The opiate of Hollywood fare disguised as high—minded popular culture further dulls the minds of a culture already narcotized by a steady supply of anti—Christian rhetoric. In an industry historically known for coddling communists (the blacklist, Jane Fonda, Oliver Stone, Sean Penn and others traipsing off to Cuba to glorify Castro) and other Dictators who oppress their people, one tends to surrender to the unregenerate status quo.
"America," said Joseph Stalin, "is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within."
Patriotism seems subjective these days. The media says you have to belong to a certain political party to be patriotic now, support certain polices. And Hollywood and the media certainly play major roles in dumbing down our morals through the young, and with the subtle campaign to subvert Judeo—Christian traditions. But they pose a lesser threat than the judiciary and activist organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the LAMBDA Legal Defense and Education Fund, who represent its driving force.
When the ACLU cleverly named itself a "civil liberties" union in 1920, its idea of civil liberty was hardly consistent with what the U.S. Constitution's framers had in mind.
"I am for socialism," wrote ACLU founder Roger Baldwin in 1936. "I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class and sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal."
He spent time in the soviet paradise of the USSR.
Communism, a political theory favoring collectivism in a classless society, remains the goal.
And while occasionally taking up a righteous cause, defending the defenseless and clocked in the matters of justice (their view) this organization has done more damage to this country than any other!
The ACLU is well known for their bullying tactics, filing suits against school districts, most financially unable to defend themselves in court, intimidating them into stopping Christmas programs, and denying school youth religious groups of use of facilities after hours, while at the same time assuring there's no discrimanation of gay and lesbian groups by making those same facilities available to them. (Starting to see the picture?)
They have also recently participated in shameless attacks on the Boy Scouts of America.
In Southern California especially, these activists have targeted the Christian cross with glorious success. Examples abound:
Government Seal Cases: The ACLU Foundation of Southern California threatened to sue the County of Los Angeles and the City of Redlands unless depictions of the cross were removed from their official seals.
War Memorial Cases: The ACLU Foundation of San Diego and Imperial Counties succeeded in its legal effort to dismantle the 43—foot tall Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial Cross, a landmark for more than 50 years in La Jolla. The ACLU Foundation of Southern California was equally successful in obtaining an order dismantling a cross that has been a World War I memorial fixture on Sunrise Rock in the Mojave Desert since 1932.
And on April 8, after an unsuccessful appeal to the Ninth Circuit, and without media fanfare, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Timlin signed an order requiring the immediate dismantling of the Sunrise Rock cross. That case, Buono v. Norton, has drawn the wrath of the American Legion, which is approaching the defeat with a novel solution. The Legion passed a resolution calling on Congress to amend 42 U.S.C. Section 1988, to bar recovery of attorney fees to the prevailing party in cases filed for the purpose of removing and destroying religious symbols located on public property. U.S. Representative John Hostettler (Indiana) is expected to introduce the Public Expression of Religion Act. Its goal is to drive out one incentive to file lawsuits where no one is complaining and no one is actually injured.
The ACLU pockets the change even when delegating work to pro bono attorneys.
Who really believes that a cross in the desert, on a hilltop or on a seal establishes a government—endorsed religion?? Who honestly believes their tax money is working to do any more than to honor war veterans or the community's heritage?
Communicating the message of religious liberty certainly presents challenges, not the least of which is convincing the media, or Hollywood for that matter, that defending the cross is beneficial to our society and in fact crucial to preserving our civil rights and liberties.
When U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Morrison Remick Waite composed his analysis of the Establishment Clause in Reynolds v. United States in 1878, a Free Exercise case, he relied on Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury (Connecticut) Baptist Association and Jefferson's phrase "'wall of separation between church and State."
Strange that he would examine the Establishment Clause at all since it was not in issue. Stranger still was his reliance on Jefferson's letter and his attraction to the 'wall of separation' phrase, parroted by judges and liberal activists ever since.
As Justice Waite even observed, Jefferson was in France when the language of the First Amendment was finalized and adopted. It was James Madison's version that we venerate today. 'It met the views of the advocates of religious freedom, and was adopted,' Waite wrote.
Jefferson's letter was a peevish response.
When Justice Hugo Black lifted the Reynolds analysis in Everson v. Board of Education (1945), he resisted the urge to compare what other founding fathers thought about the matter.
So the phrase "The wall of separation" (which appears no where in the founding documents) was thus enshrined in our national consciousness and divides us still.
If the ACLU were to support the Hostettler bill, it would go a long way toward proving that they aren't profiteers at the expense of people of faith and believers in the sanctity of tradition.
But I suspect they will commit all their resources toward winning another tiny battle in their classless and unholy crusade.
