I was, for a short time during college, a volunteer fireman, and my responsibility was to operate the equipment while more experienced firemen entered the burning building.  Following a fire at one house, another student who had gone inside told me how he stood in the smoke-filled kitchen spraying water at the flames to no avail.  It wasn’t until he realized that he was facing a mirrored wall and that the flames were actually behind him that he turned and was able to extinguish the fire.  As long as he was sending water in the wrong direction the fire continued unabated.

With every mass shooting in America there is a repetition of the same demands from the Left to take “substantive” action against guns and gun owners to stop such tragedies.  These demands go nowhere because sensible people understand that, like spraying water at a mirror instead of the fire, such actions will not and cannot make a difference.

You will never solve a problem so long as you are aiming at the wrong target.  We are not dealing with people who are under the control of God or law.  In other words, good people do not kill each other and do not need gun control!  As Paul wrote in I Timothy 1:9, the law is made “for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners. . . for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers. . . . “

Tragically, murder has been with us from the very beginning of human history.  I expect we are all familiar with Cain’s killing of Abel.  And in the approximately six thousand years since, things have not improved.  Cain did not need a firearm to kill his brother, and the absence of such weapons has never been an obstacle to those who are bent on killing someone.

So, is there a “Christian” view of guns?  Does the Bible give us any indication of what God might say about such things?  A former president mocked traditional Americans for relying on their “God and guns.”  Clearly, Leftists delight in throwing Scripture texts or generalities into our faces thinking they can embarrass us into yielding to their demands.

But their efforts are based upon twisted understandings of the Bible, passages taken out of context, or simply ignoring important relevant texts.  Superficially, one might think that God would frown on the existence and use of guns in general, but to conclude this would be to overlook a large body of Scripture.  And it is clear that the only people who would benefit from taking firearms from law abiding Americans would be criminals and tyrants.

A thorough examination of the subject would require writing a book, so the best we can do here is to hit a few high points.  God’s heart can be seen in the fact that the first environment He created for us was that of a garden, symbolizing both beauty and serenity.  It was mankind who introduced discord and violence to creation, and we learned immediately that God disapproved of that violence.

While allowing Cain to live following his killing of his brother, God, shortly thereafter (Gen. 9:6) instituted the death penalty for murder, declaring that murderers were to be executed.  Thus, God’s justice requires that violence be met with violence.

Interestingly, there is no evidence in Scripture for a wholesale surrender of peaceful people to violent people.  “Turning the other cheek,” which we read of in Matthew five applies in the context of Christ’s Kingdom (which was rejected then but will be established in the future) where God will take revenge for His people.  Therefore, if God approves of meeting violence with lethal force, if necessary, it only makes sense that guns are not forbidden by Him.

It is certainly applicable to the topic to consider that David, a “man after God’s own heart” used a high-velocity projectile (slingshot) to take out the giant, Goliath.  Modern studies suggest that a stone released from an ancient sling would have the approximate killing power of a  44 magnum!  David became the progenitor of the Davidic dynasty, from which Christ, the world’s future Ruler has come, and it was he who noted that God taught his “hands to make war.”

God is not anti-war when there is an evil, mortal enemy to fight.

Third, the Apostle Paul addressed the responsibility of a man to his family.  In I Timothy 5:8 he wrote that if a man does not provide the essentials for his family, “especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”  The idea that providing for one’s family includes food and a roof over their heads but not their protection against intruders is ludicrous.

Virtually whatever a man needs to keep his family safe is legitimate, and with the weapons available to criminals, one has no alternative but to be able to meet force with force, if need be.  This would include firearms.

Finally, the US Constitution provides in its Second Amendment a protection of the individual’s God given right to own firearms for the express purpose of protecting “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;” and only the naïve would say that this amendment provides merely for hunting.  Rather, its intention was for the citizen to protect himself and his family from a tyrannical government, which the colonists had just defeated in a bloody war.

It is precisely for this reason that Leftists beat the drum for more gun control.  The most significant obstacle to their achieving a strangle hold on the American public is the citizens’ right to “keep and bear arms.”

Therefore, all who love liberty and life and understand that these are God given rights, will not yield an inch in the battle for the Second Amendment.  What we must understand is the Left’s willingness to allow and even create suffering for the nation’s citizens in their quest for power.  They cynically believe that if enough innocent people die, eventually tender-hearted citizens will change their minds and allow the government to disarm the public.  Once the public is sufficiently disarmed, our chains will be forged and we will be subjugated, just as they are in China, North Korea, Russia, Venezuela, and other socialist countries.

Do we understand that the Left has no interest in stopping these killings?  There are substantial things that could be done to reduce the killings without violating the Constitution, but the Left fabricates reasons to oppose them all.  We who are truly concerned about the deaths of innocent people struggle to accept the fact that Leftists, whether politicians or academics, don’t care!  Every week in cities like Chicago there are killings equivalent to a mass shooting, yet those in charge do nothing.

There are also over one hundred thousand drug related deaths annually in America, and the Left’s response is to make those drugs more available and curtail efforts to interdict the narcotics crossing the southern border.  Their utter lack of concern for these tragedies underscores the fact that Leftists, regardless of their rhetoric, do not care for America’s citizens, even the children.

What can be done?  The evidence is that training and arming teachers and other staff at every school would be one quick and effective improvement.  But you will get no encouragement from the Left in this.  And there are other available options we won’t get into here because I would like to go to the two most important and effective tools in the tool chest, both of which are hated by the Left.

First, reintroduce students to God and the Bible.  “We can’t have a state church,” you say.  Well, we already do, it’s called Humanism, its priests are teachers, and its cathedrals are the public schools.  But, even at that, the expression “separation of church and state” is seriously misunderstood.  Few Christians want a state church, but all desire to see the principles of righteousness that are sourced in Christianity taught to the Nation’s children.

There is a great difference between a “state church” and teaching morality and goodness to children.  Under the guise of “protecting” children from a state church Leftists have thrown out the principles that are essential to a healthy culture, good citizenry, and safe neighborhoods.

Leftists hate Christianity so virulently that they would rather have the chaos and death across the culture than to hear someone proclaim, “Thus saith the Lord!”  They deeply resent being told that lying, cheating, stealing, and adultery are sinful, but they have no problem declaring that traditional values are evil!

They claim that children are “damaged” by being told about God and their accountability to Him.  Apparently, having a sense of guilt (for which Christianity also provides relief) is worse to Leftists than dying of violence or a drug overdose!   Regardless, the issue is not whether somethings are good and some evil, but rather, who decides what is good and what is evil!

The Left went public with its war on God and the Bible in the 1960s, and that war has only escalated over time.  The horrific violence witnessed daily across America is just one consequence.  One could ask, “America, how is this war on God working out for you?”  The best thing America could do to encourage a God-consciousness in young people.

The second thing we must do, which is related to the creation of a cultural God-consciousness, is to reinvigorate the traditional family.  The chaotic culture we now have is clearly the opposite of a safe, stable culture that would not produce these mass shootings.  The single most important factor in a safe, stable culture is intact, traditional families.  This is indisputable.  Just as darkness cannot exist in the presence of light, chaos cannot exist in a stable society! Duh!  Only a brainwashed Leftist would seek to dispute this.  But it is in fact the very reason for the Leftists’ war against the family.

They understand that the public would never yield to their tyranny if we were experiencing a safe, stable, and prosperous culture.  Understand this: the violence, unrest, and destruction we have witnessed over the last several years are not the natural manifestations of a normal culture.  It has all been orchestrated to achieve a simple objective: the subjugation of the American people.

Opponents of liberty seek to shame those of us who love America’s freedoms with false narratives regarding love.  No, love is not tolerant toward those who would destroy that which is good and right.  A good man does not sit idly watching intruders victimize his family.  As long as predators exist, good men will protect those they love!

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,” is not merely a pleasant platitude.  It is the one most essential element for a peaceful, prosperous nation.  I again call on all Americans to repent and submit to the Holy, yet gracious Lord and God, Jesus Christ!

Sadly, so long as fallen mankind and tyrants run things here, weapons will be necessary to protect one’s life and liberties.  When Christ, the Prince of peace reigns, however, we will see such things come to an end and weapons will be repurposed into plows and pruning hooks!  Eden will be restored!

Will you be there?

Parents will be held responsible by God for their children’s education, says the Bible. This was a view shared by the majority of America’s founders. But today there is a great defiance against this on the part of many in our educational establishment. Many leaders in the educational system seem to think they know better than the parents as to what should and should not be taught.

FoxNews.com reports (3/4/23): “A Colorado elementary school’s private emails show secret plans to defy parents’ wishes on transitioning their child’s gender.”

Recently, a Fairfax (Virginia) County parent, Neeley McCallister noted:

“As parents, it is our primary duty to protect our children and preserve their innocence…Unfortunately, there is a toxic movement infiltrating our schools that is more interested in pushing a political agenda rather than teaching…our children the subjects we were taught in school: math, reading, science, history.”

McCallister made these remarks during hearings to promote a bill in the new U.S. House of Representatives, under the leadership of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). The new bill seeks to assert parental rights when it comes to what is taught in the schools.

This is right and good. Centuries ago America made great strides in becoming a “city on a hill” in part because of the great education so many citizens received. Initially it was based on the Bible and resulted in astounding levels of literacy.

As James Madison, a key architect of the U.S. Constitution, observed,

“A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.”

The first Congress under the U.S. Constitution that gave us the First Amendment also passed a law that ensured that each state to be added to the new nation should be committed to education. If the American experiment were to work, it could only do so if the people could read and write for themselves. So on August 4, 1789, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance. This important document said in Article III:

“Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”

This was in a day when “Religion” meant Christianity of one stripe or another.

Even Thomas Jefferson, who departed from Christian orthodoxy later in life, allowed the Bible and Isaac Watts’ hymnals to be used to teach reading at two schools for which he served as president of the board of trustees. Isaac Watts was a great writer of classic Christian songs, including “Joy to the World,” “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” and “Jesus Shall Reign.”

However, in the last few decades, there has arisen an anti-God tenor in the schools. Last week, Foxnews.com reported on a story out of the Phoenix area, where a school board rejected hiring teachers from a Christian college because these teachers were deemed “not safe”: “An Arizona school board member wearing cat ears during a meeting said she would oppose having a contract with a Christian university over the religious and Biblical beliefs they espouse.”

Another board member concurred with her, as he decried the university for “teaching with a Biblical lens.” The board agreed with the anti-Christian ban.

The school board says in effect, “Teachers needed. Biblical Christians need not apply.” This sort of discrimination is clearly unconstitutional. But is it what parents want?

We all have a lens, a worldview. It was a Biblical worldview, a “Biblical lens,” that made us the most free and prosperous nation. But if the Left had their way, only those with godless values should be teaching our children—with little or no significant input from the parents.

Americanwirenews.com noted a similar example of anti-Christian bias at work in the schools. A public school teacher in Washington state said we need to keep the schoolchildren safe from their “Christo-fascist parents.”

Some parents teach their children to follow the Bible—the way Washington, Lincoln, and Reagan learned their values. “Horrors,” say many in the education establishment today, trying to separate parents from their children’s education.

Thankfully, the new Congress is fighting back, as noted. Former Speaker of the U.S. House Newt Gingrich writes,

“Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans have given the American people an opportunity to dramatically strengthen the role of parents in the education of their children.”

The preamble to The Parents Bill of Rights Act declares:

“Parents have a God-given right to make decisions for their children. Unfortunately, many school districts have been ignoring the wishes of parents while special interest groups try to criminalize free speech.”

The preamble adds,

“This list of rights will make clear to parents what their rights are and clear to schools what their duties to parents are.”

Perhaps U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) says it all:

“Parents are the primary stakeholders in their child’s education, and they have a right to know what is going on inside their child’s classroom.”

Hear, hear.

On Tuesday, July 12, 2022, Northwestern University hosted a webinar entitled, Implications of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Decision. Faculty members of Northwestern participated in the webinar: Dr. Cassing Hammond (abortion practitioner), Professor Paul Gowder, Professor Heidi Kitrosser, Professor Andrew M. Koppelman, Professor Doreen Weisenhaus, and Dean Hari Osofsky (she/her) moderated the event.

The lament from these esteemed members of the once Christian Northwestern University is to be expected. I want to call attention specifically to Prof. Andrew Koppelman who claimed that the right to abortion should be protected by the 13^th amendment.

Distinguished Senior Fellow and Scalia Scholar Ed Whelan in a recent tweet noted that by his count the 1^st, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 8^th, 9^th, 13^th, 14^th, and 19^th Amendments have all been cited in support of the non-existent constitutional right to abortion. Like the astronomer Percival Lowell, who spent 15 years studying canals on Mars, progressive experts think they find abortion everywhere they look in the US Constitution.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and proclaimed in the final days of 1865. The text of this amendment has two sections.

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

It is interesting to recognize in these debates that those who advocate for killing unborn children proclaim themselves to be the compassionate abolitionists. Those who want to save children from being dismembered and vacuumed out of their mother’s wombs are the evil slave owners.

According to the perverse logic of these supposed abolitionists, pregnancy is slavery. If you “force” someone to carry a child to term, that would go against the Thirteenth Amendment. Really?

Now I should point out that Prof. Koppelman did not develop his argument in this webinar. He has written a 30-page paper on the subject. His abstract states, “The Thirteenth Amendment’s purpose is to end the specific institution of antebellum slavery. A ban on abortion would do to women what slavery did to the women who were enslaved: compel them to bear children against their will.”

Let’s accept this argument for just a moment. Where does it end? What about a distressed mother who has to provide care for her ornery two-year old who whines, demands, runs away, and never sleeps when the mother desires? Forcing a mother to care for this child sounds a lot like slavery to me. Or what about a son or daughter who provides care for an aging relative who suffers from dementia or Alzheimer’s? Without any thanks, care must be provided around the clock for someone who often has no resources to compensate for the care given. That sounds a lot like slavery to me, well, at least according to this perverse logic.

Stick with me as we finish off the illogic of this argument, if something appears to be slavery, the answer is to kill.

The mother is free to kill her unborn child to prevent a forced pregnancy. The mother or father is free to kill a born child because this precious one might be a burden. A son or daughter is free to kill a parent who needs round-the-clock care all in the name of the ending of slavery.

It is abhorrent and illogical to compare slavery with pregnancy. I recognize that not all who are pregnant made that choice. There are difficult cases, but to suggest that what slaves endured is what mothers face is perverse and wicked logic.

Dan McLaughlin, a senior writer at National Review Online, has written a very similar article on this very subject that I would also highly recommend.

Constitutionally speaking, the United States Seat of Government cannot be an individual State.

On Thursday, April 22, however, 216 members of a powerful special interest faction within the U.S. House of Representatives, the Democratic Party, passed H.R. 51, attempting to usurp the power of the People of the United States under the Constitution, converting the District of Columbia from the federal seat of government to a state.

H.R. 51 is clearly unconstitutional.

The Democrats’ purpose for doing so, is yet another naked power grab. Only the U.S. Constitution stands in the way of a two-seat Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate. The citizens of the District of Columbia, who do vote in Presidential elections, vote overwhelmingly (almost 90 percent) for Democrats.

Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution expressly gives Congress the authority:

“To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of Government of the United States”

The District of Columbia has been so ceded and accepted for the past 220 years.

Founding Father James Madison explained the ongoing necessity of a federally controlled seat of government in Federalist 43:

“The indispensable necessity of complete authority at the seat of government, carries its own evidence with it…Without it, not only the public authority might be insulted and its proceedings interrupted with impunity; but a dependence of the members of the general government on the State comprehending the seat of the government, for protection in the exercise of their duty, might bring on the national councils an imputation of awe or influence, equally dishonorable to the government and dissatisfactory to the other members of the Confederacy…The public money expended on such places, and the public property deposited in them, requires that they should be exempt from the authority of the particular State. Nor would it be proper for the places on which the security of the entire Union may depend, to be in any degree dependent on a particular member of it.”

The general need and requirement for a U.S. “Seat of Government,” and specifically not making that Seat a state, is therefore subject to change only via U.S. Constitutional amendment.

A combination of D.C. citizens seeking more representation and Democratic politicians seeking more power for themselves, have for decades promoted D.C. statehood, and other schemes, to give political control of the seat of U.S. Government into the hands of a single State.

Such a change has nonetheless been widely recognized by both Democrats and Republicans as requiring a U.S. Constitutional amendment.

In 1964, even U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, a Democrat, deemed efforts to bypass this requirement unconstitutional.  Numerous others in the legal community have agreed to this obvious textual requirement.

There has indeed been unusual consensus on this issue, for the entire history of U.S. Government under the Constitution.

If they so choose, current residents of the District of Columbia are free and easily able to live under the authority of one of several nearby states and still work in the Seat of Government.

In order to benefit their own special interests, many on the left will tell you that you need someone else (them) to tell you what the Constitution means.  Such is not the case.

The ability to understand the U.S. Constitution was not intended to be relegated to an ivory-towered, elite educational class.

On the contrary, it is foundational to the U.S. system of government that the common citizen, can and should, understand the U.S. Constitution, in order to self-govern and hold their representatives accountable.

Article V of the U.S. Constitution requires proposal of an amendment by 2/3 of both houses of Congress or state legislatures, and approval by 3/4 of state legislatures.

Congress, under the control of both dominant political parties, has previously remained unwilling to usurp the U.S. Constitution’s authority, and unable to gain the large consensus necessary to accomplish a Constitutional amendment.

The Representatives who passed this resolution know this or are derelict in their responsibility to have done the trivial amount of research needed to know it.

Today’s Democratic Party though, has shown no restraint of honesty or integrity in its quest to rule over the People. Moreover, “progressive” activists will stop at nothing, including subverting the U.S. Constitution, to expand their own political power and advance socialism.

Promoting and passing laws that attempt to intentionally bypass the Constitutional amendment process is no small matter. To do so is a violation of an elected official’s oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution, “so help me God.”

This is why belief in the Creator, and oaths before Him, are required of public officials in the United States.

“If you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it,
for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin.”
~Deuteronomy 23:21-23

All 216 of these men and women (and they are men and women) have violated their oath of office, and should therefore be disqualified from holding public office.

Fortunately, the filibuster, requiring 60 members to end debate on any bill in the U.S. Senate, stands firmly in the way, making passage of  H.R. 51 nearly impossible.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.  ~John Adams

So let us be thankful to the Creator, who is the official foundation upon which our government has been established, for protecting us from this tyranny for a time.

In addition to prayers, we the people (especially those who are moral and religious) must read, understand, and speak truth regarding the Constitution, and replace fools who do not, those who seek only power, luxury, and the elite prestige of affiliation with a political party for themselves.

Let us boldly proclaim that statehood for the District of Columbia is clearly unconstitutional and call for the removal of dishonest elected officials who would break their oath of office to support H.R. 51 or any similar government act.

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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Written by Kelle Berry

Recently, an activist group known as the Secular Democrats of America (SDA) sent a document to the president and the administration with a directive “to take back the mantle of religious freedom and pluralism.”

On the surface, the title—Restoring Constitutional Secularism and Patriotic Pluralism in the White House—makes the SDA’s mission sound appealing. The document calls to:

“…Oppose discrimination against atheists, agnostics, humanists, seekers, religious and nonreligious persons and to champion the value of freedom of thought and conscience…”

This even makes it sound harmonious with First Liberty’s own mission of protecting religious freedom for all Americans. After all, the First Amendment grants everyone the right to freely exercise their religious beliefs, convictions and to act according to their conscience without government censorship, threat, or coercion.

However, scratching beneath the surface, one sees that the SDA’s demands are much more dangerous. Inside the document, one finds a detailed “blueprint” redefining religious freedom in a way that would be unrecognizable to America’s Founders.

Building a Higher Wall of Separation?

Invoking America’s third president, the SDA implores a return to a “Jeffersonian approach to governance.” In other words, the SDA is petitioning to fortify a higher “wall of separation” between church and state.

Many high school civics students are undoubtedly familiar with those words from Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. But what may not be known is that Jefferson wrote them to reassure the church that the First Amendment ensured the government would not interfere in their religious activities. At no time did Jefferson believe that religion and government could not mix.

Indeed, one need look no further than Jefferson’s attendance at church services held inside the U.S. Capitol itself as evidence of his approval of strong church-state relations.

Jefferson and a vast majority of our nation’s Founders understood that faith is not only permissible in the public square, but also beneficial. Houses of worship and religious organizations all faiths care for the sick, feed the hungry, and shelter the homeless. And the benefits don’t stop with charity. A recent study reports that religion contributes $1.2 trillion to the U.S. economy.

In stark contrast to the Founders’ constitutional intent, the SDA commands employees “to separate their personal religious beliefs from their work.” Sadly, some government officials have completely bought into this unconstitutional view.

First Liberty continues to protect Coach Joe Kennedy’s right as a high school football coach to pray alone after games. If the SDA gets its way, Coach Kennedy and millions of other Americans who are government employees will suffer irreparable harm to their First Amendment rights—putting them in the untenable position of choosing between their faith and their job.

Government employees are not the only ones who will suffer under the SDA’s aggressive plan.

Private religious organizations who have historically been able to work with the government are also threatened. In the case of Fulton v. City of Pennsylvania, currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, Catholic adoption agencies that have, for decades, worked with the government to provide loving homes for adoptive children have been told to sacrifice their religious identity in order to continue their work.

Unsurprisingly, the SDA opposes the right of the adoption agencies: “[n]o institution, religious or secular, is entitled to access taxpayer funding.” If the SDA gets its way, it won’t just be orphans in need of loving homes who suffer. Millions of Americans who benefit from the benevolent partnership between church and state will also suffer.

Legislation Already Under Way

It’s tempting to quickly dismiss the SDA’s demands. However, people of faith must realize that some in positions of power who sympathize with the SDA’s message are already acting to implement its agenda.

For example, look at the effort on Capitol Hill to pass the so-called Equality Act, which if signed into law, would effectively overturn the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) which, as its name suggests, was intended to restore religious freedom.

The Equality Act may sound appealing in name, but the only equality it seeks to achieve is to eradicate any religious beliefs that do not conform to the government’s preferred orthodoxy. It’s a law that would squash dissent and differing viewpoints from the public sphere. The sad irony is that the Equality Act is actually antithetical to the SDA’s stated principles and its championing of pluralism.

At a time when the SDA and many other activist groups are pushing to recreate the U.S. Constitution, First Liberty remains vigilant and undeterred in our mission to protect and defend religious freedom consistent with the vision of America’s Founders. And regardless of who resides in the White House or controls the U.S. Congress, we will continue being the best hope for victory for Americans of all faiths.

This article was originally published at FirstLiberty.org.

Fifteen years ago, the speech U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr recently delivered to students at the University of Notre Dame would have been widely approved. Today, however, the culture has changed so dramatically that widely accepted moral truths are now controversial.

Barr shared his thoughts on religious liberty with students at the Notre Dame Law School and the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture in early October. He outlined how the Founding Fathers enshrined in the Constitution their belief in the importance of religious liberty, “which provides for limited government, while leaving ‘the People’ broadly at liberty to pursue our lives both as individuals and through free associations.”

In the last century, Barr noted, our beliefs helped us to stand up to and defeat Fascism and Communism. But in this century, we face a different challenge. Barr said the Founding Fathers foresaw “our supreme test as a free society” as a challenge not from without, but from within. “The question,” Barr said, “was whether the citizens in such a free society could maintain the moral discipline and virtue necessary for the survival of free institutions.” We have yet to prove we can meet that test.

Barr said, “Men are subject to powerful passions and appetites, and, if unrestrained, are capable of ruthlessly riding roughshod over their neighbors and the community at large.” The Founders understood these passions and appetites could take different paths, always leading to tyranny.

Barr reminded his audience that “in the Framers’ view, free government was only suitable and sustainable for a religious people–a people who recognized that there was a transcendent moral order antecedent to both the state and man-made law and who had the discipline to control themselves according to those enduring principles.”

This raises the question, what happens when a free republic is no longer governed by a religious people?

Barr discussed how religion promotes the moral discipline and virtue needed to support free government. He said the Founder’s Judeo-Christian moral system taught them, “Moral precepts start with the two great commandments–to Love God with your whole heart, soul, and mind; and to Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself.”

Barr shared that “Natural law–a real, transcendent moral order which flows from God’s eternal law–the divine wisdom by which the whole of creation is ordered.” Today he said, “Modern secularists dismiss this idea of morality as other-worldly superstition imposed by a kill-joy clergy.”

He noted that as the Judeo-Christian moral system has fallen into public disfavor and secularism and the doctrine of moral relativism has grown, our society has seen great upheaval.

Barr cited these statistics:

• In 1965, the illegitimacy rate was 8 percent. In 1992, it was 25 percent. Today, it’s over 40 percent. In many large urban areas, it’s around 70 percent.

• Over 70,000 people die a year from drug overdoses. That’s more than the number who died in the entire Vietnam war.

• There are now record levels of depression, mental illness, and suicides.

He lamented what has happened to our society saying, “What we call ‘values’ today are really nothing more than mere sentimentality, still drawing on the vapor trails of Christianity.”

Barr decried, “The force, fervor, and comprehensiveness of the assault on religion we are experiencing today.” He also noted the irony that the secularism coming against Christianity is becoming a religion unto itself.

We are different from previous societies. Barr said that in the past, the moral chaos we are experiencing now would have caused society to recoil in horror, but today’s high-tech pop culture distracts us from these cultural horrors.

Barr pointed out the absurdity of today’s culture, relying not on morals to treat the underlying cause, but instead on the state. “So, the reaction to growing illegitimacy is not sexual responsibility, but abortion. The reaction to drug addiction is safe injection sites.” The state becomes the father and mother.

Barr criticized, “the way law is being used as a battering ram to break down traditional moral values and to establish moral relativism as a new orthodoxy.” He shared that this has allowed secularists to legalize abortion and euthanasia, and seek to eliminate laws reflecting traditional morality.

He also criticized the Obama administration for refusing to accommodate the free exercise of religion by forcing religious employers to violate their beliefs and provide coverage for abortions and abortifacients.

But he calls public schools “ground zero” for attacks on religious liberty. He sees secularists attacking religious freedom on three fronts:

1.) Public school curricula–often with no opt-out–that are incompatible with traditional religious principles.

2.) Attacks on private religious school that seek to force schools to adhere to secular orthodoxy. He spoke about a lawsuit in Indiana where a teacher is suing a Catholic school because she was fired after revealing she is in a same-sex “marriage.”

3.) Funding for religious schools that is inequitable and unequal. Generally available funds are not available to religious schools. For example, scholarship/savings programs are available only to public school students.

Barr painted a grim picture. “We cannot have a moral renaissance unless we succeed in passing to the next generation our faith and values in full vigor,” he urged. “The times are hostile to this. Public agencies, including public schools, are becoming secularized and increasingly are actively promoting moral relativism.”

In the face of this hostility, Barr offered this advice to students: “We must be vigilant to resist efforts by the forces of secularization to drive religious viewpoints from the public square and to impinge upon the free exercise of our faith.”

Most importantly–and controversially to some–he concluded with this declaration: “I can assure you that, as long as I am Attorney General, the Department of Justice will be at the forefront of this effort, ready to fight for the most cherished of our liberties: the freedom to live according to our faith.”

IFI highly recommends watching his presentation in this YouTube video. His remarks about religious liberty begin at the 12:44 mark:

A Night With Rev. Franklin Graham!
At this year’s annual IFI banquet, our keynote speaker will be none other than Rev. Franklin Graham, President & CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christian evangelist & missionary. This year’s event will be at the Tinley Park Convention Center on Nov. 1st. You don’t want to miss this special evening!

Learn more HERE.

Could a contrast between the American Revolution and the French Revolution be relevant to today’s conflicts? I think so. The attempt to demote historic icons, like George Washington, is a case in point.

George Washington grew up as a gentleman farmer in Virginia and was a fourth generation slave-owner. But by the end of his life, he had decided slavery was immoral and so at his death, he freed his slaves and made provision for them.

But in our day—where the alleged “right to not be offended” often seems to trump the constitutional right to free speech—some are calling for images of George Washington to be torn down, like statues of Confederates.

The dailywire.com (5/2/19) reports on how “George Washington High School” in Northern California is contemplating tearing down two 1930’s panels featuring George Washington because the pair of murals allegedly “traumatizes students and community members.”

This is in San Francisco, so the outcome seems likely.

How long will our historical iconoclasm last? The cultural Marxists are working overtime to cut Americans off from our history.

I believe that despite his flaws, including being a slave-owner, there are many heroic aspects of our first president. Dr. Peter Lillback and I wrote, George Washington’s Sacred Fire, which puts all this in context. Recently we discussed Washington and slavery.

Our founders fought the American Revolution, led by Washington, so that we could enjoy our God-given rights. Though slow in coming, recognition of those God-given rights eventually gave the slaves their freedom. What is happening in the culture wars today is a revival of the French Revolution, which waged war against God.

France in 1789 fought against injustice, even in the church; but their godless “cure” ended up being worse than the disease. The French Revolution was anti-God and pro-tyranny—leading to death in the streets. The American Revolution was pro-God and pro-freedom.

America’s founders mentioned God four times in the Declaration of Independence. They identified King George III’s tyranny as illegitimate—because he was violating our God-given rights. The founders, with a firm reliance on the Lord, laid down “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” in support for their declaration as a new nation.

When George Washington first read the Declaration to his troops, one of his first acts was to hire Christian chaplains—systematically, throughout the army. He felt that if we were to win this war, it would only be with God’s help.

And he and the other colonists felt that God did help. To paraphrase Washington in his First Inaugural Address, no people should be more grateful to the Lord than we Americans because God aided us at every step to become an independent nation.

Consider a few further contrasts between the American Revolution and the French Revolution.

Our framers signed the Constitution in “the year of our Lord” 1787. The French Revolutionaries got rid of the Christian calendar; and so they declared 1791 as Year 1 of their new non-Christian calendar.

The French Revolutionaries desecrated Notre Dame Cathedral, disallowing Christian worship there and placed a half-naked woman on the altar, calling her “Reason,” whom they worshiped.

In contrast, our founders hired Christian chaplains for the military and also for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. Since there weren’t enough church buildings in Washington, D. C., they held Christian worship services in the U.S. Capitol building. Presidents Jefferson and Madison attended those services.

The French Revolution eventually consumed its own. Since then, France has had 17 different governments, while the U.S. still lives under one—the U.S. Constitution.

I predict that today’s social justice warriors, who are consuming our past heroes, will one day be consumed themselves by future revolutionaries. Future generations could look back at us and say things like: “You had 4D sonograms documenting the humanity of the unborn and yet you allowed millions of abortions on demand?” or “Science has documented genuine differences between men and women, yet you allowed boys who claimed to be girls to compete and dominate in sports, winning valuable scholarships?”

Every generation has its flaws and blind spots. Our generation has yet to recognize its own.

Slavery was evil. Thank God for those strong Christians who defeated it. Thank God for William Wilberforce’s Christian anti-slavery crusade, which took him about five decades to complete. That crusade inspired abolition here in America. Interestingly, in his day, Wilberforce was sometimes called “the George Washington of Humanity.” Both men worked hard to liberate others.

Slavery has plagued humanity from the beginning of time and can even be found in some places today, places where the gospel of Christ has no sway.

Too bad the children of the French Revolution are rising up today to cut us off from our past heroes. There is a reason Washington continues to be a hero to millions. Enough with the historical revisionism.

This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.

U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Ny), the darling of the new socialist Democrats in this country, recently referred to the three branches of government. She said, they are the White House, the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. House of Representatives. John Roberts, call your office.

Ocasio-Cortez is not alone in a great misunderstanding of our history. Many Americans have an abysmal knowledge of our history and some of the basics of American civics.

The results of a recently-released survey (2/15/19) are not encouraging. The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation reports that, “in the highest-performing state, only 53 percent of the people were able to earn a passing grade for U.S. history. People in every other state failed; in the lowest-performing state, only 27 percent were able to pass.” [Emphasis theirs.]

The states that did the best were Vermont, Wyoming, and South Dakota. The states that did the worst were Louisiana, Kentucky, and Arkansas. When I first read that, I thought, “Then, what are those Vermonters doing, voting for U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders again and again?” As the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Some examples of the common ignorance of Americans uncovered by the survey:

• 57% did not know that Woodrow Wilson was the Commander in Chief during World War I.

• 85% could not identify the correct year the U.S. Constitution was written (1787).

• 75% could not identify how many amendments have been added to the document (27).

• 25% did not know that freedom of speech was guaranteed under the First Amendment.

The Foundation concluded: “[A] waning knowledge of American history may be one of the greatest educational challenges facing the U.S.”

This survey is consistent with other findings through the years. We have dumbed down our schools.

Our loss of the knowledge of basic history and civics is a tragedy. We suffer from what I call, American Amnesia. I even wrote a whole book about it. God is the source of our freedom, but we forget this to our peril. As John F. Kennedy put it, “[T]he rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”

I once interviewed the late Mel and Norma Gabler of Longview, Texas, who reviewed textbooks, from a Christian and conservative perspective. They told me of a textbook which dedicated seven pages to Marilyn Monroe, but only a paragraph to George Washington—and in that paragraph it mentioned that he had false teeth.

Our young people today know more about the trivia of today’s celebrities than they do the men and women who sacrificed everything to bequeath our freedoms to us.

Karl Marx once said, “Take away a people’s roots, and they can easily be moved.” Dr. Peter Lillback, with whom I had the privilege to write a book on the faith of George Washington, said in his book on church/state relations, Wall of Misconception, “One of our great national dangers is ignorance of America’s profound legacy of freedom. I firmly believe that ignorance is a threat to freedom.”

Lillback compiled the following quotes on the link between education and freedom:

• Thomas Jefferson said, “A nation has never been ignorant and free; that has never been and will never be.”

• James Madison observed, “The diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty….It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.”

• Samuel Adams pointed out the importance “of inculcating in the minds of the youth the fear and love of the Deity and universal philanthropy, and, in subordination to these great principles, the love of their country.” God and charity first, said the Lightning Rod of the American Revolution, country second.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, says the Bible, which was in the first 200 years of America the chief textbook in one way or another. That includes the small but powerful New England Primer, which trained whole generations in Christian theology (in the Calvinist tradition), while teaching them even the basics of reading and writing.

Even their ABC’s were based on Biblical truths. Says the New England Primer: “A, In Adam’s Fall, We Sinned All. B, Thy Life to Mend, the Bible Tend. C, Christ Crucif’ed, For Sinners Died,” and so on.

Back then, with a Bible-based education, literacy was so high that John Adams said that to find an illiterate man in New England was as rare as a comet. It is too bad that as a society we continue to forget God, and we continue to reap the consequences, including the loss of our history and heritage of liberty.

Why does this matter? George Orwell, a former British Marxist, told us why in his classic novel, 1984: “Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com

Allowing just three states to impose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution
that even proponents admitted died in 1982 is a moral fraud and a constitutional farce.

Written by Robert G. Marshall

Proponents of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) want to create a constitutional Frankenstein by breathing life into its corpse some 36 years after its ratification was defeated, in large part thanks to Phyllis Schlafly and her Eagle Forum.

The ERA Congress sent to the states in 1972 stated: “Equality of rights under law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

This simplistic language hid a radical progressive social agenda. Amendments were rejected to exempt women from frontline ground combat duty, to require husbands to support their children, to keep certain sexual assaults as crimes, to neutralize ERA’s effect on abortion, to exempt private schools from the ERA, to protect tax-exempt status of churches that have male-only clergy, to permit different insurance rates for men and women, and to deny men access to women’s private facilities and vice versa.

In 1972 Congress imposed a seven-year limit for states to ratify the ERA, as it established for all but two constitutional amendments since 1918. But when the amendment stalled in 1977 with the support of 35 states — three states short of the three-fourths needed for ratification — ERA advocates lobbied Congress to extend ratification seven more years.

Major ERA proponents said the amendment would die without an “extension.”

• National Organization of Women President Eleanor Smeal said, “We believe the life of the equal rights amendment is indeed in peril.”
• Marjorie Bell, American Association of University Women President noted: “Failure to extend now the time limit for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment would terminate … what Congress initiated six years ago.”
• Barbara Jordan said if the extension failed, “… the time will have expired for that resolution and I do not feel that would be a viable issue for consideration by the Congress because the resolution would, for all intents and purposes, be dead.”
• Then Professor, now Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said that if the original ratification time passes, “and Congress says nothing, it is unlikely that a State, given no green light by the national legislature, would nonetheless come forward and ratify.”
• President Jimmy Carter wrote to Judiciary Chairman Peter Rodino in July 1978, “I am hopeful that ERA will be ratified before the present deadline expires.”

Congress eventually extended the ratification deadline to June 30, 1982. (The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Post, The New York Times and The New Republic all supported the ERA, but opposed the time extension.)

The ERA extension resolution did not recognize withdrawal of previous ERA ratifications from Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky, and South Dakota even though North Dakota’s rescission of the Presidential Disability Amendment was recognized in 1967 by the U.S. Secretary of State, who then tallied records.

Even with the unprecedented extension, the ERA fell three states short of the 38 needed for ratification. ERA advocates recognized their 1982 loss and re-introduced the amendment to Congress in 1983, but failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed for it to pass the U.S. House of Representatives.

ERA proponents now claim they need only add three more states to the original 35 which ratified by 1982 (ignoring the five states rescinding approval), to reach the 38 states required to add the ERA to “their” Constitution!

Their novel claim derives from the adoption of the 27^th Amendment limiting congressional pay increases from taking place without an intervening election. This amendment passed Congress in 1789 without a ratification deadline. When 38 states finally approved it in 1992 — more than 200 years later — Congress declared it part of the Constitution, ignoring the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1921 finding that Congress could require contemporaneous approval of amendments.

Democratic Rep. Don Edwards, who supported the ERA extension and the Pay Amendment noted, “It should be clear that this [Pay Amendment] is an exception, not a precedent.”

Liberals are counting the actions by Nevada’s legislature (2017), and Illinois’ legislature (2018) allegedly ratifying the non-pending ERA as two of the three states they contend will bring them to the 38 state requirement.

Congressional joint resolutions from Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) proclaim that whenever 38 states “ratify” the version of the ERA submitted to the states on March 22, 1972, the ERA will be added to the Constitution. The resolutions do not mention the failed ERA time extension. Speier’s resolution has 165 cosponsors and Cardin’s has 36 cosponsors.

Cardin tweeted approval of the Illinois vote. “Most Americans are shocked to find out that the U.S. Constitution still lacks a provision ensuring gender equality. … We need just ONE more state to ratify and we need Congress to do its part by passing S. J. Res. 5, which would immediately remove the arbitrary and unnecessary deadline for states to ratify the #ERA.”

The words “Gender Equality,” mentioned in Cardin’s Tweet are not in the 1972 ERA, but hint at what liberals hope to achieve under their bogus ERA scheme. Opposition to “making women part of the Constitution” will invite the label of “bigot” or “hater.”

If one more state “votes” for the ERA, progressives are set to pressure Congress to declare the ERA approved. Possibly the Archivist of the United States, who initially certified the Pay Amendment before Congress did, will relieve Congress of its role.  This would duck the ruling in Idaho vs. Freeman (1981), in which a federal district court ruled states could rescind approvals and Congress could not extend the ratification time.

“Approval” of the ERA will legitimize other amendments still “floating around,” including one that increases the House of Representatives from 435 Congressmen to 6,400 (one for every 50,000 persons). Allowing just three states to impose a dead ERA on the Constitution, when even proponents admitted it died in 1982 is a moral fraud and a constitutional farce.

The passion of Leftists’ for their Utopia must be met with forthrightness from conservatives for constitutional government.  Find out today if your congressman and senators would affirm that only three states need to approve the ERA. If so, vote them out of office in November.

This article was originally published at The Federalist.

The three cases dealt with quite different issues.

In National Institute of Family Life Advocates v. Becerra, a 5-4 majority of the court overturned a California statute that required anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers to inform clients where they could obtain free or inexpensive abortions — something the centers regard as homicide.

The same 5-4 majority in a second case, Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, reversed a 41-year-old precedent and ruled that public employees don’t have to pay unions fees that cover the cost of collective bargaining. Echoing a position taken by then-President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, the court reasoned that collective bargaining with a public employer is inevitably a political matter, and that forcing employees to finance it is compelling them to subsidize political speech with which they disagree.

In the third case, Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the court avoided a direct decision on whether a baker, whose Christian belief opposed same-sex marriage, could refuse to design a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple, contrary to a state law that bars discrimination against gays. Seven justices ruled that the commission showed an impermissible animus against religion, but the four liberal justices endorsed a separate opinion indicating they’d rule against the baker otherwise.

Rational arguments can now be made for the dissenters’ positions. In Becerra, they argued that the law simply prevented misleading advertising; in Janus, they argued that union members should pay for services rendered; in Masterpiece Cakeshop, they argued that selling a cake is a routine service, not a form of expression. You may not agree, but you can see why others might make these arguments.

But are they “liberal”? That word comes from a Latin root that means “free.”

And “free” is the keyword in the First Amendment to the Constitution, which bars Congress from passing laws “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion or “abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.”

The Supreme Court First Amendment jurisprudence got its start almost exactly 100 years ago, in cases challenging laws passed by a Democratic Congress and endorsed by a Democratic administration, prohibiting opposition to the government and, specifically, American participation in World War I.

The justices hesitated to block such prosecutions, but those considered “liberal” — Republican appointee Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and Democratic appointee Justice Louis Brandeis — were most likely to look askance. The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 to defend the free speech rights of everyone, even vile extremists.

Unhappily, the ACLU today subordinates free speech to other values, like defending the sensibilities of certain students on campuses. And other liberals have been moving in the same direction. It’s less important for them that people say what they think and more important that they say what the government requires.

In his Bagehot blog, the Economist’s Adrian Wooldridge describes the process. Historically, he says, liberals understood that conflict was inevitable and tried to foster freedom based on their distrust of power, faith in progress and belief in civic respect. But today, Wooldridge writes, “liberalism as a philosophy has been captured by a technocratic-managerial-cosmopolitan elite.” They have moved from making “a critique of the existing power structure” to becoming “one of the most powerful elites in history.” In response, we see “a revolt of the provinces against the city”: Brexit, Donald Trump. In counter-response, as Niall Ferguson puts it in a column for The Times of London, “‘liberals’ are increasingly authoritarian.”

Like the “liberal” Supreme Court justices, who don’t see a constitutional problem with compelling crisis pregnancy centers to send messages they find repugnant, or requiring union members to subsidize political speech they disagree with, or forcing people to participate in ceremonies prohibited by their religion.

In the process, they are providing support for Friedrich Hayek‘s argument in “The Road to Serfdom” that moving toward socialism means moving toward authoritarianism. And they seem to not have noticed Yale Law Professor Stephen Carter‘s observation, as quoted in The Atlantic, that “every law is violent” because “Behind every exercise of law stands the sheriff.”

Carter calls for “a degree of humility” in passing and enforcing laws that compel speech against conscience — something today’s “liberals” seem to have forgotten.

Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

This article originally posted at Creators.com

In a stunning display of ignorance, the Illinois State Senate just voted 43-12 in favor of the resolution to adopt the Equal Rights Amendment. What makes this vote even more enraging is that Republicans Pam Althoff (R-Crystal Lake), Jason Barickman (R-Pontiac), John Curran (R-Lemont), Mike Connelly (R-Wheaton), Karen McConnaughay (R-West Dundee), Chris Nybo (R-Hinsdale), Sue Rezin (R-Morris), and Tom Rooney (R-Palatine) voted with Democrats on this partisan resolution. (Updated at 7:30 pm)

According to Illinois Review, McConnaughay made this remarkably foolish and dishonest statement in defense of her traitorous vote:

The intention of the Illinois Senate Women’s Caucus is to advance legislation that supports, empowers and protects women of all aspects of life, and that’s exactly what we are doing today. Today, we are here together, Republican and Democratic women, to demonstrate our support of the Equal Rights Amendment, which ensures equality for all women…. This isn’t a partisan issue. It’s an issue that affects every single woman in this country. By coming together, we have a chance to make an impact at a national level for women all across the nation.”

Yes, nothing says non-partisan quite like a Constitutional amendment that will mandate taxpayer-funding of abortion, that will eradicate all abortion restrictions, that will end public recognition of sex differences in private spaces, and that will require women to register with the Selective Service.

Has McConnaughay read the ERA? It says nothing about women. So, where does she get the impression that the ERA will support, empower, and protect women? Of which specific rights does she believe women are deprived?

In a recent, almost-comical article on the ERA by Jennifer Camille Lee titled “Why does a hate group want to derail the ERA in Illinois,”  Lee provides ample justification for public mistrust of the leftwing press. Before getting to the ropy meat of her “argument” about the ERA, let’s peek at just one of her false claims.

Lee identifies Nancy Thorner as “a member of IFI.” Ms. Thorner is not now nor ever has been an employee of or writer for IFI.

After erroneously identifying Thorner as an IFI member, Lee paraphrases arguments Thorner made in pieces appearing in The Madison Record and Illinois Review after which Lee says, “any Illinois citizen or legislator who uses their [meaning IFI’s] arguments against the ERA is dealing in false facts and illogical arguments from a group that purposefully pushes a hateful agenda.”

To summarize, Lee uses arguments made by someone who is not an IFI employee and published in outlets wholly unrelated to IFI to suggest that no citizen or legislator should listen to IFI’s actual arguments about the ERA.

So, let’s carefully examine Lee’s arguments—you know, assertions with evidence—and her refutation of IFI’s  arguments. Oh wait, she didn’t have any arguments and she didn’t refute anything written by any IFI member. Well, what the heck, just for fun let’s look at her rhetoric.

Lee says that Thorner wrote a “scare piece” in The Madison Record. Since Lee provided no link, title or citation, I rooted around and found a recent letter to the editor by Thorner, which I assume is the “scare piece” to which Lee is referring. Lee claimed that Thorner said, “passing the ERA will create a gender-free society where it won’t be natural for women to be homemakers any longer.”

Thorner quoted from a document written about the ERA by constitutional attorney and fierce ERA-opponent Phyllis Schlafly in which Schlafly said this:

 Women’s Lib advocates do not want it to be considered any more natural for a woman to be a Homemaker than for a man to be a House-husband.

Who would disagree with that? Second-wave feminists inarguably sought to efface distinctions between men and women—well, except when they were claiming that women were far superior to men.

Lee repeatedly refers “readers back to the actual wording” of the ERA, which says that “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” Perhaps Lee didn’t notice that, while the ERA says precisely nothing about women, it does, indeed, guarantee a “gender-free society” if by gender, Lee means biological sex. You never can tell what those tricksy Leftists mean since they’re very busy redefining terms. It’s inarguable that the ERA makes it illegal to make distinctions based on sex. That’s the whole point and language of the ERA. Ergo, the ERA guarantees a “gender free society.”

Lee says that in a piece published by Illinois Review, “Ms. Thorner writes that women and all our unborn children will be irreparably harmed by the ERA.”

Evidently, Lee hasn’t read very broadly or deeply about the connection between the ERA and abortion. A court case in New Mexico, which has the equivalent of a state ERA, reveals the legal reasoning that justifies taxpayer-funding of abortion under the ERA:

The unanimous court held that a state ban on tax-funded abortions “undoubtedly singles out for less favorable treatment a gender-linked condition that is unique to women.

Taxpayer-funding of abortion—itself a grievous moral offense—will increase the number of abortions.

Moreover, as Elise Bouc, state chairman of STOP ERA Illinois has written, abortion restrictions will be overturned by the ERA, which explains why pro-abortion/anti-child organizations are fighting like the devil to get it passed:

Since abortion is unique to women, any attempt to restrict a woman’s access to abortion is seen, under the rules of the ERA, as a form of sex discrimination – because women are being singled out for a characteristic that is unique to them, and they are being treated differently based on that physical characteristic (in this case- the ability to become pregnant). Therefore any abortion restrictions would be overturned by the ERA…. In addition, since medical procedures unique to men are funded by Medicaid (such as circumcision and prostatectomies), then abortion which is unique to women, must also receive Medicaid funding under ERA requirements.

While Lee may consider the extermination of humans in the womb harmless, others beg to differ. There is no greater act of “irreparable harm” perpetrated against unborn children than killing them.

The ERA will inflict yet more damage. It will be used to grant unrestricted access to opposite-sex spaces and activities to persons who pretend to be the sex they are not. Single-sex restrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms, shelters, semi-private hospital rooms, nursing home rooms, dormitories, colleges, athletic teams, fraternities, sororities, clubs, and organizations would become co-ed or risk federal lawsuits. Even mother-daughter/father-son/father-daughter events at public schools would be eliminated.

The ERA would be used to force women to register for the Selective Service, and if the day should ever come when the draft is reinstated, to be drafted.

It would give enormous new powers to the federal government that now belong to the states. Section II of the ERA states that “The Congress shall have the power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article.” The ERA would give Congress the power to legislate on all those areas of law which include traditional differences of treatment on account of sex: marriage, property laws, divorce and alimony, child custody, adoptions, prison regulations, and insurance. For example, the Social Security System pays full-time homemaker “wives” 50 percent of their husband’s benefits over and above the check he receives. Upon their husbands’ deaths, widows receive the full benefits that their husbands had been receiving.  (The law also gives this benefit to a dependent husband, but nearly all dependent spouses are women.)

Lee believes that opposition to these changes–changes which harm women and children–is irrational. She also believes that IFI “may be entitled to an opinion, but they are not entitled to their own set of facts, and the fact is all the ERA does is grant equal protection to women under the U.S. Constitution.”

Like Lee, I will point readers and lawmakers back to the text of the ERA, which says nothing about women. It says everything, however, that lawmakers needed to know, which is that the ERA will eliminate recognition in laws, policies, and practices of the very real differences between men and women. And the victims will be primarily women and children.

This bill now moves to the Illinois House for consideration.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to email your state representative to urge him/her to oppose the ERA (SJRCA 4).

Here is the Illinois Senate roll call on the ERA:

Read more:  Please oppose ERA (SJRCA-4): It strengthens abortion rights

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ERA-Passes-Illinois-Senate_01.mp3

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The judicial branch at both the state and federal level continues to overstep their authority by meddling in the affairs of the legislative and executive branches. And the audacity of judges appears to be increasing.

Just two weeks ago the Chicago Tribune reported this:

A judge has ordered Illinois officials to add intractable pain as a qualifying condition for medical marijuana, a ruling that could greatly expand access to the drug.

The Illinois Department of Public Health had rejected intractable pain — defined as pain that’s resistant to treatment — but Cook County Judge Raymond Mitchell ordered the agency to add the condition.

A health department spokeswoman said Tuesday the agency will appeal the ruling. The change is expected to be put on hold while the appeal is pursued.

If Cook County Judge Raymond Mitchell wants to set policy, he should run for governor or for a seat in the General Assembly.

At the federal level, several judges seem to have joined the #Resistance movement to block President Donald Trump’s Constitutionally lawful actions.

Whether it is concerning sanctuary cities and states, Trump’s actions on limiting immigration, DACA, or transgenders in the military, courts are getting into the act by pretending to hold executive or legislative power.

Those federal judges who choose to ignore the U.S. Constitution and statutes should be impeached. Those aren’t my words, but Tom Trinko’s over at American Thinker:

[J]udges who issue insane edicts must be impeached. It’s time for the people to voice the truth that judges are not some “super” agents who override the authority of the people’s representatives.

Trinko blasts the courts’ “Judicial Rebellion”:

We are witnessing a treasonous rebellion by leftist judges who are declaring the last election null and void.

At the core of these traitors’ arguments is the belief that the people do not have the right to express their views through the electoral process.

Essentially, these courts are declaring that President Trump doesn’t have the same authority as his predecessor and that the powers of the executive branch are constrained by what the judiciary thinks is good policy.

As hot as that rhetoric might sound, what Trinko writes next shows that it isn’t:

These judges assert that President Trump can’t overrule the executive orders of his predecessor with his own executive orders. If that were the case, elections would be meaningless, since one president could effectively prevent the people from rejecting his position by voting for a candidate who disagreed with him.

Writing at National Review, Josh Blackman penned a piece titled, “A Ludicrous Ruling That Trump Can’t End DACA.” In it he sarcastically writes:

On January 20, 2017, the executive power peacefully transitioned from President Obama to President Trump. At least one judge in San Francisco didn’t get the memo.

Later in the article, Blackman writes:

I am unable to think of any decision where a court has ordered a president to exercise discretionary authority he has deemed unconstitutional.

Concerning one court’s excursion into military policy, American Thinker’s Joe Herring wrote:

A federal judge has ventured far beyond mere judicial activism in declaring that the president cannot alter the policy of his predecessor regarding men who consider themselves women, and vice versa, serving in the military.

In effect, this judge has deemed President Trump to no longer be commander-in-chief.

. . .

This is a gross usurpation of power that, if permitted, establishes a precedent for any federal judge to stay the hand of the president in the conduct of war. This egregious overreach must be resisted and punished.

Resistance and punishment, however, require courage on the part of the other two branches. Congress can strip jurisdiction from the courts, and the President can ignore court “orders” that are clearly out of bounds.

Short of that, Herring writes, “one federal judge can illegally stop the president from exercising his constitutional power for months or years.”

The medical and recreational marijuana debate is not an issue for the courts, but for the people through their elected representatives in the legislative and executive branches. Courts that seek to amend legislation or limit or direct constitutionally or legislatively granted executive powers should be, at a minimum, ignored.

If the citizens of the United States are to have a constitutional government, the legislative and executive branches must push back at the judicial branch’s overreach. Not only would that action begin to deter bad behavior by judges, it would be a learning moment for the part of the country that never received a proper education concerning our state and federal Constitutions.

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Written by Joe Paschen

One could make the argument that the most important documents of the United States, hailing it as the most unique and blessed nation in the world, are The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

However, most Americans are more familiar with and can recite our national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. A musical essay of words that reminds us of the love Americans have for this unique country.

The author of those words was Francis Scott Key, a gifted amateur poet and a professional attorney hired to negotiate the release of an American civilian imprisoned by the British at Fort McHenry, that fateful second week of September in 1814, during what many historians refer to as the “Second War of Independence.”

The poem was written while he was stranded on a ship in Chesapeake Bay, witnessing the lengthy British bombardment of the American fort and those defending it.

Francis Scott Key wrote The Star Spangled Banner out of the emotions that welled up from seeing Americans being unjustifiably persecuted, and with every ounce of strength they had, rise up and fight for their freedom and their God-given rights. They knew what was at stake! They stood up and fought back against unsurmountable odds.

They didn’t take a knee.

We stand when The Star Spangled Banner is played because of the freedoms and rights our country offers, but more importantly, we stand to honor those who gave their lives to defend those rights and keep those freedoms intact.

Are we a perfect nation? No! But as important as it is to protect the right to peacefully protest problems that exist in our society, it is equally important to recognize that as others offend us, they lose the opportunity to find solutions to those very problems.

Commissioners and owners of pro sports teams have let this politically incorrect protest spiral out of control.

It is like a parent letting the kids run the house, or animals run the zoo, or yes, inmates run the prison, as Houston Texans owner Robert McNair was quoted as saying recently.

There is a time and place for bringing forth issues in our country that could be improved.

Protesting disapproval is taking a stand, not a knee.

The platform given to those very blessed performers, athletes and politicians comes with an unwritten humble expectation. Do Your Job! Protesting concerns on your own time is on you. Dividing a nation should not be one of those activities.

Some columnists have criticized the use of the National Anthem prior to games as a tool to protest and divide and thus shouldn’t be a part of a sports event.

But where have you ever gone, or ever seen, over a few minutes when small groups (youth sports) and very large groups (college and pro stadiums) of people stand together to honor one nation under God?

The National Anthem above all other poems, songs, documents or moments in American history has stood the test of time as a unifier, not a divider.

That’s exactly why it should be played, to remind us to stand in a unifying moment and remember we live in the greatest country in the world.

You want to protest? Use your First Amendment rights to peacefully protest your concerns. You’re an athlete who makes millions per year? Organize a group that agrees with you. Millions of people before you have fought and died for you to have that right.

David Hildebrand, the director of the Colonial Music Institute has studied the words of The Star Spangled Banner for years.

He calls the lyrics from Mr. Key, a modest churchman, a hymn of redemption. “It’s a hymn of, ‘We’ve been saved! The fact I can see the flag means the fort has not been taken.’ It’s the ultimate statement of relief with a capital R, and that emotion gives the song a really strong appeal.”

In the fourth and final stanza of the finished anthem, Key writes, “Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto- “In God is our Trust.””

Joe Paschen is a born again Christian husband, father of 7, USMC veteran (1973-75), free-lance broadcast-journalist for over 40 years (who has covered all amateur and pro levels of sports), a researcher of history and a veteran bartender for over 40 years.

The Left is working overtime to silence and/or marginalize conservative voices in America
The time to support IFI is now!

For those who weren’t politically active in the 70’s or never got around to learning the specifics about the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), here is a thumbnail sketch of the purpose and danger of the ERA.

This proposed U.S. Constitutional Amendment is deceptively named. Men and women already have equal standing and equal protection before the law and possess God-given rights which are delineated in the Bill of Rights.

If the goal is to ensure equal opportunity, then the path is not the broad and ambiguously written ERA. Even supporters of the ERA cannot answer questions about its full impact on existing legal protections for women (and children) in state and federal statutes.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote Sex Bias in the U.S. Code when she was with the ACLU. In her book, she admitted that at least 800 federal laws would likely be struck down – laws aimed at protecting women.

Are men and women different? Over the course of centuries, common sense and science have detailed the physical and mental differences that are biologically based. The push today by Leftists to pretend these obvious differences don’t exist is not a new phenomenon — and the ERA was once such an effort that ended in failure in the 1970s.

The Equal Rights Amendment says: 

“Equality of rights under law shall not be denied or abridged
by the United States or any State on account of sex.“ (Emphasis added.)

The Equal Rights Amendment is a poorly worded amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would restrict all laws and practices that make any distinctions based on gender or “on account of sex.” Under the ERA men and women could not be treated differently, even if the different treatment is due to physical differences.

The ERA is centrally about abortion.

Since abortion is unique to women, any attempt to restrict a woman’s access to abortion would be seen, under the rules of the ERA, as a form of sex discrimination. As a result, abortion restrictions would be overturned.

In addition, since medical procedures unique to men are funded by Medicaid (such as circumcision and prostatectomies), then abortion which is unique to women, must also receive Medicaid funding under ERA requirements.

Pro-abortion groups, including Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the ACLU, the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, and the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund have all submitted legal briefs stating that the ERA supports abortion rights.

Using this same ‘sex discrimination’ logic, legal scholars have reasoned that the ERA would do the following:

• Eliminate all abortion restrictions including the federal partial birth abortion ban, third trimester abortions, and parental notification of minors seeking abortions.

• End conscience clauses for nurses, doctors and hospitals who do not want to facilitate abortions in any way.

• Threaten tax exemptions of private religious schools that do not believe abortion is moral and that discourage it when teaching students.

• ERA would also provide a new basis for abortion rights in the U.S. Constitution. Roe v. Wade is founded on an unwritten “right to privacy” assumption that is vulnerable in legal challenges. The ERA would insert a written, defined right based on sex discrimination into the U.S. Constitution, and thus provide a strong legal basis for overturning all abortion restrictions.

Americans need to become informed on this issue and seek to help educate others on the consequences of the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Then they must make sure their state representatives and state senators know both the dangers of the ERA and their opposition to it.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email to your lawmakers, urging them to protect women’s rights by opposing the Equal Rights Amendment.

The Illinois Family Institute has posted important articles outlining what the ERA is all about – examples can be found here, here, here, and here.

State lawmakers will be back in Springfield for the veto session November 7-9, and this legislation may come up for a vote during that time.  PLEASE speak out today!

IFI depends on the support of Christians like you. Donate now

-and, please-

Note: now that rogue and renegade federal judges have struck down amendments that protect natural marriage in Mississippi and Arkansas, passed with 86 percent and 75 percent of the vote respectively, it’s time once again to review the solution: courageous governors.

There is one and only one short range solution to a runaway judiciary on the issue of sodomy-based marriage: a governor with the testosterone to stand up and just say no.

Governors take an oath of office to uphold the federal constitution and the constitution of their own state. Any governor in any state with a marriage amendment as a part of his constitution has the right, nay, the duty, to refuse to comply with any judicial order to recognize same-sex marriage.

The Constitution is utterly silent on the topic of homosexuality and marriage, which means, according to the Constitution the Founders gave us, this is an issue reserved exclusively to the states.

Any ruling from any federal court that imposes domestic policy on a state is by its very nature unconstitutional, and no governor has any obligation to obey it. In fact, quite the opposite. He must refuse to comply with it, for to comply would mean he must violate his own sacred oath of office.

A governor’s oath is to defend the Constitution of both the federal government and his own state. Defending something by definition means protecting it when it is under attack, regardless of where that attack comes from — even if the attack comes from a federal judge, a federal court, or the Supreme Court itself.

Governors have been meekly capitulating to judicial tyranny, one after the other, and timidly abandoning their posts.

Americans have no understanding of how little power the federal judiciary actually holds. It was designed by the Founders to be the least powerful branch of the federal government, with its jurisdiction limited to settling matters of dispute between individual states and matters of international controversy. The Supreme Court met in a closet for the first several decades of its existence, a sign of the lowly stature it occupied under the Constitution as written.

But the federal judiciary has mutated into a gargantuan beast, looming over liberty, freedom and the Constitution itself, and imposing its own benighted and twisted version of morality on the entire country with no legal, statutory, constitutional or moral authority.

But it has no police force it can order to arrest or detain anyone. If its unconstitutional rulings are ignored, what will the Supreme Court do? It can issue an arrest order, I suppose, but if a governor will not allow it to be executed, what can the Court do? The answer is nothing.

President Andrew Jackson once said, of a decision handed down by the chief justice of his day, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”  What happened in the face of this defiance from a co-equal branch of government? Precisely nothing.

The truth is the federal judiciary is impotent apart from the good will of the American people. Once the American people realize that the Supreme Court is a co-equal branch of government, not the superior branch of government, they can get back to governing themselves rather than deferring to black-robed oligarchs to make all the important decisions for them.

For a governor to stand up and refuse to cower to a federal court would not be civil disobedience at all. It would be constitutional obedience — obedience to the Constitution and its provisions in the ninth and 10th amendments, obedience to his own state constitution, and obedience to the oath he took before Almighty God.

Governors do not take an oath of allegiance to the Supreme Court. They take an oath of allegiance to the Constitution. It’s time they started acting like it.