By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD
When following the news, it’s sometimes hard to tell if it’s time to laugh or cry.
I never thought, for example, that we would seriously debate the number of sexes that exist; I never thought that public schools would allow boys and girls to use the same shower facilities at the same time; I never thought that we would try to legislate how churches operate or govern themselves; I never thought that our concept of family would be twisted and construed beyond all recognition, or that abortion could mean an after birth procedure.
And I never thought that, in America, socialism might be praised while God might be a forbidden topic.
Unfortunately, however, that has become the state of affairs in our nation today. And if there is any doubt consider this: The National Democratic Committee has unanimously adopted a resolution praising the religiously unaffiliated and nonreligious voter and in doing so took a veiled swipe at conservative Christians and traditional Catholics.
We should have seen this coming.
Back in 2012 the Democratic National Convention booed an effort to insert the words “God-given” into the party platform.
More recently the Democrats in the House of Representatives unanimously passed something called “The Equality Act” that eviscerates legal protections given to religious groups under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Hostility toward religion has publicly surfaced in the halls of Congress where judicial nominees are now being challenged for their religious beliefs — “the dogma lives loudly within you” — and for their membership in, of all things, the Knights of Columbus.
And last year Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez complained that electorally the Democrats are at a disadvantage to Republicans because “people buy” what they hear at church — implying that that is the conservative voter’s main source of information.
Thus, anyone who attempts to follow the tenets of their faith by refusing to engage in certain activities is now labeled as either a deplorable, a racist, or a homophobe who should be publicly identified, shunned, and prohibited from entry into the public conversation.
To cap this long descent into Hell, the Democrats have now provided the icing on this devil’s food cake. They now praise the religiously unaffiliated — atheists and agnostics — and, by extension, criticize those who hold serious traditional religious beliefs.
For example, the resolution, which was adopted at the party’s national committee meeting in San Francisco last month, states:
“Whereas, religiously unaffiliated Americans overwhelmingly share the Democratic Party’s values, with 70 percent voting for Democrats in 2018, 80 percent supporting same-sex marriage…[and] represents the largest religious group within the Democratic Party . . . [and] have often been subjected to unfair bias and exclusion in American society . . . therefore:
“Religiously unaffiliated Americans are a group that, as much as any other, advocates for rational public policy based on sound science and universal humanistic values and should be represented, included, and heard by the Party.”
And, of course, the Democrats couldn’t leave it at that. They couldn’t soften their resolution by acknowledging all people of good faith.
No, they had to take a swipe at conservative Christians and traditional Catholics, saying “those most loudly claiming that morals, values, and patriotism must be defined by their particular religious views have used those religious views, with misplaced claims of ‘religious liberty,’ to justify public policy that has threatened the civil rights and liberties of many Americans including but not limited to the LGBT community, women, and ethnic and religious/nonreligious minorities.”
At its core this is simply a naked attempt for votes from a — unfortunately — growing demographic. As the resolution acknowledges, the number of religiously unaffiliated has tripled during the last two decades and now represents 25 percent of the voting population as well as 35 percent of those under age 30.
In addition, according to the resolution, “it represents the largest religious group within the Democratic Party, growing from 19 percent in 2007 to one in three today . . . [and] that morals, values, and patriotism are not unique to any particular religion.”
Using the terms “religiously unaffiliated” and “nonreligious Americans” synonymously, the Democrats conclude that nonreligious Americans “have the potential to deliver millions more votes for Democrats in 2020 with targeted outreach to further increase turnout of nonreligious voters,” noting that “a record number of openly nonreligious candidates are running for public office.”
There you have it: a non-principled response to the growing chasm in the body politic, criticizing those who adhere to the faith of their fathers and embracing the voting power of the secularists.
That perhaps is why the House Democrats, supported by the leading intellectual lights of Hollywood, are so gung-ho to write The Equality Act into law.
It would turn houses of worship into places of public accommodations, subject to anti-discrimination — read that pro-LGBT — laws, prevent Catholic Charities and Catholic Hospitals from acting in accordance with Catholic beliefs, displace parents as the rightful decision-makers concerning religious upbringing of their children, and gives preferred status to the gender confused.
For Christians, this is not just a political challenge that must be fought, but a societal one as well.
As I am writing this column, professors at the University of Kansas, as some others have done, are opposing allowing Chick-fil-A on campus. Why? According to the academic luminaries at KU, the presence of the restaurant will violate the “safety” and “mental well-being” of students and staff due to the founder’s Christian values.
Those damn Christian values again, they have to be eliminated since, as the Democrats have found, we should support nonreligious beliefs since they recognize “morals, values, and patriotism.” Not that nasty Christian stuff peddled by a first-century rabbi who, in the end, was executed because he challenged the status quo.
And those nonreligious beliefs are the only religious beliefs worthy of protection. Ask Cong. John Lewis (D., Ga.) who has introduced legislation which would allow taxpayers “conscientiously opposed to participation in war” to send their tax payments to a separate fund that could only make non-military expenditures.
In the meantime, nurses and religious hospitals will still be forced to perform abortions as well as to pay for them, and bakers, florists, and photographers who refuse to participate in gay marriage celebrations will be forced out of business.
Yup. The Democrats may be on to something. God help us all.
(You can contact Mike at: Deacon
Mike@q.com.)
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