ENDA and Religious liberty

There seems to be a lot of confusion about ENDA, the “Employer Non-Discrimination Act." ENDA makes it unlawful for an employer to “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual… because of such individual's actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity…”

From a Christian perspective we should admit that the Bible knows nothing of modern discussions about “sexual orientation.” Leviticus 18:22, for example, discusses behavior, not sexual identity: “You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

Similarly, St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, writes in terms of behavior, “For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature,” and “men committing shameless acts with men.” You could say that sexual orientation, on the other hand, is about temptation, and temptation by itself is not necessarily sin.

Therefore, if I were the president of a Christian College, or the CEO of a Christian charity, for example, I would have no problem hiring a homosexual as long as 1) he or she sincerely agreed with our doctrinal position including the sincere belief that having sex with someone of the same sex is an abominable sin before God, and 2) he or she had a long track record of abstinence from all such activity.

The problem is that under ENDA Christian organizations would not be allowed to make these qualifications. If an otherwise qualified history teacher, for example, applied for a teaching position, the Christian organization would not be allowed to turn the applicant down even if the applicant was a practicing homosexual and a radical gay rights activist. To require Christian organizations to hire people who disagree with their doctrinal position is not freedom of religion, it is tyranny!

Later, the Act goes on to discuss exemptions:

"(a) In General- This Act shall not apply to any of the employment practices of a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society which has as its primary purpose religious ritual or worship or the teaching or spreading of religious doctrine or belief."

Under ENDA, lawyers for gay rights activists will argue that Christians Colleges and Christian schools are primarily for education of students (especially if the colleges are liberal arts colleges), and that the spreading of religious doctrine is not primary. These lawyers will argue that Christian charities are primarily about providing food and shelter or adoption, or counseling, etc., and are only secondarily about spreading Christian doctrine.

Christians will end up spending millions of dollars that could go for helping others or for education, just to defend themselves from endless lawsuits by gay activists whose hatred against Christianity knows no bounds. Many Christian organizations will simply go out of business because they can’t afford the litigation. And those who support Barack Obama are supporting this!

ENDA continues:

"(b) Certain Employees- For any religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society that is not wholly exempt under subsection (a), this Act shall not apply with respect to the employment of individuals whose primary duties consist of teaching or spreading religious doctrine or belief, religious governance, supervision of a religious order, supervision of persons teaching or spreading religious doctrine or belief, or supervision or participation in religious ritual or worship."

This means that in Christian schools, colleges, and charitable organizations, the only people ENDA exempts are those who actually teach religious doctrine or those who directly supervise them. It does not exempt teachers of English, science, history, social sciences, etc. Nor does it exempt administrators like directors or vice presidents.

So in other words, Christian Colleges, schools and charitable organizations will be forced by law to hire teachers and even upper level administrators who believe that sexual acts between people of the same sex is perfectly OK. If the homosexual employee later gets fired for promoting homosexuality, they can sue the organization for wrongful termination under ENDA. Whether they win or not, the Christian organization will spend a small fortune to defend itself and some will go out of business. And Christians who support Barack Obama are supporting this!
ENDA continues:

"Conformity to Religious Tenets- Under this Act, a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society may require that applicants for, and employees in, similar positions conform to those religious tenets that such corporation, association, institution, or society declares significant…”

This sounds like it would allow employers to enforce a code of conduct but that doesn’t really resolve the issue. If a well qualified homosexual activist applied for a vice president’s position in a Christian organization, the organization would be forced by law to hire that person even if the applicant strongly opposed the organization's position on homosexuality.

Once hired, if the new employee began advocating for homosexuality on the job and were fired, they could sue the organization. Whether they won or not, it would cost the organization a small fortune to defend themselves. And those who support Barack Obama are supporting this!

Contrary to popular belief, ENDA does not exempt religious organizations. It exempts teachers of theology and preachers but not much else. It would have been a very simple matter for the author(s) and sponsors of ENDA--as a matter of religious freedom--to simply provide complete and total exemption for all religious colleges, schools, missions and charities. In fact, if the bill had been written to provide such exemptions, I doubt that it would receive much opposition from religious groups at all. But the sponsors chose not to provide such exemptions because they do not want religious organizations to be exempt.

Make no mistake about it—ENDA is an all-out full fledged attack on American religious liberty! And Barack Obama supports ENDA.

McCain is dangerous?

From the Des Moines Register via HotAir:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain's family background as the son and grandson of admirals has given him a worldview shaped by the military, "and he has a hard time thinking beyond that," Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., said Friday."I think he's trapped in that," Harkin said in a conference call with Iowa reporters. "Everything is looked at from his life experiences, from always having been in the military, and I think that can be pretty dangerous."

Harkin said that "it's one thing to have been drafted and served, but another thing when you come from generations of military people and that's just how you're steeped, how you've learned, how you've grown up."A McCain spokesman said Harkin's remarks were offensive and showed that Democrats are out of touch with Americans' values."Senator Harkin's comments are an affront to the many thousands of Iowans who have served our country so valiantly for generations," said spokesman Jeff Sadosky. "This sort of attack shows just how out of touch Democratic leadership has become with the values that have made our country so great."[emphasis mine]

As a U.S. Air Force veteran whose father served in World War II and whose grandfather served in World War I, I find Harkin's comments to be offensive. Someone with Harkin's perpsective has no business serving in Congress and I hope Iowan's remember this in the next election. Is this how Democrats "respect the troops?"

In reality, I doubt that Senator Harkin really believes what he said. He certainly wouldn't have said it about Jimmy Carter or John F. Kennedy who served in the Navy. But Harkin's comments are just another example about how some politicians will say anything they think can score points against the opposition.

If the Democratic leadership is really not out as of touch with American values as the article suggests, they need to pressure Harkin to resign. My guess is that we'll see that when pigs fly!

Jailed or sued and publicly slapped

According to American's for Truth:

Michigan’s largest homosexual activist group says once marriage is legally
redefined to include homosexual couples, business owners and even news media
outlets who refuse to recognize such marriages should be jailed or sued and
“publicly slapped,”

This reminds me of something I once read by Michael Swift first published in the "Gay Revolutionary" but reprinted in the Conressional Record (I first read it in something called the NFD Journal, October 1987). You can read the entire article at a website hosted by Fordham University. Exerpts appear below:

We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth groups, in your movie theater bathrooms, in your army bunkhouses, in your truck stops, in your all male clubs, in your houses of Congress, wherever men are with men together.

All laws banning homosexual activity will be revoked. Instead, legislation shall be passed which engenders love between men.

We will triumph only when we present a common face to the vicious heterosexual enemy.

If you dare to cry faggot, fairy, queer, at us, we will stab you in your cowardly hearts and defile your dead, puny bodies.

The family unit-spawning ground of lies, betrayals, mediocrity, hypocrisy and violence--will be abolished.

All churches who condemn us will be closed. Our only gods are handsome young men.
All males who insist on remaining stupidly heterosexual will be tried in homosexual courts of justice and will become invisible men.

Tremble, hetero swine, when we appear before you without our masks.

On the Fordham website, the introduction to this article says, "But when the religious rights [sic]cites this text, they always omit, as does the Congressional record, the vital first line, which sets the context for the piece. In other words, every other version of this found on the net is part of the radical right's great lie about gay people."

Why is quoting this article a "great lie about gay people"? It was written by a gay person! The first line reads, "This essay is an outré, madness, a tragic, cruel fantasy, an eruption of inner rage, on how the oppressed desperately dream of being the oppressor."

Somehow the fact that it was not intended to be taken literally does not comfort me. If the religious right published such a hate-filled diatribe they would not be let off the hook simply because they prefaced their hate-speech with a line that said it was "an outré, madness, a tragic, cruel fantasy..."

I think everyone needs to understand that gay people, like most other groups, are a diverse bunch. Some are hardworking, compassionate individuals who believe in freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and are not interested in forcing everyong else to accept their lifestyle.

But on the other end of the spectrum are some very hateful and psychologically disturbed individuals...

the kind who create pictures of the last supper using sadomasochistic imagery,

or who who mock Christianity with similar sadomasochistic symbols at the Folsom Street Fair

or who dress up like nuns to mock the Catholic church

or who get sexual pleasure out of mock (or real) torture,

or who are so sexually obsessed they will have literally dozens or even hundreds of sex partners during their life,

or who like some in Michigan's largest homosexual activist group, who really do want to shut down the freedom of speech for those who disagree with them (See here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here and here).

No one wants to address this group because it is politically incorrect to do so and becauase the radical gays have intimidated everyone with cries of "homophobe" and "bigot." Instead, what we see from Hollywood and the media is the gay couple who have have lived happily ever after--like a gay version of Ozzie and Harriet--for years and years.

But when Barack Obama becomes President and begins pushing his pro-homosexual agenda (e.g. ENDA and the repeal of DOMA), it is people like the spokesman for the Michigan homosexual group who will rear their ugly heads as Christian Colleges, Christian schools, Christian missions, Christian shelters, Christian adoption agencies--maybe even journalists and bloggers--began to get "publicly slapped," intimidated into silence, or sued out of existence.

To think that there are actually Christians who will vote for Barack Obama just boggles the mind!

Obama on Iran

What is Obama's position with regard to negotiating with Iran? It probably depends on when you asked him, or perhaps, who his audience was. See LGF.

57 state flag pin

Recently Barack Obama slipped up saying that he had traveled through all 57 states in the United States. Now some creative entrepreneur has come up with an Obama flag pin. You can buy yours from Suitablyflip.com.

Isn't free enterprise great!

Bush: Islam a peaceful religion

President Bush recently said, "I've got to do a better job of making it clear when I talk about Islam, I talk about a peaceful religion..."

Mr. President, there are certainly many peaceful Muslims in the world, and some Muslim countries are quite peaceful, and there have been times of relatively peaceful periods in Islamic history, but it is an undeniable historical fact that Islam is NOT a peaceful religion!

Muhammad himself was a warrior who personally engaged in battles and whose armies slaughtered thousands! These were not just battles in self-defense, as some would like to contend. This was shear Islamic imperialism. Muhammd's last command was that there should be no two religions left in Arabia! That was not a command of self-defense.

After Muhammad’s death in AD 632, his disciples followed his imperialist example and obeyed his commands to fight the “infidels.” By 635 Muslim armies conquered Damascus. By 636 they had subdued large parts of Iraq. They conquered Jerusalem in 638, Caesarea in 641, Armenia and Egypt in 643. By 709 they had conquered all of North Africa! By 711 they had conquered Spain and were moving into France. Later Muslim armies invaded Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

The peoples conquered by the Muslims were given three choices: 1) accept the humiliating rules and taxes of dhimmi status (only available to "people of the Book"), 2) convert to Islam, 2) or 3) die. As recently as the early 1900’s, 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered in jihad and in more recent times literally millions of others have died at the hands of jihadists.

Yes there are, and always have been, peaceful Muslims. But Islam is absolutely NOT a peaceful religion. Anyone who tells you otherwise either does not know Islamic history or is blowing smoke in your face! America is not well served by covering up the truth in the name of political correctness.

Are you proud of your country?

Americans, are you proud of your country? Check out the Tennessee GOP's YouTube video.

Edwards on bringing America together

When John Edwards endorced Obama for president he said, there is one man who knows how to bring America together and that is Barack Obama. Maybe Edwards was thinking that Obama would be able to bring the far Left together because it is an undeniable fact that Obama will not bring America together!

To the dismay of many Republicans, it is actually John McCain who has the track record of working with members of the other party. McCain has even promised to include Democrats in his administration! In fact, I think some of us on the right are beginning to wonder whether we actually have three Democrats running for President!

By contrast, Barack Obama is a far Left political ideologue who in real life, will not bring Americans together but will make the division even worse than it is now. If you really want a compromise candidate, there is only one choice: John McCain.

Hate crimes in Canada

Barack Obama supports hate crimes legislation. Those who think this is a good idea might want to consider where such legislation has led in Canada:

British Columbia now bans all words and images "likely to expose a person ... to hatred or contempt" because of race, religion, age, disability, sex, marital status or sexual orientation." This sounds like a libel law for groups, except that libel is a misstatement of fact that damages an individual reputation. In the United States, for a public figure to be libeled, the false statement has to be made maliciously or recklessly.

The Canadian idea of hate speech is less specific and more dangerous. Hate is like obscenity, about which Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said, "I know it when I see it." The difference is that a ban on obscenity does not touch political
discourse, and a ban on hate does (Seattle Times).

Yeah, I know. America has the First Amendment so it could never happen here. I find it ironic that supporters of hate crimes bills who think it could never happen here are often the very ones who complained so bitterly about how the Bush Administration has supposedly trampled on our Constitutional protections over the last seven years. (Hat tip: Kevin).

Obama's judgment

Obama seems to be distancing himself from a lot of people these days: His own official blogger and hardcore Marxist, Sam Graham-Felsen; terrorist fundraiser, Hatem El-Hady; former domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers; convicted criminal, Tony Rezko; and of course his own pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

Now Obama is distancing himself from one of his own advisors who has been meeting with the Muslim terrorist organization Hamas!

Over against McCain's far more extensive foreign policy experience, Obama has argued that he has better judgment. But in light of the increasing number of shady characters with whom Obama has surrounded himself, I'm wondering, when can we start questioning Obama's judgment?

What did Obama know...

Barack Obama has been trying to distance himself from his pastor, Jeremiah Wright’s racist and anti-American views. After examining Wright’s newmagazine, the Trumpet, however, Stanley Kurtz asks, “What did Barack Obama know and when did he know it?” Excerpts from Kurtz' excellent article appear below but please read the entire article at the Weekly Standard.

I answer, Obama knew everything, and he's known it for ages…A careful
reading of nearly a year's worth of Trumpet Newsmagazine, Wright's glossy national "lifestyle magazine for the socially conscious," makes it next to impossible to conclude otherwise.

Glance through even a single issue of Trumpet, and Wright's radical politics are everywhere--in the pictures, the headlines, the highlighted quotations, and above all in the articles themselves.

It seems inconceivable that, in 20 years, Obama would never have picked up a copy of Trumpet. In fact, Obama himself graced the cover at least once…

Trumpet provides a rounded picture of Wright's views, and what it shows unmistakably is that the now-infamous YouTube snippets from Wright's sermons are authentic reflections of his core political and theological beliefs.

…others might argue that "in context," Wright's prophetic denunciations actually prove his love of country. Unfortunately, neither Wright nor any of the other regular Trumpet columnists displays a trace of this "I'm denouncing you because I love you" stance. On the contrary, the pages of Trumpet resonate with enraged criticism of the United States. Indeed, they feature explicit repudiations of even the most basic
expressions of American patriotism…

Again and again, Wright makes the point that America's criminality and racism are not aberrations but of the essence of the nation, that they are every bit as alive today as during the slave era, and that America is therefore no better than the worst international offenders:

There can be no mistaking it. What did Barack Obama know and when did he know it? Everything. Always.

That's just not fair!

The lead article in the Spring 2008 issue of the Cato’s Letter—a libertarian newsletter—is by R. J. O’rourke, a political satirist. Below are a few quotes from his article:

“Under the Democrats, the government will negotiate with drug companies for Medicare drug prices. If the government shows the same hard-headed, tight-fisted bargaining savvy negotiating drug prices that it shows negotiating defense contracts, Preparation H will cost $400.”

It’s going to be hard to do a worse job running America than the Republicans have, but if anybody can do it, it’s the Democrats.

And of course there is a cheaper way to make health care less expensive…Just make it worse. And I think Hillary can do that. Because government controlled health care is going to drive the best people out of business. Who wants to spend years studying to be a doctor, just to become a government bureaucratic hack?

If we’re not careful, we’re going to wind up with a health care system like they’ve got in Canada, a nation that is broke from health care spending, even though Canada is a sparsely populated country with a shortage of gunshot wounds, crack addicts, and huge tort judgments.

It is the avowed purpose of politics to bring the policies of our nation down to a level where they are good for everybody. No matter how foolish, irresponsible, selfish, grasping, or vile everyone may be, politics seeks fairness for them all. I do not. I am here to speak in favor of unfairness. I have a 10 year old at home, and she is always saying, “That’s not fair.” When she says that, I say, “Honey, you’re cute; that’s not fair. You’re family is pretty well off; that’s not fair. You were born in America; that’s not fair. Honey, you had better pray to God that things don’t start getting fair for you.”

If we all got what was fair--what we really deserve--we’d be begging God for mercy.

Judges and social justice

Interviewing Rudolf Giuliani, Megyn Kelly played a quote from Barack Obama in which Obama referred to himself saying, “Barack Obama has always believed that our court should stand up for social and economic justice, and what’s truly elitist is to appoint judges who will protect the powerful and leave ordinary Americans to fend for themselves.”

Giuliani laughed out loud at the quote. When Kelly asked why, Giuliani said, “Well, the laughter because that is not what a judge in the American legal system is supposed to do. That is not a really responsible definition of a judge. The judge is supposed to interpret the law. And the law is written by other people. It’s written by members of the Congress. It’s written by framers of the Constitution. It’s written by the people when they amend the Constitution.”

Giuliani is absolutely right and it doesn’t take a law degree from Harvard to see that Barack Obama’s view of the judiciary stabs at the very heart of our democracy.

Our judges are supposed to interpret and apply the laws that were voted on and passed by the representatives of the people. If judges can arbitrarily override the views of the people in the name of the judge’s own politically correct sense of what “social and economic justice” means to them personally, what we then have is a group of elitist high priests who sit in judgment on the will of the people, and our democracy becomes a sham.

Make no mistake about it. A vote for Obama and his activist view of the judiciary is a vote to undermine the very foundation of our democracy. Giuliani explains it quite well. Please watch the interview on Hot Air.

"I want to rip his eyes out"

Referring to Bill Clinton, she said, "I want to rip his eyes out."

No, it wasn't Hillary, it was Michelle Obama. Michelle is a lovely lady but she seems to have trouble keeping her foot out of her mouth. On the other hand, maybe Barack could appoint her as ambassador to the U.N. We need someone there who won't pull any punches. I'd love to hear her tell Mahmoud Ahmadinejad she wants to "rip his eyes out."

Obama and Teamsters

According to the Wall Street Journal, "Sen. Barack Obama won the endorsement of the Teamsters earlier this year after privately telling the union he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption, according to officials from the union and the Obama campaign."

According to the FBI,

• "Three major U.S. Senate investigations have documented La Cosa Nostra’s involvement in labor racketeering. One of these, the McClellan Committee, in the late-1950s, found systemic racketeering in both the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union."
• In 1986, the President’s Council on Organized Crime reported that five major unions—including the Teamsters and the Laborers International Union of North America—were dominated by organized crime.
• In the early 1980s, former Gambino Family Boss Paul Castellano was overheard saying, “Our job is to run the unions.”

Does Barack Obama seriously think that if the government ends its oversight, organized crime will no longer be interested in Teamsters? Or is he just willing to promise anything to get more votes?

100 years in Iraq?

Chris Wallace does a good job showing how blatantly dishonest Howard Dean and the DNC are in their smear ads against John McCain--especially the ad about being in Iraq for 100 years.

Unlike many Americans, I have no problem with attack ads, but at least have the integrity (on both sides) to be honest about your attacks! By all means, feel free to disagree with John McCain. But disagree with what he actually says--not some lies fabricated by airing clips in which his statements have been cut off in mid-sentence! (see the video on Hot Air).

Obama and Israel

In the American Thinker:

Pakistan and North Korea have engaged in a nuclear bazaar to sell nuclear technology; Iran has spent billions to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal; Syria
is cooperating with North Korea (and probably Iran) on weapons of mass destruction . They all have monetary or geopolitical reasons to do so. Iran wants to be a hegemonic power in the region-and also may very well have theological "reasons" for developing nuclear weapons. Saddam Hussein was a megalomaniac who wanted nuclear arms to expand his power.

Yet somehow, Cirincione blames Israel for nuclear proliferation and seemingly wants to pressure Israel to shut down its nuclear program and strip itself of any nuclear weapons it may or may not have in its inventory. This man was chosen by Barack Obama to be one of his top advisers in the area of nuclear proliferation. He is also another in a disconcertingly long line of Obama advisers, who seemingly have an anti-Israel bias and who would be very willing to apply American pressure on our tiny ally to disarm itself in the face of its mortal enemies. [emphasis added]

Hmm, no wonder Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef said, “Actually, we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will [win] the election…”

Do you support Jeremiah Wright?

Below are some excerpts from an excellent article published in the Washington Post by Dana Milbank:

Speaking before an audience that included Marion Barry, Cornel West, Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam official Jamil Muhammad, Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, defended the view that Zionism
is racism, accused the United States of terrorism, repeated his view that the
government created the AIDS virus to cause the genocide of racial minorities,
stood by other past remarks ("God damn America") and held himself out as a
spokesman for the black church in America.

Wright suggested that Obama was insincere in distancing himself from his pastor. "He didn't distance himself," Wright announced. "He had to distance himself, because he's a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was anti-American."

Explaining further, Wright said friends had written to him and said, "We both know that if Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected." The minister continued: "Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls."

That significantly complicates Obama's job as he contemplates how to extinguish Wright's latest incendiary device. Now, he needs to do more than express disagreement with his former pastor's view; he needs to refute his former pastor's suggestion that Obama privately agrees with him.

Jeremiah Wright has been Obama's pastor for 20 years. Presumably that means Wright knows Obama reasonably well. So if Wright says that Obama is just distancing himself from Wright and Wright's beliefs solely for the purpose of political expediency, shouldn't that raise a big red warning flag in the minds of those who would support Barack Obama? Unless, of course, they also support the views of Jeremiah Wright.

Forget freedom of religion in Canada

An e-mail from the Family Research Council reports:

"As Ontario's Christian Horizons ministry knows all too well, standing up for your religious beliefs has its price. Last week, the organization was fined $23,000 by Canada's Human Rights Tribunal for asking employees to sign onto a "morality statement" which included a promise not to engage in homosexual relationships. Connie Heintz, a Horizons employee, agreed to the statement, only to reveal later that she was a lesbian. Heintz filed a complaint with the Tribunal claiming that she was "subjected to a poisoned work environment and threatened with the loss of her job." In response, officials ordered the organization to pay Heintz two years' wages, cease all applicant screenings, develop an "anti-discrimination" policy, and send all employees to a "human rights training program." It sounds unfair, yet this is the same rationale that's fueling the U.S. employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) debate. ENDA would mandate employer tolerance of all forms of sexual orientation in hiring, firing, promotion, and many Christian-oriented businesses (such as bookstores and radio stations) may not be protected by the bill's limited religious exemption."

Barack Obama is a strong ENDA supporter.

Obama terrorist ties?

Imagine a terrorist fundraiser with ties to Hamas having a link on Obama's official web site. Imagine Michelle Obama listed among the "friends" of this terrorist fundraiser. Go to LGF and check it out.