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Tuesday, July 31, 2018

What About Jerry Jones’ “Free Speech Rights?”

Whether it was his intended purpose or not, Jerry Jones just showed his team—and the rest of the NFL—how you’re supposed to conduct yourself at work when your speech is in conflict with the proper policies of your employer. As we continue to endure the foolish debate—which is rooted in a lie—over NFL players kneeling during our National Anthem, last week Jones told the Dallas Morning News that players for his team—the Dallas Cowboys—will stand during the playing of the anthem.

This declaration from Jones was somewhat contradictory to the new NFL policy adopted last May—but now in question—which allowed players who wished not to stand during the anthem to remain in the locker room while the anthem is playing. Jones’ assertion that his players stand for the national anthem also evidently violated an NFL gag order on the issue of players kneeling during the anthem.

Now, as an NFL owner, Mr. Jones is not an employee of the NFL in the same sense as are the players, but, like the players, he is subject to league policy. Thus, when the NFL told Jones to essentially “shut it” when it comes to the anthem issue, Jones obliged. According to the Star-Telegram,
Four days after seemingly defying the NFL and letting the world know about his team’s zero-tolerance policy regarding standing for the national anthem, Jones is now not talking about the issue because he has been told not to by the league.

Jones informed several local television stations who had booked him for interviews on their Sunday night show from training camp in Oxnard, Calif., that questions about the national anthem and his team’s policy were not permitted because the NFL had told him to stop speaking on the matter.
No screaming about his “First Amendment rights”—because, unlike many ignorant NFL players, he probably well knows that, in this situation, he has none; no crying about what a “bully” is the NFL; and no lying about “systemic racism” or widespread police brutality in the United States; just quiet, simple compliance—which is quite an accomplishment for Jerry Jones.

You see, it’s not so hard or complicated: employees at private owned businesses like the NFL don’t have the right to protest while on the clock. Again, unlike the ignorant NFL kneelers, Jones understands what’s best for his league and his business. The kneeling farce has become an expensive distraction for the world’s most powerful and lucrative sports league. The owners want this nonsense to end, and I don’t blame them.

They could go a long way to making this happen if they would stop pretending that those kneeling had a real cause. Of course we shouldn’t ignore police misconduct when it happens, but we certainly shouldn’t pretend that it’s a widespread problem in order to allow a handful of football prima donnas a political platform to get more democrats elected.

Copyright 2018, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Friday, July 27, 2018

Libertarians (Like John Stossel) Need to Stand for the Truth on Marriage

John Stossel’s recent column, “Dads Needed,” contains some timely, important, but well-known—at least within the Christian conservative community—truths. Much of the column focuses on the work of author, speaker, and former feminist, Warren Ferrell—especially Ferrell’s new book The Boy Crisis. As Mr. Stossel explains,
In “The Boy Crisis,” Farrell notes that dads routinely get passed over when it comes to custody of kids, even though kids benefit enormously if they have male role models. Boys without fathers suffer more, he says.

Why does a same-sex role model matter more for boys?

“Boys tend to not have as many skills at developing friendships and emotional connections,” answers Farrell. “So when the family connection breaks apart, it affects boys more profoundly than it does their sisters. Boys are then far more likely to be disobedient, delinquent, drop out of school.”
Along with his recent column, “Stossel on Reason” recently interviewed Dr. Ferrell. Here Ferrell notes, “Men and boys started falling behind when government began subsidizing single mothers.” He later adds, “It doesn’t make a difference whether she [a single mother] needs a man, it makes a difference that her children need a father.” Farrell also notes that children without fathers “do worse in 70 different areas,” and again declares, “They are far more likely to be disobedient, delinquent, drop out of school.”

As I implied above, almost none of this is new information. For literally decades, I, and many others, have often noted the negative outcomes not just for boys, but for all children who are raised in broken homes. What’s more, we have also long warned of the dangers that an out-of-control welfare state poses to children and families—particularly how it has contributed to the obscene rise in out-of-wedlock births in the U.S.

As most conservatives well know, the family has long been a target of liberalism, especially the militant feminist brand of liberalism. In 1973, Gloria Steinem, one of the most recognizable names and faces of feminazism, said,
We have to abolish and reform the institution of marriage…By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God…We must understand what we are attempting is a revolution, not a public relations movement.
Many organizations (which should include your church!)—with the support of tens of millions of like-minded Americans—have devoted decades of time, along with mountains of money and other resources, to fighting for the truth in the war on the family.

Nothing is as fundamental in this fight as is marriage. From the beginning of humanity the union of one man and one woman has defined what is a family and has been the means by which children are to be brought into the world and properly raised to adulthood. And nothing has been as contradictory to these eternal truths as is same-sex “marriage.”

Decades of rampant divorce and out-of-wedlock births have been far more devastating to children than has the perverse, but recent, redefinition of the oldest institution in the history of humanity. However, before having to debate what is a marriage, when dealing with the brokenness of divorce and the illicit “hook-up” culture that has led to widespread out-of-wedlock births, we could at least still definitively point people to the absolute truth of marriage. No more.

Sadly, libertarians such as Stossel, Neal Boortz, and the like have been complicit in the left’s deceit when it comes to marriage and the family. In spite of the important truths on parenting, marriage, and family that Stossel has recently acknowledged, he was at best silent, and at worst openly hostile to the truth on marriage.

In his 2011 column, “The Gay Marriage Debate,” Stossel wrote,
As a libertarian, I think all consenting adults who want to commit to a life partner ought to be treated the same way… If they redefine marriage to include gays, that doesn't diminish my marriage. And if kids are taught that gay marriage is OK, so what?... I don't care if there are three fathers and six mothers. If it’s a stable relationship and the kids are connected with their parents, that's great… Sorry, but I still don’t see what divorce and unwed motherhood have to do with gay marriage.
Additionally, in 2015, on Facebook, Stossel said, “I happen to believe gay marriage is just fine, and I’ll happily join the wedding.” Of course, as his interaction with Dr. Ferrell and his teaching on children and parenting should have taught him, same-sex “marriage” is not “fine.” Among other immoral things like divorce and unwed motherhood, same-sex “marriage” results in this: in every sad situation, a helpless child is robbed of a parent. And as Dr. Ferrell—and countless others—well demonstrates, children who lose out on being raised by a mother and a father suffer.

In spite of the mountain of evidence—including, and especially, the Bible!—that reveals children need a mother and father, I can find no instance where Mr. Stossel has been critical of same-sex “marriage.” Likewise—and even more disturbing given his decades of writing and research on matters concerning children—I can find no instance where Dr. Ferrell has been critical of the perverse LGBT agenda on marriage.

Libertarians and conservatives agree, “That government is best which governs least.” Nothing promotes the smaller government that libertarians supposedly crave like the family. Strong and healthy families mean less crime, less welfare, less disease, better schools, better churches, a better economy, and so on.

A troubling trend with most libertarians is that they are often looking for science—“research,” “studies”—to tell them what sound morality has long revealed. For this reason, libertarians are often aligned with liberals on the moral issues and are quick to decry the “legislating of morality.” Of course, all good government is rooted in someone’s idea of morality. Like the rest of us, libertarians just have to decide by whose morality they wish to be governed.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2018, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Sex: The Supreme Issue in the City of Man

It has come to pass, that though there are very many and great issues facing our great nation—issues with marked differences—for far too many on today’s left, nothing is of greater importance than matters that impact their efforts at “four [or more] bare legs in a bed.” Like the Epicureans centuries ago, modern liberals have concluded that humanity’s highest good is achieved in physical pleasure—especially sex.

If this wasn’t clear before the election of Donald Trump, no less than the day after President Trump took office, Hillary’s hedonists made sure we understood what really matters to those who, as Augustine put it, “wish to live after the flesh.” Remember the “March of the Nasty Women?” Or maybe you recall it as the “P*ssy Riot.” Whatever designation you prefer, on January 21, 2017, hundreds of thousands of vagina-obsessed fools paraded around D.C. in their vagina hats, displaying their vulgar posters, and again reminded most everyone why Donald Trump won the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

And they continue to remind us. Whether demanding that men be allowed into women’s restrooms, that girls be allowed into boys’ clubs, that boys be allowed to take trophies from girls, that we fix homosexual infertility; whether rampant STDs (and the sick celebration of such sickness), rampant pornography use, girls with penises, little boys as drag queens, drag queen story time, pronoun bullying, normalizing pedophilia, celebrating bestiality; and of course, whether killing children in the womb, or legally redefining the oldest institution in the history of humanity, liberals have time and again demonstrated themselves to be firmly entrenched in the “City of Man.”

In his historic and magnificent work, City of God, Augustine declares that there are “no more than two kinds of human society…The one consists of those who wish to live after the flesh [those who reside in the ‘City of Man’], the other of those who wish to live after the spirit [those who reside in the ‘City of God’].” Though Augustine was clear that the “works of the flesh” are not merely sexual in nature, he also makes clear that those who are slaves to sexual lust cannot occupy the City of God.

Only a slave to lust could produce an ad entitled “Protect Our Freedom to F*ck.” It’s too vulgar to provide a link. The title, along with the knowledge that the ad comes from Planned Parenthood of New York, is enough for any discerning person to understand just how vulgar is the ad. However, LifeSite News provides a good description, noting “it’s a surreal blend of slavish adherence to the current politically-correct orthodoxy and a complete surrender to senseless vulgarity.”

Like the “nasty” women’s march, or virtually any Hollywood award show, or most every Black Lives Matter gathering, the outrageous Planned Parenthood ad is just another ugly liberal temper tantrum. This time the fit was in response to President Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. There were plenty of other similar meltdowns over Kavanaugh’s nomination.

Why the ugly outrage over the courts? Because what the court has given, the court can take away. And for decades, the courts have been a great ally to liberals and their agenda—especially their wicked sexual agenda. Most all of the angry hysterics over President Trump’s nomination of Judge Kavanaugh have been driven by the fear that courts will take away the legal cover they’ve long provided for abortion and the perverse LGBT agenda.

Of course, because such legal matters would be in the hands of the states (and legislators and voters)—where they belong—a reversal of Roe, Obergefell, and the like, would do little to eliminate abortion and sexual perversion from our culture. Thus, whatever the result of Kavanaugh’s ascension to the Supreme Court, our battles in these grave matters will continue.

However, liberals don’t see it this way. They see any reversal by the courts of any tenet of their “highest good” as an attack on their “right” to rule their own world. This is really the heart of the matter in our moral wars. In other words, the question before us is: Should we live according to our own rules and laws, or is there a higher standard to which we are held personally accountable and upon which our human laws should rest?

Instead of one who lives “after the flesh,” a more apt description of an inhabitant of the City of Man—one that Augustine also employs—is one who “lives according to himself”—or one who wants the “freedom” to rule his own world. Augustine notes that this makes mankind “like the devil. For the devil too, wished to live according to himself when he did not abide in the truth.”

Thus the City of God vs. the City of Man is a conflict rooted in competing notions of truth. The satanic City of Man is filled with those who wish to live “according to themselves,” while the City of God contains those who live “according to God.”

Along with the pervasive infection of sexual sin in our culture at large, the enemy of mankind has used sexual deceit to divide even the church. Virtually every conflict over dogma in the church today is due to the lies of the enemy on matters in the sexual realm. In a sad attempt to redefine truth, leftist Christians—if there is even such a thing—have made widespread compromise with the truth on sex.

For years now we’ve had churches willing to embrace same-sex “marriage,” and even promote the killing of children in the womb. So-called “clergy” have now stooped so low as to make preparations for making abortion available in the pews. Of course, to do such evil, the Bible has to be effectively ignored—and it is. Tragically, because of the fear to embrace fully what God has revealed when it comes to sex, even those in the evangelical church are seeking to distance themselves from the Word of God.

Ironically, modern liberals have long accused conservatives—especially Christian conservatives—of being obsessed with sex. Yet, as we can plainly see, it is liberals who are consumed with the lustful desire to have their way in the sexual realm. For the most part, it’s why they hate President Trump, it’s why they hate the GOP, it’s why they hate conservatives, and it’s especially why they hate Christians and Christianity.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2018, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

The Sermon That Helped Ratify the U.S. Constitution (Taken From "The Miracle and Magnificence of America")

On December 6, 1787, by unanimous consent, Delaware became the first state to ratify the new Constitution. New Jersey and Georgia soon followed, also by unanimous consent. On December 12, 1787, by a vote of 46 to 23, Pennsylvania approved the Constitution. In 1788, Connecticut, Massachusetts (by a close 187 to 168 vote), Maryland, and South Carolina made it eight states. New Hampshire was the state that put the Constitution into effect.

Christian ministers played no small role in the matter. Samuel Langdon was a distinguished theologian and scholar. He graduated from Harvard in 1740, went on to become a prominent Congregational minister, and was president of Harvard University from 1774 to 1780. He was also a delegate to the New Hampshire convention that ratified (by the slim margin of 57 to 46) the U.S. Constitution in 1788. New Hampshire was the last of the necessary nine states needed to ratify the Constitution. In order to persuade his fellow delegates to vote in favor of the U.S. Constitution, Langdon delivered an “election sermon” entitled, The Republic of the Israelites an Example to the American States.

After beginning by quoting Deuteronomy 4:5-8 in his sermon, Langdon noted,
[T]he Israelites may be considered as a pattern to the world in all ages; and from them we may learn what will exalt our character, and what will depress and bring us to ruin. Let us therefore look over their constitution and laws, enquire into their practice, and observe how their prosperity and fame depended on their strict observance of the divine commands both as to their government and religion.
Langdon then gave an account of how Moses, upon the wise counsel of his father-in-law Jethro, “the priest of Midian,” set up a republican form of government, with representatives (“leaders,” “rulers,” “judges,” depending on the biblical translation) from groups of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. In addition, 70 elders, or wise-men—a type of national Senate as described by biblical and Jewish scholars—were selected by Moses and approved by the consent of the people.

Langdon added,
A government thus settled on republican principles, required laws; without which it must have degenerated immediately into aristocracy, or absolute monarchy. But God did not leave a people, wholly unskilled in legislation, to make laws for themselves: he took this important matter wholly into His own hands, and beside the moral laws of the two tables, which directed their conduct as individuals, gave them by Moses a complete code of judicial laws.
Langdon goes on to describe how this republican form of government helped the nation of Israel grow from a “mere mob” (if only the eighteenth century French had taken notice) to a “well regulated nation, under a government and laws far superior to what any other nation could boast!” After detailing Israel’s later struggles—they would eventually “[neglect] their government, [corrupt] their religion, and [grow] dissolute in their morals”—Langston exhorted his fellow citizens to learn from the nation of Israel.
That as God in the course of his kind providence hath given you an excellent constitution of government, founded on the most rational, equitable, and liberal principles, by which all that liberty is secured which a people can reasonably claim, and you are empowered to make righteous laws for promoting public order and good morals; and as he has moreover given you by his son Jesus Christ, who is far superior to Moses, a complete revelation of his will, and a perfect system of true religion, plainly delivered in the sacred writings; it will be your wisdom in the eyes of the nations, and your true interest and happiness, to conform your practice in the strictest manner to the excellent principles of your government, adhere faithfully to the doctrines and commands of the gospel, and practice every public and private virtue. By this you will increase in numbers, wealth, and power, and obtain reputation and dignity among the nations: whereas, the contrary conduct will make you poor, distressed, and contemptible.
On September 21, 1788 the Constitution and the new government of the United States went into effect. Just over three years later, the Bill of Rights would be added. By 1790, when Rhode Island, by a vote of 34 to 32, joined the Union, it was unanimous.

On July 4, 1837, in a speech delivered in the town of Newburyport, Massachusetts, John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, and the sixth U.S. President, proclaimed,
Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the World, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth?
Witnessing the events of the Revolution as a boy, and no-doubt hearing from his father of the raucous debates that gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and then going on to serve his country in many various capacities, John Quincy Adams saw that Christmas and Independence Day were fundamentally linked. He understood well that the Founders took the principles that Christ brought to the world and incorporated them into civil government. This is what makes the U.S. government so distinctive, why it has been so durable, and why, to this day, we are the greatest nation the world has ever known.

Happy Independence Day!

Copyright 2018, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Monday, July 2, 2018

The Marriage “Precedent”

There’s “precedent” and then there’s precedent. It seems for Maine’s Senator Susan Collins—who’s never been considered a conservative and is the very definition of a RINO—precedent is everything, except when it isn’t. According to Townhall recently,
Maine's moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins told CNN's Jake Tapper today that she would not be supporting a Supreme Court nominee who has “demonstrated hostility to Roe v. Wade” because, in her mind, that would be a justice who does not respect established precedent.
Collins added,
I want a judge who will apply the law to the facts of the case with fidelity to the Constitution. Roe v. Wade is a constitutional right that is well established, and no less an authority than Chief Justice Roberts said that repeatedly at his confirmation hearing.
Because, you know, when you are killing the most helpless and innocent among us, you’re supposed to think “fidelity to the Constitution.” A long-time U.S. Senator—especially one who is so often called upon concerning the same moral issues, should not be so careless with her words. Roe v. Wade is not a right in and of itself but rather is a court case that found a “right” that, prior to 1973, had escaped every previous jurist in the history of the U.S. judicial system.

In getting their perverse agenda into law, if only today’s liberals would limit themselves to things that are actually “constitutional.” Even the pro-slavery Americans of the 18th century were willing to get their way via the Constitution. And legal slavery was forever ended in the United States constitutionally, via an amendment, not by the mere ruling of a judge or a majority of judges.

But winning elections and actually achieving law the way our founders intended has proven far too difficult for liberals and the party they own. Thus, the courts have long been a favorite tool of the modern left. Don’t get me wrong, though. As November, 2016 well demonstrates, liberals love to win elections—and hate to lose them! Because so many of them have made a god of government, liberals very much enjoy obtaining all the political power possible, whether legislative, executive, or judicial, and they are loathe to see it in the hands of those opposed to their perverse agenda.

As most today well know, much of what modern liberals hold dear was achieved because of the efforts of rogue judges who happened to find in the U.S. Constitution what had so long escaped so many others (because, of course, it was never really there). Liberals look at the Constitution like an NBA referee: based on who’s playing the game, the rules are changed. Of course, liberals wouldn’t describe it as such; they simply justify this foolish mental and moral gymnastics by claiming a “living Constitution.”

As the late, great Justice Antonin Scalia—who repeatedly stood against such nonsense—said, “the Constitution is not an organism, it is a legal document…(it) is an enduring document but not a ‘living’ one, and its meaning must be protected and not repeatedly altered to suit the whims of society.”

And once liberals magically find a “right” in the Constitution—and thus, “make law”—we’re supposed to revere said law because of “precedent.” How absurd. If “precedent” really mattered to anyone with a sound legal and moral mind, Obergefell v. Hodges would’ve been laughed out of the courtroom in 30 seconds.

The vast majority of states that actually took the trouble to deal with marriage legislatively —including even Collins’ home state of Maine—overwhelmingly voted to establish the biblical definition of marriage as law. In other words, when actually put to a vote, 31 states in the U.S.—including very liberal states such as Maine and California—soundly rejected same-sex “marriage.” How’s that for “precedent?” By one single vote in the U.S. Supreme Court (Good Riddance, Justice Kennedy!), liberals wiped this away.

One might argue that “precedent” in the legal sense is a judicial term that refers to the rulings of a higher court. As legaldictionary.net notes,
In the modern legal system, the term precedent refers to a rule, or principle of law, that has been established by a previous ruling by a court of higher authority, such as an appeals court, or a supreme court.
Of course, there is no higher court than the one led by Him who made us. Dr. Martin Luther King alluded to this in his letter from the Birmingham jail. He noted, “[T]here are two types of laws: There are just and there are unjust laws.” And we agree with Dr. King, who agreed with Saint Augustine that, “An unjust law is no law at all.”

Dr. King also reminds us of the difference:
A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.
For human beings, there is no law more “eternal” than that which defines marriage. As I’ve often noted before, marriage is the oldest institution in the history of humanity—older than God’s covenant with the nation of Israel, older than The Law, older than the church. Marriage is one of the earliest truths revealed by God. As the first three chapters of Genesis reveal, before we were even aware of the preciousness of life—because there was no death—humans were made aware of what is a marriage.

Additionally, whenever Jesus, or any other of the New Testament writers—who often used marriage as an illustration of the relationship between Jesus and His church—spoke of marriage, it was always as the union of one man and one woman. Whether life, marriage, and the like, there’s nothing with more precedent than the eternal truth. We would all—especially U.S. Senators and those on the highest courts in our land—do well to remember such.

(See this column at American Thinker and The Black Sphere.)

Copyright 2018, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com