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.

• “N.Y. Senate Delays Gay Marriage Vote,” Jeremy W. Peters, The New York Times
• “AMA votes to seek repeal of ‘don’t ask,don’t-tell’,” Associated Press
• “The Politics of Loosening Healthcare’s Abortion Restrictions,” Dan Gilgoff, U.S. News and World Report
• “House Health-Care Bill Does Not Prohibit Paying Federal Funds to Health Providers Who Withhold Food and Water From Patients,” Karen Schuberg, CNSNews.com
• “Federal judge nixes SC license tag with cross,” Jim Davenport, Associated Press
• “Cord Blood Reverses Cerebral Palsy in Colorado Girl,” Jessica Ryen Doyle, Fox News
• “UK starts study on using human DNA in animals,” Associated Press
• “D.C. council committee approves same-sex marriage bill,” Tim Craig, The Washington Post

• “Duke Studies New Approach in Fetal Transplants for Metabolic Disorders,” PhysOrg.org
• “Catholic bishops bemoan condoms, gays as threats to marriage,” Daniel Burke, Religion News Service
• “Maine gay marriage campaigns report donations,” Glenn Adams, Associated Press
• “UMD Debates New Anti-Pornography Policy,” News Channel 8
• “Study: Abortions decline, but unsafe procedures still kill 70,000 women,” Michael Winter, USA Today
• “Between lines on poster ban,” Marybeth Hicks, The Washington Times
• “Church wins fight for homeless ministry,” Ed Blazina and Amy McConnell Schaarsmith, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• “Faith-Based Discrimination,” Editorial, The New York Times

• “High Court Takes Up Case of Cross on Public Land,” Associated Press
• “Texas Battle on Gay Marriage Looms,” James C. McKinley, Jr., The New York Times
• “Gays and lesbians set to march on D.C. after months of Obama disappointment,” Lee-Anne Goodman, The Canadian Press
• “Md. university system devising policy on student displays of porn films,” Childs Walker, The Baltimore Sun
• “Pro-lifers want Calif. abortion mill investigated,” Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow
• “Campaign Launched to Protect Christians from U.N. Resolution,” Ethan Cole, The Christian Post
• “Russia Court Throws Out Lesbian Couple Marriage Request,” Reuters
• “Capitol Christmas tree controversy,” Marcia Segelstein, WORLD Magazine

• “Child-porn arrests: `Shooting fish in a barrel’,” Mitch Stacy, Associated Press
• ” Texas Gay Couple’s Divorce Lawsuit Draws National Spotlight,” Nathan Black, The Christian Post
• “D.C. gay marriage bill could find tough going late,” Michael Neibauer, The Washington Examiner
• “Americans Don’t Want Government-Funded Abortions In Health Reform,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, Fox News
• “Abortion foes fail in bid for ‘Choose Life’ plate loses,” Dave McKinney, Chicago Sun-Times
• “Ban on religious signs at football games roils Georgia community,” Bob Allen, Associated Baptist Press
• “Ga. bone marrow donor meets recipient in Ill.,” Associated Press
• “Texas Judge Declares State Marriage Law, DOMA Unconstitutional,” LifeSiteNews.com
• “Useful Pew backgrounder on faith and U.S. healthcare debate,” Ed Stoddard, Reuters
• “Issues which “may frankly be too dangerous for pro-choice movements to acknowledge”,” JivinJehoshaphat

When lit, the Empire State is a lovely sight.  Yet last night’s display cast a rather ugly glow.  Why?  Because given the nation it is honoring, we must ask the sponsors of this celebration which highlights of China’s history during those sixty years they especially want to honor.

Might it be the murder of Christian missionaries in the late 40s and 50s?  How about the killing of millions of Chinese during Chairman Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” campaign of the mid-fifties? During those years, Communist authorities pressed rural Chinese to modernize, demanding such insanities as backyard steel mills.

China enveloped Tibet in the late 50s. That ancient Buddhist land is still being suppressed and its unique culture eradicated fifty years later. The Dalai Lama and many other Tibetans still live in exile.

In the mid-60s, Chairman Mao initiated the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which left more millions dead. Fanatical Red Guards beat and brutalized anyone who had exposure to Western Culture—and even trashed China’s revered cultural heritage.

China scholar Simon Leys wrote in Chinese Shadows about the Little Red Book of Mao’s banal “thoughts.” Millions of Red Guards memorized, chanted, and used that book to beat their elders over the head. Leys—the nom de plume of a respected expert in Chinese antiquities—described the Cultural Revolution as an exercise in which people had their skulls opened, their brains scooped out, and their brain pans filled with Maoist concrete. He didn’t mean it literally; at least, I hope he didn’t.

When, in utter exhaustion and desperation, the rulers of China opened up to the West in the 1970s, Communist Party leader Teng Hsiao-p’ing charmed liberals here with his supposed reforms and rationality. But Teng also instituted one of the most brutal of population control programs in history.

Stanford University scholar Steven Mosher courageously exposed to the world the massive forced abortions that resulted from China’s One Child policy. An estimated 50 million forced abortions have occurred in China, almost all of them attributable to the Communist Party’s inflexible rule.

President Obama, in one of his first acts, revoked Ronald Reagan’s policy of preventing U.S. foreign aid from being used to fund abortion. Mr. Obama is once again giving our tax money to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which has been complicit in China’s One Child policy since its inception.

And let’s not forget Tienanmen Square.  In 1989, thousands of student demonstrators were brutalized by soldiers ostensibly given drugs and alcohol to inspire them to murder.  Tanks and armored vehicles rolled over young men and women.  Others were gunned down by order of the Communist rulers in Beijing.

Wang Wei-Lin was the lone demonstrator who stood up to a column of tanks from the People’s Liberation Army.  His unforgettable image was seen around the world. What the world did not see, but what Chinese democracy advocates told me ten years ago, was that Wang Wei-Lin was escorted into a nearby hotel and there strangled to death by the regime’s security forces. Also summarily executed, I was informed, was the tank driver. He was killed, they say, for not running right over Wang Wei-Lin.

Last year, China’s Communist rulers put on a brave face and invited the world to come to Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. Their factories had to be closed down, however, and motorists banned for weeks before the Olympic crowds arrived. That was to allow the deadly smog to clear so that the runners could be seen by the spectators and so that the archers could see their targets.

It’s one thing for Communists to do vicious and shameful things. It’s entirely something else for free people—at least people who think themselves free and who, presumably, would like for their children to remain free—to “honor” such an odious regime. Sixty years of inhuman tyranny is nothing to celebrate.

I’ve always been proud to be a New Yorker. I have an ornament of the Empire State Building on my Christmas tree every year. Not this year. I’m too red-faced—with shame, shame for my city.

• “Catania to introduce same-sex marriage bill,” Melissa Castro, Washington Business Journal
• “To heaven from Times Square,” Julia Duin, The Washington Times
• “Abortion and Health Care Reform,” Editorial, New York Times
• “Chicago City Council panel backs plan to limit anti-abortion activists,” Hal Dardick, Chicago Tribune
• “Senate committee restores $50 million in abstinence ed funding,” Catholic News Agency
• “When is a cross not a Christian symbol?,” Erwin Chemerinsky and Joseph Infranco, Los Angeles Times
• “‘Imagine No Religion’ Billboards Hit Detroit,” Jennifer Riley, The Christian Post
• “Spiritual spirit squad squelched,” Pete Chagnon, OneNewsNow.com
• “Planned Parenthood Says Pro-Lifers Winning, Misleads on Insurance, Abortion,” Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com
• “Personal Stories Reveal How Pregnancy Resource Centers Empower Women, Help Families,” Penny Starr, CNSNews.com
• “Most Stay-at-Home Moms Start That Way, Study Finds,” Donna St. George, The Washington Post

• “Dallas leads nation in repeat teen births, study finds,” Robert T. Garrett, Dallas Morning News (September 1, 2009)
• “A push for abstinence over abortion availability,” Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow (September 1, 2009)
• “‘Condom Olympics’ producer says abstinence not ‘right message’ for trafficked or drugged women,” Catholic News Agency (August 30, 2009)
• “Same-sex marriages begin in Vermont,” John Curran, Associated Press (September 1, 2009)
• “Ballot Initiative Requested on Same-Sex Marriage,” Tim Craig, The Washington Post (September 1, 2009)
• “Montana Supreme Court Will Take Up Case Wednesday to Allow Assisted Suicide,” Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com (September 1, 2009)
• “Iowa School District Plans to Revise Religious Liberty Policy,” Nathan Black, The Christian Post (August 28, 2009)

• The Obama Administration has been fairly silent about the provisions for abortion in the health care bill. The Baptist Press has a great article about the Administration’s silence on the provisions.
• Kansas is back in the news again. This time, The Wichita Eagle reports that the Governor and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment has stripped funding from a program that gives state money to groups who provide alternatives to abortion.
• This morning, I came across an interesting article by Eric Gorski of the Associated Press that discussed the conflict of young Evangelical Christians torn between premarital sex and waiting for marriage. Continue reading…
• The controversial health care bill that will be debated in Congress will provide doctors incentive to push euthanasia. Read more about this on LifeNews.com.
• The Christian Post reports that homeschoolers are scoring well above those attending public schools in reading, math, social studies, and language.
• If you haven’t already done so, read Nonie Darwish’s article in FrontPage Magazine about Islam.

• “Pro-gay marriage group spent big in Vermont,” John Curran, Chicago Tribune (July 27, 2009)

“The leading proponent of Vermont’s gay marriage bill spent about $294,000 on lobbying and advertising in advance of the Legislature’s vote — more than seven times as much as opponents did, according to disclosure forms filed Monday.

Through its task force and an action committee, Vermont Freedom to Marry spent $65,866 of that in the week before the April 7 vote by the Democrat-controlled Vermont house, which passed the bill in a 100-49 vote to override the veto of Republican Gov. Jim Douglas.”

• “Will proposal promote euthanasia?,” Carrie Budoff Brown, The Politico (July 28, 2009)
• “Backers of Gay Marriage Rethink California Push,” Jesse McKinley, The New York Times (July 27, 2009)

“Discouraged by stubborn poll numbers and pessimistic political consultants, major financial backers of same-sex marriage are cautioning gay rights groups to delay a campaign to overturn California’s ban on such unions until at least 2012.”

• “Clash of worldviews – coming to a wedding near you,” Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow (July 29, 2009)

“That’s why this, I believe, is going to be the biggest threat to our religious liberty in our near future,” the Christian attorney remarks. “We are facing a clash of worldviews; a collision between the same-sex agenda and a moral and religious worldview. Those two are incompatible in these kinds of conflicts. If we go down this road of same-sex unions, [it] will continue to escalate.”

• “Obama’s Science Czar: Babies Aren’t Human Until They’ve Been Socialized,” Van Helsing, Right Wing News (July 29, 2009)

“A large part of the horror of abortion lies in the monstrous presumption of liberals declaring that human life begins not at conception, but whenever they say it does. Maybe that’s six weeks, maybe six months. Maybe it’s years. Obama’s Science Czar John Holdren (the guy who wanted to put a sterilizing agent in our drinking water) gives us an idea of how slippery this slope can get. From his book Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions, via Patterico’s Pontifications:

The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being.”

• “States with more Catholics more favor gay rights,” Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA Today (July 29, 2009)

“The bishops have campaigned long, loudly and clearly against same-sex marriage but the Catholic Church also offers a pervasive message of social justice, an umbrella many liberal Catholics stand under when they argue for marriage equality or life issues such as abortion, contraception and end-of-life decisions.”