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Victor Davis Hanson urges replacing stale language with vocabulary that connects with voters. For example,
It would be wiser to rail against “wasteful” or “callous,” rather than just “big,” government. “Borrowing” is preferable to the drier “deficits.” Republicans always lose when “taxes” become “revenues,” “borrowing” becomes “investments,” and mega-borrowing becomes “stimulus.” “A trillion” means nothing to most people; “a thousand billion” might still shock a little. The “campus” (Latin: “field”) is much better referred to as a “country club.” If you wish to cut PBS funding, then focus not on Big Bird but on the insiders who expect six-figure salaries for providing public-television entertainment in a largely uncompetitive environment of crony capitalism. Can’t expensive and government-subsidized wind and solar power be seen as the obsessions of the affluent, while cheap, free-market natural gas is a lifeline to the poor and the middle class?
Gun control propositions are by no means new, and nor is there a lack of a “national conversation on the subject.” Instead, the national conversation is ongoing, and the Left is losing it badly. Gun control advocates may talk of national soul searching and dialogue, but in truth that already exists; what they mean is that they’d like to win for a change.
American liberties, including the Second Amendment and the 40-plus state-level guarantees of the right to bear arms, pre-exist the federal government, and are defined and protected in the same document from which the state derives its authority and its structure. In a free republic, the people cannot be disarmed by the government, for they are it’s employers, and they did not give up their individual rights when they consented to its creation. There is no clause in our charters of liberty that allows for the people to be deprived of their freedom if and when a few individuals abuse theirs. [my emphasis]
The internet is filled with articles and blog posts pro-and-con gun control. Joseph Farah reports the many cases when guns carried by law-abiding people subdued robberies and thwarted mass killings. He also posts a photo of how violence is thwarted in Israel, which raises the question, how would the situation at Sandy Hook school been changed if teachers had been armed?
Ben Stein is exercised over "shoot ’em up video games online or
on machines."
In these games, the “player” just spends his whole day attempting to exercise and exorcize his loneliness and low self-esteem by shooting imaginary creatures and creating damage all day long.
At a certain point, just “killing” on the console blurs into doing it in real life. “Killing” is just what the kid does all his life. How much of a stretch is it for him to shoot into a movie theater or a political gathering or a kindergarten in “real life” if his life is so pitiful that he does not know what’s real and what is not? If you are looking for a villain, try shoot ’em up games.
Stein goes on to make a point I've not seen anywhere else:
The whole world is rightly overwrought and crazed with grief over the murder of twenty totally innocent and blameless souls last Friday in Newtown. It was and is a catastrophe for the ages. But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promises to kill every Jew in Israel and then in the whole world, including babies… and he had his defenders, even at the Democratic National Convention.
He goes on to speak of the silence and even acquiescene of opinion makers in the United States at the time of Nazi, Soviet communist, and Khmer Rouge killings.
The ever-thoughtful Thomas Sowell has an important column which should be read in its entirety since he answers critics and deals with comparisons with other countries.
The key fallacy of so-called gun-control laws is that such laws do not in fact control guns. They simply disarm law-abiding citizens, while people bent on violence find firearms readily available.
If gun-control zealots had any respect for facts, they would have discovered this long ago, because there have been too many factual studies over the years to leave any serious doubt about gun control laws being not merely futile but counterproductive.
Wintery Knight has a major post arguing that "The Sandy Hook, Ct. school shooting shows need for tougher fatherlessness laws" and in another post notes that "10 People shot on Friday in Chicago, the city with the strictest gun control laws."
In another post he argues "Connecticut shooting shows why we need to ban gun-free zones."
Conclusion: To strip the populace of guns would be folly. Further, I don't think it wise to start the "gradualist" approach by banning Bushmaster rifles as a first step to banning guns altogether. See Switzerland versus Germany in terms of crime statistics and gun ownership cited by Thomas Sowell above. As well, note what the editors at National Review write:
Simply put, so-called “assault weapons” are nowhere near the root of the American violence problem. According to FBI data, of the two-thirds of murders that involve firearms, about 69 percent involve handguns rather than rifles or shotguns of any kind. Most estimates place the contribution of assault weapons to gun crime at around 1 or 2 percent. These numbers should not be surprising: Rifles are difficult to conceal, and a criminal who decides to use a rifle has little reason to prefer an assault weapon over any other semiautomatic option. Contrary to popular myth, assault weapons fire only once for each pull of the trigger; they are not machine guns. [more...]
Continue reading "IS GUN CONTROL THE BEST RESPONSE TO THE SANDY HOOK SCHOOL MASSACRE?" »
Words of a friend:
Continue reading "VICKI SOTO, 27, HEROIC TEACHER AT SANDY HOOK SCHOOL" »
Inside:
This season, may your home be filled with family, friends, and the joy of the holidays.
Me: No surprise.
The Family Research Council does superb work in assembling these
articles. For previous issues of the Social Conservative Review, click here. The items below are found here.
Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling
Legislation and Policy Proposals
College Debt
Government Reform
Regulation
Waste/Fraud/Abuse
Health Care
Abstinence
Health care reform: Political and Legislative efforts
Homosexuality
Human Life and Bioethics
Abortion
Bioethics and Biotechnology
Euthanasia and End of Life Issues
Stem Cell Research
To read about the latest advances in
ethical adult stem cell research, keep up with leading-edge reports from
FRC's Dr. David Prentice, click here.
Human Trafficking
Women's Health
Marriage and Family
Adoption
Family Economics
Family Structure
Media
Pornography
Internet
Religion and Public Policy
Religious Liberty
Religion in America
Check out Dr. Kenyn Cureton's feature on Watchmen Pastors called "The Lost Episodes," featuring how religion has had an impact on our Founding Fathers.
Secularism
International
Israel
International Economy and Family
Religious Persecution
Sharia law -- U.S., foreign
The Courts
Constitutional Issues
Judicial Activism
Other News of Note
Book reviews
Elizabeth Kendal of the Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin offers a summary of a longer survey:
Whilst public schools in Sweden are by law non-confessional, Advent services are part of the compulsory curriculum. This year, however, the government has ruled that, though the Advent services are still compulsory, in public schools they must be Christ-less and prayer-less, to try to balance Sweden's Christian cultural tradition with the 'new secularism'. Last year the Scottish government promoted all Scotland's winter festivals except Christmas. This year the European Union Commission published three million secondary school diaries that detailed the feasts, festivals and holidays of all faiths except Christianity, even omitting Christmas and Easter. The West has forgotten the Lord. Revival and returning to him are urgent or else anti-Christian repression, intolerance and hostility will only escalate. Please pray for a Christmas awakening in the West.
Me: Will we heed Kendal's admonition to pray? We must make prayer a daily discipline that the true meaning of Christmas will be recovered in the West. We must guard against succumbing to apathy and/or defeatism. And that goes for our own government's hostility to Christian expression as well. From the FRC:
For our troops in the Middle East, it's not away in a manger -- it's away goes
the manger! After years of celebrating Christmas with a live nativity,
the U.S. Navy is ordering military families to tear down its display on a
Bahrain base. Service members were stunned. The news was most upsetting
for the kids, who look forward to playing their parts all year long.
"It was devastating," one officer told Fox News.
"Here we are serving in the Middle East, defending our country and
other people's religions... and we can't even enjoy our own."
The order came down just days after a secular group, the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, complained that the nativity somehow endangered U.S. lives. "It's unconstitutional," the group argued, "it's bad for the military, and in a Muslim country, it's dangerous."
Funny , that didn't seem to matter when our troops flew rainbow flags over camps in Afghanistan -- or hosted gay pride parties at our Baghdad embassy. Where was the concern for Muslim sensitivities then? These sailors are thousands of miles from home sacrificing their Christmases to defend the freedoms and the rights of people as misguided at MAAF. The least we can do is respect the Constitution they're defending, and give these troops the same freedom that's been afforded every American since the Supreme Court ruled on nativities in 1984.
Some people, like Newsweek's David Sessions, think the war on Christmas is over. "Christmas won," he says. That may be true in the retail world, where American Family Association points out that an overwhelming number of stores are chucking their holiday-neutrality in favor of Christmas greetings. "We've gone from 80% politically correct ads four years ago to 80% pro-Christmas messaging [today]," said AFA's Randy Sharp. Bill Donahue also senses the shift at the Catholic League, where the usual flurry of discrimination cases is at a minimum.
And while the commercial world may be catching on, the government is more hostile than ever -- not just to Christmas, but to Christians. In the last few weeks, the Left has gotten away with plenty of seasonal censorship-from Illinois water towers to a senior center's Christmas tree. Even President Obama couldn't throw a bone to Christmas on his official White House card -- and instead threw one to Bo, whose picture is featured. Inside, the dog's paw print appears, along with the message "May your home be filled with family, friends, and the joy of the holidays." Move over, Jesus -- the Portuguese water pooch is here!
Meanwhile , the war on Christmas isn't over -- it just expanded into a broader, 12-month battle over religious expression. And Christians will continue having success in it the more comfortable they are standing up -- and speaking out -- for truth.
The Family Research Council is taking it's business elsewhere. Makes total sense. FRC writes:
In this busy shipping season, UPS will have at least one less
customer to worry about: FRC. After 11 years as our official carrier,
FRC is suspending its contract with UPS for openly discriminating
against the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). In November, company executives
announced that they would no longer support organizations that refuse
to bow to their politically correct view of homosexuality. Although Vice
President Kristen Patrella insisted UPS's decision didn't specifically
target the Scouts, theirs was the only group affected. UPS promised to
end its charitable donations to the Scouts "until gay Scout leaders are
welcome within the organization."
According to most reports, the shipping giant altered its policy after an online petition drive at the liberal website, change.org, encouraged companies to end their BSA partnerships. But in the end, the 83,000 signatures it collected is a drop in the ocean compared to the 1,074,775 Americans who volunteered with a troop last year -- or the 2.7 million boys who were actual members of the Boy Scouts. Yet they, the overwhelming majority, are the ones for whom UPS has shown the greatest contempt -- and whose valuable activities will suffer as a result.
FRC tried to resolve the matter behind the scenes, even contacting Chairman and CEO Scott Davis with a letter of protest -- to which UPS promptly replied. Unfortunately, the company only reiterated its position that until the BSA puts a greater priority on the political agenda of LGBT activists than the protection of Scouts, they are not entitled to the same equality UPS claims to endorse. Apparently, the company isn't interested in true diversity but in strong-arming anyone who disagrees with their extreme agenda -- including a century-old youth development program, whose only crime is instilling character into millions of American boys. As for their longstanding policy on homosexuality, the Boy Scouts are doing what every parent would want them to: putting children's safety first.
Meanwhile, it seems UPS is not only anti-freedom, but anti-religion as well. Last week, the federal government sued the company for firing a Jehovah's Witness driver over a scheduling request. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) argues that the shipping giant violated America's anti-discrimination laws when it refused to modify the employee's hours so that he could attend a special church service. "When the employee refused to compromise his religious beliefs and attended instead of reporting for work, UPS fired him. UPS also assigned him a 'do not hire' status and refused to hire him when he applied for a different position at UPS's Staten Island facility," the EEOC press release explains .
If UPS wants to cater to the intolerant crowd, that's their business. But from now on, it won't be ours. FRC is taking its shipping needs elsewhere.
** On the subject of speaking up in the culture wars, Bill O'Reilly yesterday interviewed Rev. Robert Jeffrees, the outspoken pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas.
You'd never know the U.S. was a debt-ridden country by the lavish, prodigal way the Obama family spends taxpayer's money. The Presidential family is traveling to Hawaii for Christmas vacation. Consider the cost (Mark Steyn's research):
The cost to taxpayers of flying one man, his wife, two daughters, and a dog to Hawaii is estimated at $3,639,622. For purposes of comparison, the total bill for flying the entire royal family (Queen, princes, dukes, the works) around the world for a year is £4.7 million — or about enough for two Obama vacations.
Ah yes. But Obama is Obama, the most important man in the world as he no doubt self-meditates, and thus finds it easy to dismiss any slight qualm of conscience that could conceivably disturb his repose. "I'm worth every penny," he no doubt assures himself. Still, it's worth taking a look at comparative airplane costs.
According to the USAF, in 2010 Air Force One cost American taxpayers $181,757 per flight hour. According to the Royal Canadian Air Force, in 2011 the CC-150 Polaris military transport that flew William and Kate from Vancouver to Los Angeles cost Her Majesty’s Canadian subjects $15,505 per hour — or about 8/100ths of the cost.
British and Canadian citizens scrutinize money spent on the royals, not so Americans the money spent on (and by) Obama:
Obama flew Air Force One from Washington to Williamsburg, Va., requiring a wide-bodied transatlantic jet that holds 500 people to ferry him a distance of a little over 100 miles. And, unlike their British and Canadian counterparts, the American media are entirely at ease with it.
Maybe we should stop being "at ease with it." Is it too much to expect a modicum of frugality from the President? He makes present-day monarchs look like pikers. Consider:
In his recent book "Presidential Perks Gone Royal", Robert
Keith Gray, a former Eisenhower staffer, revealed that last year the
U.S. presidency cost American taxpayers $1.4 billion. Over the same
period, the entire royal family cost British taxpayers about $57
million. There’s nothing “royal” about the current level of
“presidential perks”: The Obama family costs taxpayers more than every
European royal house put together. [more . . .]
Ichabod. It's unseemly for the man who preaches "fair share" and "equality" to everyone else, to flaunt his own lavish, personal extravagance. The man who fails to recognize the "exceptional" quality of America as a nation, readily embraces the "exceptional" quality of himself and his family.
From the UK Telegraph:
Subheading:
Article:
Ahead of December 21, which marks the conclusion of the 5,125-year "Long Count" Mayan calendar, panic buying of candles and essentials has been reported in China and Russia, along with an explosion in sales of survival shelters in America. In France believers were preparing to converge on a mountain where they believe aliens will rescue them.
The precise manner of Armageddon remains vague, ranging from a catastrophic celestial collision between Earth and the mythical planet Nibiru, also known as Planet X, a disastrous crash with a comet, or the annihilation of civilisation by a giant solar storm.
In America Ron Hubbard, a manufacturer of hi-tech underground survival shelters, has seen his business explode.
"We've gone from one a month to one a day," he said. "I don't have an opinion on the Mayan calendar but, when astrophysicists come to me, buy my shelters and tell me to be prepared for solar flares, radiation, EMPs (electromagnetic pulses) ... I'm going underground on the 19th and coming out on the 23rd. It's just in case anybody's right." [more...]
Me: Sun spots are real, life on earth is uncertain, and Jesus is coming again, but I don't think God will use a Mayan calendar to influence His dates for world-shaking events. I also understand that prognosticators have been misinformed in their interpretation of the calendar. I expect December 21 to come and go without the earth coming to an end. Still, it's salutary to be shaken out of complacency. Each of us is mortal. Our destiny is to die, so we may as well give thought to that reality now as well as later. And short of death, some extra food on hand is always wise.
Doug Wilson thinks so. He makes a good and generally unrecognized point:
[...] We have
thieves in Congress and in the White House because we have thievery in
our hearts. Because we have larceny in our hearts, wanting to pay off
2012 debts with 2022 money, we put up with Bernake's monkeyshines at the
Fed. Because we have larceny in our hearts, we hear a politician say
that the rich should pay their "fair share" and we reflexively say yeah! -- in the name of justice. Thus we call rank injustice justice (Is. 5:20),
and we do it because there is larceny in our little piggy hearts.
Because we have larceny in our hearts, we call it greed when someone
wants to keep the money he made, and we don't call it greed when we want
to take it away from him. But we are the ones with sticky fingers --
and we have sticky fingers because of our sticky hearts. . . .
By the way, and I simply make this point in passing, it will do no
good to get off this charge by appealing to our cultural memories of
Robin Hood. He was not robbing the rich to give to the poor. He was
robbing the tax collectors in order to get the money back to
the people who had earned it in the first place. The Sherwood Forest
hideout had a Gadsden flag flying over it. [more . . .]
Found here:
Luc Ferry, A Brief History of Thought | "If you only read one, read this one."
Steven Smith, The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse
Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind
Andrew Delbanco, The Real American Dream: A Meditation on Hope
John Gray, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (approximately the first 65 pages)
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice: Rights and Wrongs (pp. 324-362) | "Probably the most difficult reading."
Michael Sandel, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?
Miroslav Volf, Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation
Me: I have no particular comment on this list since the only book I've read is Lesslie Newbigin's The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. But that book, along with several others he wrote, has played an important role in shaping the contours of my mind. Because of Newbigin's experience living and serving in India, when he returned to the UK later in life, he brought a rich worldview perspective that challenged and nourished the Western Christian mind in important ways.
As for the first book on Keller's list, A Brief History of Thought, about which he wrote "If you only read one, read this one,"Justin Taylor quotes him further:
This book right now is a terrific, fast way to get a handle on western culture because:
It’s a great survey of western thought—very few are available, especially from a non-Christian who is sympathetic to Christianity. All other books you buy will be less comprehensive. Though his expression of Christian doctrine is often garbled, Ferry has deep appreciation for Christianity, and when he describes how Christianity swept Greco-Roman paganism away as a cultural force, it is a remarkable, eye-opening account. It shows a) how complex and difficult it is to change culture, but b) how indeed culture does get changed. The shifts away from Christianity are also extremely interesting.
TimChallies tells a moving story: (HT: Justin Taylor)
Doug Nichols is a friend of mine through the Internet. He is the Founder and Director of Action International Ministries and in that role he travels all over the world promoting missions and evangelism. He emails me often and from all parts of the world with words of encouragement. He closes almost every email by saying, “Let me encourage you with this” and then shares a Scripture passage. I love it.
It was a long time ago, in the summer of 1966, that Doug was working for Operation Mobilization and was stationed in London during their big annual conference. He was assigned to the clean-up crew. One night at around 12:30 AM he was sweeping the steps at the conference center when an older gentleman approached him and asked if this was where the conference was being held. Doug said that it was, but that just about everyone had already gone to bed. This man was dressed very simply and had just a small bag with him. He said that he was attending the conference. Doug replied he would try to find him a place to sleep and led him to a room where about 50 people were bunked down on the floor. The older gentleman had nothing to sleep on, so Doug laid down some padding and a blanket and offered a towel for a pillow. The man said that would be just fine and that he appreciated it very much.
Doug asked the man if he had been able to eat dinner. It turns out that he hadn’t eaten since he had been travelling all day. Doug took him to the dining room but it was locked. He soon jimmied the lock and found some cornflakes and milk and bread and jam. As the man ate, the two began to talk. The man said that he and his wife had been working in Switzerland for several years, where he had a small ministry that served hippies and travellers. He spoke about his work and spoke about some of the people he had seen turn to Christ. When he finished eating, both men turned in for the night.
Doug woke up the next
morning only to find out that he was in big trouble. The conference
leaders came to him and said, “Don’t you know who it was that you put on
the floor last night? That’s Francis Schaeffer! He’s the speaker for
this conference! We had a whole room set aside for him!”
Doug had no idea that he was sleeping on the floor next to a celebrity, that he had told a man to sleep on the floor who had a profoundly important ministry. He had no idea that this man had helped shape the Christian church of that day, and really, the church of our day. And Schaeffer never let on. In humility he had accepted his lot and been grateful for it.
That is just a tiny little glimpse into a man’s life. Francis Schaeffer lived for 72 years and this little story consumed less than half of one of the 26,000 days of his life. But it tells you a lot about the man. I think it tells you as much about the man as his public ministry does. A book may proclaim that he is brilliant, but a story like this proclaims that he is humble. A speech in front of thousands may proclaim that he is a great philosopher, but the story tells us that that he is godly. There is so much we can learn about a person from those little otherwise-forgotten moments. It’s not only the great things a person does that make the man, but the small things.
When Doug tells the story he offers an application that has helped him. Not many of us can have the intellect of Francis Schaeffer; not many of us will ever have his abilities or his wisdom. But what we can do is reach out to others and minister to them with godly humility.
Me: I love this story. Years ago I met Doug Nichols. He's authentic and humble, too. I know OM life, and can imagine the setting of this story. As for Francis Schaeffer, like so many others, I owe him a huge personal debt. Encountering his person and works dramatically enlarged and deepened my own understanding of the Gospel and it's relevance to all of life. Schaeffer started a spiritual and intellectual revolution that changed the face of evangelicalism.
Justin Taylor offers the following resources:
The year 2012 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984). It is difficult to think of an evangelical figure in the 20th century who so seriously engaged the philosophies and ideologies of the secular world and set them over against the Christian worldview than Francis Schaeffer.
But Schaeffer was no ordinary evangelical. The man wore knickers and knee high socks when he lectured, sporting not only long hair but a goat’s-chin beard! Most importantly, Schaeffer did not fear man, but feared God. Not only did he engage secular worldviews, but he confronted his fellow evangelicals, even rebuking them for doctrinal concession and compromise.
As many have observed, it is not an overstatement to say that the Schaeffers transformed, reshaped, and in many ways reformed American evangelicalism. Those writing in this new issue of Credo Magazine are proof, each writer bearing testimony to how Francis Schaeffer has made a monumental impact on how we understand and articulate the Christian faith and life in the world of ideas. Contributors include Bruce Little, William Edgar, Bryan Follis, and Stephen Wellum, and many others.
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From the Family Research Council:
The
new Congress hasn't even been sworn in yet, but that hasn't stopped
atheist groups from lobbying the incoming freshman. Less than 24 hours
after the elections, the American Humanist Association was already
warning new representatives about any involvement with the Congressional
Prayer Caucus (CPC). "Incoming House members should know that
approximately one in five of their constituents are not religiously
affiliated, and even more insist on maintaining the wall of separation
between church and state."
The letter, posted here, accuses the Congressional Prayer Caucus as relegating people who don't pray as "second-class citizens"--a ridiculous allegation, in part because the CPC is about a lot more than prayer. Just last week, the bipartisan group published a special booklet outlining all of their projects from the 112th Congress, which show that secularists--not the CPC--are the real threat.
Congressman Randy Forbes (R-Va.), a good friend of FRC's and co-chair of the CPC, was on "Fox & Friends" this morning to talk about the Association's letter. "They don't want anyone in government to be able to even mention or say anything related to God, faith, or religion. And they don't want anyone in the church to say anything about government. That's clearly not the intention of the First Amendment and the Constitution as most of us know it!"
Note: I got the term "Animalist" from Vishal Mangalwadi whom I heard use the term "secular animalism" (for "secular humanism") in a radio interview in July, 2012. Indian-born Mangalwadi recently authored The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization.
An important review of the book may be found here.
The broad-brush thesis of this book is this: without the Judeo-Christian
worldview, there would be no Western civilisation as we know it. The
Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament have contributed more to
the development of the West than any other single factor.
In over
400 information-rich pages the Indian-born scholar documents how the
Bible directly and profoundly contributed to the rise of the West. And
not only has the West benefited immeasurably - so too has the rest of
the world. Indeed, he argues that the "Bible was the force that created
modern India" as well. [more. . .]
-- See my previous post on Mangalwadi here which contains strong endorsements of the book from outstanding Christian thinkers including Chuck Colson, Dallas Willard, Ravi Zacharias, and David Lyle Jeffrey.
I should have noted this event a few days ago. It's significance is greater than the Western press can grasp.
While
America grows increasingly hostile to faith, Uganda is showing the
world what can be accomplished when leaders embrace it. During the 50th
anniversary of his country's independence, President Yoweri Museveni
stood before the world and publicly led Uganda in a prayer of personal
and national repentance. " I stand here on my own behalf and on behalf
of my predecessors to repent. We ask for your forgiveness," he said.
"We confess [our] sins, which have greatly hampered our national
cohesion and delayed our political, social and economic transformation."
After a lengthy confession that included everything from sexual
immorality to pride, bitterness and rebellion, Museveni took the very
powerful step of dedicating Uganda to God. "We want Uganda to be known
as a nation that fears God and as a nation whose foundations are firmly
rooted in righteousness and justice to fulfill what the Bible says in
Psalm 33:12: Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. A people you
have chosen as your own."
It was an inspirational moment for the nation, which has stood--often alone--for traditional values, abstinence, and families despite tremendous pressure from the West. "The Museveni prayer is a model for all Christian leaders in the world," Rev. Scott Lively believes. Unfortunately, the media is so threatened by religion that it refuses to leave another country alone to pursue its own views on sexuality and faith. Since Museveni's speech, the press has ridiculed Uganda for bending its knee to a higher power--the same higher power that Americans have to thank for our great nation. In times like these, President Musevni's humility should be emulated, not criticized. It is faithfulness like his that will raise Uganda's status as a new power in Africa.
This letter explains how Obama's dictatorial enforcement of abortion practices on private businesses is so unjust and unconstitituional:
By David Green, the founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.
When my family and I started our company 40 years ago, we were working out of a garage on a $600 bank loan, assembling miniature picture frames. Our first retail store wasn’t much bigger than most people’s living rooms, but we had faith that we would succeed if we lived and worked according to God’s word. From there, Hobby Lobby has become one of the nation’s largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500 locations in 41 states. Our children grew up into fine business leaders, and today we run Hobby Lobby together, as a family.
We’re Christians, and we run our business on Christian principles. I’ve always said that the first two goals of our business are (1) to run our business in harmony with God’s laws, and (2) to focus on people more than money. And that’s what we’ve tried to do. We close early so our employees can see their families at night. We keep our stores closed on Sundays, one of the week’s biggest shopping days, so that our workers and their families can enjoy a day of rest. We believe that it is by God’s grace that Hobby Lobby has endured, and he has blessed us and our employees. We’ve not only added jobs in a weak economy, we’ve raised wages for the past four years in a row. Our full-time employees start at 80% above minimum wage.
But now, our government threatens to change all of that. A new government health care mandate says that our family business MUST provide what I believe are abortion-causing drugs as part of our health insurance. Being Christians, we don’t pay for drugs that might cause abortions, which means that we don’t cover emergency contraception, the morning-after pill or the week-after pill. We believe doing so might end a life after the moment of conception, something that is contrary to our most important beliefs. It goes against the Biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one. If we refuse to comply, we could face $1.3 million PER DAY in government fines.
Our government threatens to fine job creators in a bad economy. Our government threatens to fine a company that’s raised wages four years running. Our government threatens to fine a family for running it’s business according to it’s beliefs. It’s not right. I know people will say we ought to follow the rules; that it’s the same for everybody. But that’s not true. The government has exempted thousands of companies from this mandate, for reasons of convenience or cost. But it won’t exempt them for reasons of religious belief.
So, Hobby Lobby and my family are forced to make a choice. With great reluctance, we filed a lawsuit today, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, asking a federal court to stop this mandate before it hurts our business. We don’t like to go running into court, but we no longer have a choice. We believe people are more important than the bottom line and that honoring God is more important than turning a profit.
My family has lived the American dream. We want to continue growing
our company and providing great jobs for thousands of employees, but
the government is going to make that much more difficult. The
government is forcing us to choose between following our faith and
following the law. I say that’s a choice no American and no American
business should have to make.
The government cannot force you to
follow laws that go against your fundamental religious belief. They
have exempted thousands of companies but will not except Christian
organizations including the Catholic church.
Since you will not see this covered in any of the liberal media, pass this on to all your contacts.
Sincerely,
David Green, CEO and Founder of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.
I found this post informative:
UPS
recently announced it would stop funding the Boy Scouts of America
because the Boy Scouts will not risk having its scouts led by
scoutmasters who might have a sexual interest in the boys. The Boys
Scouts of America faces millions of dollars in lawsuits because of past
abuses by gay scoutmasters.
According to a report from the
Biblically Responsible Investment Institute, UPS has given over $400,000
to nation's largest LGBT organization, the Human Rights Campaign. In
addition, they have given thousands of dollars to other gay groups.
The
Human Rights Campaign keeps track of gay-friendly companies and has
consistently given UPS a score of 100%. UPS has even bragged about the
score. The Human Rights Campaign frequently calls people "haters" and
"bigots" if they believe marriage should only consist of one man and one
woman.
Attacking organizations which support traditional sexual
views may have unintended and possibly life-threatening consequences.
For example, a day after the Human Rights Campaign repeated the charge
that the Family Research Council was a "hate group," an employee of
another LGBT organization walked in to the headquarters of the Family
Research Council, armed with 50 rounds of ammunition and a bagful of
Chick-fil-A sandwiches, and began shooting the "haters" who worked
there.
According to Thomas Strobhar, President of the Corporate
Morality Action Center, "UPS should be careful whom they support with
money that belongs to all the shareholders. The Boys Scouts are a
national treasure with legitimate interests regarding the safety of the
scouts, while the Human Rights Campaign has contributed greatly to a
lack of civility in public discourse."
A commenter links to this article - http://rethinkingtheology.com/2012/09/03/the-gay-agenda-what-in-the-world-is-going-on/
Prager's article carries the title, "Cuban-American Vote Explains Everything." (HT: Bob) Excerpt: [my bolding]
[...] Most American elementary schools and high schools, and nearly all
colleges and universities, teach everything that is significant from a
liberal/left perspective. Multiculturalism has replaced E Pluribus Unum;
the American past is villainous; the country is racist; morality is
relative; and the left-wing cause of the day -- now global warming -- is
taught as incontrovertible truth (ask your children if they have been
shown Al Gore's global warming video, "An Inconvenient Truth," or if
they have been taught both sides of the
man-made-global-warming-leading-to-catastrophe hypothesis).
American schools, especially universities, are left-wing seminaries. The only difference between your local college and a Christian seminary is that the latter are more honest. The Christian seminary announces its goal -- to graduate committed Christians. The universities deceive when they say they have no agenda other than to open minds. They may believe this deception but it is one nevertheless. Almost no university ever has a conservative speaker at its commencement exercises; nearly every professor in liberal arts departments is a Democrat (and a left-wing Democrat at that), and on the few occasions that conservatives do receive an invitation to speak at a college, they are likely to be continuously heckled, may well need body guards, or their invitation is rescinded, as Fordham University did to Ann Coulter last week.
Members of the second Cuban-American generation have been far more influenced by their schools and by television shows than by their parents. And the same holds true for second and third and fourth and fifth generation Americans of every background.
A long time ago schools taught American history, not Politically Correct American history, as mandated, for example, by California law -- which forbids the use of any textbooks that do not emphasize the roles of women, blacks, Hispanics, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and the transgendered. . . .
.. . The left has been utterly clear about what leftism stands for and has used schools, the news media and the entertainment media to transmit its values. As a result, the American trinity of Liberty, In God We Trust, and E Pluribus Unum have been supplanted with egalitarianism, secularism, and multiculturalism -- Europe's trinity.
And that is why the children of Cuban-Americans, like the children of virtually every other group in America, including white Anglo-Saxon Protestant children, increasingly vote left.
Either conservatives -- from presidential candidates to the rest of us -- learn what we stand for and communicate it, or the greatest experiment in making a good society will come to its end.
I don't think gender-neutral toys have much of a future, personally, but my opinion won't stop the gender equality engineers from attempting to deconstruct "masculine" and "feminine" as qualities that run deeply throughout the created order. Anna Molin writes in the Wall Street Journal:
This holiday season, how about a toy gun for the girl on your shopping list, and a doll for the boy?
That vision of gender-neutrality in toy-buying is coming to life in Sweden, where Top-Toy Group, a licensee of the Toys "R" Us brand, has published a gender-blind catalog for the Christmas season.
On some pages, girls brandish toy guns and boys wield blow-dryers and
cuddle dolls. Top-Toy, a privately-held company, published 12 million
catalogs and owns the BR Toys chain, with 303 stores in Northern Europe. . . . [more . . .]
On the issue of "masculine" and "feminine," the thoughts of C.S. Lewis prove intriguing. A blogger writes:
Perelandra is the second of his “Space Trilogy” and occurs on the young
planet of Venus where a creation story similar to that of Earth’s is
transpiring. Near the end of the volume Ransom, the hero of the trilogy,
encounters two angels, or eldils, as they are called in the fantasy,
"Both
bodies were naked, and both were free from any sexual characteristics,
either primary or secondary. That, one would have expected. But whence
came this curious difference between them? He found that he could point
to no single feature wherein the difference resided, yet it was
impossible to ignore. One could try – Ransom has tried a hundred times –
to put it into words. He has said that Malacandra was like rhythm and
Perelandra like melody. He has said that Malacandra affected him like a
quantitative, Perelandra like an accentual, metre. He thinks that the
first held in his hand something like a spear, but the hands of the
other were open, with palms toward him. But I don’t know that any of
these attempts has helped be much. At all events what Ransom saw at that
moment was the real meaning of gender. Everyone must sometimes have
wondered why in nearly all tongues certain inanimate objects are
masculine and other feminine. What is masculine about a mountain or
feminine about certain trees? Ransom has cured me of believing that this
is a purely morphological phenomenon, depending on the form of the
word. Still less is gender an imaginative extension of sex. Our
ancestors did not make mountains masculine because they projected male
characteristics into them. The real process is the reverse. Gender is a
reality, and a more fundamental reality than sex. Sex is, in fact,
merely the adaptation to organic life of a fundamental polarity which
divides all created beings. Female sex is simply one of the things that
have feminine gender; there are many others, and Masculine and Feminine
meet us planes of reality where male and female would be simply
meaningless. Masculine is not attenuated male, not feminine attenuated
female. On the contrary, the male and female of organic creatures are
rather faint and blurred reflections of masculine and feminine. Their
reproductive functions, their differences in strength and size, partly
exhibit, but partly also confuse and misrepresent, the real polarity…
Malacandra seemed to him to have the look of one standing armed, at the
ramparts of his own remote archaic world, in ceaseless vigilance, his
eyes ever roaming the earth-ward horizon whence his danger came long
ago. “A sailor’s look,” Ransom once said to me; “you know… eyes that are
impregnated with distance.” But the eyes of Perelandra opened, as it
were, inward, as if they were the curtained gateway to a world of waves
and murmurings and wandering airs, of life that rocked in winds and
splashed on mossy stones and descended as the dew and arose sunward in
thin-spun delicacy of mist." (Perelandra 200-1)
In Dr. Jessica Pierce's article in the Wall Street Journal, "It's Just a Dog. Get Over it," she writes:
Once euthanasia was the default response to an animal's mortal illness.
Not any more. The rapid growth of the hospice and palliative-care
movement for animals reflects the new attitude.
According to one animal-hospice expert whom I interviewed for my book on how we deal with the decline and death of our pets, there are somewhere on the order of 75 veterinary hospice/palliative care services in the country. (No hard numbers are available.) Another expert estimated that around 10,000 animals are treated annually by practitioners specializing in some form of end-of-life care, approximately a tenfold increase from a decade ago. Ancillary sales of such things as doggy wheelchairs, therapeutic beds and incontinence pads are rising. [more...]
Among other things I found eye-raising in the article were these alleged facts:
"Surveys conducted by the pet industry have found that 70% of pet owners in the U.S. share a bed with their animal..
This year Americans will fork out an estimated $53 billion in caring for their pets."
Wow.
The Family Research Council does superb work in assembling these
articles. For previous issues of the Social Conservative Review, click here. The items below are found here.
Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling
Legislation and Policy Proposals
College Debt
Government Reform
Regulation
Waste/Fraud/Abuse
Health Care
Abstinence
Health care reform: Political and Legislative efforts
Homosexuality
Human Life and Bioethics
Abortion
Bioethics and Biotechnology
Euthanasia and End of Life Issues
Stem Cell Research
To read about the latest advances in
ethical adult stem cell research, keep up with leading-edge reports from
FRC's Dr. David Prentice, click here.
Human Trafficking
Marriage and Family
Adoption
Family Economics
Family Structure
Media
Pornography
Internet
Religion and Public Policy
Religious Liberty
Religion in America
Check out Dr. Kenyn Cureton's feature on Watchmen Pastors called "The Lost Episodes," featuring how religion has had an impact on our Founding Fathers.
Secularism
International
Israel
International Economy and Family
Religious Persecution
Sharia law -- U.S., foreign
The Courts
Constitutional Issues
Judicial Activism
Other News of Note
Book reviews
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