The Wisdom of Friendly Accommodation
There is a spirit behind laws and most certainly behind movements. When I say “spirit” I mean other worldly beings.
This view is frowned upon in secular society which doesn’t believe in God, a personal devil, demons or angels.
But there is an abundance of evidence the world over that God exists, Satan exists, and good and bad angels exist–with their influence and attitudes felt in people lives, causes, and human laws.
The Bible says where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17). The opposite spirit–the satanic or evil spirit–is a spirit of tyranny (force or coercion).
When Indiana tried to protect religious freedom a few weeks, in exactly the same manner Congress had voted nearly unanimously over twenty years ago, what kind of spirit reared its head?
A spirit of intolerance (satanic) or a spirit of friendly accommodation (Spirit of God)?
I was very saddened by the statements and actions of many political and business leaders following Indiana’s adoption of a fair, tolerant, and thoroughly American law to protect religious liberty. A number of well-known executives vented their hatred and venom; Some political leaders, like the mayor of Seattle and the governor of my state, called for a boycott of Hoosier-land. Other protesters mobbed the streets and shouted bigotry and hatred.
And after this ugly spirit of force, condemnation, and lack of civility and fairness swept through many parts of the nation, the Indiana governor and assembly bowed to the pressure and changed their eminently fair, American law.
They caved to the spirit of hatred, force, and coercion. That was a sad day for America. The “bad spirits” won.
That does not bode well for our future.
There is a huge debate about the morality of homosexuality and same sex marriage raging in this nation. Many Jews, Muslims, Bible-believing Christians, and other folks honestly believe that homosexuality is destructive behavior and that changing the definition of marriage would hurt people, children, and society as a whole.
These people aren’t bigots. I know–because I’m one of them. They just have deeply held beliefs. They don’t demand that others agree with them. They simply love people, love God and don’t want to be forced to change their hearts and consciences.
The key word in that sentence is forced. Remember, the devil and demonic beings force. That’s the evil spirit behind many things in our world from jihadists who behead Christians to secularists who demand that florists, bakers, photographers celebrate their opinions and actions.
The Satanic spirit is one of force and intolerance.
The godly spirit was the one behind Gov. Mike Mike Pence and the Indiana Assembly who had passed a religious freedom act. They didn’t demand or force anybody to do anything.
They wanted freedom of conscience–which comes from the Spirit of the Lord.
Michael Barone and I hold opposite opinions on same sex marriage. He is in favor or it. I am opposed. But when I was readying an article on this issue, this well-known political writer came out with a column that said everything that was in my heart.
Better than I can say it.
You see, you can have an opposite or wrong take on a subject, but hold a godly view of its implementation.
Mr. Barone calls this attitude “The Wisdom of Friendly Accommodation.”
I agree.
No matter where you stand on the great moral divide of our time, I admonish you to listen to the spirit of Michael Barone which has the “echo of God” behind it.
Friday, April 3, 2015
Indiana Religious Freedom Act in Accord With Traditional American Toleration
By Michael Barone
There has been a great ruckus about Indiana’s recently passed religious freedom law. Some, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, see it as endorsing anti-gay bigotry. Democratic Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy has banned state employees from traveling to Indiana, even though Connecticut has a similar law even more favorable to claims of religious objectors. Perhaps he should ban state employees from remaining inside Connecticut.
The Indiana law is substantially identical to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed by Congress by a near-unanimous vote in 1993 and signed with brio by Bill Clinton. It was a response to a Supreme Court decision upholding an Oregon drug law against members of the Native American Church who had claimed their religion requires drug use.
RFRA sets up a balancing test, to be employed by courts. Government cannot enforce a statute requiring people to violate their religious convictions unless it can demonstrate a compelling interest in doing so, and proceeds to do so by the least restrictive means possible.
This is in line with longstanding American tradition. The First Amendment, ratified in 1790, guaranteed Americans the “free exercise” of religion. The Framers knew that their new republic included Quakers, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, atheists, even perhaps a few Muslims. They wanted all to be free to live — not just worship, but live — according to their beliefs.
Opponents of the Indiana law point to horrifying hypotheticals. Restaurants won’t serve gays; large corporations won’t hire them, and so on. But mass anti-gay discrimination seems extremely unlikely. What is on the opponents’ minds, apparently, are the cases where gay couples have successfully sued bakeries and florists who refuse to provide services to same-sex weddings. These litigants, they believe, should not lose.
As someone who has publicly supported same-sex marriage longer than President Obama or Hillary Clinton, I would put this in broader perspective.
My observation is that very large majorities of those on both sides of the same-sex marriage issue, and the very large number who have switched from anti- to pro- over the last decade, take the positions they do out of good motives. They believe that their views would be better for individuals, families and society.
Only handfuls base their stand on hatred of gays or hatred of those who believe in traditional or religious concepts of marriage. Most people on both sides want what they think is best for others.
The traditional American recipe for handling such differences is friendly accommodation. The large majority of Americans in the early republic, as today, did not believe in the pacifism of Quakers or the bishops of Episcopalians, the catechism of Catholicism or the rituals of Judaism. But they didn’t begrudge others their beliefs.
An acid test of American religious toleration came during World War II. Congress, at the urging of President Franklin Roosevelt, instituted a military draft in 1940. That law provided, for the first time, for exemption from active military service men who professed a religious conscientious objection to bearing arms.
Most Americans then opposed entry into World War II. They dreaded the hundreds of thousands of American deaths — more than 400,000 as it turned out — that they believed would result. But they and their elected representatives were willing to exempt from military service those who had highly unusual religious beliefs, even though others might die in their places. I should add that many conscientious objectors served as non-combatants at the risk of, and for some the loss of, their lives.
Americans continued to support exemption from military service of conscientious objectors until the military draft ended. It is inconceivable that it would not be part of any future conscription legislation. So strong is American respect for the free exercise of religion that it extends to matters of life and death.
Opponents of the Indiana law liken conscientious refusal to participate in same-sex marriages to racial discrimination. But as many black leaders and citizens will tell you, correctly, no other category of Americans have been subject to anything like slavery and segregation.
Eradicating those drastic evils required drastic legislation, yet even the civil rights laws provide some exemptions. Fair housing laws, for example, don’t cover renting out your basement apartment.
This situation is different. Society has reached a consensus on racial discrimination. It has not reached such a consensus on same-sex marriage.
The traditional American formula for handling such issues is friendly accommodation of the conscientious beliefs of others. Indiana’s RFRA is in line with this. Forcing people to violate their religious beliefs absent a compelling government interest is not.
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Exactly right.
Force is from the devil. Appreciation of conscience is from God.
You better check that “spirit” within you or behind the cause you are joining–to see if its origin is heavenly or from the pit.
That may tell you a lot about your issue as well.
Tearing Down America
It’s been an interesting week of presidential announcements. Hillary Clinton tweeted her presidential run then gaffed badly that she’s “fought women and children all her life.” Maybe that was an honest statement if you consider her views on abortion.
Marco Rubio also jumped into the race as a fresh, young, and articulate US Senator. If either he or Ted Cruz is elected to our highest office, they will make history as the nation’s first Hispanic president.
We certainly need a fresh leader for a hopeful future—not a return or carry-over from the past. In fact the next president will face a daunting assignment.
Stopping the tearing down of America.
If the present administration has succeeded at anything, it has been to greatly accelerate the tearing down of a once great nation. Now that we are heading into the seventh year of the Obama administration, and he is no longer running for office, it much easier to look at the president’s record and understand what he really meant when he said he wanted to “fundamentally change America.”
I will not judge his heart. Only God knows it. But the Bible is very clear that people are “known by their fruits.” Based on that wise axiom, what is the actual legacy of the Barack Obama presidency?
Instead of America being built up, we are in the process of being torn down. From a polling standpoint, nothing indicates this more than the steady reading that 70% of Americans believe that we are going in the wrong direction and only 30% believe we are headed the right way. This statistic has held constant for the majority of the Obama years.
Regardless of his motivation or desires, this means that Americans believe that we are being “torn down” not “built up.”
How so?
Using a preacher’s method of a three-point sermon where the words all start with the same first letter, let’s look at three critical areas of American life that the current administration is inadvertently or consciously tearing down.
Moral Tear Down
As a spiritual leader, this one is the most important to me because morality, which comes primarily from faith in God, leads to freedom or liberty which in turn brings blessing to a family, neighborhood, city of nation.
The Obama Administration has been the greatest accelerator of immorality in the history of our country, and that’s probably for two reasons: 1) Barack Obama was elected at time when powerful immoral forces in this nation were gaining momentum in the culture, and 2) Our president is primarily a secular man who pays lip service to biblical faith, but actively promotes secular values.
Now that the election gig is over, and he is free to be himself, we are witnessing a breathtaking assault on the traditional biblical values that made America unique in world history. The tearing down includes:
- The assault on children via abortion. Barack Obama is only the third president in all of American history who is pro-abortion, and the only one who radically championed late term abortions while in the Illinois Senate. Baby-killing has become passé and even applauded during the Obama years. Hillary Clinton, beholden to NARAL and Emily’s List, would do the same.
- The destruction of the five thousand year biblical covenant of marriage—the only American president to do so after he lied about changing his mind. In the Clinton roll-out video, she jumped on the same theme—which will further destroy the nuclear family in America.
- The failure of our nation’s first black president to mobilize the black community to rebuild the African-American family. This is such a tragic loss. Barack Obama could have been the man to call black dads home and encourage African American women to avoid pregnancy without marriage. Instead, he played the race card for years while black families disintegrate at mind-numbing speed.
- Opening our porous southern border for criminals, gangs, terrorists, and even unattended children simply for the sake of gaining Democratic votes. Immigration chaos is truly a moral issue that is destroying the social fabric of many cities and states.
Monetary Tear Down
The crony capitalist redistributive policies of the current Administration have soared the national debt to over eighteen TRILLION dollars, failed to create good wage jobs in a sputtering economy, and placed put a huge regulatory drag on the United States economy.
Obamacare is not only a health care disaster, but a huge noose on families, businesses, invention and innovation—and one of the most deceptive taxes ever foisted on the American people. And its enforcement agents are the hated IRS.
Barack Obama is primarily a statist who does not believe in liberty and free markets. His environmental policies torpedoed the Keystone Pipeline for no good reason and have not allowed America to become energy independent—a crucial position to hold in the 21st century. Instead, hopes of windmills and failed electric cars have put the brakes on one of our country’s most dynamic sectors—the new fossil-fuel explosion. All that’s been “renewed” in America has been our dependency on foreign oil and loss of clean coal jobs.
At best, America is treading water as we head toward a debt cliff. At worst, we are speeding toward the greatest economy collapse in the history of the world—driven by a man who little about lean budgeting, judicious use of debt and job creation.
Military Tear Down
Maybe the most glaring tear down of American society that has occurred under the Obama watch has been down-sizing and demoralizing of the United States military. Though the Bush invasion of Iraq can be argued both ways, no one can argue that when George Bush left office, Iraq was stable, our US forces were extended but strong, and the most volatile part of the world, the Middle East, was under control.
Not anymore. The Middle East is burning and in turmoil:
- Barack Obama failed to support the freedom movement in Iran in 2009. Now we are pushed around by genocidal and terror-supporting ayatollahs and are on the verge of allowing the world’s most powerful terrorist state to develop a nuclear weapon. If you were committed to ushering in Armageddon or World War III, there is no more helpful thing you could be doing right now than being taken to the cleaners by Iranian diplomats.
- With Hillary Clinton’s approval, we toppled the Gadaffi government in Libya, allowed our ambassador to be killed, and now chaos reigns in that nation.
- We said that Yemen was a “model” of our policy to reform the Middle East, and now it looks more like the Middle Ages than a stable part of the Middle East.
- Hundreds of thousands of people have died and been displaced in Syria and Iraq. By bringing our troops home too early, we released the draconian serpent of Isis to behead Christians and quickly become the new Nazis on the planet.
- We antagonized our friends (Israel) and have emboldened our enemies (Jihadists).
- Our American military is said to be at the lowest point of morale in a generation due to our feckless policies of appeasement, experimenting with sexual rights on the battle field, and telling our courageous chaplains to stop talking about God.
Morally, monetarily, and militarily the American nation is being systematically torn down. It would be easy to blame that breakdown on our leaders at the top. There’s just one problem.
We voted for them–twice.
It’s time to pray. It’s time to repent. It’s time to choose new leadership that will build up our nation, not tear it down.
The Woman That Understands the Threat of Islam
As most of us know, Islam is not the greatest purveyor of women’s rights in the world. On the contrary, many women in Muslim nations are treated like property, can’t go to school, are abused by men, and are given little hope of heaven.
Many politicians are afraid to expose the anti-woman agenda of Islam. Hillary Clinton, who is assumed to be the next Democratic nominee for president and appears to be running on the “War Against Women,” has raised millions of dollars through the Clinton Foundation from Islamic nations that abuse women–with rarely a peep from the mainstream press.
That’s why I was surprised when I saw an article recently by a gun-toting American woman that clearly describes the Muslim problem in America.
This woman understands the threat of Islam.
Jan Morgan, the owner of Gun Cave Indoor Shooting Range in Hot Springs, Arkansas is a journalist and business owner who taken an amazing step at her shooting range: She won’t rent or sell guns to Muslims.
That may sound extreme, and you may not agree, but her reasons for doing so reveal an understanding of Islam that goes deeper than the average Joe. Her thoughts are worth pondering.
After some years of accelerated violence by self-proclaimed Islamists in America, Morgan began to study the Muslim religion discovered “109 verses commanding hate, murder and terror against all human beings who refuse to submit or convert to Islam.”
On her website, Jan Morgan Media, Morgan explains a decision she made to prohibit Muslims from using her shooting range. I will share her ten point treatise below.
By Jan Morgan
I officially declare my business, The Gun Cave Indoor Shooting Range, a MUSLIM FREE ZONE.
1) The Koran, which I have read and studied thoroughly and (which all Muslims align themselves with), contains 109 verses commanding hate, murder and terror against all human beings who refuse to submit or convert to Islam. Read those verses of violence here.
2) My life has been threatened repeatedly by Muslims who are angry that I have studied the Korean and have, over the past two years, been exposing the vileness of the Koran and its murderous directives.
3) The barbaric act of beheading an innocent American in Oklahoma by a Muslim, the Boston bombings (by Muslims), the Fort Hood mass shooting (by a Muslim) that killed 13 people and injured over 30 people and the murder of 3000 innocent people (by Muslims) on 9/11.
This is more than enough loss of life on my home soil at the hands of Muslims to substantiate my position that Muslims can and will follow the directives in the Koran and kill here at home.
4) Because the nature of my business involves firearms and shooting firearms in an enclosed environment, my patrons are not comfortable being around Muslims who align themselves with a religion that clearly commands hate, murder, and violence against all non Muslims. Therefore many of my patrons are uncomfortable around Muslims with guns. (Can you blame them?)
5) My range rents and sells guns to my patrons. Why would I want to rent or sell a gun and hand ammunition to someone who aligns himself with a religion that commands him to kill me?
6) Muslims, who belong to and/or, support ISIS, are threatening to kill innocent Americans. Muslims, who belong to or support AL Qaeda, are threatening to kill innocent Americans. Muslims who belong to or support HAMAS are threatening to kill innocent Americans. See a common thread here?
7) I not only have the right to refuse service but a RESPONSIBILITY to provide a safe environment for people to shoot and train on firearms. I can and have turned people away if I sense they are under the influence of alcohol or mind altering drugs. I have a federal firearms license.
The ATF (the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) informed us when we received the license that if we feel any reason for concern about selling someone a firearm, even sense that something is not right about an individual, or we are concerned about that persons mental state, even if they pass a background check, we do not have to sell that person a gun.
In other words, a federal agency has given us this kind of discretion for service based on the nature of the business. I can and have turned people away if I sense an issue with their mental state. So, it’s difficult to imagine how the Department of Justice could have issues with this when ATF gave us this discretion.
8) I have no way of looking at Islam other than as a theocracy, not a religion. Islam is undoubtedly the union of political, legal, and religious ideologies. In other words law, religion and state are forged together to form what Muslims refer to as “The Nation of Islam.” Once again it is given the sovereign qualities of a nation with clerics in the governing body and Sharia law all in one. This is a theocracy, not a religion.
The US Constitution does not protect a theocracy. The 1st Amendment is very specific about protecting the rights of individuals from the government, as it concerns the practice of religions, not theocracies. It clearly differentiates between government and religion. Again protecting the individual’s religious beliefs and practices from (the state) government.
In Islam, religion and state are one.
We are a nation governed by laws, or the law of the land the U.S. Constitution. We are not a nation that is governed by religion, politicians or clerics. How then, can anyone say that, the practice of Islam is protected by the U.S. Constitution?
The Muslim Brotherhood has a documented plan for the destruction of America from within, discovered by our own government during a raid of MB operatives in America. In addition, I am very cognizant of the civilizational jihad under way in my country by American Muslims. In a number of states Muslims, through our legal system, are trying to force us to accept Sharia Law over Constitutional law. I do not wish to do business with people who stand against the Constitution and are fighting to replace it.
9) Islam allows Muslims to kill their own children, (honor killing) if the behavior of those children embarrasses or dishonors the family name. (did you know that dating outside of the faith is justification for murdering their daughters and this has already occurred on American soil?) Why would I want people (who believe it’s okay to murder their own children), be in the presence of other children? My patrons often bring their kids to the range to teach them to shoot. I am responsible for providing a safe environment for those children to learn gun safety and shooting sports.
10) In the fourteen hundred year history of Islam, Muslims have murdered over 270 million people. Not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terrorists in the world right now are Muslim.
Since you can’t determine by visual assessment, which ones will kill you and which ones will not, I am going to go with the line of thought that ANY HUMAN BEING who would either knowingly or unknowingly support a “religion” that commands the murder of all people who refuse to submit or convert to that religion is not someone I want to know or do business with.
I hold adults accountable for the religion they align themselves with.
In summary, I not only have the right, but a responsibility to provide a safe environment for my customers. I do not believe my decision is religious discrimination because I do not classify Islam as a religion. It is a theocracy/terrorist organization that hides behind the mask of religion in order to achieve its mission of world domination.
People who shoot at my range come from all religious backgrounds. I do not care about their religious beliefs. I care about the safety of my customers who come to shoot here. The government allows businesses to ban me from entering their business with my gun because the property owner feels uncomfortable or wants to provide a “safe” environment for their patrons which is in clear violation of my 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.
I should be able to deny service to people on the same premise. Can my government really force me to invite someone who had threatened to kill me, into my home or business?
I will do whatever is necessary to provide a safe environment for my customers, even at the cost of the increased threats and legal problems this decision will likely provoke.
* * * *
Jan’s thoughts about the theocratic nature of Islam are worth pondering. Is Islam, as practiced by millions of Muslims in the 21st century, just a credible individual religious faith or does it come intertwined with political/religions entanglements that create its true danger?
And do the 109 Koranic verses on jihad against all non-Muslims make it a unique menace against true freedom and First Amendment privileges?
I’ll let you be the judge.
But I think we can learn a few things from this woman who understands the threat of Islam.