[COMMENTARY] Co-exist and take business elsewhere

The gay rights movement and those of us who support it have a decision to make now that the Supreme Court has ruled and same-sex marriage is the law of the land.​

One possible course of action: a mop-up operation whereby the victorious forces seek out and eliminate the holdouts, such as conservative Christian bakers who refuse to bake for wedding-bound gay people.

Another course of action — call it “live and let live” — suggests a more finessed approach, one by which same-sex couples take their business elsewhere when that is a practical option, as it so often is.

Here’s a vote for the latter.

It’s entirely understandable if some lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their supporters are not ready for the more peaceable route. Given the treatment LGBT folks have received from some conservative Christians over the decades, retribution might be too tantalizing to resist.

So, too, must we acknowledge the importance of the principle of non-discrimination. Laws and policies that militate against unequal treatment of people on the basis of gender and sexual identity should, if anything, be strengthened. In a similar vein, the instruments of law and government, such as county clerks in the position to dispense marriage licenses, should not be allowed to say “no” to a couple because they disapprove. Religious freedom goes far in this country, but not that far.

And even as Christians complain about restrictions on their rights as bakers or photographers or whatever, a few Christians working in government continue to defy the law. Two clerks in Kentucky are resisting the Supreme Court ruling, and similar efforts are ongoing in Alabama and Tennessee.

These are matters of law and policy. Everyday decisions and conduct are another matter — an area where a little finesse might sometimes be advisable. Unless the no-gays florists are the only game in town, which they might be in smaller or more conservative communities, it is more sensible for multiple reasons to find another service provider — a business that would be delighted to have the opportunity and is worthy of the fee.

C.J. Prince, executive director of North Jersey Pride, has stated that she would welcome the posting of signs in the windows of businesses that have a “no gays” preference — so she can shop at their competitors “and proudly put my money where my allies are.” She goes on to argue in her much-discussed Huffington Post piece, “I do not want to order a wedding cake from a bakery owned by a guy who thinks I'm going to hell. I have no desire to purchase bouquets from a florist who pickets pride parades.”

Window signs are not the way to accomplish this. They evoke too much painful history, and there are other, less crude ways by which people in a given community develop a sense of who’s in and who’s out when it comes to serving LGBT customers.

But Prince makes a valid point about the good sense in spending one’s money at businesses run by people of a non-discriminatory bent — businesses that deserve the opportunity to serve and profit.

Sarah Warbelow, legal director of the Human Rights Campaign, told me that her organization does not support the practice — one that is actually rare, she said — of targeting businesses that oppose gay marriage for the sake of making a point and pressing the principle.

“We are not in favor of baiting,” Warbelow said. “I think our society is in a moment of change. There’s something to be said for having patience and grace with one another.” That doesn’t mean we don’t need laws against discrimination, Warbelow said. But it does argue against “going in just to mess with someone.”

In his dissent in the same-sex marriage decision, Chief Justice John Roberts warns that hard questions lie ahead in the aftermath of the court’s ruling. Yes, they do. But let’s not make this situation harder than it needs to be.

In the many instances where the no-gay die-hards are not the only game in town, steer clear is the way to go. Whether it is done out of spite or crazy kindness, as an informal boycott or an extension of grace, the way to treat them may be a simple as:

Leave them alone.

Tom Krattenmaker is a writer specializing in religion in public life, a member of the USA TODAY Board of Contributors, and communications director at Yale Divinity School. His most recent book is The Evangelicals You Don’t Know: Introducing the Next Generation of Christians.

Via: The Courier Journal

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The British Left’s Hypocritical Embrace of Islamism

Anti-extremist campaigner Maajid Nawaz embodies grievances that liberals claim to care about. So why is he being viciously attacked by them?

The desire to impose religion over society is otherwise known as theocracy. Being veterans of the struggle to push back against fundamentalist Christians, American liberals are well acquainted with the pitfalls of the neoconservative flirtation with the religious-right. How ironic, then, that in Europe it is those on the left—led by the Guardian—who flirt with religious theocrats. For in the UK, our theocrats are brown, from minority communities, and are overwhelmingly Muslim.

Islam is a religion like any other. Islamism is an ideology that seeks to impose any version of Islam over society. When expressed through violence, I call it jihadism. It is obvious to an American liberal that Christian fundamentalism must be made to respect personal choice. Likewise, it is as plain as the light of day to me—a Pakistani-British liberal Muslim—that any desire to impose any version of Islam over anyone anywhere, ever, is a fundamental violation of our basic civil liberties. But Islamism has been rising in the UK for decades. Over the years, in survey after survey, attitudes have reflected a worrying trend. A quarter of British Muslimssympathised with the Charlie Hebdo shootings. 0% have expressed tolerance for homosexuality. A third have claimed that killing for religion can be justified, while 36% have thought apostates should be killed. 40% have wanted the introduction of sharia as law in the UK and 33% have expressed a desire to see the return of a worldwide theocratic Caliphate. Is it any wonder then, that from this milieu up to 1,000 British Muslims have joined ISIS, which is more than joined the Armyreserves. In a case that has come to symbolize the extent of the problem, an entire family of 12 recently migrated to the Islamic State. By any reasonable assessment, something has gone badly wrong in Britain.

But for those who I have come to call Europe’s regressive-left how could Islamist tyranny—such as burying women neck deep in the ground and stoning them to death—possibly be anything other than an authentic expression of Muslim rage at Western colonial hegemony? For don’t you know Muslims are angry? So angry, in fact, that they wish to enslave indigenous Yazidi women for sex, throw Syrian gays off tall buildings and burn people alive? All because… Israel. For Europe’s regressive-left—which is fast penetrating U.S. circles too—Muslims are notexpected to be civilized. And Muslim upstarts who dare to challenge this theocratic fascism are nothing but an inconvenience to an uncannily Weimar-like populism that screams simplistically: It is all the West’s fault. 

It is my fellow Muslims who suffer most from this patronizing, self-pity inspiring mollycoddling. And just as American Muslims, with some reason, fear becoming targeted by right-wing anti-Muslim prejudice, British Muslims are being spoon-fed regressive-left sedatives, encouraging a perpetual state of victimhood in order to score their petty ideological points against “the West.” In the name of cultural diversity, aspiration is being stifled, expectations have been tempered and because Muslims have their own culture don't you know, self-segregation and ghettoization have thrived. 

Finally, on July 20 the British Prime Minister David Cameron mustered the political will to deliver a comprehensive speech setting out the UK’s approach to tackling the long rising tide of theocratic extremism in our communities. At last, Cameron named and shamed the Islamist ideology as a major factor behind the rise of such extremism. As founding chairman of Quilliam—an organization that seeks to challenge Islamism though civic debate across political divides—I was proud to have played a role in advising Downing Street on some of the core messages for this speech. I did this despite my being a Liberal, and not a member of the Prime Minster’s Conservative party. I did this because extremism affects our national, not just party-political, interests.

Via: Daily Beast

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Christian Schools Ask Supreme Court To Strike Down ObamaCare Abortion Mandate

A group of Christian schools wants the Supreme Court to strike down an Obamacare mandate that they provide health plans that enable access to abortion-inducing pills, the latest religious nonprofits to challenge the law's mandate.

The group of four universities petitioned the Supreme Court on Friday after a lower appeals court upheld the mandate earlier this month. The universities are Southern Nazarene University, Oklahoma Wesleyan University, Oklahoma Baptist University and Mid-America Christian University.

"The government should not force faith-based organizations to be involved in providing abortion pills to their employees or students," said Gregory S. Baylor. Baylor is senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the schools.

The petition is the latest from several religious nonprofits objecting to an accommodation in the healthcare law for birth control and the abortion drugs.

Under the accommodation, the nonprofits' health plans must include coverage for such products. The catch is that the nonprofits don't have to pay for that coverage, which is then paid for by the insurer or third party.

The religious universities would rather get an exemption to the coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception. An exemption means that the people covered under the universities' health plans wouldn't get any access under their insurance.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the accommodation on July 14. The court ruled that it found the accommodation did not "substantially burden" the schools' religious exercise or infringe their First Amendment rights.

The schools disagree.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Persecuting Christians, attacking free speech

My parents immigrated to the United States in 1951, after surviving the tyranny of Nazi Germany and Soviet communism.

It never would have occurred to them that any American, such as Aaron and Melissa Klein of Oregon, would have their freedom to speak, their right to live their lives according to their religious beliefs and their ability to practice their chosen profession taken away by an unapologetic, self-righteous government bureaucrat in basic disregard of the most fundamental tenets of the First Amendment.

But that is exactly what has happened to the Kleins, who committed what is these days the socially unacceptable faux pas of refusing to bake a wedding cake for Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer. Instead of going to one of the dozens of other bakers who would have baked them a cake, this lesbian couple filed a claim for “emotional damages” against the Kleins with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI).

BOLI is run by Commissioner Brad Avakian, a generous financial supporter of Basic Rights Oregon, the largest homosexual rights group in Oregon. This means he has an inherent conflict of interest in the matter.

In fact, emails obtained through a public records request show Avakian and other employees at BOLI worked behind the scenes with the gay lobbying group to organize the persecution of the Kleins through the administrative hearing process. The Kleins lost their bakery business because of a boycott and the burden of defending themselves in the administrative process that lacked the due process protections of a court, where Avakian himself was the final judge, jury and executioner.

On July 2, just days before we celebrated the Declaration of Independence and the fight for our liberties, Avakian issued a final resolution of the complaint. He ordered the Kleins to pay Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer $135,000 for “emotional” damages.

Apparently, not getting the cake they wanted caused them “acute loss of confidence,” “doubt,” “excessive sleep,” “shock,” “uncertainty,” “high blood pressure,” “impaired digestion,” and a host of other symptoms. Of course, they didn’t lose their jobs, their profession, or their ability to make a living as the Kleins did.

But Avakian didn’t stop there. He found it unacceptable that the Kleins defended themselves in the media and -- horrors -- on their Facebook page! Apparently, talking about how they try to live their lives in accordance with their religious beliefs was too much.

By “repeatedly appearing in public to make statements” about the complaint, the Kleins are “liable for any resultant emotional suffering experienced by” the lesbian couple. Therefore, Avakian ordered the Kleins to “cease and desist from publishing, circulating, issuing, or displaying” any communication about their beliefs about sexual orientation and public accommodations. He overruled the hearing officer’s recommendation to dismiss this part of the claim.

America was founded on the basis of religious freedom and free speech. Freedom from persecution like that instigated by Avakian drew many to America, from the pilgrims to the Huguenots. Those principles were embedded in our First Amendment and ingrained in American culture -- until now.

The issue here is not same-sex marriage, a fiercely debated social issue, or whether you approve of it. The issue is that all Americans have the right not only to live their life according to their religious principles without the government dictating what social mores are acceptable, but also the right to speak freely -- particularly when they are being hounded by the government.

Benjamin Franklin once wrote that “freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.” With this unfair, unjust, and unwarranted judgment and gag order against the Kleins by an unprincipled government official, that pillar has just been destroyed in Oregon.

 - Hans von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a former Justice Department attorney.

Originally appeared in Providence Journal

Via: Heritage

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Countering Progressives' Assault on Suburbia

The next culture war will not be about issues like gay marriage or abortion, but about something more fundamental: how Americans choose to live. In the crosshairs now will not be just recalcitrant Christians or crazed billionaire racists, but the vast majority of Americans who either live in suburban-style housing or aspire to do so in the future. Roughly four in five home buyers prefer a single-family home, but much of the political class increasingly wants them to live differently.

Theoretically, the suburbs should be the dominant politically force in America. Some 44 million Americans live in the core cities of America’s 51 major metropolitan areas, while nearly 122 million Americans live in the suburbs. In other words, nearly three-quarters of metropolitan Americans live in suburbs.

Yet it has been decided, mostly by self-described progressives, that suburban living is too unecological, not mention too uncool, and even too white for their future America. Density is their new holy grail, for both the world and the U.S. Across the country efforts are now being mounted—through HUD, the EPA, and scores of local agencies—to impede suburban home-building, or to raise its cost. Notably in coastal California, but other places, too, suburban housing is increasingly relegated to the affluent.

The obstacles being erected include incentives for density, urban growth boundaries, attempts to alter the race and class makeup of communities, and mounting environmental efforts to reduce sprawl. The EPA wants to designate even small, seasonal puddles as “wetlands,” creating a barrier to developers of middle-class housing, particularly in fast-growing communities in the Southwest. Denizens of free-market-oriented Texas could soon be experiencing what those in California, Oregon and other progressive bastions have long endured: environmental laws that make suburban development all but impossible, or impossibly expensive. Suburban family favorites like cul-de-sacs are being banned under pressure from planners.

Some conservatives rightly criticize such intrusive moves, but they generally ignore how Wall Street interests and some developers see forced densification as opportunities for greater profits, often sweetened by public subsidies. Overall, suburban interests are poorly organized, particularly compared to well-connected density lobbies such as the developer-funded Urban Land Institute (ULI), which have opposed suburbanization for nearly 80 years. 

Via: Real Clear Politics

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Sundays will never be the same

While the witch-hunt against Confederate flags, statues, paintings and even stained glass windows continues to distract the masses, it’s really the churches Big Government most covet

 Now that Gay Day June 26th has come to pass,  and Barack Obama had the White House flooded in the colours of the gay rainbow, Sundays will never be the same.    Sunday, that is, as the day Christians come to church to worship the Creator.  The progressives want Sunday, and as sure as Lucifer is now calling the shots, they will be coming for it.

Sunday, the day of rest, will ultimately become the day of arrest.

While the witch-hunt against Confederate flags, statues, paintings and even stained glass windows continues to distract the masses, it’s really the churches Big Government most covet.

Before too long churches of every denomination will be incubators for ridding society of Christianity.

Seeking to replace the Christian God with Gaia; having long ago driven the Almighty out of the public square, progressives have decreed the Christian God as a false one and will have no false gods before them.

Instead of taking home profound reminders of the Gospel, worshippers who still turn out for Sunday service will be given pamphlets teaching them how to save the Earth as the ongoing cycle of Gaia replacing Christianity comes full bore.

Over time, congregants will be instructed from the pulpit that homosexuals practice a kind of love that cannot be described as sodomy.  Christian believers with the temerity to argue that this isn’t the truth will be left to the mercy of their pastors, pastors who are capable of having fellow congregants turn on them as hate-worthy ‘homophobes’. 

The progressives are imposing on society the unreal as the real.  How long will it be before self-made celebrities like Bruce Jenner and twerking Miley Cyrus will be brought up to the pulpit to lecture church goers that “love is love”?

Via: Canada Free Press

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U.S. Bishop Tobin on Gay Marriage: 'Blatant Rejection of God's Plan,' From the 'Father of Lies'

Pope Francis, who says homosexual marriage is an

"attempt to destory God's plan" and comes from "the

                                                                   father of lies," Satan.  (AP)

(CNSNews.com) -- In reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling today that homosexual marriage is a right, Bishop Thomas J. Tobin, head of the Catholic diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, said "a thousand courts" may rule what they want but gay marriage "is morally wrong" and a "rejection of God's plan for the human family."

Quoting Pope Francis, Bishop Tobin further said that homosexual marriage comes from "the father of lies," Satan, "who seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God."

"A thousand courts may rule otherwise, but the very notion of 'same-sex marriage' is morally wrong and a blatant rejection of God’s plan for the human family," said Bishop Tobin in a June 26 post on Facebook. 

He continued, "As Pope Francis taught while serving as Archbishop in Argentina: 'Same-sex marriage is not simply a political struggle, but it is an attempt to destroy God’s plan. It is a move of the ‘father of lies’ who seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.'"
"Despite the current trends of our society, or perhaps because of them, the Church must redouble its commitment to proclaim and defend authentic concepts of marriage and family as we have received them from God," said Bishop Tobin.  "We will always do so, however, in a respectful, charitable and constructive manner."

In its 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court concluded that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry regardless of where they lived in the United States. The ruling was made by the five liberal justices on the Court: Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.  The four conservative justices dissented: Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and John Roberts. 

Bishop Thomas J. Tobin is the former auxiliary bishop of Pittsburgh, Penn. Tobin was appointed to the Diocese of Providence in 2005 by then-Pope John Paul II. The Diocese of Providence was established in 1872 and currently serves an estimated 679, 000 Catholics in Rhode Island. 

Via: CNS News

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Charlie Daniels on the Confederate Flag, Restraint and Common Sense

Demonstrators carry Confederate flags as they leave the entrance of the South Carolina Statehouse after the removal of the flag in Columbia, S.C., on July 1, 2000. (AP Photo/Eric Draper)

The recent senseless act of slaughter in a church in Charleston, South Carolina awakened America to the ever-present lunacy and evil that walks among us, and it has also reopened some old wounds and deep feelings on both sides of a long festering situation.

Before I go any farther with this piece, I wish to express my love and admiration for the people of Charleston, who have, in the face of immense pain, shown a restraint and a common sense seldom seen in tragic situations involving race.

When I saw the pictures of the people who had been murdered, I made the statement, "I know these people," which I didn't mean literally, but figuratively. They were the kind of Christian people I have been around all my life – worked with and sat in the pews of churches with – salt of the earth folks, who not only professed to know the Lord Jesus Christ, but lived their faith every day of their lives.

These are the kind of people you want to have praying for you, the kind who know how to put their arms around a hurting person and comfort and console. They are the kind of people who raised their families to turn to Almighty God in times of trouble and heartbreak, proven by the forgiving words spoken by family members in court to the monster who had wantonly murdered their loved ones.

As in all Satan inspired iniquity, God has the ability to bring great good, and in this situation, the people of Charleston, South Carolina have shown the depth of common sense and class that exists in that community. More importantly, they showed the world what being a Christian is all about.

I feel sure that a jury of peers in South Carolina will see that Dylann Roof gets what’s coming to him, and justice will be served and meted out to the full extent of the law.

In relation to the main crux of my column today, I would like to relate an experience I had in a Midwestern city when the band was appearing with the local symphony orchestra.

In the evening before the show started, one of the venue staff came to me and said, "There is a gentleman out front who is offended by the confederate flag on your piano."

I responded that we didn't have a Confederate flag painted on our piano.

The upshot of the whole thing was that Taz, our keyboard player, had an American flag and a Tennessee flag with the flagstaffs crossed on the front of his piano, with a drawing of his namesake, a cartoon Tasmanian Devil, and the phrase "Yessiree, Tennessee" painted under it.

Via: CNS News

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Republican Presidential Candidates Blast Gay Marriage Ruling

The Republicans running for the White House blasted the Supreme Court’s ruling released Friday that will allow gay couples in all 50 states to get married, expressing concerns about the “religious liberty” of Christians who support traditional marriage.

“This decision will pave the way for an all out assault against the religious freedom rights of Christians who disagree with this decision,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said. “This ruling must not be used as pretext by Washington to erode our right to religious liberty.”

“Guided by my faith, I believe in traditional marriage,” former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said. “I believe the Supreme Court should have allowed the states to make this decision.”

Added Bush: “It is now crucial that as a country we protect religious freedom and the right of conscience and also not discriminate.”

“The Supreme Court has spoken with a very divided voice on something only the supreme being can do-redefine marriage,” Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said. “I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch. We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat.”

“Today, five unelected justices decided to redefine the foundational unit that binds together our society without public debate or input,” said Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. “The stakes are too high and the issue too important to simply cede the will of the people to five unaccountable justices.”

“While I strongly disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision, their ruling is now the law of the land,” said Ben Carson, who prefers civil unions for gay couples. “I call on Congress to make sure deeply held religious views are respected and protected. The government must never force Christians to violate their religious beliefs.”

Via: The Daily Caller

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Charleston's Quieter Lessons

Last Thursday, America woke up to the horrifying news of a massacre in a historic black church. Dylann Roof, a devout racist, walked into a Bible study, listened to innocent people discuss their faith for an hour, and then shot and killed nine of them in cold blood.

Two days after the killings, Americans were shocked once again—but this time, the surprise came from the families and friends of the murdered churchgoers. One by one, gathered at Roof’s bond hearing, a group of Christians publicly forgave and prayed for a decidedly evil person who, except for a few fleeting, eye-flickering onscreen moments, seemed without a soul. 

It was the Gospel in practice. It’s not something you see every day, at least not in the fever swamps of our relentless, gurgling, insatiable media, which increasingly resemble a starving narrative monster on speed. As an ever-imperfect Christian, the forgiveness was humbling—almost shamefully so—to watch. Sadly, for some, Charleston’s transcendent moment appears to be slipping away, likely because it was so contrary, and so foreign, to our media culture at large.

From one corner, for instance, we are now told that forgiveness is a tool of oppression. “The almost reflexive demand for forgiveness, especially for those dealing with death by racism, is about protecting whiteness, and America as a whole,” wrote Stacey Patton in Monday’s Washington Post. “What white people are really asking for when they demand forgiveness from a traumatized community is absolution,” Roxanne Gay argued in Wednesday’s New York Times. “Can’t remember any campaign to ‘love’ and ‘forgive’ in the wake of ISIS beheadings,” Atlantic monthly writer Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote on Twitter. 

That last point is undoubtedly true. But here’s the problem: Prior to the church’s radical act of forgiveness, there was no large-scale “campaign” or “demand” or “narrative” that asked them to do anything of the sort. Search the news and social media leading up to that mind-blowing hearing, and you’ll come up empty. Very few, in fact, saw anything like the church’s response coming. That’s what made it so unexpected, so beautiful, and so astonishing—and, in a culture that often thrives on outrage, so disorienting.

Via: Real Clear Politics

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Williamson: The Government Isn’t Santa

There were three wise men, bearing gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Much has been written about the mystical connotations of those gifts, but it is rarely, if ever, asked: Where did they get them?

Presumably, Balthazar, Melchior, and Caspar were not engaged in gold mining, frankincense farming, or myrrh cultivation. They had other things to do, other stars to follow. For Christians, and for men of goodwill categorically, this is an important question: Feed my sheep, saith the Lord — okay: Feed ’em what? Some of the Apostles were said to have the gift of healing through the laying on of hands; those without such gifts still have an obligation to heal the sick (if the ACLU will allow it), which means building hospitals and clinics, equipping doctors and nurses, etc. With what?

If ye had but faith in the measure of a mustard seed . . . and if the mustard-seed approach does not work, and the mountains we command to be uprooted remain stubbornly in place, then we are back to the old-fashioned problems of human existence: scarcity and production. That is what is so maddening about Pope Francis’s recent apostolic exhortation — which is, as much as my fellow Catholics try to explain it away, a problematic document in many ways. The pope’s argument, fundamentally, is that we can have capitalism on the condition that we feed the poor. This is exactly backward: We can feed the poor if we have capitalism. To give away wealth presumes the existence of that wealth, whether it is an annual tithe or Jesus’ more radical stance of giving away all that one owns. Giving away all that you own does not do the poor an iota of good if you don’t have anything. You can’t spread the wealth without wealth.

Via: NRO

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The message was delivered, but was it received?

New order of the ages: New order is not one inspired by God, but by the angel of darkness

Following the vote to suspend the debt ceiling last Wednesday night, 48 year-old Dianne Reidy, a floor stenographer for the U.S. House of Representatives for the last 8 years, surprised everyone when she briefly but unexpectedly took over the microphone on the House floor at about 10:00 pm.

C-Span footage shows her calmly walking to the dais where she began making statements about God, the founding of the United States, our Constitution, and the influence that Freemasonry played in the founding of our country. She warned House members that they could not serve two masters and that God will not be mocked. Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Reidy was whisked from the dais and ultimately taken to George Washington University Hospital for “mental evaluation.” She was released after about two hours of evaluation.

The media, including nearly all conservative and even Christian reporters, columnists and pundits who even bothered to cover the story, portrayed Diane Reidy as someone who suffered a humiliating and very public mental breakdown. They used patronizing language and empathetic inflection usually reserved for the most fragile mental patients, attributing her actions to long hours and stress. They have not only dismissed the actions of Diane Reidy, but dismissed her message as well, even as they continue to decry the state of our nation.

Obviously they did not pay attention to her message, nor did they listen to the interview of her husband by Rick Wiles of TruNews the next day. Mr. Reidy revealed critical details about events that led to her actions on the House floor, providing important context not just to her actions, but to the content of her message.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Sen. Murphy: Congress (D-CT) Morally Justified In Forcing Americans to Violate Their Religious Beliefs

(CNSNews.com) - Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said that it would be morally justifiable for Congress to pass a continuing resolution that forces Americans to buy health care plans covering abortion-inducing drugs even if doing so violates their religious beliefs.

CNSNews.com asked Murphy about funding the controversial provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, following a press conference on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

CNSNEWS: "As implemented the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, is forcing Christian individuals and business owners to purchase health plans that cover abortion-inducing drugs. Now as a result, people are going to be able to use those federal subsidies to buy plans that pay for abortions. Do you believe, Senator, you're going to be morally justified in voting, through the next continuing resolution, to give the administration more money to do those things?"

SEN. MURPHY: “Yes.”

According to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, over 200 plaintiffs are challenging the implementation of Obamacare in court on the grounds that it violates Americans' First Amendment rights by requiring them to purchase health care plans that cover sterilization, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs even if they are morally opposed.

Via: CNS News

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America Won’t Exist With Four More Years of Obama - UN Rule Within Two Years

A November 02, 2012, FoxNews.com online article authored by Christian Whiton, was titled “Would an Obama second term save America’s struggling middle class?” This is almost equal to asking if Obama’s first term helped America’s middle class.  No amount of terms of Obama in office would help America’s middle class.

Secondly, his affiliation and subservience to the Islamic religion, and the Muslims thereof, preclude any possibility that the Christian pretender Barack Obama can serve any loyalty to the American middle, upper or lower classes who are overwhelmingly non-Islamist in their primary theological beliefs.  Obama bows only to the Islamic rulers of the non-free world; his obeisance to Christians and others of the free world is barren.

Over the past four years Obama has paid lip-service only, to America’s middle class.  His prime attention has been concentrated on the upper levels of income earners and concocting efforts to make them pay even more than the inordinately high levels they already do pay in taxes.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Chuck Norris Warns America

America’s favorite action star is doing just that this election – calling on evangelical Christians across the nation to join him in crushing the creep of socialism under President Obama.

Norris and his wife, Gena, have filmed a public service announcement, unveiled exclusively at WND, wherein the two urge Christians to help save the country in November.

“We are here to talk about a growing concern we all share,” Chuck Norris explains. “If we look to history, our great country and freedom are under attack. We’re at a tipping point and, quite possibly, our country as we know it may be lost forever if we don’t change the course in which our country is headed.”

Gena warns that voter apathy among evangelicals in 2008 may have contributed to Obama’s election in the first place.

“With our country at a crossroads, Chuck and I have asked ourselves what we can be doing to help support this great country we’re blessed to live in and how we can encourage our like-minded American brothers and sisters to unite and let their voices be heard,” she said. “It is estimated that in the 2008 election, 30 million evangelical Christians stayed home on voting day and Obama won the election by 10 million votes.”

Chuck cautions Christians about the cost of doing nothing while the nation spirals into a state of socialism from which there will be no return.

“We know you love your family and your freedom as much as Gena and I do,” he says in his appeal to Americans. “And it is because of that we can no longer sit quietly or stand on the sidelines and watch our country go the way of socialism or something much worse.”

Gena urged Christians to register and cast their votes on Election Day to ensure “our voices will be heard.”

Chuck recalled the cautionary words of great patriots on the subject of preserving liberty:

“As Edmund Burke said, ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men (and women) to do nothing.’

Via WND Faith

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