Don's Tuesday column

             THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   12/03/2013

Thank God for … mandated contraception?

It’s not far from Thanksgivings devoid of giving thanks to God, to Obamacare’s mandate that businesses provide employees with contraception, including abortifacients (a drug, agent or device used to cause abortion). The atheist-accommodating trend of removing God, the Supreme Deity, (or “Nature’s God” in the Declaration of Independence), from all but private or religious settings—that trend has sickeningly morphed into the force of federal law, via Obamacare, mandating that devout, abortion-opposed but otherwise free citizens and business owners fund and provide abortion services under the guise of women’s “health care.”

Read carefully these words and sentiments and consider whose vision is more righteous for America: Washington’s or Obama’s:

“Thanksgiving Proclamation, President George Washington, City of New York, October 3, 1789”

“Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits and to implore his protection and favor, and Whereas both Houses of congress have by their joint Committee requested me ‘to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.’

“Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26^th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this country … for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence … for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

“And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed … To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and Us, and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.”

President Obama omitted any reference to God in his 2011 Thanksgiving address, likewise omitted it from his reading of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and has used a past Thanksgiving speech to indirectly chide Republicans for obstructing his political agenda. He quoted from President Lincoln’s Thanksgiving address, the “Almighty hand” and “Divine purposes,” last Thursday, but dismissed the whole thing for having “roots in centuries-old colonial customs.” Obama said, “When we offer our thanks, we mirror those who set aside a day of prayer”, but what he meant was that he’s not asking anyone to pray, as past leaders have, because “we too” do that prayer thing, just not directly. Sheesh!

Obama included his favorite hobbyhorse, homosexuality: we’re Americans “no matter who we are or who (sic) we love.” Another stealth priority, immigration reform, got a boost with references to “people of all races and religions, who arrived hear from every country on Earth …” as if we should thank the ones who, if they have immigrated legally, should be grateful that America’s laws let them come, stay here and become citizens. Obama even added a simultaneous proclamation of “Minority Enterprise Development Week, 2013” to make us all warm and fuzzy over set-asides and affirmative action quotas.

Finally, I think the collective rubber hit the “government’s-the-only-thing-we-all-belong-to” road with his praise of “everyone who’s doing their part to make the United States a better, more compassionate nation” by volunteering, joining or sharing. There’s nothing wrong with that—let’s all pitch in. But when Mr. Big Government—top-down, wise-overlords-know-best, here’s-your-subsidy/benefit, here’s-your-tax-bill—proclaims that “we’re all part of one American family,” many people start hearing what Ronald Reagan said are the most terrifying nine words: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

To Obama and his ideological allies, “We are each other’s keeper” means “You are not competent to do it on your own, to your satisfaction and happiness—for your collective good, forget that messy freedom thing, we’ll mandate what’s best for your health care.” That especially applies to you business owners who seem to think that your deeply held, pro-life religious beliefs are more important than providing ‘health services,’ aka contraception and abortion-inducing drugs, to your employees.