Politics

News of American soldiers mistreating Iraqi prisoners is flooding the world. What no one (at least no one in the western media) seems to be commenting on is the peculiarly sexual nature of the abuse--nakedness, simulated sex acts, genital torture.

It's even more sobering to note that in pictures where American soldiers are present, the leering, ridiculing Americans lording it over Iraqi men are women--sometimes with a man standing behind them as though to guard them, but the provocateurs in all the pictures I've seen have clearly been female.

Several striking thoughts arise from this.

First, one of the key arguments against women in the military is the sexual abuse they might suffer if captured. We never considered the possibility that they themselves might inflict sexual abuse on their male captives. It's ironic that sexual mistreatment of POWs has not been common in past male-dominated conflicts. Other forms of POW abuse have been common, but sexual abuse was a relative rarity until women entered the military.

Second, such abuse of men by women puts a visible face on the largely ignored phenomenon of female abusiveness in society as a whole. Feminism teaches that women are nurturing and peace-loving while men are war-like and abusive. Sociological research, however, reveals that women are every bit as likely to mistreat others physically as men. Sin of every sort is equally distributed among the sexes. There is no uniquely male or female form of sin.

Third, is it just me, or does anyone else suspect there's a connection between the general in charge of the unit cited in the abuse of the Iraqi prisoners being a woman and such behaviour? What kind of women want to oversee male prisoners? The kind who would do this kind of sickening deed, I suspect. And in a feminized chain of command such misdeeds are more likely to be winked at.

The feminization of the American military is a tragic crime against God's creation order in which man is called to protect and lay down his life for woman. And we will justly bear His wrath for our rebellion against His will.

From a profile of Governor Schwarzenegger in the current issue of The New Yorker:

As (Schwarzenegger) explained in an article in Rolling Stone, in 1976, "At that point, I didn't think about money. I thought about the fame, about just being the greatest. I was dreaming about being some dictator of a country or some savior like Jesus. Just to be recognized."

He cast around for a pursuit in which he could be the best; he tried soccer, but, as he later recalled, "I didn't like that too well, because there I didn't get the credit alone if I did something special. I just avoided team sports from then on." He fixed on bodybuilding, and, by the age of fifteen, he knew he'd found his calling.

* * *

(Despite running for office as a Republican, Schwarzenegger is pro-abortion. Here Franco Columbo, his best friend for decades, explains Schwarzenegger's abortion philosophy.)

On abortion, Schwarzenegger is pro-choice. According to Columbo, "Arnold would say, 'If you have sex with a woman for fifteen minutes and then you leave, why should she have to go through pregnancy for nine months and have a child? It's ridiculous!'"

(Connie Bruck, "Letter from California: Supermoderate; The new governor dazzles the celebrity-struck legislators of Sacramento," in The New Yorker, 28 June 2004, pp. 69-87.

Our kind readers will not be surprised to read that I was so disgusted by Schwarzenegger I could not bring myself to read past the first couple pages of the profile. And when you stop to consider that The New Yorker has put us all on notice that both Schwarzenegger and Hillary Clinton have their eyes set on the White House, I find myself wondering who would be worse--and I'm genuinely unable to answer the question.

This month's Atlantic Monthly has a fascinating glimpse of the Marines in Iraq by Robert Kaplan.

He notes that the Marines he is imbedded with are:

a) More courageous than most men in general, and more courageous than he in particular, and:

b) Much more Christian than average

Unfortunately, the entire article is not available online. It's far more positive in its portrayal of American soldiers than accounts I've seen elsewhere.

There is this tidbit about the article and then a quote from the article itself (my favorite part of the entire article) on the Atlantic site:

Before the call to arms came, he had felt a strong sense of kinship with these fighting men; like him "they had soft spots, they got sick, they complained." But differences announced themselves as soon as the battle preparations began. Kaplan was struck first by their strict adherence to hierarchy--what he refers to as "the incontestability of command." Whenever the most senior officer present in a given planning session made a decision, there was no further argument or discussion; deliberations simply moved efficiently on to the next matter at hand. Kaplan also became keenly aware of the pervasiveness of Christian religious sentiment among the troops. "The spirit of the U.S. military is fiercely evangelical," he writes, "even as it is fiercely ecumenical." Indeed, a few hours before the scheduled attack, a military chaplain issued a blessing in which he reminded them that it was Palm Sunday and referred to the task at hand as "a spiritual battle" and to the Marines themselves as "tools of mercy." The most stark reminder of the difference between himself and the men among whom he was embedded, however, didn't come until they were in the thick of battle. On the second night of the operation, Kaplan was with a group that had penetrated far into the city when it began to take enemy fire. Kaplan struggled to suppress his own natural instinct to flee. To his amazement, his companions ran straight toward the gunfire.

Smith [the company commander] did not have to order his Marines straight into the direction of the fire; it was a collective impulse-a phenomenon I would see again and again over the coming days. The idea that Marines are trained to break down doors, to seize beachheads and other territory, was an abstraction until I was there to experience it. Running into fire rather than seeking cover from it goes counter to every human survival instinct-trust me ... In one flash, as we charged across [the street] amid whistling incoming shots, I realized that they were not like me; they were Marines.

Praise God for the witness and courage of these Christian men in the only branch of the military where women are still thoroughly segregated from combat roles.

The two principle claims to fame of my city of residence, Bloomington, Indiana, are that this is the city that allowed the murder of "Baby Doe," a newborn baby girl who was starved to death by her parents, doctor, and the staff of Bloomington Hospital back in 1982; and also, that it was here at Indiana University, from 1938 to 1956, that, under the guise of "academic research," the criminal sexual pursuits of Alfred Kinsey were provided a safe haven. (Full evidence of his crimes continues to be housed in the Kinsey Institute here on the campus of Indiana University.) Lord willing, more on Kinsey's criminal perversions later.

Meanwhile, the death of President Reagan led to many interesting anecdotes coming to light, including the following which touches on Baby Doe. My wife, Mary Lee, brought it to my attention. It comes from the pages of a letter of tribute to President Reagan written by James Dobson:

Gary Bauer shares a story that occurred during one of his regular lunch meetings with the President. Each senior staff member was given an opportunity to raise an issue or two with "the boss," after gaining prior approval from the chief of staff. Without asking anyone, Gary discussed a problem that he knew would make his superiors uncomfortable. He told the President about a little girl in Bloomington, Indiana, who was suffering from severe life-threatening complications associated with Downs Syndrome. Apparently, the child's parents had received terrible medical advice and instead of seeking treatment, had the baby rolled into the corner of the hospital nursery where a sign was hung on the crib that said, "Do not feed." A Christian nurse observed this barbaric situation and called the White House, wondering if there was any legal recourse available.

As Gary spoke, he noticed that his colleagues flinched because this story was not the kind of topic that is worthy of the President's time. Then he looked at Mr. Reagan and saw that he had tears in his eyes. He had been deeply moved by Gary's account of the hurting child. He ordered that the Justice Department seek to protect her from those who would allow her to die.

Incredibly, the judges who are able to find legal justification for killing unborn babies could not figure out how to preserve the life of "Baby Doe." (Dobson, James C. 2004. Family News from Dr. James Dobson, June, Issue 7.)

Reading this, I'm reminded of a conversation with C. Everett Koop a couple years ago in which we discussed Baby Doe. Koop was the Surgeon General at the time of Baby Doe's murder and he told me that during the days of starvation his office in Washington D.C. received fifty offers of adoption for this little girl. But of course, the cruel mercies of the girl's parents and the Bloomington legal and medical community refused to allow any one of these fifty loving couples to adopt this little baby girl--she must die.

Last night during a campaign appearance with his wife, Lynne, in Davenport, Iowa, Vice President Dick Cheney publicly acknowledged his opposition to President Bush's support for a constitutional amendment outlawing sodomite marriage. The Washington Post reports that the Vice President said:

"Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue our family is very familiar with. My general view is freedom means freedom for everyone... People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to." The question of whether that relationship should be given the status of marriage, Mr. Cheney, said, is "a matter for the states to decide."

Is there a single person outside the Beltway who would be surprised to find out that the lead line of the Post's editorial on the matter was, "Good for Vice President Cheney"?

This whole episode is sad because it can't help but further confirm the mass perception that morality is relative, particularly sexual morality, and that even the most principled men sacrifice their principles when those principles would cause pain for their family members.

In the years to come, most of us will face a similar moment and the way we respond to our own family's sins will be the evidence by which the world judges whether we serve the True God or an idol.

Setting aside Vice President Cheney's conniving at the public policy side of this sin by talking of states rights, how sad to see such a manly father choosing not to love his daughter by calling her to repentance, but instead accepting that daughter's sin as an unalterable reality and making his peace with it. Has he no fear of God, either for himself or for his daughter? Has he never heard or read these words from Scripture:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (1Corinthians 6:9-11)

Make no mistake: it is no more possible to love our sons and daughters and wink at their sodomy than it is to love them and wink at their adultery, fornication, or pedophilia. Like every other sexual sin that used to be illegal across our country, sodomy destroys lives. And souls.

blasphemy: Profane talk of something supposed to be sacred; impious irreverence. (The New Shorter Oxford Dictionary)

Several weeks ago a local Bloomington congregation called Sherwood Oaks Christian Church placed this ad in the Indiana University campus paper, Indiana Daily Student. Taking up a quarter of the op-ed page, when I first saw it I felt like I'd taken a punch to the solar plexus.

A young man from our congregation wrote the Sherwood Oaks Christian Church elders right away appealing to them to see what an assault the ad was on the honor of our Lord Jesus Christ. He concluded his letter:

"Pro-choice" is a phrase nearly universally used to describe supporting legalized abortion. Over 1.2 million precious human lives are snuffed out every year in the United States alone, and well over 40 million unborn babies have been murdered since Roe v. Wade threw out state laws limiting abortion in 1973. I urge you to remove this phrase from both your advertisements and from your Web site.

Reading my friend's letter of protest, I assumed the ad had been placed hastily and that the elders and pastors would take a similar haste to clean up the mess as best they could. And although I had no illusion that this congregation of the Cambellite Christian Church denomination would see the contradiction of Scripture at the heart of their sales pitch, I did think they'd have a tender conscience concerning the ad's statement that would mislead many to think that Sherwood Oaks and its college ministry believe the Holy God affirms the killing of unborn children.

So then I was shocked to see the ad appear again, and to realize there would be no apology, clarification, or withdrawal of the ad on the part of the congregation's leadership.

Need I say that I am not offended in the least by the ad's appeal to alternative types, or to those aligned with political parties other than Republican? Rather I commend them for these sentiments, although it's worth noting Sherwood Oaks Christian Church is thousands large and about as "establishment" as any church in Bloomington.

But take time to read the ad's headline and text and you'll understand my writing that it's incomprehensible how a congregation could think that running something like this in a university newspaper would honor our Lord.

(Gathering 629 is the college ministry of Sherwood Oaks Christian Church, a Campbellite congregation of the North American Christian Convention, a denomination best known for its adherence to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration and the motto "no creed but Christ.")

Our family's sitting around the butcher block table in the middle of the kitchen, and Michal, our daughter who's a freshman at Indiana University and is hanging out for the evening, told us to listen to this ad.

Funny funny funny.

Sherwood Oaks Christian Church has admitted their ad in the Indiana Daily Student using the hook line, "God is pro-choice," was not appropriate:

Ultimately, through much dialogue with sincere Christian brothers and sisters, we have come to the conclusion that the implementation of the hook-line was not comprehensively thought out.

This apology was what I expected from the beginning.

But let's go further and acknowledge there's a reason reformed churches and pastors so often are content to avoid the work of evangelism. After all, evangelism is risky--think of the risk Jesus took when he sat with the Samaritan woman, alone at the well speaking heart to heart. It was scandalous.

Loving the lost continues to be so today.

So here was an evangelistic ad that tried to bridge the gap between the Gospel of Jesus Christ and cynical postmoderns who are convinced evangelical Christianity is just a cover for Republical political ambitions and the civil religion of America's middle class. While the end doesn't justify the means in methods of evangelism any more than any other area of Christian life, it's certainly commendable to make an error in the same direction as our Lord Who had this to say about the work His Father gave Him (and by extension, us):

For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:10)

In a post on my children's blog my son-in-law, Doug Ummel, reminds his Yankee friends and relatives that the War Between the States brought the typical spoils to the victors--the writing of the history books. And he makes the right case that Yankee history is a perversion of the truth. To which I respond:

It is one of history's great ironies that the authority and power assumed by Washington DC since the end of the War Between the States--a war defended as being entirely focused on ending the oppressive institution of slavery--has become the very authority and power Washington used in 1973 (and since) to silence the laws of almost every State of the Union forbidding the killing of unborn children.

Last night I read two articles on the upcoming election, both in the New Yorker: one was a profile of the American immigrant billionaire financier, George Soros, and his frenzied effort to see President Bush defeated at the polls; the other was a short pre-election profile of President Bush summarizing what we have learned about this man during his first term in the White House.

Published in the New Yorker, both pieces are quite predictable in their anti-Bush tone. But what a tone!

Never do I remember such vitriol coming out of the liberals of our nation; they seem to hate Bush with a perfect hatred, and I can't help but suspect the vortex of this pool of hatred is his simple (culpably so) faith and the way that faith has informed his approach to the world of Islamic terrorism. If you believe in knowing your enemies, go buy this issue of the New Yorker and read these pieces. Note particularly the Soros piece, including his statement that it's inappropriate for any born-again man to hold the presidency of the United States because, by definition, a born-again man cannot lead in submission to the most fundamental aspect of our nation's constitutional genius: yeah, you guessed it--separation of church and state.

In other words, with a straight face Soros says (and the New Yorker reports) that constitutional government here in the United States prohibits any born-again Christian serving in the White House.

Well, there's much more of interest, but having read it I thought maybe I should write a short piece explaining why I, a Protestant, evangelical, and reformed pastor with one marriage and five children and two grandchildren and a few decades' experience watching rulers govern while praying for a growth in truth and mercy, and an end to the slaughter of the innocent, will be voting for the reelection of President George Bush.

But before I could start, I was forwarded this article by Oxford Historian, Paul Johnson. Within the Academy, Johnson is one of my heroes. He's written stellar histories of the United States, the Jews, modernity, Christianity, etc. (The book I've recommended most often is The Intellectuals.)

The piece was forwarded by a friend with many years' missionary experience in the heart of the Islamic world of the Mideast--a friend who doesn't live in the United States and who has a great sympathy, personally, for the Arabic world, particularly the displaced Palestinians. No fan of the war in Iraq, he forwarded this article and commends it. Why?

Read on. I'm content for Johnson's piece to explain my vote.

Finally, we have an answer to a six-month old question: who were the "foreign leaders" Senator Kerry claimed were opposed to another Bush term in the White House?

Reuter's just posted a piece reporting that Osama bin Laden has just released another video tape, this one critical of President Bush. Reuters points out the obvious: "It looked like a deliberate attempt to influence the U.S. election on Tuesday."

Back in March, Senator Kerry claimed foreign leaders wanted President Bush out of office, and that they supported his own candidacy. To which the White House responded:

"If Senator Kerry is going to say he has support from foreign leaders, then he needs to be straightforward with the American people and say who it is that he has spoken with and who it is that supports him...."

Kerry... declined to identify any leaders...

Well, here's one foreign leader with the guts to come forward.

I never thought the day would come when I would be more proud of being an adoptive Ohioan than a native Illinoisan, yet that day has come.

Though my county, Lucas, voted with Ohio's other metropolitan counties for the candidate of death, the vast majority of the little counties of this state went resoundingly against immorality. Not only did Kerry lose, but the nation's most restrictive ballot measure opposing sodomite unions won overwhelmingly in Ohio.

It's interesting to note that little Holmes County in southeast Ohio held the highest anti-Kerry voting percentage of any in the state (as of 3 A.M. Wednesday). Holmes has America's largest Amish population and though the Amish don't usually vote, perhaps the issues of this election drew them out.

Has America's "special relationship" with Great Britain reached its end? In longing, perhaps not. But in reality, it looks increasingly like a case of unrequited love.

Britain loathes America, especially the America that voted George Bush a second term. More than anything else, pagan Britain loathes American Christianity.

Today's issue of Britain's newspaper of record, the Manchester Guardian, has a series of essays responding to the reelection of President Bush. Almost every essay identifies America's evangelical Christianity as inimical to Britain's modern character and future.

Below, snippets from the essays with links to the original. It's worth noting not only what is hated--American Evangelical Christianity--but the intensity with which it's hated. In several essays, it appears war (civil or international) would be preferable to the current religious climate in America.

A moral dilemma by Sidney Blumenthal

Sidney Blumenthal, former Clinton aide and defender (and another American writing for the Guardian), rages against the evangelical church. The church is inspired by fear and Bush played to those fears--of women, of other nations, of other races. Read this carefully to smell the hatred. What would Blumenthal be screaming if an evangelical Christian wrote this way of Jews?

The evangelical churches became instruments of political organisation. Ideology was enforced as theology, turning nonconformity into sin, and the faithful, following voter guides with biblical literalism, were shepherded to the polls as though to the rapture. White Protestants, especially in the south, especially married men, gave their souls and votes for flag and cross. The campaign was one long revival. Abortion and stem cell research became a lever for prying loose white Catholics. To help in Florida, a referendum was put on the ballot to deny young women the right to abortion without parental approval and it galvanised evangelicals and conservative Catholics alike.

While Kerry ran on mainstream traditions of international cooperation and domestic investments, and transparency and rationality as essential to democratic government, Bush campaigned directly against these very ideas. At his rallies, Bush was introduced as standing for "the right God". During the closing weeks, Bush and Cheney ridiculed internationalism, falsifying Kerry's statement about a "global test". They disdained Kerry's internationalism as effeminate, unpatriotic, a character flaw, and elitist. "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," Cheney derided in every speech. They grafted imperial unilateralism on to provincial isolationism. Fear of the rest of the world was to be mastered with contempt for it.

This was linked to what is euphemistically called "moral values", which is social and sexual panic over the rights of women and gender roles. Only imposing manly authority against "girly men" and girls and lurking terrorists can save the nation. Above all, the exit polls showed that "strong leader" was the primary reason Bush was supported.

A four-year nightmare by Mike Marqusee

In this radical screed of self-loathing, the American author not only identifies with those who despise the U.S. around the globe, but urges a "militant" rejection of the president's policies by members of the American military. In essence, he's hoping for civil war. Apparently Mr. Marqusee has no idea of the attitude toward President Bush within the military.

Anti-Americanism has become a catch-all charge levied against anyone who engages in a radical critique of America's global power, its sway over the lives of billions who had no vote in Tuesday's election. People rebel against US hegemony for the same reasons they rebelled against the dominance of earlier imperial powers, not out of a distaste for the culture of the rulers but out of an objection to undemocratic, unaccountable, self-serving rule by remote elites of whatever culture.

Calvin comments that it's the mark of man's remarkable status that the preaching of the Gospel is entrusted to him rather than angels.

God has entrusted to man the work of transforming the world. Though we may not look to the President to deliver the world from bondage to sin, we do turn to men, to human agency under Divine sovereignty. And because of this we must recognize as we despair of the political process that our cause is not hopeless and our power is not weak.

Though President Bush may quail before the wrath of man, others do not; they are the Christian hope under God's overarching arm.

I may not turn to President Bush for hope. But I do turn to men, to families like many in our church: the Gerkens, the Ahrendts, the Beerbowers, the Bellases, the Varners, the Vrlenichs, the Altmans, the Brunners, the Priestaps....

Families bearing Godly seed, families raising children--1, 3, 5, 7, 10 children--in faith that God will be honored through their lives. Look out blue states, the red states are not just religious, they're blessed with fertility by the hand of the same God who rules you even as you sacrifice your children to your vanity. Look at the picture below, blue staters. There's now a sixth child in that family. And they're bright, they're sophisticated, they're winsome, they're homeschooled, they're ambitious intellectually, they're conservative politically, they love others and are generous and kind even as they hate the sins you're neutral on. They're your future, the multiplying Hebrews in your Egypt.

I turn to young men who are willing to see the truth through eyes of faith and idealism, men who decided not to vote for a president who claims Muslims go to heaven and that states should decide on gay marriage on their own, men like Tim Varner and Matthew French who chose to vote only for explicit righteousness, even if the cause seems doomed.

Our hope is not in the Republican party, but it is in men--men and women of God to whom the privilege of converting and sanctifying the world has been entrusted by God.

Steve Bell, editorial cartoonist for Britain's Guardian newspaper spits vitriol daily on President Bush and Americans in general. Mr. Bell does, however, have one true hero.

Want to see an impressive example of male leadership in action? Take a look at this video of President Bush pulling his Secret Service agent through the blockading Chilean police at the entrance to Friday night's APEC dinner.

The president seems to have been aware of some form of prior tension between the security services--his return to the door came too quickly for it to have been otherwise. Yet, in the midst of a charged atmosphere, his patient insistence on his guard being allowed through was most impressive. He simply stood at the back of the arguing clot in the doorway and, reaching over their shoulders, pulled on his agent's arm until it became clear to the Chileans that this president wasn't going in without his agent.

Immediately upon the agent's release President Bush returned to his host with a warm smile after a very slight dismissive shake of his head as he left the doorway. You can see video of the incident here.

President Bush's self-control and graceful extrication of his agent from the midst of a tense situation were striking. So it was shocking to read this description of the incident by Dana Bash on CNN:

According to a videotape of the incident, Bush turned around and saw that one of his Secret Service agents was being forcefully restrained from entering by Chilean security guards.

The president dove into the crowd, where people were arguing and pushing one another, and pulled the agent through the door of center.

After the successful rescue, Bush turned around, cocked his head proudly at his maneuver and began to greet his hosts.

The president "dove" into the crowd?! He "cocked his head proudly at his maneuver"?!

This reporter saw nothing more of the event than you can see yourself on the MSN video. She was watching the same APEC video feed available to the whole world, yet she characterizes it as a presidential mosh-pit-lunge followed by a schoolboy smirk. Someone should fire this woman. This is not reporting. This is a woman who thinks that because her mother gave her a confusingly androgynous name she can comment authoritatively on the world of male conflict. She's so confused by her name that she can't see quiet masculinity in action without shrilly screaming "Abuse! Pride! Arrogance."

Would that this woman's mother had named her Betsy... Perhaps then she would be less inclined to make asinine assumptions about how men are behaving in the midst of conflict.

(This piece is a revision of another piece below titled The Shame of Alfred Kinsey. This revision ran today, December 3, as a guest editorial in Bloomington's Herald Times. -Tim Bayly)

The late Allan Bloom was an Indianapolis native who served as professor at University of Chicago. In The Closing of the American Mind, Bloom lamented the destruction divorce caused his students. Noting that parents often used therapists to help their children cope, Bloom wrote, "Psychologists are the sworn enemies of guilt."

If therapists are the sworn enemies of guilt, sex researchers are the sworn enemies of shame-with IU's Alfred C. Kinsey leading the pack.

Although hired by IU as a zoologist, in 1938 Kinsey contrived to land a job lecturing engaged and married seniors on "biology." He ended the course by taking his students' sexual histories.

Kinsey spent the rest of his academic career conducting these interviews and disseminating the data. He was convinced that publicizing peoples' private sexual lives would usher in a more peaceful age devoid of shame and inhibition.

But his efforts did not bring the dawn of Aquarian freedom...

If there can be something more evil than abortion, it is the civil authority allowing minor daughters to abort their babies without their parents' permission. This is a deliberate attack upon the family by the state, a very evil thing in itself, but infinitely compounded because this particular attack leaves a baby dead and that baby's mother with blood on her hands. Her father is impotent to protect her; the state has replaced her natural sovereign and Satan is free to destroy both the daughter and her baby.

Christians today don't meditate enough upon the state's malevolent relationship with the family. If there is such a thing as systemic evil, this is it. Beyond birth control and abortion, the state assumes authority over our children's education, their discipline, and their work.

Jude Doty is a Christian father who used to make a living moving houses. But in 2003 the state of Washington's Department of Labor and Industries fined him $34,000 for "employing" his eleven and thirteen-year-old sons. Later the state added $20,000 in unpaid workers' compensation insurance and another $87,000 in fines.

Doty, God bless him, thinks God approves of sons working next to their fathers, and despite having lost almost everything--with his house about to be auctioned off at a sheriff's sale and legal fees piling up now in excess of $40,000--Doty fights on for his, and by extension, every father's God-given responsibility to their children. At the end of the article detailing his battle, Doty says:

We've lost our business and this week it may be our home. But when it comes down to losing the opportunity to work with our youth, we will stand. If we do nothing, we will surrender our constitutional God-given right to apprentice our youth, and our children's rightful inheritance of being with their fathers. Satan wants to rob children of their fathers' influence, but Scripture encourages: "He shall turn the heart of the fathers to their children, and the heart of the children to their fathers." (Malachi 4:6) They're not my employees, they're my children!

By the way, one of the jobs the Department of Labor and Industries said Doty should not have allowed his sons to do because of its danger was riding on the peak of the house as it went down the street, lifting low-hanging traffic signals.

Dangerous? Nah.

The long-term health of America's federal government depends upon a finely-tuned constitutional system of checks and balances.

The executive branch of government is held in check by:

1. Quadrennial elections 2. Legislative prerogative to establish law 3. Constitutional review by judiciary

The legislature is held in check by:

1. Two-year and six-year elections 2. Bicameral nature of assembly 3. Presidential veto and enforcement 4. Constitutional review by judiciary

The judiciary is held in check by:

1. Presidential appointment 2. Legislative approval 3. The U.S. Consitution

Notice that the primary check on sitting members of the judiciary is not the other branches of government but the U.S. Constitution. Judges are referees in the U.S. system of government with the Constitution their rulebook. The single great role of the U.S. Supreme Court within the U.S. federal system of government is to apply the Constitution to the actions of the executive and legislative branches of government. They are the check of last resort, the Constitution their bedrock.

But what happens when the court is no longer checked by the Constition? What happens, as we saw in this week's ruling on the execution of juveniles, when the court rules without even a fig leaf of regard for the Constitution?

What happens is judicial tyranny and eventually, a realigment of the U.S. federal system of government or the end of American democracy. The overweening pride of the U.S. Supreme Court has not yet been checked by the legislative or executive branches of goverment, but it must or American democracy will end with a series of unreviewable acts of judicial fiat.

Think of how little role the Supreme Court played in resolving past national debates ranging from female suffrage to slavery. Now, consider the increasing boldness of the federal judiciary to legislate by judicial fiat in matters ranging from the President's conduct of war (treatment of prisoners) to abortion to euthanasia to the public practice of religion.

America will not be free much longer if the federal judiciary is not brought back under Constitutional authority.

These quotes from an MSNBC report on a speech by Justice Antonin Scalia at the Woodrow Wilson Center last night.

"The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake, it is legal document, and like all legal documents, it says some things and doesn't say others."

In the past 30 years, in its abortion, homosexual sodomy and death penalty decisions, the Supreme Court has, Scalia, said, "essentially liberated itself from the text of the Constitution ... and even from the traditions of the American people."

(The) trend of judges reading new meanings into the Constitution "will destroy the Constitution."

It already has.

Thanks to Matt French for link.

(Note from Tim Bayly: When I was a child, my parents sent me to camp in Canada each summer, so I grew up knowing something about Canada and Canadians. I don't remember any edge in my relations with the other boys, nor even one example of disdain for the United States. It all seemed quite amicable to me--almost as if our nations were twins separated at birth.

Then more recently, friends of mine and I have experienced a new aggressiveness on Canada's part as we crossed their border, and it's clear that we're all eating Canadian Bacon now.

But if I were to put my finger on why I have a different attitude to Canada than I did as a child, the following speech perfectly sums up my growing disgust for our neighbor to the north. It almost seems as if Canada, not being able to win the money or power battle, is determined to win by outdoing us in the killing of God and Truth and preening herself over being the most progressive light in the Americas.

She seems to be taking her marching orders straight from hell as she passes law after law and files charge after charge rejecting and persecuting those who accept the teaching of Scripture concerning the value of life, the meaning and purpose of sex, the nature of truth, and so on.

Watch Canada if you want to know the world your children will inhabit and the persecution they will face for confessing Jesus Christ.)

Religious Freedom in Canada

by Dr. Chris Kempling

(Kempling received a standing ovation for this address delivered on March 4, 2005 in New York City at a United Nations Commission on Human Rights Delegate Briefing.)

Canada is a country which prides itself on religious freedom and religious tolerance. And in many respects that is true. Citizens are free to practice their faiths according to their traditions, generally without interference from the government. And even when someone's religious beliefs conflicts with a long established Canadian tradition, great tolerance can be shown, as was the case with the first Sikh Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer permitted to wear a turban instead of the regulation hat. That constable started his career in my home town of Quesnel, and he was accepted and appreciated by the community.

Unfortunately, there are two primary areas of conflict between religious freedoms and government policy in Canada: abortion and homosexuality. A group of eight Christians, members of a group called Operation Rescue protesting abortion were arrested and sentenced to jail terms for peacefully protesting outside an abortion clinic. I met one of the men, Donald Spratt, who was incarcerated in British Columbia's maximum security Oakalla prison for his crime -- he was holding a sign outside an abortion clinic. Currently, he is awaiting trial in the BC Court of Appeal for violating the "bubble zone" of an abortion clinic. Once again, he was simply holding a sign with a Bible verse on it -- Thou shalt not kill.

A man by the name of Bill Whatcott, an evangelical Christian who is a licensed practical nurse, was fined $15,000...

For those who weren't alarmed to learn that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts did significant pro bono work for a coalition of gay rights activists on a Supreme Court case which led to a 1996 decision forbidding "discrimination because of sexual orientation", this article from this week's New Yorker should prove a wake-up call.

The article on Senate Minority leader Harry Reid suggests that Roberts is a compromise candidate from a weakened president. Listen to Reid on Roberts:

[Having asked Roberts his view of precedent in the Supreme Court during a courtesy visit to the Minority Leader's office] Roberts, Reid recalled, said, " 'Oh, on the Supreme Court you can change precedent only if there's this and this,' and he was rattling them off. I hope I didn't act surprised, but I'd never heard anything like that before." Roberts, in Reid's view, left no doubt that he would be very reluctant to overturn precedents. To do so, Roberts had said, the Court would first have to consider a series of objective criteria, two of which stood out: whether a precedent fostered stability in the nation; and the extent to which society had come to rely on an earlier ruling, even a dubious one. "I thought it would be more of a weaselly answer than that, but he said you have to meet all these standards before you can change a precedent," Reid said. Roberts's view of precedent is likely to be an important issue during the upcoming confirmation hearings. Earl Maltz, a conservative and a professor at the Rutgers University School of Law at Camden, says that what Roberts told Reid could be "very significant," because it runs counter to the "originalist" approach of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who believe that the Constitution should be strictly interpreted, according to the original intent of the Founding Fathers...

At another point in the article, Reid compares Roberts to Souter:

Reid more than once compared Roberts to Justice David Souter, who was appointed by the first President Bush, in 1990, and today is widely detested by conservatives because he frequently sides with the more liberal Justices. Souter and Reid are friendly. "He's my favorite man on the Court," Reid said. "I think he's such a wonderful man, and he believes in precedent. That's all he's doing. He's just following the law." Reid smiled, and continued, "If somebody is a real lawyer and not a Clarence Thomas or Edith Jones, who is there not to be a judge but to be a legislator, it gives us some hope, and so, if he is approved, I would hope he would turn out like Souter or somebody like that."

When we returned from overseas, I had a stack of New Yorkers waiting. One article was on the power wielded in D.C. by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The piece's author, Jeffrey Godlberg, compares AIPAC's influence to that of the NRA and the AARP--pretty scarey, huh?

But the quote from the article that stuck with me came from a longtime AIPAC leader with whom Greenburg was doing an interview in a restaurant. Asked whether recent scandals surrounding AIPAC's leaders and charges of espionage against them had dimished their influence in Washington, here's Greenburg's description of the leader's response:

A half smile appeared on his face, and he pushed a napkin across the table. "You see this napkin?" he said. "In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin."