They claim that pastors, by doing so, are in violation of what has become known as “separation of church and state.” Typically this is done whenever someone does not want a person who professes Christ as their Lord and Savior to use the doctrine of the faith as foundation for their choosing between competing points of view or candidates.

There are two problems with this so called doctrine:

1. Pastors have a God-given right and responsibility to preach and teach “thus sayeth the Lord” from the pulpit and parishioners have a corresponding right to “choose ye this day who you will serve” relative to moral issues.

2. The term, “separation of church and state,” is a misnomer. It implies that a Christian’s faith is somehow outside of or otherwise “attached” to the follower of Christ rather than it being from within as the Holy Bible tells us, because our “body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [Spirit]” + the place where God resides within us — and “… ye are not our own.”. (1 Cor. 6:19)

Christianity therefore is the essence of a Christian’s being. It is his or her character. It is the foundation for their decision making, and as such, is who Christians are. And since they cannot be separated from themselves, the idea that they should not bring to the table who they are is ridiculous.

I believe that the intent of this effort to separate church from state has two purposes:

1. To remove the God who judges both behavior and persons from the discourse even in the house dedicated to his honor and glory.

2. To curtail the influence (especially in the political arena) of those who profess to be Christians so as to move an agenda forward that is contrary to God’s revealed word.

To understand what follows, I first must provide you with my definitions of two terms: position and opinion.

1. Position: taken where the proof is inviolate and a conclusion can be made

2. Opinion: given when there exists the ability to have more than one conclusion.

Why are these definitions important? Because candidates for office who stridently cite scientific studies, poll data, etc., as authority for their position on secular issues, even though the so called “experts” they cite may disagree among themselves, must similarly be made to cite their authority for their position on moral issues.

I believe that there are two main reasons candidates might profess agreement with a bible-based position but not cite the bible as their source:

1. Their position was derived at by happenstance and represents only the opinion they have arrived at without the use of an absolute standard.

2. Their position truly is taken from God’s Word, but they are ashamed of the author of the truth they speak because they fear man more than they fear God.

Scripture, however, admonishes us against this. We are to fear God and not man (Mt. 10:28) and to “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord . . . but be though partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.” (2 Timothy 1:8)

Christians therefore need to be wary of those who merely present an opinion that, in truth, just happens to agree with the biblical principle that applies, but that may only be a matter of expedient personal choice or preference and not necessarily a position someone is committed to as we would be as non-ashamed persons indwelled with the Holy Spirit.

The fact that there is no standard against which a candidate may come to a conclusion other than what is in his or her own mind is even more egregious with regard to moral issues than it is were the issue to be a secular one. And both are inconsistent with representing the public interests.

And even worse, if some who truly are Christians are fearful of or ashamed to publicly acknowledge such and therefore withhold boldly speaking about what they know to be true; they thereby cause other Christians to struggle to identify them.

As for me, I take positions on moral issues based upon my understanding of God’s Word and am not ashamed. (Please note that this does not imply that I received a unique revelation from God, merely a revelation that is consistent with that received by others who know and love the Lord as do I, and who then have studied His Word to show themselves” approved.”)

We see the shenanigans of the Obama administration and the machinations of SEIU, ACORN, NEA and the whole alphabet soup of other leftist groups looking to pick our pockets and run our lives. But we have to keep in mind who the real enemy is while we follow James Madison’s advice that “Resistance to tyranny is service to God.”

We may not have much of a chance of changing the leaders, but the voters that picked these leaders will only change when they have a change of heart. We see tea parties increasing in influence, but how much better would it be if the values of the founders were internalized once again by the American people? And how much better for them as well if many could be shown the error of the “social gospel” or “liberation theology” ways?

As angry as we can get with Barack Hussein Obama, Andy Stern, John Holdren, Rahm Emanuel and the whole gang leading this country astray, we need to remember the words of Ephesians 6:12 that tells us “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (NIV)

Seeing these people as victims themselves is not falling into the same trap that they are setting for the country by declaring everyone to be some sort of victim in need of governmental assistance. It also does not mean that we give them a pass for their nefarious deeds, but it does somehow mellow the personal aspect of our struggle.

Now being viewed this way will send many of the secular statists of both parties bouncing off the wall, causing them to increase their hostility, yet I believe it is the way we must go. That doesn’t mean we roll over when confronted by their plans to deify leaders and the state. Our task is to put everything we have into the fight, but to keep in mind that the real enemy is spiritual and that is how we need to fight the fight.

We need to fight this battle on our knees, in the state houses, in Washington and anywhere else we have to smack down these intrusions on the liberty of the American people. If we recognize this, we can count on the promise that the battle is not ours, but the Lords. Not only the battle, but the ultimate victory.

To put the story into perspective, all we know is what the formerly main stream media has told us… and all they know is what they’ve gotten from the authorities involved. It may be that these nine or so people in custody presented a real threat to life as we know it, however our government, over many administrations has lied to us so often that it’s difficult to know truth from fiction – and our media watchdogs have turned into lapdogs so we can’t look to them for help in ferreting out the straight story.

Even FoxNews ran an uncritical story about arrests of “Christian” militia members, so what can we really expect from the likes of CNN and MSNBC. Not knowing these people, I have no idea of what brand of theology they adhere to, so I am unable to decide if they are persecuted brothers or nut case heretics. I mean, this is the same media that calls Jeremiah Wright and Jim Wallis Christian, and I certainly am not willing to claim any spiritual kinship to them.

This labeling has to be seen in stark contrast to the outright unwillingness to tag Nadal Malik Hasan as a Muslim and call him a terrorist, even though actually gunned down thirty soldiers at Fort Hood in Texas a few months back. This media are loath to dispense any negative information about our Islamic neighbors, but are only too happy to say all manner of evil against the Christians in their presence.

To make matters worse, the only non-governmental source cited in the story of the arrests was statistics and opinions of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Consistent with their racist message, these statistics painted a picture of crazy white Christians attempting to keep the country pure. This kind of thinking is give currency because it aligns with the thinking of the media elites… and it aligns with the thinking of the current administration.

If indeed those arrested had plans to kill a police officer, then attack many more at the funeral, they needed to be stopped. Most police officers are good people doing their best to insure public safety. They are not responsible for the foolish laws they are sometimes called upon to enforce. It is those at the upper levels of our government that set the agenda that these men and women have to follow. There are times, however, when it may be necessary for them to follow their own consciences and keep the oaths they have taken, as members members of Oathkeepers have promised to do if anything really wrong is asked of them.

The police are like our military, sometimes directed to do things that may not be right by those with political agendas and schemes. The police should not be the target since the worst they do to most of us is harass “innocent” motorists with speeding tickets and the like.

Immediately after the piece ended I sent a email to the news director of the local station, explaining why the piece was wrong on so many levels. I did not, however, threaten to remove his head from his body, like some other groups do when their religion is offended. This is necessary as we have willingly followed the directions to stay hiding behind our church doors for far too long. The secular statists like it that way. We can have our beliefs as long as it does not interfere with their plans for world dominance. They are patient people, they understand that if we are pushed out of the market place of ideas, our numbers will shrink as we shrivel to an ineffective chorus of whiners.

We need to point out that the violence they supposedly fear is coming from within their own ranks as Sarah Palin’s church was torched, someone shot into Eric Cantor’s office and another voiced threats to his life on the internet. It might be noted that the man talking of doing violence to the Republican whip is reportedly an Obama contributor and a Muslim. I’ll bet you don’t see that on CNN or MCNBC. One could go on with stories about SEIU thugs beating a man giving out Gadsden flags, eggs thrown at tea party busses and the Albemarle County VA Republican headquarters vandalized. Those things are OK since Cantor is Jewish and the rest are just some of those evil people trying to stop “progress”.

I saw a bumper sticker a few days ago that said in bold letters, “PACIFISM WORKS” followed by “if your opponent has morals”. That summed it up beautifully as I have seen no evidence of a moral compass in the Obama administration or any of its minions.

We don’t all have to go out and buy an AK-47 along with a couple of Glocks, then go out and run around in the woods. What we do have to do is speak up when we see this kind of prejudice. In one sense, what they think about us doesn’t matter. But in another, we need to be at the forefront of defending the gospel and standing for the values that brought our country to greatness.

With a mindset that is antithetical to that of Barack Hussein Obama, we need to understand that this battle is not about us and our comfort. We are in a fight for the soul of our country and the souls of our fellow citizens. We cannot let them down.

We have two powerful weapons the other side knows nothing about. The first is prayer to the creator of the universe who takes a personal interest in each one of us. The second is the truth. Scripture says the truth will set us free. It works for us and it works for those blinded by their Obamessiah… but they will never hear it if we sit down and be quiet as we have been told to do.

We cannot let the actions of a few people who go off the deep end make us back out of the fight… if indeed, that is what happened. They need our prayers as well. We are all under attack and it is going to get worse. We have no choice but to join the battle – or surrender. Somehow, I don’t think our Father in heaven would be pleased if we shrunk back from the task at hand.

The specifics of the study are not as important as the fact that academic rejection of the results was as predictable as Barack Hussein Obama’s use of duel teleprompters. Instead of hailing the study as something promising in the battle against teen pregnancy and STDs, the reaction showed the kneejerk reaction of the entrenched secularists as they sought to discredit both the study and its conclusions. We have seen this behavior before… many times.

Instead of using science as the path the truth, it is being used like a drunk clinging to a lamp post… more for support than illumination. This is the very same intellectual dishonesty they continually accuse those who are foolish enough to actually believe the principles of the Bible. We should be used to this by now… science eventually confirming the words of the same creator that endowed us with unalienable rights.

In this case, the behaviors encouraged by the Bible have actually resulted in children that were spared the angst and health debilities of growing up too early in brave new progressive world. We need to take this lesson to heart and let it guide out actions as we move forward.

We are dealing with a movement much like Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union. Both sought to replace belief and trust in God with trust and allegiance to the state. While the Soviets pushed the atheistic philosophy more aggressively, they both saw the state a supreme. We are facing an American government that is increasingly hostile to religion… at least Christianity… and building an infrastructure to encompass every area of our life and meet all our needs.

This most recent revelation needs to take us one (or more) steps closer to understanding that academics, like government function better as our servants instead of our masters. We need education and we need government, yet as we view the constitution and read our founder fathers, we see that both were instituted to preserve rather than restrict our freedoms… to enhance and complement rather than destroy our way of life and values.

We have an administration infested with more academicians and moderated by fewer real people with real world experience and wisdom than any before it in the history of our country. Those of us lacking Ivy League credentials are looked down upon by those with them and our standards are devalued by those who feel they are better than us poor, bitter dummies who cling to our guns and our god. It is time to stop this catering to vocal, pompous minority that feels they have the right to set the national course for all of us… no matter what we say. After all, we are just a slobbering mass of inferiority.

We have the numbers and we have the passion to stop this. Do we have the courage to see it through? Are we going to do the heavy lifting and make the sacrifices to reclaim our freedom and our country? The answer had jolly well better be a resounding “YES!’

It would do us well to have a look at these rules, since they have been used effectively against our society. Learning about his approach, and the methods used by the radicals surrounding the President can prepare us for dealing with them. We can even pick up a few pointers and turn some of them around on the current political establishment.

Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. This means they community organizers become masters of illusion… deceit even. It comes down to attempts at intimidating the other side into concessions they would not make if they understood the reality.

Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people. This means that you speak the language and values of your allies. This has become so ingrained in the President that his off the cuff remarks about Professor Gates rolled off his tongue from years of practice in stoking the fires of racism and victimization.

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Setting the terms of an argument gives you tremendous advantage. By making the opponent use your terms, you go a long way toward making it appear your premises are correct and they are just out of step. Beyond this, you are making them think in ways foreign to their normal thought processes.

Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. This works particularly well for the community organizing crowd when working with those of us with traditional values. As imperfect people, we rarely live up to our own standards perfectly. Then they play a game of gotcha. Even regular Democrats are masters of this ploy and why John Ensign got in trouble for an affair while Barney Frank suffered no consequences for having had gay prostitutes operating out of his apartment. The antidote is to accept our imperfections and not allow them to shame us into silence.

Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is such an effective weapon because it deflects the attention from the question no one wants to answer and angers the opponent which often leads them to appear irrational. This is often used with the birth certificate question… no answers are given, and attempts are made to destroy the credibility of the accuser.

Rule 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy. Dedication to a cause will keep people going only so long. There has to be something inherent in the activity that people enjoy. It can be as simple causing discomfort to a real or imagined foe.

Rule 7: A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag. Activities need to be changed frequently so they don’t become routine and people become bored. Even adults have limited attention spans.

Rule 8: Keep the pressure on. This is a psychological game to push the opponent into actions detrimental to their cause. Everywhere they turn they need to see something that keeps them from relaxing and planning. If they are constantly responding to your attacks, they have a difficult time attacking themselves.

Rule 9: The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself. People’s imaginations can often carry them far beyond the reality of many situations. Years ago Alinsky just threatened to tie up all the washrooms at O’Hare Airport. City authorities quickly caved at the thought of bus loads of homeless people tying up washrooms as passengers filed off planes looking for relief. Nothing was done, but provide a threat of embarrassment to the City of Chicago.

Rule 10: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. It’s not good enough just to be against something. When you shoot down someone’s proposal, you need to have another idea ready to go.

Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. It’s easier for your followers to have a recognizable villain to focus their hostility on. Find an identifiable individual or group of individuals, like insurance executives to blame problems on. Then… ignore any attempts to inject logic into the argument that will distract from the goal. Years ago Jews served this purpose… who will be next?

That was a brief overview of rules generated by Saul Alinsky. It may give you an idea of why values like honesty and logic don’t work in dealing with these radicals. Their minds don’t work the way ours do, and we share little in the way of values. We need to keep this in mind as we deal with them. Being forewarned is forearmed.

San Francisco, CA – Today Liberty Counsel is filing a motion to intervene in the recent lawsuit against California’s Marriage Amendment (Prop 8). Attorney David Boies and former Solicitor General Ted Olson filed a federal lawsuit against California’s marriage amendment, claiming that it violates the U.S. Constitution. Liberty Counsel is representing the Campaign for California Families (Campaign).

Shortly after the amendment passed in November, three lawsuits were filed at the California Supreme Court by same-sex marriage advocates, also claiming that Prop 8 violates the state constitution. In May, the California Supreme Court upheld Prop 8, affirming the constitutional amendment that defines marriage as only the union of one man and one woman. This new lawsuit now claims that the marriage amendment violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Liberty Counsel has represented the Campaign in the defense of marriage in California for more than five years, arguing at the state trial and appellate court and the California Supreme Court. Liberty Counsel also represented the Campaign as Intervenor and argued in federal district and appellate courts in defense of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The federal courts threw out the challenge to the federal DOMA. Now California marriage laws are again under attack. Since Attorney General Jerry Brown is not likely to vigorously defend California’s marriage laws, Liberty Counsel has requested to once again intervene on behalf of the Campaign to defend the marriage amendment.

Mathew D. Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, commented: “The battle for marriage continues in California. Redefining marriage to include same-sex unions would undermine marriage and the family and would have significant negative social consequences. The United States Supreme Court has previously hinted that the U.S. Constitution does not grant a right for same-sex couples to marry. Common sense and a quick read of the Constitution say there is no such right to same-sex marriage.”

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Liberty Counsel is one of several groups of attorneys gathered to help people stand against an overreaching government. Two others that come to mind are The Rutherford Institute and the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ).

My wife and I depended heavily on the helpful advice we received from ACLJ when we battled the local school district and their affinity for a local group called the Richmond Organization for Sexual Minority Youth… and we won! The point of all this is that we will most likely be facing ever increasing challenges from a government that neither shares nor respects the values that made this country great.

These people are here to help us fight the good fight. While we are never alone when we are doing the right thing, having the advice and help of any of these organizations may make all the difference in the world. Don’t be afraid to contact them and don’t just sit on the sidelines when you see something is wrong. Just remember: the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.

The signers of this document pledged “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” to establishing a government in the new land where these rights to life, liberty and so much more were recognized. Once free of the oppressive monarch, they set about to create a system where the people were the ultimate authority and government answered to its employers: the citizens.

They laboriously created a constitutional plan where three branches were supposed to balance each other so no one reigned supreme. They did this by limiting the reach of the legislative, executive and judicial branches to restrain dictatorial rule. So concerned were some of the leaders immediately following the presentation of the document that it did not sufficiently restrain the power of the central government that its ratification by all the states could not have been accomplished without the promise of additional guarantees of individual freedoms and restraints on governmental power. Hence the first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, quickly followed acceptance of the original document.

Many today believe they have the rights of free speech, religion, personal protection through firearms because of these amendments. In reality, every human being has these rights, because they were bought into being by a loving creator who wants to see each one of us live and prosper to the best of our abilities. Then why was it necessary to codify them in the constitution? The answer is the same as for any other provision of the constitution, and that is so the government would recognize the limits of its power.

If we were to take the approach that the piece of paper granted us these rights, we would be in the precarious position of leaving them up to what ever men, legislative body or judiciary panel would decide to give us. This would return us to the plight of the colonists under King George. Our creator created us to be free and governments that fail to recognize these rights are operating in violation of what the founding fathers called “natural law”, which was the law that was self evident to anyone with the Christian background of these men.

Why is this important? If these rights are unalienable as our founders believed, they are existent apart from any decree from DC. On the other hand, if they come from men, they can be taken away by men. We then have no recourse if these men (or women) decide that we have few or none of the rights laid out by our forefathers. Worse yet, by doing this, we move from being citizens in charge of our government to being its subjects.

This is the price the secular humanists are willing to pay to eliminate the Christian influence from our great country. Their fear of the absolute moral teaching coming from the Word of God leads them to accept enslavement to whims of leaders, ultimately a much more heavy handed control, but without the moral measurement of the ten commandments.

This is the underlying basis of the entire culture war in our country… but it isn’t really cultural, it is spiritual.

I have been told that God doesn’t make junk and everyone of God’s children is a somebody. Hmmmmm. Usually what people mean when they think somebody should do something, is that they really mean somebody else should do something. Part of this mindset is that our society is one of many spectators and few actors. We watch our favorite ball teams or race drivers go out and do their thing for obscene amounts of money. We cheer for them as if their victories somehow enhanced the lives of ourselves and our families. We support some who run for office… sometimes we may even work with one of their campaigns. At best, though, most of us just hang around the periphery of the action.

We do this because somewhere deep inside we’ve been conditioned to believe that it is our lot in life to be one of the masses while the changes in the world come about because of big people, special people… somebody else.

Here is a radical thought: to your neighbor down the street, you are somebody else. To your high school classmates, you are somebody else. To the people you work with, you are somebody else. To the people in your church, you are somebody else. I hope you are starting to get the picture.

Everyone is looking to “somebody else” to solve their problem. Look at the helpless masses who voted for Barack Hussein Obama. They thought he was going to fix every aspect of their drab, lifeless existence… they even thought he was going to buy them a car and pay their mortgage. They may have been right about this in some instances… but he will never be able to give them meaning.

We look at men with names like Washington, Madison, Henry, Adams, Franklin and Jefferson and see them as bigger than life. Without diminishing the magnitude of their contribution to the founding of our great country, I believe you will agree that these farmers, printers lawyers and who knows what else, were men… mere mortals like the rest of us. None could walk on water or leap tall buildings in a single bound. Although they were all intelligent and successful men, not one possessed super human skills or abilities. Their DNA was pretty much standard human being stuff. They were pretty much like you and me.

They all believed in the necessity of living in freedom. Most of us also understand the human need to be free as well. The difference between these men and many other capable colonists, was that they carried these beliefs one step beyond just talking about them. They acted on them. They could have met behind closed doors for twenty years, complaining about the wrongs visited on them by the British monarch… and nothing would have changed, except for a few more ulcers amongst the assembly.

These were ordinary men who did extraordinary things. They lived at a critical point in the history of the world and helped birth the greatest nation on earth. Like them, each of us was born into this critical period in the history of our country and the world. Understanding the sovereignty of God, we need to consider that each of us, like Esther, was placed on this earth for “such a time as this”.

You might argue that you are just one person, and that one person going against the trends of society has little chance of success. This is true… on a human level. We need to keep in mind that even Moses, who had the promise of God’s power to sustain him, needed the have his brother Aaron by his side to have the confidence to approach Pharoah. It’s OK to have some feelings of inadequacy, because by ourselves, we are inadequate, and it helps us realize our dependence on divine guidance and support just like our founding fathers.

This is why we need to seek out others of similar mind. They may be a group at your church, possibly a patriot or tea party group. Wherever you look, there will be people to work with. Find a group you are comfortable with. Meet with them, and, if no one else does it, be sure they don’t just sit around and belly ache. Take it upon yourself, if necessary, to be sure every one goes home with some kind of action item. It could be as simple as making a phone call, or writing letter to the editor or to politicians. Nothing happens until somebody does something.

When you start to move forward and make progress, people will say you are trying to impose your religion on them. It is they who are trying to impose their secular, statist religion on everyone. Patrick Henry, one of the driving forces of the first ten amendments to our constitution that we call the Bill of Rights, wrote, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom to worship here. There is absolutely no reason to be ashamed or defensive!

Contrary to secularist propaganda – as we are seeing in Washington – the Christians are not the ones seeking to control every aspect of our lives. We are the ones who offer true freedom, both now and forever. We need to be the ones to speak up to a leader who has hardened his heart, much like Pharoah. Will you be part of this move for freedom, or will you hide in the bullrushes and watch?

Standing Up For Right

Four hundred Pace High School students in Santa Rosa County FL defied the bullies from ACLU by standing and reciting the Lord’s Prayer during their graduation ceremony on June 4. The Anti-Christian Liberties Union got worked up into a tizzy when days before, the principal had the audacity to permit a blessing at a dinner function. This should not be, they warned the school. Food must be eaten unblessed. In demanding the school censor any student religious expression, they created a situation where no student was permitted to have any part in the program.

Benjamin Stevenson, an attorney for the ACLU whined, “Our feeling is that it’s regrettable that the students took over the ceremony to impose their religious views on the audience who may not have shared the same religious views. School officials have a responsibility to protect the silently held religious views of others.”

Translated, this means that imposing the secular religion must be done at the expense of those who chose to recognize God in public. I would venture to say that Mr. Stevenson, Esq. Would have been smacked senseless by most any of our founding fathers who saw recognition of our creator and protector as a necessary part of public life.

By sticking together and holding to their values, these young people, many of whom even sported crosses on their caps, made the point that they were free people… freely exercising their rights to free speech and free exercise of their religion. There are a few lessons that can be learned from this student rebellion.

The first lesson is to stick together. Individually, any of them may have gotten into trouble, missed receiving their diploma or whatever the vindictive would-be masters should decide to inflict on them. Benjamin Franklin understood this when he said, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” There is safety in numbers, but there is also the multiplier that is recognized as far back as the book of Deuteronomy where it says, “one man chase a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight,”

The second lesson is that often the power of those seeking to control us exists more in our own minds rather than in reality, Sure there are times when we can be faced with billy clubs and handcuffs, but often the bullies have nothing more than hot air. Push back and they frequently turn tail and run, yelping all the way.

The third lesson we see is that the control hungry statist types believe in rule from above by the elites who know better than anyone else what should be done. This shows they have no understanding of the beauty of the US constitution where the power rests, not with the government, but with the people… who then assign some of it to the government to accomplish needed tasks. They do not understand that any official, the principal included, works for the people and is subject to the direction of his employer. Most in DC have forgotten this as well, but as Bob Dylan sang years ago, “Times, they are a changin’”, this time for the good.

As time goes by, and issues become more serious and the desire to control us becomes more intense, we may be called upon to face more intense harassment or arrest, like the protesters recently objecting to a commencement speech by a pro-abortion president at Notre Dame. By hanging together everyone gains extra courage and resolve.

Restrictions on prayer are just the tip of the iceberg that we see coming toward us. These kids got the idea… stand up for what you believe. Otherwise you become just another one of the sheeple that Ted Nugent talks about. For those content to live a life where they are told to jump, and then told how high to jump, none of this will make any sense. However, for those of us with a strong sense of right and wrong, we must agree with James Madison when told us, “Resistance to tyranny is service to God.” It’s also service to our fellow man.

After centuries of informal and state celebrations, Columbus Day became a federal holiday in 1970. It was a day to celebrate country, history and the spirit of adventure. Italian-Americans rejoiced in their heritage. Recently the holiday has fallen into disfavor among the academic elites and politically correct. Brown University has become the latest institution of supposedly higher learning to banish this American tradition to the dust bin of history.

At the request of the student body, the faculty voted to replace the Columbus Day recognition with a Fall Weekend celebration. One has to wonder where these students got the information on which they based their righteous indignation. Some would see the possibility of manipulation of these students trying to find their way on their own for the first time in their lives.

The historical revisionists have now chosen to emphasize some of the things that may have gone on between Columbus and the native Americans over the magnitude of his accomplishment. One web site explains this thinking by telling us it “rejects the celebration of Christopher Columbus and his legacy of domination, oppression, and colonialism. We also reject historical misconceptions regarding Columbus and his ‘discovery’ of the Americas.” He is called a savage and castigated as a slave trader.

What is interesting is that many of the most vocal opponents of Columbus and his discovery of the new world have long ago expressed deep admiration for revolutionary butcher Che Guevara. The same people who are loudly critical of Columbus alleged brutality admire the very same qualities in the communist guerrilla. Guevara’s victims are well documented, and I’ve never met one of his fans that will argue that he was not a ruthless killer.

It looks like it’s not the action these people really object to. Could it be that one resulted in the birth of the greatest free nation on earth, based on Christian values and the other was trying to tear down certain levels of freedom and substitute the iron hand of communism? How revealing is this?

Nothing takes place in a vacuum. Are the students (and faculty) rejecting Columbus because of his supposed deeds, or because of what he represents: the spread of western civilization – the benefits of which they all enjoy? Do these same people so admire Che because he lived the life of a terrorist, killing innocent people, or because he was trying to tear down western civilization? The next time you see a kid with his cool Che Guevara t-shirt, you may want to ask him that.

Christopher Columbus wasn’t perfect, but he was a man who had the courage to go where no European had gone before. He was the James Kirk of his day. He was one of leaders in the creation of a civilization that was to be the lighthouse to world. Those who would argue with this must think that the idyllic Middle Ages were the peak of man’s existence with their bleaker living conditions and significantly shorter life spans. Surely they could not be looking at communist regimes that killed millions of people around the world to maintain their dictatorial power, only to ultimately fail anyway, as the model we should be working toward, along with the likes of Guevara. Unfortunately many of them do!