Huff-Po writer horrified at Supreme Court prayer
ruling
By Gina Miller
RenewAmerica.com
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.