Posted on 05/15/2005 3:23:55 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Shuffling out of the movie theater last weekend, I emitted a silent scream, frustrated by yet another example of Christianity under assault, the tumescent epic, “Kingdom of Heaven,” a film so utterly contemptuous of Christians and adoring of Muslims that a leading authority on the Crusades branded it “Osama Bin Laden's version of history.”
“What insane times we live in,” one film critic notes. “Here we are in the midst of the War on Terror, and all Hollywood can do is continually bash Christianity.”
In an industry historically known for coddling communists (the blacklist, Jane Fonda, Stone, Spielberg and others traipsing off to Cuba to glorify Castro) one tends to surrender to the unregenerate status quo. Only through the fortitude of pioneers like Jason Apuzzo and Govindini Murty, whose Liberty Film Festival departs from the script by promoting works of an emerging class of conservative filmmakers, can truthful depictions of history get told.
The opiate of Hollywood fare disguised as high-minded popular culture further dulls the minds of a culture already narcotized by a steady supply of anti-Christian rhetoric. The “mainstream” media remains complicit, as evidenced by Harper’s May issue, exposing “America’s Most Powerful Megachurch,” and the “hate” of “national religious broadcasters.”
“America,” said Joseph Stalin, “is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.”
Hollywood and the media certainly play major roles in the subtle campaign to subvert Judeo-Christian traditions, but they pose a lesser threat than the judiciary and activist organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the LAMBDA Legal Defense and Education Fund, who represent its driving force.
In Southern California especially, these activists have targeted the Christian cross with glorious success. Examples abound:
Government Seal Cases: The ACLU Foundation of Southern California threatened to sue the County of Los Angeles and the City of Redlands unless depictions of the cross were removed from their official seals.
War Memorial Cases: The ACLU Foundation of San Diego and Imperial Counties succeeded in its legal effort to dismantle the 43-foot tall Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial Cross, a landmark for more than 50 years in La Jolla. The ACLU Foundation of Southern California was equally successful in obtaining an order dismantling a cross that has been a World War I memorial fixture on Sunrise Rock in the Mojave Desert since 1932.
Though battles have been lost, the war rages on:
In Los Angeles, two lawsuits were filed against the County. The Thomas More Law Center, of which I am affiliated counsel but not in their action, sued the County under an Establishment Clause theory. U.S. District Judge S. James Otero sustained the ACLU’s demurrer. The case is now on appeal to the Ninth Circuit.
The Claremont Institute, the Individual Rights Foundation, the Orange County firm of Wagner Lautsch and I sued in Superior Court under state and federal constitutional theories as well as under a taxpayer waste theory pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure 526a. This action has been stayed pending the outcome of the federal appeal. I am also vice-chair of the Committee to Save the Seal Ordinance petition drive, the purpose of which is to place a measure on a June 6, 2006, ballot putting the question whether the cross should remain on the seal to voters.
In Redlands, a similar measure will appear on a November ballot.
In San Diego, the City Council will hear argument on May 17 over whether to consider a transfer of the Mount Soledad property to private owners.
And on April 8, 2005, after an unsuccessful appeal to the Ninth Circuit, and without media fanfare, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Timlin signed an order requiring the immediate dismantling of the Sunrise Rock cross. That case, Buono v. Norton, has drawn the wrath of the American Legion, which is approaching the defeat with a novel solution.
The Legion passed a resolution calling on Congress to amend 42 U.S.C. Section 1988, to bar recovery of attorney fees to the prevailing party in cases filed for the purpose of removing and destroying religious symbols located on public property.
Rees Lloyd, a past commander of a Legion post in Banning, California, and himself a former ACLU attorney, drafted the resolution. This week, U.S. Representative John Hostettler (R-Indiana) is expected to introduce the Public Expression of Religion Act. Its goal is to drive out one incentive to file lawsuits where no one is complaining and no one is actually injured. The ACLU pockets the change even when delegating work to pro bono attorneys.
In a recent Daily Journal news item (5-6-05), attention was drawn to the measure, but in publicizing it, those attorneys who are expected to oppose the measure were classified as “civil rights” lawyers while those of us who would support it were not.
The report led by stating that supporters hope it will have a “chilling effect on civil rights attorneys.” Later in the piece, the reporter noted that “civil liberties lawyers warn the measure, if successful, would bode ill for anyone tackling an issue unpopular with a member of Congress.”
Identified as “an advocate for keeping the cross on the [County] seal,” I somehow failed to rate the civil rights lawyer tag.
But if I am not a civil rights lawyer, defending the rights of people whose traditions and heritage are under attack, then what? Who really believes that a cross in the desert, on a hilltop or on a seal establishes a government-endorsed religion? Who honestly believes their tax money is working to do any more than to honor war veterans or the community’s heritage?
Communicating the message of religious liberty certainly presents challenges, not the least of which is convincing the media, or Hollywood for that matter, that defending the cross is beneficial to our society and in fact crucial to preserving our civil rights and liberties.
When the ACLU cleverly named itself a “civil liberties” union in 1920, its idea of civil liberty was hardly consistent with what the U.S. Constitution’s framers had in mind.
“I am for socialism,” wrote ACLU founder Roger Baldwin in 1936. “I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class and sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal.”
Communism, a political theory favoring collectivism in a classless society, remains the goal. Imagine a world without religion, the utopian song asks without imagining the tyranny of a classless society.
When U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Henry Matson Waite composed his analysis of the Establishment Clause in Reynolds v. United States, a Free Exercise case, he relied on Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury (Connecticut) Baptist Association and Jefferson’s “wall of separation between church and State.”
Strange that he would examine the Establishment Clause at all since it was not in issue. Stranger still was his reliance on Jefferson’s letter and his attraction to the “wall of separation” phrase, parroted by judges and liberal activists ever since.
As Justice Waite even observed, Jefferson was in France when the language of the First Amendment was finalized and adopted. It was James Madison’s version that we venerate today. “It met the views of the advocates of religious freedom, and was adopted,” Waite wrote. Jefferson’s letter was a peevish response.
When Justice Hugo Black lifted the Reynolds analysis in Everson v. Board of Education (1945), he resisted the urge to compare what other founding fathers thought about the matter. “The wall of separation” was thus enshrined in our national consciousness and divides us still.
If the ACLU were to support the Hostettler bill, it would go a long way toward proving that they aren’t profiteers at the expense of people of faith and believers in the sanctity of tradition. But I suspect they will commit all their resources toward winning another tiny battle in their classless and unholy crusade. As Memorial Day approaches, keep it in mind.
[editor's note: normally, we do not reprint articles which appear elsewhere. However, we are making an exception for this one by our contributor William Becker, Jr. It is available only via subscription to readers of the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journals. published for the legal community. We think our readers deserve a chance to see it. The article is copyrighted 2005 by the Daily Journal Corporation.]
Uh, yeah. Kinda like Larry Flint's a modern contemporary filmaker.
Here's my point: I'm a Christian that condemns the actions and activities of secular Christians like fat boy Ted Kennedy. Conservative Jews, on the other hand, seem to find it difficult to criticize the insidious, deceitful nature of their secular Jewish "brothers". These so called "brothers" support and advocate homosexuality and other positions that are inconsistent with main stream values.
I guess if I were married to SS, I'd want to be a lesbian too.
I know they aren't. But when you make statements like "contemporary film makers" that's a pretty broad brush. It's a throw away line. I have no reason to engage you with in a pointless discourse, other than I'll predict the future for you, lest you wish to ignore the obvious: SS pictures will tank. Other than that, have a nice day!
Your response, please.
You just posed this question to me in Post 61! And I answered it nothing in SS's work glofies homosexuality.
Here's my point: I'm a Christian that condemns the actions and activities of secular Christians like fat boy Ted Kennedy. Conservative Jews, on the other hand, seem to find it difficult to criticize the insidious, deceitful nature of their secular Jewish "brothers". These so called "brothers" support and advocate homosexuality and other positions that are inconsistent with main stream values. Why do you support them?
When did I ever suggest a boycott of all Hollywood films? Please answer.
I'm a long time cinema enthusuast and will not do so.
That's your problem.
If you ignore Art that you disagree with or where the artist is not entirely in line with your own beliefs then you will end up ignoring most of Western Culture.
Since when has Indiana Jones and the Twmple of Doom represented Western Culture?
Look you have avoided/evaded my question. Do I need to clarify same? Do we need sir cachelot to jump in?
Look Borges, we have a real commication disconnect here. Last time that happened, I was talking to my wife. You wouldn't happen to be a female, would you? It would explain alot."
"That would be most Hollywood films. And yes Cinema represents a continuation of Western Culture."
What, do tell, is a continuation of "western culture"? Like from Roy Rogers movies? Need your help here.
"It's the primary art form of the last century. I did answer your question. I don't care what an artist's politics are and whether or not I agree with them. Nor do I expect that they care about mine."
As opposed to a secondary art form?
It's good that that you don't agree or disagree with them; at least we know where you don't stand.
O.K. o.k. ...I know it, you know it ...why isn't this the number one news story on all networks? Why hasn't Congress initiated hearings? It appears no one cares except for those on Free Republic.
How sad. America had rather have a bargain "Made In China" than Freedom as defined by our Constitution. I fear the majority of my countrymen ...are no longer my countrymen.
Nope. Just one last and final question, yes or no: Do you think homosexuality is a normal human trait. Please answer yes or no. Thank you in advance.
It's not nice to answer a question with a question. So tell me, when most secular jewish organizations advocate homosexuality, are they advocating the extinction of humanity?
People, what we have here is the ACLU biting the very hands that feed them. And those hands are our own.
Enough is enough. Congress needs to cut the strings once and for all. Let these Communists leech off their own ilk (like $oro$) and not on what we pay to the government.
Well to play Devil's Advocate they think it's a random trait that only occurs in a certain percentage of the population. It's not something I spend a lot of time thinking about. Can we end this now? The well is dry.
The fact that you have failed to respond to my question speaks volumes. Enough said.
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