Free religious speech makes monkeys out of liberals
By gamecock Posted in Archived — Comments (33) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Liberals cannot abide hearing the name of Jesus Christ or any reference to God or the Bible for that matter, unless used in a profane or vulgar way, in the public square. Democrats in Congress oppose judges that would reverse court rulings restricting such religious free speech. Now, in South Carolina, Democrats are opposing a law that would require a woman seeking an abortion to view an ultra-sound image of the developing human being she seeks to destroy.
Liberal democrats can't bear to hear religious speech; seek to prevent it from being spoken and can't bear to look at the results of their policies.
Given their childish positions on the war since it didn't end in 72 hours, they truly do resemble the See, Speak and hear no evil cartoon monkeys.
Below is Gamecock's fourth column in the dead tree MSM, as it appeared in Saturday’s Charlotte Observer. I will be providing additional material that didn't make it into the 800 word limits opposed upon the Rooster, later in the week.
America needs the wisdom of religious speech
Those who would ban it from the public square ignore Founders' vision
MIKE DEVINE
Special to the Observer
"You can't legislate morality."
"They want to impose their religious beliefs."
So go the arguments meant to persuade courts to ban voluntary prayer and Bible study in schools, ban nativity scenes and displays of the Ten Commandments on public property, and legalize same-sex marriage and abortion.
Judges shaped by the moral vision underlying such decisions have imposed them on an America whose revolutionary Founders were intent upon government by We the People, not by one king or five justices. The Constitution they ratified guarantees freedom of all speech, not just non-religious speech.
Happily, advocates of speech-squelching judicial activism have yet to muster sufficient popular support to see their religion-devoid vision ratified in even one of the 50 states. Indeed, they can't legislate their morality.
Not that they haven't tried.
Not so long ago my former S.C. Democratic Party tried to silence the "God talk" of Christians to avoid offending non-believers, then, amazingly, invoked the words of Jesus to justify high taxes and a turn-the-other-cheek U.S. approach to the Soviet Union.
Christians fled to GOP
Large swaths of the offended Christian demographic responded by retaining their free religious speech and creating a new political juggernaut called "Reagan Democrats." These former Democrats were aware that the Pilgrims came to the New World to flee persecution for religious speech and that the Founders were inspired by their Creator that their rights came from God and not man.
The abolitionists who opposed slavery, President Abraham "The Great Emancipator" Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. were all inspired by scripture. Franklin Roosevelt quoted the Bible to justify saving the world from fascism, as did John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan in opposing "godless" communism.
What kind of nation would we be, and what kind of world would we live in, absent those Americans inspired by religious free speech?
Yet too many do not want to hear religious speech in the public square and wish to relegate those who wish to speak within the confines of church walls and stained glass.
Since the 1970s, Washington Democrats have confirmed federal judges primed for discovering illegal "establishments" of religion where predecessors had not: nativity scenes on government property, invocations at high school football games, the reading of a Bible at recess.
But the Constitution seemed content to ban only established churches like the one from which the Framers themselves had fled -- state churches that fed off tax revenue and compelled worship attendance.
When President Reagan nominated the Constitution-fixated Robert Bork, liberal U.S. senators crucified him upon a cross of political correctness and mischaracterizations of his record. Bork conservatives find no right to not be offended by the speech of others in the Constitution. Rather, they embrace its right to speak and vote against speech and laws they found offensive.
Look to the Bible
Now Democrats in South Carolina oppose a bill that would require pregnant women seeking abortions to first view an ultrasound picture of the developing human being in their womb.
Would the words of Jeremiah that "before [God] formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee" be more persuasive than the Left's "It's my body"?
We need the wisdom and inspiration of religious speech. We don't have the luxury of the "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" monkeys of cartoon fame.
In his classic book "Witness," Whittaker Chambers describes the continuing choice of history to be as old as the Scriptures, where in Genesis the serpent invites Eve to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge so that "ye shall be as gods."
Man's choice to be his own god resulted not only in banishment from Paradise but in the slaughter of millions under the names of Nazism and communism in the 20th century.
The majority of Americans who believe in Judeo-Christian principles need to legislate some morality we believe in.
Mike
DeVine
Observer community columnist Mike DeVine is vice president of Intequity Inc., a Charlotte-based marketing firm.
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
Starbucks coffee cups are dangerous, but
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
The HinzSight Report
The Minority Report
Race 4 2008
liberal Christians in the public square comes from the parable of the Good Samaritan.
The priests of liberal government think their duty is done when they affix the "vote Democratic" bumper sticker to their BMW's & Mercedes'; they wouldn't even notice the poor beaten up guy on the roadside.
so I'll merely note that one can generalize and equate any one group of Christians with any one group of people mentioned in Scripture, whether it be conservative Christians calling liberals "Laodiceans," liberal Christians calling conservatives "Pharisees," etc. I find such generalizations typically to be unfair and always to be unhelpful, at least if one's goal is the unity of all believers in Christ.
many liberal Christians love those generalizations and have an impressive inventory of first stones to throw at those with whom they disagree in the Christian Culture Wars.
If you are different, that is admirable and to your credit. Be fruitful and multiply! :>)
that you are simply being fooled.
You are actually in a community - liberalism- which tolerates you begrugingly if at all, and likely ridicules you. If you are even what you say you are.
and I thought resorting to false consciousness to explain others beliefs was a Marxist thing, not a conservative one.
They may disagree with you. There is really no debate that modern liberalism is opposed to the Christian Religion, in what ever denomination it is represented by. And its not limited to government's role either, as the Boy Scouts can tell you.
whether the Scouts do or do not have the right to adopt discriminitory policies. Everyone agrees that they certainly have that right. The issue is whether or not they are entitled to tax-payers' money in the promotion of these policies. Once again, the government has no place telling the Scouts what they can and can't do. It also, however, has no place in subsidizing activities that specifically exclude people because of their religion (or lack thereof in this case).
Also, I find it interesting that you claim "that there is no debate that modern liberalisim is opposed to the Christian Religion, in what ever denomination it is represented by," when there are plenty of Christians, including myself, who are "modern liberals."
whether deliberatley or out of ignornace, I do not know.
The BSA is being attacked by extremists to prevent them from usiing the public square at all.
Additionally, extremsits are attacking private funding sources to compel the funding sounrces to cut off BSA from private money.
Public money goes to AA, goes to gay men's choruses, goes to art that defames believers. But for some reason, the extremsits who hate the BSA have fooled people like you into thinking it is about access to public money.
The military excludes gays quite openly. They receive plenty of public money, last time I checked.
You may want to check your asumptions, if you are sincere in this.
the one I to which I was referring was the ACLU, which sued them for their anti-atheist/agnostic policy (or at least sued them to get their federal monies cut off).
There are a few groups of gay rights activists who speak out against the BSA, as is their right, without waging lawsuits.
Finally, I believe that there was one group who sued them for discriminating against gays, and their case was rightly and summarily dismissed.
I agree with the first group; I find the second group to be well within their rights; the third group is just stupid.
If I am mistaken or misinformed about any of this, I am completely open to correction. I actually support the BSA (although not their public funding), and I hope that if, I have sons one day, they each make Eagle Scout.
As a lawyer, can you clarify for us why you think that "a bill that would require pregnant women seeking abortions to first view an ultrasound picture of the developing human being in their womb" has anything to do with free speech and the First Amendment?
invocations at high school football games
Two things, first an excerpt from the administrations guidelines for Constitutionally protected prayer in schools:
Where student speakers are selected on the basis of genuinely neutral, evenhanded criteria and retain primary control over the content of their expression, that expression is not attributable to the school and therefore may not be restricted because of its religious (or anti-religious) content. By contrast, where school officials determine or substantially control the content of what is expressed, such speech is attributable to the school and may not include prayer or other specifically religious (or anti-religious) content.
Second, read this editorial from an evangelical Christian who believes that school-organized prayer before football games isn't something to wish for.
Coming from a fairly traditional Southern upbringing, I was not at all initially surprised when a voice came over the PA and asked everyone to rise for the invocation. I had been through this same ritual at many other high-school events and thought nothing of it, so to our feet my wife and I stood, bowed our heads, and prepared to partake of the prayer. But to our extreme dismay, the clergyman who took the microphone and began to pray was not a Protestant minister or a Catholic priest, but a Buddhist priest who proceeded to offer up prayers and intonations to god-head figures that our tradition held to be pagan.
It's pretty clear that there are differing opinions on using the school's loudspeakers and scheduling a stadium-wide invocation, but aside from that, students that group together of their own accord and pray before a game would certainly be engaging in protected activity.
the reading of a Bible at recess.
See following also from the administration's guidelines. I'm very confident that violations of such protected activities would be met with successful lawsuits.
Among other things, students may read their Bibles or other scriptures, say grace before meals, and pray or study religious materials with fellow students during recess, the lunch hour, or other noninstructional time to the same extent that they may engage in nonreligious activities.
I wanted to highlight those two points because I think it's important that people understand that prayer and the Bible havn't been "removed" from schools by any stretch of the imagination, and that religious freedom is alive and doing quite well in America - as you yourself point out, "advocates of speech-squelching judicial activism have yet to muster sufficient popular support to see their religion-devoid vision ratified in even one of the 50 states." Perhaps unlike many others, I assert that this will remain to be the case, and do not subscribe to the belief that those freedoms are in substantial jeopardy, although it makes good sense to be wary of and to quickly stamp out any genuine infringements that we discover.
They claim to be trying to save the earth. If they have their way our economy will be in shambles. This is one reason why Nanny state laws are so potentially dangerous even though most Nanny State laws are complete failures and they also waste the taxpayers money.(examples War on Drugs ,gambling, and Prostitution)
The problem is whats next if they can force someone to look at an ultrasound, then they may force someone who smokes to look at an x-ray of someone dying of lung cancer,or maybe they will make citizens who eat at McDonalds look at pictures of Fat people. What if you you get caught littering and then they force you to watch Al Gores movie An inconvenient truth on so called Global Warming or if you decide to buy a firearm they make you watch Scarface first. These kind of Big Brother laws scare me to death because once the Jeannie gets out of the bottle it's impossible to stop.
it is *the* moral and spiritual issue of our time.
Even as the science shows he is a liar, and increasing numbers of scientists edge away from his assertions as quickly as they can.
How we got to the point where people make up their minds on this subject based on political affiliation and opinion of Al Gore is a sad story.
I don't want to derail the thread, I'll simply provide this link with a great deal of information.
-jb
There's pending legislation in the Georgia General Assembly to require ultrasound imaging for the supposed purpose of discouraging abortion. My first thought upon hearing the news was that it would most benefit the people who perform ultrasound imaging. In the time before my daughter was born, her mother and I agreed that our child would be either a boy or a girl anyway and that we didn't really need to spend $200 or whatever it cost to find out before birth.
them completely ban abortion in the state of South Carolina and all other states as well (although it ain't going to happen) instead of this kind of government intrusion I mean these nanny state laws will come back to haunt us on other issues that the left wants to force down our throats.
A law to Require those who seek an abortion to view an ultrasound? This is not how the Right has been advertising this bill or the fight over it. But any law to Require people to do anything needs to have a 2nd look taken.
Nanny State from the Right this time.
There are those who look on Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima as some of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by man. I look on them and thank the perpetrators for saving millions.
This is an honest question: the little googling I've done hasn't yielded the answer. Who would pay for the required ultrasound?
-exits
But that's not really the point. Make it a law and the only reasonable payer would be the government and, expesnive or not, it's still going to add up to millions of taxpayer dollars.
There are those who look on Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima as some of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by man. I look on them and thank the perpetrators for saving millions.
I'm of the opinion that the government already does about eight times the number of things it ought to; no need to put one more on it's plate.
-exits
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
Starbucks: Coffee, good. Cups, bad, but
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
age of the fetus
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
Starbucks: Coffee, good. Cups, bad, but
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
There are those who look on Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima as some of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by man. I look on them and thank the perpetrators for saving millions.
Can you clarify? Roe v Wade doesn't even include the term "ultrasound". As a counter-example, Arizona:
An ultrasound evaluation for all patients who elect to have an abortion after twelve weeks' gestation. <...> The physician or other health care professional shall review, at the request of the patient, the ultrasound evaluation results with the patient before the abortion procedure is performed, including the probable gestational age of the fetus.
This leads me to believe that ultrasound requirements vary from state to state and that ultrasound is by no means a universal requirement, let alone a requirement as a consequence of Roe v Wade.
of the fetus and the mother based on the age of the fetus.
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
Starbucks: Coffee, good. Cups, bad, but
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
comply with Roe and the cases since so that if the right of a woman to abort were challenged and the age of the fetus would implicate the right, then the age would have to determined. Ultrasound is the main way age is determined.
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
Starbucks: Coffee, good. Cups, bad, but
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Courts thrust the mass slaughter upon us. The tri-mester system of Roe gives us a way to save some lives due to the increased rights of a fetus in the 2nd and 3rd trimester, so the ultrasound is a tool to save lives.
I don't put a price on that.
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
Starbucks: Coffee, good. Cups, bad, but
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Where all spectra of society are welcome to coexist in harmony, and where a fiscally conservative economic policy and strong national security is accompanied by respect of women's rights and tolerance towards those with a different sexual orientation.
I believe this is why Giuliani will become our next president. Thompson and McCain represent the old Republicanism.
There is still a majority of the country that thinks abortion is immoral, a majority who oppose partial birth abortion, a majority who support parental notification, and a majority who oppose abortion for financial reasons.
So even Republicans who support women's rights (almost all of them) will probably still be pro-life, unless the Democratic Party takes up the banner.
I agree with you that in the future more Republicans will support gay rights as the generational turnover occurs. But most polls show young people to be MORE pro-life than the 70s generation (although not by a lot).
I think Guiliani could make a great President. But his pro-abortion views (which is what public funding amounts to) are far from the mainstream of the country, much less the mainstream of the Republican Party.
______________________________________
Bobby Jindal Saves Louisiana
When the question is broken down to "sometimes immoral", "always immoral" or "never immoral", a majority of people find it not immoral in certain cases. This is not a black and white issue. There are shades of gray.
When the question is broken down to "sometimes immoral", "always immoral" or "never immoral", a majority of people find it immoral in certain cases. This is not a black and white issue. There are shades of gray.
I've never understood the relentless advocacy for public prayer on the right. Considering what Jesus said in Matthew 6:5 just before teaching the words of the Lord's Prayer:
And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
...it would seem that my Lord and Savior is making a clear statement that prayer is a private, sacred matter that should not be cheapened by crass displays or used as a pawn in culture wars. A little silent time in the morning would be fine; kids could collect their thoughts, meditate, think about ice cream or whatever they please. But leading a prayer seems inappropriate, inevitably sectarian and divisive in a diverse society, and counterproductive if it contradicts the word and spirit of the gospel itself.
And I've never understood how anything keeps kids from praying in school already...thoughts are free, and I prayed silently in my own mind a great many times as a student when something troubled me. I didn't need a teacher to order me or bang a gong to announce prayer time at an appointed hour, nor did any sinister liberals thwart my brief, silent, and private communion.
I've no problem with having the Bible in our public schools; it simply depends on the context. I firmly believe that you can't understand American society or history, or even Western civilization for that matter, without understanding the Bible, and it's an important subject for study. But that study should take place in a History or English classroom, not as a form of publically funded proscelytizing.
pride. Prayer is speech. Speech is free for all. We want our voice heard in the public square and we want our values transmitted to our children in school. We do not want our values mocked thhrough banning it along with profanity in school.
How voluntary prayer or silent time and Bible study or not should be handled should be and was left to the states by the constitution.
There must be no coerced worship that would violate free exercise. Their was no such thing in my schooling in public schools before god talk was banned by the courts and the libs took over.
My problem is the court decisions and theor coercive effect on schools in which they over react out of fear of lawsuits.
Roberts and Atlito plus 3 will fix this.
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
Starbucks: Coffee, good. Cups, bad, but
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
I must take issue with your statement: "Liberals cannot abide hearing the name of Jesus Christ or any reference to God or the Bible for that matter, unless used in a profane or vulgar way, in the public square." I apologize in advance if your statement was meant merely as rhetorical or hyperbolic, but your post mischaracterizes the views of myself and every liberal I know.
You claim that liberals want to "persuade courts to ban voluntary prayer and Bible study in schools." This is a blatant falsehood. Liberals are in full favor of voluntary prayer and bible study in schools, prisons, sidewalks, etc. The ACLU has waged several battles for the rights of private citizens to exercise their faith in the public square. It is only when the government mandates religious expression that we object. I certainly wouldn't want my children to be led by a Muslim or Hindu teacher in prayer to Allah or Vishnu, and I understand why a Muslim or Hindu parent would feel the same way. No one objects to students practicing their own religion on their own time, and most school districts provide a moment of silence for precisely that. Liberals believe the government has no business promoting one religion over another or forbidding any private citizen from practicing or promoting his or her own.
Likewise, we don't believe that the government has any business telling a person which medical procedures he or she must (or cannot) undergo, and for this reason we oppose mandatory ultrasounds for abortion candidates. I really don't see how this has anything to do with being hostile to religion. It's merely a sphere in which the government has no business.
Please understand, I am not trying to convince anyone here that these views are correct (although I obviously think that they are), this obviously isn't the place for me to try to promote liberalism. I'm merely trying to show that the "Liberalism" which you are attacking is a scarecrow. While you've done a fine job in knocking it down, everyone, conservatives and liberals alike, would be better served with an engagement with a real ideological position, rather than its caricature.