Dems’ War On Religion

By Deacon Mike Manno

(The Wanderer) – I’ve mentioned in this column before that I was at one time a respected member of the Democratic Party. I held party and political office in and through that organization.

Of course we’ve long since parted ways. Originally it was over the issue of abortion, which at the time the party defended as needing to be “safe, legal, and rare.” While a mild statement compared to today’s party agenda, it was enough to cause me to rethink my loyalties.

But after watching how my former party has knitted together its electoral vision for the nation I have come to the sad conclusion that the Democratic Party stands for more than just abortion on demand. It stands for immorality at its core, and not only fosters those beliefs, but actively tries to impose that immorality on the nation while at the same time trying desperately to silence the Church, its adherents, and those who dare to speak the truth of God.

This is not a partisan statement; this is the result of those who have decided to seek secular glory rather than following the teachings of Jesus Christ. In short, the political battle has turned into a war between the forces of Hell and the forces of God.

Now I don’t mean to describe all Democrats or paint with too broad a brush. It is the demonic leadership that is leading many of their God-fearing members to the brink of perdition. This is also a cautionary tale warning those “low information” types to wake up and see what is being done with their support, for as Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said:

“It is a characteristic of any decaying civilization that the great masses of the people are unconscious of the tragedy. Humanity in a crisis is generally insensitive to the gravity of the times in which it lives. Men do not want to believe their own times are wicked, partly because it involves too much self-accusation and principally because they have no standards outside of themselves by which to measure their times.”

I mentioned abortion above. There is probably not much more I can say to a Christian audience that it does not know already. What I want to emphasize, however, is exactly what the party and its officeholders have done. Abortion is now a tenet of their faith and nothing should be allowed to interfere with it. Thus it is allowed up to and including the day of a child’s birth, and some states, such as California, are expanding it beyond birth by prohibiting any investigation into the death of a newborn — even to call for legal action against anyone opening such an investigation.

In addition, crisis pregnancy centers have been targeted and there is legislation being proposed in several venues that would outlaw theses centers of compassion altogether. And who are standing with and leading this pro-death parade: the leaders of the Democratic Party, many of whom claim to be devout Catholics.

Promoting infanticide and stopping those trying to stop it is not a partisan activity. It is activity dictated by, as Screwtape would tell his nephew Wormwood, Our Father Below.

Crisis pregnancy centers are not the only targets of this demonic activity. In the name of gender and sexual “equality” Catholic and Christian organizations who wish to promote the faith in schools, colleges, adoption agencies, and other venues are increasingly facing the wrath of Democratic and liberal officeholders who are trying to force them to “accommodate” those who not only violate the tenets of Christianity, but who seek to erase them from our culture.

For example, a suit has just been filed in Michigan by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty which is trying to protect a Catholic parish from being forced to hire teachers who do not subscribe to the Church’s beliefs on marriage and gender identity. If the defense fails, the parish will be prohibited from requiring dogmatic conformity in its hiring practices, especially for school teachers, and if it sticks to its guns, be disqualified from participating in civic activities, such as athletic associations.

And if you are a regular reader here you know that although this lawsuit is new, the issue is not. For years officeholders have tried to use antidiscrimination laws to force compliance with their version of social dogma. Christian schools, churches, and adoption agencies have been attacked by blue-state officials, challenging their right to follow their biblical beliefs in the public square.

It is only by the grace of God that these entities have been saved from this onslaught by judges who believe in the constitutional protection of religious liberty. But don’t make any mistakes here. New laws and court cases are piling up that deliberately either do not provide a religious exceptions or specifically deny it.

As I write my column, a current example of this will be making its way to the president’s desk shortly, something called the Respect for Marriage Act. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? It passed the Senate with scant support from the GOP, many of whom are regular RINOs and a few just stupid or ignorant, and the House with a solid “all Democrats on board” partisan vote.

Here is what the bill does, besides recognizing the legality of same-sex and inter-racial marriage:

According to the Heritage Foundation, schools or adoption agencies that try to live by their biblical view of marriage would be subject to loss of tax-exempt status and their licenses to operate, thus rendering them unable to continue their activities.

Now the Democrats claim that the bill “respects” the sincerely held biblical belief of one man-one woman marriage. However, it does nothing to allow those with that respected belief to live out that belief. There is no religious liberty provision to protect those who wish to live by those beliefs. Thus Christian adoption agencies will not be able to prefer a traditionally married couple over transgender persons, those in irregular marriages, and single applicants.

The claim is that this is just a civil rights act. It creates a national policy that the rights of those non-biblical marriages are fundamental. Go back to the 1983 Bob Jones University case in which the Supreme Court held that violators of “national” and “fundamental” policies could have their tax status revoked.

And just recently a story came across my desk that 18 Democratic attorneys general are joining in an appellate brief against a Catholic high school in North Carolina that terminated a teacher in a homosexual marriage.

So whom are they fooling here?

And, of course, I don’t have time or space to get into the whole matter of transgender rights and how public schools are actually grooming young children to question their sexual identity — as if I haven’t written enough about that already. This is being done behind the backs of parents who are oft stymied to get answers from officials who are supported by the Democrats’ chief fundraisers, the teachers unions.

I don’t believe that the average Democrat really knows the depth of their involvement with the insidious activities promoted in their name. I think it is time to wake them up. If our bishops and pastors will not do it, then it must to be up to us.

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday on Faith On Trial at https://iowacatholicradio.com/faith-on-trial)