Tag Archives: US Constitution

religious news, State news

Texas AG speaks to the faithful

faith

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been quiet lately … since his indictment in Collin County on charges of securities fraud.

The case hasn’t yet been settled. Paxton, though, spoke to a conservative political group, Texas Values, and asserted that Christians are being “marginalized” in public life.

I believe I’ll disagree with him on that.

Paxton calls for Christians to seek public office

I agree with the attorney general that people of faith should run. They should rely on their faith to inform their decisions. I cannot question either of those two notions that Paxton put forward.

Then again, I welcome people without faith to run as well. This country belongs to them as much as it belongs to believers.

Moreover, I have to draw the line on the idea that the so-called “marginalization” is anything new.

The U.S. Constitution has been quite clear on the role that faith should play in government. The founders knew what they were doing when they omitted the very word “religion” in the document. The only reference comes in Article VI, which declares that “no religious test” shall be applied to candidates running for public office.

Isn’t that crystal clear? It is to me.

Not to Paxton, apparently.

According to the Texas Tribune: “It’s important to understand opponents of religious liberty aren’t going away anytime soon,” said Paxton, a Republican, as he spoke to a crowd of about 100 people gathered at Pflugerville’s First Baptist Church. “We must refuse to be marginalized in the name of political correctness.”

Political correctness? What’s he talking about?

Religious liberty is a comprehensive term. It means different things to different people. To some, it means that we should be free to practice whatever faith we wish. To others, sadly, it means believing only in the faith they worship, as many Muslim-Americans have learned over the years when they encounter protests from non-Muslims.

And to even more Americans, the term “religious liberty” means being guaranteed the right to not worship any faith at all.

I do not believe what Paxton said in Pflugerville that there’s been an “ugly and frightening turn of events” that turns on people of faith who seek and hold public office.

If he’s referring to that Kentucky county clerk who refuses to grant marriage licenses to gay couples — and I suspect that’s Paxton’s point of reference — I’ll just remind him that she took an oath to serve all the residents of her county.

Even those who are gay.

 

national news

What harm do background checks bring?

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gun-control

I am a law-abiding, taxpaying, loyal American patriot, who once wore my country’s uniform and went to war to protect it.

I also own a couple of rifles. They’re hidden away. I don’t take them out very often.

But as the nation today ponders the impact of the latest mass shooting by a maniac, this time at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., I am compelled to ponder: What would happen if I went to a gun store to purchase a firearm and was forced to wait a few days while the government performed a background check?

President Obama has called yet again for more stringent laws that might help prevent future maniacs from getting their hands on a gun.

Gun-rights groups — chiefly the National Rifle Association — will argue against any such action, contending it would violate the Second Amendment guarantee that Americans have the right to “keep and bear arms.”

Suppose we had mandatory background checks.

I’d go into the gun store. I’d select my weapon of choice. I would pay for the firearm. But I couldn’t take it home. Why? The business owner would submit my name to, say, the FBI or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for that mandatory federal background check.

I would wait a number of days. Let’s say it’s a week.

The check comes back. I’m clean. I can then pick up my firearm, take it home … and perhaps store it along with the two rifles I already own.

Have my Second Amendment rights been “infringed”? Have I been denied the right to “keep and bear arms”? Is the government going to disarm me?

No to all three things.

Why on God’s Earth can’t we enact a law that might prevent someone else from committing the kind of dastardly act that took place today in Roseburg?

 

national news

Here we go again … more gun violence

Guns-In-America

The list of cities and towns that have become synonymous with gun violence keeps growing.

Littleton, Austin, Blacksburg, Tucson, Newtown, Charleston, Aurora, Killeen. I know I’ve missed a few.

Let’s add Roseburg to that infamous list. A gunman today opened fire at Umpqua Community College in southern Oregon. Ten people were killed.

The gunman died in a fire fight with police.

Gun violence erupts again

This one hurts. It happened in my home state.

I’ll tell you just a bit about Roseburg. It’s a conservative community. Douglas County derives much of its income from logging. It’s a pretty part of the state, rather peaceful … really! Many residents there like to hunt deer and elk.

But here’s the latest version of the same question many of us keep asking when these spasms of violence erupt: Isn’t there a way to impose reasonable regulations that can keep guns out of the hands of maniacs while protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens?

I know what the Second Amendment says. It ends with the phrase ” … the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

I endorse that principle. Honestly.

However, I keep coming back to the idea that stricter regulations — such as background checks on every person who purchases a firearm — can protect citizens’ right to “keep and bear arms” while denying permission to others who might pose a threat to society.

Gun-rights group and their powerful allies in Washington believe we have enough regulations on the books already. Bad guys will get guns no matter what, they contend.

If that’s the case, that no additional regulation is going to stop forever the kind of senseless carnage that erupted today in Roseburg, then are we going to just continue with the status quo and do nothing to tighten the rules that could prevent someone in the future from doing what that maniac did today?

The status quo is not working.

 

political news, religious news

Pope steps into U.S. political struggle

francis

Pope Francis got a lot of love from Americans during his whirlwind trip to the United States.

Much of it is deserved. I join many others in applauding the Holy Father’s humanity and humility.

Then he said something today that I find, well, not quite so praiseworthy. He said upon returning to the Vatican that U.S. elected officials have the right to object to performing their duties on matters of conscience.

At issue: gay marriage.

Your Holiness, I believe you are mistaken.

Francis gets it wrong

There, I said it. I hope I’m not struck down for criticizing the pope.

“Conscientious objection must enter into every judicial structure, because it is a right,” he told reporters while flying to Rome.

Fans and allies of embattled Rowan (Ky.) County Clerk Kim Davis are no doubt cheering the pontiff. She has refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples on the basis of her religious faith, which she said opposes gay marriage.

The pope agrees with her, which is his right.

Back to his point about “conscientious objection.” Americans who get elected to public office take a secular oath, even though many of the oaths instruct them to say “so help me God.” Still, the standard oath doesn’t give officeholders the option to object to doing certain duties because their conscience won’t allow it.

It’s a secular oath that binds the officeholder to upholding the laws of the land.

The Supreme Court upheld a challenge to a law — in Kentucky — that banned gay marriage. A gay couple sued and the high court ruled earlier this year that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law for gay couples who want to marry.

So, the county clerk must follow the law.

She is free to quit her public job. She also is free to campaign as a private citizen to make gay marriage illegal. Contrary to what the Holy Father believes, though, Davis or any other public official isn’t free to invoke his or her personal belief in the performance of their public duty — when it discriminates against Americans.

Surely His Holiness knows this.

Hey, I still love the guy.

 

 

national news, political news, religious news

Religion takes center stage

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No-religious-test-of-office-320x1241

Bobby Jindal says Donald Trump isn’t really a Christian.

Ben Carson said — initially, at least — that a Muslim isn’t fit to be president.

Mike Huckabee says Barack Obama is trying to “criminalize” Christianity and that the president is a “pretend” Christian.

Can we stop — please! — with the religion rhetoric?

Jindal was just the latest to ridicule another Republican presidential candidate’s statement of faith. Trump had spoken to the Values Voter Summit and proclaimed his deep Christian faith. Jindal followed him and said Trump has never read the Bible and that he believes only in himself.

Religion has no place here

I kind of get where Jindal, the Louisiana governor, is going with the Trump jabs. Trump opened himself up to the ridicule by proclaiming to a group of zealous conservatives that he’s one of them. Jindal, I suppose, has the right to challenge one of his rivals’ assertions in that regard.

But this continual back and forth regarding candidates’ faith is getting tiresome and, frankly, it misses a critical point about electing the next president of the United States.

The point is that the president is head of a secular state and government. We can argue until hell freezes over about what the founding fathers intended when they wrote the Constitution. But the finished document is as secular as it can possibly be.

The First Amendment spells it out. Congress shall make no law that establishes a state religion, it says. Isn’t that enough evidence of what the founders intended when they established the Bill of Rights in the nation’s government document?

So, let’s cut the talk about who’s a real Christian?

It does not matter.

 

 

national news, political news, religious news

Shocking! County clerk joins GOP

Old fashionet American Constitution with USA Flag.

There once was a time when I argued that many county offices should be made non-partisan … with county clerks being among them.

Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Ky., clerk who’s been in the news lately has demonstrated that perhaps my earlier view was, well, not entirely correct.

Davis today switched from Democrat to Republican, saying that the Democratic Party left her long ago.

Davis joins GOP

Why comment on this? Davis is the county clerk who said she couldn’t issue marriage licenses to gay couples. So, she quit issuing licenses to anyone. She refused to do the job she took an oath to do, which is serve the public and to obey the laws of the land. A federal judge found her in contempt of court, then tossed her into jail for a few days; the same judge released her and then former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — a GOP candidate for president — volunteered to go to jail in her place.

Oh, please.

The public include gay citizens. The laws of the land allows gay people to get married, just like straight people.

Davis said she is acting according to God’s will. God, she said, disapproves of gay marriage. Therefore, she is empowered to flout the oath she took.

Wrong, Ms. Davis.

You are not free to quit performing your job as long as you hold the title of “county clerk.”

With that, she joined the Republican Party. Does the GOP approve of elected public officials tossing aside their sworn oath?

Man, I hope not.

Oh well, if she feel more at home in the GOP, then that’s her call.

Just do your job, Mme. Clerk … or else quit.

 

national news, political news, religious news

The doc softens his view of a Muslim president

deadstate-Ben-Carson

It turns out that Dr. Ben Carson doesn’t really and truly think no Muslim could serve as president of the United States.

The good doctor is right to change his mind … more or less.

Sharia law at issue

Carson  — one of 15 candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination — said on “Meet the Press” that Islam is incompatible with the U.S. Constitution. Thus, he said, he couldn’t ever condone the idea of a Muslim running for president.

Now he says something different — and much more reasonable.

He believes now that if a Muslim were to disavow Sharia law then, by golly, he’d be all right with a Muslim running for — and possibly becoming — president of the United States.

You see — and I am sure Dr. Carson knows this — the Constitution is a secular document to which all presidents swear to defend and protect.

His purported fear of Sharia law was nonsense on its face when he said it over the weekend.

Anyone who takes the oath swears to set his or her religious faith aside when performing the duties of the public office. Sen. John F. Kennedy faced accusations during the 1960 presidential campaign that he would take orders — as a Roman Catholic — from the Vatican. He torched that concern with one speech in September 1960 in which he would promise fealty only to the Constitution were he to win the election.

According to The Hill newspaper: “If someone has a Muslim background, and they’re willing to reject those tenets [of Sharia law] and to accept the way of life we have, and clearly will swear to place our Constitution above their religion,” the 2016 hopeful said in a Monday night interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News Channel, “then I would then be quite willing to support them.”

There you have it. Reason and sanity have taken their rightful place in this discussion.

national news, political news

Birther issue becomes complicated

birther

One would have thought — at least I did — that the birther issue that dogged Barack Obama for his entire first term as president would have ended when he got re-elected in 2012.

Silly me. What was I thinking?

Now we have another presidential candidate with a citizenship issue to resolve — in the eyes of some.

It’s getting complicated.

Ted Cruz is the problem. Why?

Well, the junior U.S. senator from Texas in fact was born in another country … Canada, to be exact. His mother is an American; dad is a Cuban. But the Republican presidential candidate’s citizenship has been resolved because of his mother’s heritage. The Constitution only requires that one parent needs to be a citizen in order to qualify someone to run for president.

That didn’t matter with critics of President Obama, whose late mother also was an American. He was born in Hawaii, one of our states. He has produced a birth certificate that confirms what he has said all along.

Then someone stood up in a New Hampshire town hall discussion the other day and declared that Obama is a foreign-born Muslim.

Donald Trump, another GOP presidential candidate, was running the meeting. He didn’t come to the president’s defense on that nonsensical statement.

Why not? Well, according to some, Ted Cruz’s presence on the national political stage complicates it for Trump.

If he comes to Obama’s defense, then he all but admits his own questioning of the president’s constitutional eligibility was a sham. If he defends Cruz, then that, too, eliminates his own ridiculous doubts about whether Barack Obama was qualified to hold the office to which he’s been twice elected.

Ted Cruz is qualified to run for president. Barack Obama is qualified to hold that office.

Politicians have apologized in the past for making false statements … haven’t they?

Isn’t it time for Donald Trump to come clean and admit he, um, made a mistake?

national news, political news, religious news

No place for religious bigotry

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ellison

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., is one of just two Muslim members of Congress.

He has just posted this item on social media. I feel compelled to share it here.

He is answering two leading Republican presidential candidates’ recent assertions about those who practice the Islamic faith.

Ellison writes:

“The freedom of religion is a founding principle of our nation. Our Constitution gives this right to all Americans – including elected officials. For Ben Carson, Donald Trump, or any other Republican politician to suggest that someone of any faith is unfit for office is out of touch with who we are as a people. It’s unimaginable that the leading GOP presidential candidates are resorting to fear mongering to benefit their campaigns, and every American should be disturbed that these national figures are engaging in and tolerating blatant acts of religious bigotry.”

I believe I’ll let Rep. Ellison’s words stand on their own.

 

religious news

Muslims, Christians … whatever

Image #: 21630241 Dr. Benjamin Carson, director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, speaks to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, March 16, 2013. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS HEALTH) REUTERS /JONATHAN ERNST /LANDOV

Ben Carson now has weighed in on the matter of religion and politics.

The good doctor’s take: Americans shouldn’t elect a Muslim as president, apparently because he believes the faith isn’t compatible with the U.S. Constitution.

Carson weighs in

I’m trying to find where in the Constitution it speaks to its compatibility with any religion. The only thing I can determine is that the Constitution — the finished document — is expressly non-religious. It doesn’t condone any religion. Not Christianity, or Judaism, not Islam, not Buddhist, Hindu or Shinto.

Surely, Dr. Carson — one of 16 individuals seeking the Republican presidential nomination — knows this. Doesn’t he?

It’s neutral. Get it? The only reference I can find even to the word “religion” is in Article VI, where it declares “no religious test” shall be given to anyone seeking public office anywhere in the United States of America.

How about we not talk about whether one’s religious faith qualifies — or disqualifies — him or her from serving a nation that comprises people of many faiths?