RELIGIOUS LIBERTY = HOMOPHOBIA?
Led by advocates of gay marriage, the vote yesterday was 188-186 against amending the bill to insure religious liberty protections in New Hampshire.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue addressed what happened:
Leading the fight for gay marriage in New Hampshire is Rep. Steve Vaillancourt. He proves, beyond any shadow of a doubt, why champions of religious liberty must resist gay marriage: he worked to kill the bill because it insulated religious institutions from its reach.
In other words, it was not good enough for Vaillancourt to secure a win on gay marriage—he had to have it all. And having it all means denying the right of religious institutions not to sanction homosexual marriage. Indeed, he said the religious liberty amendment would “enshrine homophobia into the statutes of the New Hampshire legislature.”
So this is what we’ve come to in America: religious objections to homosexuality, rooted in the Bible, natural law and the teachings of most religions, is nothing more than a pernicious phobia. Not too long ago, such objections simply constituted common sense.
One of the driving principals that the United Sates of America was founded upon was the right to Freedom of Religion. Between the years 1629 and 1640 nearly eighty thousand Puritans fled England for fear of religious persecution. Many of these Puritans were from all over England, and nearly twenty-one thousand immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Eventually, in the 1700’s, there were nearly one hundred thousand Puritan immigrants who had escaped persecution and achieved religious freedom and were living in the colonies and settlements of the New World.
This right to Freedom of Religion was held to be so fundamental by our Founding Fathers that it was placed in the First Amendment of our constitution. Its ironic that now in the very place where our country began “NEW” England, this right to freedom of religion is being encroached upon. Its almost ironic, we are coming will circle as a nation!
I can’t help but think of the old high school novel we all had to read, entitled Animal Farm. In it, the humans in the house treat the animals in the barn very poorly. Eventually, the animals take control and when they do, the pigs prove to be the dominant animal. Before you know it, the pigs are living in the house and wearing the human suits and making the rest of the animals live in the barn!
Maybe we were made to read books like Animal Farm by George Orwell for a reason at such a young age. Maybe they were intended to teach us something about human nature and not just provide us with an entertaining story. Apparently, the intent on the part of the educational system fell on deaf student ears.
I have never been a dooms day guy and frankly, I never will. But I will say this, the door is beginning to crack open towards religious persecution in this country. To what extent this slippery slope progress, only time will tell. If people of faith don’t wise up and step up soon, just like in George Orwell’s famous novel, we too may find ourselves banished to the barn!
Euthanasia in the US: Wash. woman first to die under new law
Linda Fleming was diagnosed with terminal cancer and feared her last days would be filled with pain and ever-stronger doses of medication that would erode her mind. The 66-year-old woman with late-stage pancreatic cancer wanted to be clear-headed at death, so she became the first person to kill herself under Washington state’s new assisted suicide law, known as “death with dignity.”
“I am a very spiritual person, and it was very important to me to be conscious, clear-minded and alert at the time of my death,” Fleming said in a statement released Friday. “The powerful pain medications were making it difficult to maintain the state of mind I wanted to have at my death. And I knew I would have to increase them.” With family members, her physician and her dog at her side, Fleming took a deadly dose of prescription barbiturates and died Thursday night at her home in Sequim, Wash.
In Oregon, pro-life advocates point to abuses of the assisted suicide law. Oregon resident Barbara Wagner found out Oregon health officials would pay for a suicide but not medication to treat her cancer…. [a] report also indicates that 59 physicians wrote 88 prescriptions — indicating some doctors are writing more than one lethal prescription for patients. That leads pro-life advocates to wonder if they are truly finding better alternatives for their patients or just encouraging them to seek death as a solution.
(American Papist Blog)
The truth is that there is no such thing as a “right to die.” A right is a moral claim, and we have no claim on death—death has a claim on us. Some people see the “right to die” as a parallel to the right to life, but this is based on faulty reasoning. The right to life is based on life being a gift we can neither destroy nor discard, whereas the “right to die” is based on the idea that life is a thing we possess and may discard when it no longer meets our satisfaction.
To claim the right to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others. This is the death of true freedom (Evangelium Vitae 20).
Assisted suicide is a failure of medicine, not an achievement.
Clearly, by my commentary above you know where I stand on Euthanasia from the standpoint of its lack of moral credibility. Let’s now look at the issue from the dollars and cents prospective. Do you actually think with the current state of health care as it is in this country that insurance companies, when given an alterative to expensive treatment will not opt for a cheaper solution i.e. euthanasia? Or at the minimum, look for loopholes in legislation to do so? Think about what happens when you get into a little fender bender with your car. You could have a perfect driving record for years and if you suddenly need the insurance company to pay repair fees, regardless if it is not a result of your negligence, it’s like pulling teeth. That fact is, insurance companies are in the business of saving money, like every other business and if they can get out of paying a bill, you had better believe they would at least try to do so. This situation is already happening in Oregon, the other state in our country that Euthanasia is legal.
Open your eyes people! When you allow the laws of our country to empower the medical profession and insurance companies to determine who can live and who can die, the most basic freedom of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness will be taken away from us.
Whether you agree with my moral position on Euthanasia or not, at least consider the potential dangers surrounding such legislation. The bottom line is this, no one wants to suffer and die but unfortunately, it’s a reality of life. Death is the great equalizer, for the rich and poor alike. Maybe if we come to grips with that reality now, we will come to grips with the fact that we are not in control and God is. Just knowing that can enable us to face anything, including the last hours of our life with both peace and acceptance.
The sword belongs in its’ sheath!
http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=33697
The abortionist Dr. George Tiller, who remained one of the nation’s few providers of late-term abortions despite decades of protests and attacks, was shot and killed Sunday in a church where he was serving as an usher.
The Pro-Life Movement rejects intentional abortion because every procured abortion is the killing of a member of our human family. The dignity of that little human person in the first home of the whole human race cries out for changing the unjust approach to giving protected status to intentional abortion in America. However, this dignity is present in all human persons, even those with whom we disagree and those whose actions we decry. The reason Catholics and other Christians insist on a love of preference for the poor is because they have human dignity. The reason many of us reject capital punishment is because of the human dignity of even those who have committed crimes. The reason we insist that any act of war must fit a criteria of what is called a “just war analysis” is because we recognize the dignity, even of our enemies.
What a sad day for the Pro-Life Movement. Yes, you heard that right, one of the most notorious abortionists in America is gunned down in cold blood and the day of his death is deemed to be a tragedy by pro-lifers around the country. Committing a “wrong” to justify a “right” is never the way to go about things and that is just what the gunman did when he killed Dr. Tiller. When someone claims to be Pro-Life, that means every life, regardless of the persons beliefs or diabolical actions. Jesus Christ died on the cross for everyone, especially for the greatest of sinners. Sacred scripture states that Christ was the great physician who came for the sick, he did not come for the “righteous”. Why, because no one is righteous accept for God. We are all sinners and we have no right to judge anyone. That’s God’s job!
What makes this incident sadder is how the pro-choice media is using the murder of Dr Tiller to advance their cause. The National Organization for Women (NOW) stated “the anti-abortion cause” was behind Tiller’s murder and other actions against abortion centers and practitioners even though members of pro-life groups have never been behind any such incident. They went on to claim that bringing the person who killed Tiller to justice is “not enough,” NOW called on the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to “root out and prosecute as domestic terrorists and violent racketeers the criminal enterprise that has organized and funded criminal acts for decades.”In addition, the New York Times quotes Dave Leach, an anti-abortion activist from Des Moines who runs a newsletter who stated “To call this a crime is too simplistic.” He added, “There is Christian scripture that would support this.”
How someone could even make such claim is nothing short of ridiculous and for the New York Times to report it is just par for their anti-Christian course! Just as Christ weeps for the murder of every aborted child, yesterday Jesus Christ wept for the murder of George Tiller, for he was a child of God too!
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Joe Reciniello is a Wall Street executive that spends his free time helping the poor in New York City and beyond. Learn more about his work and travels at immaculateheartmission.org.Joe Reciniello article archive.
