U.S. Senator, and for a time one of the gaggle of candidates
to be the Democrats' 2020 presidential nominee was trying
mightily to get that party's progressives (which by now is
almost the entire party) to consider him presidential material.
Among his plays was calling for a mandatory gun buyback
and supporting an expansion of so-called abortion rights.
His last gambit was to force churches to sing from the progressive
hymnal, that is, to adopt the progressive cultural strictures
in place of Scriptural teaching. Thank God (yes, pun intended!)
his campaign never took off.
his campaign never took off.
How would O'Rourke have done this? Removal of the tax-exempt
status of these houses of worship. He said as much at a
CNN town hall, stating "There can be no reward, no benefit, no
tax break for anyone or any institution ... that denies the full human
rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us ... We are
going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of
our fellow Americans." His remarks drew thunderous applause
from the very partisan live audience. Your quizzical Peasant wants
to ask here, but what about the separation of church and state?
The left-wingers are always so terrified that the former would
become politically powerful enough under conservative governance
that it would dictate to the latter as to how it would then govern;
O'Rourke would have the latter become strong enough that it
would dictate to the former how they would preach from the pulpit,
and no progressives (that is, far far FAR-lefties) have ever expressed
any concerns over that. By the by, O'Rourke currently not in elected
public office, nor is he in an appointed governmental position.
However, he does plan to run for governor in Texas at the time of
this posting. Let's hope he falls flat once again!
It seems to your faithful Peasant (again, pun intended) that ol' Beto
makes the same mistake that his comrades have long made and
clung to, that said separation is enshrined in the Constitution by
virtue of its First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise
thereof ...". Beto and friends always harp on the first part while
ignoring the second. This amendment was designed to preserve our
right to freedom of expression and of worship, and forbids the
establishment of an official church or religion of our nation by
our government, i.e. there can never be a Church of America,
like there is a Church of England (the Anglican Church), nor
can there ever be a temple, mosque, coven, or whatever religious
house of America. By the same token, this amendment forbids
and prohibits the government from mandating that our many houses
of worship preach, if you will, a gospel of state nostrums of faith.
But the Progs and many others on the Left worship, first and foremost,
power. They want to regulate, micromanage, mandate, dictate to,
and just plain dominate us, We the People, in each and every area
of our lives, and this is but one method that they hope to implement.
The idea of a separation of church and state came from a letter
written by President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist
Association of Danbury, Virginia on January 1, 1802. Jefferson
wrote: "Believing with you that religion is a matter that lies solely
between a man and his God, that he owes no account to no other
for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government
reaches action only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign
reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that
their legislature should 'make no law establishing the establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' " thus building
a wall of separation between Church and State." This is where this
idea is found, NOT in the Constitution. And Jefferson's idea of
such a wall of separation was meant to restrain the reach of
government --- the state --- into the highly personal area of
worship and practicing one's faith, never to restrain how one is
to worship and practice his faith. And absolutely never to
dictate to houses of worship as to how they should worship
and such.
Until recent years, most Democrats (including Uber-lefty President
Barack Obama) opposed same-sex marriage. But after Oberkfell v.
Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court decision which declared same-sex
marriage a constitutional right, the Left has become the culture cops,
with fascistic overtones: Just ask Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker
who was raked over the coals by the Colorado Civil Rights Division
for having the temerity to politely decline to bake a wedding cake
for a gay couple. SCOTUS rightly tossed out this case against Phillips,
telling the CCRD in so many words to get with constitutional reality.
But if elected president, Beto O'Rourke would not only have made a
bid to reverse this ruling, he would have appointed to the high court
left-wingers to be justices who would certainly make the reversal.
And if this were to happen, we'd all need to start praying! A point
of irony here: opinion polls have shown an INCREASE in support
for same-sex marriage in recent years; I guess that the government
thought that said increase was not growing fast enough to suit it.
And if this were to happen, we'd all need to start praying! A point
of irony here: opinion polls have shown an INCREASE in support
for same-sex marriage in recent years; I guess that the government
thought that said increase was not growing fast enough to suit it.
Tax exemption for houses of worship are not, and were never meant to
be rewards for towing the establishment line as determined by the
state. It is meant to spare religious institutions from the burden of
taxation, the reasoning rooted in the belief that religious activity
encourages virtues that benefit the nation's entire society ---
charity, industry, responsibility, honesty, and generally morally
upright behavior. Given the way the government carries on, would
we really want it to encourage something that it has little, if any,
of? And what gives government the notion that it should regulate
the practicing of our respective religious faiths?
So Beto O'Rourke plans to run for Texas' governorship?
He should instead run for the border!
MEM
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