The Democrat Party never ceases to amaze me with its shameless pandering in an attempt to deceive another vote or two out of people.
According to the Christian Post, Democrats are playing the religious "Me, too!" card at their convention in Denver.
The convention, which officially opens Monday afternoon, will feature its first-ever faith caucus meetings led by prominent leaders to discuss topics important to religious voters.
Faith panel discussions include “Faith in 2009: How an Obama Administration will Engage People of Faith” and “New Faith Voters: What it Means for this Election and the Country.”
Also, every night at the convention there will be an opening invocation and a closing benediction by religious leaders.
Would that be the same interfaith event that atheists are trying to weasel their way into?
Liberals have an abysmal record on religious freedom. Liberals have managed to push prayer and any mention of Christianity out of the public schools. Liberals demand that school coaches not be allowed to pray with their players. Liberals have attempted and succeeded greatly in holidays such as Christmas into secular Santa Claus days. Liberals have fought against historic icons of the faith. Liberals try to deny Christian groups the same rights that other groups enjoy. Liberals attempt to censor and silence churches when churches dare act or speak according to the Bible. Liberals want to force the Boy Scouts to accept homosexuality in violation of their oath of loyalty to God (who condemns homosexuality). Liberals don't want graduating students to be able to mention Christ of their own volition at their own graduation. Liberals want to force people of faith to hire people who overtly live in a way tha violates their religious convictions. Liberals want to force pharmacists to dispense drugs that go against their religious convictions. Liberals want all health care workers to be required to dispense abortifacients and perform procedures which violate their religious values. Liberals want to force doctors to perform fertilization procedures on lesbians that violate their religious convictions. Liberals want to remove any reference to God from the public square. Liberals don't even want a Christian hospital chaplain to pray in Jesus' name.
Liberals in Colorado (the state in which the Democrat convention is being held) recently created a law allowing men to use women's restrooms and locker rooms if the "feel" like a woman...and the same law forbids the publication of anything that homosexuals might consider "discriminatory."
Obama maligns Christians as some kind of knuckle-dragging rubes who "cling to guns or religion."
What kind of Christianity does Obama like? Some of that America-damning, white-hating, Afrocentric kind?
No, the liberals in the Democrat Party are among the last people in America you'd want to trust with your religious freedom.
Were you naive enough to trust that they have changed their ways and are now friendly toward Christianity, you would find yourself in the company of a certain Little Red Riding Hood...and a certain long-toothed grandmother.
8 comments:
Sigh.
Republicans don't have a monopoly on Christianity. I'm a liberal Christian who goes to church every week. All the Democrats I know are Christian and most go to church every week like I do.
I've been disappointed in the past that the Democratic Party shied away from discussing religion, so I'm glad to see them doing those events to speak to all the religious Democrats and liberals out there.
And I disagree with your interpretation of all those policies. Liberals don't support that stuff because they hate religion. They do that because they want this country to be a country for ALL people no matter what religion they are and no matter if they have no religion at all. That's why the ACLU fights against stuff like school prayer. They're thinking of the kids of other faiths. If they opt out of praying, they could get teased and beaten up or something because kids can be mean.
Though I do agree with you about some of those things like not letting that chaplain pray in Jesus' name. If they wanted him to pray during the staff meeting then they should expect that. Firing him over that went too far.
There's a big difference between going through the motions to check your card punched and real religion. A lot of folks aren't the least bit concerned about walking the walk.
Jesus said, "If you love me, you will obey what I command." The DNC believes in few of the things Christ commanded, and promotes many of the ones he said not to do:
- Take innocent human life
- Treat children worse than pets by shoving them off on someone else, instead of training them up as a good parent should
- Promote homosexuality
- Promote extramarital sex
- Promote sexual license in general
- Promote government theft
It's also not a good sign that you love the Lord when you:
- push prayer and any mention of Christianity out of the public schools
- demand that school coaches not be allowed to pray with their players
- turn Christian holidays into a joke and work hard to deny their religious origin
- deny Christian groups the same rights that other groups enjoy
- censor and silence churches when churches dare act or speak according to the Bible
- force the Boy Scouts to accept homosexuality in violation of their oath of loyalty to God (who condemns homosexuality)
- prohibit graduating students to be able to mention Christ of their own volition at their own graduation
- force people of faith to hire people who overtly live in a way that violates their religious convictions
- force pharmacists to dispense drugs that go against their religious convictions
- require health care workers to be required to dispense abortifacients and perform procedures which violate their religious values
- force doctors to perform fertilization procedures on lesbians that violate their religious convictions
- remove any reference to God from the public square
- prohibit a Christian hospital chaplain to pray in Jesus' name
And these are just a handful of examples. This is NOT a good record for a group that claims to "religious too."
I don't know your heart, Haggs, but if you're serious about the Lord, you might want to look for another party--because the DNC isn't.
How could anyone think that allowing schools to favor one religion over another, by allowing school-sponsored prayers or proselytizing, would be consistent with religious freedom?
The only way to promote freedom of religion is to have a secular government, one that doesn't endorse any religion. No one is kept from praying to himself in school - but the school can't coerce the students to pray either. That's freedom.
The idea of freedom is that you give freedom to the people. Restrictions on government coercion is not freedom. I think you'd be the first to complain about your freedoms being infringed if those school-led prayers were Muslim or Buddhist prayers.
First, Curt, we had "school sponsored prayers" in the public schools of this country and no one saw any problems with it or any conflict with the Constitution. No one was being forced to believe anything or to pay to support a particular religious institutions.
Given that our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian values and philosophy, and that 90% or more of Americans have been Christians, it seems quite natural that American children would be encouraged in practicing their faith, especially since so many of the founders are on record stating the importance of a society that remains grounded in morality and religion.
However, it appears our society--even religious citizens--have completely conceded "school sponsored prayers," so this objection should be completely moot.
What no one should have any reasonable objection to, however, is allowing students to pray (or sit quietly, as they prefer) according to their own beliefs and dictates of conscience.
As things currently stand, most students are not allowed to pray silently, read a Bible even outside of class time, or in any way express their faith publicly. This is a flagrant and egregious violation of the First Amendment which protects religious expression.
With this overt hostility toward religion (Christianity in particular), our government is instead teaching children obedience to the religion of secular humanism. It takes faith--great faith--to believe there is no God, and such belief is usually dogmatically pursued by its adherents, and has even been referred to by the courts as a religion because it meets many of the basic elements of a religion.
So in its efforts to sanitize the public schools of Christianity, our government is not only prohibiting the free exercise of religion, but is imposing the religion of secular humanism on children--teaching them that their faith taught to them by their parents is something to be ashamed of, something not good enough to bring out in the public square.
Better to return to allowing the free exercise of religion.
Bob, no one is preventing students from praying silently or reading their Bibles. You've been lied to. What's prohibited is school-endorsed prayers. If people in the past didn't see any conflict between school-sponsored prayers and the Constitution, then they are unfamiliar with the Constitution. The First Amendment prohibits the government from endorsing any religion.
You talk of secularism as if it's equivalent to atheism or something. It's not - secularism is the neutral ground between all the religious views. Our government was set up by the Constitution as secular. Secular simply means not pertaining to religion.
You are very, very ill in formed, Curt.
Those "people in the past" who didn't see any conflict would be the people who founded the country and wrote the Constitution. I'd think they might know a teeny thing about the Constitution.
While you are close in saying the First Amendment prohibits the government from endorsing any religion, that isn't what it says. It says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." If there are any laws passed by congress respecting an establishment of religion and mandating prayer in accordance with the dictates of that establishment of religion, I am unaware of it.
Prayer has been severely cutailed or removed from public schools for decades. Are the people in Colorado who are circulationg a petition for a mere moment of silence only imagining the prohibition on prayer? Or why was valedictorian Erica Corder's diploma withheld in Colorado because she committed the unspeakable act of speaking of her faith in her own graduation speech? Or some children allowed to promote homosexuality while others are denied the right to wear a t-shirt with a Bible verse on it?
You are right that secularism and atheism are not the same. However, secularism, which is a doctrine which attempts to sanitize everything of religious influence, is a close cousin: they both are hostile to religion.
Our government was set up to have no state church or no state religion. It was not by any means intended to exist bereft of moral or religious influence, and the founders made that abundantly clear.
Consider the following:
We are not to attribute this [First Amendment] prohibition of a national religious establishment to an indifference to religion in general, and especially to Christianity (which none could hold in more reverence, than the framers of the Constitution) – Judge Joseph Story
The real object of the [First A]mendment was not to countenance, much less to advance, Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects. – Joseph Story
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness. – George Washington’s Presidential Farewell Address
It is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. Religion and virtue are the only foundations…of republicanism and of all free governments. – John Adams
It should therefore be among the first objects of those who wish well to the national prosperity to encourage and support the principles of religion and morality. – Abraham Baldwin, signer of the Constitution
Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion whose morality is so sublime and pure…are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments. – Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of Independence
Righteousness alone can exalt them [America] as a nation…The great pillars of all government and of social life: I mean virtue, morality and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone, that renders us invincible. – Patrick Henry.
The practice of morality being necessary for the well-being of society…We all agree in the obligation of the moral precepts of Jesus and nowhere will they be found delivered in greater purity than in His discourses. – Thomas Jefferson
Religion and morality…are necessary to good government, good order and good laws, for “when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice” – William Paterson, signer of the Constitution, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Let it never be forgotten that there can be no genuine freedom where there is no morality, and no sound morality where there is no religion…Hesitate not a moment to believe that the man who labors to destroy these two great pillars of human happiness…is neither a good patriot nor a good man. – Jeremiah Smith, Revolutionary soldier, judge, U.S. Congressman, Governor of New Hampshire
It yet remains a problem to be solved in human affairs whether any free government can be permanent where the public worship of God and the support of religion constitute no part of the policy or duty of the state in any assignable shape. – Joseph Story, U.S. Supreme Court Judge, Father of American Jurisprudence
The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were…the general principles of Christianity. – John Adams
The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws…All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible. – Noah Webser
Religion, Morality, and Knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. - Northwest Ordinance, 1789
Bob, the First Amendment (and all the others) applies to states as well as Congress. It prohibits the states (including state schools) from endorsing any religion. A school-led prayer is a state endorsement of religion. You can't honestly argue that it's not.
"Secularism" is not hostile to religion, it's a descriptive term that means not pertaining to religion. Our Constitution set up a secular government. That's a fact, if it bothers you, you need to get over it.
Sure, you can quote-mine the words of the founders to show they supported the idea of religion, and I can find you lots of direct quotes of them saying that they were not Christians. So what? Our government was set up as secular, and school-led prayer is an endorsement of religion that is prohibited by the First Amendment.
Your thinking that it applies only to laws passed by Congress shows an ignorance of history. You should read up on the 14th Amendment and how it incorporated the rights of citizens to be restrictive of state governments as well. This has been settled law for nearly 150 years.
No, Curt, this has NOT been "settled law" for nearly 150 years; this has been the opinion of anti-Christian judges who have forced this on Americans for about 50 years.
You really should go back and read more history. Many of the states even had state churches long after the Constitution was ratified.
But if the evidence I already provided still doesn't lead you to the truth, then once again the old adage about leading horses to water is once again proven true.
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