Religious Freedom

Wasn't it just the other day that I was writing about the Religious Right warning Christians that the Obama administration was out to destroy their "freedom of religion" by referring to it merely as "freedom of worship"?  

So how do they justify this bigoted rant from Newt Gingrich arguing for the need to limit the religious rights of Muslims in America?

There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.

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America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization. Sadly, too many of our elites are the willing apologists for those who would destroy them if they could.

No mosque.

No self deception.

No surrender.

The time to take a stand is now - at this site on this issue.

As Steve Benen points out, Gingirch's suggestion doesn't even make any sense: 

So, by Newt Gingrich's estimation, Saudi Arabian officials are wrong to squelch religious liberty in their country -- so we should be equally wrong in ours. Gingrich sees Saudi Arabia discriminating and showing a lack of tolerance for spiritual diversity and, in effect, concludes, "Let's follow their lead."

But in addition, how exactly does does Gingrich plan on going about preventing this Mosque from being built considering that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"? 

I thought the Religious Right was willing to lay down their lives to defend religious liberty? 

And doesn't limiting free exercise of religion in America directly contradict the mission of Gingrich's own organization, Renewing American Leadership?

How To Renew American Leadership

So what should Americans who love their country, and believe in its ideals, do to reclaim the vision so ably constructed for us by the founding fathers and every legal immigrant who has come here to achieve the American Dream? Our initial prescription for Renewing American Leadership can be summarized in four points.

1. It is imperative to teach Americans the truth about the greatness of their country.

2. It is imperative to return to limited government by restoring our system of constitutional checks and balances.

3. It is imperative to protect and encourage the free exercise of religion in America.

4. It is imperative to take control of our borders, and reform our immigration system to admit people able to contribute the skills and the values we need for America’s future.

Do you ever get the impression that the Religious Right is just making up "controversies" that they can pretend to get upset about?  Or do you get the impression that they just don't even bother to do so much as a minute of research before voicing their outrage about some nonexistent threat? 

Behold the latest such incident, courtesy of the Family Research Council:

Can one word change the world? President Obama certainly hopes so. Since last year's speech in Cairo, one phrase is subtly worming its way into speeches with high level White House officials. With incredible precision, the President is abandoning the term "freedom of religion" in favor of what he calls the "freedom of worship." Now to most people, that rhetoric is nothing to write home about. But to those of us standing guard for our faith in Washington, the shift is ominous. As Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom said, "[Freedom of worship] excludes the right to raise your children in your faith; the right to have religious literature; the right to meet with co-religionists; the right to raise funds; the right to appoint your religious leaders, and to carry out charitable activities, to evangelize," and perhaps the most troubling, to engage in the public square.

This is the culmination of a 40-year process to expel God from America. First it was taking prayer and the Bible from public schools; then it was driving out the 10 Commandments from courthouses and nativities from town squares. Now religion would be squeezed out of every pocket of society until it exists only within the four walls of the church. This is more than semantics; it's a bold leap forward to completely secularize America. We've already witnessed what the courts and culture have done to alienate faith. President Obama's vision is to codify those decisions in policy--making it virtually impossible for men and women to exercise their religion in public. And that includes any church outreach like homeless shelters or orphanages. If we pursue this to its logical conclusion, America would eventually shut out or constrict anything having to do with Christ. President Obama says plenty of things he doesn't mean. But in this, his pursuit of wiping religion off the map, we should take him at his word.

Really? This is what it has come to?  President Obama doesn't use the phrase "freedom of religion" and it is proof that he is out to "completely secularize America"?  Even by the Religious Right's standard, this is laughably pathetic.

Hey, take a look at this procilmation that President Obama issued just four days ago:

The journey towards worldwide freedom and democracy sought in 1959 remains unfinished. Today, we still observe the profound differences between governments that reflect the will of their people, and those that sustain power by force; between nations striving for equal justice and rule of law, and those that deny their citizens freedom of religion, expression, and peaceful assembly; and between states that are open and accountable, and those that restrict the flow of ideas and information. The United States has a special responsibility to bear witness to those whose voices are silenced, and to stand alongside those who yearn to exercise their universal human rights.

In fact, a search of the White House website returns 124 uses of the phrase "freedom of religion" compared to just 9 uses of "freedom of worship."

Interestingly, a search of the George W. Bush White House website archive also returns exactly 124 mentions of "freedom of religion" versus 33 uses of "freedom of worship."

Do you remember the Religious Right freaking out when Bush used the phrase several times in proclaiming Religious Freedom Day 2008?  Me neither:

Thomas Jefferson counted the freedom of worship as one of America's greatest blessings. He said it was "a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government, and yet proved by our experience to be its best support." On Religious Freedom Day, we celebrate the 1786 passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.

The freedom to worship according to one's conscience is one of our Nation's most cherished values. It is the first protection offered in the Bill of Rights: that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." In America, people of different faiths can live together united in peace, tolerance, and humility. We are committed to the proposition that as equal citizens of the United States of America, all are free to worship as they choose.

As the questioning in Elena Kagan's confirmation hearing finally gets underway, right-wing groups are busy releasing statements and reports claiming she is everything from a "clear and present danger to the Constitution" to a sign of the end times.

The Judicial Crisis Network's first day write-up is particularly confusing, as they seem convinced that Kagan is trying to "disguise herself as the next John Roberts" 

The Senate Judiciary Committee just concluded the first day of Elena Kagan's hearings to replace Justice Stevens on the Supreme Court. Our summary of Day 1: She may not be a Constitutionalist, but she sure plays one on TV.

As we expected, Kagan followed in Justice Sotomayor's footsteps and disguised herself as the next John Roberts, and Democratic Senators did their best to help her hide from her record of extreme activism on abortion, 2nd Amendment rights, and the scope of government power. According to Kagan, "what the Supreme Court does is to safeguard the rule of law, through a commitment to even-handedness, principle, and restraint." In the immortal words of The Who, "Don't get fooled again."

Seeing as it was John Roberts who "disguised" himself as a umpire who would just call balls and strikes and then, once confirmed, revealed himself to be a blatant judicial activist, that is a pretty ironic criticism for JCN to level.

But at least the JCN's complaints are at least coherent, unlike those of Gordon Klingenschmitt:

Chaplain Klingenschmitt has contracted with a team of investigative journalists including Brian Camenker, Amy Contrada and Peter LaBarbera to investigate and report breaking news about Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.

While serving as Dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan's administration demanded and forced Blue-Cross, Blue-Shield to cover sex-change operations as an "equal right" paid benefit, harming gender-confused students, as confirmed in 2006 and 2008 by Harvard Crimson newspaper articles.

Kagan also offered sympathetic ear to lesbian group Lambda's Transgender Task Force demand to force all women to share public bathrooms and locker-rooms with cross-dressing men, which is now part of Harvard's dormitory policy, according to the report.

"This is further proof Elena Kagan cannot be trusted to impartially rule on Obamacare or bathroom bills like ENDA, since she believes sin is a Constitutional right," said Chaplain Klingenschmitt, "but rights come from God, who never grants the right to sin."

Because if anything is going to clarify these confirmation hearings, is a report written by a bunch of militantly anti-gay activists like Klingenschmitt, Camenker, and LaBarbera ... and now that is exactly what we have:

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is committed to the radical campaign pushing acceptance of homosexuality and transgenderism as “civil rights." Her unprecedented activism supporting that view as Dean of Harvard Law School (2003-2009) calls into question her ability to judge fairly and impartially on same-sex “marriage” and other homosexuality- or transgender-related issues that may come before the nation’s highest court.

Kagan’s record while Dean of Harvard Law School (HLS) demonstrates her agreement with the goals of the radical GLBT (gay lesbian bisexual transgender) movement and her solidarity with those activists. Working hand in hand with students to expel military recruiters in protest over the Armed Forces’ ban on homosexuals (a “moral injustice of the first order,” she wrote) is only the most obvious example of Kagan’s passionate dedication to this controversial and immoral agenda.

Kagan’s celebration and active promotion of the radical homosexualist and transgender worldview has profound implications. As a Supreme Court Justice, she could be expected to overturn traditional law and understandings of family, marriage, military order, and even our God-given sex (what transgender radicals call “gender identity or expression”). She is a most dangerous nominee who must be opposed by all who care about religious freedom, the preservation of marriage and traditional values.

There should be grave concern over Kagan’s issues advocacy concerning “sexual orientation.” Even before her nomination to the Court, her enthusiastic and committed pro-homosexuality activism at Harvard (including her recruitment to the faculty of radical “gay” activist scholars like former ACLU lawyer William Rubenstein and elevation of radical out lesbian Professor Janet Halley) was highly significant for the nation. Now, it is imperative that Senators and the U.S. public gain an accurate understanding of the radical, pro-homosexual environment that was Kagan’s home at Harvard – and the GLBT legal agenda that Kagan herself helped foster as Dean.

But that is actually quite reasonable compared to this statement from Tim LaHaye and Craig Parshall claiming that Kagan "presents a danger as old as the book of Genesis" and that her confirmation could be a sign of the End Times:

First, if she becomes a Supreme Court justice, she could be the all-important fifth vote in favor of interpreting our Constitution, not according to the vision of our Founding Fathers, but from an international law standpoint, a concept that would have seemed treasonous to our Founders. Three justices on the Court have already relied on foreign law in their opinions: Justices Kennedy, Breyer and Ginsburg. Recently-installed justice Sotomayor has praised Ruth Bader Ginsberg's penchant for international law, so we can assume she will be a legal globalist as well. Five justices create a majority and with Kagan on board they could begin radically steering us away from view of the Constitution that honors our Judeo-Christian heritage and founding.

Second, if this happens, it will usher America into a new age of global law. With Elena Kagan on the Supreme Court, international legal standards could well be imposed on Americans by the High Court's legal globalists, even without the Senate approving a specific international treaty. In our new novel, Edge of Apocalypse, we show how this trend might create a modern-day legal nightmare for conscientious Christians. We need only to turn to Genesis chapter 11 to see how God opposed the ancient attempt at global unification: the Lord declared the tragic result that would follow if a centralized group of fallen men were to consolidate an unlimited, unrestrained power over the planet.

Keep your eyes on the Supreme Court's view of global law. It could be one of the most telling 'signs of the times.'

• A new political organization is being launched in Louisiana called the Christian Party which will focus on applying the teachings of Jesus Christ to the political process.
• Rep. Michele Bachmann loves the media ... just not the "mainstream media" where they ask her questions and stuff.
• Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer continues to blame everyone else for mistakenly thinking that her claim that her father “died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany” meant that her father had died fighting the Nazis in Germany.
• Al Mohler warns that if Don't Ask, Don't Tell is repealed, it will destroy religious freedom and fundamentally remake American society.
• The AFA's Bryan Fischer succinctly explains the situation in Israel: "The real tragedy here is Islam. Islam inspired the deadly confrontation which led to the deaths of 10 hate-boat workers. Islam with its implacable, mindless and demonic hatred of Jews and Israel is to blame."
• Finally, the quote of the day from the Family Research Council on President Obama declaring June to be Gay Pride Month (aka "sexual deviance month"): "President Obama took it a step further and added 'bisexuals' and 'transgenders' to the list. In fact, he called on 'every America' to spend the month celebrating their movement--a movement dedicated to destroying marriage, free speech, public health, religious liberty, and (after the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' repeal) national security."

It is remarkable to watch right-wing commentators desperately trying to come up with new and convincing reasons why Don't Ask, Don't Tell should remain in place.  

In the last few days, we've seen the Family Research Council's Peter Sprigg claims that it'll lead to widespread gay rape, while his colleague, FRC President Tony Perkins claims that it'll destroy the religious freedom of military chaplains.

At the same time, Cliff Kincaid’s America’s Survival has been warning that our soldiers will be destroyed by "disease-tainted gay blood" ... and he is now being outdone by Scott Lively, who has set out his own list of reasons, including his standard "the Nazis were gay" claims, along with warnings about the reinstatement of the draft, the ultimate takeover of the military by gays, and that we are endangering the lives of all Americans by outraging Muslims:

Once homosexuals are invited to serve, the authorities will be committed to integrate them into the ranks, which means “sensitivity” training, anti-discrimination policies, and all of the other “politically correct” nonsense that has been such a disaster in the other spheres of our society. These policies have smacked of pro-“gay” fascism in the civilian world; how much worse would it be in the rigidly-controlled environment of the military?

A sizable percentage of men would not willingly subject themselves to such an environment. So, ironically, reinstatement of the draft would be made necessary by “homophobia,” and for that reason the anti-war Lefties would suddenly become defenders of compulsory service.

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Most people don’t realize that male homosexuality does not always lean to the effeminate. Historically, male homosexuality was much more often associated with hyper-masculine warrior societies which were usually very brutal and very politically aggressive. The most recent example was in Germany. Hitler’s initial power base when he launched the Nazi Party was a private homosexual military force organized and trained by a notorious pederast named Gerhard Rossbach. Rossbach’s homosexual partner Ernst Roehm, who was also Hitler’s partner in forming and building the Nazi Party, converted the “gay” Rossbachbund into the dreaded SA Brownshirts.

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Next would come a severe drop in enlistments and re-enlistments, triggering the reinstatement of the draft. This would in turn begin a degeneration of the moral and ethical culture of the services as those with the highest personal values would be most likely to leave, being replaced, in many cases, by men whose motivation is to share a male-dominated environment with others of similar sexual proclivities.

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Lastly, and perhaps most serious is the loss of our moral authority around the world, especially in the Moslem countries. Until now, we have relied upon the partnership of moderate Moslems in our campaign to marginalize the extremists who already call us The Great Satan for our moral ambiguities. Yet how quickly will we lose the popular support of these people and governments when they know that the soldiers we are sending for “nation-building” on Moslem soil are overt, practicing homosexuals? We are handing the extremists an entirely new and powerful recruiting tool, and undermining the goodwill of every socially conservative nation on the planet, culminating in a net increase of danger for our troops and decrease of respect for our way of life.

Franklin Graham continues to milk his "victimhood" for all it is worth:

"I think it is waking people up across this land," said evangelist Franklin Graham, the honorary chairman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, who was disinvited from Pentagon observances because of his remarks on Islam.

"I think people realize, many Christians, how we're losing our religious freedoms a little bit every day and if we don't stand up and exercise the freedoms that God has given us in this country, we will lose them."

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In his keynote address at the Cannon House Office Building, Graham acknowledged that people "of other faiths" might hear his message but he could only speak as a "minister of the gospel."

"I don't want to be offensive to anyone," he said, "but I only know how to pray and I only know how to preach the way that the Bible instructs me."

Graham said the nation has "committed mass murder" through abortions and "taken God out of our schools." He predicted God's judgment on the country and its citizens for not living up to divine standards.

And, interestingly, Graham also says that it was God who caused the judge to rule the National Day of Prayer as part of his plan to that more people would pay attention to it

Graham said that U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb’s decision had put the National Day of Prayer in the spotlight and prompted even more Americans to rally to the cause this year.

“God bless her,” Graham said. “I want to give her a hug and a kiss right now.”

Graham said until the ruling on the suit – filed by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion group claiming the U.S. law that authorized the National Day of Prayer was unconstitutional – organizers were looking for ways to get people excited about the tradition ... “God had a plan,” Graham said. “I don’t think (Crabb) realized that God used her to accomplish his purposes.”

So the ruling that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional is evidence that Christians are losing their religious freedom ... but that ruling itself was part of God's plan?

Earlier this morning, the Family Research Council hosted a pre-National Day of Prayer webcast featuring Franklin Graham, James Dobson, Harry Jackson, and Tony Perkins.

During their respective addresses, both Dobson and Graham warned those in attendance that Christianity was on the road to becoming illegal, with Dobson claiming that there are people in high places committed to eradicating every vestige of Christianity from the public square and Graham comparing the US to Communist Europe and China where Christians are not allowed to preach outside of the church walls, saying such restrictions are coming to America, probably in his lifetime:

In related new, it seems that Graham is miffed about being disinvited to the Pentagon's Day of Prayer event and is now lashing out at President Obama, saying that if he doesn't get the action reversed, "it will be a slap in the face of all Christians":

If President Obama fails to intervene to allow controversial evangelist Franklin Graham to lead a National Day of Prayer event Thursday inside the Pentagon, "it will be a slap in the face of all Christians," Graham said Tuesday.

And invited or not, he'll stand in front of the Pentagon and pray, Graham said in an interview.

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In an interview Tuesday with USA TODAY, Graham reiterated his belief that "Muslims do not worship the same 'God the Father' I worship." He laughed at Hinduism's many manifestations of God: "No elephant with 100 arms can do anything for me. None of their 9,000 gods is going to lead me to salvation.

"We are fooling ourselves if we think we can have some big kumbaya service and all hold hands and it's all going to get better in this world. It's not going to get better," Graham said.

He also said Obama pays attention only to black charismatic and Pentecostal pastors, such as his spiritual adviser, Joshua Dubois. Dubois heads the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, which has dozens of advisers from a wide spectrum of denominations.

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Still, Graham said, he "warned" Dubois that Obama is losing millions of "mainstream evangelicals" because he appears to be "soft on Islam" and he doesn't stand up for the "rights of the historic Christian majority."

Yesterday, it was reported that the Army had rescinded its invitation to Franklin Graham to speak at a National Day of Prayer event at the Pentagon due to his past attacks on Islam.

Not surprisingly, Religious Right activists are upset. 

While Gordon Klingenschmitt focuses his ire on Mickey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, TVC's Andrea Lafferty blamed CAIR: 

Nihad Awad, a founder of the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its chief public spokesman, was the first to start taking a victory lap and announced that evangelist Franklin Graham was "disinvited" from a National Day of Prayer ceremony at the Pentagon.

"This attack on Franklin Graham and Christians was engineered by CAIR and it has the fingerprints of Barack Obama's White House all over it," said Traditional Values Coalition Executive Director Andrea Lafferty.

"Nihad Awad and CAIR offer us a preview of what America will be like if they are ever successful. Playing by their rules – shariah law—there is no separation of church and state. There is one state religion and Islam is it. There is zero tolerance for anything at variance with Islam, particularly if it's Christian or Jewish.

For  this part, FRC's Tony Perkins claimed the decision is an attack on the religious freedom of all Christians: 

The fact that he has theological differences with Islam, differences wholly in keeping with the teachings of the New Testament, and that he has expressed them publicly, is now being used by anti-Christian zealots in a manner offensive to the freedom of religion guaranteed by the very Constitution military leaders are sworn to uphold.

"This decision is further evidence that the leadership of our nation's military has been impaired by the politically correct culture being advanced by this Administration. Under this Administration's watch we are seeing the First Amendment, designed to protect the religious exercise of Americans, retooled into a sword to sever America's ties with orthodox Christianity.

"For those Christian leaders who have avoided the controversy of political issues, saying they just wanted to preach the gospel - this should be a wake up call!"

And never one to be outdone, the AFA's Bryan Fischer sees it as proof that our military has been taken over by "fundamentalist Muslims and homosexual activists": 

Bottom line: you want to know who's now running the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy and the Marines and calling the shots where it counts? Fundamentalist Muslims and homosexual activists.

In fact, I'll predict that there will be a day of prayer at the Pentagon on May 6, and it will feature a Muslim imam, a homosexual clergyman, and no conservative Christians of any kind.

This is not your father's military. It's not even your father's country anymore.

Last Friday, a judge struck down Arkansas' law banning adoption by unmarried couples but, interestingly, the decision has not yielded an outpouring of outrage from the Religious Right - at least, not yet.

And the reason for that seems to be due to the fact that they are still too busy being outraged about the other ruling from last week finding the National Day of Prayer to be unconstitutional.

Dave Welch of the US Pastor Council says the ruling "is grounded in a fundamental hostility against public expression of the Christian faith" and the result of the fact that the nation continues to "reject the existence and/or sovereignty of God," while Focus on the Family's Stuart Shepard made the issue the focus on his latest "Stoplight" video (note Mike Huckabee's appearance in the very beginning):

And while Fox News' Megyn Kelly can't seem to understand how a day designed to "acknowledge the role that God has played in the formation of this country and its laws" could ever be seen as promoting religion, The Christian Defense Coalition's Rev. Patrick Mahoney and Faith 2 Action's Rev. Rob Schenck are planning a press conference to demand that the Obama administration appeal the ruling:

President Obama has a unique chance to build a bridge to the faith community by acting quickly on this matter and reaffirming his commitment to public expressions of faith and the National Day of Prayer. It is not enough for Mr. Obama to make wonderful speeches about protecting religious freedom around the world.

"Now is the time to act on protecting religious freedom in America.

"Sadly, the President's record concerning the Christian community and religious liberty is not a good one.

Meanwhile, Rep. Randy Forbes is telling Focus on the Family that the decision should be a "wake-up call" to all Americans about the importance of keeping "activist judges" off the bench:

The federal judge’s decision to call the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional represents a movement we are seeing across the country of a small minority who want to exclude faith, religion and morality from the marketplace of ideas. In so doing, they may be depriving us of the very principles we need to secure our freedom.

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While we cannot speculate how the Supreme Court would rule on this case, one thing this particular decision should make clear is how dangerous it is to appoint activist judges. This federal judge has essentially said that the Declaration of Independence – a document that very clearly states that our rights were given by a Creator – is unconstitutional. Is there any question this judge would have declared the Declaration of Independence unconstitutional if it were written today, since it proclaims all our rights come from the Creator? It is regrettable that we would have a federal judge essentially rule against the very premise of the nation's foundational document of freedom. The decision should be a wake-up call to Americans across the country.

But not to be outone is the Family Research Council, which is demanding the impeachment of the judge and that the nation fall on its knees to pray for our nation during these "darkest days":

Make no mistake. This judicial mutiny lies directly at the feet of the Left, including President Obama, who has created an atmosphere in which the Constitution is silly putty in the hands of liberal activists. Slowly but surely, he is making American soil more fertile for the radical redefinition of society. This cannot be tolerated. We must ensure that the President's bench nominees have a reverence for the Constitution that this judge lacks. In the meantime, we call on Congress to start the impeachment proceedings for Barbara Crabb, as she violated of her sacred oath of "administering justice... under the Constitution and laws of the United States." What she has done to repress, we will use to revive. What she meant to undermine prayer, we will use as the reason why it's necessary. When the great men and women of our past bent their knees to God on behalf of the "sacred fire of liberty," it was often during the nation's darkest days. My friends, it is time we join them.