I first wrote this piece ten years ago. As a Notary Public in Florida, I have had the pleasure of marrying a few couples along the way. Before marrying them, I admonish them of the old expression, “It takes two to Tango,” which I will explain herein. As my daughter approaches her wedding day, I thought it would be a good idea to remind both her and her fiance of what this means. I hope you enjoy it.
After seeing so many marriages end in divorce, you cannot help but wonder why couples get married in the first place. Maybe they see it as some kind of legal permission slip to do nothing more than to have sex. If so, that seems to be rather shallow thinking to me. I tend to believe most people get married to quell the biological clock in their heads to reproduce. Under this scenario, husband and wife are doomed to failure after their mission has been fulfilled. There are probably dozens of reasons for getting divorced, but regardless, I think most people go into marriage with impractical expectations and hidden incompatibilities that are slow to surface.
Perhaps the biggest misconception about marriage is that it is easy; that by simply getting married all of your difficulties you experienced as a single person will somehow disappear. Hardly. If anything, your problems are only beginning as you have to learn to live with a new person unfamiliar with your customs, mannerisms, and lifestyle. I have yet to meet the couple who was perfectly compatible at the time of taking their marriage vows. Regardless of how long you may have lived with someone prior to marriage, you really don’t know the person until it becomes “legal.”
A lot of people fail to grasp that marriage is a partnership. This disturbs me greatly. With me, I have always compared it to the Tango. It involves forming a team which works together towards common goals and objectives, until we learn to dance as one. True, each person has their own unique duties and responsibilities, but to make such a partnership work, it is necessary for some give and take which some people can accept and adapt to, while others cannot. This means you cannot always do the things you did unilaterally when you were single. Now you must consider and consult your partner. Like any business venture, you must do what is best for both parties, not just one. This is the part of marriage most people do not understand. Any time one party ignores or excludes consideration for the other, the marriage is doomed.
If you have any doubt whatsoever about getting married, don’t do it. You must go into it with both eyes wide open and possess a genuine willingness to try to work together. Anything less will inevitably result in either an unhappy marriage or a nasty divorce.
So, my only advice to young people considering marriage, always be cognizant of the expression, “It takes two to Tango.” If you do it right, it can be a thing of beauty.
Keep the Faith!
P.S. – Also, I have a NEW book, “Before You Vote: Know How Your Government Works”, What American youth should know about government, available in Printed, PDF and eBook form. This is the perfect gift for youth!
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Tim Brycehttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngTim Bryce2020-09-03 06:34:172020-09-03 06:34:17PODCAST: Marriage — It Take Two to Tango
During one particularly beautiful day, while on my daily walk, into my head popped the verses from Ephesians 6:12 to 17. Why I hadn’t thought of it previously was beyond me as it is so obvious. As a Christian I knew in my heart that those of us who love God and our nation, who love liberty and freedom and our constitution also know this verse, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
How profound this verse is for us today with the daily violent communist activities in our beloved America. Is there any relationship between Marx and Satan? According to dear Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, you bet there is! Marx actually began his life in a God-fearing family and claimed (as is documented) that he was a Christian. He changed somewhere along the way and had a deep personal rebellion against God and all Biblical and Christian values. He became a Satan worshipper who actually participated in occult habits and practices and even his bizarre hairstyle was part of his satanic beliefs.
Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, founder of Voice of the Martyrs was imprisoned in Romania for 14 years for his outspoken views against communism. He urged believers not to be duped into thinking Marxism was a political or economic theory or that Marx was in fact a benevolent believer in equality for all men. Marx’s own statements expose him as a hater of God, and therefore, a hater of God’s creatures, as those who have suffered under communism well know.
The Pastor was tortured unbelievably for all those years because of his faith and his body marked the scars which he showed when he testified before the U.S. Senate Sub Committee on the communist exploitation of religion in 1966 in the 89th Congress. You can read his testimony here. He was never able to wear shoes again as his feet had been so horribly beaten that only slippers enabled him to walk comfortably.
It was in 1986 that he wrote the book, Marx and Satan and told how the communists thought while torturing him and the other priests and pastors. Wurmbrand tells in his book that the communists explained to him and others, “If we kill you Christians, you go to heaven. But we don’t want you to be crowned martyrs. You should curse God first and then go to hell.”
He states that in the prison of Piteshti, the communists would force a very religious prisoner to be “baptized” daily by putting his head into the barrel in which his fellow sufferers had fulfilled their necessities meanwhile obliging the other prisoners to sing the baptismal service.
According to official Marxist doctrine, which is only a disguise, neither God nor the devil exists. Because of this teaching, Christians are persecuted by the communists. However, the Soviet newspaper of April 1974 reported that there were atheist circles in Red Latvia’s schools. The children in the 4th through 6th grades were called “little devils,” while the 7th graders were “servants of the Devil.” In another school, 8th graders were called “faithful children of the devil.” It was forbidden to worship God, though devil worship was openly permitted and even encouraged among the children.
The orthodox cathedral in Odessa, much loved by the Odessites, became the meeting place of satanists soon after the communists came to power. They gathered also in Slobodka-Romano and in Count Tolstoy’s former home. There were satanist masses said by deacon Serghei Mihailov of the treacherous Living Church, an orthodox branch established in connivance with the communists. It was a satanic mass as a parody of Christian liturgy in which human blood is used for communion. Also, in Odessa a statue of Satan used to be exhibited in the Museum of the Atheists. It was called Baphomet.
If the Marxists and communists were not satanists, then why were priests and pastors compelled in the Romanian prison of Piteshti to say mass over excrement and urine? Why, Wurmbrand asks, were Christians tortured into taking communion with these as the elements? Why such an obscene mockery of religions?
If, in fact, true Marxism and communism deny both heaven and hell, why in Romanian and Soviet Union prisons were nuns who would not deny their faith, raped anally, and Baptist girls had oral sex forced on them. Using Luciferian techniques, the communists made martyrs die blaspheming because of the delirium provoked by torture.
The depths of depravity of the communists in trying to force Christians to disavow their faith is beyond human understanding and can only be explained as being from “wickedness in high places.”
Wurmbrand writes that Marx only once in all his works ever mentioned torture. Many of his followers were tortured by Russian Czarist authorities, yet Marx is usually described as a humanist, so one would expect him to write about such things as horror. However, his comment on same was that, “Torture is productive, it leads to ingenious inventions.” “No wonder,” as Wurmbrand states, “that Marxist governments have surpassed all others in torturing their opponents.” This alone displays the satanic nature of Marxism.
President Obama as well as Hillary Clinton considered Saul Alinsky as their political teacher and high priest of left-wing activism. In Alinsky’s infamous book, Rules for Radicals, on the very first page, he makes a so-called humorous comment about the book being for the first radical, Lucifer.
Ephesians 6:12 is clear that our warfare is against demons, against the “angels” that rose up against God and were cast down from the throne. And, as Pastor Wurmbrand makes so very clear in his book, Marx and Satan, they are truly one and the same.
These verses are so plain for us today and for the battle we are in to save our beloved country. Verse 13 says, “Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all, to stand.”
God’s Word makes it extremely clear that we are involved in a war, and that we must take up the weapons as every good soldier does. In this verse we are told to stand…which is a military term for holding our position. In verse 12, the word “against” is used four times stressing the determined hostility of the enemy. We are confronting something that we cannot overcome except that we have invisible help to draw upon.
We can never ever underestimate the enemy…and although we are truly at war, it is a war to the death against foes who are supernatural, demons from the pit to be quite clear, and those who wish to have world control.
Verse 14–17 states, “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, 15, And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace; 16, Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked. 17, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.”
Ask any soldier what emotions they go through during war, during their time on the battlefield and you will get a range of both mental and physical emotions that will stagger the imagination. But we are told several times in these verses to stand. We must hold our own as we fight the pressures of Satan and his demons and those of this world as well. We must have the solid convictions of our beliefs and our faith and take that stand and not move from it.
The breastplate of righteousness is integrity, it protects the heart, chest and vital organs, and if we are to stand firm in the truth that we know, both Biblical and as free men, our hearts have to be protected. We have the truth of freedom and we have known liberty that God blessed America with back in 1787.
In this Biblical account of the Christian’s armor our backs need to be protected, and it is our fellow soldiers and our faith in God that watches our backs. Again, our battle is with wickedness in high places.
Communism is present today in our government, in our congress, and throughout our country. As dear Pastor Wurmbrand so thoroughly documents in both Marx and Satan and his other widely known book, Tortured for Christ, Marxism is a satanic entity and force from the pit of hell with the fiery darts of the evil one constantly on attack.
Can we win this war? Can we turn around over 150 or more years of satanic plotting of destruction of this country? It looks impossible when one knows the full extent of the treachery that has gone on for so many decades to destroy and control us. Nevertheless, we have an abundance of strong and faithful believers in God and in freedom and liberty. Our Judeo-Christian foundation is one that encompasses the old and new testaments of the Word. It is really up to all of us who love America to fight against the fiery darts of the evil one and yes, to take our stand against the evil which permeates from communist doctrine.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Kelleigh Nelsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngKelleigh Nelson2020-08-31 11:39:052020-08-31 11:39:05The Truth About Marx and Satan
As reported by Town Hall correspondent Julios Rosas, a Black Lives Matter rioter was caught on video spray painting Free Palestine on the driveway of the Beth Hillel Temple in Kenosha.
This is antisemitism. Full stop. If you don't understand why, you need to educate yourself. If you try to justify or explain this in any way, you are part of the problem.https://t.co/UHqhWhlO1g
Beth Hillel, like a number of other leftist temples, is a despicable institution that had been pandering to the racist hate group and excusing the violence, but that doesn’t change what the graffiti says about the motives and mindset of BLM.
Nor is this an unusual event. It’s part of a pattern.
During the Los Angeles Black Lives Matter riots which targeted the Fairfax community and its large Orthodox Jewish population, Congregation Beth El on Beverly Blvd was spray painted with the hateful message, “F___ Israel”, and “Free Palestine”.
There’s a pattern. And the pattern is antisemitism.
As I began writing tonight, I had a lot of tabs open. Shall I write about the racist attack The Nation launched against black Trump-supporters? Or should I write about Nancy Pelosi’s suddenly announcing that Biden shouldn’t demean himself by debating Trump? And what about the Democrats who are openly admitting that Trump is running the better campaign? And then there are the Jews proudly leaving the Democrat party — what about them?
As I contemplated three or four separate posts, one for each question, I realized that they are all actually the same post: Democrats are realizing that Biden’s early poll numbers were misleading and that Trump may well win. Some respond like trapped rats with viciousness or frantic manipulations. Others are feeling something akin to relief. No matter the response, they’re recognizing the real possibility that Biden almost certainly won’t make it across the finish line.
Robert Orlando: In his new book, Paul Kengor plunges a stake into the heart of the devil and Karl Marx. But as we know, such vampires are not so easily killed.
Prof. Kengor’s new book, The Devil and Karl Marx: Communism’s Long March of Death, Deception, and Infiltration, is a hammer and sickle dismantling of the diabolical character of Karl Marx (1818-1883). As Michael Knowles writes in the book’s foreword, “Kengor knows, like few others writing today, that terms such as collectivism and individualism only take the debate so far. . . .Ultimately the fight comes down to spiritual warfare: good versus evil.”
Indeed, Kengor’s book is all about the clash of the modern, devilish forces of socialism and communism – the key Marxist systems – against the eternally divine force of faith.
The book opens with a portrait of Marx’s formative early years, an approach similar to Paul Johnson’s in Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky (1988). Johnson was accused of being moralistic for judging Marx’s ideas through the lens of his character. Of Marx’s writings, Johnson says their “actual content can be related to four aspects of his character: his taste for violence, his appetite for power, his inability to handle money and, above all, his tendency to exploit those around him.”
Professor Kengor goes even further, depicting Marx as possibly under the Devil’s spell. The young Marx wrote some very dark poems filled with the sort of anti-religious sentiments that would inspire his Communist Manifesto. “It is in part, a tragic portrait of a man,” Kengor writes, “but still more broadly so, an ideology, a chilling retrospective on an unclean spirit that should have never been let out of its pit.”
Here’s an example from Marx’s poem, “The Pale Maiden” (1837):
Thus Heaven I’ve forfeited,
I know it full well.
My soul, once true to God,
Is chosen for Hell.
Kengor (like Johnson) makes the case that Marx, a self-absorbed intellectual, never lived out his own convictions when it came either to money or the redistribution thereof, evidenced by his dismissive attitude towards providing for those under his care. For instance, Marx exhausted the resources and goodwill of his parents, and instead of becoming remorseful or apologetic, he defiantly disowned them once they were no longer of value to him.
When it came to money, everything Marx touched turned to straw. His combustible life was filled with tragedy, debts, and, with the exception of the death of his wife Jenny, an apparent lack of regret in the face of his greatest losses. Family suicides, sexual exploits (including the possible abuse of a family maid) enflamed his life with bloody anger and fueled his revolutionary spirit. In this troubled background are the origins of his communist worldview – a complete rebellion against anything traditional or sacred. Thus the title of Kengor’s book.
Although I agree with the inescapable connection Kengor makes between Marx’s life and his philosophy, I might not place so much emphasis on the man’s early life. Many historical figures were wayward in youth, even some of our saints. Paul the Apostle aided and abetted murder as he tried to violently eradicate the Early Church. We don’t define Augustine by the reckless years prior to his conversion. In fact, these men are saints precisely because they changed.
In Marx’s case, of course, he never changed. He drank the nectar of the devil (my words), and it poisoned him – just as communism poisoned so much of the world.
The middle sections of the book track the rise and fall of the Left’s great messiah and his closest apostle, Friedrich Engels. It continues with a history of Marx’s disciples, from Vladimir Lenin in Russia to Saul Alinsky in the United States.
Kengor also explains how these and other henchmen have assaulted the Catholic faith. Although vigorously opposed by Catholic leadership, Marxism would nonetheless gain a foothold in parts of the Church. Kengor highlights Pope John Paul II’s success in his confrontation with Marxism and communism. Having lived much of his life in a communist regime, St. John Paul knew well Marxist ideas, which enabled him to deal effectively with the liberation theologians in South America.
I think of Kengor as plunging a stake into the heart of the devil and Karl Marx. But as we know, vampires are not so easily killed. Marxism in the 20th century used class warfare, and that was mostly a failure. In the 21st century, Marxists are employing identity politics, lately with some success. But the aim is the same: to sow cultural destruction. If this doesn’t make you angry, you’re not breathing.
Bizarrely romantic revolutions – from Mao’s China to Seattle’s Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone – Marx’s ill-conceived utopias aren’t just destructive, they’re murderous. The death toll of communism worldwide exceeds 100-million! Kengor calls it “nothing short of diabolical – truly a satanic scourge, a killing machine.”
Without question, America has had its share of betrayals and unrealized ideals, but what other country has made such progress with the rule of law, individual freedom, and shared prosperity?
Marx believed religion was a drug (the opium of the people) used by the wealthy to maintain disproportionate power. In retrospect, of course, communism peddles its own drug: an idealized global world, in which inequality disappears in the obliteration of all human distinctions. Kengor sees the seeds of our current flirtation with Marxism in the promotion of sexual freedom, “that plagues us to this today.”
Scripture teaches that, after the Resurrection, Lucifer was left only with the power to accuse, with rhetoric his only weapon. This is why Satan and Marxists prey on the most vulnerable: those least sure of their own identity. Satan comes as “an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:1), but he and his disciples, Marxist groups such as Antifa and the founders of the Black Lives Matter organization, bring only darkness.
Paul Kengor shows us the light.
COLUMN BY
Robert Orlando
Robert Orlando is a filmmaker, author, and entrepreneur. He’s the founder Nexus Media, and his latest films include The Divine Plan, and Citizen Trump. He also has a new book, The Tragedy of Patton: A Soldier’s Date with Destiny, forthcoming in November. His work has been published in HuffPost, Patheos, Newsmax, and Daily Caller. As a scholar, he specializes in biography, religion, and military history.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Catholic Thinghttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Catholic Thing2020-08-29 07:34:282020-08-29 07:34:58“The Devil and Karl Marx”: A Review
Have the benefits of marriage become a middle-class secret?
Why should only the middle and upper classes enjoy the advantages of marriage as opposed to cohabitation? This is among questions posed by a recent Centre of Social Justice UK report called “Family Structure Still Matters.” With married parents twice as likely to stay together than cohabiting ones, their kids can benefit from numerous advantages of this stability – such as avoiding mental health issues and criminal conviction.
The report’s introduction sums it up well, saying: “The consequences of family instability are alarming; while the benefits conferred by marriage are inspiring. It is therefore surprising that government consistently fails to distinguish between marriage and cohabitation. In its language around family structure, including, crucially in its data collection, government persists in blurring the two categories of ‘married’ and ‘cohabiting’. Official silence on this issue has sent out the message that marriage and cohabitation are interchangeable. Yet we have seen how the two structures lead to widely different outcomes.”
What are these outcomes? The CSJ study points out that for cohabiting parents, their children experienced higher rates of cognitive delay; a greater presence of aggression and anti-social behaviours; more likelihood of involvement with crime or domestic abuse; and more under-performance in the educational arena.
The disadvantages extend to the parents themselves too, including higher levels of psychological distress and less healthy lifestyles; while married couples were both healthier and more likely to engage meaningfully with their communities.
In Australia in 2017, 81.3 percent of couples lived together before marriage as opposed to just a 16.0 percent in 1975. There is no doubt that this is the norm now, but as a Sydney Morning Herald article from late last year pointed out, “cohabitation doesn’t deliver the same levels of happiness, trust and well-being that marriage can bring.”
Unfortunately there exists a “try before you buy” mentality, something I see often amongst my generation. And while this seems like a way to avoid marrying the wrong person, most don’t realise that it also ingrains a non-committal mentality where one can pick up and leave at any time.
The CSJ report calls for the government to be more honest in its distinctions between marriage and cohabitation, so that couples can make more informed decisions about their lifestyles – and I, for one, agree.
Tamara El-Rahi
Tamara El-Rahi is an associate editor of MercatorNet. A Journalism graduate from the University of Technology Sydney, she lives in Australia with her husband and two daughters. More by Tamara El-Rahi
EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00MercatorNet - Navigating Modern Complexitieshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMercatorNet - Navigating Modern Complexities2020-08-28 06:40:222020-08-28 06:42:23We should be hearing more about the ‘marriage gap’
One of the most hotly-debated issues in America today revolves around the Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
In this week’s Mic’d Up, the Second Amendment is defended from a Catholic angle.
God endows as part of His design the natural and inalienable right for humans to defend themselves, and if they’re responsible for the lives of others, this defense is a grave duty. Government, therefore, doesn’t give the rights, but defends them.
This comes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding the respect for human life, and more specifically, legitimate defense: “Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm.” (CCC 2265)
Since self-defense is a natural right freely given by God, it makes sense that historically, the irreligious have stripped people of these rights in order to bring about their own agenda.
Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others.Tweet
In 1918, as the Russian Revolution was launched under Vladimir Lenin, the Council of People’s Commissars, which became the highest authority of the Soviet Union, put together “On the surrender of weapons.” This decree ordered citizens to surrender their firearms, swords and bayonets.
This communist revolution is thought to have resulted in the murder of millions of Russians from 1917–1922.
In the United States, some Churchmen — like Cdl. Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey — have joined many Democrat politicians in calling for “a ban on the sale or possession of all assault weapons.” Fr. James Martin has even portrayed gun control as moral issue equal to abortion.
Jason Jones and John Zmirak, both Catholic writers at The Stream, wrote a thorough article debunking these assertions.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Church Militanthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngChurch Militant2020-08-25 10:04:202020-08-25 10:07:18CATHOLICS AND THE SECOND AMENDMENT: Natural rights under attack
Jasser is the founder and president of American Islamic Forum for Democracy and one of the leading North American Muslim reformers. The article maps out the overlapping agendas of what he calls the “pseudo-progressive” movements:
BLM, like its American Islamist brethren, is avowedly a neo-Marxist organization. It is anti-capitalist, anti-individualist, anti-democratic and anti-American, and seeks to remake the entire country in its own image
Those who dare criticize the movements are publicly shamed or canceled and fraudulently charged with racism or Islamophobia, even if they are black or Muslim themselves
Both BLM and modern Islamism are street-led movements whose members, whether clerics or activists, see themselves as grassroots revolutionaries—not modest reformers
Driven by nihilism, they tear down historical statues, ban books and rename institutions
On a global scale, the most obvious link between BLM and modern Islamism is the embrace of anti-Semitism
Dr. Jasser continues:
Both BLM and modern Islamism are cut from the same cloth; they are victim-obsessed, ethnocentric struggles that frame every difference of outcome in terms of identity, whether race or religion. They are the commissars of the thought police, the connoisseurs of cultural demagoguery.
Whether out of allegiance or fear, we have witnessed the entire Democratic Party and swaths of the Republican Party fall into lockstep with their narrative. The only way to fight them is to recognize their strategic similarities and recommit ourselves to authentic ideological diversity. No race should bend the knee to any other, for we are all equal in the eyes of God.
The next question is how do we meaningfully challenge the “red-green axis?”
Develop New Arguments
The old arguments that many of us have been relying on simply aren’t working; in fact, many would argue they never worked. For example, a recent debate within the UK counter extremism sector looked at whether to censor out language like “Islamist.”
The right of Muslims — or anyone — to speak freely about the faith should have protection under civil rights statutes: An attempt to regulate speech within or outside the government or private sector is nothing short of a violation of freedom of religion (as well as freedom of speech).
For Muslim reformers, since our work is often focused on and comes specifically from the platform of our “Muslim” identity, we’re doing exactly what the Islamists do, which is hyper-focus on identity. Taking an expansive approach to how we think about ourselves and our issues challenges the cult of race, color and creed which our ideological competitors are consumed by.
The world is fast-changing, and those who can’t keep up will either lose or be left behind, or possibly both. For many years, those fighting Islamism collectively rattled the alarm against creeping shariah. Fast forward 15 years, and we now find that the struggle against Islamism does not narrow on shariah anymore, but on intersectional identity politics.
On August 13, fellow Muslim reformer Raheel Raza penned on op-ed in Clarion on The Rise of Modern Islamism, starting with the timeline triggering the birth of political Islam to the landscape today. Raza underscores the idea that Islamism isn’t about faith, it’s about power.
That puts Jasser’s entire argument in perspective and helps us understand why Islamists are allying with an ideology that eventually will also set it’s sight on Islam as a faith.
It’s all about power.
The question for all of us fighting against this ideology is: How do we need to change our strategy to address this new reality?
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Clarion Projecthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngClarion Project2020-08-23 07:26:372020-08-23 07:27:14“BLM and Islamism Cut From Same Cloth” by Dr. Zuhdi Jasser
U.S. District Judge Susan M. Brnovich has dismissed the Council on American Islamic Relations’ lawsuit which sought an injunction to prevent a Maricopa County Community College professor from teaching the truth about terror committed by Islamists. The judge’s dismissal order is posted here.
Florida Family Association launched an online campaign with several email alerts that asked people to encourage Judge Susan M. Brnovich to dismiss the case. The Florida Family Association campaign stated in part:
CAIR continues to try to enforce Sharia law against non-Muslims, sues to censor college over professor’s teaching about Islamist terror history.
The Council on America Islamic Relations (CAIR) continues to relentlessly attempt to enforce the Sharia law prohibition against criticizing Islam even when the facts are correct. CAIR is suing Scottsdale Community College on behalf of a Muslim student over “an anti-Muslim professor’s unconstitutional condemnations of Islam during a Political Science class.” CAIR’s COURT COMPLAINT is seeking a restraining order to stop the curriculum about Islamist terror from being taught.
A restraining order under these circumstances would have devastating consequences for hundreds of non-profit educational organizations and thousands of churches and synagogues that report or teach about Islamist terrorism. If the judge grants the restraining order CAIR would most certainly file lawsuits across the country seeking to censor a host of organizations, churches and synagogues that counter jihad and the Islamist political agenda in America. It is more than ironic that Hamas-linked, Muslim Brotherhood-linked and terror-linked Council On American Islamic Relations is suing to censor academic teaching about Islamist terrorism. It is alarming.
Defendants’ MOTION TO DISMISS states in part: While it is understandable that Plaintiffs may be upset by discussion of views that they consider to be “radical” or outside the “mainstream” of Islam, censoring academic speech is dangerous, wrong, and antithetical to academic freedom—a “special concern” under the First Amendment. Indeed, Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction failed to cite even a single case that has accepted their argument, making it—literally—unprecedented.
Oral argument on the motion to dismiss the petition for a temporary restraining order has been set for August 18, 2020 in Courtroom 506, 401 West Washington Street, Phoenix, AZ 85003 before Judge Susan M Brnovich.
Florida Family Association prepared an email for people to send that urged Judge Susan M Brnovich to dismiss this case which strikes at the heart of the first Amendment. The email stated: Please safeguard First Amendment rights in Sabra et al v. Maricopa County Community College. Honorable Judge Brnovich, I urge you to dismiss the petition for a restraining order in Sabra et al v. Maricopa County Community College District et al. Such judicial censorship of academic speech is unprecedented. It would open the door for CAIR to file lawsuits against hundreds of non-profit educational organizations and thousands of churches and synagogues that report or teach about Islamist terrorism.
Judge Susan M. Brnovich was nominated on January 23, 2018 by President Donald Trump to an undetermined seat on the United States District Court for the District of Arizona on January 23, 2018. She received her judicial commission on October 23, 2018.
A special thanks to everyone who sent emails to encourage the judge to dismiss the case.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Florida Family Associationhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFlorida Family Association2020-08-22 07:42:262020-08-22 07:43:07Federal Judge Dismisses CAIR Legal Demand to Stop College from Teaching Truth About Jihad.
While the New York Police Department zealously guards Mayor de Blasio’s infamous “Black Lives Matter” street graffiti in front of Trump Tower, other, more serious endeavors continue that, if the city had a rational mayor, might actually have a better claim on the NYPD’s time and resources. Those include Islamic jihad terrorism.
Last Tuesday, a New York-based convert to Islam with the emphatically Christian name of Jesus Encarnacion got 15 years in prison for attempting to aid a jihad terror group.
The Justice Department’s account of his activities makes for hair-raising reading, and reminds us yet again that Bill de Blasio, like other Leftist mayors and governors, is chasing phantom problems (Russiagate, the USPS “scandal,” and many, many more) while there are real and pressing troubles that warrant his attention.
Jesus Wilfredo Encarnacion, heedless of the fact that many, if not most, Americans, at least those on the Left, take jihad terrorism to be yesterday’s news and no longer a threat to the United States (if it ever was), was a fearless keyboard warrior who called himself “Jihadistsoldgier,” “Jihadinhear,” “Jihadinheart,” “Lionofthegood.”
Ercarnacion, however, was not content to wage jihad only on his computer screen. He got his prison sentence for plotting to join a Pakistani jihad terrorist organization, Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT), which has carried out numerous jihad massacres, including the infamous Mumbai attack of November 2008, in which jihadis murdered 172 people. The State Department considers LeT to be a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
Audrey Strauss, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, explained that “Jesus Encarnacion plotted to travel abroad, to join and train with Lashkar e-Tayyiba, infamous worldwide for the jihadist murder of innocent civilians, and to carry out shootings, bombings, and beheadings in behalf of that terrorist organization.”
Traveling overseas was not actually Encarnacion’s first choice for his jihad. He told someone he thought was a fellow Muslim but was actually an undercover FBI agent that he wanted to carry out “a bombing and shooting” for Allah in the United States, but didn’t have either the “guidance” or the “guns” he thought he needed in order to do so.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2020-08-21 05:57:062020-08-21 05:58:42The Jihad Terrorist in New York City You Heard Nothing About
Stephen P. White: Democrats are politically immune to Catholic criticism of their support for abortion. Unwavering support from millions of Catholics is why.
Joe Biden wants you to know that he is Catholic. Joe Biden wants you to know that his Catholic faith is very important to him. Joe Biden takes his faith so seriously, that he once told a reporter on the campaign trail, “The next Republican that tells me I’m not religious I’m going to shove my rosary beads down their throat.” That was back in 2005.
With that in mind, let me say up front: Joe Biden is Catholic. The indelible character of Baptism is sufficient to establish that. Moreover, I see no reason to doubt him when he says that his faith is deeply important to him. I find no reason to doubt the sincerity of his convictions.
While I do not question the sincerity of his convictions, I do wonder about their content. What are we to think of a man who, like Joe Biden, would tout the way in which his Catholic faith shapes his politics, and then ask his fellow citizens to vote for him on the promise that he will devote himself to defending and promoting the single greatest injustice in American life since chattel slavery – i. e., abortion?
Long gone are the days when pro-choice Catholics like Mario Cuomo defended their willingness to tolerate a right to abortion on the grounds that their personal opposition to abortion as Catholics gave them no right to impose that opposition on others. The Cuomo Compromise has slowly, irresistibly, and predictably devolved into the position now exemplified by Biden: the Catholic faith teaches us to seek justice; abortion rights are a matter of justice; therefore, I will defend the abortion license where it is threatened and expand it where it is lacking.
Biden’s is a pretty standard position for Catholic Democrats these days. For what it’s worth, Biden seems to have arrived at this position more recently than some of his fellow Catholic Democrats. Happily, not all Catholics on the Left are buying it.
“Biden’s position on abortion is untenable from any Catholic perspective,” writes Michael Sean Winters of the National Catholic Reporter, “The theological proscription against the intentional taking of a human life is not something that can be set aside for the kind of libertarian argument favored by pro-choice advocates.”
Winters concludes, “We Catholics should be able to explain how our faith informs all of our decisions, including our political ones. Biden’s decision to lean in to the discussion, and not to avoid it, will be good for Catholicism, whether or not it is good for the Democrats.”
Winters speaks, I suspect, for a lot of Catholic Democrats – perhaps not a majority, but a substantial minority. This November, most of these pro-life Catholic Democrats will go to the polls and vote – as they have for decades – for a presidential candidate who supports the abortion license. As frustrating as it can be for pro-lifers who aren’t Democrats to admit, supporting the abortion license and voting for candidates who do are not the same thing: the former is never justifiable, the latter may be, but only for “truly grave moral reasons.”
Tens of millions of American Catholics believe that a morally serious person can look at the industrial-scale slaughter of innocent children in this country – close to a million abortions performed each year – and say, “I am willing, not only to defend that butcher’s bill, but I promise to expand it, if doing so allows me to pursue justice on other fronts.”
For decades, a large slice of American Catholics has convinced itself (or resigned itself) to supporting just such candidates, not because they also support abortion, but despite their opposition to it. This November, millions of American Catholics will do it again.
Yet how many of these same Catholics – people who have for decades insisted that they could compartmentalize their vote, hermetically sealing themselves off from complicity in the horror of the abortion policies their candidates favored – now insist that to vote for Donald Trump is to make oneself complicit in everything the man does?
If one is willing to tolerating 60 million abortions in order to pursue justice on other fronts – even assuming all those ancillary causes are, in fact, just – what evil will one NOT tolerate?
To be clear, this is not intended as a defense of the current president or his policies, still less an argument in favor of voting for his reelection. Rather, I mention it because it throws into sharp relief the way in which the politics of abortion – more than any other issue or policy – have degraded the ability of most American Catholics to reason well about the exercise of prudence. Nothing (not even the abuse crisis, I would argue) has done more to undermine the Catholic Church’s credible witness in political life than her impotence with regard to abortion.
Politicians like Joe Biden are politically immune to Catholic criticism of their support for abortion. It is unwavering support from millions of Catholic voters who make them so immune. And does anyone doubt that pro-life Catholics who have made a long-standing alliance with Republicans over the issue of abortion have not also been shaped by that partnership in other ways?
November 3 will be here sooner than we think. Many Catholics have long ago made up their minds about whom they will vote for. Many are happy with “their guy.” Many loathe “their guy.” Many are exasperated by both choices. We can be sure that each side will look with disdain and horror at the moral compromises the other is willing to make.
For many of us will be painfully aware that we will choose between the lesser of two evils. Maybe now is as good a time as any to recall that, while faith without works is dead, ending injustice is not the measure of the Christian life.
COLUMN BY
Stephen P. White
Stephen P. White is executive director of The Catholic Project at The Catholic University of America and a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
The most revolting news item of the week comes from Maine, where, according to the Washington Free Beacon, “Democratic Senate candidate Sara Gideon repeatedly killed bills to outlaw female genital mutilation during her tenure as the speaker of the Maine House of Representatives.” In amassing this shameful record, Sara Gideon has become Exhibit A of everything that is wrong about identity politics, the Democratic Party, and the Left in general.
The Free Beacon notes that Gideon’s determination to enable the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) is abundantly established. She “leveraged her leadership position in the Democrat-controlled legislature to kill two separate bills that would have criminalized the practice of severing the clitoris of infant girls and sewing their vaginas shut.”
Why on earth would Gideon do something as heinous as this? The answer is simple and predictable: “Under Gideon’s leadership, Maine Democrats argued that the bill was racist toward the state’s large immigrant community from Somalia, a country where the practice is ‘nearly universal’ according to the United Nations.”
It’s racist to outlaw FGM? Well, of course it is, because Sara Gideon needs the votes of Maine’s rapidly growing Somali community, and that’s as far as her moral calculus goes. The Free Beacon notes that “Gideon’s efforts have helped make Maine one of only 12 states that have not banned female genital mutilation,” and that “such a legacy threatens to complicate her cultivated image as a champion of women’s rights, one built on her consistent support for abortion access and the #MeToo movement,” but Gideon has shown in opposing efforts to criminalize FGM that she doesn’t really care about women’s rights at all. She poses as a women’s rights advocate when seeking donations from well-heeled Leftists, but she likely knows that those same Leftist donors won’t be concerned in the least about her wanting to allow for the preservation of a time-hallowed Somali cultural practice. After all, any other course of action would be “ethnocentric” and “Islamophobic,” right?
TOM TRENTO, DIRECTOR, THE UNITED WEST – “Check out this engaging conversation with Ron Edelstein and his relationship with the Trump family, his concern for Israel and his concern for America!” Ron is the Founder of “Concerned Christians and Jews for Trump.”
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Defend The Borderhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDefend The Border2020-08-18 08:00:392020-08-18 08:03:04VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH RON EDELSTEIN — ‘Concerned Christians and Jews for Trump’
David G. Bonagura, Jr.: Detractors say trivializing sin was part of Vatican II’s spirit and is still in the post-conciliar Church. But the perennial problem is really sin itself.
The Second Vatican Council is back in the news lately, with two prominent, tradition-minded bishops revisiting well-known arguments of conciliar interpretation in light two recent Vatican documents, Amoris Laetitia and the Abu Dhabi statement on world religions. Their analyses of the Council, the difficulties in reconciling certain expressions with tradition, and the frightening breakdown of the Church that followed – a breakdown that some even justified under the Council’s nebulous “spirit” – are serious, though faithful Catholics will find their premises and conclusions worthy of debate.
Yet their analyses are now also very familiar. Blaming the Council for the Church’s ills has been a hobbyhorse for 55 years now. At this point, when it comes to arguing about the Council, Ecclesiastes’ tired observation comes to mind: “There is nothing new under the sun.”
Just weeks earlier, as public Masses were resumed after the coronavirus suspension, a little-noticed controversy impressed on me that the problems in the Church today stem from something far more fundamental, and simple, than the formulation of documents that few know about and fewer have read. When the proposal circulated of having Mass without reception of Holy Communion, some faithful and some clergy blanched. Their issue was not solely the deprivation of union with our Lord. It was that they did not see the point of having Mass at all without reception.
Such a thought stems from a profound misunderstanding what the Mass – and the sacrifice that it represents – is for: the salvation of souls. And there is no wonder the goal of salvation has been forgotten, since sin, the tyrannical reality from which we must be saved, has itself been deliberately banished from view, trivialized as a human psychosis, or written off as an obsession of earlier, unenlightened times.
It is the marginalization of sin, more than Vatican II or anything else, that has transformed the life of the Church as we know it in the last half-century. Our entire faith and the structure of the Church rest on three acts: creation, fall, and redemption. By dismissing the fall, and every sin that has come after it, the understanding of redemption necessarily takes on new meaning.
If Jesus did not need to redeem us from sin, then essential doctrines and the sacramental economy have to be reconceived. Consider:
* Jesus Christ ceased to be emphasized as our Savior who sacrificed His life to atone for our sins. Instead, images of “Jesus is my homeboy” became popular. Without a message of salvation, Jesus was reduced to a “great moral teacher” on par with Socrates.
* Shifting the view of the Savior and salvation caused worship to shift as well. Witness how few people today know the phrase “the holy sacrifice of the Mass.” We know from the work of Dr. Lauren Pristas and Father John Zuhlsdorf that, after the Council, the formal prayers of the Mass were deliberately reworked to eliminate references to sin. The turning of the altars to face the people, never mentioned by the Council, heightened a new experience of a community celebrating itself above the sacrifice of Calvary. The general desacralizing of Catholic worship made the Mass seem as it were of no consequence rather than the enduring basis of our salvation.
* Sacramental Confession was abandoned by nearly all the faithful. There is no need to confess if we have not sinned. And if we do not need to confess, then surely there is no need for acts of penitence or reparation. Eight days of the year that still call for abstinence from meat is all that is left of Catholic penitential practice.
* If there is no sin, then everyone goes to Heaven, Catholic or not, virtuous or not. Funerals became canonizations, and Hell was dismissed as a tactic to coerce good behavior. Catholicism became just another world religion on par with the others, since it no longer had anything unique to offer.
* If people do not need to be saved from sin, then there is no need for priests to give up their lives in service of those seeking redemption. The collapse of vocations is a direct result of the banishment of sin.
* Catholic theology, morality, and education all took turns for the worse after this constitutive understanding of sin and redemption was morphed.
Were there other causes of the Church’s post-Conciliar malaise? Yes, of course. But it is not an oversimplification to home in on the trivialization of sin as the root cause of it all. Throughout Church history, lying at the root of heresy is not an intricately woven system, but a misunderstanding of the first principle of revelation. To minimize sin alters the view of God’s entire plan of salvation, from the covenant with Abraham, to the redemption by Christ, to the role of the Church in perpetuating His salvation.
Vatican II’s perpetual detractors will argue that the trivialization of sin was part of the Modernist spirit that infiltrated conciliar documents and the post-conciliar Church. Yet that implies the Council itself is not the definitive problem; the Council and its “spirit” have been invoked to cloak a deeper issue.
It is, therefore, this deeper issue of properly understanding sin and the need to be saved from it that requires our attention above all. For Benedict XVI’s hermeneutic of continuity to have the final word on interpreting the council, sound Catholic doctrines – Creation, Fall, Redemption – must first be restored to their proper place.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Catholic Thinghttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Catholic Thing2020-08-16 06:34:492020-08-16 06:34:49Banish Sin, Transform the Church
This is indeed historic, and shows a weakening of the lockstep and Islam-based hatred of Israel that has dominated the Arab and Muslim states’ response to the Jewish state up to now, with very few exceptions. Netanyahu and the Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan thank Trump for his “dedication to peace in the region” and “the pragmatic and unique approach he has taken to achieve it.”
The key word there is “pragmatic.” The jihad against Israel remains as a theoretical religious obligation, but Trump has apparently compelled the UAE to understand that to maintain hostility to Israel in light of today’s political realities is imprudent. He deserves congratulations and gratitude for achieving, at least in part, what a succession of Presidents has tried and failed to achieve.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2020-08-14 06:23:362020-08-14 06:27:36Trump announces ‘historic peace agreement’ between Israel and the United Arab Emirates
