Tuesday, June 17, 2014


By Robert Spencer  on Apr 16, 2014 at 10:50am
“A new video shows what looks like the largest and most dangerous gathering of al Qaeda in years. And the CIA and the Pentagon either didn’t know about it or couldn’t get a drone there in time to strike.” Maybe they were too busy engaging in “outreach” with Muslim groups linked to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and too busy reassuring Muslim communities in the U.S. of their benign intentions, to pay any attention to this. “Unsettling video shows large al Qaeda meeting in Yemen,” by Barbara Starr for CNN, April 16 (thanks to all who sent this in): Washington (CNN) — A new video shows what looks like the largest and most dangerous gathering of al Qaeda in years. And the CIA and the Pentagon either didn’t know about it or couldn’t get a drone there in time to strike. U.S. officials won’t comment on that, but every frame of the video is now being analyzed by the United States. In the middle of the clip, the man known as al Qaeda’s crown prince, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, appears brazenly out in the open, greeting followers in Yemen. Al-Wuhayshi, the No. 2 leader of al Qaeda globally and the head of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has said he wants to attack the United States. But in the video, he looks unconcerned that he could be hit by an American drone. The video started appearing on jihadist websites recently, drawing the attention of U.S. officials and global terrorism experts. U.S. officials say they believe it’s authentic….The video shows al-Wuhayshi addressing more than 100 fighters somewhere within Yemen, Cruickshank said, a restive nation on the southwestern portion of the Arabian Peninsula. The al Qaeda leader, he said, is “taking a big risk in doing this.” But he doesn’t mince words about his mission. In a speech to the group, al-Wuhayshi makes it clear that he’s going after the United States, saying “We must eliminate the cross. … The bearer of the cross is America!” U.S. officials believe the highly produced video is recent. With some fighters faces blurred, there is worry it signals a new round of plotting….
An “Abrahamic Faith”
I recently saw a description of Christianity as an “Abrahamic Faith” along with Judaism and Islam. I don’t view Christianity as an Abrahamic faith. This is only an attempt at religious unity with Judaism and Islam. Outside of the Torah, Abraham is barely mentioned in the Old Testament. The Bible declares that the fullness of the Godhead is manifested in Jesus Christ-not Abraham. If we are going to go back to a prophet that all these three monotheistic religion revere, why not Noah, Moses or Enoch? Abraham’s understanding of God was limited. Now, Abraham is discussed in the New Testament for two reasons-soterology (the theology of Salvation) and the issue of non-Jews coming to faith in Jesus. Abraham became important to Paul because Abraham was before the giving of the Law of Moses-the Torah-and he technically wasn’t Jewish. Therefore, for Paul, Abraham was an example of salvation apart from Judaism and the Law. Abraham is used by Islam to give legitimacy to their religion. Our religion is based upon God and Christ Jesus-not Abraham. We don’t even know exactly when Abraham lived right now. I take issue with Christianity being called an “Abrahamic” religion. It is an attempt to water down faith distinctions and is an attempt to remove our focus from Christ, the Son of God, to a mere prophet-who had a rudimentary and partial revelation of God.
The Global War on Christians
It is important for Christians to keep abreast of persecution of Christians around the world. I strongly recommend the book “Crucified Again” by Raymond Ibrahim. Another book is “The Global War on Christians” by John L. Allen, Jr. Phillip Jenkins likes the book because it doesn’t excessively focus on the issue of Islamic persecution of Christians. I think it is folly to NOT look at the issue of Islamic persecution of Christians and this is why I recommend the book by Raymond Ibrahim.
The Jewish Autonomous Oblast
The Jewish Autonomous Oblast is a federal subject of Russia situated in the Russian Far East, bordering with Khabarovsk Krai and Amur Oblast of Russia and Heilongjiang province of China. It is also referred to as "Yevrey" and "Birobidzhan". It is 13,900 sq miles (36,000 km²). Well, if the Jews of Russia have an autonomous region-I wonder why Russia’s Assyrians don’t try to organize one as well?
 
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (from Fox News and Christian Post)
The Jewish-sponsored school Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., announced Tuesday that it would withdraw Ayaan Hirsi Ali from a list of five individuals for whom it had intended to confer an honorary doctorate degree during its May commencement ceremony. The school announced that it would be rescinding the honor after it realized that "certain of her past statements are inconsistent with Brandeis University's core values." It also noted that the university's president, Frederick M. Lawrence, had discussed the decision with Hirsi Ali and that she "is welcome to join us on campus in the future to engage in a dialogue." The New York Times noted that while universities may frequently host speakers with controversial opinions, "awarding an honorary degree ... is more akin to affirming the body of a recipient's work." In the eight days since Brandeis first announced its list of honorary degree recipients, one student created an online petition, which garnered more than 6,000 signatures demanding the school reverse course. Characterizing her views as "extreme Islamophobic" and "hate speech," the student argued that petitioners were not "belittling the severity of the issues that she raises" but feel that her comments violate the mission of a school "which prides itself on social justice." "She has her very real personal story, she has her views, and she's free to say what she'd like to say," Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute, an advocacy group, told the New York Times. "But for an institution like Brandeis to choose to honor someone like this is really disappointing." Originally born in Somalia before she immigrated to the Netherlands, the agnostic Hirsi Ali's has frequently and caustically characterized her family's faith, noting that as a girl she forcibly underwent female circumcision and fought her family's efforts to marry her to a man against her wishes.  A fellow at the right-of-center American Enterprise Institute, in her 2009 memoir Infidel, Hirsi Ali blamed her former faith for perpetuating misogyny. "Many well-meaning Dutch people have told me in all earnestness that nothing in Islamic culture incites abuse of women, that this is just a terrible misunderstanding. Men all over the world beat their women, I am constantly informed," wrote the former Dutch politician. "In reality, these Westerners are the ones who misunderstand Islam. The Koran mandates these punishments. It gives a legitimate basis for abuse, so that the perpetrators feel no shame and are not hounded by their conscience of their community. I wanted my art exhibit to make it difficult for people to look away from this problem. I wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that 'Islam is peace and tolerance.'" Hirsi Ali has also described Islam as a "mental cage." "At first, when you open the door, the caged bird stays inside: it is frightened. It has internalized its imprisonment. It takes time for bird to escape, even after someone has opened the doors to its cage." In 2004, Hirsi Ali, who is also a staunch supporter of women's rights, worked with the-late Theo van Gogh on "Submission." The short film showed verses of the Quran on a woman's naked body, and shortly after its release van Gogh was found murdered in Amsterdam with a note that included a death threat to Hirsi Ali.
Ali, a member of the Dutch Parliament from 2003 to 2006, has been quoted as making comments critical of Islam. That includes a 2007 interview with Reason Magazine in which she said of the religion, "Once it's defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It's very difficult to even talk about peace now. They're not interested in peace. I think that we are at war with Islam. And there's no middle ground in wars." Ali was raised in a strict Muslim family, but after surviving a civil war, genital mutilation, beatings and an arranged marriage, she renounced the faith in her 30s. She has not commented publicly on the issue of the honorary degree.  In 2007, Ali helped establish the AHA Foundation, which works to protect and defend the rights of women in the West from oppression justified by religion and culture, according to its website. The foundation also strives to protect basic rights and freedoms of women and girls. This includes control of their own bodies, access to an education and the ability to work outside the home and control their own income, the website says. More than 85 of about 350 faculty members at Brandeis signed a letter asking for Ali to be removed from the list of honorary degree recipients. And an online petition created Monday by students at the school of 5,800 had gathered thousands of signatures from inside and outside the university as of Tuesday afternoon.
Journalists’ guide to Islam called cave-in to political correctness by Pierre Chariamonte, Fox News, April 12, 2014
A "how-to" guide published by a prominent journalism school to help reporters covering Islam-related issues is under fire from critics who say it sacrifices the First Amendment to political correctness. "Islam for Journalists,” an online guide from Washington State University, says coverage of the Muslim world can be fair, yet inoffensive without compromising journalistic principles. Yet it pointedly condemns publication of images of Muhammed, an act which is forbidden by the Koran, and seems to equate it with violence carried out in the name of Islam.  “Across the Muslim world extremists are wielding their swords with grisly effect, but the pen…can be just as lethal,” Lawrence Pintak, dean of the school's Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, wrote in the introduction to the guide. “Many Muslim journalists simply couldn’t understand why Western news organizations would republish the offensive images just because [of a legal right]. Journalism is not supposed to be a weapon [it is meant] to inform, not inflame,” Pintak wrote. The guide has been endorsed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group with ties to extremists in the Middle East. In 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published two editorial cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet, calling the effort an attempt to contribute to the debate about criticism of Islam and self-censorship. Predictably, Muslim groups in Denmark complained and protests took place around the world, including violent demonstrations in some Muslim countries. Jutte Klausen, a professor at Brandeis University, wrote the book “The Cartoons that Shook the World” about the events, only to see the offending images cut by publisher Yale University. “My book was censored,” Klausen told FoxNews.com. “The issue was that nobody really understood what the cartoons meant. It was a different dilemma for the media at the time when they were published. No one was prepared for an international media landscape and how something like this could have different meanings for different people. “After that it became a matter of security,” she added. “But security is often an excuse for censorship.” Pintak, who did not return requests for comment, vehemently defends his support of press freedom in the guide, even as he seemingly making the case for censorship. “A commitment to press freedom is in my blood,” he wrote before adding, “Journalism is not supposed to be a weapon.” The author also seemingly panders to the Muslim faith, explaining in the guide that Muhammad is off-limits because “although he is not divine, he is considered ‘the Perfect Man.’” “By imitating him, “Muslims hope to acquire his interior attitude—perfect surrender to God," he added, as if such a deep knowledge of a particular religion is required of journalists. Pintak did not immediately return a request for comment. But some experts supported his position. “It is true to a degree. There does need to be some sense of moderation,” Kevin Smith, ethics chair for the Society of Professional Journalists, told FoxNews.com. “I do agree that sometimes the way we may cover a story is to create harm, but sometimes there is help in the harm.” “We understand that sometimes we have to create harm, but it’s based in the intentions of bringing an issue to light," he added. "The real key in ethics is to ask how much can be minimized.”
The Decline and Fall of Islam
Islam is not the “fastest growing religion in the world”-Christianity is. The Muslim world is not experiencing a population explosion-in fact-their population is in a steep decline. Islam is trying to spread into Europe through immigration. Finally, resistance to the Islamization of Europe is organizing, and Muslims are still a minority in Europe. Muslims also have their sight focused on America. While they are making significant inroads into the universities and the government, America is 1% Muslim and over 75% Christian. Now, I strongly believe Obama will come out and openly declare himself as a Muslim before he leaves office-when he does that, he will be declaring the USA a Muslim nation and “conquered” by Islam. But, that isn’t going to change the religious demographics of America. So, where are the Muslims going to expand into? They wanted sub-Saharan Africa-but it has been won by the Gospel. (They also want to take Western China-which is majority Muslim. If they take that land-they will only be getting independence for land that is already majority Islam. At the same time-Christianity is exploding in China proper-or eastern China. Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang (“Chinese Turkestan”-The Uighar lands) are non-Chinese territories held by the Chinese.) In Nigeria, Muslims are purging Islamic dominated northern Nigeria of Christians-but they are not changing the population rates of 50% Muslim and 50% Christian in Nigeria. I read statistics where Ethiopia and Eritrea are on the verge of becoming a slight majority Muslim. However this isn’t the case-recent polls show both countries are over 60% Christian. The world is 31.5% Christian and 23.2% Muslim. The number of Hindus and Buddhists combined is 22.1 % of the world’s population. The world is not becoming majority Muslim. With their population declining and Christianity growing-Islam will not be able to dominate the world-as they hope to. Islam is a political system bent on global domination. And they will never be able to achieve it. The Muslims need to be expanding into new territory. They looked upon Central Africa to be fertile territory to spread into. Therefore, the Saudis financed a Jihad against Christians in Central African Republic. When Christians were massacred by Muslims in the CAR, the Liberal Democrat News Media largely ignored the story until Christians organized and began to fight back! Now, the LDNM is outraged and reporting on the mistreatment of CAR’s Muslims. The Muslims and the Liberals are in an alliance against Christianity-wherever it may be. CAR is 80% Christian and 15% Muslim. This was likely a testing ground to try strategies in other sub-Saharan countries that have similar demographics-such as Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. (Note that Idi Amin was a Muslim fanatic tyrant in majority Christian Uganda.) Now the Christians of Central African Republic are ready to fight back against an Islamic attack! So, the Jihad was a failure and such an attack probably won’t be carried out again. According to Time magazine “A rebel group called Seleka [Seleka is an Islamic organization] swept across the country with brutality and established a new government with a new president. The new president didn’t last long. An anti-balaka militia organized for protection and retaliation against the Seleka and have been accused of further brutality. A transitional government has been established, but it is poor, weak and often overwhelmed. We heard stories that break your heart. Thousands killed, often with machetes. Widespread rape. Destruction of homes, shops and villages. There were 36 mosques in Bangui; now there are seven.” Now the French are in Central African Republic. When the Muslims were killing Christians-the Europeans were powerless to help. Now that the roles have been reversed-the Europeans are there fighting against the Christians on behalf of the Muslims-just as they did in Bosnia and Kosovo. According to Fox News, on April 21, 2014, at Bangui, Central African Republic – A witness says fighting between a Christian militia and French soldiers in Central African Republic has left several people dead, including some who appeared unarmed. Capt. Sebastien Isern, spokesman for the French forces, said they are conducting regular patrols in the town, which has seen significant fighting. Isern said they were fired on by an armed group and returned fire. He did not have a death toll, only saying the group was "neutralized." Although the Muslim world can seemingly depend on the West to ignore mass killings of Christians by Muslims-and to intervene on behalf of Muslims when they are losing-still, Islam is in decline-although most Muslims don’t realize this yet. It is now demonstrated that Muslims are in a position of weakness in sub-Saharan Africa. Also, no Muslim country is truly modern. They are all backwards. With Fracking and the building of the Keystone Pipeline-which will never happen under Obama-but is inevitable, the USA will become energy independent and an oil exporter. Muslims have only two things going for them right now-their zeal and oil wealth. The wealth will soon dry up and they will come to the realization that decline has fallen upon them-and much of their zeal will dissipate. Muslim radicals tried to take over Egypt-only to fail there. Islam is failing world-wide. This means that we shouldn’t be afraid to confront radical Islam. Despite President Obama’s best efforts-Islam is losing and in decline. The time has come to stop being afraid and to confront the  problem of Islamism head on. Now Obama is a big time supporter of radical Islam. But we shouldn’t be afraid of him either-his approval rate is in the 30s and he is a “lame-duck.”
 
 
 
WND EXCLUSIVE
God and the GOP David Kupelian warns Republicans about those radioactive 'social issues'

David Kupelian http://www.wnd.com/2014/04/god-and-the-gop/
David Kupelian is an award-winning journalist, managing editor of WND and editor of Whistleblower magazine. A widely read online columnist, he is also the best-selling author of "The Marketing of Evil" and "How Evil Works.".
You think I’m licked. You all think I’m licked. Well, I’m not licked. And I’m going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause.” – “Sen. Jefferson Smith” (played by actor James Stewart)
In the classic 1939 Frank Capra film, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” Jimmy Stewart portrays a lone citizen-legislator who “goes to Washington” and changes the nation, armed with little more than common sense, uncommon courage and perfect integrity.
Well, right now – surveying the ongoing demolition of their beloved nation – Americans are yearning for lots of “Mr. Smiths” to get elected this November, and then go to Washington and straighten everything out. (Or at least, the roughly 50 percent of Americans who haven’t yet been hoodwinked, bribed, brainwashed, dumbed down or drugged are hoping and praying for such an outcome.)
They want representatives with enough courage, clarity and moral authority to succeed in reversing Obama’s “fundamental transformation of America” and igniting a mass awakening – a prairie fire of truth and freedom that spreads over the whole land.
Hold that thought, please.
At the very same time, however, we’re being told by Republicans across the board – that is, by the moneyed GOP establishment, by Republican advisers and strategists, and by calculating moderates comfortably nestled in Washington’s elite society, but also by “libertarian-leaning conservatives” and even by many tea-party spokesmen – that the key to victory is to keep away from those divisive “social issues” that alienate voters. Indeed, this is one point on which many Republicans across the spectrum appear to agree.
May I ask a question?
Where do we suppose this superhuman “Mr. Smith”-type bravery comes from – the uncommon, almost mythic, otherworldly quality we want our elected leaders to possess, which will mysteriously empower them to do battle like Saint George against the all-consuming, fire-breathing Beltway Beast?
Before we answer that, let’s get one fact clearly in mind: America is at war – within her own borders.
Arrayed on one side are the forces for limited, constitutional government, unfettered free-market capitalism, and traditional Judeo-Christian morality; those who desire freedom to succeed or fail, who know that as government enlarges, liberty diminishes, and who believe American exceptionalism – Reagan’s “shining city on a hill” – ultimately is rooted in, and dependent upon, self-governing, self-disciplined, moral and religious citizens.
On the other side are all the people who consider the first group to be unfair, unjust, unfeeling, unrealistic, greedy, selfish, intolerant, racist, parasitic, predatory and probably evil. And it is this side – so full of perceived grievances against the first – that currently dominates American government, media, education and culture.
In this war, our elected representatives – congressmen and senators – are supposed to be our champions, fighting on our behalf in the D.C. arena. We send them to Washington not to become members of an elite, permanent, bipartisan country club, nor to particularly enjoy themselves, enrich themselves or build careers and fortunes for themselves. Like our soldiers and officer class, we raise them up to do battle on our behalf – period. To help bolster and guide them on the right path, and to enable us to better hold them accountable, we have them swear a sacred oath to uphold the rulebook we wrote for governing them, the Constitution.
For conservatives, the battle is brutal right now, as the other side pretty much owns the government and the major media. Yet, with so much at stake, conservatives must don their armor and helmets, wield their swords and shields and head back into battle.
But what should be their strategy? Many people are currently weighing in on that question.
Secret of the Reagan Revolution
My friend, Sean Hannity, often points out that Republicans cannot simply stand back passively and wait for the Obama agenda (especially Obamacare) to implode and hope the electorate then enthusiastically sweeps the GOP into power. Rather, Republicans must formulate – and shout from every rooftop – a powerful and positive vision of exactly where they want to take America and how they plan to do it.
So Hannity laid out a simple, clear plan to revitalize not only the Republican Party, but America:
1) Cut a penny from every dollar the government spends for six years, which he says will produce a balanced budget.
2) Pass a balanced-budget amendment.
3) Limit the amount of taxes that the government can collect.
4) Encourage home-grown energy resources.
5) Replace Obamacare with health-care savings accounts so people can use the money to buy their own insurance in the private market.
6) Enact term limits: six years in the House, with only one term in leadership, and 12 years in the Senate with only two years in leadership.
7) Allow school choice.
8) Secure the borders.
OK, great policy prescriptions – but what about tactics for implementing them in an exceedingly hostile political and media environment?
In his new book, “Rules for Patriots: How Conservatives Can Win Again,” radio talker Steve Deace lays out his battle plan, explaining his “10 Commandments of Political Warfare”:
1) Never trust Republicrats.
2) Never attack what you’re not willing to kill.
3) Never accept the premise of your opponent’s argument.
4) Never surrender the moral high ground.
5) Reverse the premise of your opponent’s argument, and use it against him.
6) Never abandon your base (unless they are morally wrong).
7) Define your opponent before they define themselves, and define yourself before your opponent defines you.
8) Always make your opponent defend their record/belief system.
9) Stay on message.
10) Play offense.
This is all great stuff. Compelling and positive vision. Aggressive and effective tactics. All in all, a great, reality-based war strategy for taking America back.
Just one thing, though.
To champion a bold yet common-sense vision like Hannity’s, and to pursue it aggressively and with tactical intelligence, as Deace prescribes, requires real courage and integrity – including a willingness to suffer deprivation and defamation, to be “persecuted for righteousness’ sake,” to be hurt financially, reputationally, professionally and perhaps worse.
Now to our question: Where will such transcendent courage and integrity come from?
Clearly, they come from within – from God – from our commitment to something higher and more important and precious than just our own lives.
Which brings us to the dreaded “social issues” – issues that revolve around morality and transcendent values, marriage and family, faith and freedom – you know, the kinds of things that define and determine the very fabric of our civilization.
Here’s a memo to all those brilliant Republican strategists who say they want to re-elect another Reagan in 2016, but advise that we ditch those divisive “social issues”:
Fact: The ground troops that got Ronald Reagan elected in 1980 and ‘84 were largely evangelical Christian, pro-life Americans. Roe v. Wade had been imposed on all the states just a few years earlier (in 1973), and the Democratic Party had become stridently pro-abortion. In fact, in 1984, both Walter Mondale and his running mate, Geraldine Ferraro, were hardcore, outspoken “pro-choicers.”
During the ‘80s, the people who registered others to vote, stuffed envelopes, held coffee clutches in their homes, canvassed door to door, made endless phone calls, worked the long hours, drove little old ladies to their polling places on Election Day – in other words, the tireless ground forces in the war, and the beating heart of the Reagan Revolution – were Bible-believing evangelicals and pro-life Catholics! Indeed, Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority is credited with having registered millions of evangelicals to vote during the Reagan ‘80s.
The people who got Reagan elected were not those who, first and foremost, were angry over Jimmy Carter’s high inflation and unemployment rates (the highest “misery index” in U.S. history), or even over his dangerously inept and appeasing foreign policy. Yes, those people voted for Reagan, but the volunteer soldiers – the people who actually propelled him to sweeping electoral victories – were those who didn’t want to see innocent babies slaughtered, ripped apart limb from limb or chemically burned alive. These were the life-and-death people – marching off to war to rescue the innocent, to save lives and redeem their country from the moral hellfire into which it was rapidly plunging.
Today, with abortion still taking as many American lives daily as died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, with Kermit Gosnell-like criminal atrocities occurring all over the country in late-term abortion clinics, and reports like the recent one in the London Telegraph revealing that hospitals have been incinerating aborted babies to heat their facilities, the Republican Party is being advised to pretend this issue doesn’t exist?
‘Ruled by tyrants’
Excuse my contrarian streak, but now I’m going to dive with both feet into the other big “social issue,” and the one Republicans are most often warned to stay away from – the “gay” issue. While conservatives claim they want to reverse America’s progressive transformation under Barack Obama, most are too intimidated to talk about the most toxic, far-reaching and irreversible part of that transformation.That’s ironic, considering the recent ouster of tech prodigy Brendan Eich as CEO of Mozilla, a company he co-founded, simply because he donated money to help preserve traditional marriage. The event was so chilling and over-the-top that it has been universally condemned by both right (Newt Gingrich called it the “new fascism,” Charles Krauthammer called it “totalitarian”) and left (Bill Maher called it the “gay mafia”) and even by well-known gays (Andrew Sullivan said it “disgusts me,” Tammy Bruce blamed the “gay gestapo”).
And yet this is the issue we’re not supposed to discuss, let alone oppose?
Consider this: Before the 2008 presidential election, Sen. Barack Obama said: “I do not support gay marriage. Marriage has religious and social connotations, and I consider marriage to be between a man and a woman.”
Likewise, pre-2008 Hillary Clinton was on record saying: “Marriage has got historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage always has been, between a man and a woman.”
That’s because, just a few short years ago, supporting homosexual marriage was considered such a deranged, perverse, off-the-charts position that even Obama and Hillary – both Alinskyite progressives and long-time gay-rights supporters – saw the need to publicly voice opposition to same-sex marriage.
As everyone knows, both of them did whiplash-inducing about-faces. (Their positions had “evolved,” they said.) But now watch the surprise twist in this story:
Two years after Obama’s election, by mid-2010, the traditional party roles had reversed and, as the homosexual newspaper the Washington Blade put it, conservatives had “taken the leadership role in achieving marriage equality.”
That’s right. Not only had high-profile personalities like Glenn Beck, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Laura Bush, Dick Cheney and others publicly come around to endorsing same-sex marriage, but some on the right were actually leading the charge.
Case in point: George W. Bush’s solicitor general, Ted Olson, dedicated his time as one of the two lead attorneys who successfully challenged California’s Proposition 8, which had enshrined in the state’s constitution marriage as being solely between a man and a woman.
Indeed, proclaimed the Blade, when it came to the battle to legalize same-sex marriage, it was conservatives who “have achieved the most important success so far as they are the most willing and most able to take the case to the Supreme Court.”
Margaret Hoover, long a Fox News contributor and Republican pundit, explained her enthusiastic support for “gay marriage,” saying, “Discrimination is deeply un-American. When the government sanctions discrimination against a group of citizens, it gives permission for other citizens to do the same. This isn’t a partisan issue.”
And S.E. Cupp, a popular young conservative columnist and television personality, said, “Conservatism and gay rights are actually natural allies. Conservatism rightly seeks to keep the government out of our private lives, and when you strip away the politics of pop culture, it’s this assertion of privacy and freedom that the gay rights movement is essentially making.”
Actually, S.E., that’s libertarianism you’re talking about. Conservatism – at least, the kind America and Western civilization were actually built on – is something entirely different.
Let’s take a look.
In fact, how about, just for a moment, we set aside all of the various reasons for and against same-sex marriage. Instead, let’s clear the air and focus on something even more basic – but which many of us somehow never seem to consider.
Dennis Prager, the respected Jewish talk host and author, explains it very well, so I will quote from his award-winning article, “Why Judaism rejected homosexuality.” Prager folds the petals back to unveil the very heart of the flower of Judeo-Christian civilization:
When Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage, it changed the world.
It is not overstated to say that the Torah’s prohibition of non-marital sex made the creation of Western civilization possible. Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism, and later carried forward by Christianity.
The revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of love and eroticism within marriage), and began the arduous task of elevating the status of women.
By contrast, throughout the ancient world, and up to the recent past in many parts of the world, sexuality infused virtually all of society. Human sexuality, especially male sexuality, is utterly wild. Men have had sex with women and with men; with little girls and young boys; with a single partner and in large groups; with total strangers and immediate family members; and with a variety of domesticated animals. There is little, animate or inanimate, that has not excited some men sexually. …
Prager goes on at length to catalog the “wild” sexuality of the non-Judeo-Christian world, and shows, region by region, how the almost ubiquitous perversity and wanton sexuality, including homosexuality and sex with children, that has dominated most of the world throughout history – and which continues to this day in some areas – has served to degrade, subjugate and enslave entire cultures.
Judaism, he explains, and later Christianity, “placed controls on sexual activity. It could no longer dominate religion and social life. It was to be sanctified – which in Hebrew means ‘separated’ – from the world and placed in the home, in the bed of husband and wife.”
In short, he explains, “Judaism’s restricting of sexual behavior was one of the essential elements that enabled society to progress. Along with ethical monotheism, the revolution begun by the Torah when it declared war on the sexual practices of the world wrought the most far-reaching changes in history.”
In other words, our sexual mores in large part determine our society’s character and destiny.
Now, fast-forward to America’s founding: It’s no accident that this nation has flowered more than any other in history. But that didn’t happen, my dear “libertarian-leaning conservative” friends and “social issues-avoiding Republicans,” because the founding generation simply resented government, wanted lower taxes and desired to be left alone.
No, America flowered because it was steeped in a faith-based morality and a love of freedom that were wedded together into a rare and priceless alloy the world had never seen.
This is what Alexis de Tocqueville, the famed French political philosopher, found when he toured America during the early 19th century when the republic was young and vibrant – and not yet infested with “progressive” termites boring away at our institutions and faith. In “Democracy in America,” published in 1835, Tocqueville described with admiration and astonishment what he observed during his travels here:
The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other … Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country.
If America’s unique magic was combining “the notions of Christianity and of liberty” to produce the greatest nation in history, today’s libertarian-conservatives seem to have lost sight of half of that winning combination – the God part – vainly imagining that freedom alone is the answer.
Yet the libertarian utopia – live any way you want, including doing drugs, having abortions or frequenting prostitutes (all three of which the Libertarian Party wants legalized), and yet somehow we can still manage to be citizen-sovereigns ruling over a small, responsible government – is every bit as absurd, illusory and impossible as the utopia socialists forever dream of. Neither has ever existed, at any time or place, nor ever will. For as we all know deep down, there is no lasting freedom without adherence to, as Thomas Jefferson put it, “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” Or as William Penn warned, “If man is not governed by God, he will be ruled by tyrants.”
Thus, in today’s grand morphing of Reagan pro-life, pro-biblical-morality conservatism into libertarianism, we simply kid ourselves into thinking an immoral society can ever be free.
So, for the Republican Party – whose platform is rooted in the traditional, Judeo-Christian values and sensibilities that created, nurtured and protected Western Civilization – to now say, “We need to declare a truce on these divisive ‘social issues’ so we can regain power,” is folly.
Obviously, there’s a big difference between abject surrender on the “moral” issues of our time, versus a tactical determination that it’s better to deal with certain issues after the 2014 midterm elections. The problem is, many Republicans and even self-identified “conservatives” have already publicly surrendered to the radical LGBT agenda, including same-sex marriage, not realizing perhaps that the unintended consequences threaten to change America more profoundly and negatively than anything else in this age of “fundamental transformation.”
Remember how Reagan famously spoke of the “three-legged stool” underpinning successful conservatism – strong defenses, unfettered free-market economic policies and strong adherence to traditional moral values (“social issues”)? Of course, the point of his metaphor was that the stool could remain upright only if supported by all three legs. Just two (it doesn’t matter which two) would never work.
The bottom line: To elect representatives who will fight and prevail against the godless progressive juggernaut – to send real-life “Mr. Smiths” to Washington – you need men and women whose hearts and souls are burning with the love of the Living God and His Laws. People for whom the biblical words of Joshua – “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” – course through their bloodstream.
And guess what? Those are the very same people who are passionate about the moral issues that define the soul of America and the happiness and well-being of future generations.
I’ll give Dennis Prager the last word about that third leg of Reagan’s three-legged stool: “The bedrock of this civilization … has been the centrality and purity of family life. But the family is not a natural unit so much as it is a value that must be cultivated and protected. The Greeks assaulted the family in the name of beauty and Eros. The Marxists assaulted the family in the name of progress. And today, gay liberation assaults it in the name of compassion and equality. I understand why gays would do this. Life has been miserable for many of them. What I have not understood was why Jews or Christians would join the assault. I do now. They do not know what is at stake. At stake is our civilization.”
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