Scottie Hughes - Why a Solution Will Destroy the Democratic Party

We have problems in America. The most obvious is a busted budget, an overtaxed citizenry (at least for the 53% who pay into the system), another push on gun control, a broken immigration system, a socialist healthcare model and gay marriage rights. The litany of challenges we face goes on. They plague our political discourse with negativity and dissension.

This in a country that can find cures for certain cancers, use technology to discover new galaxies, and perhaps most stunning to this parent, a country that create devices that can hold my children’s attention for more than an hour. And yet why can’t we find a solution to these never ending arguments?

It’s simple, really. Those on the left don’t want America to find a solution! They thrive and survive on the concept of making sure there will always be a victim.

A solution would bring peace. A solution would bring harmony. A solution would also be devastating to the Democratic Party, which thrives on misery and conflict.

Take immigration. The left loves to reignite the immigration debate, if for no other reason than they practically hear the 12 million illegals registering as Democrats every time they hurl around the word “amnesty.” Then they try and invoke sadness by telling stories of families ripped apart by our border, unable to celebrate holidays together because anchor provisions don’t exist. Last, they appeal to our ego by saying American citizens don’t want to do the work these migrant workers perform.

The Republicans play into their trap by offering half-measure solutions and “compromises” which cause major splintering within our own party. Great Tea Party supporters like Sen. Marco Rubio are instantly demonized despite their almost perfect Conservative track record except in this issue.

The truth is the main reason why immigrants aren't going home is because of legislation like this. We are incentivizing people to break the law, just like the 1986 immigration "reform" bill did.

I have sympathy for those who want to become Americans, and those who are here. But I also have sympathy for the hundreds of thousands around the world who want to come here legally. They wait for hours at consulates, go through lotteries, and sometimes that takes years. Why should they go to the back of the line?

Imagine someone breaks into your home and then the police show up and say they can stay because they can't do anything about. Is that going to encourage criminals or discourage them? If we're not a nation of law and order and process than we're not really a nation. It's said the reason we need to pass this law is because we are ineffective at enforcing our existing laws. That's a sad commentary on America.

Gun control is one issue that should unify the Republican base. The other side’s playbook is as tired as it is predictable. There is the constant grandstanding with victim’s family members of mass shootings. What we have yet to see is any press conference held on an inner city street corner with gang members vowing to turn in their handguns.

The playbook also requires trotting out easily punctured myths. Take for example the gun show loophole.” A Bureau of Justice Statistics report on “Firearms Use by Offenders” found that fewer than 1% of U.S. “crime guns” came from gun shows, with repeat offenders even less likely than first-timers to buy guns from any retail source. Gun shows are touted by the left (and right) as a problem- but they’re not.

Pro-gun legislators often will say they’re not looking to ban private sales; they just want background checks to occur. But again, how can a sale be a private sale if it must first be run through a federal agency? But more pressing than any other question, how can ANY of these measures would have or could have stopped Sandy Hook? The gun used was grandfathered in and exempt from an “assault weapons” ban that had been in place in Connecticut since 1994, the mother was allowed to have it. Days before the killing, the shooter went to a Dick’s Sporting Goods to buy a rifle and was denied- the current system worked. He went home, killed his mother and used her gun.

No matter what happens, the left will continue to paint conservatives as bloodthirsty and heartless. The ironic part is that we hear silence from the left when the issue of killing unborn children is raised. Only through the intrepid efforts of a few citizen journalists on the right did Americans ever hear the name Kermit Gosnell.

What would the left do if Republicans proposed a series of bills that gave them everything they have been wishing for yet because the Republicans proposed it, we would get all the credit with the different demographic groups? Would the left fight us as we gave them back a taste of their own medicine, as the Democratic Party would be in certain chaos? I predict we would see that exact same problem occur on the left that is now happening on the right. Infighting, division, demonization, and ultimately implosion would eventually occur, as the Democratic Party would not be able to exist without the concept of a victim. The only problem would be that if we accepted the complete liberal agenda as they propose, America as we know it today would be the ultimate victim.

Scottie Hughes

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Matt Barber - Religious Freedom and ‘Gay Marriage’ Cannot Coexist

Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. – Psalm 73:6

“Gay pride” necessitates anti-Christian hate. It must. “Gay marriage” and other “sexual orientation”-based laws do violence to freedom and truth. They are the hammer with which the postmodern left intends to bludgeon bloody religious liberty and the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic.

According to the unequivocal moral precepts of the Judeo-Christian tradition – explicit throughout both the Old and New Testaments – homosexual behavior is a sin. Sin is evil. Homosexual behavior is the central, defining characteristic of so-called “gay marriage.” Therefore, “gay marriage” is evil. Christians are obligated to avoid sin – to “do no evil.”

I know; it’s not popular to speak such simple truths in today’s politically correct world. But I’m not out to win a popularity contest.

Neither is Ms. Barronelle Stutzman. Ms. Stutzman is the Christian owner-operator of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Wash. She is, by all accounts, a lovely, sweet, elderly woman who both employs and regularly serves open practitioners of the homosexual lifestyle. Sadly, she has become the latest victim in a fast-growing string of secularist attacks against Christians and other morally minded people. If “same-sex marriage” becomes the law of the land, I can assure you that we will soon see a virtual explosion in the same kind of anti-Christian persecution Ms. Stutzman now suffers.

Recently, one of Ms. Stutzman’s frequent homosexual customers requested that she provide flower arrangements for his same-sex “wedding.” She politely declined, saying that her Christian conscience and “relationship with Jesus Christ” prevented her from any involvement with counter-Christian “same-sex marriage.” She was, quite simply, a Christian being Christian. The two hugged and parted ways.

Unfortunately, in our ever-”progressive” culture, being Christian has fast become a most dangerous proposition. As each homofascist demand is checked from liberals’ sin-centric wish list, it only gets worse.

As a result of her constitutionally guaranteed religious free exercise, Washington State’s newly elected Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed charges against Ms. Stutzman, seeking both a monetary judgment and an injunction to physically force her to violate her Christian conscience. He would compel her to either lend her artistic expression in support of counterfeit “gay marriage” – something Christianity steadfastly recognizes as mortal sin – or face further charges.

Speaking of steadfast, to her credit, Ms. Stutzman has stood firm. She has refused to cave under Ferguson’s tyrannical torment. Ferguson, on the other hand, has revealed himself a creep and a coward – a “progressive” bully who apparently gets off on abusing elderly women. He’s a disgrace to Washington State and should be thrown out of office and disbarred.

Still, this type of government persecution must be expected. Ferguson is a liberal. The liberal viewpoint is that any viewpoint, save the liberal viewpoint, must be criminalized and prosecuted.

Like many of us, Joseph Backholm, with the Family Policy Institute of Washington, has long warned about the consequences of radically deconstructing the institution of natural marriage. “Now that the law says marriage is genderless,” he recently wrote of Ms. Stutzman’s ongoing abuse, “those who think otherwise [must] … conform or be punished. … Now liberals believe they are legally entitled to someone else’s labor.”

To homosexuals I say this: Yes, you are equal in God’s eyes. You are loved. These things are true, not because of your homosexual lifestyle, but, rather, they are true in spite of it.

Most homosexuals know intuitively, I think, that their lifestyle is unnatural and immoral and that the oxymoronic notion of “same-sex marriage” is a silly farce. Thus, they must force others to affirm both their self-destructive lifestyle and their mock “marriages” under penalty of law. They must physically compel everyone to engage their “emperor’s new clothes” delusion, so they can feel better about bad behavior.

Well, my friend, making everyone else “call evil good and good evil” won’t fill that dark void in your soul. Only repentance and redemption through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ can do that.

When we give deviant sexual conduct preferred status in law, Christian morality becomes illegal. If you think government-recognized “gay marriage” is harmless to society, you’re playing the fool. It places the Christian sexual ethic and free exercise of religion in direct conflict with law. It’s my sense that many liberty-minded people are finally coming awake to this disturbing reality.

Although we all sin, Christians are commanded to neither support nor engage in evil. Hence, Christians – true Christians – cannot engage in nor condone the unrepentant practice of homosexual behavior. Neither can we support sin-centric “gay marriage.”

This rudimentary equation is built upon the natural laws of moral physics. Christianity is magnetically charged truth. Homosexual behavior is a magnetically charged lie – a spiritual and biological falsehood. Christianity and homosexual sin are as north to south. Polar opposites cannot occupy the same position in time and space. They repel one another. It’s physically, spiritually and legally impossible for religious freedom and preferred legal status for sexual sin to coexist in harmony. Ms. Stutzman’s persecution is just the latest example of this timeless reality.

Why are Christians so afraid to call sin sin? It’s time for invertebrate believers to grow a backbone. Truth, in love, is the balance. Yes, the world will hate you, because it first hated Christ. So what? Count it a blessing – even unto death.

Here’s my recommendation: When those who are lost to the world hate on you, laugh at them. Then cry for them. Then pray for them. Follow Christ’s example and ask, as did He, that God “forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Then get up, dust yourself off and get back in the fight.

Albert Einstein once said, “Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.”

He was right.

Barronelle Stutzman followed this advice and – though she currently faces government persecution for her choice – she has also become an accidental hero. Pray for her. I know God will surely bless her faithfulness.

Still, know this: If you are a Christian in today’s America, you too will almost certainly find yourself with a similar decision to make. When man’s law violates God’s law, you will have to choose which to obey. Choosing God can mean persecution.

I’ve made my choice.

How will you choose?

Matt Barber

Matt Barber served as Policy Director for Cultural Issues with Concerned Women for America before joining Liberty University School of Law in 2008. In addition to his Juris Doctorate degree, Dean Barber holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from Regent University and a Bachelor of Science in Organizational Management from Colorado Christian University.

Matt Barber is a published freelance writer, many newspapers and online publications run his columns, including the Washington Examiner, Washington Times, Insight magazine, WorldNetDaily.com, TownHall.com and many others.

Matt Barber was a law enforcement officer for three years and a corporate fraud investigator for five years.

Matt Barber served twelve years in the Army National Guard, and was an undefeated professional boxer, retiring in 2004. Several times prior to turning pro, he was a state and regional Golden Gloves champion, competing in the 1992 Western Olympic Trials and winning a Gold Medal in the 1993 Police and Fire World Games.

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Michael Brown - Drinking the Same-Sex "Marriage" Kool-Aid

As leader after leader comes out in favor of the radical redefinition of marriage, it is becoming increasingly clear that what is driving most, if not all of them, is not biblical values, or the institution of marriage, or the long-term good of society. Instead, they are driven by polling, popularity, and a superficial pragmatism. This is what happens when you drink the same-sex “marriage” Kool-aid!

Consider Illinois Senator Mark Kirk, who on April 2nd announced his support for same-sex “marriage.” He explained that “Same-sex couples should have the right to civil marriage. Our time on this earth is limited, I know that better than most.” (Senator Kirk recently had a serious stroke.)

Then, for his intended coup de grace: “Life comes down to who you love and who loves you back — government has no place in the middle.”

What? These are the words of an elected U.S. senator?

Does Kirk not understand that the government does not get involved with the question of “who you love and who loves you back” but rather with the institution of marriage?

Does he not understand that the reason society conveys benefits on marriage is because marriage conveys benefits on society, namely, the ability (as a rule) to produce children for the next generation and to join those children to their mother and father? (Newsflash: It still takes a man and a woman to produce a child, and that is why it has always taken a man and a woman to constitute a marriage.)

And does Kirk really believe that the government should redefine marriage based on “who you love and who loves you back”? If so, then the government needs to recognize any loving relationship as “marriage,” regardless of age, number, or gender. But this is what Senator Kirk proudly declared.

Behold the effects of drinking the same-sex “marriage” Kool-aid!

Consider next the left-leaning Christian leader Jim Wallis. Although in 2008, Wallis had argued that “justice” requires us to support (and even bless) same-sex unions, he also stated clearly that, “I don’t think the sacrament of marriage should be changed. Some people say that Jesus didn’t talk about homosexuality, and that’s technically true. But marriage is all through the Bible, and it’s not gender-neutral.”

Now, Wallis has declared his support for the radical redefinition of marriage, explaining, “I think we have to talk about, now, how to include same-sex couples in that deeper understanding of marriage. I want a deeper commitment to marriage that is more and more inclusive, and that’s where I think the country is going.”

What? These are the words of a noted Christian leader?

How seriously can Jim Wallis be taken when he tells us in 2008 that “marriage is all through the Bible, and it’s not gender-neutral” and then in 2013 wants to make it gender-neutral? And how can he imagine that by removing the most essential components of marriage, namely one man and one woman, marriage will be made stronger? This would be like suggesting that, since car sales are down, we’ll say that bicycles and motorcycles are cars. (This is not meant to be a precise analogy but rather illustrative.)

And if Wallis truly wants to make marriage “more and more inclusive,” then he needs to embrace polygamous marriage and polyamorous marriage and more. Does he really mean what he says?

And has Wallis forgotten that as Christians, we do not determine our values by looking at where “the country is going”? Instead, as followers of Jesus, we are called to swim against the conformist, worldly tide of the age, calling society back to the timeless ways of God. Yet Jim Wallis wants to redefine marriage and make it “gender-neutral” based on where the country is going.

Behold the effects of drinking the same-sex “marriage” Kool-aid!

Finally, let’s consider the Democratic Party. According to an April 5th report on ABCNews, “What began as a slow drip has turned into a flood over the last two weeks of Senate Democrats switching long-held positions and now coming out publically to endorse same sex marriage.”

And what, pray tell, explains this “flood”? “. . . ABC News/Washington Post reveals that support is now up to 58 percent for gay marriage in the most recent [poll] up from 32 percent nine years ago.”

Well there you have it! Gay “marriage” is trending. What else are politicians to do?

Behold the effects of drinking the same-sex “marriage” Kool-aid!

Brendan O’Neill, editor of Spiked-Online.com, recently wrote that, “Anyone who values diversity of thought and tolerance of dissent should find the sweeping consensus on gay marriage terrifying.”

It is not just terrifying. It is enlightening.

Dr. Michael Brown

Michael Brown holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and is the author of 20 books. He has served as a professor at a number of seminaries and hosts the nationally syndicated, daily talk radio show, the Line of Fire.

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Kevin McCullough - Why Bill O'Reilly is Wrong About The Bible

For the last two weeks Bill O'Reilly has committed multiple journalistic mis-steps.

As long as he is allowed to define the terms of the narrative of what happened they will not be corrected. His failure to do so is a massive public relations problem and a mis-step in itself.

He owes a significant demo of his viewership an apology. He owes them one quickly so that his previously demonstrable prejudice against people of faith does not cause unintended long term effects.

"The compelling argument is on the side of homosexuals,” O’Reilly said on his evening broadcast March 26, 2013. “The argument on the other side hasn’t been able to do anything but thump the Bible.”

The final half of that statement is erroneous. Some would assert--knowingly so. In saying it O'Reilly is either ignorant of the process, or negligent of the facts.

Laura Ingraham attempted to help him see as much on April 2, 2013, but the host ran over his guest and used her as a rhetorical punching bag. He also compounded the original problem.

"I made a very honest point... That if you're going to stand up for heterosexual marriage, and exclude gay marriage, if you're going to do that... You've got to do it outside the Bible. You can't cite the Bible. Because you'll lose if you do," O'Reilly attempted to explain.

When Ingraham very politely attempted to explain that the statement was itself disrespectful, the host went off.

"It's not disrespectful... In their private life they can. We're talking a policy deal here," O'Reilly shouted at Ingraham. "Don't you understand (eyes squinting with a soured look plastered on his face) the difference between private beliefs, and public policy? There was no insult at all to any Christian belief system in that comment. There was no insult!"

But Mr. O'Reilly there was, and you added another insult in the follow up with Ingraham. Here's where you went wrong:

1. In the first statement O'Reilly asserted that the side arguing in favor of leaving marriage defined as it has been for over 5000 years had done nothing but "thump the Bible." The term itself is always used derogatorily and usually in demeaning fashion to describe those who study sacred scripture, adopt its principles for their lives and attempt to be true to its meaning. It should be understood that the group O'Reilly was really describing wasn't any specific religion at all, but rather all people who are devout to the sacred moral law of their religious beliefs--be they Evangelical, Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, Mormon, Buddhist, Muslim, etc. But O'Reilly is aware of the culture war, specifically measured out against Christians and as such he has to be aware of how the term is used to demean pro-family voters specifically.
2. His original statement is entirely inaccurate. In the Supreme Court arguments, and much more thoroughly in the many court cases leading up to it, and from the very earliest of the public debate over whether marriage should be changed and redefined, the pro-family side has always used abundant amounts of historical precedent, documented research, and case law to argue it's side. Perhaps Mr. O'Reilly just plain didn't pay attention, but Senior Counsel Paul Clement arguing on behalf of DOMA before the Supreme Court used specific previous historical precedent and case law to argue--for example--the federal government's right to limit the institution of marriage and the laws governing marriage. Clement rightfully argued that the federal government had banned polygamy, and in some cases expanded marital protections from the civil war era. These and other arguments had literally zero to do with the Bible, or even religious teaching.
3. By asserting that the Bible itself, and the moral code it argues for can not even be "cited" is to arrogantly ignore the will of the people of the nation, who base much of their life on the moral codes contained therein. It is also completely disingenuous. The original basis for most of our basic laws stem from the ten commandments. The original version of any form of recorded law is the Bible, and the founders of the United States sought the God of the Bible (Nature's God) in establishing the most moral system of law our world had ever seen. So to assert--as O'Reilly clearly did--that the Bible can not so much as even be a piece of the discussion ultimately dooms, what is largely an issue that is based on moral behavior, to be decided upon entirely secular or non-moral, amoral, or immoral viewpoints. To refuse even citation from the Bible, is to also arrogantly assume that 5000 years of humanity that observes its moral code from the Bible, was unenlightened and unworthy of a voice in a discussion as important as this.
4. By claiming that the citizens of this nation do not deserve a place in this debate is to misunderstand federalism and the individual's control of government in our representative Republic. But to assert that those citizens may only engage the debate if and only if they disallow the impact of their moral character, moral beliefs, and moral code to contribute to what in essence amounts to a discussion of morality is disrespectful--to most of America. Remember that in all but one state, where voters have been allowed to decide the matter of redefining marriage have the voters ever actually done so. Even in quite leftist states like California, the voters have--in overwhelming numbers--on multiple ballots--rejected the idea of redefining marriage. You also need to understand Mr. O'Reilly that people who live by the Bible, generally tend to allow it's impact to touch all areas of their lives, hence it's almost impossible for one to both believe the Bible privately and it not have an impact on all things in their lives publicly.

The idea of the First Amendment is to protect religious people and practice from coming under assault by the force of the federal government. But no where in our nation's founding, nor courts, has there ever been an idea upheld that said religious people can not participate in the governance of our nation.

Mr. O'Reilly, respectfully, you owe American Bible-believers an apology, but if you wouldn't listen to Limbaugh, Ingraham, or McCullough, at least listen to your instinct to hopefully not permanently injure your prospects with one of the most important demos to your show.

After all Bible-believers also firmly believe in... forgiveness!

Kevin McCullough

Kevin McCullough is the nationally syndicated host of "The Kevin McCullough Show" weekdays (7-9am EST) & "Baldwin/McCullough Radio" Saturdays (9-11pm EST) on 289 stations & Sirius/XM . His newest best-selling hardcover from Thomas Nelson Publishers, "No He Can't: How Barack Obama is Dismantling Hope and Change" is in stores now.

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Stoplight - Stuart Shepard - Apples

A lunchtime conversation offers some insights on marriage.

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Is Bill O'Reilly becoming Ted Baxter

Bill O'Reilly thinks to highly of himself. Bill talks over people, will not let anyone get a word in edgewise and attacks anyone who does not agree 100% with his viewpoint. This session with Laura Ingraham is NOT an isolated incident. Bill also defends Barack Obama on many issues which are indefensible. This is why I do NOT use Bill O'Reilly videos on this website. RG (WJF)

Background on O'Reilly Losing His Cool:

O’Reilly in a late March show said that gay marriage proponents have successfully defined it as a civil rights issue, which he called a “compelling” argument that social conservatives have yet to counter.

“The other side hasn’t been able to do anything but thump the Bible,” O'Reilly said.

Rush Limbaugh took umbrage at this. On his own radio show last Wednesday (3/27/13), he took out after O’Reilly, calling him “Ted Baxter," after the pompous anchor from the old Mary Tyler Moore show.

O’Reilly had “marginalized” many religious Fox News viewers with his statement, said Mr. Limbaugh.

“A lot of them do have a very deeply held religious belief about what traditional marriage is,” said Ingraham.

O’Reilly countered that he was not insulting people’s religious belief.

“Why did you use the word ‘thump?’ ” asked Ingraham.

“Because that’s the way you get it across,” said O’Reilly.

Mary Tyler Moore - Shut Up Ted

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Emily Miller - GOP Infighting Over Immigration

"There are numerous members of the Republican Party, which gets roughly 50% of the vote nationally, that want to dump social issues so we can be more like the Libertarian Party, which gets about 1% of the vote nationally."
John Hawkins



This is so true and I scratch my head every time Libertarians say we must be like them to win elections?

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Matt Barber - Marriage is What it is

“It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is,” said the smooth-talking, skirt-chasing, totally busted philanderer.

“Well, no, Bill,” replied Congress. “Actually, things just ‘is’ what they is.”

Here’s what marriage is: The God-ordained, lifelong, covenantal union between man and wife, designed to provide men, women and children optimal stability and overall well-being. Marriage is that biologically, spiritually and morally centered institution calculated to ensure responsible procreation and perpetuate the human race. Marriage – real marriage – represents the fundamental cornerstone of any healthy society (any society that hopes to survive, at least).

Here’s what marriage is not: Anything else.

In short, marriage is what it is.

That our nation has fallen so far, so fast in its embrace of empty relativism makes the head swim. It’s at once perplexing and heartbreaking that we have a U.S. Supreme Court seriously considering inventing a newfangled “right” to that chicane aberration tagged “same-sex marriage.” This is true particularly when one considers that the defining behaviors central to “gay marriage” were, for hundreds of years and for obvious reasons, legally and properly classified as “crimes against nature.” Though our postmodern zeitgeist may have changed, objective reality has not.

Indeed, American culture, while casting aside that which is just, moral and true, has, instead, taken-up that which is unjust, immoral and false. This abject rejection of absolute truth provides compelling evidence that the good ‘ol USA – the greatest nation on earth – is on the fast track to becoming “the late, great USA.”

So-called “gay marriage” is a counterfeit – a mockery of legitimate marriage. It’s like taking a rotten apple, spray-painting it orange, and then calling it an orange. “Same-sex marriage” is no more real marriage then a rotten apple is an orange. It’s mock marriage.

One of the best appraisals I’ve read on marriage was presented in 2003 to the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI). Among other things, the future pontiff explicitly recognized the empirical fact that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” Following are excerpts from his treatise titled “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons”:

The Church’s teaching on marriage and on the complementarity of the sexes reiterates a truth that is evident to right reason and recognized as such by all the major cultures of the world. Marriage is not just any relationship between human beings. It was established by the Creator with its own nature, essential properties and purpose. No ideology can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man and a woman … in order to cooperate with God in the procreation and upbringing of new human lives. …

In the first place, man, the image of God, was created “male and female” (Gen 1:27). Men and women are equal as persons and complementary as male and female. Sexuality is something that pertains to the physical-biological realm and has also been raised to a new level – the personal level – where nature and spirit are united. …

There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts “close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.”

To be sure, “marriage equality” already exists. It is, quite simply, the self-evident truth that both husband and wife are co-equal, indispensable partners essential to the formulation of a marriage covenant. While moral relativists clamor for their propagandist version of “marriage equality,” the rest of us live in marriage reality.

Every single mentally competent adult enjoys the right to marry within exactly the same parameters required by natural law. Thus, “equal protection under the law” is afforded to all. As long as your spouse-to-be is 1) not too closely related, 2) of legal age, 3) only one person, 4) of the opposite sex and 5) a biped of the genus homo-sapien – then you’re golden. Marry away.

If you remove one requirement – in this case, the binary male-female prerequisite – then there is no justification, logical or legal, for not removing all requirements. If we yank one foundational brick from the marriage wall, then, as in the days of Jericho, the whole danged thing comes a-tumblin’. That is to say, if the Supreme Court rolls out “gay marriage,” then legalized polygamy, incestuous marriage and heaven-knows-what-else must inevitably follow.

Even still, the left loves to suggest that “gay marriage” supporters are “on the right side of history.” This is utter nonsense. Natural marriage has, for all of history, been on the “right side of history;” and so it shall remain.

Another rotten apples-to-oranges false equivalency is to claim that precluding “gay marriage” is akin to banning interracial marriage. Again, this is nonsense. Liberals, in making their case for the former, are quick to cite Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court case that invalidated anti-miscegenation laws.

By comparing “gay marriage” to interracial marriage, leftists endeavor to draw a parallel where none exists. The Loving Court both recognized and affirmed the fundamental man-woman nature of marriage while simply – and rightly so – removing arbitrary and truly discriminatory racial barriers. While Loving left the institution of natural marriage fully intact, a pro-”gay marriage” ruling by the High Court would thoroughly deconstruct it.

In sum, proponents of counterfeit “gay marriage” pretend that normalcy, biology, history, morality and sanity are all irrelevant to the debate. They are not. As counterfeit money devalues the dollar, counterfeit “gay marriage” devalues the institution of legitimate marriage.

Scripture reminds us that, “there is nothing new under the sun.” Ultimately, the oxymoronic notion of “same-sex marriage” is nothing new. It’s both rooted in man’s age-old rebellion against God and ancient pagan sexual morality.

So, I’ll leave you with this fundamental question: Since God undeniably designed marriage to be the exclusive union of man and wife – who, or what, then, do you suppose manufactured the absurd notion of “same-sex marriage?”

I think the answer is pretty clear.

Matt Barber

Matt Barber served as Policy Director for Cultural Issues with Concerned Women for America before joining Liberty University School of Law in 2008. In addition to his Juris Doctorate degree, Dean Barber holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from Regent University and a Bachelor of Science in Organizational Management from Colorado Christian University.

Matt Barber is a published freelance writer, many newspapers and online publications run his columns, including the Washington Examiner, Washington Times, Insight magazine, WorldNetDaily.com, TownHall.com and many others.

Matt Barber was a law enforcement officer for three years and a corporate fraud investigator for five years.

Matt Barber served twelve years in the Army National Guard, and was an undefeated professional boxer, retiring in 2004. Several times prior to turning pro, he was a state and regional Golden Gloves champion, competing in the 1992 Western Olympic Trials and winning a Gold Medal in the 1993 Police and Fire World Games.

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Dr. Ben Carson - Marriage and Easter

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray,
and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways;
then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14 (KJV)

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Stoplight - Framework

In his Stoplight® commentary, Stuart Shepard explains the connection between stacking dominoes and marriage.

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Daniel Greenfield - The Deconstruction of Marriage

Originally Published on the Sultan Knish blog

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The only question worth asking about gay marriage is whether anyone on the left would care about this crusade if it didn't come with the privilege of bulldozing another civilizational institution.



Gay marriage is not about men marrying men or women marrying women, it is about the deconstruction of marriage between men and women. That is a thing that many men and women of one generation understand but have trouble conveying to another generation for whom marriage has already largely been deconstructed.

The statistics about the falling marriage rate tell the tale well enough. Marriage is a fading institution. Family is a flickering light in the evening of the West.

The deconstruction is destruction. Entire countries are fading away, their populations being replaced by emigrants from more traditional lands whose understanding of the male-female relationship is positively reactionary. These emigrants may lack technology or the virtues of civilization, and their idea of marriage resembles slavery more than any modern ideal, but it fulfills the minimum purpose of any group, tribe or country-- it produces its next generation.

The deconstruction of marriage is not a mere matter of front page photos of men kissing. It began with the deconstruction of the family. Gay marriage is only one small stop on a tour that includes rising divorce rates, falling childbirth rates and the abandonment of responsibility by twenty and even thirty-somethings.

Each step on the tour takes apart the definition and structure of marriage until there is nothing left. Gay marriage is not inclusive, it is yet another attempt at eliminating marriage as a social institution by deconstructing it until it no longer exists.

There are two ways to destroy a thing. You can either run at it while swinging a hammer with both hands or you can attack its structure until it no longer means anything.

The left hasn't gone all out by outlawing marriage, instead it has deconstructed it, taking apart each of its assumptions, from the economic to the cooperative to the emotional to the social, until it no longer means anything at all. Until there is no way to distinguish marriage from a temporary liaison between members of uncertain sexes for reasons that due to their vagueness cannot be held to have any solemn and meaningful purpose.

You can abolish democracy by banning the vote or you can do it by letting people vote as many times as they want, by letting small children and foreigners vote, until no one sees the point in counting the votes or taking the process seriously. The same goes for marriage or any other institution. You can destroy it by outlawing it or by eliminating its meaningfulness until it becomes so open that it is absurd.

Every aspect of marriage is deconstructed and then eliminated until it no longer means anything. And once marriage is no longer a lifetime commitment between a man and a woman, but a ceremony with no deeper meaning than most modern ceremonies, then the deconstruction and destruction will be complete.

The deconstruction of marriage eroded it as an enduring institution and then as an exclusive institution and finally as a meaningful institution. The trendy folk who claim to be holding off on getting married until gay marriage is enacted are not eager for marriage equality, they are using it as an excuse for an ongoing rejection of marriage.

Gay marriage was never the issue. It was always marriage.

In the world that the deconstructionists are striving to build, there will be marriage, but it will mean nothing. Like a greeting card holiday, it will be an event, but not an institution. An old ritual with no further meaning. An egotistical exercise in attention-seeking and self-celebration with no deeper purpose. It will be a display every bit as hollow as the churches and synagogues it takes place in.

The deconstruction of marriage is only a subset of the deconstruction of gender from a state of being to a state of mind. The decline of marriage was preceded by the deconstruction of gender roles and gay marriage is being succeeded by the destruction of gender as anything other than a voluntary identity, a costume that one puts on and takes off.

Destroying gender roles was a prerequisite to destroying gender. Each deconstruction leads naturally to the next deconstruction with no final destination except total deconstruction.

Gay marriage is not a stopping point, just as men in women's clothing using the ladies room is not a stopping point. There is no stopping point at all.

The left's deconstruction of social institutions is not a quest for equality, but for destruction. As long as the institutions that preceded it exist, it will go on deconstructing them until there is nothing left but a blank canvas, an unthinking anarchy, on which it can impose its perfect and ideal conception of how everyone should live.

Equality is merely a pretext for deconstruction. Change the parameters of a thing and it ceases to function. Redefine it and expand it and it no longer means anything at all. A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but if you change 'rose' to mean anything that sticks out of the ground, then the entire notion of what is being discussed has gone and cannot be reclaimed without also reclaiming language.

The left's social deconstruction program is a war of ideas and concepts. Claims of equality are used to expand institutions and ways of living until they are so broad as to encompass everything and nothing. And once a thing encompasses everything, once a rose represents everything rising out of the ground, then it also represents nothing at all.

Deconstruction is a war against definitions, borders and parameters. It is a war against defining things by criminalizing the limitation of definitions. With inclusivity as the mandate, exclusivity, in marriage, or any other realm, quickly meets with social disapproval and then becomes a hate crime. If the social good is achieved only through maximum inclusivity and infinite tolerance, then any form of exclusivity, from property to person to ideas, is a selfish act that refuses the collective impulse to make all things into a common property with no lasting meaning or value.

As Orwell understood in 1984, tyranny is essentially about definitions. It is hard to fight for freedom if you lack the word. It is hard to maintain a marriage if the idea no longer exists. Orwell's Oceania made basic human ideas into contradictory things. The left's deconstruction of social values does the same thing to such essential institutions as marriage; which becomes an important impermanent thing of no fixed nature or value.

The left's greatest trick is making things mean the opposite of what they do. Stealing is sharing. Crime is justice. Property is theft. Each deconstruction is accompanied by an inversion so that a thing, once examined, comes to seem the opposite of what it is, and once that is done, it no longer has the old innate value, but a new enlightened one.

To deconstruct man, you deconstruct his beliefs and then his way of living. You deconstruct freedom until it means slavery. You deconstruct peace until it means war. You deconstruct property until it means theft. And you deconstruct marriage until it means a physical relationship between any group of people for any duration. And that is the opposite of what marriage is.

The deconstruction of marriage is part of the deconstruction of gender and family and those are part of the long program of deconstructing man. Once each basic value has been rendered null and void, inverted and revealed to be random and meaningless, then man is likewise revealed to be a random and meaningless creature whose existence requires shaping by those who know better.

The final deconstruction eliminates nation, religion, family and even gender to reduce the soul of man to a blank slate waiting to be written on.

That is what is at stake here. This is not a struggle about the right of equality, but the right of definition. It is not about whether men can get married, but whether marriage will mean anything at all. It is about preserving the shapes and structures of basic social concepts that define our identities in order to preserve those very concepts, rather than accepting their deconstruction into nullification.

The question on the table is whether the institutions that give us meaning will be allowed to retain that meaning. And that question is a matter of survival. Societies cannot survive without definitions. Peoples do not go on existing through the act of occupying space. The deconstruction of identity is also the destruction of identity.

And that is what we are truly fighting against.

Daniel Greenfield

Visit Daniel's Blog Sultan Knish by clicking HERE

Daniel Greenfield is a blogger and columnist born in Israel and living in New York City. Daniel is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a contributing editor at Family Security Matters.

Daniel's original biweekly column appears at Front Page Magazine and his blog articles regularly appear at Family Security Matters, the Jewish Press, Times of Israel, Act for America and Right Side News, as well as daily at the Canada Free Press and a number of other outlets. Daniel has a column titled Western Front at Israel National News and his op eds have also appeared in the New York Sun, the Jewish Press and at FOX Nation.

Daniel was named one of the Jewish Press' Most Worthwhile Blogs from 2006-2011 and his writing has been cited by Rush Limbaugh, Melanie Philips, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, Judith Klinghoffer, John Podhoretz, Jeff Jacoby and Michelle Malkin, among others.

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Matt Barber - Marriage Equality Spells Marriage Extinction

This week the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on two of the most critical cases of our time. On Tuesday, March 26, attorneys will make the pitch both for and against California’s Proposition 8. This, of course, is the Golden State’s pro-marriage amendment. It maintained the timeless definition of natural marriage as between man and wife.

Then, on Wednesday, March 27, the high court will consider the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), passed in 1996 with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by then President Bill Clinton. It, likewise, secured the definition of legitimate marriage for purposes of federal law.

Although both cases certainly address a multitude of legal and political issues, they also involve a number of moral and cultural considerations that, if wrongly decided, will literally shake Western civilization to the core.

The stakes could not be higher. Of central concern is whether the Supreme Court will put its official stamp of approval on “same-sex marriage.” Ultimately, these nine justices will decide either to recklessly deconstruct, radically redefine and render functionally trivial the age-old institution of natural marriage – or leave it alone.

They’d better leave it alone.

Here’s the bottom line: Homosexual activists don’t want the white picket fence. They want to burn down the white picket fence. The endgame is not to achieve so-called “marriage equality,” but, rather, to render marriage reality meaningless.

In a recent column headlined, “The Revolt of Intelligence Against ‘Marriage Equality,” worldview expert Rick Pearcey addressed one prominent “gay” activist’s admission that the destruction of natural marriage signifies the left’s ultimate cultural coup de grâce.

“Masha Gessen, a lesbian and a journalist, spoke frankly about this at a conference in Sydney, Australia,” he wrote. “‘It’s a no-brainer that we should have the right to marry,’ she said. ‘But I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. … ‘Marriage equality’ becomes ‘marriage elasticity,’ with the ultimate goal of ‘marriage extinction.’”

Still, if counterfeit “same-sex marriage” becomes the law of the land, then much will follow before marriage extinction inevitably occurs.

One of liberals’ favorite Alinskyite defense mechanisms is to ridicule the opposition if confronted with some irrefutable argument against some hallowed left-wing delusion. Such is the tactic employed whenever a thinking person walks into the room and points this out: Once the government pretends that some vague combination of “love” and “consent” are all that a “marriage” requires, then other “arbitrary” and “discriminatory” parameters beyond a binary male-female prerequisite must also go poof.

That is to say, if the Court magically divines some constitutional right to “same-sex marriage,” then full “marriage equality” necessarily demands that polygamous, incestuous and any other equally aberrant nuptial cocktail be likewise permitted.

It’s a “no-brainer,” right?

To that end, I’m very concerned with the Supreme Court’s recent history of radically redefining that which cannot be redefined. Though examples abound, I’m thinking specifically, as concerns the topic at hand, of the Court’s 2003 holding in Lawrence v. Texas.

In Lawrence, the liberal majority, for the first time in history, radically redefined male-on-male sodomy – hitherto classified “a crime against nature” – as a “constitutional right.”

In his characteristically brilliant dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia voiced my concerns better than I can: “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices,” he wrote. “Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision.”

So, if the high court removes one natural marriage parameter for one special-interest group, then “equal protection under the law” requires that it remove all natural marriage parameters for all special-interest groups.

Liberty Counsel made these very points in a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the Supreme Court: “Ultimately, there is no principled basis for recognizing a legality of same-sex marriage without simultaneously providing a basis for the legality of consensual polygamy or certain adult incestuous relationships,” noted the brief. “In fact, every argument for same-sex marriage is an argument for them as well.”

Another brief filed by 18 state attorneys general voiced similar concerns: “Once the natural limits that inhere in the relationship between a man and a woman can no longer sustain the definition of marriage, the conclusion that follows is that any grouping of adults would have an equal claim to marriage,” they wrote.

The brief further observed the self-evident “no-brainer” that legitimate marriage is “optimal for children and society at large.”

It’s all very simple. If anything is marriage, then everything is marriage. And if everything is marriage, then nothing is marriage at all. “‘Marriage equality’ becomes ‘marriage elasticity,’ with the ultimate goal of ‘marriage extinction.’”

I sincerely hope that the honorable and learned men and women who sit on the highest bench in the land recognize that all of these San Francisco-style social-engineering games are a deceptive means to a destructive end. And it’s not the emotionalist end they’ve dolled-up and dished out. The left’s fierce push for “gay marriage” has nothing to do with “marriage equality” and everything to do with “marriage extinction.”

Or, as Ms. Gessen candidly put it: “[I]t’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist.”

I just pray that at least five justices still think it should.

Matt Barber

Matt Barber served as Policy Director for Cultural Issues with Concerned Women for America before joining Liberty University School of Law in 2008. In addition to his Juris Doctorate degree, Dean Barber holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from Regent University and a Bachelor of Science in Organizational Management from Colorado Christian University.

Matt Barber is a published freelance writer, many newspapers and online publications run his columns, including the Washington Examiner, Washington Times, Insight magazine, WorldNetDaily.com, TownHall.com and many others.

Matt Barber was a law enforcement officer for three years and a corporate fraud investigator for five years.

Matt Barber served twelve years in the Army National Guard, and was an undefeated professional boxer, retiring in 2004. Several times prior to turning pro, he was a state and regional Golden Gloves champion, competing in the 1992 Western Olympic Trials and winning a Gold Medal in the 1993 Police and Fire World Games.

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Crystal Wright - Gays Don’t Have a Right to Marriage

The mere words same-sex marriage connote it’s not a “marriage” by use of the term, but rather an aberration of a societal norm that a small group are determined to force onto the majority. Only 3% of Americans are gay.

Since the beginning of time, before marriage was formally recognized by state laws, it was defined between a man and a woman not just for kicks, but because people of the opposite sex have coupled off to procreate, as a means of continuing society. It takes a man and woman to biologically create a baby, so naturally society began to recognize marriage between a man and a woman to encourage stable families and cultures.

Two men and two women will never be able to create a baby. This is fact not fiction. People argue that not every married couple has children. While every married couple won’t choose to have babies or be able to, marriage between a man and woman is at the core of society’s cultural foundation and must be protected.

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments in two cases, California’s Proposition 8, where citizens voted to ban gay marriage, and the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, defining marriage between a man and a woman. Proponents of gay marriage are asking the court to ignore centuries of a societal norm and legalize gay marriage as the law of the land on the basis of the 14th amendment.

Activists often refer to the 1967 Loving vs. Virginia case to argue that denying gays a right to marriage is discriminatory. In the Loving case, the Supreme Court ruled laws banning interracial marriage were illegal because they violated the 14th Amendment’s “equal protection of the laws” clause, which applied to all citizens. Mildred Loving, a black woman, and her husband, Richard, a white man, had the right to marry because the institution of marriage is inherently between a man and a woman, not between two men or two women, and therefore gay couples don’t have a right to marriage.

During arguments in the California case, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia plainly pointed out, marriage has never been a “fundamental” right for gays, as lawyer Theodore Olson tried to assert. “When did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791? 1868, when the 14th Amendment was adopted?” said Scalia.

For gays to suggest a right to marry is akin to blacks fighting for civil rights is not only preposterous but also offensive to the highest order. Emmett Till, a 14 year old black boy was beaten, his eye gouged out, murdered, and thrown in the bottom of a lake with a “cotton gin fan barbed wired to his neck” all because he whistled at a white woman. Till was denied civil rights. The Supreme Court declared black slaves property instead of citizens in the 1857 Dred Scott case; therefore denying blacks equal rights to their white slave masters under the Constitution. I don’t see how denying gays marriage rights is akin to slavery holding blacks in bondage as property, as liberals assert.

My mother and father joined “sit ins” at segregated lunch counters in the 1960s to fight for the basic right to eat, work, live and learn in the same places as whites. Blacks and some whites were lynched, murdered, hosed down and arrested so blacks could enjoy their undeniable rights under the Constitution. I don’t see gays undergoing the same struggle in their quest to marry.

America is almost a moral wasteland as it is. People are expected to look the other way, condone and accept as societal norms things like teen pregnancy, out of wedlock births, and the left’s constant mockery and disintegration of traditional family values. Cue the liberal rant: “Stay at home mom Ann Romney never worked a day in her life.”

It’s no coincidence that 38 states where gay marriage was placed on the ballot voters rejected it because it attempts to redefine a societal norm. Nine States and the District of Columbia allow gay marriage. The DC Council voted to approve gay marriage, bypassing a ballot initiative for fear residents would reject it. Of the remaining states, courts forced them to allow gay marriage. While some states have voted in favor of gay marriage, the majority voted against it because they think it’s wrong.

What’s overlooked in the gay marriage debate is that gays represent 3% of the US population yet they are attempting to force their life choices as mainstream on the 97% majority. From gay marriage, to gay adoptions, homosexual curriculum in public schools, and the demand for gay Boy Scouts leaders, when will this gay war on society END?

Crystal Wright

Crystal Wright is a black conservative woman living in Washington, D.C. Some would say she is a triple minority: woman, black and a Republican living in a Democrat dominated city. She’s contemplating moving back to her home state of Virginia, where her vote would count for something. By day, Crystal is a communications consultant and editor and publisher of the new website, conservativeblackchick.com. Crystal earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Georgetown University and holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Theatre from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Wright is the principal owner of the Baker Wright Group, LLC , a full service public relations firm, specializing in communications counseling, media relations, message development, media training and crisis communications. The firm’s approach is straight forward counseling: an unvarnished approach to public relations.

Visit Crystal's Website by clicking HERE

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Michael Brown - Mr. Clinton, You Are Wrong About Overturning DOMA

Dear Mr. Clinton, with all respect to the office of the president which you held for 8 years, I must say that it is not just ironic that you are now asking the Supreme Court to overturn the legislation you signed into law 17 years ago. It is downright tragic.

In your March 7th editorial for the Washington Post, you wrote that although it “was only 17 years ago” when you signed the Defense of Marriage Act, “it was a very different time.”

May I ask you, sir, if 17 years have changed the nature of men and women, of mother and fathers and children, of the essential elements of a family? Have 17 years changed multiplied thousands of years of human history? Have 17 years changed fundamental faith values embraced by several billion people worldwide?

You explain that, 17 years ago, “In no state in the union was same-sex marriage recognized, much less available as a legal right, but some were moving in that direction.”

In point of fact, since 1996, 32 states have voted to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman (the majority of them since 2004), including my current home state of North Carolina, which just last year overwhelmingly wrote natural, organic marriage into the constitution by a vote of 61% to 39%, despite a strong majority of Democrats statewide.

It is true that, for the first time, several states voted in 2012 to redefine marriage, but those were heavily blue states where traditional marriage proponents were outspent by as much as five-to-one, and even then, the voting was close.

Can you really claim some kind of mandate when 9 times out of 10 (32 states out of 36), when the people have been given a right to vote, they have voted against genderless marriage? The mandate is actually against your position, sir, not for it.

In your editorial, you offer a transparently weak justification of your signing of DOMA, which leads me to ask: Mr. Clinton, did you have no conscience when you signed that bill into law? Did you have no gay or lesbian friends? Had you not met any upstanding gay or lesbian couples, working hard to raise a family? I’m sure that was not the case, sir, and with all candor, your justification for signing DOMA in 1996 while asking the Supreme Court to overturn it in 2013 smacks of political correctness more than dispassionate conviction.

You wrote that when DOMA comes before the Court on March 27, “the justices must decide whether it is consistent with the principles of a nation that honors freedom, equality and justice above all, and is therefore constitutional. As the president who signed the act into law, I have come to believe that DOMA is contrary to those principles and, in fact, incompatible with our Constitution.”

Do you honestly believe, Mr. Clinton, that any of the framers of the Constitution countenanced a day in our great nation when men would be marrying men and women marrying women, and in the name of the Constitution, at that? And since when did our Constitution guarantee the government’s endorsement of all romantic attractions and sexual behaviors? And are you genuinely unaware that redefining marriage is just the tip of the iceberg of a massive societal transformation in the name of LGBT rights, including the undoing of gender distinctions?

And with your brilliant legal mind, sir, are you oblivious to the fact that polygamists and polyamorists, too numerous to be ignored, are also appealing to “freedom, equality and justice” in the pursuit of their “rights”? What will you say to them, especially given the fact that their lifestyles are now being mainstreamed by the very same media that has so shaped American thinking on homosexual issues?

You wrote, “Because Section 3 of the act defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, same-sex couples who are legally married in nine states and the District of Columbia are denied the benefits of more than a thousand federal statutes and programs available to other married couples.”

But what does this have to with the radical redefinition of marriage? What does this have to do with sanctioning an institution that will guarantee that a child has either no mother or no father? What does this have to do with rendering marriage genderless, to the point that marriage certificates could be reduced to Partner A and Partner B, along with birth certificates being reduced to Parent A and Parent B? (In this context, I should mention the Florida judge who “approved the adoption of a 22-month-old baby girl that will list three people as parents on her birth certificate – a married lesbian couple and a gay man.”)

Mr. Clinton, if marriage is simply the union of two people and not the union of a man and a woman, can you give me one solid intellectual reason or one compelling social argument why marriage cannot involve more than two consenting adults? What is so special about the number “two” if it does not consist of a male and female, with their unique biological and social compatibility and, in normal circumstances, their ability to produce children whom they will raise for the next generation?

You claim to know now that DOMA not only provided “an excuse for discrimination,” but that “the law is itself discriminatory.” Surely you must realize that polygamists, polyamorists, and others will find your current position “discriminatory.” More importantly, the sanctioning of same-sex “marriage” will mean that multiplied tens of millions of God-fearing Americans will be codified as bigots, surely the height of ugly discrimination.

Mr. Clinton, you were right before. You are wrong now. I pray that God will give you another change of heart.

Dr. Michael Brown

Michael Brown holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and is the author of 20 books. He has served as a professor at a number of seminaries and hosts the nationally syndicated, daily talk radio show, the Line of Fire.

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Matt Barber - Barack Obama is no Abraham Lincoln

Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people. (Proverbs 14:34)

The name “Abraham Lincoln” enjoys a boundless shelf life. The 16th president of the United States is more popular today than ever. The blockbuster movie “Lincoln” recently took home two Oscars, with Daniel Day-Lewis earning the “Best Actor” nod for his masterful portrayal of the Civil War president.

In his outstanding biography, “Abraham Lincoln, a Man of Faith and Courage,” author Joe Wheeler observed that “Lincoln has had more books written about him than all our nation’s presidents put together.”

Love him or hate him, Abraham Lincoln remains, far and away, the most admired president in U.S. history.

It’s little wonder, then, that President Obama seeks to associate himself with this great man at every possible turn. Even so, in terms of worldview, political philosophy, integrity and honorability, the two men are as north to south. Their similarities both begin and end with an Illinois mailing address.

Consider, for instance, that, whereas Lincoln was both a Republican and a strong social conservative by modern standards – Obama is a hard-left Democrat and radical Marxist by any standard. Whereas Lincoln ultimately united a nation brutally divided, Mr. Obama brutally divides a nation once united.

While, as noted by Wheeler, Abraham Lincoln was a man singularly driven by unfettered fidelity to both biblical principles and the one true God of the Bible, Mr. Obama is hell-bent on undermining, if not outright defying, every jot and tittle of the Holy Scriptures.

By placing his hand on the Lincoln Bible and swearing to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States … to the best of my ability,” Mr. Obama sought to draw some symbolic connection to President Lincoln.

Instead, and due to his counter-biblical public policy, he not only engaged in brazen duplicity, but managed to underscore the stark contrast between the two leaders. As compared to his pious predecessor, “the best of [Mr. Obama's] ability” has been weighed on the scales and found wanting.

In his first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln observed: “Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.”

I believe that, due to our nation’s near total rejection of God and our government’s official stamp of approval on that which Scripture unambiguously calls mortal sin (i.e., homosexuality, the deconstruction of legitimate marriage, abortion on demand and the like), God has, for the first time in our relatively brief history, “forsaken this favored land.” I believe we are a nation under judgment and that Barack Obama is part of that judgment.

Lincoln also declared, “The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time.”

Let that sink in. “God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time.” God declares homosexual behavior “an abomination.” Mr. Obama celebrates it. God says “thou shalt not murder.” Mr. Obama and his ilk are responsible for the cold blooded murders of 55-plus million American babies at the callous hands of abortionists.

Jesus, in His own words, reaffirmed the definition of legitimate marriage, saying, “Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6)

Mr. Obama has called Jesus a liar, saying, in effect, “At the beginning the Creator made them lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT). For this reason a male, female or shemale will leave his, her or whatchahoozie’s father and mother, father and father or mother and mother and be united to his or her wife – and/or husband – and the two or more will become one flesh. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

Contrast Mr. Lincoln’s reverence for God and Christianity with Mr. Obama’s declaration that, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation.”

Or consider these words, where Mr. Obama both defamed the Bible and mocked Christ’s Sermon on the Mount:

“Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount – a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application?”

The Sermon on the Mount – a passage so radical that its application the Defense Department would not survive? No, Mr. President, you simply desire it not survive.

Indeed, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people.” This is not just a flowery aphorism. It’s a self-evident truth – an objective reality. We as an American people have embraced sin and are thusly condemned.

Lincoln said, “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” As individuals, we will each stand before God and give an accounting – we will all face judgment. As a nation, we can only be judged in the temporal – in the here and now.

Lincoln also said, “let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear, and with manly hearts.” This sage admonition, though certain to infuriate modern-day feminists, is in perfect keeping with 2 Chronicles 7:14, which declares, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Because, as the psalmist observed, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” (Psalm 33)

And cursed is the nation whose god is man.

Matt Barber

Matt Barber served as Policy Director for Cultural Issues with Concerned Women for America before joining Liberty University School of Law in 2008. In addition to his Juris Doctorate degree, Dean Barber holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from Regent University and a Bachelor of Science in Organizational Management from Colorado Christian University.

Matt Barber is a published freelance writer, many newspapers and online publications run his columns, including the Washington Examiner, Washington Times, Insight magazine, WorldNetDaily.com, TownHall.com and many others.

Matt Barber was a law enforcement officer for three years and a corporate fraud investigator for five years.

Matt Barber served twelve years in the Army National Guard, and was an undefeated professional boxer, retiring in 2004. Several times prior to turning pro, he was a state and regional Golden Gloves champion, competing in the 1992 Western Olympic Trials and winning a Gold Medal in the 1993 Police and Fire World Games.

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