Posted on 08/18/2012 6:22:12 AM PDT by Kaslin
Dear Mr. Obama,
On May 14, of this year you made a guest appearance on NBC’s The View to discuss your then-recently announced support for same-sex “marriage.” During your appearance, you spoke about the importance of religious liberty and how you were “very respectful of peoples’ differences on this issue” and that it was important to “make sure churches and other religious institutions have the freedom to make their own determinations about” marriage.
I must admit, it’s somewhat troubling that not even the “right-wing media” has asked you what you meant by those words. Did you mean owners of New Mexico’s Elane Photography ought to be able to run their business according to their religious values when it comes to photographing wedding parties? Did you mean Christian student groups at San Diego State University ought to be able to limit their membership, and particularly, their leadership, to Christians just as a student Muslim groups ought to be able to limit their leadership to Muslims?
In other words, what is the breadth and scope of the religious liberty you believe ought to be respected?
Do you believe religious liberty stops where Planned Parenthood’s financial needs begin?
Should Americans be forced to pay for that which violates their conscience and the tenets of their faith?
Or should a Methodist church have its tax exemption stripped for property that it would not rent out for a same sex ceremony?
Do you think mayors, including your good friend and former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, should propose bans on Chick-fil-A because its owner holds the conviction that marriage should be defined as the union between a man and a woman – the same belief you professed until a few months ago?
Pardon me, as I know I have asked a lot of questions, but they all revolve around one central issue: religious liberty. They are all important because religious liberty is the first freedom our Founding Fathers enumerated in the Bill of Rights. If this liberty can be diminished or erased, then no liberty is safe.
Your Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chair Chai Feldblum said that when religious liberty and “sexual freedom” conflict, she would have “a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.” I hope this is not your view as well, as it would make it difficult for you to both respect religious liberty and subjugate it to the “sexual freedom” of the left.
Recently, in a poignant New York Times column, Ross Douthat wrote:
If you want to fine Catholic hospitals for following Catholic teaching, or prevent Jewish parents from circumcising their sons, or ban Chick-fil-A in Boston, then don’t tell religious people that you respect our freedoms. Say what you really think: that the exercise of our religion threatens all that’s good and decent, and that you’re going to use the levers of power to bend us to your will.
I believe that we, as a nation, are still suspended somewhere between your pronouncements on The View and Douthat’s summary in The Times, just waiting for clarification on what does and doesn’t constitute religious liberty.
Mr. President, what is the breadth and scope of the religious liberty you believe ought to be respected?
Sincerely,
Casey Mattox,
Senior Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom
When you worship The State as your god, you must put your boot on the neck of true religion.
As it was in the USSR, it shall be in the USSA.
What Constitutional Amendment protects sexual freedom?...And why are there so many people in jail for committing sex crimes?...But no one in jail for practicing a recognized religion?
Good find/post...
Oh, how far we have fallen when we tolerate a jug eared mulatto street hustler dictating our religious beliefs...........
Of course these questions will go unanswered.
No one should be surprised
Letter is worthless unless on a portable telepromter at a golf course or ice cream stand.
What decision are you going to make?
Do that which pleases GOD.
or
Do that which pleases MAN.
To please God means
Abortions..........OUT
Contraception......OUT
Homosexuals........OUT
Same sex marriage..OUT
Liars and cheaters.OUT
Evil and Obama.....OUT
The same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe, the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God. (John F. Kennedy - 1961 Inaugural)
The other ideas:
The idea of God is the keystone of a perverted society. The true root of liberty, equality and culture is atheism. (Karl Marx)
Our thinking is enlightened in the degree in which we cease to depend upon belief in the supernatural. (John Dewey, father of progressive education and 1st President of American Humanist Society)
democracy is a human faith and movement, unencumbered by supernatural preconceptions. (John Childs, a protégé of John Dewey at Columbia)
the majority of our youth still hold the values of their parents, and if we do not alter this pattern, if we do not resocialize ourselves to accept change, our society may decay. (John Goodlad, 1971 Report to President, Schooling for the Future)
Another great post
One significant typo at the top; ‘The View’ is an ABC show.
http://abc.go.com/daytime?cid=10_Daytime_Nav
Otherwise good piece.
“What Constitutional Amendment protects sexual freedom?...And why are there so many people in jail for committing sex crimes?...But no one in jail for practicing a recognized religion?”
Imagine Eric Holder and Obama as the two backup men in this video and you will find your answer in the song title.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-DLql54cZc
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