SCOTUS gets it right on COVID restrictions for churches

 The Supreme Court decision invalidating portions of an Executive Order by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo earlier this week was a triumph for religious liberty. It is also a good example of why fears that pandemic restrictions will lead to broader tyranny are unfounded.

The ruling in the case of Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, New York v. Andrew M. Cuomo came the day before Thanksgiving and was a response to two requests for relief by the Roman Catholic Diocese and Agudath Israel of America. At issue was Gov. Cuomo’s Executive Order that established “red” and “orange” zones where attendance at religious services was limited to no more than 10 and 25 people respectively.

One problem with Cuomo’s Order was that businesses deemed “essential” had no limit on crowd sizes. Additionally, the definition of “essential” included “acupuncture facilities, campgrounds, garages, as well as many whose services are not limited to those that can be regarded as essential, such as all plants manufacturing chemicals and microelectronics and all transportation facilities.”

Further, both religious groups had complied with public health guidelines as well as implementing additional preventive measures. Both groups noted that they had conducted services at 25 to 33 percent capacity for months and had no outbreaks.

In a 5-4 decision, the majority concurred with the unsigned order that ruled in favor of the religious groups. Justices Neal Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Chief Justice John Roberts wrote separate concurring opinions while Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan joined in a dissent.

The opinion is brief and strikes a balanced tone, first establishing the rules on which the relief was ordered. The ruling states that ” because the challenged restrictions are not ‘neutral’ and of ‘general applicability,’ they must satisfy ‘strict scrutiny,’ and this means that they must be ‘narrowly tailored’ to serve a ‘compelling’ state interest.”

The Court agreed that “stemming the spread of COVID–19 is unquestionably a compelling interest,” but noted that the Executive Order was “far more restrictive than any COVID–related regulations that have previously come before the Court, much tighter than those adopted by many other jurisdictions hard-hit by the pandemic, and far more severe than has been shown to be required to prevent the spread of the virus at the applicants’ services.”

The Court further noted that New York admitted that department stores, which were not subject to the crowd-size restrictions could “literally
have hundreds of people shopping there on any given day” and that “the Governor has stated that factories and schools have contributed to the spread of COVID–19 but they are treated less harshly” than religious organizations.

Unlike many churches around the country, the Court found that the Diocese and Agudath Israel had taken more stringent safety measures than were required by the state. These precautions gave both groups an admirable safety record and helped to sway the Court that Cuomo’s Order was too restrictive.

“Not only is there no evidence that the applicants have
contributed to the spread of COVID–19 but there are many
other less restrictive rules that could be adopted to minimize the risk to those attending religious services,” the decision stated.

The majority found that Cuomo’s restrictions on churches would result in irreparable harm to the First Amendment and were not in the public interest, quoting precedent that held, “The loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.”

However, the Court did not give religious groups carte blanche to claim persecution when their activities are restricted. The ruling pointed out that pandemic restrictions are not unconstitutional on their face, but rather that health and the public interest must be balanced with the Constitution.

“Members of this Court are not public health experts, and we should respect the judgment of those with special expertise and responsibility in this area,” the decision stated. “But even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten. The restrictions at issue here, by effectively barring many from attending religious services, strike at the very heart of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty. Before allowing this to occur, we have a duty to conduct a serious examination of the need for such a drastic measure.”

So what should we, as church members and constitutionalists take from this ruling? The most important takeaway is that temporary public health restrictions in a pandemic are not unconstitutional but they must be evenhanded and defensible based on the local situation. The Court will allow emergency orders to combat the spread of the virus but it will strike down broad overreach. This is good news for those who have worried for the past eight months that Coronavirus restrictions would usher in permanent tyranny.

Second, governments cannot single out religious organizations for stricter limitations than secular businesses and groups unless the rules are narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. The First Amendment offers protection for the exercise of religion, but this protection is not unlimited.

I believe that if the New York churches had been shown to be superspreaders in the community that the Court might have handed down a very different ruling. Unfortunately, many churches around the country are not able to meet the safety standards of the Brooklyn Diocese and Agudath Israel. Many religious organizations around the country have been shown to be hotspots for viral outbreaks. These churches might find that targeted restrictions on their services would be upheld by courts that look at the facts of the situation and find a compelling public interest in slowing the outbreak.

If you’re are a pastor or are on the governing body of your church, you should absolutely take the Coronavirus pandemic seriously. You should exercise caution to protect both your members and your community. If your local government places draconian restrictions on your church, you can challenge those restrictions in court and you’ll have a better chance of winning if your church has not been the source of a COVID cluster.

Originally published on The First TV

Why the Masterpiece Cakeshop Ruling Is Bad For Conservatives

While Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop can rest a little easier after this week’s ruling, the Supreme Court decision may not bode well for the larger issues of religious freedom and freedom of speech. The narrow ruling avoided the question of how religious freedom and personal sexual freedom can be resolved and instead hinged on the anti-religious attitude of several members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

The Court did not rule on the central question in the case, the question of whether the government has the right to compel private citizens to act against their sincerely held religious convictions. In the ruling, Justice Anthony Kennedy seemed to stress that, since same-sex marriage was not the law of the land in 2012 when actions in the case occurred, there was leeway for Phillips that a future defendant might not have.

In the decision, Kennedy acknowledged, “State law at the time also afforded storekeepers some latitude to decline to create specific messages they considered offensive.” Kennedy also noted that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had concluded “on at least three occasions that a baker acted lawfully in declining to create cakes with decorations that demeaned gay persons or gay marriages.”

Kennedy said that Phillips’ claim “that using his artistic skills to make an expressive statement, a wedding endorsement in his own voice and of his own creation, has a significant First Amendment speech component and implicates his deep and sincere religious beliefs.” However, the justice goes on to say that Phillips’ “dilemma was understandable in 2012, which was before Colorado recognized the validity of gay marriages performed in the State and before this Court issued United States v. Windsor, 570 U. S. 744, or Obergefell.”

Per Justice Kennedy, Phillips “was entitled to a neutral and respectful consideration of his claims in all the circumstances of the case.” He continues, “That consideration was compromised, however, by the Commission’s treatment of Phillips’ case, which showed elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs motivating his objection.”

The decision of the Court was not that the Colorado law produced an undue burden on Phillips or that the state had no compelling interest in forcing bakers to violate their religious principles. Instead, Kennedy wrote, “the official expressions of hostility to religion in some of the commissioners’ comments were inconsistent with that requirement, and the Commission’s disparate consideration of Phillips’ case compared to the cases of the other bakers suggests the same.”

The opinion of the Court, as written by Justice Kennedy, hinged on the fact that the members of the Colorado commission expressed hostility rather than neutrality. The Court’s decision was not a decision based on objective law or the merits of legal arguments. It was a decision based on the emotions exhibited by the commissioners.

Further, Kennedy’s decision hinted that even this legal loophole might not be open to future plaintiffs. Part of Phillips victory hinted at the fact that same-sex marriage was not legal in Colorado at the time. Kennedy seems to believe that Phillips’ “deep and sincere religious beliefs” would not be so “understandable” in a nation where same-sex marriage has been established as the law of the land.

While the Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling is a clear victory for Jack Phillips, it is hard to see the ruling as a victory for religious freedom or freedom of speech. It is likewise a defeat for the objective rule of law at the hands of what Antonin Scalia once called “the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.” The message to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission is that government officials should act tolerant in public in order to appear objective before making their rulings eviscerating the First Amendment rights of Christians. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

New York Ruling: Bars Can Ban Trump Supporters

A Manhattan judge ruled this week that bars in the city can refuse service to Trump supporters. On the surface this seems to be unjust, but conservatives and constitutionalists should applaud the ruling, which follows the law and small government principles.

It all started in January 2017 when Greg Piatek, a 30-year-old accountant from Philadelphia wore his red “Make America Great Again” cap to The Happiest Hour, a New York City watering hole. Piatek says The Happiest Hour staff was not happy with his headgear and eventually forced him to leave.

The New York Post reported that bartenders noticed the hat after Piatek and his friends had been served the first round of drinks. Piatek says they asked if the hat was a joke and when he was finally able to order a second round, the bartender allegedly “slammed the drinks down.” Piatek claims that the other bartenders ridiculed his hat and refused to serve him and that, when he complained about the service, the manager told him, “Anyone who supports Trump or believes what you believe is not welcome here. And you need to leave right now because we won’t serve you.”

Piatek sued the bar claiming that the incident “offended his sense of being American,” per the Post. Piatek’s lawyer, Paul Liggieri, also claimed that the MAGA hat had religious significance.

“The purpose of the hat is that he wore it because he was visiting the 9/11 Memorial,” Liggieri said. “He was paying spiritual tribute to the victims of 9/11. The Make American Great Again hat was part of his spiritual belief. Rather than remove his hat, instead he held true to his spiritual belief and was forced from the bar.”

“Plaintiff does not state any faith-based principle to which the hat relates,” the judge ruled. “Here the claim that plaintiff was not served and eventually escorted out of the bar because of his perceived support for President Trump is not outrageous conduct.”

The instinctive reaction from many on the right will be to condemn the ruling, but the judge was correct in dismissing the lawsuit. In the first place, the evidence indicates that Piatek and his friends were not upset when they left the bar. The credit card receipt indicates that Piatek’s group ran up a $186 bar tab, to which Piatek voluntarily added a $36 tip. The 20 percent tip is an indication that the group was not displeased with the service that they received.

Second, even though critics of Trump’s movement have called it a cult, support for Donald Trump is not a religious belief and Piatek did not make the case that his hat was religious clothing at the time of the incident. The claim that a MAGA hat is religious garb makes a mockery of true religious persecution.

Although many conservatives seem to have thrown free trade by the wayside, the Constitution does protect the freedom of association and, by extension, the freedom not to associate. Likewise, businesses have traditionally had the right to refuse service to patrons who break their rules. Rules might prohibit sitting at a table without ordering or they might prohibit certain types of clothing.

There are limits to the right to refuse service. Race and religion have long been protected from discrimination by both state and federal laws. New York law prohibits “public accommodations” from discriminating because of “race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, military status, sex, or disability or marital status.” The New York Constitution also protects the free exercise of religion.

What the law does not do is protect patrons from political discrimination by a private business. There is no inalienable right to be served a cocktail while wearing a MAGA hat.

In fact, even the US Constitution does not guarantee the right to free speech in a private business. The First Amendment protects Americans from government censorship, not from being ejected from a bar because the patron engaged in an unpopular political expression.

While it’s tempting to try to claim the mantle of victimhood when someone on the right is ejected from a bar for wearing Republican garb, that isn’t a road that conservatives should want to go down. The inevitable result would be leftists filing a plethora of lawsuits against conservative businesses.

It would also result in a further expansion of government into private transactions between businesses and individuals. No conservative should want the government ruling on what political attire crosses the line as unacceptable. Those decisions are better left to the owners and managers of individual businesses.

Trump supporters may be justly angry that Piatek was forced to leave the Happiest Hour, but suing the bar is not the best solution. A better solution is for like-minded individuals to vote with their wallets and patronize a different establishment, one where MAGA hats are at least tolerated, if not welcomed. In a city the size of New York, with establishments that cater to every sort of clientele, there is certain to be a bar where MAGA hat-wearing, Trump-supporting visitors to the city can enjoy their drinks in peace.

Originally published in The Resurgent

Trump Administration to End Obama's Contraception Mandate

One of the most egregious examples of a federal attack on religious liberty in recent years may be about to come to an end. There are reports that the Trump Administration is preparing new regulations that will end the birth control mandate established by the Obama Administration as part of the Affordable Care Act.

The New York Times reports that new rules, which could be issued on Friday, would offer exemptions to certain employers who have moral objections to providing insurance that includes contraceptives to their employees. The new rules would reportedly cover employers and insurers who hold “sincerely held religious beliefs” or “moral convictions” against providing contraception.

The mandate was not part of the ACA, but was the product of regulations by the Department of Health and Human Services. While the Obama Administration did provide a religious exemption from the rules, Cardinal Daniel Dinardo noted in 2011, “Jesus himself, or the Good Samaritan of his famous parable, would not qualify as ‘religious enough’ for the exemption….”

Many private employers also objected to the fact that the regulation required them to purchase insurance for their employees that included not only contraceptives, but drugs that induce abortions. Others, such as employers who are Catholic, objected to contraception in general.

The mandate prompted several lawsuits. The Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic religious charity made of nuns who practice celibacy, went to the Supreme Court to seek relief from the mandate. In 2015, Hobby Lobby won its lawsuit and the government was forced to amend its rule to provide religious exemptions. In the final rule, insurers were still forced to provide coverage for these employees, but the employers were not billed for the contraceptive coverage.

President Trump promised to end the revised mandate during the campaign, but so far has not taken steps to do so. In August, Daniel Dinardo, now the Catholic Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, wrote an op-ed in The Hill asking why the Obama-era policy was still in place.

It is important to note that changing the contraception mandate will not ban contraception in any way. It would merely mean that employers would not be forced to pay for drugs that they find morally objectionable. Their employees will still be able to get birth control and abortifacient prescriptions, they would just have to bear the cost, about $50 per month, on their own.

If President Trump does decide to roll back the Obama-era mandate, he will have fulfilled an important part of his promise to protect religious liberty and freedom of conscience. The big question is why he waited so long to do so.

Originally published on The Resurgent

'Happy Holidays' flap is a snowflake issue

Pixabay.com

I’m a fan of Christmas. I am a Christian and I celebrate the holiday as a commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ, who I believe is the Son of God. Even though I joyfully celebrate Christmas, I recognize that not everyone does. For that reason, I’m not concerned in the least about the “Happy Holidays” controversy that erupts every year.

Every year there is a wave of indignant posts on social media where people denounce the phrase “Happy Holidays” as an assault on the Christian message of Christmas. People often take the greeting, as well as many other trivial matters such as a redesign of the Starbucks holiday coffee cup, as attacks on the Christian religion and react with anger and hostility.

Christmas greetings even became a political issue when Donald Trump vowed last year, “If I become president, we're gonna [sic] be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ at every store ... You can leave happy holidays at the corner.”

I’m not offended when someone tells me “Happy Holidays.” Christmas is a holiday and is included in that greeting. The phrase doesn’t exclude Christmas. Rather it includes New Year’s Day, Hanukah, Kwanzaa and probably even Festivus. The phrase is simply a recognition that there are other holidays that occur within the December time frame and bundles them into one greeting. It also has the advantage of being easier to say than “Happy Merry Christmahanakwanzika.” Stores often use “Happy Holidays” because not all their customers celebrate Christmas and it is poor marketing to alienate and offend your customers.

More and more, the flap over saying “Happy Holidays” seems to be a snowflake issue. By that, I don’t mean a winter precipitation problem, but an issue similar to the liberal faux outrages by those sensitive souls derided as “snowflakes.” These universally offended types find something to be outraged about in everything and it seems that many conservatives are taking a cue from this behavior on several issues. Christmas is one example.

Why do conservative Christians feel offended when some people choose not to say “Merry Christmas?” Christianity is a voluntary religion. People have to choose to accept Christ. Belief in Christ and repentance cannot be forced. Isn’t it equally futile to try to force people to pay homage to Christ by saying “Merry Christmas” when they don’t want to?

The United States has freedom of religion. People should be free to celebrate and say, “Merry Christmas,” but they should also be equally free to say “Happy Holidays.” The government has no constitutional role in determining appropriate holiday greetings.

There is a real war on Christmas in some quarters. Bans on nativity scenes, Christmas trees and banning “Merry Christmas” are clearly wrong and, to use the liberal phrase, intolerant. There are attempts by some to turn Christmas into a “winter break.” These attempts should be resisted and haven’t been widespread for the most part. How many of us have personally been involved in such an attack on Christmas? Not me. I’ve only read of them in the outrage media.

Saying “Happy Holidays” should not be considered an attempt to excise religion from the public square. The word “holiday” is actually derived from the Old English word for “holy day.” When someone wishes you “Happy Holidays,” they are actually telling you to have a good holy day. Christmas, along with Easter Sunday, is one of the most holy of holy days for Christians.

To take the matter a step further, even the word “X-mas” is not an attack on Christmas. The “x” is not crossing “Christ” out of Christmas, according to students of the Greek language and theology. The “x” is actually shorthand for a Greek word meaning “Christ” that starts with the Greek letter “Chi,” which looks the same as our “x.” Far from being a modern invention, the shorthand has been in use for over a thousand years.

For snowflakes who do get hot and bothered when someone tells them “Happy Holidays,” there is a simple solution. My response when someone gives me the controversial phrase is to give them a big smile and say, “Merry Christmas” in a friendly way. Often they’ll respond back with “Merry Christmas” as well. This technique even worked before Trump won the election.

Don’t be a snowflake. Let’s focus on important issues and not trivialities.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Marriage ruling is case of emperor having no clothes

Today’s news of the landmark Supreme Court ruling making same-sex marriage the law of the land confirms what many Americans have long known: On a host of issues, American society and government have become almost totally divorced from reality.

In 1837, Hans Christian Anderson published a story called “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” The story told of a vain emperor who ordered a suit of clothes from a swindler. The con man claimed that the suit was woven from a magical fabric that could not be seen by anyone who was “unfit for his office, or who was unusually stupid.” Of course, no one could actually see the clothes. They didn’t really exist. But no one wanted to admit that they couldn’t see them, because doing so was a tacit admission that they were unworthy.

Finally, as the emperor walked in a royal procession before his admiring subjects, a child cries out, “But he hasn't got anything on!” Nevertheless, the emperor keeps up the pretense and “walked more proudly than ever,” totally naked through the town.

In 2015, America is like the emperor who has no clothes. The most obvious example is the current craze for changing one’s gender identity. While most Americans probably understand that gender comes in two flavors, male and female, many are now uncomfortable stating such an obvious fact because of pressure to see gender as fluid and changing, rather than something that is set at birth. A February 2015 poll by Fusion magazine found that half of millennials believe that gender is a spectrum, rather than being defined as a male or female. ABC News reported last year that Facebook now offers 58 gender options for creating a profile, rather than two.

The country’s fascination with Bruce Jenner and his claim that, “For all intents and purposes, I’m a woman” on ABC’s 20/20 earlier this year is a representative example. Jenner is obviously male, but the country has chosen to become complicit in his delusion that his “brain is much more female than it is male.” When Americans fawn over Jenner for his courage and refer to him as “Caitlyn” and with feminine pronouns, they might as well be telling the emperor how glorious his new clothes are.

Men can never become women and vice versa. Men like Jenner, even if they undergo sex-change surgeries, will still be men, albeit with surgically mutilated genitalia. Their DNA is still male DNA. He can never bear a child or have a period (at least not without massive medical intervention). Without heavy doses of pharmaceuticals, his body regresses to his own more masculine form.

The same is true for women who choose to “become” men. Their DNA will always be that of a woman. Biologically, they can never father a child, the one true test of maleness. They can look and act like men, but they are a pale imitation of the real thing.

The redefinition of marriage is another case of Americans paying court to the emperor and his invisible, regal robes. A vestige of my pre-internet days as a student is a 1989 Webster’s dictionary on my office bookshelf. It defines “marriage” as “the institution under which a man and a woman become legally united on a permanent basis.” It is only this generation that has suddenly decided that what worked well for thousands of years is no longer good enough and that the underpinnings of society must be radically altered in the name of fairness.

The current generation has decided that men and women are interchangeable and that a family can be anything. There will be no consequences for children – or the nation as a whole – if children are raised by two men, two women, one woman, or a village. Aren’t the emperor’s new clothes grand!

There has been little study of what effect this headlong rush to marriage “equality” will have on children, families, or society in general. Some of the more rigorous scientific studies, like the New Family Structures study, suggest that children from gay families don’t fare as well as their counterparts in traditional families. Activists respond by attacking the researchers.

The child’s father in the story asked, “Did you ever hear such innocent prattle?” Proponents of redefining marriage answer critics with “Did you ever hear such hatred?”

The bottom line is that judges and politicians may be able to redefine the legal definition of marriage, but they cannot redefine the inherent marital relationship between a man and a woman. Two men or two women may be able to legally enter a relationship that is now called marriage, but what they have is not marriage at all, but an imitation of the real thing. Changing the definition of marriage changes the institution into something different. The emperor has no clothes.

Now the process of stifling dissent of those who point out the emperor’s nudity will continue. Already we have seen attacks on the freedom of religion as religious beliefs come head-to-head with newfound sexual liberties. There will be more attacks on those who choose to exercise their freedom of conscience to say that the emperor is naked and who choose to not participate in the royal procession.

President Obama’s head of the EEOC, Chai Feldblum, quoted in National Review, famously commented that, in the conflict between the constitutional freedom of religion and sexual freedom, “Sexual liberty should win in most cases. There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases the sexual liberty should win because that’s the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner.”

If you adhere to the traditional belief of every major religion that homosexuality is sinful, she’s talking to you.

For years, liberal activists called for tolerance toward gays. Now, as homosexuality has been decreed to be on par with heterosexuality by the nation’s highest court, calls for tolerance have vanished. Instead, the leftists call out to diminish and silence those who disagree with their viewpoint and the ruling of the Court. Harassment, ridicule and mandatory recognition – nay, approval – at the point of a federal gun are the order of the day. The emperor doesn’t like to be told that he is naked.

 Read the full article on Examiner.com

Contraception mandate may go to Supreme Court

The Obama Administration is headed back to court to defend another aspect of the Affordable Care Act. The Administration announced yesterday that it will appeal a June decision that issued an injunction against a government mandate that requires employers to provide coverage for abortion-inducing and contraceptive medications. The ruling came in a suit filed by the Hobby Lobby.

Last year, the Department of Health and Human Services ruled that employers must provide their employees with insurance that contains coverage for abortion-inducing and contraceptive drugs. Many employers, including the Catholic Church, contested the mandate on the grounds that it violated their religious beliefs.

Traditionally, religious exemptions were allowed for such controversial laws. Accommodations for religious believers are required by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The Obama Administration’s rule included a narrow exemption for churches, but not other religious organizations. Bishop David Zubik noted that the exemption could not even have been applied to Jesus and his disciples.

As dissent against the rule grew, President Obama announced a unilateral compromise in February 2012. As Examiner reported at the time, the compromise would still require religious groups to cover the abortion-inducing drugs in their insurance plans, but they would not be charged for them. Instead, the president would force insurance companies to provide the coverage at no cost to the religious groups. Presumably, the cost would be spread among other nonreligious insureds. There was no relief for private businesses who had moral objections to the mandate.

Several businesses filed suit against the mandate. In a June 2013 ruling, a judge issued a temporary injunction against government enforcement of the mandate for the Hobby Lobby, a company owned by evangelical Christians. According to Fox News, the company’s insurance provides 16 forms of birth control, but its owners oppose birth control methods that can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus, such as an intrauterine device or forms of emergency contraception, because they believe that life begins at conception.

The company had argued that the government’s action was a violation of the freedom of religion and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. According to the Wall St. Journal the act, passed in 1993 with only three nays and signed into law by President Clinton, requires that any “substantial burden” on the exercise of religion be “in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest” and be the “least restrictive means” of furthering that interest.

The injunction would apply until the 10^th circuit federal appeals court could rule on the merits of the case. It also gave the government until Oct. 1 to decide whether to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. On Sept. 19, the Obama Administration asked the Supreme Court to reverse the Hobby Lobby decision according to Reuters.

In a separate case, the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group, also filed a petition with the Supreme Court on Sept. 19 in a similar case. Conestoga Wood Specialties, a Mennonite-owned business in Pennsylvania, had filed a suit similar to that of the Hobby Lobby. A three judge panel of the third circuit federal appeals court ruled against Conestoga in July and denied the company an appeal to the full court. The ruling subjects the company to fines of $3 million per month if they do not comply with the mandate to provide their employees with abortion pills and contraceptives.

Reuters notes that because federal appeals courts are split on the issue, the Supreme Court is likely to take up at least one of the cases. If the high court does hear a case on the issue, a ruling would be expected during the current term which starts in October and ends in June 2014. In 2012, the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. In upholding the law, the Court opened a host of other issues, including the question of religious freedom for employers. Fox News notes that there are 63 other cases challenging the mandate, 34 of which involve for-profit businesses.

Originally published on Elections Examiner

Blue state laws enshrine gender confusion

A new trend in blue states seems to be the notion that gender is less a biological reality than a choice that can be made by each individual. The most recent example of this came on Tuesday when California governor Jerry Brown announced that he had signed a law which will allow transgender students to choose which bathroom and locker room to use based on their self-perception and regardless of their biological gender. According to the Casa Grande Dispatch, the new law will even give transgender students the right to participate in either boys or girls sports and other “sex-segregated programs, activities and facilities.” Karen England, executive director of the Capitol Resource Institute, noted that the law does not require any proof of a gender-identity issue. Instead school administrator must rely on the student’s opinion of their gender identity.

California is only the most recent state to enact laws that prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. Employment law firm Jackson Lewis notes that New Jersey added “gender identity and expression” as a protected category to its employment and housing discrimination law in 2006. National Law Review pointed out that Connecticut has prohibited employers of three or more people from discriminating based on “a person’s gender-related identity, appearance or behavior, whether or not that gender-related identity, appearance or behavior is different from that traditionally associated with the person’s physiology or assigned sex at birth” since 2011.

Georgia does not have a gender identity discrimination law, but some Georgia cities do. The GA Voice reported that a number of cities and counties in Georgia have enacted laws that prohibit discrimination against the gender confused. These include Atlanta, Athens, and Savannah.

Earlier this year, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education issued guidelines to schools after the legislature a gender identity law in 2011. According to Masslive.com, the guidelines state that transgender students can choose to use restrooms, locker rooms and changing facilities for gender that they currently identify themselves with. “While some transgender students will want that arrangement, others will not be comfortable with it,” the guidelines note and then continue, “Transgender students who are uncomfortable using a sex-segregated restroom should be provided with a safe and adequate alternative such as a single, unisex restroom or the nurse’s restroom.”

There are many potential problems with laws that seek to allow men to choose to live as women and vice versa. The privacy issue of mixing transgender boys and girls with the opposite sex in restrooms and locker rooms is only the most obvious. For example, some teenage boys might pretend to be transgendered in order to get into the girls’ locker room and watch girls change clothes. Mediocre male athletes might be tempted to identify as women to get more playing time and be stars on female teams.

Gender identity laws are already causing problems for children as young as six. In June 2013, CNN reported that a Colorado court decided that a first grade boy who identifies as a girl will be allowed to use the girl’s restroom at his school. This is in spite of the fact that the boy is still anatomically a male.

The next month, the U.S. Department of Education forced a California school district to allow a middle school girl to use the boy’s restroom. The complaint also noted that the school district refused to allow the girl to stay in a cabin with boys on an overnight trip according to the Daily Caller. The Education Department lawyers apparently had no problem with the mixed biological genders spending the night together as long as the girl considered herself a boy.

In yet another case, Olympia, Washington’s KOMO reported last year on Colleen Francis, a 45-year-old man who identifies himself as a woman. Francis is a student at Evergreen College in Washington State. Francis was accused of exposing himself in the girl’s locker room at the school’s pool and in the sauna. The locker room is shared by college students with members of a children’s swim academy and a high school swim club. Police were called when a 17-year-old girl told her mother that Francis was naked and “displaying male genitalia” in the locker room. Another report by a visiting swim coach said that Francis was seen with his legs spread and genitalia showing in the sauna with girls between the ages of six and 18 in view.

In spite of the fact that a man who did not claim to be a woman would be arrested for such behavior, Jason Wettstein, a spokesman for Evergreen, said, “The college cannot discriminate based on the basis of gender identity. Gender identity is one of the protected things in discrimination law in this state.” In 2006, Washington added gender identity to its nondiscrimination law according to the Washington State Human Rights Commission.

Gabrielle Ludwig, a 51-year-old man who identifies as a woman, decided to play basketball at California’s Mission College. The six-foot six-inch, 220 pound transsexual became the star of the Mission College girls’ basketball team according to the N.Y. Daily News. A 51-year-old playing college basketball is unusual, but a 51-year-old man playing on a girls’ basketball team is unique… at least so far.

Critics of gender identity laws point to many problems for the straight majority. Children are susceptible to possible abuse and may be exposed to the genitalia of strangers of the opposite sex. It is unreasonable to assume that sexual predators would not exploit gender identity laws. Parents have no recourse or right to complain about the violations of their children’s right to privacy. Employers may be forced to hire or be unable to fire obvious cross-dressers who hurt their business. Religious believers are forced to accept and even subsidize behavior that they find morally objectionable.

It is too early to tell whether the trend of gender identity as a protected class will continue, but, with the recent success of the same-sex marriage movement, more pushes toward normalization of sexual subcultures is likely. As with same-sex marriage, such movements are more likely to find acceptance in states that are predominantly Democratic.

Gender identity antidiscrimination laws essentially force the public to participate in a lie. As in the fairy tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” forcing public acceptance does not alter reality. Choosing to identify as a different gender does not change the biological and anatomical facts of a person’s body. (Even sex-change recipients require continuous use of hormones to simulate the body chemistry of the opposite sex.) Forcing the public at large to humor people in their delusion can only do harm to both society and the gender confused.

Originally published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

'Divine wind' swept Obama to second term

In the thirteenth century, two Mongol fleets under Kublai Khan attacked Japan.  On both occasions, the Mongol invasion fleets were ultimately destroyed by timely typhoons that the Japanese came to know as kamikaze or “divine wind.”  The Japanese believed that the storms were summoned by the gods to protect their homeland.  Hundreds of years later, during WWII, the term kamikaze was adopted by the Imperial Japanese government to describe suicide pilots who crashed their planes into American ships.

Now it is possible that another divine wind has again changed the course of history.  According to an Examiner analysis of exit poll data from the 2012 presidential election, Hurricane Sandy played a crucial role in the election.  In the days after the final debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, polls showed a slight Romney lead with the president polling below 50 percent in most swing states.  Then, on October 29-30, Hurricane Sandy struck the Mid-Atlantic States, causing flooding and heavy damage from Washington, D.C. to New York City. 

In the wake of the hurricane, polling data from both Rasmussen and Gallup showed a bump for the president.  Many observers attribute this to the perception of bipartisanship and leadership that Obama received as he toured storm damaged areas of New Jersey with Republican Governor Chris Christie.  The bump eventually moved the needle in the swing states enough to give Obama slim victories in Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania and other crucial states.  Examiner’s analysis of exit polling showed that 64 percent of voters said that the president’s response to the hurricane was a factor in their vote and 62 percent of these voters chose Obama.

It is interesting to consider the possibility of whether Hurricane Sandy was a divinely directed storm.  In Biblical history, God’s use of natural phenomena to change the course of human events is well established from the flood of Noah to Moses parting the sea.  Even in U.S. history, there have been instances of divine intervention.  One such case was the Battle of Long Island in the Revolutionary War in which George Washington and the Continental Army were saved from British annihilation by a miraculous fog.  More direct divine intervention has been cited in the U.S. victory at Midway in WWII.

  

If Hurricane Sandy did represent God’s intervention in the American electoral process, what would the Almighty have hoped to gain by influencing Americans to vote for Barack Obama?  Was it a divine rejection of the Republican Party and its ideals or something else?  Could a second Obama term be a blessing for the country or a curse?

Some clues can be found in recent events.  A Boston art exhibit recently made news when a painting depicting the president as Christ-like figure with a crown of thorns in a pose that mimicked the crucifixion was displayed at a public gallery.  Entertainer Jamie Foxx recently referred to Obama as “our lord and savior, Barack Obama” at the Soul Train Awards.  Before the election at the Democratic National Convention, a motion to add a reference to God to the Democratic platform was almost rejected.  The delegates had to be polled three times before the chairman deemed the motion to have passed by a very close voice vote.  In the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), God says, “You shall have no other gods before me.”   

The state of the United States in general also indicates a country in rebellion against God.  For example, 54 million babies have been legally killed in the United States since the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was a constitutionally protected right in 1973 according to an estimate by the American Life League.  Under President Obama’s health care reform law, abortion will be funded by tax dollars in spite of the president’s promises to contrary according to an analysis by the American Center for Law and Justice.  The United States has moved from tacit acceptance of abortion to official government approval and subsidies. 

More recently, the movement to force acceptance of same-sex marriage has gained steam as well.  President Obama became the first president to openly endorse government recognition of same-sex marriage in spite of his professed Christianity and the numerous religious and secular objections to redefining marriage.  In Charisma magazine, Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said that President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage is tantamount to “shaking his fist in God’s face.”

Many have used the decline of heterosexual marriage in America to justify acceptance of same-sex marriage.  Married couples now make up less than half of U.S. households according to the Economist.  The magazine calls marriage “a luxury for educated and affluent.”  Government entitlement programs have long had the effect of discouraging marriage.  As a result, fewer poor people marry even though there is a very strong correlation between marriage and financial stability.  The assault on marriage was taken to its logical conclusion in President Obama’s “Julia” ad from 2012 in which the government became a substitute for a husband.

The Obama Administration has also spearheaded an assault on religious freedom.  The attacks on religious freedom often involve religious opposition to abortion or same-sex marriage and free speech issues.  Health care workers are compelled to perform abortions.  Military chaplains are performing same-sex marriages in military chapels in violation of the Defense of Marriage Act.  Additionally, Obamacare mandates that all Americans purchase coverage for contraceptive and abortifacient drugs, even if they don’t want them or are morally opposed to them.  The Obama Administration went so far as to have the maker of a controversial anti-Islam film arrested and asked Google to remove the film from Youtube.

Chai Feldblum, Obama’s head of the EEOC, has openly said that religious freedom is a lower priority than sexual freedom.  Quoted in a 2010 Examiner article, she said, “I'm having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.  Sexual liberty should win in most cases. There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases the sexual liberty should win because that's the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner.”

Abroad, the president’s Israel policy is the most hostile of any American president.  The United States and Israel have historically had a close relationship.  The U.S. was the first country to recognize the new nation of Israel in 1947.  America has long supplied the Jewish state with military assistance, including vital supplies that helped Israel survive the Yom Kippur War in 1973.  The U.S. has often been Israel’s only friend in the United Nations when Arab countries and their allies often try to pass resolutions condemning Israel while all but ignoring Arab terrorist attacks against Israelis. 

In 2011, President Obama became the first president to ask that Israel return to pre-1967 borders.  Such a move would require Israel to evacuate its capitol of Jerusalem and return large swaths of land to the Arabs, leaving the remainder of the country indefensible.  One of Obama’s earliest diplomatic moves in 2009 was to request a unilateral freeze on Israeli settlement of the West Bank.  In the months prior to the 2012 election, Obama declined to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he came to the U.S. 

The Obama Administration has also reportedly restrained Israel from attacking nuclear weapons facilities in Iran.  Iranian nuclear weapons threaten not only Israel, but the U.S. as well.  Since the election, President Obama announced opposition to new sanctions on Iran that received unanimous and bipartisan support in the Democratic-controlled senate.

Considering that the United States is outside of God’s will, it is possible that God used Hurricane Sandy to set the stage for divine judgment.  In fact, divine judgment on the United States may have begun long before Hurricane Sandy. 

Some idea of judgment can be obtained from Romans 1:18-32 in which God “gave over” a sinful and rebellious society “to a depraved mind.”  Paul writes that the effect of this depraved mind is that “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.”  One aspect of divine judgment is social decay that results from turning away from God’s principles and commandments.  As society becomes more depraved, the societal costs of social diseases, crime, welfare, greed and corruption increase, placing an ever greater strain on the nation as a whole. 

Other aspects of divine judgment can be seen from the ancient Israelite history in the Old Testament.  Ancient Israel and Judah were divinely established nations.  God had promised Abraham that he would “make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Gen 12:2-3). 

When the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were established in Canaan hundreds of years later, their history followed a pattern of prosperity, rebellion and judgment.  When times were good, the people of Israel would reject God’s commandments and face judgment in the form of internal strife, wicked leaders, national decline, and, finally, total defeat and enslavement.  The people assumed that, as the recipients of God’s promise, they were immune to God’s judgment.  They could not fathom that God would use heathen nations like Babylon and Assyria to punish his chosen people.  Many Americans make the same mistake today, even without a specific promise to bless America. 

It is likely that America’s judgment will follow the same pattern.  According to USA Today, Munich Re, an insurance company, released a report just prior to Hurricane Sandy that noted that the number of natural disasters is increasing worldwide, but the biggest increases have been in North America.  This includes hurricanes like Sandy and Katrina, tornados, fires, droughts, and floods.

America has experienced prosperity and the following bust.  The 2008 real estate crash ushered in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.  Although the recession is technically over, the economy has not recovered.  President Obama’s stimulus spending has set the stage for a debt crisis that could permanently hobble the American economy. 

Another possibility is that there may be more terrorist attacks on the scale of the September 11 or larger.  It is not unlikely that the U.S. will be the target of an Iranian nuclear attack, possibly a catastrophic attack using electromagnetic pulse technology.  Such an attack could destroy the majority of the electrical capacity that makes modern American life possible.    

Divine judgment of America may be part of God’s grand plan as described by Jesus in the Mount Olivet Discourse, John in the Revelation and various other prophets throughout the Bible.  Many theologians believe that America must decline and fall away to set the stage for the final end-times Battle of Armageddon in which the world aligns against Israel (Rev. 16:16).  This theory was described in a September 2012 article on Examiner.com and a 2009 article on CaptainKudzu.  If Israel is the key to the end-times and the U.S. is the protector of Israel, then the U.S. must be removed from the picture.  This could be through an economic collapse, a military catastrophe, or a combination of disasters.

If the United States is being judged by God, is the future preordained or can we avert a national disaster?  The Bible promises “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chron 7:14). 

Last summer, Billy Graham called on Americans to repent, writing on his website “My heart aches for America and its deceived people. The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance. In Jonah’s day, Nineveh was the lone world superpower—wealthy, unconcerned, and self-centered. When the Prophet Jonah finally traveled to Nineveh and proclaimed God’s warning, people heard and repented.  I believe the same thing can happen once again, this time in our nation.”

As our national debt piles up at an alarming rate and Iran grows closer to a nuclear weapon each day, time may be running out quickly.

Originally published on Examiner.com:
http://www.examiner.com/article/divine-wind-may-have-boosted-obama-to-second-term?cid=db_articles

Photo credit:  NASA/Wikimedia

Reasons to NOT vote for Obama

Early voting has already started in many states for this year’s elections. In the rest, Election Day is now only two weeks away. The number of undecided voters is dwindling as most have already decided on which presidential candidate to vote for. This column is directed toward these undecided voters as well those who lean toward President Obama.

The most obvious reason not to vote for President Obama’s reelection is the economy. Even though the economy has officially been recovering for the recession for more than three years, most Americans still do not feel the recovery. Unemployment remains high. The poverty level is higher than it was when President Obama took office. Despite an increase in the U.S. population, fewer Americans are working today than when President Obama was inaugurated. In August, twice as many Americans went on food stamps as found jobs according to Forbes.

Much of the blame for the lagging recovery belongs to President Obama. In spite of his 2008 campaign promises, President Obama has passed a bundle of tax increases for the middle class as well as the wealthy. The most infamous of these is the individual mandate, which was ruled by the Supreme Court to be a tax, but Forbes lists seven additional taxes that hit the middle class. Obamacare itself contains a bevy of new taxes in addition to the individual mandate. Investor’s Business Daily found 20 more taxes totaling more than $675 billion.

In addition to taxes, President Obama has also dramatically increased the number of expensive regulations with which businesses must comply. The American Action Forum estimates that Obama’s regulations, including Obamacare and the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law, cost the economy more than $488 billion. The paperwork required to comply with these regulations is equal to what it would take to build 220 Empire State Buildings.

These factors combine with the federal debt that has increased by more than 40 percent under President Obama and the looming fiscal cliff, which is comprised of even more tax increases coming at the end of this year, to create uncertainty for businesses. This uncertainty and the cost of the tax increases that Obama has promised if he is reelected make businesses hesitant to expand and hire and consumers reluctant to spend.

An additional factor in the country’s economic difficulty is President Obama’s hostility to oil-based energy. As Examiner noted last spring, approvals for drilling permits under President Obama have fallen from 73 percent to 23 percent. Time for approving a permit has increased from 60 days to more than 90. Obama has canceled oil leases issued by the Bush Administration, issued new regulations to discourage fracking, and rejected the Keystone XL pipeline that would bring Canadian oil to U.S. refineries. The cumulative effect of these policies is to drive up the prices of oil and gasoline. High energy prices contribute to the poor state of the economy.

On foreign policy, Obama has had one big success, the killing of Osama bin Laden. His failures are only now becoming apparent. The fiasco and subsequent cover-up surrounding the al Qaeda attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi is only the tip of the iceberg. More serious and far-reaching are Obama’s policies regarding Israel and Iran.

President Obama claims to be a friend of Israel, but his actions tell a different story. President Obama seems to see a moral equivalence between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian terrorists. He is the only president to ever propose that Israel go back to its pre-1967 borders. This would leave Israel with an indefensible and narrow frontier. More recently Obama declined to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and his administration has reportedly pressured Israel not to attack Iranian nuclear facilities.

With respect to Iran, President Obama is fond of pointing to the tough sanctions in place on the rogue regime. What he fails to mention is that congress passed those sanctions over his objection. President Obama also issued 20 waivers to the sanctions. Countries receiving waivers include China, Iran’s largest trading partner. Yahoo News notes that Obama will have to decide whether to renew the sanctions after the election.

Iran is not intimidated by President Obama and or the sanctions. It has scarcely been a year since Iranian agents attempted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador with a terrorist attack in Washington, D.C. In the Jerusalem Post, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is gleeful that America’s debt is weakening the country. “How long can a government with a $16 trillion foreign debt remain a world power?” he asks.

President Obama’s term has also seen the erosion of personal freedom. The freedom not to buy a government mandated product is only the most obvious loss. Freedom of religion has also been disregarded by the administration, most notably in the Health and Human Services mandate that requires all insurance policies to cover contraceptive and abortifacient drugs.

Most disturbing, during and after the September 11 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in the Middle East, the Obama Administration was openly critical of the freedom of speech. Even before the Benghazi consulate was attacked, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt released a statement condemning the anti-Islamic film that allegedly sparked the attacks. The text of the statement, available on Politifact, says, “We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.” Fox News reports that when he spoke to the United Nations later in the month, President Obama said that the “future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” The man responsible for the film was arrested in California on charges that he violated his probation.

If Obama’s record so far is disturbing, even scarier is what might lie ahead. Reuters reported last March that President Obama told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that “This is my last election ... After my election I have more flexibility.” The exchange evidently related to missile defense, but the same logic applies to every controversial issue from abortion to gun control to taxes.

Given that Obama has shown that he is willing to circumvent congress with executive orders, there is no practical limit to what he can do as long as congress does not override his veto. The president has used executive orders or rulemaking by executive branch agencies to change U.S. immigration law, implement net neutrality, and implement a cap-and-trade carbon regulation system. Further, the president unilaterally launched a war in Libya without informing congress and made several recess appointments while congress was still in session.

Some leftists have opined that a benevolent dictator might be what the United States needs to break the gridlock in Washington and get things done. Such an executive, who does not blanch at using his autocratic powers, might very well be what we get in a second Obama term. The problem with this idea is that the American economy is simply too complex to be micromanaged. And a benevolent dictator is still a dictator.

Next:  Reasons to vote FOR Mitt Romney

This article was first published on Examiner.com

http://www.examiner.com/article/reasons-to-not-vote-for-obama

This weekend: American heritage film series begins in Villa Rica

This weekend Wesley Chapel Methodist Church of Villa Rica will begin a series of videos showcasing America’s Christian heritage. The “American Heritage” video series is produced by historian David Barton and covers the Christian foundations of many American institutions, the religious faith of the founders, and the current movement toward secularization of U.S. history.

David Barton is the founder and president of Wallbuilders, an organization dedicated to preserving and presenting American history “with an emphasis on the moral, religious, and constitutional foundation on which America was built.” Barton has won many awards and honors including a listing in Who's Who in Education, the DAR's Medal of Honor, and the George Washington Honor Medal from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, as well as several Angel Awards, Telly Awards, and the Dove Foundation Seal of Approval.

Barton has written numerous books on U.S. history. These include “the Bulletproof George Washington,” “Separation of Church and State: What the Founders Meant,” and “Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black and White.” His most recent book is “the Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson” coauthored with Glenn Beck earlier this year. He has also written a home school curriculum called “Foundations of Character.”

The American Heritage video series will begin this Saturday at 6:00 p.m. at the Wesley Chapel Methodist Church. The church is located at 2345 Rockmart Road (Highway 101 South) in Villa Rica. Admission to the video series is free. Childcare and refreshments will be provided for a small fee. Proceeds will benefit the Men Through Christ ministry at Wesley Chapel. For more information, contact Andy Chism at 770-689-9941 or achism63@gmail.com.

Read this article on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/article/this-weekend-american-heritage-film-series-at-wesly-chapel