Don's Tuesday column

         THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   12/24/2013

Duck Patriarch: a man for all seasons

Tea Party Patriots have cancelled tonight’s, as well as next Tuesday’s, meeting to allow fellowship and camaraderie with family and friends. I can speak for my fellow Tea Party Patriots when I offer a hearty “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” to all. Do put Tuesday the 14^th on your calendar as the Patriots plan to have unique four-legged visitors. I refer to the K-9 “officers” serving with the Tehama County Sheriffs Department, who, together with their deputy-handlers, are slated to show us some of their training. Don’t miss it.

One of my highly-valued resources is “Imprimis” from Hillsdale College, which inculcates the timeless values of America’s faith and founding principles in students of their 4-year institution. You can receive this free pamphlet via USPS mail, or via email, by going to Hillsdale.edu and using the “Imprimis” link, which includes archived issues. These essay-length articles are a great way to wind down your day and absorb insightful, illuminating and uplifting thoughts on America’s challenges as you drift off. 

The April Imprimis, “Religion and Public Life in America” informs my thoughts in anticipation of the highest of Holy Days, dedicated to the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That commemoration, other pivotal events in the life of Jesus, together with recognition and acclamation by vast sections of Americans, is a never-ending source of contention, friction and litigation. This relatively recent trend, unknown in America when founded, reinforces the contention that the greatest accomplishment of Satan was convincing people that he didn’t exist; so, it comes as no surprise to find that some deny there is a “War on Christmas.” There is a larger, determined and unrelenting war waged against Christianity in this, the very country that included the rights and laws of “Nature and of Nature’s God” in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution—that larger war proceeds inexorably through our universities, our news and popular media, our civilian and military institutions, courts, schools and places of business.

An address by R. R. Reno of “First Things,” Feb. 20 at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar, began: “Religious liberty is being redefined in America, or at least many would like it to be. Our secular establishment wants to reduce the autonomy of religious institutions and limit the influence of faith in the public square. The reason is not hard to grasp. In America, ‘religion’ largely means Christianity, and today our secular culture views orthodox Christian churches as troublesome, retrograde, and reactionary forces. They’re seen as anti-science, anti-gay, and anti-woman—which is to say anti-progress as the Left defines progress. Not surprisingly, then, the Left believes society will be best served if Christians are limited in their influence on public life. And in the short run this view is likely to succeed.”

I’ll depart from Mr. Reno’s address to say that I recently enjoyed re-watching “A Man for all Seasons,” about the trials and execution of Sir Thomas More at the behest of King Henry VIII. More refused to positively affirm, and agree with, the king’s sacrilegious move to make himself head of a new church, in rejection of the Roman Catholic church and its Pope. This high-handed creation of a king-led-and-centered English church was instigated for the sole, and crass, purpose of the king allowing himself to divorce his queen, prohibited under Catholicism. Look up those tragic events at Wikipedia.org and watch that superbly crafted movie sometime.

I had cause to reflect on how violations of one’s religious conscience can be imposed, currently in the insurance mandates requiring religiously devout employers and church-affiliated institutions to provide, against their wills, contraception and abortion-inducing drugs through employees’ health insurance. Businesses and religious institutions are legally fighting to protect their rights, rights that should require no court’s approval to maintain.

Then, I sensed anti-religious bigotry in the reaction to the controversial comments on homosexuality and sin by “Duck Dynasty” star and family patriarch, Phil Robertson. First, I’ll delicately suggest that if a prominent homosexual had, in the course of a GQ interview, used the same crude terms to express his intimate personal preferences, little more than a “tut-tut” over the verbiage would have ensued. Certainly if that gay man had told the world that he didn’t think anything is sinful, the cultural, media and political left would have celebrated the importance of being “open-minded.” Vociferous protests and cries of censorship would ensue if he was then suspended from a show on a more traditional-values cable station like The Nashville Network.

I found it refreshing to find harsh reaction from “social critic and openly gay, dissident feminist Camille Paglia,” who called the suspension of Robertson outrageous in a nation that values freedom. Her view was that people have the right to think whatever they want about homosexuality, for or against; if they base their views on the Bible, that is their religious right. “[T]his is the level of punitive PC, utterly fascist, utterly Stalinist, OK, that my liberal colleagues in the Democratic Party and on college campuses have supported and promoted over the last several decades,” Paglia said. Also, look up “GLAAD: Lethal Enforcers of the Left’s Tolerance Mob” by Michelle Malkin.

Personally, for my 63^rd birthday last Friday, I considered 2 headlines to be gifts: “Obamacare Is Falling Apart Before Our Eyes—Obamacare madness, Christmas edition” by James C. Capretta, Weekly Standard, and “Obama Repeals ObamaCare—Under pressure from Senate Democrats, the President partly suspends the individual mandate,” Wall Street Journal.

More on religious liberty next week.