Tag: Hobby Lobby

My 1,600th Blog: Making Sense of a “Ball of Confusion”

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics3 Comments

BrancoObamaKerryBibi 7282014As I sit down to write today, the world all around us continues to unravel.  Israel and  the Muslim Terrorist Organization, Hamas, are engaged in a bloody conflict.  Russian is in the process of annexing all of the Eastern European countries it lost during the dissolution of the old Soviet Union. Europe is being invaded by Muslim Immigrants, seeking to establish Sharia Law in their “new homes”.

Meanwhile, here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, the petulant prevaricator, who won the last two elections by promising FREE STUFF to the 47% of Americans dependent on Uncle Sugar for their very existence, is well into “radically changing” “the Shining City Upon a Hill” into a Third World Barrio.

In 1970, the world, including our Sovereign Nation, was also in turmoil, as one generation clashed with another over social mores and the “antiquated concepts” of Right and Wrong.

Out of that tumultuous time, came a lot of great songs chronicling what was happening, none better than the classic song ” Ball of Confusion”, performed by the mighty, mighty Temptations.

Taking keyboard in hand, I channeled my inner “David Ruffin” and penned some new lyrics for the mess we find ourselves in today.

BALL OF CONFUSION 2014

People at our border, from across the open range

Obama’s let them in, just a part of  “radical change”

Swam the Rio Grande to the other side

One man, one vote! We tote the note!

We gotta take care of these “refugees”!

Rap on, Barry, rap on

While the only people talking ’bout taking them in, are the Liberals

And it seems nobody’s interested in the fact…that they’re criminals

Immigration, migration, invasion, demonstration,

Deportation, aggravation, obfuscation,

No obligation to our nation

Ball of confusion

Oh yeah, that’s what the world is today

Woo, hey, hey

Birth Control Pills should be free, the Libs cry

Even though they cost eight dollars to buy

For Hobby Lobby Lobby, the Supreme Court ruled

On the Constitution, the Libs got schooled

Patricide, Fraticide, Chicago Homocide, the elderly brutilized,

American Infanticide, there’s no place to hide

Obama says more taxes will solve everything

And Obama golfs on

So, round and around and around we go

Where the world’s headed, said nobody knows

To a great extent

Obama’s voting “Present”!

Just a ball of confusion

Oh yeah, that’s what the world is today

Woo, hey, hey

Israel getting bombed, being told not to respond

Unemployment is still high, Americans need not apply

And the only ones getting taken care of…are the “refugees”

And Obama golfs on

Eve of destruction, military reduction, “Religion of Peace”, “Mark of the Beast”

Healthcare on demand, taxes out of hand, Death Panels, marijuana legalized

Assisted Suicides, Muslims all over Europe are shouting

‘Kill the Jews!’

And Obama golfs on

To a great extent

Obama’s voting “Present”!

It’s a ball of confusion

That’s what the world is today, hey, hey

Let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya

Sayin’ ball of confusion

That’s what the world is today, hey, hey

Let me hear ya, let me hear ya

Let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya

Sayin’ ball of confusion…

As a Christian American Conservative, trying to understand the cavalier attitude toward the world crumbling around them, by those whose political ideology and morality lies on the “other side” of the Political aisle, makes my head hurt.

Being an average American, having been raised by members of the Greatest Generation, I cannot fathom not worshiping the God of Abraham, Who numbered the hairs on my head. I cannot fathom not saying the Pledge of Allegiance with my hand over my heart (Yes, Mrs. Obama, all this for a flag.). And, I cannot comprehend how anybody, being privileged to live in America, could believe that there is a better country on the face of God’s green Earth.

A while back, I was asked to define what it means to be a Christian American Conservative.  After all, that’s how I identify myself and that is what it says on the top of this blog.

Let’s perform a dissection, shall we?

First word:  Christian – A follower of Jesus Christ.

I was raised as a Christian by my parents and accepted Christ as my personal Savior many years ago.

Here are some interesting things about Christianity to consider, written by Dr. Ray Pritchard and posted on christianity.com:

1) The name “Christian” was not invented by early Christians. It was a name given to them by others.
2) Christians called themselves by different names—disciples, believers, brethren, saints, the elect, etc.
3) The term apparently had a negative meaning in the beginning: “those belonging to the Christ party.”
4) It was a term of contempt or derision.
5) We can get a flavor for it if we take the word “Christ” and keep that pronunciation. You “Christ-ians.”
6) It literally means “Christ-followers.”
7) Over time a derogatory term became a positive designation.
8) Occasionally you will hear someone spit the term out in the same way it was used in the beginning. “You Christians think you’re the only ones going to heaven.”
9) There was a sense of suffering and reproach attached to the word in the New Testament.

In working my way toward an answer to “What is a Christian?” I decided to check out the dictionary. I found these two definitions:

1. One who professes belief in Jesus as Christ or follows the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus. 2. One who lives according to the teachings of Jesus.”

That’s actually quite helpful because it gives some content to the word. To be a Christian means that you . . .

Believe Something
Follow Something
Live Something

A Fully Devoted Follower –  To borrow a contemporary phrase, we could simply say that a Christian is a “fully devoted follower of Jesus.” As I think about that, two insights come to mind.

1) It doesn’t happen by accident. You are not “born” a Christian nor are you a Christian because of your family heritage. Being a Christian is not like being Irish. You aren’t a Christian simply because you were born into a Christian family.
2) It requires conversion of the heart. By using the term “conversion,” I simply mean what Jesus meant when he said that to be his disciple meant to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him (Luke 9:23). The heart itself must be changed so that you become a follower of the Lord.

Second word: American – A citizen of the United States of America.

Stephen M. Warchawsky, wrote the following in an article foramericanthinker.org:

So what, then, does it mean to be an American? I suspect that most of us believe, like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in describing pornography, that we “know it when we see it.” For example, John Wayne, Amelia Earhart, and Bill Cosby definitely are Americans. The day laborers standing on the street corner probably are not. But how do we put this inner understanding into words? It’s not easy. Unlike most other nations on Earth, the American nation is not strictly defined in terms of race or ethnicity or ancestry or religion. George Washington may be the Father of Our Country (in my opinion, the greatest American who ever lived), but there have been in the past, and are today, many millions of patriotic, hardworking, upstanding Americans who are not Caucasian, or Christian, or of Western European ancestry. Yet they are undeniably as American as you or I (by the way, I am Jewish of predominantly Eastern European ancestry). Any definition of “American” that excludes such folks — let alone one that excludes me! — cannot be right.

…it must be recognized that demography alone does not, and cannot, explain what it means to be an American.

So where does that leave us? I think the answer to our question, ultimately, must be found in the realms of ideology and culture. What distinguishes the United States from other nations, and what unites the disparate peoples who make up our country, are our unique political, economic, and social values, beliefs, and institutions.Not race, or religion, or ancestry.

The following United States Oath of Citizenship must be taken by all immigrants who wish to become naturalized citizens of the United States:

I hereby declare, on oath,

that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen;
that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;
that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law;
that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law;
that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law;
and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.
In acknowledgement whereof I have hereunto affixed my signature.

Third word: Conservative -A person who holds to traditional values and attitudes.

J. Matt Barber wrote in the Washington Times that

Ronald Reagan often spoke of a “three-legged stool” that undergirds true conservatism. The legs are represented by a strong defense, strong free-market economic policies and strong social values. For the stool to remain upright, it must be supported by all three legs. If you snap off even one leg, the stool collapses under its own weight.

A Republican, for instance, who is conservative on social and national defense issues but liberal on fiscal issues is not a Reagan conservative. He is a quasi-conservative socialist.

A Republican who is conservative on fiscal and social issues but liberal on national defense issues is not a Reagan conservative. He is a quasi-conservative dove.

By the same token, a Republican who is conservative on fiscal and national defense issues but liberal on social issues – such as abortion, so-called gay rights or the Second Amendment – is not a Reagan conservative. He is a socio-liberal libertarian.

Put another way: A Republican who is one part William F. Buckley Jr., one part Oliver North and one part Rachel Maddow is no true conservative. He is – well, I’m not exactly sure what he is, but it ain’t pretty.

Even the Brits understand what American Conservatism is.

Per blogs.telegraph.co.uk:

Conservatism is thriving in America today because liberty, freedom and individual responsibility are at the heart of its ideology, one that rejects the foolish notion that government knows best. And its strength owes a great debt to the conviction and ideals of Ronald Reagan, who always believed that America’s best days are ahead of her, and for whom the notion of decline was unacceptable. As the Gipper famously put it, in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1988:

Those who underestimate the conservative movement are the same people who always underestimate the American people.

In conclusion, I, a Christian American Conservative, am a follower of Jesus Christ and a citizen of the United States of America (by the Grace of God), who holds to traditional values and attitudes.

When I started this blog, in April of 2010, I did not  know what I was going to write about,  I just knew that I needed to vent. And vent, I have. On this, the occasion of my 1,600th post, I wish to thank you, my faithful readers, for your support.

You will never know how much it means to me.

May God Bless You All.

Until He Comes,

KJ.

The Hobby Lobby Decision: The First Amendment Holds. Religious Freedom Stands.

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics1 Comment

American ChristianityYesterday was quite a day.

The Supreme Court, in a in a 5-4 ruling, found that “closely held” businesses do not have to provide contraception to their employees, if the ownership of said company opposes birth control on the grounds that it conflicts with the Religious Beliefs.

In other words, if you want to behave like Sandra Fluke, and if I am a business owner of a “closely held” business, I cannot be forced by the Obama Administration to provide your “protection”, either before or after that “special moment”.

Rush Limbaugh, per usual made an excellent point on his nationally-syndicated radio program, yesterday:

…the thinking everywhere on the left, is either Obama’s gonna pay for it from his stash like they think exists in Detroit, or the insurance company will be forced to pay for it. But they won’t pay for it, they’ll just bill it back to Hobby Lobby. (interruption) No, the principle stands, that’s the point. When all this is said and done, the Supreme Court still ruled that the federal government cannot make a “closely held” corporation violate its own personal religious beliefs. I’m gonna have to double-check this, but I really do think that in that sense we’ve not had a ruling this direct in that regard before, whatever the issue was. I think I saw that somewhere this morning in the mounds of show prep that I was going through.

Look, it means here that Obama cannot unilaterally dictate how religion is to be practiced via laws or regulations or executive orders. It means that the First Amendment is not a casual plaything for cavalier statists whether in the executive branch or whether in Congress. There also was another ruling on the union’s and whether or not parents and nannies taking care of their own loved ones at home can be forced to pay union dues, and that was rejected, too. The headline says: “Sweeping Loss for Unions.” Oh, horrible, the Supreme Court just dealt a devastating blow to public unions. But this one really is kind of narrow. But the principle still stands.

What is really important, yet really small in this case, is that even after the Hobby Lobby decision, women can still go to Target or Walmart and buy a month’s worth of conception for nine dollars. What’s kind of being overlooked here in all this — and we did look at it in great detail on the previous occasion on this program — is that somehow we’ve gotten to the point where women should not have to pay for their own birth control. Somebody else is gonna pay for it, no matter how much they want, no matter how often they want it, no matter for what reason, somebody else is going to pay for it. That’s the root of all this. The employer should pay it, the insurance company will pay it, but in no way in 2014 America are women going to being pay for it, even though you can go to Target or Walmart and get a month’s supply for nine bucks.

So the ruling does not apply to, say, an Exxon or a General Motors. That’s not a “closely held” corporation. But the Christian owners of Hobby Lobby cannot be forced to fund the contraception mandate. Their liberty was defended here, no matter how narrow the left wants to say the ruling was, no matter what the practical application is, when it’s all over the First Amendment was enforced, or maybe reinforced today.

On March 8, 1983, President Ronald Wilson Reagan gave a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, which came to be know as the “Evil Empire Speech”. Here is an excerpt:

Well, I’m pleased to be here today with you who are keeping America great by keeping her good. Only through your work and prayers and those of millions of others can we hope to survive this perilous century and keep alive this experiment in liberty, this last, best hope of man.

I want you to know that this administration is motivated by a political philosophy that sees the greatness of America in you, her people, and in your families, churches, neighborhoods, communities–the institutions that foster and nourish values like concern for others and respect for the rule of law under God.

 Now, I don’t have to tell you that this puts us in opposition to, or at least out of step with, a–a prevailing attitude of many who have turned to a modern-day secularism, discarding the tried and time-tested values upon which our very civilization is based. No matter how well intentioned, their value system is radically different from that of most Americans. And while they proclaim that they’re freeing us from superstitions of the past, they’ve taken upon themselves the job of superintending us by government rule and regulation. Sometimes their voices are louder than ours, but they are not yet a majority. [Applause]

An example of that vocal superiority is evident in a controversy now going on in Washington. And since I’m involved, I’ve been waiting to hear from the parents of young America. How far are they willing to go in giving to government their prerogatives as parents?

Let me state the case as briefly and simply as I can. An organization of citizens, sincerely motivated, deeply concerned about the increase in illegitimate births and abortions involving girls well below the age of consent, some time ago established a nationwide network of clinics to offer help to these girls and, hopefully, alleviate this situation. Now, again, let me say, I do not fault their intent. However, in their well-intentioned effort, these clinics decided to provide advice and birth control drugs and devices to underage girls without the knowledge of their parents.

For some years now, the federal government has helped with funds to subsidize these clinics. In providing for this, the Congress decreed that every effort would be made to maximize parental participation. Nevertheless, the drugs and devices are prescribed without getting parental consent or giving notification after they’ve done so. Girls termed “sexually active”–and that has replaced the word “promiscuous”–are given this help in order to prevent illegitimate worth/birth (quickly corrects himself) eh or abortion.

Well, we have ordered clinics receiving federal funds to notify the parents such help has been given. [Applause] One of the nation’s leading newspapers has created the term “squeal rule” in editorializing against us for doing this, and we’re being criticized for violating the privacy of young people. A judge has recently granted an injunction against an enforcement of our rule. I’ve watched TV panel shows discuss this issue, seen columnists pontificating on our error, but no one seems to mention morality as playing a part in the subject of sex. [Applause]

Is all of Judeo-Christian tradition wrong? Are we to believe that something so sacred can be looked upon as a purely physical thing with no potential for emotional and psychological harm? And isn’t it the parents’ right to give counsel and advice to keep their children from making mistakes that may affect their entire lives? [Slight crescendo of voice and emphasis–Long Applause]

Many of us in government would like to know what parents think about this intrusion in their family by government. We’re going to fight in the courts. The right of parents and the rights of family take precedence over those of Washington-based bureaucrats and social engineers. [Applause]

But the fight against parental notification is really only one example of many attempts to water down traditional values and even abrogate the original terms of American democracy. Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged. [Applause] When our founding fathers passed the First Amendment, they sought to protect churches from government interference. They never intended to construct a wall of hostility between government and the concept of religious belief itself.

Yesterday afternoon, the current POTUS, Barack Hussein Obama, did not address the Supreme Court’s ruling. Instead, he gave a petulant speech blaming the Republicans in Congress  for failing to deal with the Mexican Munchkin Migration, a horrible, sovereignty-threatening situation on our Southern Border, which he himself encouraged. The Petulant President threatened to issue Executive Orders to “deal with the problem”, a solution which is actually outside the reach of his Presidential Powers.

Now, I’m not naive. As Rush alluded to, I fully expect Obama to administratively arrange for our tax dollars to pay for birth control pills and abortiafacients for employees of these companies who choose not to provide them, due to their religious principles.

Which brings me to the following observation:

The President of the United States of America in 1983 was against the United States Government promoting immorality.

The President of the United States of America in 2014 is promoting immoral behavior and individual irresponsibility…and is expecting taxpayers to pay for it.

HOW IS THIS “PROGRESS”?

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

The Obama Administration Vs. Hobby Lobby…Waiting on a Decision (UPDATE: The Constitution Wins!)

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, PoliticsLeave a comment

babyreachingforhandfromwomb2Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. – 1 Peter 2:16 ESV

Today, the Supreme Court of the United States is scheduled to announce their ruling on the issue of whether Hobby Lobby, a Christian-owned Business, should be able to refuse to provide abortifacients to his employees, defying the Administration’s State-Run Healthcare System, Obamacare, because killing babies is against their faith.

Hobby Lobby already provides insurance coverage for 16 other forms of birth control, including pills that prevent ovulation. But they contend their religious freedom rights would be violated if they are required to cover four specific forms of birth control — implanted devices such as intrauterine devices (known as IUDs), a contraceptive rod implanted in a woman’s arm, and two forms of emergency contraception commonly called “morning after pills”, also known as “abortiafacients”.

Yes, I said killing babies earlier…because life begins at the moment of conception, and an abortion stops a beating heart.

There is no way around that.

However, I realize that referring to the act of abortion as “killing a baby” makes pro-abortion advocates lose their feeble minds.

Frankly, Scarlett…well. you know.

They have spent years and years trying to convince the gullible among us, that it is not really a human being growing inside the mothers womb. And, even if it is, it is a punishment or, at least, that’s what the President of the United States referred to an unwanted baby as.

So, it is not surprising that this case has gone all the way to the Supreme Court. President Obama and his Department of Justice are fighting for the right to allow women to kill their babies in the womb… it is as simple as that.

You see, boys and girls, there are options for unwed mothers. For instance, there’s this wonderful thing called adoption, through which a woman who does not want to be a single mother, can give her unwanted baby to a couple who will love and cherish that human life, and raise it in the way in which it should go.

Have you ever thought about why the Obama administration does not focus on that option, but instead advocates for the disposal of human life?

There is a simple and chilling explanation: Couples who want to adopt are responsible, loving people, who are less likely to run to Uncle Sugar for help in raising their child.

While women who seek abortions, tend to be of a lower economic strata, and a more government- dependent lifestyle.

Like the purpose for passing the  national nightmare known as Obamacare, it all boils down to State Control of the populace.

In a State-Controlled Nation, there will be, by necessity, no room for Religious Freedom. For in a state-controlled nation, the Central Government itself is god.

Read this excerpt from a paper by the Marxist Leader, Vladimir Lenin, titled “Socialism and Religion”…and shiver:

So far as the party of the socialist proletariat is concerned, religion is not a private affair. Our Party is an association of class-conscious, advanced fighters for the emancipation of the working class. Such an association cannot and must not be indifferent to lack of class-consciousness, ignorance or obscurantism in the shape of religious beliefs. We demand complete disestablishment of the Church so as to be able to combat the religious fog with purely ideological and solely ideological weapons, by means of our press and by word of mouth. But we founded our association, the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, precisely for such a struggle against every religious bamboozling of the workers. And to us the ideological struggle is not a private affair, but the affair of the whole Party, of the whole proletariat.

By attempting to force Christian businesses, hospitals, and schools to observe the Contraception Mandate in Obamacare, the Obama Administration and Congress, by virtue of their passing the bill that fateful night on Capitol Hill, are in violation of the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. – Amendment I, The Constitution of the United States

Regarding a statement made by the Liberal Obama sycophants (but, I repeat myself) at the George Soros-funded website,  Think Progress,  back in December of 2012, that the owners of Hobby Lobby were trying to “force their religion” on their employees:

Seems to me, that it’s the Obama Administration attempting to force their secular socialist belief system on Hobby Lobby.

As an American Business Owner, they have the right to do business as they see fit, and , if they are in a “Right to Work” state, they can hire and fire whom they want to as well. It is way beyond the purpose and scope of government to tell Americans how they can practice their faith.

In the Message from John Adams to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, written on October 11, 1798, the Second President of these United States laid it out very plainly:

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

Perhaps their own lack of these virtues is the reason that Obama and his minions do not seem to care that they are ignoring Our Constitution.

It is a bit of ironic hypocrisy that, the same people who claim to the “the smartest ones in the room”, and are now seeking to curtail OUR Constitutional Rights, “for our own good”, i.e., “the good of the collective”,  are those very same hippies, who, in the 60s and 70s, were whining and screaming to anyone who would listen, that their Constitutional Rights were being violated, when, like Obama himself, they were dragged, kicking and screaming, from their “sit-in” in the Dean’s Office.

KJ UPDATE: The Supreme Court has ruled, 5-4, that “Closely Held” Organizations are not mandated by law to provide contraceptives to their employees. The CONSTITUTION WINS. GOD IS IN CONTROL.

 Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Liberal Female Supreme Court Judges Want Hobby Lobby to Drop Their Insurance

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics1 Comment

fetus1Well, the Supreme Court Justices were already taking sides during yesterday’s arguments, concerning whether the Obama Administration can ignore the First Amendment and infringe on a private company’s Religious Freedom by forcing them to provide abortafacients to their employees.

CNSnews.com reports that

During oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday which focused on whether the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act violates the free exercise of religion, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan suggested employers who have moral objections to birth control should not provide health care coverage for their employees.

“But isn’t there another choice nobody talks about, which is paying the tax, which is a lot less than a penalty and a lot less than — than the cost of health insurance at all?”

Sotomayor said during the presentation by attorney Paul Clement, who represents Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties, two companies that sued the federal government over the requirement that businesses provide health insurance plans that cover contraceptives, including abortion-inducing drugs.

“Those employers could choose not to give health insurance and pay not that high a penalty – not that high a tax,” Sotomayor said.

Clement said Hobby Lobby would pay more than $500 million per year in penalties, but Kagan disagreed.

“No, I don’t think that that’s the same thing, Mr. Clement,” Kagan said. “There’s one penalty that is if the employer continues to provide health insurance without this part of the coverage, but Hobby Lobby would choose not to provide health insurance at all.

“And in that case Hobby Lobby would pay $2,000 per employee, which is less that Hobby Lobby probably pays to provide insurance to its employees,” Kagan said. “So there is a choice here. It’s not even a penalty by – in the language of the statute. It’s a payment or a tax. There’s a choice.”

Kagan went on to say that other U.S. businesses are “voluntarily” dropping their health insurance coverage for employees.

“You know Hobby Lobby is paying something right now for the – for the coverage,” Kagan said. “It’s less than what Hobby Lobby is paying for the coverage. There are employers all over the United States that are doing this voluntarily.”

Chief Justice Roberts interjected that this was in opposition to what Hobby Lobby presented in its lawsuit.

“I thought – I thought that part of the religious commitment of the owners was to provide health care for its employees,” Roberts said and Clements agreed.

“Well, if they want to do that, they can just pay a greater salary and let the employees go in on the exchange,” Sotomayor said.

The court seemed divided along ideological lines, with liberal judges – including President Barack Obama’s appointed judges Kagan and Sotomayor – emphasizing the rights of employees to have free birth control as mandated by the law, while others focused on government infringement on religious liberty.

A decision in the case is expected this summer.

Meanwhile, yesterday, outside the supreme Court Building, Conservatives Americans were exercising their First Amendment Rights…while they still can.

Per washingtonexaminer.com,

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, surprised freezing religious freedom activists who had spent the morning rallying in support of Hobby Lobby’s Supreme Court appeal.

“God bless you for being here today!” Cruz said Tuesday, after wading into the crowd and stepping up to the podium.

Activists cheered Cruz’s arrival after spending several hours standing in the snow in front of the court during oral arguments inside.

“Thank you for being here in this beautiful weather from God,” Cruz added as the crowd laughed.

Cruz reminded activists that the United States was founded by people who fled religious oppression and enshrined religious freedom in the Constitution.

“There is a reason why the first protection in the Bill of Rights was the right to religious freedom,” he said.

Cruz pointed out that the Obama administration had given Obamacare exemptions to powerful special interests, but refused to exempt people of faith from the contraception mandate.

“And yet the position of this administration is that people of faith do not deserve an exemption, people of faith do not have a right to practice their faith,” he said.

Cruz explained to pro-choice [the author meant “pro-life’] protestors at the Supreme Court that the case had nothing to do with their individual right to use birth control.

“No one is doubting that any person, if they choose to use contraceptives can do so. This is not about that,” he said. “This is about the federal government, whether they can force people of faith to violate their own faith by paying for something that is contrary to the dictates and teachings of their faith.”

Cruz pointed out that the administration was litigating against the Little Sisters of the Poor, who are facing fines for not complying with the individual mandate.

“Now, any individual can choose to exercise whatever they want, but the idea that we are trying to fine Catholic nuns millions of dollars to force them to violate their faith, that runs utterly contrary to centuries of tradition to the protection of our Constitution,” he said.

Cruz boldly predicted that the high court would side with the owners of Hobby Lobby.

“I predict that the United States Supreme Court is going to strike down the contraception mandate because they are going to say, ‘the federal government does not have the authority to force people to violate their faith particularly when they are granting exemptions to every other powerful interest.'” he said. “They can’t single out people of faith and say, ‘you will be treated worse than big business, worse than members of Congress.’

Now, let me try to wrap my feeble old Southern Cracker mind around this…the Supreme Court is going to decide whether these two private businesses have the right to decide not to offer the option to their female employees to take a drug which will spontaneously abort the possible conception of a baby, produced by casual sex the night before.

Futhermore, Pro-choice Activists are protesting for the right to kill an innocent HUMAN BEING in their own womb!

Of course, you won’t hear these “activists” call those innocent lives babies, human beings, a life, a soul, a gift from God, or anything remotely resembling something that they should feel remorse about killing.

In fact, I am now running into Liberals on the Internet, who are arguing that if Amercia just leaves the abortion laws as they are, the number of abortions in America every year will automatically reduce themselves.

Uh huh. Like the amount of DUIs have decreased in Colorado since the legalization of marijuana.

But, I digress…

If Liberals, on both sides of the aisle, (because you cannot claim Conservatism, if you want to kill babies) would only perform a self-assessment, and come to the realization that the life inside a human mother’s womb, is in fact, a HUMAN BEING, and not “a bunch of cells,”, “a parasitic life form”, or “an inconvenience”, then abortion would go the way of the rotary telephone.

Unfortunately, though, when you have a president whose first act, upon obtaining the office, authorized money be sent to abortion clinics around the world, and who said,

Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at age 16, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information, that probably is not going to happen anytime soon.

However, we can still pray for our nation’s unborn. And, keep fighting to protect our Religious Freedom!

Until He Comes,

KJ

The War Against Christianity: The United States of America Vs. Hobby Lobby

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics2 Comments

babyreachingforhandfromwomb2Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. – 1 Peter 2:16 ESV

Today, the Supreme Court of the United States is taking up the issue of whether an employer should be able to refuse to provide abortifacients to his employees, defying the Administration’s State-Run Healthcare System, Obamacare, because killing babies is against his/her faith.

Yes, I said killing babies…because life begins at the moment of conception, and an abortion stops a beating heart.

There is no way around that.

However, I realize that referring to the act of abortion as “killing a baby” makes pro abortion advocates lose their feeble minds.

Ask me if I care.

They have spent years and years trying to convince the gullible among us, that it is not really a human being growing inside the mothers womb. And, even if it is, it is a punishment or, at least, that’s what the President of the United States referred to an unwanted baby as.

So, it is not surprising that this case has gone all the way to the Supreme Court. President Obama and his Department of Justice are fighting for the right to allow women to kill their babies in the womb… it is as simple as that.

You see, boys and girls, there are options for unwed mothers. For instance, there’s this wonderful thing called adoption, through which of woman who does not want to be a single mother, can give her unwanted baby to a couple who will love and cherish that human life, and raise it in the way in which it should go.

Have you ever thought about why the Obama administration does not focus on that option, but instead advocates for the disposal of human life?

There is a simple and chilling exclamation: Couples who want to adopt are responsible loving people who are less likely to run to Uncle sugar for help in raising their child.

While women who seek abortions, tend to be of a lower economic strata and a more government- dependent lifestyle.

Like the purpose for passing the  national nightmare known as Obamacare, it all boils down to State Control of the populace.

In a State-Controlled Nation, there will be, by necessity, no room for Religious Freedom. For in a state-controlled nation, the Central Government itself is god.

Read this excerpt from a paper by the Marxist Leader, Vladimir Lenin, titled “Socialism and Religion”…and shiver:

So far as the party of the socialist proletariat is concerned, religion is not a private affair. Our Party is an association of class-conscious, advanced fighters for the emancipation of the working class. Such an association cannot and must not be indifferent to lack of class-consciousness, ignorance or obscurantism in the shape of religious beliefs. We demand complete disestablishment of the Church so as to be able to combat the religious fog with purely ideological and solely ideological weapons, by means of our press and by word of mouth. But we founded our association, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, precisely for such a struggle against every religious bamboozling of the workers. And to us the ideological struggle is not a private affair, but the affair of the whole Party, of the whole proletariat.

By attempting to force Christian businesses, hospitals, and schools to observe the Contraception Mandate in Obamacare, the Obama Administration and Congress, by virtue of their passing the bill that fateful night on Capitol Hill, are in violation of the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. – Amendment I, The Constitution of the United States

Regarding a statement made by the Liberal Obama sycophants (but, I repeat myself) at the George Soros-funded website,  Think Progress,  back in December of 2012, that the owners of Hobby Lobby were trying to “force their religion” on their employees:

Seems to me, that it’s the Obama Administration attempting to force their secular socialist belief system on Hobby Lobby.

As an American Business Owner, they have the right to do business as they see fit, and , if they are in a “Right to Work” state, they can hire and fire whom they want to as well. It is way beyond the purpose and scope of government to tell Americans how they can practice their faith.

In the Message from John Adams to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, written on October 11, 1798, the Second President of these United States laid it out very plainly:

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

Perhaps their own lack of these virtues is the reason that Obama and his minions do not seem to care that they are ignoring Our Constitution.

…Funny though. These same people who claim to the “the Smartest ones in the room” are those very same hippies, who, in the 60s and 70s, were whining and screaming to anyone who would listen, that their Constitutional Rights were being violated.

 Until He Comes,

KJ

 

The War Against Christianity: Of Lenin and Hobby Lobby

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics5 Comments

americanchristianflagsYesterday, thousands of Americans either went to, or shopped online at Hobby Lobby, a favorite store of my bride and mine, which has come under attack by the Obama Administration, because the owner, David Green, has taken a faith-based stand against being forced by the Obama administration to pay for drugs for his employees in their health care plan that may cause abortions.  Mr. Green recently stated his views very succinctly in the following letter:

When my family and I started our company 40 years ago, we were working out of a garage on a $600 bank loan, assembling miniature picture frames. Our first retail store wasn’t much bigger than most people’s living rooms, but we had faith that we would succeed if we lived and worked according to God‘s word. From there, Hobby Lobby has become one of the nation’s largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500 locations in 41 states. Our children grew up into fine business leaders, and today we run Hobby Lobby together, as a family.

We’re Christians, and we run our business on Christian principles. I’ve always said that the first two goals of our business are (1) to run our business in harmony with God’s laws, and (2) to focus on people more than money. And that’s what we’ve tried to do. We close early so our employees can see their families at night. We keep our stores closed on Sundays, one of the week’s biggest shopping days, so that our workers and their families can enjoy a day of rest. We believe that it is by God’s grace that Hobby Lobby has endured, and he has blessed us and our employees. We’ve not only added jobs in a weak economy, we’ve raised wages for the past four years in a row. Our full-time employees start at 80% above minimum wage.

But now, our government threatens to change all of that. A new government health care mandate says that our family business MUST provide what I believe are abortion-causing drugs as part of our health insurance. Being Christians, we don’t pay for drugs that might cause abortions, which means that we don’t cover emergency contraception, the morning-after pill or the week-after pill. We believe doing so might end a life after the moment of conception, something that is contrary to our most important beliefs. It goes against the Biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one. If we refuse to comply, we could face $1.3 million PER DAY in government fines.

Our government threatens to fine job creators in a bad economy. Our government threatens to fine a company that’s raised wages four years running. Our government threatens to fine a family for running its business according to its beliefs. It’s not right. I know people will say we ought to follow the rules; that it’s the same for everybody. But that’s not true. The government has exempted thousands of companies from this mandate, for reasons of convenience or cost. But it won’t exempt them for reasons of religious belief.

So, Hobby Lobby – and my family – are forced to make a choice. With great reluctance, we filed a lawsuit today, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, asking a federal court to stop this mandate before it hurts our business. We don’t like to go running into court, but we no longer have a choice. We believe people are more important than the bottom line and that honoring God is more important than turning a profit.

My family has lived the American dream. We want to continue growing our company and providing great jobs for thousands of employees, but the government is going to make that much more difficult. The government is forcing us to choose between following our faith and following the law. I say that’s a choice no American – and no American business – should have to make.

Sincerely,

David Green, CEO and Founder of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

Now that you’ve heard from a great Christian American, read this excerpt from a paper by the Marxist Leader, Vladimir Lenin, titled “Socialism and Religion”…and shiver:

So far as the party of the socialist proletariat is concerned, religion is not a private affair. Our Party is an association of class-conscious, advanced fighters for the emancipation of the working class. Such an association cannot and must not be indifferent to lack of class-consciousness, ignorance or obscurantism in the shape of religious beliefs. We demand complete disestablishment of the Church so as to be able to combat the religious fog with purely ideological and solely ideological weapons, by means of our press and by word of mouth. But we founded our association, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, precisely for such a struggle against every religious bamboozling of the workers. And to us the ideological struggle is not a private affair, but the affair of the whole Party, of the whole proletariat.

If that is so, why do we not declare in our Programme that we are atheists? Why do we not forbid Christians and other believers in God to join our Party?

The answer to this question will serve to explain the very important difference in the way the question of religion is presented by the bourgeois democrats and the Social-Democrats.

Our Programme is based entirely on the scientific, and moreover the materialist, world-outlook. An explanation of our Programme, therefore, necessarily includes an explanation of the true historical and economic roots of the religious fog. Our propaganda necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism; the publication of the appropriate scientific literature, which the autocratic feudal government has hitherto strictly forbidden and persecuted, must now form one of the fields of our Party work. We shall now probably have to follow the advice Engels once gave to the German Socialists: to translate and widely disseminate the literature of the eighteenth-century French Enlighteners and atheists.[1]

But under no circumstances ought we to fall into the error of posing the religious question in an abstract, idealistic fashion, as an “intellectual” question unconnected with the class struggle, as is not infrequently done by the radical-democrats from among the bourgeoisie. It would be stupid to think that, in a society based on the endless oppression and coarsening of the worker masses, religious prejudices could be dispelled by purely propaganda methods. It would be bourgeois narrow-mindedness to forget that the yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society. No number of pamphlets and no amount of preaching can enlighten the proletariat, if it is not enlightened by its own struggle against the dark forces of capitalism. Unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven.

That is the reason why we do not and should not set forth our atheism in our Programme; that is why we do not and should not prohibit proletarians who still retain vestiges of their old prejudices from associating themselves with our Party. We shall always preach the scientific world-outlook, and it is essential for us to combat the inconsistency of various “Christians”. But that does not mean in the least that the religious question ought to be advanced to first place, where it does not belong at all; nor does it mean that we should allow the forces of the really revolutionary economic and political struggle to be split up on account of third-rate opinions or senseless ideas, rapidly losing all political importance, rapidly being swept out as rubbish by the very course of economic development.

Everywhere the reactionary bourgeoisie has concerned itself, and is now beginning to concern itself in Russia, with the fomenting of religious strife—in order thereby to divert the attention of the masses from the really important and fundamental economic and political problems, now being solved in practice by the all-Russian proletariat uniting in revolutionary struggle. This reactionary policy of splitting up the proletarian forces, which today manifests itself mainly in Black-Hundred pogroms, may tomorrow conceive some more subtle forms. We, at any rate, shall oppose it by calmly, consistently and patiently preaching proletarian solidarity and the scientific world-outlook—a preaching alien to any stirring up of secondary differences.

The revolutionary proletariat will succeed in making religion a really private affair, so far as the state is concerned. And in this political system, cleansed of medieval mildew, the proletariat will wage a broad and open struggle for the elimination of economic slavery, the true source of the religious humbugging of mankind.

Is the Obama Administration acting unconstitutionally? You betcha.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. – Amendment I, The Constitution of the United States

Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. – 1 Peter 2:16 ESV

Until He Comes,

KJ

The War Against Christianity: Battleground: Hobby Lobby

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics9 Comments

obamadoctorUnless you’ve been living under a rock, like those guys in the Geico commercial, you have heard about the brave stand of Hobby Lobby, the national Arts & Crafts/Retail Chain. The Christian couple who own this very successful company are refusing to comply with the contraception mandate, found in Obamacare.

As of August 1, 2012, under this monstrous state-gun Healthcare Act:

All new plans must cover certain preventive services such as mammograms and colonoscopies without charging a deductible, co-pay or coinsurance. Women’s Preventive Services – including: well-woman visits; gestational diabetes screening; human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing for women age 30 and older; sexually transmitted infection counseling; human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening and counseling; FDA-approved contraceptive methods and contraceptive counseling; breastfeeding support, supplies and counseling; and domestic violence screening and counseling – will be covered without cost sharing.

On Jan. 1, Hobby Lobby will face a $1.3 million daily fine if they don’t comply with Obamacare. Todd Starnes reports on FoxNews.com:

“The Green family respects the religious convictions of all Americans, including those who do not agree with them,” the Becket Fund said in a statement. “All they are asking is for the government to give them the same respect by not forcing them to violate their religious beliefs.”

There are now 42 separate lawsuits changing the mandate, the Becket Fund said.

Conservatives praised Hobby Lobby for standing by their convictions.

“God bless this company,” columnist Michelle Malkin told Fox News. “It’s incumbent upon every conservative who believes in freedom of religion and freedom of conscience to support those businesses that are standing up and taking the slings and arrows of this discriminatory administration.”

“This is the most egregious violation of religious liberty that I have ever seen,” wrote columnist Denny Burk. “The first line of the Bill of Rights says this: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ Obamacare prohibits the free exercise of the owners of Hobby Lobby. Who’s next?”

Conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham said President Obama “must step in to stop this madness.”

“It turns out as many feared, the president’s religious exemption to the contraception mandate is so narrow as to be meaningless,” she said on Fox News. “Unless you employ and serve only those of your same religious faith you don’t receive an exemption. So under that standard, Jesus himself would not qualify. This is unconscionable and unconstitutional.”

Abortion supporters hailed Sotomayor’s ruling.

“I hope the government earmarks every cent of that fee money for Planned Parenthood, just to spite these ass****,” wrote one reader on the Jezebel website.

“Anyway, I’m all for Hobby Lobby (and all other organizations that think birth control is totes gross) ignoring the law,” wrote Erin Gloria Ryan in a column titled, “Whore Pill-Hating Hobby Lobby Will Have to Pay a Buttload of Fines for Ignoring Obamacare.”

The website Think Progress said Hobby Lobby is ignoring two points.

“First, that Plan B is not an abortion-inducing drug, as Hobby Lobby claims, and second, that the company may well end up paying more to avoid covering contraception than they would simply providing access,” the website reported. “It also takes a twisted view on the ‘Freedom of Religion’ argument; the company is actually forcing its owner’s religious beliefs on all employees, no matter their personal religious views.”

Ingraham pointed out that in a previous case Sotomayor ruled in favor of a Muslim inmate who was denied Ramadan meals. She held that the meal was subjectively important to the inmate’s practice of Islam.

Malkin called it a selective double standard.

“Religious liberty for some, none for others,” she said.

Per usual, “The Boss” is right.

The First Amendment to the  United States Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

By attempting to force Christian businesses, hospitals, and schools to observe the Contraception Mandate in Obamacare, the Obama Administration and Congress, by virtue of their passing the bill that fateful night on Capitol Hill, are in violation of the First Amendment.

Regarding the statement by those Liberal Obama sycophants (but, I repeat myself) at the George Soros-funded website, Think Progress, that the owners of Hobby Lobby were trying to “force their religion” on their employees:

Seems to me, that it’s the Obama Administration attempting to force their secular socialist belief system on Hobby Lobby.

As an American Business Owner, they have the right to do business as they seem fit, and , if they are in a “Right to Work” state, they can hire and fire whom they want to as well. It is way beyond the purpose and scope of government to tell Americans how they can practice their faith.

In the Message from John Adams to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, written on October 11, 1798, the Second President of these United States laid it out very plainly:

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

Perhaps their own lack of these virtues is the reason that Obama and his minions do not seem to care that they are ignoring Our Constitution.

…Funny though. These same people who claim to the “the Smartest ones in the romm” are those very same hippies, who, in the 60s and 70s, where whining and screaming to anyone who would listen, that their Constitutional Rights were being violated.