyed.

In the aftermath of the death of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, a secularist/modernist movement led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk took the reins of Turkish government. Among the many reforms taken by Ataturk was the de-Islamisation of the official government. One of his acts, though not formalized until 1934, was to remove all worship, Muslim or Christian, from Hagia Sophia. By converting the great mosque, which had been switched from Christian worship by the Ottomans, he turned a great national symbol from a religious battleground into a national museum, visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists every year.

The building became a national symbol of the secularist, tolerant Turkish government for most of the remainder of the 20th Century. Sadly, over the past few years, secularism has become less palatable to religious Turks. Starting awhile back, the government began to abandon secularism in favor of increasing intrusion of Islamic law into the high elected offices. Though a republic, Turkey is rapidly becoming an Islamic Republic (which is somewhat of an oxymoron).

The remains of Arabic words and symbols have long been highly-visible on the walls of Hagia Sophia, but those Chrisitan symbols, paintings and icons which were still in existence at the time of Ataturk have been preserved. And though worship inside the building has long been strictly forbidden, the museum has until recently been thought of as a Christian historical center under Islamic domination.

That may all change in the near future. The first signs of unrest over the status of Hagia Sophia appeared in 2006 when Pope Benedict had planned a visit there. Though the historical Christian remnants are under the control of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (Eastern Orthodox Christian Church), radical Muslims saw the proposed visit by the Pope (head of the western Roman Catholic Church) as the first move in a Christian attempt to re-take the cathedral. The Pope bravely made the visit anyway, but he was greeted with general animosity including signs which read “Pope get out of Turkey.”

Now we have the earliest and largest demonstrations demanding the “proper” use of the building by Islamists. As reported by Reuters: “ Thousands of devout Muslims prayed outside Turkey’s historic Hagia Sophia museum on Saturday [May 23] to protest a 1934 law that bars religious services at the former church and mosque. Worshippers shouted, 'Break the chains, let Hagia Sophia Mosque open,' and 'God is great' [the notorious 'Allahu Akbar'] before kneeling in prayer as tourists looked on.”

While Christians are being murdered wholesale and churches burned to the ground with the congregants inside in other Middle East and northern African nations by Islamic militants, even such a moderate thing as a Christian historical museum is intolerable to the new generation of Muslim fanatics. Even though Turkey is semi-officially Islamic at this point, there still must be none of this Western tolerance in an Islamic Republic. While Muslims plan a megamosque in London and another at Ground Zero in New York City, the reverse must not be allowed anywhere in Jihadistan.

This one-sided tolerance is best explained by Salih Turhan, a spokesman for the re-conversion group which wants to turn Hagia Sophia back into a mosque. “Keeping Hagia Sophia Mosque closed is an insult to our mostly Muslim population of 75 million.” He doesn’t explain why mosques in the West overlooking the Houses of Parliament and within a block of the site of the mass murder of 3,000 New Yorkers and innocent visitors is not an insult to humanity.

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Sister Nancy Explains It All

Well, it’s Sunday, and time for our Catholic instruction from Sister Nancy Pelosi. You see, forty-three Catholic institutions, including several Catholic bishops and archdioceses are suing the Obama administration over its mandate covering sterilization, contraception and abortifacients. But they are wrong, and Sister Nancy explains why.

Speaking of the Pope, cardinals, archbishops and dioceses, Sister Nancy says: “Well, I don’t think that’s the entire Catholic Church. Those people have a right to sue, but I don’t think they’re speaking ex cathedra for the Catholic Church.” The best she could come up with for why all the Catholic bishops weren’t involved was “and there are people in the Catholic Church, including some of the bishops, who have suggested that some of this may be premature.” Well, we know she certainly thinks so, and no doubt there are other Catholics equally hesitant. She didn’t name the bishops who agree with her.

Technically, of course, she is correct. Ex cathedra refers to matters of faith and morals which the Pope has spoken on directly. The rest of the Catholic clergy may pass this message on, but it does derive from the Pope alone. However, Sister Nancy fails to notice that Popes don’t involve themselves in American lawsuits or directly address American law.

The Catholic clergy and laymen involved in the lawsuits are concerned with the law and the Constitution (neither of which Sister Nancy has read). But they did not come at this on their own. Catholic doctrine, as announced by the Pope is that sterilization, artificial contraception and abortion are morally and theologically wrong. The Catholic clergy and laymen who have filed the suits are doing nothing more than addressing American law as it affects Catholic religious doctrine and First Amendment religious protections. The Pope didn’t tell them to file lawsuits, but he did tell them what Catholics should see as right or wrong.

So after telling the world that the cardinals, archbishops, and bishops are wrong on theology (no trifling matter for a practicing Catholic), Sister Nancy then went on to tell reporters asking her pointed questions: “You know what? I do my religion on Sunday in church, and I try to go other days of the week, I don’t do it at this press conference.” Then why did you call the conference, Sister? It seems that the adorable Sister Nancy thinks press conferences are designed for her to make ex cathedra announcements without having to explain anything to anyone.

I know I’m treading on thin ice here, but as a Lutheran, I still think the proper understanding of Catholic doctrine is that the Pope is infallible on decisions of faith and morals. Sister Nancy is not, and therefore has some ‘splaining to do.

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My Advice To Social Conservatives

I said last week that social conservatives have not done a great job winning over the public on social issues. There are some minor advances here and there, but for every advance there is full retreat in some other area. I think a change of strategy is called for on all fronts.

Let me start with three broad principles:

● Principle One: It’s time to get rational about the goals social conservatives want to achieve and how to achieve them. This means putting an end to pie-in-the-sky ideas like constitutional amendments to force change. Not only is that easily lampooned in light of the conservative claim to states’ rights, but it’s pointless because there is simply no way to get any constitutional amendment through the Congress and then passed by enough states. It is impossible, and talking about it wastes time and diverts resources from better causes. Moreover, talking about changing the constitution, scares the public, who will automatically see this as extreme and dangerous. So drop the idea of trying to solve everything with one shot and learn the art of incrementalism, i.e. achieving your goal little by little. This isn’t sexy, but it’s the only effective way to achieve controversial goals under our system.

● Principle Two: Drop the harsh rhetoric. The fiery pulpit speeches may work well in church, but the public sees them differently. To the public, they are evidence that social conservatives are hateful people who can’t deal with the modern world and who want to judge everyone else. This is a self-inflicted wound.

● Principle Three: You can’t win with religion-based arguments. Those simply don’t work with the modern public because the vast majority of the public doesn’t see the Bible as the thing which runs their day-to-day lives. Indeed, while 90% of the public claims to believe in God, only 40% claim to go to church “regularly” (there is reason to believe the real number is closer to 20%). And even of those who go, there is a disconnect between what the churches teach and how people live their lives -- the classic example of this are Catholics, who love the Pope, but ignore his rules. And even then, different denominations and different religions have different views about what their religion tells them, e.g. some accept gay marriage, some don’t. So premising arguments on religion is a bad start because you lose most of your audience. Moreover, in making these arguments, social conservatives end up bypassing the stronger arguments they should be making.

Ok, now let’s look at specific policies.

● Abortion: Abortion is an area where social conservatives are largely doing it right because they’ve adopted incrementalism. In the 1980s and early 1990s, abortion opponents kept looking for the home run, and it never came. It wasn’t until they learned to take the issue step by step that they began to make progress. The goal right now should be to entirely eliminate public funding, which is what keeps the abortion lobby alive, and to impose restrictions which the public will find reasonable.

One thing that needs to be dropped is this ridiculous idea of extending 14th Amendment rights to fetuses. Not only does this scare people, and thus is counterproductive, but it cannot pass, and it is almost the classic example of unintended consequences. Give fetuses rights and they can sue pregnant women if they don’t stop smoking or drinking or otherwise fail to follow doctor’s orders. This is a Pandora’s box of legal insanity which liberal interest groups will gleefully use to invade families. Think twice people.

● Gays: The gay marriage battle is lost. Yes, it won’t gain any more support in conservative states for the moment, but this issue is inevitable because the younger public really doesn’t see gays as a threat. Indeed, gays have pretty much proven there is nothing to fear from gay marriage. So so-cons better find proof fast to refute this.

A better strategy would be to switch over to a religious freedom argument. Right now, social conservatives have let themselves by placed on the wrong side of the gay marriage debate because gays have argued they are the ones seeking “freedom.” The reality is they have freedom and they are really seeking to use government power to impose their beliefs on others. But so-cons aren’t arguing that. Instead, they talk about “morality,” which is a loser. What they need to do is argue the religious freedom aspect, i.e. that gays are seeking to take away freedom by forcing others to accept them. Americans always vote for whoever is offering the greater freedom, so-cons need to learn to explain this better.

I also recommend giving serious thought to getting the government out of the marriage business entirely, as I discussed HERE.

● Drugs: Social conservatives are losing the drug war, particularly marijuana, because they’ve adopted the wrong argument. They’re arguing that drugs are bad for you/society. But that’s a nanny state argument. And indeed, the pro-pot people have merely had to argue that pot isn’t that bad to slowly win over a near-majority. The better argument involves civil freedoms. If we allow people to take drugs, then we either need to change negligence laws dramatically (in ways people really won’t like), or we will end up imposing huge costs on employers, employees and the economy because of the need for widespread drug testing. Why? Because any company that makes any product or provides any service which can injury someone (i.e. any company) will need to take steps to ensure that their workers are not high when they are working. That means widespread drug testing of everyone with a job. Right now the argument is “should the government be allowed to stop Person X from smoking pot at home.” But the argument should be, “are YOU willing to undergo constant drug testing to protect your employer from lawsuits just because the government decides to legalize drugs for the few who want it?” That’s a very different matter. I’ve discussed this HERE.

● Religious Freedom: This one’s a can of worms. A lot of social conservatives are going down a very dangerous path with the idea of religious freedom laws. Specifically, they are pushing bills which prohibit employers from stopping employees from engaging in religious practices or wearing religious items, e.g. crucifixes. This should send up huge red flags for conservatives. For one thing, conservatives have opposed employment-discrimination-based lawsuits almost across the board when it comes to gays, blacks, women and disability. Why make an exception for religion? Shouldn’t a private employer be entitled to impose whatever restrictions they want on the people they pay to be their employees? Can’t the employees just go elsewhere if they don’t like it?

Further, there is an obvious flaw here which social conservatives are overlooking because they tend to equate the word “religion” with their brand of Christianity: our Constitution doesn’t allow discrimination amongst religions. Thus, if you give people absolute power to act out their religious beliefs at work, that would include things like the wearing of the Islamic veil or separation of men and women, the handling of snakes, the smoking of peyote and whatever other crazy ideas these fringe religions can dream up.

This also applies to things like prayer in schools. If you seek legislation to allow that nice Protestant Principal to say a prayer each morning, except that your kids may also find themselves forced to sit through an Islamic prayer or Buddhist ritual or even an atheist’s speech. Unless you want other religions forced upon you and your children, it is best to always keep in mind that any new power you give yourself can be used by others as well.

Frankly, the best bet here is to vote with your feet and your wallets. Don’t support businesses which are hostile to your religious beliefs. Do support friendly ones. Stop seeing movies, watching television shows, or buy videogames with bad messages in them. Use the power of boycott. Send your kids to religious schools and volunteer to make sure those schools are the best (a shining example). In this regard, support legislation which lets federal money follow the students to whatever schools they choose -- trust people to make the right choices rather than trying to use the government to force the right choices upon them. Remember, you have to win people over, you can’t force them to believe what you want them to believe.

The big takeaway here is that social conservatives need to learn to speak to people who don’t share their religious beliefs -- framing things in religious terms simply will not work for anyone who doesn’t agree with your religious beliefs. They need to learn that a thousand small victories are better than the false hopes of complete victory in fell swoop. And they need to think more about the unintended consequences of the policies they propose and they need to realize that others will get to use the same powers they create in the law.

Thoughts?


P.S. Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site.
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Where’s Howard Beale When We Need Him?

ABC, CBS, and NBC all recently had breathless stories about Mitt Romney performing an unwanted haircut on a boy forty-seven years ago. There were “news” stories galore on the nets and their affiliates, and a few editorial comments besides. But when forty-three Catholic dioceses filed lawsuits against Obamacare on May 21, the silence was deafening.

After months of pleas, negotiations, meetings and conferences, the Catholic Church got absolutely no cooperation from the Obama administration on religious exemptions from Obamacare for religious institutions which oppose abortion and birth control. Unless an Obamacrat is passing out condoms during mass or performing an abortion on the altar, the administration’s position is that the government’s activity cannot be thwarted by the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom.

Religious hospitals, church-sponsored insurance companies (there are more than you might think), homeless and women’s shelters (even on church grounds) and church schools are not religious activities which should be allowed exemptions from the Obamacare mandates, according to the administration. The official position of the Catholic Church is, and has long been, that artificial birth control violates church doctrine. Along with that, traditional Catholics and a great many Protestants oppose abortion in any form, including abortifacients.

Nevertheless, the administration says that only sermons and activities within the church worship facilities are proper subjects for exemption. No matter how intimately the church-sponsored activity is tied to its religious base, if it takes place outside the sanctuary, it is not a religious activity. This leaves the church hospital, for instance with two options—either cure all disease through Vatican-sanctioned exorcism, or participate in the government’s insurance program. The third option is to seek redress in court, which is the actual subject of this article.

Regardless of which side a news reporter might come down on, it is still extremely big news when forty-three Catholic dioceses file suit in federal courts on the same day. But when big news conflicts with the networks’ officially unofficial love affair with Barack Obama, out come the blinders. On the night that the lawsuits were filed, ABC and NBC made zero comment about them during their national news segments. CBS gave the subject nineteen seconds. And in that brief nineteen seconds, CBS framed the issue as a “contraception lawsuit” with no mention of either religious conscience objections or the First Amendment right of the free exercise of religion.

It should also be noted that leading clerics in the Catholic Church, along with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and some evangelical leaders have declared that they will go to jail rather than comply with the birth control/abortifacient mandates of Obamacare. These lawsuits reflect a much deeper commitment to religious belief than the birth-control and abortion zealots in the Obama administration were expecting. These are not nuisance suits that can be dealt with by a quick payoff or a federal jobs program. The nets would like to report that they are nuisance suits, but then they would be required to discuss the actual issue, which might get their viewers thinking. Better to ignore it.

So what was more interesting than the church lawsuits that would require spiking the religious news in favor of something “more important?” ABC gave three and a half minutes to the sentencing of the Rutgers student who posted photos of his unsuspecting roommate having gay sex, which resulted in a suicide. CBS and NBC both ran lengthy stories about prostate cancer screening, including the reasons why Medicare shouldn’t routinely cover the screening. NBC did a big feature piece on the “ring of fire” solar eclipse.

Fortunately, the big three networks are fading as fast as their counterparts in the print media. Dan Rather’s “fake but true” story about George W. Bush was probably the swan song for network news anchors. People who were once considered nearly sacrosanct are now regularly taken with a grain of salt by a doubting public that has access to cable news and the internet. People watching the national network portion of the news are outnumbered by those who wait for the late affiliate news to see what’s going on locally.

I wish the Catholic Church every success in court, and I pray for a really hot place in hell for the Obama News Corps (that’s pronounced “core” even though network news is pretty close to being a corpse).

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On Good Friday, God Bless The USA

I want to observe one of the most significant days in the Christian calendar with three negatives and one positive. We know that religion of all stripes is under attack by the forces of secularism, faith-hate, and Marxist-Leninism. The only religion given a free pass by the left and the mainstream media (a combination of birds-of-a-feather and outright fear) is Islam.

Satan must be laughing with delight (hat tip to Don McLean).

First up—School Bans Singing of God Bless the USA. This song was first recorded by Lee Greenwood in 1984. It was a hit on the country stations, but got little notice from the rest of music fandom until it was re-released as a message of hope and defiance shortly after 9/11. One school in Massachusetts has gone through three transformations regarding the song which was planned for a program at the school before the Easter break (well, the Spring break). First, the forces of political-correctness caused the administration to require that the word “God” be dropped from the performance. Then, when that wasn’t enough to satisfy the religion-haters, it was dropped from the program entirely rather than risking causing an atheist or Muslim to suffer irreparable emotional distress.

The most recent news (which I have not yet confirmed) says that there was a third transformation. Apparently, there was such an outcry from traditional American parents about removing the song (not to mention God) from the program, that the school reinstated the song, but made it optional for students to sing or not sing the forbidden “G” word. Whatever the final result, it’s a lesson that we must remember. God is under attack by evil forces. But more importantly, good people without the courage of their convictions will cave nearly instantaneously to a demand that even a tangential reference to God be removed from the public’s hearing.

Second—Alleged Christian Barack Obama spoke to an Easter prayer breakfast attended by largely revisionist namby-pamby pastors and liberation theologists and announced his firm belief that “Jesus is a son of god.” Well, Obama is a son of a bitch. There are many sons of bitches, but there is only one Son of God. Sadly, even well thought-out modern English versions of John 3:16 have come to read: “. . . that he gave his son.” The King James version has it right: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Members of the Catholic and traditional Protestant Churches proclaim that we are all children of God. But they also know the distinction between us mere mortals and the Christ. In both the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds, these Christians recite “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father . . . begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.”

But if you expect the highly-dubious Christian Obama to understand or believe that fundamental creed, you will be sorely disappointed. Most of all, Obama must weaken traditional Christianity and throw in universalist beliefs in order to maintain his position as a messiah in his own right. Christ isn’t the Son of God. He can’t be, or Obama has competition for deity.

Finally, there is my favorite mentally and morally deficient Senator. He’s the one keeping a hold on the proposal in the Senate to override Messiah Obama’s ban on placing a plaque containing FDR’s D-Day prayer on the World War II memorial. His name—Al Franken, grinning geek and sort-of elected junior Senator from Minnesota. Joining with his colleague, an openly homosexual activist in the House, Franken has used procedural rules to prevent the proposal from ever coming to a vote. Our fallen heroes are insulted, a prayer by the President of the United States is banned, and Christ remains crucified.

So, for the uplifting message, instead of my usual short post of Good Friday wishes I’m giving you a link to FDR’s banned prayer. Though it is not a Good Friday-specific prayer, it does contain a Good Friday message. Those who fight and die in defense of the greatest nation on earth rarely are afraid to invoke the name of God, and have gone to their reward knowing that life eternal awaits them. D-Day Prayer.

To our Jewish friends, I also want to extend warm wishes for the celebration of Passover.
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Obama Gets The Bible Wrong

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama has once again tried to prove he understands Christians and Jews by using an example from the Bible to advance his socialist, fairness, eat-the-rich agenda to America. In Vermont, he offered the usual pap about “looking out for one another,” then announced “I am my brother’s keeper.” To remain politically-correct, he also added “I am my sister’s keeper.”

He seems to have misunderstood the story of Cain and Abel. After Cain murdered his brother in a jealous rage over an offering to God, God asked Cain where his brother was. Cain, being a good Democrat, lied. And then he asked the immortal question: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The answer to that question has dogged Jews and Christians ever since and has brought on millennia of soul-searching. But Cain’s answer was not meant to mollify God. It was meant to put God off the track, maintaining that he couldn’t possibly know what had befallen his brother. God is not so easily fooled.

Obama was addressing a gathering of college students. It’s likely that most of them have Marx committed to memory, but have not read the Bible. The lesson Obama was pushing was that we are responsible for each other, in a Marxist sense, via government control. It was well-received among his audience who couldn’t distinguish between a job and Job.

Obama told the audience: “I hear politicians talking about values in an election year. I hear a lot about that. Let me tell you about values. Hard work, personal responsibility—those are values. But looking out for one another. That’s a value. The idea that we’re all in this together.” He then went out to point out his “accomplishments.” The bank bailouts, the takeover of Chrysler and General Motors, student loan relief, and of course, Obamacare. Each of those is the government looking out for his cronies and free-riders, and has nothing to do with individual responsibility, hard work, or self-help.

His administration doesn’t even comprehend what people looking out for each other means. His idea is not looking out for each other, but rather the government looking over your shoulder in order to decide outcomes. He’d have been more honest asking for alms for the love of Allah.

Then, so there would be no mistake about how much the government values taking care of each other, he launched into a vile and misleading attack on conservative values. “An economy built to last is one that supports scientists and researchers and science. Whether we’re talking about stem cell research or climate change, we don’t need science deniers. We need people to understand that America has always succeeded because of our belief in science, our investment in research.” Thank you, Dr. Frankenstein.

Obama doesn’t understand the difference between government imposing its agenda on an unwilling public and people helping each other. That last statement also proves that he doesn’t understand the difference between the scientific method and junk science supported by the government agenda. And then there’s that minor ethical question of destroying human embryos using the taxpayers money to perform Mengele-like research. If used as intended, those embryos might very well have been implanted in infertile women who truly wanted a child. At which point, they would have become our brothers and sisters.

Now get this: “We won’t win the race for new jobs and businesses and middle-class security if we were just applying some you’re-on-your-own economics. It’s been tried in our history and it hasn’t worked. It didn’t work when we tried it in the decade before the Depression. It didn’t work when we tried it in the last decade. We just tried this. What they’re peddling has been tried. It did not work." And socialism did?

Where to begin? Who’s proposing “you’re-on-your-own economics?” Conservatives promote free enterprise with government oversight to prevent cheating. The Founders even put an interstate commerce clause in the Constitution in order to prevent excess and interstate squabbling. It’s the difference between chaos and the concept of ordered liberty. It’s the liberals who want everyone to be able to “do his own thing” so long as it doesn’t bump up against the government agenda.

Teddy Roosevelt and his trust-busters didn’t exactly stand back and allow the monopolies to control everything. It took his cousin Franklin to go over the line and create government agencies to interfere with private enterprise. Conservatives promote free enterprise, not unrestricted predation. The government has a proper role—as a fair referee. Progressives like Obama think that means changing the rules of the game while the game is still being played in order to produce a “fair” outcome.

At a time when the free-riders comprise 49% of the voting public and pay no income taxes at all, Obama’s next statement rings hollow: “Look, if somebody like me gets a tax break that they don’t need and the country can’t afford, then one of two things are [sic.] going to happen. Either it adds to our deficit, or we’re taking something away from somebody else.” The old socialist rant. If somebody prospers, somebody else must suffer. It’s nonsense, of course, but it appeals to those free-riders. So never mind telling the rich to pay more in income taxes until you first demand that everyone—everyone—shares the burden.

Obama is a would-be autocrat. He loves his people, and he knows what’s best for them, no matter how much they may not like it. So it seems to me that the proper question Americans should be asking Obama is “am I my keeper’s brother?”
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Ave Atque Vale, Rowan Williams

It’s Sunday, and time for our religious news. Never mind that I tend to get Rowan Williams mixed up with the guy who plays Blackadder on the BBC. Rowan Williams is actually the Archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the Church of England. At least for now. Williams has announced that he will be stepping down at the end of this year. Rumor hath it that he might be replaced by a Christian (snark off).

For ten years, Williams has presided over the disintegration of the Anglican Communion, and has played a large part in its disarray. By his own self-description, he is a “hairy lefty.” He has made statements from the high pulpit which call into question the divinity of Jesus Christ. Now that’s just fine for atheists, agnostics, members of other religions, and even some theologians. But it is a strange thing indeed for the leader of a church which is founded on that very concept of Christ’s divinity and oneness with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.

Williams is known for his obtuse and secular-sounding sermons and homilies. That comes in large part from his interest more in history, economics and the works of Dostoevsky than in theology and church doctrine. Regardless of how one feels about his views on doctrine and dogma, it is impossible to deny that he has been both divisive and self-contradictory as a leader.

In America, the Episcopalian Church (directly derived from the Church of England) is deeply split over the issue of homosexuality and particularly homosexual priesthood. A successful leader would have worked hard to heal those divisions. But much like a certain resident of the White House, Williams is unable to take a clear stand and lead his people with a clear policy. He has recently denied a bishopric to Jeffrey John, a prominent gay priest, which stirred up the liberal wing of the church. But previously, as Archbishop of Wales, he ordained multiple gay men to the priesthood, which stirred up the traditionalist wing.

The same division is spread throughout the entire northern hemisphere’s Anglican Communion. On the other hand, in Africa and South America, where the Anglican faith is growing by leaps and bounds, the traditionalists have all but officially broken from the church in England on ordination of homosexual priests as well as female priests. Williams has waffled on the ordination of women as priests and bishops in almost as confusing a fashion as he has with gay priests. In fact, Williams has indicated that his final battle with ordination of women and elevation to bishoprics was a determining factor in his stepping down.

Williams’s friendly relationship with the Catholic Pope has produced another unexpected result. Those Anglicans who have a serious problem with the concept of gay and female priesthood have now shared Communion (the Holy Eucharist in both denominations) with Catholics and many have decided simply to go the whole way and convert to the Church of Rome. Once again, it has something to do with Williams’s lack of clarity on doctrine. The Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church both share the ancient doctrinal belief that at Communion, the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ (a belief not shared by other Protestant Communions).

Williams has refused to be publicly committed to the pure Catholic or Protestant view, thereby creating more confusion. As a scholar, Williams might have made the problem a matter of church policy, but instead used the ambiguity of the English language translation of the meaning of transubstantiation to avoid taking a stand at all. Historically, one must remember that this has been an ongoing debate within the Anglican community for centuries. The “low church” Anglicans followed the teachings of Luther which denied the actual conversion of the elements of the Communion into the physical body and blood of Christ and instead stated that the conversion was mystical rather than physical. That group’s most famous and influential advocate was John Wesley who finally broke with the Church of England to form the Methodist Communion.

Aside from those who have converted to Catholicism during William’s tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury, there are those who have broken with the English Communion and joined the African bishops who espouse the more traditional Anglican views. Others, particularly in America, have formed their own group loosely calling themselves the Anglican Catholic Church.

The most recent blow to the prestige of the Archbishopric of Canterbury came with Williams’s confusing and somewhat ignorant advocacy of Islamic Sharia law in settling certain otherwise civil matters. He missed the fact that the high courts of England had already determined that in purely civil disputes which did not impose religious rules, Sharia law could be applied if it did not conflict with the existing civil statutes. Thus, in a divorce, Sharia law could be used to determine which mosque the Muslim children of a divorce should attend, but not how the custody of the children or the division of property is determined. Williams failed to understand or advocate the difference.

Overall, William’s success or failure as a theologian is entirely a matter of the consciences of his supporters and his detractors. But as a leader, it is hard to say that his tenure has been much more than a failure. As recently as last week, Williams met again with the Pope and Catholic leaders to ask Anglicans and Catholics to work and pray for unity, something he has failed to do very well within his own Church.

Williams is stepping down to become the master of Magdalene College at Cambridge. Perhaps while he is there, he will discover with clarity what the college’s namesake herself discovered.
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Pelosi Praises Phony Witness

The House Committee which was investigating the Obamacare mandate in relation to religious freedom completed its taking of testimony last week. Nine experts in two sessions (including two invisible women) stated their case. But one flaky witness was excluded. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a special session to listen to what this visible woman had to say.

The Congressional hearings on mandating religious organization participation in birth control and abortifacient insurance wasn't intended to be a discussion of medical procedures. Therefore, the majority voted to exclude testimony about experiences with birth control in order to concentrate on the religious issue. That meant that Pelosi's primary sob-story witness didn't get to pluck the harp strings and derail the actual purpose of the hearings. But San Fran Nan isn't anything if not annoyingly persistent. So Pelosi put on the dog and pony show at the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee instead.

Pelosi trotted out Georgetown Law School student Sandra Fluke. She hasn't apparently taken the evidence course yet, because Fluke's first sob story was: "Just last week, a married female student told me that she had to stop using contraception because she and her husband just couldn't fit it into their budget anymore." Objection, hearsay! But it's not only hearsay, it's utter nonsense. Then this future Democratic operative testified that "poor women employed in low-wage jobs without contraceptive coverage face the same choice as her anonymous fellow student."

She and her fellow student can afford Georgetown Law School, and probably a pretty good bottle of wine to go with dinner. But even if they couldn't, how much truth is there to her boo-hoo testimony? Next to none. There are three federally funded Planned Parenthood clinics near the Georgetown campus, none farther than 3.2 miles from the law school. Checking with Planned Parenthood's website, you find that condoms cost about $1.00 each, and if you can't afford that, you can get them for free.

Says Fluke: "Some might respond that contraception is accessible in lots of other ways. Unfortunately, that's just not true." Well, the ones who respond that way are those armed with facts instead of sob-stories. In fact, it is true. Planned Parenthood is just one of multiple organizations which run free clinics, particularly in urban centers. Whether federally-funded, funded by private charity, or a combination of both, birth control is readily and cheaply available to the poor as well as to affluent law students who can't get their priorities straight.

Not only did Fluke's testimony entirely sidestep the religious issue, but it was lacking in facts, logic and supporting evidence. But it was a really good story. I've gone through an entire box of Kleenex over it.

I'll be out of town on business for most of the day. But I'd love to see what you think about this reprehensible attempt to replace good government with low drama and the First Amendment with secular mandates. I promise I'll respond to your comments as soon as I get home.
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Nancy Goes Blind Over Religious Rights

It's Sunday, so I'll be mercifully brief today. On Thursday, the House Committee hearing on religious liberty involved two panels of religious experts, each panel comprised of people discussing why the Obamacare mandate for religious institutions to provide free birth control and abortifacients should be tossed out. Following the lead of committee member Carolyn Maloney (D-New York), San Fran Nan looked at the panels and asked "where are the women?"

At least she didn't sing "where have all the women gone, long time passing." But there is a small problem with the question. It seems Pelosi and Maloney share the same optometrist. Somehow they couldn't see that Dr. Allison Dabbs Garrett of Oklahoma Christian University and Laura Champion MD from Calvin College Health Services were both on the panels and both testified. Yessir, they are both bona fide women--ladies, even.

It's not too difficult to figure out that the Democrats want to make this issue about "women's rights," while the actual subject is religious freedom protected by the First Amendment. And by their measure, it would be mighty convenient to attack the panel as unfriendly to women by the lack of women testifying. Men are by biological imperative unable to understand or properly discuss women's rights.

Whined Pelosi: "Where are the women women on that panel? Imagine, they are having a panel on women's health and they don't have any women on the panel." That proves that Pelosi is at least partially-blind both literally and metaphorically. She couldn't see the two women panelists, and she couldn't see that the entire committee hearing was about religious freedom, not women's rights.

Never daunted, the botox queen went on to ask the queston: "What is it that men don't understand about women's health, that how central the issue of family planning is to that? Not just if you're having families (well if you're not, you don't need to plan), but if you need those kinds of prescription drugs for your general health, which was the testimony they would have heard this morning if they had allowed a woman on the panel (emphasis added)." Maybe she's deaf, too.

And if you didn't get the message yet, she said: "I think it's really curiouser and curioser that as we get further into this debate the Republican leadership of this Congress thinks it's appropriate to have a hearing on a subject of women's health and purposefully exclude women from the panel." Perhaps she actually did see the women, but has the leftist view that conservative religious women are not really female. Just like black conservatives are not authentically black. So they don't count.

All of the panelists, including the women, were asked if they would risk going to jail for refusing to follow the Obama mandate. Each answered in turn, "I would." But they aren't willing to go to jail over an issue of women's rights. They are willing to go to jail to defend their religious beliefs from government interference. They have a lot of history to go with their bravery, from the Christian martyrs of Rome to the American Founders who considered religious freedom so important that they wrote it into the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Of course it could just be that Pelosi is simply like the theater critic who leaves the show during the intermission and writes a review centering on the finale.
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Film Friday: Paul (2011)

I’m a fan of Simon Pegg’s work. Shawn of the Dead was incredibly witty, clever and funny. It was a brilliant homage to zombie films. Hot Fuzz wasn’t quite up to Shawn’s standards, but was still well done and had great moments. Paul is flat. It also suffers from a giant liberal sucker punch.

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Despicable Newt

Romney’s win last night likely decided the Republican nomination. What I want to talk about today, however, is the damage being done to conservatism by the desperate and despicable creature that is Newt Gingrich. Specifically, he’s been smearing Romney and anyone he thinks supports Romney in ways which are causing long term harm to the cause of conservatism, and it’s time for conservatives to turn their backs on this troll.

Let’s start with Romney. Newt has been slandering Romney in ways that will make it very hard for Romney to beat Obama. Indeed, he’s engaged in a scorched earth policy premised on the idea that we better pick Newt or Newt will make sure Obama wins:

1. Newt has repeatedly called Romney a liar, dishonest and pathetic, when Newt’s actually the one who’s been lying. A reputation for dishonesty is nearly impossible for a politician to live down and harms everything they do because much in politics relies on trust.

2. Newt has made misleading attacks on Romney for investments made by the blind trust Romney is required to use to hold investments. These attacks are anti-capitalist, class warfare attacks and further suggest fraud or tax evasion on Romney’s part.

3. Newt promoted a ridiculous conspiracy theory involving Romney trying to unseat Allen West, suggesting that Romney seeks to destroy the Tea Party.

4. Newt has recycled Rick Perry’s vile “heartless” attack for Romney’s stance on deporting illegal immigrants, a stance shared by all conservatives.

5. And vilest of them all, Newt has tried to inflame religious bigotry while smearing Romney as anti-religion. Observe. Newt began this smear by suggesting that Romney hate religious freedom:

“I think Governor Romney is extraordinarily insensitive to religious freedom in America and the Obama administration is clearly engaged in a war on religion.”

He then told Fox News that Romney made a decision to cut Medicaid funding for health services which would benefit Jewish and Catholic facilities. This was an attempt to both claim Romney didn’t care about religion and to imply that Mormons could not be trusted to protect other religions. And if you think I’m overstating that, look at how he repeated this on CNN:

“You want a war on the Catholic Church by Obama? Guess what: Romney refused to allow Catholic hospitals to have conscience in their dealing with certain circumstances. . . . Romney cut off kosher food to elderly Jews on Medicare. Both of them [Romney and Obama] have the same lack of concern for religious liberty. . . I’m a little bit tired of being lectured about respecting every religion on the planet, I would like [Romney] to respect our religion.”

Note that Newt singles out a war on Catholics and Jews and then finishes with the suggestion that Romney is not a Christian and that he would protect other religions, but not Christianity. What Newt is doing here is playing on the religious bigotry of fundamentalists like Robert Jeffress who still view Mormonism as a non-Christian cult.

Gingrich then issued a truly despicable robocall claiming that Romney forced Holocaust survivors to eat non-kosher foods:

“As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney vetoed a bill paying for kosher food for our seniors in nursing homes. Holocaust survivors, who for the first time, were forced to eat non-kosher, because Romney thought $5 was too much to pay for our grandparents to eat kosher. Where is Mitt Romney’s compassion for our seniors? Tuesday you can end Mitt Romney’s hypocrisy on religious freedom, with a vote for Newt Gingrich. Paid for by Newt 2012.”

When confronted about this robocall, Newt denied having any knowledge of it and incredibly then said, “You might check and see whether the accusation is true.” Note the lack of condemnation of the call and, more interestingly, his adoption of the message.

This is all despicable and will not only dampen conservative support for Romney, but will hang around his neck in the general election and throughout his Presidency. These aren’t policy disputes, they are bigoted smears and slanders.

And it’s not just smears against Romney which are the problem. Indeed, Gingrich has been busy reinforcing generations of leftist attacks on the foundations of conservatism:

● His attacks on Romney’s wealth and investments and Wall Street bankers have been anti-capitalist.

● His attacks on Romney’s immigration policy play right into leftist claims that conservatives hate immigrants and are “heartless” on the issue.

● His attacks on Mormonism feed fundamentalists who oppose all but their own sects.

● His attacks on the Republican establishment, particularly his false description of them and the conspiratorial nature of his attempt to claim victimhood, widen the gap between Tea Partiers and the Republican party, again splitting natural allies.

● He undercut conservative attempts to reform Medicare and Social Security (the Chilean model), and on the flat tax.

Moreover, Newt’s surrogates are smearing anyone who disagrees. Ann Coulter, Jonah Goldberg, and George Will, all solid conservatives, have been labeled RINOs. Elliot Abrams, who pointed out that Newt is lying about supporting Reagan in the 1980s and produced copies of Newt’s attacks on Reagan from the Congressional Record, where Newt did things like call the Reagan Administration “a failed presidency,” was smeared by a Newt surrogate who suggested with no proof that Abrams was lying because he had been offered a job in the Romney administration. Another Newt surrogate smeared Matt Drudge, who does more to help conservatives than a million Newts combined, for “bias” and “being in the tank for Romney.” Etc.

In a world where liberals already smear conservatives in this manner, and thereby try to rob them of their credibility, conservatives should never give aid and comfort to liberal smears. Yet that is what Newt is doing. He is systematically burning key conservatives and conservative principles to the ground and insanely destroying the foundations of conservatism all in the name of his own aggrandizement.

Further, Newt told us last night exactly what kind of administration he would run if elected. He demanded that the Republicans in Congress give him things that cannot be delivered, i.e. a repeal of ObamaCare on the first day, and he made it clear he would lump Republicans and Democrats into the same group and fight them all if he didn’t get his way.

This troll must be stopped.

Finally, let me say a word about Herman Cain. Cain endorse Newt this week. I find this extremely disappointing. When Cain left the race, it was clear he would endorse Newt because he and Newt are friends. But Cain didn’t do that. Instead, he created this rather corny, but oddly genuine political theater of endorsing the people. This rekindled the Tea Party’s love for him and was enough that they picked him to give the Tea Party response to the State of the Union.

Implicit in all of this was that he would represent the views of the Tea Party. As such, he should have worked to make sure each of the candidates acknowledged the Tea Party and agreed to address its concerns. Endorsing Newt (or anyone) was a violation of trust. This was like being appointed commissioner of a sports league and then cheering for one team. Cain should not have done it and should apologize for it now. You’re better than that Herm.

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Obamacare Bureaucracy vs. Religious Belief

I recently introduced our readers to a small victory for religious freedom over bureaucratic absolutism (Score One for the Christians). In that case, the Supreme Court told the National Labor Relations Board that a religious organization has sole power to determine its own rules regarding hiring and firing based on religious belief. But Leviathan never sleeps, and the Obama administration is at it again.

This time, the issue is much larger than that in the employment case. It is a bold attack on religious freedom, and the attack is grounded on the idea that the mission of a religious institution can be entirely separated from its non-religious functions. The bureaucracy this time is Health and Human Services, its commander is Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and the law from which the conflict stems is nothing less than Obamacare.

Simply put, the Catholic Church and some Orthodox Jewish organizations are religiously opposed to contraception. Obamacare requires that all employers, including those groups, must provide health insurance which includes coverage for contraception, certain abortifacients and sterilization at no additional charge to the employee. Contraceptive services are controversial among those groups, but it is the mandate to provide coverage for abortifacients and sterilization that has brought the issue to a rolling boil.

Obamacare does allow for some exemptions, but they are narrowly-written and are being interpreted by a bureaucracy that demands universal health care coverage whether you like it or not. In describing which employees the "religious employer" may exempt from contraception, abortifacient and sterilization coverage, Sebelius and her people rely on the preliminary regulations (which will undoubtedly remain unchanged in the final version) that require four concurrent things to be true:

1. The inculcation of religious values is its purpose.
2. It primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets.
3. It primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets.
4. It is a non-profit organization under sections of the code that refer to churches, their integrated auxiliaries, and conventions or associations, as well as to the exclusively religious activities of any religious order.

Paying careful obeisance to and obfuscation of the ruling in the NLRB employment case, HHS has issued a statement that specifically says: "The Departments seek to provide for a religious accommodation that respects the unique relationship between a house of worship and its employees in ministerial positions." By pretending to honor the unanimous decision in the NLRB case, HHS is actually carving out a rule that defeats religious belief outside the confines of the "ministry."

One student of the Department's position lays it out rather well. "The group insurance covering nuns in a Catholic religious order would probably not have to cover contraception. But insurance provided by the same order's elementary school probably would. The latter would also be true of a hospital established by the nuns."

The NLRB case was based on religious freedom ("the ministry"). This issue revolves more around religious worship and what information a religious organization must provide to non-members. So even in those cases where the Department may find the exemption applies, it will still require the organization to pass out information about "preventive" services which it does not provide under the exemption. Essentially, this means that the exempt religious organization must tell its employees where and how to obtain those services which are anathema to the organization and church teaching.

Sebelius's official statement explains how the new rule should be applied: "We intend to require employers that do not offer coverage of contraceptive and sterilization services to provide notice to employees, which will also state that contraceptive services are available at sites such as community health centers, public clinics, and hospitals with income-based support." At its most basic it means that Father Flanagan will meet with his employee and tell her that the Church utterly opposes artificial contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization, but since the Church's medical insurance doesn't cover it, here's a list of all the places that will provide the services we find abhorrent and contrary to scripture.

So as it stands, Catholic employees at non-Catholic institutions must pay for insurance for preventive services as part of their insurance package, but cannot be charged anything additional for them. Likewise, Catholic and non-Catholic employees of a Catholic institution may be required to purchase contraception and sterilization insurance through their employers depending on how the Department classifies the religious employer. In the latter case, both the religious institution and its employees are bound by entirely secular rules determining the religious status of the employer and employee.

Church charities, hospitals, universities and other non-church activities are affected. Current organizations preparing to challenge the HHS ruling are Catholic Charities USA, Notre Dame University and the Catholic hospital network. Regardless of the outcome, or even a later softening of its position for political gain, this is another example of how the Obama administration and its leftist supporters are innately hostile to religion. It also demonstrates how a bureaucracy can hide its anti-religious agenda in gentle-sounding legalese.
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