Posted by
Nikko on Tuesday, March 20, 2007 2:30:53 PM
Gilbert
Keith Chesterton in his book, “The Flying Inn” has one of his main
characters say “I think modern people have somehow got their minds all
wrong about human life. They seem to expect what Nature has never
promised; and then they try to ruin all that Nature has really given.
At all those atheist chapels of Ivywood’s they’re always talking of
Peace, Perfect Peace, and Utter Peace, and Universal Joy and souls that
beat as one. But they don’t look any more cheerful than anyone else;
and the next thing they do is to start smashing a thousand good jokes
and good stories and good songs and good friendships by pulling down
‘The Old Ship.’” Sounds familiar.
Most of Chesterton’s writings
show the conflict between Christianity and atheism. In “The Ball and
the Cross” Chesterton chronicles a hot dispute between a devout but
naive Roman Catholic and a zealous but naive atheist.
The words
of one of the early leaders and founders of this nation serve as a
haunting reminder of the need to protect and cherish our Christian
Heritage and our Strength and Innocence of Character.
"A general
dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the
liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While
the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose
their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the
first external or internal invader." --Samuel Adams
Our founding fathers knew from the beginning that if Democracy were to
inevitably survive, men and women of strong character and faith would
be needed as leaders of this nation “under God” and that it did not
stop with them, but that it required men and women of strong character
in all aspects of American life.
Since the end of World War II,
our institutions and our national character have come under ever
increasing attack from those who then claim protection under the first
amendment of the Constitution. I do not wish to deny them this right
nor to deny the principle of free speech. I do wish however, to stop
the erosion of the rights of the many by the working agenda of the few.
James Madison recognized a faction as a group adverse to the rights of
other citizens and states that, “there are two methods of curing the
mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its cause; the other by
controlling its effects.”
To remove the causes of faction would
require the destruction of liberty for, “liberty is to faction what air
is to fire, an ailment without which it instantly expires.”
He
sees the latent causes of faction as sown in the nature of man, which
leads to the conclusion that relief is to be sought only in the means
of controlling its effects, and this relief is supplied by the
republican principle of elected representatives who then pass laws by
which this Republic is governed.
However, that is not the end
of the argument, in the Federalist essay Number 10, Madison comes to
deal with the crucial problem of breaking or controlling the violence
of faction, whether amounting to a majority or minority, by offering
the crucial assumption that a broader republic with its national
Congress representing many sections and groups would overcome and
control the violence of faction, be it either majority or
minority.
Madison saw government as a necessary evil that must be
curbed,
not an instrument for the realization of men’s higher ideals or the
broader interests of the nation. The historian, Richard Hofstadter, has
called this a harmonious system of mutual frustration.
The
first Amendment states that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the
people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a
redress of grievances.
For too long now we have seen the courts uphold the rights of a lone dissenter only to take away the rights of the many.
The
ACLU and the Judiciary prefer to interpret Christianity and any
expression of faith in God as an establishment of religion rather than
faith in a Higher Being that the founders of this nation trusted for
guidance while defining this nation, its Christian Heritage and its
Constitution only to ignore the next sentence in the Bill of Rights
which states that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free
exercise thereof. Perhaps we should change the wording of the
Constitution to say that Congress and Federal Judges shall make no law
prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
In this instance it
would appear that Madison’s thinking and his central aim to stop people
from turning easily to the government for help is a lost exercise of
the intellect. The judiciary branch of government, the Federal judges
who are not elected but appointed and therefore are not representatives
of the people as such have given to themselves a power that the
Constitution does not give even to Congress.
The real issue
then is whether or not any federal judge has the right to interfere
with state actions that may or may not have anything to do with or
constitute an establishment of religion.
The 10th Amendment to
the Constitution states that “The powers not delegated to the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are
reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The power to
make laws regarding an establishment of religion, having been
explicitly withheld from the United States by the 10th Amendment, is
therefore reserved to the states or to the people.
The attack
on the Constitution may or may not have started with Roe v. Wade, but
it certainly was a critical juncture that opened up for Justice Harry
Blackmun and his view that, the document he had sworn to uphold, could
and should be altered according to liberal prejudice and judicial whim
rather than the Republic’s rule by law and the founders idea of
principles that do not change.
Now we see the institution of
marriage coming under attack from the ACLU, the NEA or National
Education Association Teachers Union, the Judiciary and a minority
group with an agenda claiming that they wish only to have the same
rights as married couples of both sexes. This is far from the truth and
their attempts to equate their quest with that of the Civil Rights
Movement is nothing but an attempt to impose an acceptance of a life
style that is alien to Christians and all who believe that
heterosexuality is the norm.
We as Christians, have the
obligation to minister to and to certainly have compassion for and to
accept them as children of God. There should be no hatred of people
from either direction. Happiness and freedom through Jesus Christ is
and should be every one's goal.
Judicial Tyranny must not and cannot be tolerated in Massachusetts or any where else in this country.
As long as they continue to legislate from the bench, we as citizens
must resist. The homosexual agenda can be seen only as one more example
of an attack upon our economic and social conditions our institutions
and our national character. Forgive me, but I grow weary.
It is
time, it is time to reclaim our rights as Christians and proclaim the
principles of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence with
enough vigor that those who seek to attack our national character begin
to tremble. We are now
and forever “One Nation Under God.”