A TERRIBLE BURDEN

If not now, when? A terrible burden has been laid upon Democrats. They should be uneasy now that they wear the crown of governance symbolizing their duty to protect religious freedom guaranteed in our Constitution. Many years ago the Democrats of Main Street surrendered the National Democratic Party to the elites espousing liberalism and socialism. Today’s Main Street Democrats are merely sheep in the elites’ flock. It is the fate of all sheep someday to be led to the slaughter. Look out!
I appeal to Main Street Democrats to restore the nation. Independents and Republicans are as nothing to the elitist Obama administration which has moved to ruling by Executive Order and Decree instead of legislation. Only Main Street Democrats have any chance to stop the stripping away of civil rights and Constitutional guarantees from Americans.
It was no accident that on January 20th Obama issued a new diktat compelling religious institutions to submit to rules that grossly violate their basic principles and beliefs. All religious institutions, read Catholic and Evangelical, must bow to the Federal Government and make birth control, abortion pills, contraception and sterilization available, at no cost, to all employees through their medical plans. Dogma that opposes these actions, be damned. To the Obama administration, separation of church and state works in only one direction. Churches are not to influence the state or public policy, no matter what their beliefs, but the state can influence, ‘nudge’ in the words of Obama’s advisor, Cass Sunstein, the churches to do the bidding of the government.
It surely was no coincidence that Obama had Kathleen Sebelius, his Heath and Human Services Secretary, issue this order only 2 days before the massive Right to Life Rally held in Washington on January 22. In the old days, we called this behavior ‘a poke in the eye’ or ‘the finger.’ It was also timed to rebuke the Supreme Court for ruling unanimously earlier in the week, in Hosanna-Tabot, that religious institutions have the right to control their own affairs. In our nation now ruled by Executive Order, the Supreme Court needed to be put in its place.
America has moved from being people “... endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights...”as stated in the Declaration of Independence, and a Congress that “shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise thereof ( religion)” in the 1st Amendment to the Constitution, to being ordered by a simple Presidential diktat. Obama gives church institutions a year to implement his diktat not so they can have input to the government’s ruling, but so that they have time to bring their dogma and beliefs into agreement with his rule. “This is part of a pattern in the United States that has degenerated from the recognition of religion as good and salutary in our society to religion being subjected to punitive discrimination." Thus reads a statement signed by Bishops Kevin J. Farrell of Dallas and Kevin W. Vann of Fort Worth and Dallas.
Who is to blame? We are. The gradual surrender of ‘inalienable rights’ to the government has taken many years. There is no escaping the fact that every American has been complicit in this surrender. As Americans, we have watched the government slowly convert local charitable programs to government bureaucratic fiefdoms. Local governments have surrendered to federal funding for most local projects. Social and charitable organizations are addicted to federal grants. Main Street Democrats have bowed to their elite, liberal brethren allowing them to firmly seize control of the Democratic party.
Churches have acquiesced to government funding of social programs as if no strings were attached. For years Bishops have been called ‘Democrats in cassocks’ for getting on the ‘social justice’ bandwagon to solve every inequity through government even though it means they fudge a little on their beliefs. Now in a shock of clarity, Bishop David A. Zubik of Pittsburgh, writes a column titled "To Hell With You," expressing dismay at Obama’s attitude toward Catholics even after all the bishops had done to appease Obama and liberalism.
Since Independents, Republicans, Catholics, the Tea Party, churches, local governments and social groups have been marginalized by the Obama administration, we must call upon Main Street Democrats to start at the local level and reassert the founding principles of our American Republic, to take back their party from the elites of liberalism. Am I calling for the revolt of the sheep? Well we know for sure that leadership will not come from the top.
Every right taken away will take generations to restore. January 20th, the Obama administration took away the right of Catholics to religious freedom. Evangelical rights are eroding. So far, mainline Protestants still have rights, Jews have rights, Muslims have rights, Scientologists have rights and Atheists have rights, but surely, you say, the government would never extinguish these rights. Really? When the last ‘right’ is gone, who will turn out the light on our Constitution? Think on what Rev. Niemoller wrote: “ First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak out because I was Protestant. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
Main Street Democrats, as followers, as sheep, you have a terrible burden. If not a revolt now, when?