Posted on 08/24/2016 10:35:30 AM PDT by Kaslin
Religious liberty concerns continue to weigh heavily on church-going Americans. In a recent survey from Pew Research, 40 percent of those who reported attending church in the last few months said that clergy spoke about religious liberty.
No other issue received more attention from clergy. And not surprisingly so.
The aggressive growth of secularism in our nation, along with the natural outgrowth of this, the tendency of secularists to turn to big government to define and implement what they perceive as fair, is on a collision course with religious liberty.
Traditional church-going Americans have always taken comfort in the first amendment -- "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." -- as government protection from outside aggression into their space.
The new secularists relate to government less as a source of protection and more as a tool of aggression, as a battering ram to force others to accept and live with values they reject.
We have had government redefine our ancient biblical institutional of marriage. And now we are witnessing the use of government power to obliterate all sense of appropriate sexual behavior.
The most recent salvo has been in California with Senate Bill 1146. The bill was designed to take on Christian colleges and universities that operate to assure that students at their institutions behave in line with biblical Christian values.
That is -- no unisex dorms, no unisex bathrooms, no public sexual behavior indicative of lifestyles inconsistent with what a biblical society expects of young men and women.
Federal law prohibits government funding for schools that discriminate against students, including on issues of sexual behavior. However, religious schools may apply for an exemption.
SB 1146 was drafted to short-circuit this exemption and to open a path for LGBT students to sue for discrimination and to jeopardize the receipt of Christian universities, and their students, of government funds.
After an intense lobbying campaign by clergy and these religious institutions, the sponsor of the bill, Democratic State Senator Ricardo Lara relented and agreed to a compromise which just requires these institutions to make public why they applied for and received their federal exemption.
Surely among the reasons that the senator relented was that it became clear that the law would badly hurt minority students. Black and Hispanic students disproportionately receive government financial aid and these minority students also disproportionately attend Christian colleges and universities in California.
Although this is one battle that is, for the time being, over, the war is just getting started. Senator Lara indicated that he wants to "take a break to really study this issue further." Similar sentiments were expressed by a legal consultant to Equality California, a LGBT civil rights group.
Among the droves lobbying against this bill was Pastor Marc Little, chief operating officer and general counsel to the Faithful Central Bible Church, a large, predominantly black church in Inglewood, California. Pastor Little also serves on the board of my organization, CURE.
Pastor Little visited offices of assemblymen in Sacramento, leaving behind a position paper explaining opposition to the proposed legislation. When he returned home, he found a profanity laced phone message from the chief of staff of one of the assemblymen he visited.
The cultural war in America is raging. And it will continue to rage regarding the ongoing elucidation of what values define America, what it really means to be free, and if we even care.
The compromise reached with SB 1146 may be a beacon for the future. We are becoming a divided nation, with many who have little in common in how we see the world. The challenge will be how we all can live together.
I’ve discovered a way to be friends forever,
There’s really nothing to it!
I simply tell you what to do:—
And you do it!
—Shel Silverstein(I think?)
“Nope, the days of “We Conservatives & Liberals may have our differences but we are all Americans in the end” are long over.”
I do not hold anyone who voted for Obunghole to be an American any longer.
God bless you and I dearly hope you are right. For my part I am ready to die for my nation.
I can live with anyone unless and until they expect *THEIR* religion or other moral beliefs not explicitly defined in the Constitution to effect the laws I have to live under; then any actions necessary to terminate said influence or attempted influence are completely justified. Everyone has the right to behave as they wish as long as they don’t deprive another of life, liberty or property through force, the threat there of, or fraud.
No we cannot. My side just wants to be left alone to live life they way they wish. The other side demands to screw with us and direct every detail about our life.
Like repelling a person breaking into your house, there is no deal, no compromise, in there.
I agree with you.
Liberals say don’t spew your hate here, just go in the closet, do it in private gatherings where “decent” people aren’t exposed to it.
Then they enter conservative events with conservative speakers with air horns and fists to try to silence conservative speech with a conservative audience, or they try to block entry to the event. Fighting “hate” is more important than even private free speech of those with whom they disagree.
Liberals say don’t discuss conservative views of sex and sexual behaviors in public school. Then there has been a concerted effort nationwide to enroll young children of homosexuals at religious schools that teach traditional values. Decline the child, and the institution receives bad publicity immediately, hate mail for months. A private school by us received death threats to teachers and admin for months, threats to burn down the school with the hater’s children inside. As if saying you want to kill 200+ Christian kids is anything but hate, their side brands itself as love, so bullying and intimidation is OK if you have what you think is a good reason for it.
If the institution accepts the child, the child then comes in saying you’re making me cry, I love my parents, they aren’t sinners, you have to stop teaching that my parents are bad. And sometimes the institution relents, and if it doesn’t, it gets sued.
So while the left says “go have your right wing enclaves”, they have already violated that potential solution by invading the right wing enclaves from private schools to political events to disrupt and try to force them to change.
No, not possible.
Uh, no. Hell, no in fact. Silly question.
Possibly we can live on the same continent with them, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to see how we can live in the same country.
Two diametrically opposed cultures cannot occupy the same space.
Nature has repeatedly answered that question: NO.
Observe that there are multiple historical cultures who normalized the abomination of nature.
Observe how those historical cultures suffered due penalties that caused them to FAIL and be conquered by cultures having greater socio-biological fitness.
That would be why they’re “historical”.
It’s really not all that complicated:
Cultures of diseased perverts FAIL.
"...finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them. ""I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY TO EVERY FORM OF TYRANNY OVER THE MIND OF MAN"--The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom
--Thomas Jefferson, 1786https://www.google.com/webhp?#q=truth%20is%20great%20and%20will%20prevail%20if%20left%20to%20herself
Two groups can not live together when one wants to be left alone and the other insists on controlling their every move.
....”America’s founders intended “living together” to be achieved by mutually seeking (and defending the right to seek) the truth via free arguement and debate.”.....
That did not include vast number of foreign invaders as we have today who have no desire for truth.....rather to conquer.
The state-establishments the majority of those invaders have been indoctrinated by have never been interested in the truth.
What are those state-establishments; and why were their historical behaviors prohibited in the 1st amendment?
This nation cannot allow any ‘ideology’ masked as a religion to abuse the freedoms of our constitution in order to advance their ideology.
What are those state-establishments; and why were their historical behaviors prohibited in the 1st amendment?
No.
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