Today is James Madison’s birthday, his 259^th. This small man (5 feet 4 inches, less than 100 pounds) had a huge impact on our country. Not only is he credited with being the “Father of the Constitution,” he is also known as the “Author of the Bill of Rights.” Some scholars have even argued that Madison used the process of drafting and ratifying the first ten amendments to the Constitution in order to save the Constitution.

That’s because many anti-Federalists, who had failed to block adoption of the Constitution, were gathering strength to radically overhaul the Framers’ work in 1789. They sought to amend away some of the newly adopted Constitution’s provisions, ones that had been so carefully crafted at Philadelphia.

James Madison had to fight to get elected to the First Congress. Virginia anti-Federalists like Patrick Henry and George Mason—revered patriot leaders—were working to defeat Madison. They carved out a district for the U.S. House of Representatives in which it would be harder for Madison to be elected. Today we call this practice “gerrymandering.” The word came from Massachusetts anti-Federalist leader Elbridge Gerry, who carved out some districts that looked like salamanders. Gerrymanders, they were and still are.

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So says the slogan spread by “Catholics” for Choice in Nicaragua and El Salvador to overturn laws in those countries restricting abortion.
This pro-abortion propaganda effort is in anticipation of what will be one of the most heavily attended U.N. conferences this year: The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), a gathering of radical feminists, from all points on the globe, with so-called “reproductive rights” as its centerpiece.

Samantha Singson reports in C-Fam’s Friday Fax that groups like “Catholics” for Choice and other NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are circulating declarations to present to delegations who attend the event in New York on March 1-12. This so-called Catholic group demands “the immediate restitution of therapeutic abortion” in Nicaragua and, in El Salvador, “the restitution of law that guaranty therapeutic, ethical and eugenical [sic] abortion.”
Singson writes that this year’s CSW is particularly significant because it is the fifteenth anniversary of the Beijing Conference on Women where advocates tried, but failed, to establish an international “right” to abortion on demand. She reports that abortion is a matter of frequent debate among member states at this conference, where delegates attempt to sneak into conference documents ambiguous language that can later be used as a platform for such a right.

Against all odds, pro-life forces have defeated their efforts year in and year out. WWJD at the CSW? Maybe He’s been doing it all along.

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The ACLU is at it again. This time, they are demanding an apology from a Montgomery County, Maryland, public school teacher. Behind this demand is, as always with this federally-funded outfit, the bludgeon-like threat of a huge lawsuit.

What was the teacher’s offense? Apparently, the teacher threatened a student with detention if she refused—as she repeatedly did—to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. The teacher sent the student to the counselor’s office for her refusal to stand.

The ACLU immediately invoked the Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943). That case is often cited as a hallmark of American civil liberties, especially remarkable because it was handed down while the United States was engaged in a world war to defend democracy.

But the Court in 1943 said that students cannot be required to salute the flag or recite the Pledge. That was quite right.

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The New York Times Magazine is at it again. They’ve just published a long article asking “How Christian were the Founders?” Their short answer: Not very. My response would be: Very.

Let’s start with George Washington. Washington was termed by biographer James Thomas Flexner “the gentlest of Christendom’s captains.”

Flexner was referring of course to Washington’s deeds, not his inner faith. Still, try to imagine this situation: Your army has been driven out of New York by the British and their Hessian mercenaries. These German-speaking foes regularly refused to give “quarter” to young American soldiers who threw down their weapons and surrendered.

Instead, they cruelly ran our boys through with their 17-inch bayonets. These same Hessians chased your army across New Jersey. Once, they captured one of your army chaplains, a Presbyterian. The Presbyterians were especially hated by the British for fomenting revolution from their pulpits. The Hessians stripped the unfortunate cleric and stabbed him thirteen times, leaving his naked body in the road. They then proceeded to rape their way across New Jersey. When, on Christmas Night, you defeat these same Hessians and take eight hundred of them prisoner, wouldn’t that be a time to exact revenge? If only to show your enemy that their cruelties would not go unanswered?

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When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to China last year, she chose to remain silent about human rights abuses by the world’s remaining Communist giant. Apparently more worried about not curtailing China’s financial services to the US, Mrs. Clinton and her boss in the White House sent a clear signal: The Obama Administration would give China a “bye” on religious and political persecution.

The hint was not lost on the Chinese leaders, who on February 8, 2009 arrested Gao Zhisheng.  He has been imprisoned, and unheard from, ever since.

Gao Zhisheng was once a darling of the Chinese Communists. A distinguished lawyer, he had a bright future ahead of him. He was named in 2001 as one of China’s sharpest legal talents. But Gao made a bad career move: He spoke out in defense of persecuted Christians in China.

That was enough to arouse Beijing’s party cadres against him. What made matters worse for Gao was the attention his extraordinary moral courage garnered for him in the West.  The New York Times even gave his story front-page coverage in 2005.

Last year, he was seized by authorities and is undergoing horrible torture, if he is even still alive. The New Yorker Magazine, to its great credit, has published stories by their Beijing correspondent, Evan Osnos, on Gao Zhisheng. Osnos related the stories coming out on Gao’s treament by the brutal guo bao, China’s euphemistically titled “Public Security Bureau.”  George Orwell’s “ministry of truth” couldn’t have said it better.  Here is part of what Osnos has written:

(One) account not only accused his captors of holding burning cigarettes to his eyes, beating and starving him, and applying electric shocks to his genitals, but it also revealed their warning that he would die if he told anyone about the ordeal. …It is time for the court of world opinion to insist: “Show us the prisoner and justify his detention.”

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President Obama’s powerful words at today’s National Prayer Breakfast were rightly examined by my dear colleague, Cathy Ruse. How can the same man who wants to force us to pay for the slaughter of innocents seem so convincing? He is surely right to say we must see the face of God in our fellow human beings. We must. Does he?

Abraham Lincoln said it well in 1858. He said the Founders believed that “nothing stamped in the divine image was sent into the world to be trod upon.” Our question to President Obama, with all due respect, is: Are not unborn children so stamped? Can we not see the face of God in their faces?

Lincoln condemned no one in his Second Inaugural, but he said it must seem strange for anyone to ask the help of a just God in wringing his bread from the sweat of another man’s brow. Then the President quoted Scripture: Let us not judge lest we be judged. So we must not judge.

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On Friday, the New York Times published a review of the new Denzel Washington movie, The Book of Eli. But the review doesn’t mention even once what Eli is protecting: the last copy of the Bible on Earth. The closest the reviewer can bring herself to mentioning the point of the story is to speak of the “fog of religiosity that hangs over the movie.” Ha!

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I remember when NBC would annually air the Christmas special Amahl and the Night Visitors. It was ages ago, but my parents loved the Hallmark Hall of Fame. This beautiful story of faith and hope was the first opera ever composed especially for the new medium of television. We watched those Christmas specials every year when I was growing up.

Half a century later, I sat next to Amal—the first man I ever met to bear that name. Amal  is one of the “Lost Boys of the Sudan.” And Amal’s visitors were not Wise Men searching for the Christ child that they might worship Him. My friend Amal gave his testimony to my Men’s Bible Study last Saturday. Amal’s visitors came by day. And they sought to kill eight-year old Amal and all his fellow village boys who were tending their cattle herds in rural Sudan.

The day visitors were soldiers of the National Islamic Front (NIF), the cruel jihadist government of Sudan. Amal had never heard the sound of a rifle before. The first time he ever heard a shot from an AK-47, it was pointed at him.

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Theologian Al Mohler has written a provocative column on the move to grant personhood to whales and dolphins. Federal law already protects marine mammals. I had the honor of serving in the U.S. Coast Guard where, among our other duties, we boarded foreign fishing trawlers to make sure none of them was taking these magnificent creatures in violation of our Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Anyone who has been dolphins body-surfing along the bow of a cruise ship or, in my case, the mighty Coast Guard Cutter Boutwell, has felt a thrill. It’s impossible even to see these wonderful animals and not share in the joy they seem to feel.

Rev. Mohler quotes the London Times about these cetaceans:

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It seems so long ago now, but Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal wrote a terrific commentary piece before Christmas entitled “The Adam Lambert Problem.”  In it Noonan discusses the alienation and sense of pessimism that Americans now have about the primary institutions of this nation.

She opines that the national disquiet isn’t only about money, jobs, health insurance and material security.  Noonan writes, “Americans are worried about the core and character of the American nation, and about our culture.”

For those of you lucky enough to not know much about Adam Lambert – go to Wikipedia – or read Noonan’s description:

This was behind the resentment at the Adam Lambert incident on ABC in November. The compromise was breached. It was a broadcast network, it was prime time, it was the American Music Awards featuring singers your 11-year-old wants to see, and your 8-year-old. And Mr. Lambert came on and—again, in front of your children, in the living room, in the middle of your peaceful evening—uncorked an act in which he, in the words of various news reports the next day, performed “faux oral sex” featuring “S&M play,” “bondage gear,” “same-sex makeouts” and “walking a man and woman around the stage on a leash.”

People were offended, and they complained. Mr. Lambert seemed surprised and puzzled. With an idiot’s logic that was nonetheless logic, he suggested he was the focus of bigotry: They let women act perverse on TV all the time, so why can’t a gay man do it? ….

Enough said about the former American Idol finalist, but the background sets up Noonan’s theme of alienation:

It is one thing to grouse that dreadful people who don’t care about us control our economy, but another, and in a way more personal, thing to say that people who don’t care about us control our culture. In 2009 this was perhaps most vividly expressed in the Adam Lambert Problem.

Here Noonan seems entirely correct.  While there used to be an unwritten pact by the artistic elites and the entertainment-industrial complex to refrain from assaulting American families in their homes, that norm is rapidly breaking down.  And the sorts of folks who run Comcast-GE-Universal-Disney-CBS-whatever don’t care about staying in their boxes.  Now they are going to make you watch smut (and pay for it) on your TV and in your house, on your new TV-iphone-GPS-camcorder, and on whatever else they can force on you.  Let’s be honest: unless something changes it is only a matter of time before basic cable has soft porn and then real porn on it.  The “FX” channel is only a stone’s throw away now.

And, yet the libertarian conservative political class in Washington doesn’t get what Noonan does – that there is political gold in the hills for the political leaders who understand that being free entails not being compelled to buy things that offend us morally.  Why is that?  Too many political contributions from the cable industry probably.

But note this: NONE of the libertarians who founded this country would have disagreed with the proposition that freedom rests on the ability to reject morally objectionable ideas and art.  Anything less is tyranny.  A man’s house is his castle, Mr. Otis observed.

Perhaps, it will take a woman, a mother, to ride this political horse to victory – someone like Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann.  When she’s ready, she should call Peggy Noonan to write the speech.  There is a nation waiting to hear it.

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For those of us who have to read the Washington Post, it can often be a trial. We are used to having our political, economic, social, and foreign policy principles trashed on a daily basis. We know that the Post considers us “poor, uneducated, and easy to command.” Our hometown paper regards us Christians as, at best, interlopers here. One of the prime examples I cite was the cartoon done by the late Herblock. He depicted anti-abortion demonstrators as decidedly déclassé. The woman bearing a placard looked mean-spirited and frowsy. But at least she was a woman. The man in the cartoon wore a ragged black frock coat, a broad-brimmed hat, and nasty little granny glasses perched on his long and disapproving nose. Here was the best part: in the pocket of down-at-the-heels preacher was a snake. Oh my. How very tolerant the tolerance troopers are.

For sheer leer and sneer, however, you’d be hard-pressed to top the Post’s TV critic, Tom Shales. Shales has made a career of looking down his nose at just about everything that we cherish. They are the beliefs of tens of millions of us from outside-the-Beltway (and tens of thousands inside-the-Beltway, too)  Shales came down like the big ball in Times Square this new year on Brit Hume.

The former FOX News anchor, now a senior commentator, had the temerity to recommend to Tiger Woods that he get right with Jesus. Oh, the humanity! Oh, the horror! Shales thought Hume was “dissing” all the Buddhists in the world by stating Christianity offered forgiveness and redemption that exceeded that of other faiths. And he said it—gasp—on camera.

Okay, Mr. Shales. Let’s talk about Christian forgiveness. I’d like to take you to the Lincoln Memorial. There, the words of the majestic Second Inaugural are inscribed on the wall. President Lincoln offered this thought about the slavery issue that had convulsed the country through four long years of civil war: “It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged.”

Where do you think that “judge not” phrase came from? Was it a saying of Buddha? Or Mohammed? Or might it possibly have been found in Matthew, Chapter 7, verse 1, and offered by You Know Who?

Frederick Douglass was the first black man ever invited to an inaugural reception at the White House. Unlike today, where the uninvited get in, guards tried to keep President Lincoln’s guest out. When the President saw Douglass after he had climbed through the window, he hailed him. “There’s my friend Douglass.” He motioned for the champion of black Emancipation to come to the head of the line. He asked for Douglass’ opinion of the Address. “Mr. Lincoln, it was a sacred effort.”

What? Sacred efforts undertaken on the Capitol steps? Wasn’t Lincoln attempting to shove religion down Americans’ throats? If Tom Shales had been there to report on that scene, would he have carped: “He doesn’t really have the authority, does he, unless one believes that every Christian by mandate must proselytize?” Was Lincoln trying to—shudder—proselytize?

How else could Ulysses S. Grant treat Robert E. Lee and his ragged rebel hosts with such tenderness, such dignity, at Appomattox? What else could explain Lincoln’s policy of “letting `em up easy” than an understanding of forgiveness and redemption—as taught in the Christian Scriptures?

I am not saying Lincoln and Grant were evangelists. Or born-again Christians. But at their best they lived and acted in a world formed by biblical ideals. They were—as millions of Americans then and now—shaped by scriptural truths.

If Brit Hume had gone to Thailand and there told a TV audience that Buddhism was inadequate, there might be room for protest. If he had confronted the Dalai Lama and urged him to give it all up, there might be room for Shales’ haughty harrumphs. But Brit was reaching out in a most tender-hearted way to a man whom he admired greatly—whom we all admired greatly. Brit was offering Tiger Woods balm in Gilead. You can enter the Kingdom of Heaven with that—and even pass through airport security.

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The liberal blogosphere has erupted in outrage over comments by Fox News analyst Brit Hume on Fox News Sunday (which he reiterated to Bill O’Reilly on Monday) suggesting that Tiger Woods’ life might improve if he were to—brace yourself!—become a Christian. Specifically, when asked for 2010 predictions, Hume said:

“Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person I think is a very open question, and it’s a tragic situation for him. I think he’s lost his family, it’s not clear to me if he’ll be able to have a relationship with his children, but the Tiger Woods that emerges once the news value dies out of this scandal — the extent to which he can recover — seems to me to depend on his faith. He’s said to be a Buddhist; I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’”

That anyone should be surprised—let alone shocked—when a Christian recommends Christianity is itself perhaps an illustration of the depths to which our society, the media (and perhaps American Christianity) have fallen. But shocked they are. “Darts of derision should be aimed at Hume,” declares the Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales. “First off, apologize. You gotta.”

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News reports on Pope Benedict’s recent statement on the environment left out significant quotes relating the Church’s “grave misgivings” of the modern environmental movement.  True, the Pope supports “efforts to promote a greater sense of ecological responsibility” — but only those that “would safeguard an authentic ‘human ecology’ and thus forcefully reaffirm the inviolability of human life at every stage and in every condition, the dignity of the person and the unique mission of the family, where one is trained in love of neighbour and respect for nature.”

For a good analysis of how the mainstream media is spinning the Pope’s World Day of Peace message — and for important quotes you won’t read elsewhere — see John-Henry Westen’s editorial in LifeSiteNews.com.

To read the Pope’s full World Day of Peace Message click here.

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The Carrie Underwood Christmas Special aired last week.  I was looking forward to it.  I put on my fuzzy slippers, dropped a couple of extra marshmallows into my hot cocoa, and snuggled up in front of the TV.  I couldn’t wait to hear her sing my favorite Christmas song, “O Holy Night”.  I reached for the Kleenex box.  One must be prepared for tears, especially when she hits that ever-famous note toward the end: “Diviiiiiiiiiine.”  I was like a kid at Christmas, bursting with anticipation.

So, you can imagine my shock, sitting there on the floor in my living room, staring at the TV, mouth agape, at the opening of the Carrie Underwood Christmas Special: Miss Underwood rises from under the stage in a throne-like chair, smoke swirling and lights flashing.  She’s clad in skin-tight, black leather from head to toe.  I didn’t know hair spray could get hair that high?  I didn’t know Christmas was about Carrie Underwood.  Male dancers (wearing only pants – yikes – and matching, black leather, of course) flanked her on all sides.  They all started dancing… err, more like flailing, all over the stage.  The song she sang (though, is it technically a “song” if it lacks a discernable melody?) was no more a Christmas song than fruitcake is cake.

I grabbed the remote and hit “OFF”.  Sigh.  “Speaking of fruitcake…”  I trot off to the kitchen.  I figure I’ll have better luck getting into the Christmas spirit with a slice of grandma’s fruitcake.  And that’s not sayin’ much.  Sorry, Grandma.

But, Christmas is about rejuvenation and re-birth, and last night, I got my second chance.  I was on the treadmill at the gym, of all places, barely eeking out that first mile.  (One too many marshmallows, apparently).  There were about eight TVs on the wall, each broadcasting a different channel.  “Let’s see, what can I watch to help me reach mile two?”  TV one: news.  Pass.  TV two: news.  Pass.  TV three: …what’s this?  I see a church sanctuary, brightly lit with candles and adorned with wreaths and garland.  A gospel choir is swaying back and forth.  I see Jennifer Hudson belting something out at a microphone.  Could it be?  I scrambled for my headset so I could listen.  They’re singing, “Silent Night!”

Alleluia!  Throughout the next forty-five minutes, I was delighted by one traditional, Christmas carol after the next.  No self-glorification or self-aggrandizement.  No dance choreography.  Not even any Rudolf.  Only the beautiful singing of the old, great Christmas carols and hymns.  Only the celebration of love, giving and family.  At one point, during an interview before a song, Jennifer Hudson tells us, “Jesus is the light of the world.”  Now this is a Christmas Special.  I was invigorated.  I looked down at my treadmill’s screen.  Five miles?!  I haven’t run five miles in at least five years!  (Okay, a decade, at least).

Thank you, Jennifer Hudson, for producing an appropriate, traditional Christmas special.  In an age where Christmas decorations are stripped from public buildings, and citizens are forced to take down nativity scenes displayed in their yards, I know I speak for many when I say, I appreciate you remembering Christ in Christmas.  And thank you ABC (did I actually say that?) for your bravery in broadcasting Hudson’s show.  And P.S., Miss Hudson, the note you struck in “Diiiiiiiiiivine”, was far more beautiful than Carrie Underwood’s ever could have been.

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So: the people of Switzerland, by a roughly three-to-two margin, have decided to prevent the erection of any more minarets (not mosques, mind you, just minarets) in their traditionally Christian country.

Switzerland, whose national flag features a cross (odd – the Saudi flag features a scimitar), is weary of having minarets popping up in their quiet towns and suburbs. A European country with a unique culture and thousand-year old architectural tradition disliking the insinuation of Islamic structures into its neighborhoods – go figure …

Now, that amorphous entity, the “international community,” is up in arms. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, is condemning “the anti-foreigner scare mongering which has characterized political campaigns in a number of countries including Switzerland.” Anti-foreigner? Or cultural self-protection?

Of course, any true religious or ethnic bigotry is morally wrong. All persons are made in the image and likeness of God and should be free to worship as they wish. But no group has the right to enter a host culture and demand conformity to its traditions. That’s aggressive, insulting and insensitive.

Why is it unacceptable for Europeans not to want their countries Islamicized? Muslims are now in Europe in significant numbers, but they are almost entirely unharrassed. Yet not a single Christian church exists in Saudi Arabia. Christians in Islamic countries often are attacked, discriminated against (Christians and Jews are often paid only half of their Muslim counterparts, per the command of the Quran) and prevented from free and open worship. Go to Voice of the Martyrs and see for yourself.

Count the crosses in the Islamic world. Read about the anti-Semitic rhetoric of many Islamic groups in Europe. Consider the repression of, and frequent violence against, Christians in Muslim-dominant nations. Add up the “fatwas” against Muslims who dare convert to faith in Jesus.

Then ask me to worry about the Swiss vote on minarets. Just don’t hold your breath.

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Official Washington is all atwitter about the state dinner to be given tonight to India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.  There have been newspaper articles filled with stories of guest lists, menus and the anecdotes of past dinner attendees.

India is a large nation, in geography and population.  Its friendship with the United States benefits both countries, and all Americans should welcome its respected PM to our shores.

India is also a nation rife with problems that dwarf those in our own: Massive corruption that stultifies economic growth and robs the poor of needed resources; endemic poverty affecting tens of millions; a weak educational system, fraught with caste-system bias; nearly 300 million Dalits, or “untouchables,” viewed in Hindu theology as sub-human and treated with contempt by their own society.  Sexual slavery and human trafficking also present profound and enduring challenges to all conscientious Indian political leaders.

Religious persecution in India is also on the rise.  Such Web sites as Open Doors, Catholic Online and Voice of the Martyrs provide chilling descriptions of what happens to Christians who stand for their faith in areas where devout Hindu and Muslim activists are determined to squash Christian faith violently.

Consider just one example, this one detailed in the UK’s Guardian newspaper:

“We cannot now return to the village as the murderers would be on the streets with more hatred and anger for us.” So said a witness after testifying last month in a courtroom in Kandhamal district in India’s eastern state of Orissa, which was the scene last year of ferocious violence against Christians carried out by mobs incited by extremist Hindu nationalists. The case saw three men acquitted of hacking to death a non-Christian tribal leader who tried to stand up to the mobs, and burning to death an elderly widow. They were convicted for destroying evidence, but sent home on bail, pending appeal. (“Orissa’s Forgotten Victims,” November 23, 2009).

Family Research Council hopes that President Obama will raise the issue of anti-Christian persecution with Prime Minister Singh.  To PM Singh’s credit, he has made strong statements against anti-Christian violence, noting that “Christianity is part of India’s national heritage” (www.oikumen.org/gr/news, October 20, 2008) and condemned the anti-Christian assaults in the province of Orissa (www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, August 29, 2008).

But as events of recent days indicate, much more must be done.  It is in America’s interest for us to press our friends to live to the principles of human dignity and religious liberty to which they are sworn.  By doing so, we are standing true to our own principles, and standing with those suffering for owning the Name of Jesus.

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In a heated exchange with the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder stood by his decision to jeopardize–not only New York City, but 200 years of American tradition—by launching the trial of the century against 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and five other terrorists in the Big Apple.   Holder insists that New York is the best “venue to obtain justice,” but as Senators on both sides of the aisle argued, prosecuting terrorists minutes from the graveyard they dug for 3,000 innocent U.S. victims is “dangerous,” “misguided,” and “unnecessary.”  Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was the most visibly upset.  “We’re making history here, Mr. Attorney General…bad history.”  Rather than leave the terrorists’ fate to a military tribunal, Holder is rolling the dice with a jury of civilians who–with a single “not guilty” verdict–could exonerate men who committed an act of war against our nation.  Essentially, the decision boils down to a global PR stunt to showcase America’s fairness.  It’s more than a little ironic, then, that both Holder and President Obama have already determined the outcome.  “Failure is not an option,” Holder said.  If that’s the case, why bother with a trial that endangers the city, shows disdain for our military, prolongs the process, and wastes millions of taxpayer dollars ($75 million a year for security alone)?  This entire charade besmirches the memory of every 9-11 victim and family–and, more than that, it disrespects every soldier, living and dead, who put on a uniform to fight in the war these villains started.

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If so, please send it to Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.). She is the latest example of a Member of Congress who should not be there. I am sure the Founders never envisioned elected Representatives who would not have a grasp of the most basic concepts of the Constitution. It may be time for an amendment requiring members of Congress to take a basic proficiency test on at least the Bill of Rights.

Still lamenting the overwhelming defeat that she and her pro-abortion cohorts suffered in the House when the Stupak-Pitts amendment was attached to the health care bill, Rep. DeGette is now calling for religiously-affiliated groups to be shut out of the public policy process as the bill goes to the Senate.

“Last I heard, we had separation of church and state in this country,” she said. “I’ve got to say that I think the Catholic bishops and all of the other groups shouldn’t have input.”

In other words if a group of people who are in association with one another because of their Christian faith, they should not have a collective voice in the crafting of public policy. What she is asserting is that if your ideas and actions are a product of your faith, you’re a second class citizen and your voice should not be heard.

This is a far cry from what the Founders believed. Several months after the British surrender at Yorktown, George Washington, in a letter to the Reformed German Congregation of New York, wrote, “The establishment of civil and religious liberty was the motive which induced me to the field (of combat).” Sadly, Diana DeGette seems eager to smother these precious freedoms, neither of which can exist without the other.

Rep. DeGette’s comments serve to only further confirm that this takeover is not about healthcare, it is about a radical social policy in which the expansion of abortion, at tax-payer expense, is at the very center of this effort.

If you have a spare Constitution, send it to Congresswoman DeGette.

UPDATE 11/18 (Editor): It now appears that The Hill inaccurately quoted Rep. DeGette.  See Tony Perkins’ correction and further statements here.

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Still stinging from a strong debate among ELCA pastors this summer, The Rev. Dr. Ralph W. Dunkin pushes to move his synod beyond the controversial topic and offer some reasons of support for the work of the ELCA.  He begins:

The major news coming from the 2009 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s biennial Churchwide Assembly has been the change in policy related to persons in gay and lesbian relationships. The policy change allows congregations to determine for themselves if they wish to offer blessings of same-gender relationships and if they are open to calling a pastor who is in a same-gender relationship.

But, he then moves quickly past the issue, noting the ELCA’s broad partnership of “full communion” with, “the Reformed Church, The UCC, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Moravians, The Episcopal Church and now the United Methodist Church.”  Interestingly, each of these denominations have taken similar measures as the ELCA did this summer.

The point, the Rev. Dr. Dunkin is trying to make is that, regardless of the controversy, the ELCA is still doing some incredible things and, implicitly, the vote to ordain practicing homosexuals not only doesn’t affect their overall ministry, but actually may improve their ability to link with others in an effort to do good deeds to this world.

Yet, the Rev. Dr. Dunkin fails to address a fundamental point vis-a-vis the recent ELCA vote: “What would LUTHER do?”

Continue Reading at The Family Council of West Virginia’s Engage Blog

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The Episcopal Church in the United States took another major step toward ensuring its own demise last week, by adopting a resolution endorsing the ordination of homosexuals as clergy and bishops.

The resolution, adopted at the denomination’s General Convention, said that “gay and lesbian persons . . . have responded to God’s call and have exercised various ministries,” and declared that “God has called and may call such individuals, to any ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church.”

The resolution was widely interpreted as abandoning a moratorium on the ordination of homosexual bishops that was adopted after the furor surrounding the appointment of Gene Robinson, a homosexual man, as the Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. Several branches of the worldwide Anglican Communion, particularly the more conservative churches in Africa, rejected the decision to elevate Robinson. In the U.S., a number of Episcopal parishes and dioceses have already left the Episcopal Church altogether, and they recently organized as the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).

The Episcopal General Convention three years ago adopted a resolution urging “restraint” regarding the elevation of any bishops “whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church.” The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the highest ranking official in the worldwide Anglican Communion, had told the convention, “I hope and pray that there won’t be decisions in the coming days that will push us further apart.”

Sponsors of this year’s resolution denied that it constituted a repeal of the earlier statement, but Pamela Reamer Williams of Integrity USA, a pro-homosexual advocacy group, declared that this year’s action “supersedes the effective moratorium.”

Most observers believe that this year’s resolution may be the last straw that results in a complete rupture of relationships between the Episcopal Church and most other worldwide Anglicans. Jeff Walton of the Institute for Religion and Democracy noted, “In the Anglican Communion, 22 out of 37 other provinces are already in a state of either impaired or broken communion with the Episcopal Church.” [Source]

The liberal Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katherine Jefferts Schori, warned against recognition of the new ACNA by declaring that “schism is not a Christian act.” But British theologian (and Bishop of Durham) Tom Wright pointed out in the Times of London that it is the Episcopal Church which is “formalizing the schism they initiated six years ago” by consecrating Robinson as bishop. “This marks a clear break with the rest of the Anglican Communion,” said Wright.

One aspect of the resolution that has not attracted much media attention is that it appears to use money as a weapon to discourage any action against the Episcopal Church by the Anglican Communion. The resolution “reaffirm[s] its financial commitment to the Anglican Communion,” and the accompanying explanation notes that in 2007 the Episcopal Church contributed $661,000 to the Inter-Anglican budget—more than a third of the total of $1,864,000. Presumably the resolution was hinting that this funding would be in jeopardy if the Anglican Communion were to break with the Episcopal Church.

In addition to a break with worldwide Anglicans, the Episcopal Church action is likely to lead to further erosion here in the United States as well. News about the release of the American Religious Identification Survey earlier this year focused on the 10% drop since 1990 in the percentage of Americans who identify as Christians (from 86% to 76%), without noting that almost all of the decline occurred in the 1990’s. But they also failed to highlight that the biggest drop in Christian self-identification has come among the more liberal “mainline” Protestant bodies—such as the Episcopal Church, which dropped from 3.5 million adherents in 2001 to only 2.4 million in 2008.

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