Justin Darr
Christianity's double standard
By Justin Darr
In no case are the left's efforts to undermine our society more apparent than in the debate over the separation of church and state. The intent of the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment is quite clear: The government of the United States will not establish an official state religion or inhibit the free practice of any faith. While government may not work to influence or regulate the values and beliefs of citizens or their churches, there is no inhibition whatsoever on these same citizens and churches from working to influence their government through the democratic process. In effect, the First Amendment and Establishment Clause are the embodiment of the entire spirit of the Constitution: Government is subservient to the will of the people, and the people have the right to seek to influence and form their government according to their own standards so long as they do not restrain others from holding or practicing differing ideas.
It is amazing how far America has strayed from these simple truths. Now, instead of people of faith being protected by the government, they are victimized by a liberal controlled activist judiciary. Led by the ACLU, American liberals are pushing an agenda of forced inclusion of alternative faiths and lifestyles into school curricula under the euphemism of "diversity," while at the same time working to deny the same rights to Christians whose views are decried as "intolerance." In the ACLU's version of the world, it is acceptable for a kindergarten girl to be pulled from the cafeteria and threatened with expulsion for saying grace over her afternoon cookies and milk, but protecting a high school student's right to wear a "Satan's Church" T-shirt is worthy of a lawsuit in Federal Court. In Louisiana, the ACLU feels that the state abstinence web site should be shut down because a few students mentioned "God" in the site's unregulated chat room, but efforts by California schools to indoctrinate students in to the precepts of Islam, complete with assuming a Moslem name and staging their own "jihad" via a type of dice game, are praised as models of sensitivity. It is obvious that the ACLU and liberal court system's goal is not to keep the American classroom a secular arena free of religious biases, but to systematically undermine the American system of values through excluding Judeo-Christian beliefs and attempting to supplant them with a cadre of alternative beliefs of their own choosing.
The assault on Christianity goes far beyond the classroom. Today, liberals actively seek to oppress local churches' freedom of speech through an arbitrary and inconsistent tax code. For example, churches are no longer churches, but IRS 501(c)(3) organizations. Since few churches could survive under the tax burden imposed on Americans today, houses of worship can no longer be concerned about merely saving the souls and acting as the moral compass of their brethren, but maintaining their tax exempt status. As outlined in IRS Publication 1828, churches are prohibited from "endorsing any candidates, making donations to their campaigns, engaging in fund-raising, distributing statements, or becoming involved in any other activities that may be beneficial or detrimental to any candidate. Even activities that encourage people to vote for or against a particular candidate on the basis of nonpartisan criteria violate the political campaign prohibition of section 501(c)(3)." In effect, our churches as no longer free to address the issues of the day from their own moral and ethical viewpoints, but must submit to government mandated censorship or face financial ruin. While "secularist" organizations are free to promote political candidates under the full protection of the First Amendment, religious groups who attempt to do the same contend with paying a free speech tax.
So when is the ACLU going to defend our religious leaders' free speech rights? They are not, because the true enemy of the ACLU, and the left in general, is not just Christianity, but the free speech rights Christians use to point out the immoral and fundamentally oppressive nature of the left's beliefs. The ends justify the means to the left as any stratagem is acceptable so long as it shuts those meddlesome Christians up.
Modern liberals have perverted the simple idea of the First Amendment so that now it has become a bludgeon to forcibly silence all churches and individuals who hold Judeo-Christian viewpoints. Government now actively dictates what the values of our culture should be and attempts to use legal intimidation and extortion to relegate all Judeo-Christian morals and religious values to the fringes of American society. Whether it is through a capricious tax code, threats of lawsuits, or fear of being called insensitive to diversity, the left has turned the Establishment Clause into an Orwellian nightmare.
© Justin Darr
In no case are the left's efforts to undermine our society more apparent than in the debate over the separation of church and state. The intent of the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment is quite clear: The government of the United States will not establish an official state religion or inhibit the free practice of any faith. While government may not work to influence or regulate the values and beliefs of citizens or their churches, there is no inhibition whatsoever on these same citizens and churches from working to influence their government through the democratic process. In effect, the First Amendment and Establishment Clause are the embodiment of the entire spirit of the Constitution: Government is subservient to the will of the people, and the people have the right to seek to influence and form their government according to their own standards so long as they do not restrain others from holding or practicing differing ideas.
It is amazing how far America has strayed from these simple truths. Now, instead of people of faith being protected by the government, they are victimized by a liberal controlled activist judiciary. Led by the ACLU, American liberals are pushing an agenda of forced inclusion of alternative faiths and lifestyles into school curricula under the euphemism of "diversity," while at the same time working to deny the same rights to Christians whose views are decried as "intolerance." In the ACLU's version of the world, it is acceptable for a kindergarten girl to be pulled from the cafeteria and threatened with expulsion for saying grace over her afternoon cookies and milk, but protecting a high school student's right to wear a "Satan's Church" T-shirt is worthy of a lawsuit in Federal Court. In Louisiana, the ACLU feels that the state abstinence web site should be shut down because a few students mentioned "God" in the site's unregulated chat room, but efforts by California schools to indoctrinate students in to the precepts of Islam, complete with assuming a Moslem name and staging their own "jihad" via a type of dice game, are praised as models of sensitivity. It is obvious that the ACLU and liberal court system's goal is not to keep the American classroom a secular arena free of religious biases, but to systematically undermine the American system of values through excluding Judeo-Christian beliefs and attempting to supplant them with a cadre of alternative beliefs of their own choosing.
The assault on Christianity goes far beyond the classroom. Today, liberals actively seek to oppress local churches' freedom of speech through an arbitrary and inconsistent tax code. For example, churches are no longer churches, but IRS 501(c)(3) organizations. Since few churches could survive under the tax burden imposed on Americans today, houses of worship can no longer be concerned about merely saving the souls and acting as the moral compass of their brethren, but maintaining their tax exempt status. As outlined in IRS Publication 1828, churches are prohibited from "endorsing any candidates, making donations to their campaigns, engaging in fund-raising, distributing statements, or becoming involved in any other activities that may be beneficial or detrimental to any candidate. Even activities that encourage people to vote for or against a particular candidate on the basis of nonpartisan criteria violate the political campaign prohibition of section 501(c)(3)." In effect, our churches as no longer free to address the issues of the day from their own moral and ethical viewpoints, but must submit to government mandated censorship or face financial ruin. While "secularist" organizations are free to promote political candidates under the full protection of the First Amendment, religious groups who attempt to do the same contend with paying a free speech tax.
So when is the ACLU going to defend our religious leaders' free speech rights? They are not, because the true enemy of the ACLU, and the left in general, is not just Christianity, but the free speech rights Christians use to point out the immoral and fundamentally oppressive nature of the left's beliefs. The ends justify the means to the left as any stratagem is acceptable so long as it shuts those meddlesome Christians up.
Modern liberals have perverted the simple idea of the First Amendment so that now it has become a bludgeon to forcibly silence all churches and individuals who hold Judeo-Christian viewpoints. Government now actively dictates what the values of our culture should be and attempts to use legal intimidation and extortion to relegate all Judeo-Christian morals and religious values to the fringes of American society. Whether it is through a capricious tax code, threats of lawsuits, or fear of being called insensitive to diversity, the left has turned the Establishment Clause into an Orwellian nightmare.
© Justin Darr
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