By Deacon Mike Manno
(The Wanderer) – Over the past few years not a few
people have asked themselves, “Is this the America in which I grew up?”
Unfortunately, the answer for most of us is a definite “no.”
Of course, we can cite numerous reasons why one might feel
that way. As Catholics, and as people of faith, we are tired of watching our
cherished beliefs not only ridiculed and defamed, but so many of our institutions
— including government — reaching out to limit and cancel the voices of our
churches collectively, and our own voices individually.
Social media refer to this as cancel culture. But it is more
than that: Coupled with it is a plan to eliminate all of those Americans who
won’t go along with the current Progressives’ dog and pony show they are using
not only to drag from us the “unalienable rights” bestowed by our Creator, but
to lead us into more than just “temptation.”
So where do we begin this analysis? I’m neither an academic
sociologist nor a professional historian so I cannot pick a point in time when
this all began. But I do watch these things. I’m exposed to a lot writing a
column each week and hosting a weekly program on Catholic radio where we find
those who are experts in these fields, or those who stand up to fight for those
values that we see are being tread underfoot by those claiming a moral
superiority. Thus, I’ve been given a practical education of such things.
I think it is easy for me to pick the point when it all
became clear to me. One morning on radio we had an expert from the Heritage
Foundation, Sarah Parshall Perry, who was scheduled to discuss an unrelated
legal matter. She took us by surprise, however, with breaking news about a
series of rules the (devout Catholic) Biden administration was proposing.
At the time the vaccine mandate was imposed on all federal employees, and there
were many who opposed taking the vaccine due to its tie to abortions. Those who
did so were predominately conservative Christians and Catholics, and they were
requesting religious exemptions to the mandate.
The new rules were designed to frustrate those seeking an
exemption in that they required everyone applying would need to provide certain
information to the government about their physical description, any other names
they had used in the past, such as maiden and formerly married names, as well
as how often and in which religious services they partook, among other
obviously intrusive information.
Ultimately the vaccine mandate was overruled and federal
employment was allowed, at least for a short time, to get back to normal —
except for the military, but we’ll have to do that some other time.
Then, as reported last week, one of Sarah’s colleagues at Heritage,
Hans von Spakovsky, brought to our attention the new rules the Biden
administration was proposing to govern federal hiring, which he termed the
“conservatives need not apply” rule because the language was so broad and vague
that demonstrating against abortion, or objecting to trans activists teaching
your children could be enough to disqualify an applicant from federal
employment.
Isn’t it interesting how far this administration will go to
make sure that anyone who disagrees with it in any fashion should be shunned?
But that’s not all. Just last week, without fanfare or
notice, His Holiness Joseph the Elder issued a new executive order to promote
Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in each and every federal office. So, if
you’ve somehow passed through all the cultural roadblocks Mr. Biden has already
thrown in your way, here’s another: You will be inundated with, what is truly
fascism, DEI, CRT, and employee measurement — not by meritocracy — but by group
equitable outcomes as evaluated by cooperative federal bureaucrats.
Think of this as the adult version of your children being indoctrinated by the
gender police, woke administrators, and the teachers’ union in their public
schools. As one reporter suggested, “the order essentially creates an ‘army of
equity bureaucrats’ in the federal government to enforce the principles of
critical race theory and gender identity in society.”
The order reads: “Achieving racial equity and support for
underserved communities is not a one-time project. It must be a multi-generational
commitment, and it must remain the responsibility of agencies across the
Federal Government.” It requires each cabinet secretary to create “agency
equity teams” made up of political appointees and career officials, who are
covered by civil service protection, making them hard for a future
administration to remove.
Each of these equity teams is to develop equity training and
equity leadership. They are to ensure that Mr. Biden’s goals for creating a
diverse workforce that “doles out taxpayer dollars based on race and other
factors — excellence be damned,” as another critic put it.
Russell Vought, former director of the Office of Management
and Budget, warned: “‘Equity’ policies are routinely used to justify making
decisions based on race, gender, and other identity characteristics. This
administration has turned government-funded racism into an art. This is
dangerous and exactly the type of woke and weaponized government we are trying
to defund.”
Christopher Rufo, of the Manhattan Institute, says the order
“manipulates language and statistics in order to nationalize the DEI movement,
suppress dissent from the new racial orthodoxy, and subvert the Constitution’s
promise of equal treatment under the law.” He also argues that the order
“mirrors the Soviet Union’s push for political officers charged with
maintaining ideological conformity in every sphere of society.”
According to Rufo, the order’s priorities are a form of
“anti-racist discrimination” which will require people to be categorized by
race or sexual orientation which will allow discrimination against those in
groups that have an unacceptable mix of people so that it is considered not
diverse enough.
“This move by President Biden to permeate society with
government-enforced, radical ideologies delivers a type of socialist dream
rather than any semblance of creating equality,” said CatholicVote
Communications Director Joshua Mercer. “Rather than encouraging Americans to
treat each other with respect and fairness, this administration is constantly
sending the message that you don’t matter if you don’t conform.”
Now consider the road this administration has already
traveled: investigations of parents who speak up at school board meetings,
investigations and arrests of pro-life activists in retaliation for the
overruling of Roe v. Wade, crackdowns on pro-life adoption agencies, numerous
rules and regulations requiring Christians to support and perform immoral acts,
FBI investigations of the Latin Mass attendees, pressure on news and social
media outlets to censor certain stories unfavorable to the administration, and
a host of other actions that demonstrate from which side of the “devout” line
Mr. Biden originates.
Of course, why worry? After all we’re just a basket of
deplorables, apparently not entitled to anything more than a bare existence,
that is, only if the woke intelligentsia permits. God help us.
(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him
every weekend on Faith On Trial or podcast at
https://iowacatholicradio.com/faith-on-trial/)
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