Reality Check 101

Georg Hegel (1770-1831) is hardly a household name but his social and political philosophy gave rise to Marxism, Communism and to Barack Obama’s low view of America and her Constitution.  For Hegel, the “state” is almost everything.  He taught that the state “has the supreme right against; the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the State…for the right of the world spirit is above all special privileges…”  The Obama administration is the three-headed child of Hegel.

The United States Constitution and Bill of Rights is the fortress against the statism of would-be lords.  With revolutionary wisdom, they do not grant rights to citizens but deny rights to the very powers that Hegel believed in.  The distinction between granting and denying is fundamental.  Americans have been groomed by decades of “progressivism” to believe the lie that their rights exist through the gracious permission of government.  The truth is that government exists by the grace of God and at the behest of the people.  Thus, after over 220 years, we find ourselves in the position for a second time of having to build a better fortress against the overlordship tendencies of our own leaders.

There are three bills in Congress which attempt to squelch the growing rebellion by the Obama administration and all its regulatory soldiers: the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), the Health Care Conscience Rights Act (HCCRA) and the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (ANDA).  They are becoming known, accurately, as liberty legislation.
Pundits of liberty legislation claim that the three bills are granting special privileges to special populations based on specific beliefs.  The claim is interesting but slightly hypocritical since the “law[s] of the land”, as liberals like to say when they win battles over healthcare, abortion and homosexuality, do the same things – bully others into submission to special privileges for special populations because of their special belief systems.  To claim otherwise is to fly in the face of both social and hard sciences and therefore deny reality.  Not only that, but as will become clear, some of the other claims relative to hospital visitation, retaliation and denying abortion information are patently false.

So what do FADA, HCCRA and ANDA actually do?  According to summaries by www.congress.gov, a resource for lawmakers, the facts are clear.  FADA prohibits the government from discrimination against any person through its use of taxes, contracts, loans, benefits, or certifications, all of which are well publicized methods now in use, because of that person’s religious or moral convictions supporting traditional values for marriage and sexual relations.  HCCRA amends Title 1 of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and the Public Service Act.  It simply protects individuals, health care professionals and facilities from being coerced by government to perform abortions or other services against their religious or moral convictions.  ANDA specifically targets discriminatory practices by government based on “an entity’s refusal to participate in abortion-related activities”.

Collectively this liberty legislation does exactly what the Bill of Rights does.  It puts the brakes on the ability of anti-faith, anti-life, anti-marriage, anti-speech forces to use the full weight of state and federal law as their enforcers.  It limits the use of discrimination and coercion by those in high authority who are supposed to be charged with preserving First Amendment protections.  There is no attack on the fake institution of homosexual marriage or on the supposed right to kill the unborn.  There is no targeting of anyone except government itself.  The only permission for “retaliation” is for legal redress toward government or its agencies when it or they have violated an entity’s civil rights.

It is no small thing that those who would presume to squelch the American heart do so not only in violation of the written Constitution and the rules of common decency but also do so in opposition to something much greater. The power of a heart devoted to God is a power that the irreligious and princes disdain.  They cannot tolerate the liberated heart whose ultimate allegiance rests in Someone above the State.  They certainly cannot fathom the infinite and eternal depths of the heart of God from which marriage, sexuality and life itself sprang.