Gina Miller
Huff-Po writer horrified at Supreme Court prayer ruling
By Gina Miller
Listen to an audio version of this column
Liberals are having blown-gasket fits over Monday's Supreme Court ruling that – gasp! – Americans are indeed free to pray at public meetings, just as we always have been throughout our history. It is tragic that our nation has become so warped in the head that it is now commonplace for God-haters to routinely succeed in setting terrible court precedents that have polluted and twisted the plain, simple meaning of our God-given, First Amendment-protected rights. The Supreme Court has no authority to take those rights away (nor should it be able to put stipulations on them, as it did in this ruling), but thankfully, on Monday, it reaffirmed them, although only by a one-vote margin. That's the scary part. We're just one, skinny vote away from disaster on any given issue, as we saw with the treasonous "Obamacare" vote lobbed by Chief Justice Quisling-Roberts.
While the Left is quite unhappy that a bit of religious freedom was upheld by the Court, one writer at the Huffington Post was hysterical over it – not the funny kind of hysterical, but the classic, frenzied kind. Jeff Schweitzer's column, "The Supreme Court Rules That Christianity Is Not Christian," is such a long, large anti-Christian lamentation, that if you didn't know any better, you might think that because of this one small ruling, Doomsday is truly upon us.
Mr. Schweitzer calls the decision "a return to pre-revolutionary America," and with the direst of warnings insists that we are barreling straight toward being a theocracy. The silly "theocracy" scarecrow is what the Left always trots out when any of our religious freedoms are upheld.
He wrote:
The Supreme Court agreed with arguments that undermine our most cherished founding principle, the separation of church and state. As you absorb the folly to come, forget not that early settlers made the arduous journey to our shores in part to escape the stifling oppression of a dominant religion.
Upholding our fundamental freedom of religion is "folly"? And this is the "stifling oppression of a dominant religion"? Seriously, Mr. Schweitzer? Where is that occurring in the United States, except maybe in certain areas of Michigan? It may be that Mr. Schweitzer missed the small detail that the Greece, NY City Council never prohibited anyone from giving the opening prayer. It just so happens that the churches in the Greece area are almost all Christian denominations, which is not surprising, since polling shows close to 80 percent of Americans identify as Christian, whether they live it or not.
Mr. Schweitzer goes on to distort the beliefs and intentions of Thomas Jefferson as he writes:
The urgent need to rid the government from the influence of a single religion was Thomas Jefferson's unifying and guiding light. But Jeffersonian principles have been set aside for the convenience of promoting Christianity over all other religions. Welcome to the United States of Saudi Arabia.
What Mr. Schweitzer refuses to acknowledge is that Jefferson did not seek to rid the government of religion at all, but instead, he sought fervently to prevent the central government from infringing on Americans' religious freedom. It's plain throughout his writings, and certainly clear in the widely misused letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. Mr. Schweitzer is correct that "Jeffersonian principles have been set aside," but not for the reasons he declares.
On the "Separation of Church and State" page at Wallbuilders, David Barton sets the Jeffersonian record straight, stating in part:
Jefferson believed that God, not government, was the Author and Source of our rights and that the government, therefore, was to be prevented from interference with those rights. Very simply, the "fence" of the Webster letter and the "wall" of the Danbury letter were not to limit religious activities in public; rather they were to limit the power of the government to prohibit or interfere with those expressions.
... Therefore, if Jefferson's letter is to be used today, let its context be clearly given – as in previous years. Furthermore, earlier Courts had always viewed Jefferson's Danbury letter for just what it was: a personal, private letter to a specific group. There is probably no other instance in America's history where words spoken by a single individual in a private letter – words clearly divorced from their context – have become the sole authorization for a national policy. Finally, Jefferson's Danbury letter should never be invoked as a stand-alone document. A proper analysis of Jefferson's views must include his numerous other statements on the First Amendment.
For example, in addition to his other statements previously noted, Jefferson also declared that the "power to prescribe any religious exercise. . . . must rest with the States" (emphasis added). Nevertheless, the federal courts ignore this succinct declaration and choose rather to misuse his separation phrase to strike down scores of State laws which encourage or facilitate public religious expressions. Such rulings against State laws are a direct violation of the words and intent of the very one from whom the courts claim to derive their policy.
Naturally, the Left never lets truth or context get in the way of its Godless, tyrannical agenda, and in this low tradition, Mr. Schweitzer does not disappoint. He carries on and on about how offensive it is for those who don't believe in God, or who believe in a different god, to have to endure hearing Christian prayers (the horror!). He even cites as "a demonstration of where things will go once we become a Christian nation" an example of vandalism accompanied by a threatening note left at the home of one of the plaintiffs. After all, there is such a huge rash of Christian vandals running around destroying the property of others. Yeah, sure.
Mr. Schweitzer wraps up his leftist lament with these histrionics, again invoking the bizarre comparison of brutish, militant Islam to peaceful Christianity:
The Supreme Court ruling is another giant leap toward theocracy. We are descending to new lows, where non-Christians are openly scorned, made to stand up in public to be identified as outcasts. Our founding fathers are crying in shame and frustration. Welcome to the United States of Iran. Every American should today weep for our country.
What the majority of right-minded Americans weep for is that there are such God-hating citizens among us (you know, the ones who viciously and openly scorn Christians), people who stupidly declare that a simple ruling upholding our inalienable rights is somehow a wicked, dangerous thing. That there are truly such misguided people in our formerly-free Republic is rightly cause for weeping, because it is people like Mr. Schweitzer who, by their writings and activism, aggressively work to undo the inherent freedoms bestowed upon us by our Creator.
© Gina Miller
May 6, 2014
Listen to an audio version of this column
Liberals are having blown-gasket fits over Monday's Supreme Court ruling that – gasp! – Americans are indeed free to pray at public meetings, just as we always have been throughout our history. It is tragic that our nation has become so warped in the head that it is now commonplace for God-haters to routinely succeed in setting terrible court precedents that have polluted and twisted the plain, simple meaning of our God-given, First Amendment-protected rights. The Supreme Court has no authority to take those rights away (nor should it be able to put stipulations on them, as it did in this ruling), but thankfully, on Monday, it reaffirmed them, although only by a one-vote margin. That's the scary part. We're just one, skinny vote away from disaster on any given issue, as we saw with the treasonous "Obamacare" vote lobbed by Chief Justice Quisling-Roberts.
While the Left is quite unhappy that a bit of religious freedom was upheld by the Court, one writer at the Huffington Post was hysterical over it – not the funny kind of hysterical, but the classic, frenzied kind. Jeff Schweitzer's column, "The Supreme Court Rules That Christianity Is Not Christian," is such a long, large anti-Christian lamentation, that if you didn't know any better, you might think that because of this one small ruling, Doomsday is truly upon us.
Mr. Schweitzer calls the decision "a return to pre-revolutionary America," and with the direst of warnings insists that we are barreling straight toward being a theocracy. The silly "theocracy" scarecrow is what the Left always trots out when any of our religious freedoms are upheld.
He wrote:
The Supreme Court agreed with arguments that undermine our most cherished founding principle, the separation of church and state. As you absorb the folly to come, forget not that early settlers made the arduous journey to our shores in part to escape the stifling oppression of a dominant religion.
Upholding our fundamental freedom of religion is "folly"? And this is the "stifling oppression of a dominant religion"? Seriously, Mr. Schweitzer? Where is that occurring in the United States, except maybe in certain areas of Michigan? It may be that Mr. Schweitzer missed the small detail that the Greece, NY City Council never prohibited anyone from giving the opening prayer. It just so happens that the churches in the Greece area are almost all Christian denominations, which is not surprising, since polling shows close to 80 percent of Americans identify as Christian, whether they live it or not.
Mr. Schweitzer goes on to distort the beliefs and intentions of Thomas Jefferson as he writes:
The urgent need to rid the government from the influence of a single religion was Thomas Jefferson's unifying and guiding light. But Jeffersonian principles have been set aside for the convenience of promoting Christianity over all other religions. Welcome to the United States of Saudi Arabia.
What Mr. Schweitzer refuses to acknowledge is that Jefferson did not seek to rid the government of religion at all, but instead, he sought fervently to prevent the central government from infringing on Americans' religious freedom. It's plain throughout his writings, and certainly clear in the widely misused letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. Mr. Schweitzer is correct that "Jeffersonian principles have been set aside," but not for the reasons he declares.
On the "Separation of Church and State" page at Wallbuilders, David Barton sets the Jeffersonian record straight, stating in part:
Jefferson believed that God, not government, was the Author and Source of our rights and that the government, therefore, was to be prevented from interference with those rights. Very simply, the "fence" of the Webster letter and the "wall" of the Danbury letter were not to limit religious activities in public; rather they were to limit the power of the government to prohibit or interfere with those expressions.
... Therefore, if Jefferson's letter is to be used today, let its context be clearly given – as in previous years. Furthermore, earlier Courts had always viewed Jefferson's Danbury letter for just what it was: a personal, private letter to a specific group. There is probably no other instance in America's history where words spoken by a single individual in a private letter – words clearly divorced from their context – have become the sole authorization for a national policy. Finally, Jefferson's Danbury letter should never be invoked as a stand-alone document. A proper analysis of Jefferson's views must include his numerous other statements on the First Amendment.
For example, in addition to his other statements previously noted, Jefferson also declared that the "power to prescribe any religious exercise. . . . must rest with the States" (emphasis added). Nevertheless, the federal courts ignore this succinct declaration and choose rather to misuse his separation phrase to strike down scores of State laws which encourage or facilitate public religious expressions. Such rulings against State laws are a direct violation of the words and intent of the very one from whom the courts claim to derive their policy.
Naturally, the Left never lets truth or context get in the way of its Godless, tyrannical agenda, and in this low tradition, Mr. Schweitzer does not disappoint. He carries on and on about how offensive it is for those who don't believe in God, or who believe in a different god, to have to endure hearing Christian prayers (the horror!). He even cites as "a demonstration of where things will go once we become a Christian nation" an example of vandalism accompanied by a threatening note left at the home of one of the plaintiffs. After all, there is such a huge rash of Christian vandals running around destroying the property of others. Yeah, sure.
Mr. Schweitzer wraps up his leftist lament with these histrionics, again invoking the bizarre comparison of brutish, militant Islam to peaceful Christianity:
The Supreme Court ruling is another giant leap toward theocracy. We are descending to new lows, where non-Christians are openly scorned, made to stand up in public to be identified as outcasts. Our founding fathers are crying in shame and frustration. Welcome to the United States of Iran. Every American should today weep for our country.
What the majority of right-minded Americans weep for is that there are such God-hating citizens among us (you know, the ones who viciously and openly scorn Christians), people who stupidly declare that a simple ruling upholding our inalienable rights is somehow a wicked, dangerous thing. That there are truly such misguided people in our formerly-free Republic is rightly cause for weeping, because it is people like Mr. Schweitzer who, by their writings and activism, aggressively work to undo the inherent freedoms bestowed upon us by our Creator.
© Gina Miller
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