Sermon Tone Analysis

ACLU info

 

Posted: September 16, 2005 \\ 1:00 a.m.

Eastern \\ \\ \\

By Kevin McCullough

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© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

My producer and I were talking the other day and we came up with a T-shirt slogan that we feel would sell big in pop culture today.

It would read something like this: "Going to Hell as fast as I can ..."

What's bizarre is that they /would/ sell big.

Our culture is getting bolder about its moral wrongdoing and seems to have hardened its heart against any possibility of consequences from doing so.

And this week, this diabolical, dagger, society that we live in has shown its colors blooming yet brighter.

By now, for example, we've all heard that a judge has outlawed the Pledge of Allegiance because it claims that as a nation we sit under God's authority.

It's such an issue of pride for liberals to not admit that there is a God who is more powerful than they are.

This case will be appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court (the cuckoo court) where the ruling will likely be upheld.

This will throw about a fourth of the nation back under the ruling this same court released last year, and kids will again be banned from saying the Pledge as part of their school day.

Hopefully, this will track the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court where some of this insanity will finally be put to an end.

On the same day, another federal judge, this time in Michigan, also decided to also strike down the ban on partial-birth abortion.

This is a procedure that is never medically necessary – according to the American Medical Association – and is perhaps the most violent end to a human life known today.

If you are not familiar with it, the quick version goes like this: Deliver the baby to within about two inches of actual separation from the mother, stab the baby's head at the base of the neck with a pair of surgical scissors, crush the brain of the child, suction out the brain and finally deliver the dead baby the rest of the way.

Yes, a judge – a Clinton judge – decided that somehow that form of premeditated murder is constitutionally sanctioned.

And did I mention that the AMA has ruled that the procedure is never medically necessary to protect either the woman's life or health?

Well, not to be outdone by the federal judiciary, the House of Representatives then decided to pass a "hate crimes bill" that will eventually make it illegal for people of good conscience to have any verbal objections to two men engaging in indecent and medically dangerous sexual acts.

The experts have not yet agreed to the extent that this will be prosecutable, but the implication of seeing what has happened in Canada is clear.

Such legislation is truly designed to shut down the right of pastors to preach from their own pulpit what they hold as the sincere truth of sacred Scripture.

But then again, liberals tend to despise all that God stuff anyway.

For the most part, our modern-day culture – led by the loud voices on the left – are standing on their philosophical mountain tops and shaking their fists into the face of the God who made them as vehemently as they can.

Which is what made the idea for the T-shirt such a hot-seller.

What awaits the reality on the other side of all this moral recklessness is a rude awakening.

Unfortunately for many of the leaders on the American left, and those who follow them, barring repentance and an acknowledgement of the God who made them, it will be a day of reckoning that never ends.

But what's the big deal about eternal damnation when it makes such a catchy slogan?

Kicking God further \\ out the door

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Posted: September 16, 2005 \\ 1:00 a.m.

Eastern \\ \\ \\

By David Limbaugh

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© 2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton's decision that a California "school district's policy and practice of teacher-led recitation of the Pledge violates the Establishment Clause," provides a timely illustration of judicial activism at work.

Just to be clear, I'm not here accusing Judge Karlton himself of activism.

He determined that he is /required/ by the previous holding of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the Newdow case to enjoin the district from the practice.

He ruled that while the Supreme Court reversed the 9th Circuit in Newdow, it did so on technical grounds ("standing") and its substantive holding (forbidding the teacher-led Pledge) still stands.

I suspect it may later be determined that Judge Karlton is way off in his legal analysis, but if he is correct, then he was not engaging in judicial activism by following binding precedent (again, assuming it is binding) from a superior court.

This case, however, does highlight the judicial activism of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court in their Establishment Clause jurisprudence.

The Supreme Court has primarily mucked up the law in this area (Establishment Clause).

The 9th Circuit is even worse, but without the original activism of the Supreme Court, the 9th Circuit would have had nothing to hang its hat on in the Newdow case.

If the Court had, through the years, construed the Establishment Clause in accordance with the original understanding of the Framers, these pledge cases – and similar cases – would never have gotten off the ground.

The Establishment Clause was designed to prohibit the Establishment of a national religion or a national church.

It was not intended to erect a "wall of separation" between church and state, nor prohibit all endorsements of religion by the federal government.

And it was emphatically not intended to force government to be neutral between theism and atheism.

One may believe, as a policy matter, that a government-supported school should not favor one religion over another or one Christian denomination over others.

But policy preferences are a separate issue from what the Constitution requires or forbids.

Like it or not, the Constitution, rightly interpreted, allows the federal government (and the states) to "encourage" the Christian religion.

As Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (1779-1845) wrote, "Probably, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution ... the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State, so far as such encouragement was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship."

From the beginning of our constitutional history, the government has honored the God of the Bible, from congressional chaplains, to national days of prayer, to opening prayers in the Supreme Court, to Congress's authorization in 1800 – when the seat of government moved to Washington, D.C. – for the Capitol building also to serve as a church building.

The Establishment Clause, like the Free Exercise Clause, was supposed to guarantee, not restrict religious freedom.

But the Supreme Court, in its activist distortions, has largely turned the clause into a weapon against religious liberties, and lower courts have followed suit, and worse.

In the Pledge cases, the argument is that when a public school teacher leads the students in reciting the Pledge, which includes the words "under God," the government is endorsing (establishing) religion.

And, to the objection that students may choose not to participate, the anti-Pledgers say, "Students are virtually coerced by peer pressure to participate.

They will feel offended or uncomfortable if they don't."

The Supreme Court, if it hears this case, may hold that the thrust of the Pledge is patriotic and secular, and that "under God," is therefore incidental and not the establishment of religion.

But the Court should never have to base its decision on such nuance in this area.

The Establishment Clause was never intended to apply to such removed, indirect nods toward religion.

And it does not guarantee our right not to be offended or made to feel uncomfortable.

But more importantly, it was not intended to be used as a sword against the free exercise of religion.

By going out of its way to find Establishment Clause violations on such tenuous grounds, the Court deprives students who want to recite the Pledge of their free exercise rights.

In this way, the religion clauses are turned on their heads to achieve a result entirely opposite from that intended by the Framers.

If the Pledge's opponents ultimately prevail, the government will not be adopting a neutral stance toward religion, but one that prefers atheism – kicking God further out the door.

Beware of those who speciously champion the mythical separation of church and state in the name of religious liberty.

All too often the result of their advocacy is the suppression, not the expansion of religious liberties.

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The ACLU's war on parents

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Posted: September 15, 2005 \\ 1:00 a.m.

Eastern \\ \\ \\

By Alan Sears

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© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

It's tough to be a parent.

In fact, raising your child these days to develop into a healthy, happy, responsible adult has never /been/ harder.

Violence and sex saturates television and movies, popular music is filled with profanity and rage – even video games often focus on the darkest edges of human behavior.

It is bad enough that the culture seems at war with parents.

But more disturbing are the actions of courts to damage the link between parent and child.

And no group has done more to inflict damage on parental rights though the courts than the American Civil Liberties Union working with its zealous allies.

The ACLU defines itself as the "nation's guardian of liberty" dedicated to preserve the individual rights and liberties of all Americans.

But in reality, this leftist legal organization has devoted itself to destroying the rights of parents to raise children in the manner they deem appropriate.

This is not some sort of unfounded "right wing" allegation.

Sadly, there are many examples that illustrate the ACLU's desire for the state to supersede the parent in raising children.

In December, the ACLU praised a Washington State Supreme Court ruling that prevents parents from listening to their minor children's telephone conversations.

The high court determined that a mother violated the state's Privacy Act when she monitored a discussion between her 14-year-old daughter and her daughter's boyfriend.

The content of this conversation helped convict the boyfriend of a violent crime.

The ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case against the mother and in favor of overturning the conviction.

Douglas Klunder of the ACLU explained the group's position stating, "I don't think the state should be in the position of encouraging parents to act surreptitiously and eavesdrop on their children."

Attorney Randall Gaylord, the prosecutor on the parent's side, was rightfully incredulous.

"I'm concerned that a 14-year-old's right to privacy now trumps the parent's right to be a parent," he said.

The ACLU is also undermining parents' right to teach their children traditional moral and religious beliefs.

One of the latest battlegrounds in the organization's war against parents is Boyd County, Ky.

The fight began when the local school district settled an ACLU lawsuit over the right of a student group, the Gay-Straight Alliance, to meet on campus.

Part of the agreement mandated that all students, staff and teachers view a one-sided, hour-long video promoting "tolerance" of homosexual behavior.

Understandably, many parents objected to the content, resulting in the desire of about a third of the students to opt-out of the program.

Angry at this exercise of basic parental rights, the ACLU threatened new legal action if every student didn't view the propaganda.

"Parents don't get to say I don't want you to teach evolution or this, that, or whatever else," said James Esseks, litigation director for the ACLU's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project.