Friday, March 27, 2009
Save the Trees....Kill the Children
While shopping at Wal-Mart earlier today, I came upon a large display of t-shirts with pictures and slogans that were all about loving and saving Earth. One such shirt in particular was decorated with a forest of trees and read "Save Our Future". I became agitated, even a bit angry when I saw this shirt. Here's why. First, I want to make clear that I do believe that God has given the earth to man as a stewardship, and that we are to do what we can to take care of God's creation. However, it is mankind that was created in the image of God, not these other parts of creation. So, what about our own kind? What about the hundreds of thousands of unborn babies that are heedlessly slaughtered every year? Are they not the future that we should be giving our lives to save? If we continue killing off our babies, there will be no one left to save the trees! As Casting Crowns has so wisely put it in their song While You Were Sleeping, "We're sung to sleep by philosophies that save the trees and kill the children." America cares more about trees, which have no soul, than about these little ones that, from the moment of conception, have a soul that is immortal. This is why these "Save the Earth" t-shirts make me angry. Not because I think taking care of the earth is a waste of time. But because our priorities are so mixed up. In some parts of Florida, it is illegal to even accidentally hit an alligator with your car. But a woman can go and have her unborn baby murdered...and no one can stop her. The Pledge of Allegiance to our flag states that we are "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for ALL". This is no longer true. There is not liberty and justice for all people. There is more justice for trees than for little baby boys and girls. I don't understand this philosophy at all, and I am quite certain that I never will. All I can do is pray that God will arise and send forth justice for the unborn and mercy for those who are killing them.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Wonderful Wedding
Congratulations, Tony and Mandy! May God richly bless your life together. I love you both!
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Family Friendly Radio
I listen to quite a few different radio stations when I am driving in my car, three of which are Christian radio stations. One particular Christian station has as it's slogan "Safe for the Whole Family", and their morning show is labeled "Family Friendly". I think that can be a good thing, since much of today's radio is full of nothing but adult content. However, there is something about this "family friendly" station that, quite frankly, annoys me. This morning as I was listening, they played a song by Third Day, called "Call My Name". The song is written from Jesus' point of view, and in the song, He is saying, "When you feel like you're alone in your sadness...call My name and I'll be there." Great song, lyrically and musically. But when the song ended, one of the DJs said something like, "Isn't great to know that when life gets tough, we can just call out to Him, to the Man, and He hears us?" Indeed, this is a glorious truth, but... "the Man"?? This is the title they sometimes use for Jesus. This is not the only time I have heard something like this from this radio station. The rarely ever use the name Jesus or Christ. That is what annoys me so much. Why won't they just say the name of Jesus? Aren't they a Christian radio station? Is this not a free country...at least, for now? They remind their listeners over and over that they are "safe for the whole family", but they won't even speak the name of Christ on the air. Every time I am listening, they use words like 'He', 'Him', 'the Man', or 'the One'. So this morning after the DJ referred to Jesus as 'The Man', I said out loud to my radio, "Just say His name!!" I'm not saying that using these words is wrong or sinful. But it seems like they are afraid to say the name of Jesus on the air. Maybe I am totally misjudging them and blowing this thing way out of proportion...or am I?
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Pregnancy As Slavery...?
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com)
With his appointment of Dawn Johnsen, a former NARAL attorney, as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of the Legal Counsel, pro-life advocates already know they are getting an abortion advocate in the position. But, Johnsen goes further and views pregnancy as slavery.
Johnsen is a professor at the Indiana University School of Law, but she is also a longtime abortion advocate and worked for one of the leading abortion advocacy groups.
Johnsen was the Legal Director for NARAL from 1988-1993.
In an article at National Review, Andrew McCarthy describes the importance of the Office of Legal Counsel.
"OLC, a critically important agency, is the administration’s lawyers’ lawyer," he says. "It authoritatively interprets the law for the attorney general and, in doing so, drives administration legal policy."
"OLC’s credibility is derived from its reputation for apolitical, academic discipline — its commitment to informing policymakers of what the law is, rather than what staffers believe the law should be. Johnsen is, for that reason, a poor fit: She is an ideologue, and an unabashed one," he explains.
McCarthy says that Johnsen's view of pregnancy as slavery wasn't just an off-the-cuff remark.
"It was her considered position in a 1989 brief filed in the Supreme Court," he explains, and the legal papers she filed concerned a Missouri law banning taxpayer funding of abortions.
In the papers, Johnsen said that any restriction that makes abortion less accessible is, in her view, tantamount to “involuntary servitude” because it “requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state’s asserted interest [in the life of the unborn].”
In effect, a woman “is constantly aware for nine months that her body is not her own: the state has conscripted her body for its own ends.” Such “forced pregnancy,” she contends, violates the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibits slavery.
"The Court rejected this farcical theory, just as it has rejected other instantiations of Johnsen’s extremism," McCarthy explains in his National Review column.
"In reputable private law offices and U.S. attorney’s offices throughout the country, adult supervision would prevent such a lunatic analogy from finding its way into a letter to a lower-court judge, much less into a Supreme Court brief," he added. "Obama, however, is proposing that Johnsen be the adult supervision at Justice. He would fill a position calling for dispassionate rigor with a crusader for whom strident excess is habitual."
Johnsen goes further and she insisted in her legal papers that, without government-provided abortion counseling, a large number of women would be left without “proper information about contraception.” This, she claimed, would mean they “cannot be said to have a meaningful opportunity to avoid pregnancy.”
McCarthy responds: "The usual rejoinder to such reasoning is that nobody is forcing these women to have sex."
He also explains that, with Johnsen giving the president legal advice, she will surely tell him that any judicial pick -- from Supreme Court on down -- must adhere to a pro-abortion mantra.
"Moreover, as she declaimed in a 2006 op-ed opposing Samuel Alito’s confirmation, opposition to all restrictions on abortion — not just acceptance of Roe v. Wade — should be a litmus test for judicial nominees," McCarthy says.
Johnsen wrote: "The notion of legal restrictions as some kind of reasonable ‘compromise’ — perhaps to help make abortion ‘safe, legal, and rare proves nonsensical.”
Ultimately, McCarthy says he understands the attraction Johnsen has for Obama.
"Johnsen’s attraction for Obama is obvious. The principal target of her Webster brief was the settled principle that the Constitution’s recognition of various fundamental rights (and the judicial invention of such 'rights' as abortion) does not confer an entitlement to governmental aid to exercise those rights," he explains. "For Johnsen, this is anathema, the denial of 'economic justice' and thus of equal protection."
"In Dawn Johnsen’s dizzying jurisprudence, government has no business invading individual privacy and regulating abortion but is obliged to coerce taxpayers into underwriting abortions as a first step in what she unapologetically calls 'the progressive agenda' of 'universal health care,'" McCarthy adds.
With his appointment of Dawn Johnsen, a former NARAL attorney, as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of the Legal Counsel, pro-life advocates already know they are getting an abortion advocate in the position. But, Johnsen goes further and views pregnancy as slavery.
Johnsen is a professor at the Indiana University School of Law, but she is also a longtime abortion advocate and worked for one of the leading abortion advocacy groups.
Johnsen was the Legal Director for NARAL from 1988-1993.
In an article at National Review, Andrew McCarthy describes the importance of the Office of Legal Counsel.
"OLC, a critically important agency, is the administration’s lawyers’ lawyer," he says. "It authoritatively interprets the law for the attorney general and, in doing so, drives administration legal policy."
"OLC’s credibility is derived from its reputation for apolitical, academic discipline — its commitment to informing policymakers of what the law is, rather than what staffers believe the law should be. Johnsen is, for that reason, a poor fit: She is an ideologue, and an unabashed one," he explains.
McCarthy says that Johnsen's view of pregnancy as slavery wasn't just an off-the-cuff remark.
"It was her considered position in a 1989 brief filed in the Supreme Court," he explains, and the legal papers she filed concerned a Missouri law banning taxpayer funding of abortions.
In the papers, Johnsen said that any restriction that makes abortion less accessible is, in her view, tantamount to “involuntary servitude” because it “requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state’s asserted interest [in the life of the unborn].”
In effect, a woman “is constantly aware for nine months that her body is not her own: the state has conscripted her body for its own ends.” Such “forced pregnancy,” she contends, violates the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibits slavery.
"The Court rejected this farcical theory, just as it has rejected other instantiations of Johnsen’s extremism," McCarthy explains in his National Review column.
"In reputable private law offices and U.S. attorney’s offices throughout the country, adult supervision would prevent such a lunatic analogy from finding its way into a letter to a lower-court judge, much less into a Supreme Court brief," he added. "Obama, however, is proposing that Johnsen be the adult supervision at Justice. He would fill a position calling for dispassionate rigor with a crusader for whom strident excess is habitual."
Johnsen goes further and she insisted in her legal papers that, without government-provided abortion counseling, a large number of women would be left without “proper information about contraception.” This, she claimed, would mean they “cannot be said to have a meaningful opportunity to avoid pregnancy.”
McCarthy responds: "The usual rejoinder to such reasoning is that nobody is forcing these women to have sex."
He also explains that, with Johnsen giving the president legal advice, she will surely tell him that any judicial pick -- from Supreme Court on down -- must adhere to a pro-abortion mantra.
"Moreover, as she declaimed in a 2006 op-ed opposing Samuel Alito’s confirmation, opposition to all restrictions on abortion — not just acceptance of Roe v. Wade — should be a litmus test for judicial nominees," McCarthy says.
Johnsen wrote: "The notion of legal restrictions as some kind of reasonable ‘compromise’ — perhaps to help make abortion ‘safe, legal, and rare proves nonsensical.”
Ultimately, McCarthy says he understands the attraction Johnsen has for Obama.
"Johnsen’s attraction for Obama is obvious. The principal target of her Webster brief was the settled principle that the Constitution’s recognition of various fundamental rights (and the judicial invention of such 'rights' as abortion) does not confer an entitlement to governmental aid to exercise those rights," he explains. "For Johnsen, this is anathema, the denial of 'economic justice' and thus of equal protection."
"In Dawn Johnsen’s dizzying jurisprudence, government has no business invading individual privacy and regulating abortion but is obliged to coerce taxpayers into underwriting abortions as a first step in what she unapologetically calls 'the progressive agenda' of 'universal health care,'" McCarthy adds.
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