Written by James M. Odom, Esq.
Senior Policy Analyst, The Illinois Family Institute

Our founders were so sophisticated in their understanding of religion and civil government, that they secured this critical inalienable right given by the Creator to all mankind, as the very first freedom to be protected by the U.S. Government.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
~John Adams, 2^nd President of the U.S.A.

This is why the Illinois Family Institute has joined a friend of the court (“amicus”) brief supporting Catholic Social Services in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, 922 F.3d 140 (3d Cir. 2019), just argued before the Supreme Court of the United States.

The City of Philadelphia wants same sex relationships to be universally accepted, regardless of religious belief, and has therefore prohibited foster children from being placed with a Catholic organization that has been serving children in this way for 223 years, because their religious practice prevents them from placing children with same-sex couples.  Though, incidentally the organization never actually refused a same-sex placement. They refer them elsewhere.

At the federal level, the courts generally enforce the First Amendment by requiring 1) a compelling government interest, and 2) the least restrictive means narrowly tailored to actually achieve that interest before allowing a government to infringe Constitutional rights. This is referred to as the strict scrutiny test.

While it has generally been accepted since the ratification of the 14^th Amendment that the federal government would also defend rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution against the actions of State and local governments, the U.S. Supreme Court in Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), reduced this protection by ruling that government actions not targeted specifically against religion, or those called “generally applicable,” do not prohibit the free exercise of religion.

This has enabled state and local governments to tailor laws to limit the free exercise of religion by simply outlawing religious practices that they dislike, for everyone, rather than just those who are acting based upon their faith. This has resulted in numerous states passing “Religious Freedom Restoration” laws to reinstate the previous level of judicial scrutiny.

Such limitation of religious liberty is exactly what happened in Fulton.

This is also why Illinois churches’ federal lawsuits against being forced to close during the COVID-19 pandemic fell on deaf ears in the federal courts.

With the new Court make-up (already relevant, as it had refused to even hear similar cases prior to the appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett), there is a possibility of overturning Employment Division, and reinstating a test which would prevent such government prohibitions of exercising religious faith.

What this case is really all about, is giving government the ability to silence the Church, and thereby God, and the Word of God on issues of right and wrong.

The political left desires to replace the current United States Republican form of government with the political philosophies of Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto (referred to more gently as “socialism” by Democrat politicians such as Bernie Sanders).  Removing the Church’s ability to influence the culture’s understanding of right and wrong is a key element needed to effectively marginalize true religion and make it irrelevant.

This is why Democrats appoint activist judges who will re-write the Constitution to suit their contemporary ideology, and why they now desire to continue that practice by adding more judges to the High Court.

Pray with us that our Creator who holds this Court and this Country in His mighty hand, will guide the Court to protect true religion and His Church, the indispensable foundation of this great Nation!

PLEASE PRAY: Pray for God’s mercy on our nation as we await the results of President Trump’s legal challenges to election results. In 2000, it took 37 days to figure out the “hanging chad” dilemma. We must be patient. In the meantime, please pray that any and all corruption would be exposed. 

Please consider a donation to IFI as we stand boldly in the public square.

Written by Michele Malkin

It’s here.

“Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer” debuts in theaters nationwide on Oct. 12. I do believe this groundbreaking film by indie producers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney is the most important movie in America right now — a true-life saga of good vs. evil, deadly medical malpractice, systemic government malfeasance and cultural apathy toward the most vulnerable members of our society.

I first reported on this real-life horror story nearly eight years ago, but you’ve probably not heard or read a word about “Gosnell” in the mainstream press, TV news or online. The conspiracy of silence is the result of both malign neglect and active suppression of inconvenient truths:

—One CNN commentator flippantly explained that the network’s lack of interest was a “business decision,” not bias.

—Pro-abortion censors at crowdsourcing giant Kickstarter banned McAleer and McElhinney from raising money for the project — leading small donors across the country to help conduct the largest-ever crowdfunded movie on Indiegogo. (Full disclosure: I put my money where my principles are and donated three times, in addition to using my social media platforms to lend a hand.)

—Taxpayer-supported National Public Radio refused to run sponsored ads describing Gosnell as an “abortionist” because its legal department determined the accurate description violated the left-leaning network’s “value neutral” platform. LOL.

—And this past week, Facebook banned advertising for the movie — a continuation of its systemic crackdown on conservative speech.

What are they trying to hide?

Philadelphia abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell is behind bars, serving three consecutive life sentences for a murderous crime spree that places him in the same infamous pantheon of homicidal maniacs as Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy. But because his victims were hundreds of poor minority women and their children, Hollywood, women’s groups and the media — who usually never hesitate to sensationalize criminal masterminds — are AWOL.

Why? Because radical leftists zealously believe that abortion must be defended at all costs, even if it means whitewashing its bloody, half-century legacy of mass genocide in our nation’s inner cities.

Operating under the cover of providing “reproductive health services,” death doc Gosnell brutally executed hundreds of healthy, living, breathing, squirming, viable babies by stabbing them in their necks and severing spinal cords with scissors and knives. This twisted murderer kept newborn baby feet in specimen jars, which he crammed into the grisly refrigerators of his filthy “clinic” for “research.”

In 2013, Gosnell was convicted of murdering three babies born alive in his death factory and found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of 41-year-old Bhutanese refugee Karnamaya Mongar, who died of a inhumanely administered drug overdose at Gosnell’s “Women’s Medical Society.”

For 15 years, public officials at the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Department of State, and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health officials did nothing to stop Gosnell. Nearby hospital administrators and “women’s health” advocates at the National Abortion Federation knew he was a butcher, but also sat on their hands.

In their 2017 Regnery book on Gosnell, which they adapted into the new movie, McAleer and McElhinney exposed the monster and his enablers with painstaking dedication to original documentation and investigative journalism. The PG-13 film stays true to the trial record without having to resort to gratuitous graphic imagery.

Actors Dean Cain, Sarah Jane Morris, Nick Searcy, Earl Billings, Alfonzo Rachel, and the entire cast bring the courtroom drama — and more importantly, the human drama — to life. Parents with teenage children can and should bring them. We cannot afford to shield them from the truth and leave them vulnerable to the pervasive propaganda of the culture of death.

Whatever your position on abortion, this brave, independent film is an eye-opener that will change hearts and minds. Perhaps what the speech-suppressers who don’t want you to know about “Gosnell” fear most is this chilling conclusion: Deadly indifference to protecting life isn’t tangential to the abortion industry’s barbaric practices — but at its very core.

Michelle Malkin is host of “Michelle Malkin Investigates” on CRTV.com. Her email address is writemalkin@gmail.com.

This article originally posted at Creators.com.