By BRIAN CLOWES
“If this is a sign of how religious liberty claims will be treated in the years ahead, those who value religious freedom have cause for great concern” — Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito, on laws specifically targeting Christians being upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
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We have seen that eight or even four years of Hillary Clinton in the White House will result in a truly catastrophic headlong rush to the left in our court system. This will result in judges sweeping away all of the gains pro-lifers have been struggling to achieve over nearly half a century, and millions more preborns will die during her tenure.
But the unborn are not the only people in danger; unrestricted immigration will allow terrorists to flood over our borders. As ISIS has boasted, this will make it much easier for its members to bring death and destruction to even the smallest towns in the “Great Satan.”
Religious Freedom
Of Hillary Clinton’s many, many outright lies, the most laughable is her claim that “I’ve been fighting to defend religious freedom for years.”
She opposed the Little Sisters of the Poor requesting an exemption from paying for abortifacient birth control, asserting that everyone must purchase abortion drugs for “every woman, no matter where she works.” When the Supreme Court upheld the religious exemption of Hobby Lobby in the same case, she called the decision “deeply disturbing.”
She is already pushing the Equality Act, which would force Catholic schools and charities to hire openly homosexual people, even if they vocally oppose the teachings of the Church. And she even opposes Religious Freedom Restoration Acts that were modeled after the one signed by her own husband!
By vivid contrast, on June 21, 2016, Donald Trump met with over a thousand evangelical, pro-life and conservative leaders for the purpose of discussing religious freedom. Trump said that “I think it is the number one question, and there are numerous things that we’re going to do about it. For one thing, we’re going to appoint great Supreme Court justices. And these will be Supreme Court justices that will be good intellects, that will be talented men in what they do, and women, but also be pro-life.”
He also produced a very solid list of his proposed pro-life Supreme Court nominees, which had been vetted by several leading conservative groups including the Federalist Society.
On the other hand, Clinton stated that “I would not appoint someone who didn’t think Roe v. Wade is settled law.” She also reiterated her support for the HHS mandate, which requires employers — including those with a religious conscientious objection — to provide contraception, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs and devices to women with no co-pay.
In the hands of the left, the “separation of Church and state” is nothing more than a deception. In the real world, it really means that whenever the state advances, the Church must retreat without complaint. As Hillary Clinton has asserted, if there is resistance to the United States government pressuring developing nations into accepting abortion, homosexuality, and the gender agenda, then “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs, and structural biases have to be changed.”
Take another look at that quote. “Religious beliefs” must be changed. Scripture must be rewritten or reinterpreted. Sermons must be government-approved — or, as always, punishment will be meted out.
“But wait,” she has said. “I’ve always said that everyone has the right to worship however he or she sees fit.” This is a typical Clinton scam. Hillary has always been as skillfully deceptive with words as her husband, who once famously tied up an inquest by quibbling about the meaning of the word “is.”
She supports our “right to worship,” but this is a much, much narrower term than the “right to free exercise” of our faith. “Right to worship” means that we may attend church on Sunday and take part in whatever quaint and antiquated rituals we desire, but as soon as we leave that building and step into the daylight, we must strictly conform to the secular orthodoxy and never put our beliefs into action.
Our benevolent overseers will be generous enough to allow us to pray in our heads and make no audible sound as long as nobody else can see us, but that is the absolute limit.
What will it be like for Christian Culture of Life activists if Hillary Clinton moves into the White House? Listen to what one liberal writer has to say:
“For liberals, the question now is how to deal with the losers in the culture wars. My own judgment is that taking a hard line (‘You lost, live with it’) is better than trying to accommodate the losers, who — remember — defended, and are defending, positions that liberals regard as having no normative pull at all. Trying to be nice to the losers didn’t work well after the Civil War, nor after Brown, and taking a hard line seemed to work reasonably well in Germany and Japan after 1945. I should note that LGBT activists in particular seem to have settled on the hardline approach. . . .
“When specific battles in the culture wars were being fought, it might have made sense to try to be accommodating after a local victory, because other related fights were going on, and a hard line might have stiffened the opposition in those fights. But the war’s over, and we won” — Mark Tushnet, Harvard law professor.
What does the victor do when the war is over? He viciously stamps out any remaining vestiges of resistance — and then disarms surviving members of the opposition and places them under strict surveillance to make certain that they cannot fight again.
Lately, we have frequently see liberals boasting that they have won the “Culture Wars,” and it is hard to argue with them. We Christians are left with our constantly shrinking little patch of terrain, focusing less and less upon fighting for the family and the unborn and more and more on just defending our right to live our lives as Christians. Under a leftist court system, liberal victory will be assured for decades to come.
If enough people sleep in on November 8 and do not vote, all or most of the following will definitely happen:
There is no logical reason at all why legislation forcing churches to pay for contraception should not be extended to forcing them to pay for abortion. In light of Clinton’s love of abortion, this extension is inevitable;
Liberal leaders have been agitating for decades for taxation of all Church income and property. This is an idea that will be much more likely if Clinton becomes president;
All Christian colleges which teach biblical standards will be forcibly shut down by the government for being “discriminatory,” or will be compelled to give up their teachings, a process that has already begun in California;
Clinton will launch a greatly intensified and formal program of government persecution of Christians who do not fully accept the entire homosexual and transgender agendas;
Priests and pastors will be forced to submit their sermons to local government agencies for approval, an atrocity which has already been attempted in Houston. Volunteer members of homosexual groups will attend Masses and services to make certain that priests and pastors express no “offensive” thoughts, under threat of prosecution;
“Gay rights” will continue to be exalted above religious liberty, leading to widespread draconian punishment of Christians who hold to their beliefs; and
Christians will be systematically excluded from hundreds of public service occupations, from selling flowers to practicing the medical profession. This means that tens of thousands of Christians will lose their livelihoods and will suffer terribly just because they stood up for their beliefs and for faith and family.
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