The Visible Conservative: Christians Unleashed show
Pro-Life Fridays - January 20, 2012
Jan. 22 marks the 39th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. In a 7-2 vote, seven judges ruled to strip equal rights and equal protection for all persons living and growing inside their mothers's wombs. This decision was not rendered for any reasons that most pro-abortion supporters give today. This was not done in the name of medical need. This was not done for as a legal response to things like rape or incest. This was not done to "save" women from dangerous back-alley abortions (which, by the way, is still happening. The only difference now is that it is so much harder to prosecute a back-alley aborionist today because what he is doing is now legal). This was not done even for the excuse of not bringing an inconvenient baby into the world.
No, this decision was made on the basis of a concocted right of a woman to privacy. Under the rule of "privacy," no one is supposed to prohibit what a woman does in the "privacy" of her own domain, which we are to guess means her body. Of course, reasoning like this makes no sense, especially coming from the highest court and the biggest brains in the nation. If you read the Constitution, the 14th Amendment in particular, there is no right to privacy stated or outlined there for pregnant women or for any woman or for anyone. The Justices took creative license to the Constitution to produce such a thing as privacy just so they can make abortion fit into their artificial interpretation. Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, a big abortion supporter, agrees that though she believes abortion should be legal, Roe v. Wade was decided in the wrong manner in 1973.
Of course, every abortion that takes place in America today is legalized by Roe v. Wade. To overturn Roe and go back to the drawing board, as it were, would immediately restore the ability of each individual state to make legislation on the issue. The states that had laws banning abortion would automatically have those laws restored while a new effort to legalize it on the federal level would have to take place from the ground up.
But as we know, pro-abortionists, even the ones who disagree with how Roe was decided, would never support overturning it. Why? To go back to the drawing board and build a case for federal legalized abortion would take probably decades in Congress and would certainly lose when all has been said and done. The principle of arguing one's case in the Legislature is conveniently bypassed through keeping Roe just the way it is. It would be just too hard to accomplish it doing it the right way.
So here is my observation. Legalized abortion in the US is built on two things and two things only: legal fiction and expediency.
Pro-abortionists should know that the Court did not consider all the common excuses for legalized abortion as material in their decision. If the Court did not make the usual arguments for legal abortion in its decision, but instead made the 14th Amendment overreach its boundaries and now keeps it there through politics, what does that tell you about the strength of pro-abortion arguments?
It tells me that the only real reason that abortion is still legal in this country is that people in power want it that way. As a result, every baby born today does not have intrinsic rights. Every baby is alive only because someone else didn't want it to be killed. Everybody alive since 1973 is alive today not on the basis of our own intrinsic right to life, equal rights, or equal protection. Beware. Just as it was so easy to strip equal rights and equal protection from those in the womb, it will be just as easy to strip them from those that are outside the womb. It has happened before, it is happening now, and there is a good chance it will happen again. The African-American community in America should be keenly aware of this fact. When one member of the human species has no intrinsic rights, then none of us do.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
On "Déjà Jew"
Wednesday, The Jerusalem Post published this article on the resurging Anti-Semitism in some European countries, particularly in France and Belgium. It cites instances of some Jews masquerading as Muslims in order to escape violence and persecution from Muslims. As if that weren't troubling enough by itself, the author unfolds an eerie backdrop behind these invidual situations reminiscent of the institutionalized persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany (or, Nazi-Europe as the case became) leading up to the Holocaust.
After WWII, the Western world just about swore that a Jewish Holocaust would never happen again. Indeed, civic organizations were built on the motto "Never Again" to protect all future generations of Jewish people from suffering the kind of Anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust. Unfortunately, in some significant ways it apears that their aims are not being met. In various countries in Europe today, a similar lead-up to the outright persecution of Jews is happening in places with growing Muslim (not Aryan) populations. The hate is the same; the rhetoric is the same; the excuses are the same; the supposed cause is still socio-political.
This is the 21st century. Ignorance of this kind was supposed to be educated out of the masses through mandatory government schooling and national legislation. This great failure of the State is only matched by the failure of morals, ethics, and a consistent belief in the humility found in our human createdness under God. Ye olde libertine maxim that government cannot legislate morality is only correct when you realize that what legislation cannot change is a person's immorality. Legislation changes only the occassions on which one exhibits it.
I know my Muslim friends may accuse me of fingerpointing that the chief persecutors today of Jews worldwide are Muslims, but I should hope that people would look at the problem itself, not at the finger. Europe burns occassionally from these ethno-religious conflicts that we have come to view at the least as uncivilized. The underlying reality is that Europe is burning invisibly everyday. Our American society must say much more than that such behavior is simply uncivilized. It must say that persecution and violent persecution are objective, irrefutable wrongs. Until we purge our collective minds of this insidious moral relativism that shackles our consciences, we will never be free to "Love your neighbor as yourself," much less "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind." (Matt. 22:37)
(HT: David Wood on Answering Muslims for sharing this article.)
After WWII, the Western world just about swore that a Jewish Holocaust would never happen again. Indeed, civic organizations were built on the motto "Never Again" to protect all future generations of Jewish people from suffering the kind of Anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust. Unfortunately, in some significant ways it apears that their aims are not being met. In various countries in Europe today, a similar lead-up to the outright persecution of Jews is happening in places with growing Muslim (not Aryan) populations. The hate is the same; the rhetoric is the same; the excuses are the same; the supposed cause is still socio-political.
This is the 21st century. Ignorance of this kind was supposed to be educated out of the masses through mandatory government schooling and national legislation. This great failure of the State is only matched by the failure of morals, ethics, and a consistent belief in the humility found in our human createdness under God. Ye olde libertine maxim that government cannot legislate morality is only correct when you realize that what legislation cannot change is a person's immorality. Legislation changes only the occassions on which one exhibits it.
I know my Muslim friends may accuse me of fingerpointing that the chief persecutors today of Jews worldwide are Muslims, but I should hope that people would look at the problem itself, not at the finger. Europe burns occassionally from these ethno-religious conflicts that we have come to view at the least as uncivilized. The underlying reality is that Europe is burning invisibly everyday. Our American society must say much more than that such behavior is simply uncivilized. It must say that persecution and violent persecution are objective, irrefutable wrongs. Until we purge our collective minds of this insidious moral relativism that shackles our consciences, we will never be free to "Love your neighbor as yourself," much less "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind." (Matt. 22:37)
(HT: David Wood on Answering Muslims for sharing this article.)
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Facts about Mormons, not Mormonism
It’s true what they say about journalists being unable to write accurately about matters of science or religion. This morning, Yahoo! News published an article titled “Will America Get It’s First Mormon President? Five Facts About Mormons.” I’ll just dive right in and tell you what it says, and more importantly, what it doesn’t say.
1. The founder, Joseph Smith, was murdered.
True, he was, but leaving out the details makes it sound like he was a martyr for his beliefs. Smith was so not a martyr, for he was killed in a gun fight while in jail for vandalizing and destroying a newspaper press that was publishing articles critical of him.
2. The Book of Mormon and the Bible are important.
This makes it seem as if both books are placed on equal footing. However, Joseph Smith taught that the Book of Mormon is “the most correct book on earth,” while the Bible has many “plain and precious things” removed from it (according to the Book of Mormon) and only believable “as far as it is translated correctly.” What is important for Mormonism has been to downgrade the moral and spiritual authority of the Bible and to replace it with the Book of Mormon. The Mormon can say with a straight face that the Bible is important, for without it, Mormonism has no basis for claiming that it is the religion that “restores” the true practices of Jesus and the Apostles. In everyday reality, however, the Bible is maligned far more than it is admired in the LDS church.
3. Marriage is forever.
In the article, it says “Marriage is between a man and a woman and should be forever.“ If only it told the truth that in “forever,” marriage is between a man and his women.” Aside from the real fact that Jesus taught that there is no marriage in the age to come, Joseph Smith’s sacred teaching that polygamy is the way of (and the way to) eternal life is still affirmed by their other scriptures in the hereafter (Doctrine & Covenants, Sec. 132).
4. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Really? The author could not come up with a full five facts about Mormons, so she throws in the choir as a “fact?”
5. Fasting.
Now it seems the author has run out of things to write, because neither “The Mormon Tabernacle Choir” nor “Fasting” are even statements. Many Mormons do fast as directed by the LDS church as a religious duty. Failing to participate in all the religious duties as outlined in the directives of the Word of Wisdom is unworthiness to receive further advancement (read: eternal life) within the Temple system of Mormonism.
The real story here is that this so-called list aptly points out facts about Mormons but does nothing to enlighten us about Mormonism (what the LDS church really teaches). I think Mormons would be relieved at this weak and trivial representation of what they believe, because it camouflages Mormonism as an innocuous religion that needs no critical evaluation. That is, of course, helpful in diverting attention away from the LDS church when a Mormon is running for President.
1. The founder, Joseph Smith, was murdered.
True, he was, but leaving out the details makes it sound like he was a martyr for his beliefs. Smith was so not a martyr, for he was killed in a gun fight while in jail for vandalizing and destroying a newspaper press that was publishing articles critical of him.
2. The Book of Mormon and the Bible are important.
This makes it seem as if both books are placed on equal footing. However, Joseph Smith taught that the Book of Mormon is “the most correct book on earth,” while the Bible has many “plain and precious things” removed from it (according to the Book of Mormon) and only believable “as far as it is translated correctly.” What is important for Mormonism has been to downgrade the moral and spiritual authority of the Bible and to replace it with the Book of Mormon. The Mormon can say with a straight face that the Bible is important, for without it, Mormonism has no basis for claiming that it is the religion that “restores” the true practices of Jesus and the Apostles. In everyday reality, however, the Bible is maligned far more than it is admired in the LDS church.
3. Marriage is forever.
In the article, it says “Marriage is between a man and a woman and should be forever.“ If only it told the truth that in “forever,” marriage is between a man and his women.” Aside from the real fact that Jesus taught that there is no marriage in the age to come, Joseph Smith’s sacred teaching that polygamy is the way of (and the way to) eternal life is still affirmed by their other scriptures in the hereafter (Doctrine & Covenants, Sec. 132).
4. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Really? The author could not come up with a full five facts about Mormons, so she throws in the choir as a “fact?”
5. Fasting.
Now it seems the author has run out of things to write, because neither “The Mormon Tabernacle Choir” nor “Fasting” are even statements. Many Mormons do fast as directed by the LDS church as a religious duty. Failing to participate in all the religious duties as outlined in the directives of the Word of Wisdom is unworthiness to receive further advancement (read: eternal life) within the Temple system of Mormonism.
The real story here is that this so-called list aptly points out facts about Mormons but does nothing to enlighten us about Mormonism (what the LDS church really teaches). I think Mormons would be relieved at this weak and trivial representation of what they believe, because it camouflages Mormonism as an innocuous religion that needs no critical evaluation. That is, of course, helpful in diverting attention away from the LDS church when a Mormon is running for President.
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