The ACLU’s Hypocrisy
on Religious Liberty
(Photo: Jeff Malet Photography/Newscom
Showing posts with label Obergefell v Hodges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obergefell v Hodges. Show all posts
Monday, March 14, 2016
Monday, July 13, 2015
If One Believes In The Bible, Can Cahn Be Incorrect. Are We In End Days?
AMERICA'S DAY OF RECKONING JUST 60 DAYS AWAY?
Ancient biblical cycle now 2 months from climax
Author and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn
Two months from now the biblical Shemitah year will have played out and only then will we know whether it has left any significant event in its wake.
In the past, this seven-year cycle has brought collapsing stock markets, tumbling currencies and the shaking of nations and empires.
This period of early autumn was the most crucial time on the biblical calendar for the ancient Israelites, with the end of the seven-year cycle described in Deuteronomy as the Shemitah or Sabbath year. All farmland was to be left in a state of rest and the people were to focus on God and His will for their nation and their lives.
This year on Sept. 13, the Shemitah reaches its peak on the last day on the Hebrew calendar, Elul 29, known as the “day of nullification.” All debt and credit were to be wiped away on this day as described by author Jonathan Cahn in his New York-Times bestseller, “The Mystery of the Shemitah,” published in September 2014.
image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2014/08/mystery_shemitah.jpg
But the Shemitah can be a game-changer not only for economies and stock markets but also in geopolitics.
Are America’s days as world leader numbered?
There is no arguing the fact that the United States of America has been the most powerful “empire” on earth since the end of World War II. Its corporations have been the engine that drives the global economy and its politicians have set the tone for the world order. It’s no coincidence the United Nations is based in New York City, the seat of global financial power.
But even as the nation’s economy flounders and it has gone from the world’s largest creditor to the world’s largest debtor, American culture has also drifted farther and farther from God. Some believe it has drifted beyond the point of return, into full-blown rebellion, with the June 26 landmark Supreme Court decision on marriage being only the latest symptom of a nation that has come unhinged from its foundational belief system. Obergefell v. Hodges was the biggest shock to Judeo-Christian moral sensibilities since Roe v. Wade in 1973. Both decisions came down in Shemitah years.
In the oft-quoted words of American political philosopher F.P. Dunne, “the Supreme Court follows the election returns.” If that’s true, such monumental shifts in the court’s rulings should not be viewed in a bubble. The five justices who decided to radically alter the legal definition of marriage could not have ruled that way unless they felt the majority of Americans were ready to accept their decision, if not totally agree with it. Thus far it does not appear that they miscalculated. The overwhelming majority of county clerks are issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples and those who have refused are being replaced by more obedient bureaucrats.
The 20th century’s greatest Christian thinkers, men like Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Francis Schaeffer, believed that a civilization could not continue indefinitely apart from the will of God. Soviet communism fell, Nazi Germany fell, the British Empire disintegrated. And many scholars see the whole of Western civilization as in decline now that it has rejected the very Christianity that made it great. It has succumbed to the pressures that have warred against it from the beginning.
Shemitah shakes empires
One of the chapters in Cahn’s book “The Rise and Fall of Nations” shows how the ancient Shemitah mystery is linked to massive changes of world history – world wars, the rise and fall of nations and empires.
Global problems in our day seem to be spinning out of control. Lawlessness is on the rise. The current order in the Middle East, in place since the end of World War I, has been turned on its head.
“What we are watching now is a massive destabilization throughout the world – from ISIS, to the war in Syria, to the collapse of Greece, the collapse of the Chinese stock market, the destabilizing of the European Union, the issue of nuclear weapons and Iran, the moral and spiritual transformation of America, the deterioration of relations between America and Israel, and more,” Cahn told WND.
In the financial realm, the markets have been expanding since 2009. Cahn believes the Shemitah, if it follows its pattern of the past two seven-year cycles, will bring a shaking in the financial realm first.
“And just now as we approach the climactic last part of the Shemitah, we see the sudden destabilization of the global financial realm,” said Cahn, who authored “The Harbinger,” which became a New York-Times bestseller in 2009.
“Added to this, the Greek crisis specifically deals with issues of debt and debt relief – the central issue of the Shemitah,” he added. “Whether or not the crisis finds a resolution, the very fact that such sudden destabilization of the global financial realm has taken place, and having to do with the issue of debt and credit and the issue of relief, just as the Shemitah nears its climactic period, warrants our attention. And as the Shemitah deals with the wiping out of financial accounts, we now witness China’s financial (stock market) losing 30 percent of its value in less than a month, is more than striking.”
States falling into line even before court’s edict
But it will not stop with the financial realm.
“The Shemitah also can mean ‘the fall.’ And we are watching the greatest, most rapid moral and spiritual fall in American history,” Cahn said. “In the year of the Shemitah, the number of states that struck down the biblical definition of marriage went from a small minority, in the teens, to the majority, and then at the end of June, came one of the most momentous decisions in American judicial history – and history itself – the striking down of the biblical and historic definition of marriage.
“This is a pivotal event with colossal ramifications, and one that draws America one step closer to judgment.”
When Obergefell v. Hodges was being argued before the Supreme Court in March, Cahn said he saw a woman holding a sign that read “Don’t Cross this Line.” He stopped and prayed with her.
Holy matrimony was the first covenant between God and man in the Garden of Eden, when God gave Eve to Adam and the two, male and female, were to become “one flesh” with God as their witness. In the New Testament, marriage is further revealed as a type, a foreshadow, of the relationship between God and his Church, which is called the “Bride of Christ.”
Now man has taken what is holy before God, the marriage covenant, and redefined it in a way that appears right to man in his humanistic way of thinking devoid of the Holy Spirit’s guidance. A line has been crossed, Cahn said, and so the only prayer left to pray is one for repentance and mercy.
America is heading for judgment. Whether that judgment entails a stock market collapse, a collapse of the dollar, or something further down the road that is even worse, Cahn is also praying that the individual Christians that make up the body of Christ in America will get right with God and repent of their sins.
For judgment always starts “in the house of the Lord.”
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redefinition of marriage in
Obergefell v. Hodges, the
American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) has declared that it will
no longer support the federal
Religious Freedom Restoration
Act (RFRA) or state analogues.
considering Religious Freedom
Restoration Acts’ history.
in 1993 by none other than
Sen.
Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and
(then) Rep. Chuck Schumer,
D-N.Y., as a direct response to
the watering down of existing
Free Exercise protections
through Employment Division
v. Smith, a 1990 Supreme Court decision. With the ACLU’s help,
the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act was signed
into law by President Bill Clinton.
forward
to today. The ACLU now says
that the many liberals who
supported the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act,
including the ACLU itself, had
in fact created a license to
discriminate against LGBT
persons “in virtually all
aspects of their lives.”
Heritage Foundation’s Sarah
Torre, Religious Freedom
Restoration Acts do not
guarantee that religious
believers will win in every case.
of faith must first prove to a
judge that a government action
results in a substantial burden
on his or its religious exercise,
and the government is then given the
opportunity to show a compelling
justification for its actions. The
ACLU had argued for the
passage of the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act precisely because
it struck the right balance, so it is
more than ironic to now see the
ACLU leading the charge
against state religious freedom
bills that are effectively identical
to the federal law it once
championed.
hate legislation, you would
think the ACLU had purged
itself of all association with
these supposedly bigoted laws
long ago. But you would be
wrong.
lawsuit against the U.S. Army.
The Army had refused to allow
a Sikh college student, Iknoor
Singh, to enlist in ROTC
(Reserve Officers’ Training
Corps) unless he followed
Army grooming and uniform
regulations. This would have
required him to shave his beard,
remove his turban, and cut his
hair. Because his religious
beliefs required him not to do
these things, Singh requested
a religious accommodation.
When the Army denied this
request, the ACLU argued for
Singh’s rights, quoting the
Religious Freedom Restoration
Act in his defense.
complaint, the Army’s refusal
to accommodate Singh violated
the federal Religious Freedom
Restoration Act, which protects
“fundamental religious-exercise
rights.” The ACLU and Singh
won the case because of the
existence of the federal
Religious Freedom Restoration
Act.
in Texas in 2007 against a judge
who demanded that a Sikh man
remove his turban in a courtroom.
This turban was worn because of
religious beliefs—according to
the former Texas ACLU legal
director, “the turban signifies
devotion to God, and is an
integral part of a Sikh’s identity.”
Religious Freedom Restoration
Act to argue that the judge
violated the man’s freedom of
religious exercise by asking him
to remove his turban. An ACLU
volunteer attorney working on
the case stated, “We believe
RFRA’s prohibition on
substantially burdening a
person’s free exercise of
religion clearly applies to the
judge in this case.” Once
more, the ACLU’s use of the
Religious Freedom Restoration
Act resulted in the protection
of sincerely held religious beliefs.
Liberties Union defended a
Quaker in a lawsuitagainst the
federal government, asking
it to recognize conscientious
objectors when men register
for the draft. Tobin Jacobrown,
a Quaker, did not fill out the
Selective Service forms since
there was no option on the
form acknowledging
conscientious objectors.
been a significant religious
principle, and they are not
supposed to participate in any
institution they feel violates that
belief. Jacobrown did not
register for the draft because
of his religious belief as a
Quaker. The ACLU’s lawsuit
on behalf of Jacobrown cited
the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act to ask that
the government recognize
conscientious objectors when
men register for the draft.
Religious Freedom Restoration
Act protections to fight for
the religious freedom rights
of Muslims. In 2005, the ACLU
filed a suit on behalf Americans
who were returning to the
country after attending a
conference on Islam. Because
of a special terrorism
screening policy, the Department
of Homeland Security detained
numerous conference
attendees at the U.S.-Canadian
border upon returning to the
United States. In the lawsuit,
the ACLU said the policy
implemented by the
Department of Homeland
Security violated the rights of
conference attendees under
the federal Religious Freedom
Restoration Act.
in which the ACLU has defended
religious freedom under the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
ACLU’s change of heart when it
used to rely so heavily, and so
recently, on state and federal
Religious Freedom Restoration
Acts?
ACLU wants to shunt religious beliefs
that in any way conflict with the current
liberal orthodoxy on human sexuality—
even if those religious beliefs are rooted
in reasoned arguments and are shared
by mainstream Christians, Muslims,
Jews, and others.
sincerely held religious beliefs that
were unpopular, it now sacrifices the
religious liberty rights of millions of
good-faith Americans before the altar
of sexual politics. What a shame.