Preserving the Freedom to Speak about Marriage

                The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is the importance of preserving our freedom to speak about traditional marriage.  The debate about marriage is far from over even though five Justices on the United States Supreme Court decided to trample on the Constitution and fundamentally change the meaning of marriage.  By a very narrow margin the Justices moved the United States into the same position as Canada; they are the only two nations in the entire world to force same-sex marriage on their citizens.

                Tony Perkins published an essay at the Daily Signal  sharing his opinion that the Court’s ruling ended “the liberal media’s charade.  Whatever scrap of journalistic impartiality existed flew out the courtroom window Friday when the press decided five justices not only invented a right to same-sex marriage but to censorship, too.  The press is no longer a guardian against censorship but a portender of it.”

                Members of the lame stream press are celebrating the Court’s decision because it tried for years to stop the debate about same-sex marriage.  “Desperate to take away the voice of Christians at the public table, the left is already on the march to undermine the very freedom that gives breath to the speech it now enjoys…. [M]uch of the media have declared victory over a dispute that’s barely existed two decades.  Americans who believe in thousands of years of human history must now surrender to a 4-day-old `right’ – or shut up altogether.”

                Perkins gave as an example a newspaper in Pennsylvania declared that they would “no longer accept, nor … print, op-eds and letters to the editor in opposition to same-sex marriage….  This is not hard:  We would not print racist, sexist or anti-Semitic letters.  To that, we add homophobic ones.  Pretty simple.”

                This type of conversation is happening at many media places; unfortunately for them, this is the one that went public.  “People were outraged and flooded the newspaper with scathing emails and phone calls.  Within hours, the editors issued an apology.  It was, John Micek, said, a `genuine attempt at fostering civil discussion.’  (Not very genuine, it seems, since ending the discussion doesn’t exactly foster one.)  Still, Micek said, `These pages … belong to the people of Central Pennsylvania.  I’m a conduit, I recognize, for them to share their views and to have the arguments that make us better as a people.  And all views are – and always will be – welcome.’  For how long, no one knows.”

                Editors at The Daily Beast are calling the four conservative Justices’ votes “treason.”  Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, appeared on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos to discuss the marriage decision, and “left-wing groups mobilized thousands of people to contact the network, demanding it ban him from future shows.  It’s a deliberate attempt to silence your voice, which we represent in Washington.”

                Reverend Franklin Graham said, “You better be ready and you better be prepared because it’s coming….  There will be persecution of Christians for our stand.”

                The media has constantly told Americans that support for same-sex marriage was strong.  They apparently said it often enough that they actually believe it.  When millions of Americans push back on the effort to silence them, the media will be shocked.  The Family Research Council launched a new movement called Project Tolerance:  Preserving Your Voice in the Public Square.  You can join the pushback at this site.    I encourage you to go there and become an ambassador for preserving freedom to speak about marriage.

                

Freedom to Fly Flags

                The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns the freedom of Americans to fly flags.  Americans have the right to fly the flags of their choice on their own property without regard to whether or not it offends their neighbors; however, there are movements in our land to stop certain flags from being flown on government or public property.

                The governor of South Carolina has called for the Confederate flag to be taken down in her state.  The governor of Virginia ordered the Confederate flag to be taken of the state’s license plates.  Amazon, Wal-Mart and other businesses have declared they will no longer sell Confederate flags.  The Confederate flag offends people. 

                Other people are calling for the rainbow flag flown by gay rights supporters to be condemned because it too offends people.  Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh predicted on his show that the American flag will “come under assault” because it offends people and stands for “everything that’s wrong with” America.

                “If you take a look at the timeline of progressive events, their speed and rapidity with which the left is conducting this assault on all of these American traditions and institutions, if you don’t think the American flag’s in their crosshairs down the road, you had better stop and reconsider.”

                Do you believe the time will come when the Stars and Stripes will not fly over public property?   If so, will only patriots fly the American flag?  We live in interesting times.  The future should be even more interesting!

Free to Live

                The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is the simple fact that mankind is free because Jesus Christ provided the way to escape this world.  Jesus Christ was born in a stable and reared as the son of a carpenter; however, He was the Son of God and came to earth to save all mankind.  We celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ because of the man He became as well as His mission.

                Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son of Heavenly.  He is the only person on earth who had a mortal mother an immortal Father.  He inherited mortality from His mother and was subject to hunger, thirst, fatigue, pain, and death.  He inherited divine powers from His Father.  Because of His divine qualities, He had the power to lay down His life and then take it up again.  He was the first person to be resurrected and made it possible for all mankind to be resurrected.

                There were few witnesses when Jesus Christ came to earth the first time; when He comes again, He will come “with power and great glory” and all mankind will witness it (Doctrine and Covenants 29:11).  The Second Coming of the Savior will be the beginning of the Millennium, a time when the Savior will “dwell in righteousness with men on earth a thousand years” (Doctrine and Covenants 29:11).

                No one knows when the Savior will return, not even the angels in heaven, but He promised to give us signs of His coming.  The signs have begun.  The scriptures tell us that we will see (1) earthquakes, tempests, thunder, and lightning, and seas heaving themselves beyond their boundaries. Storms; (2) the sun turning dark and the moon turning into blood; (3) wars and rumors of wars.

                The scriptures also tell us that the Savior will return in glory, so much glory that the “sun shall hid his face in shame” (Doctrine and Covenants 133:49).  The signs are here and growing in frequency.   Are you ready to meet the Savior?  Are you like the wise virgins who brought extra oil for their lamps or are you like the foolish virgins who brought no extra oil and expected to borrow it from others?

                “For they that are wise and have received the truth, and have taken the Holy Spirit for their guide, and have not been deceived – verily I say unto you, they shall not be hewn down and cast into the fire, but shall abide the day” (Doctrine and Covenants 45:56-57; see also Matthew 25:1-13).

                Even though our Savior came to earth the first time as a Baby, He will come again in great glory.  Everyone on earth will see Him and know He is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  We are all indebted to our Savior for making it possible for each of us to live truly free! 

Freedom to Choose

                The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is the simple fact that God gave us agency or the freedom to choose.  We know this because He revealed it to His prophets.   Heavenly Father wants His children to have the opportunity to obey His commandments because they choose do so and not because they are forced to obey.  This is the reason He bestowed the gift of agency on each of His children.

                Agency is an eternal principle.  We were free agents in our pre-earth life, meaning we had power to act for ourselves.  One of the purposes for our life on earth is to prove that we can make good choices.  If we were forced to choose the right, we would have no way to show what action we would choose if given the opportunity.

                Heavenly Father also desires His children to have happiness.  He knows that people – including little children – are happier when we make our own choices.  When we are persuaded rather than forced to do something, the unpleasant tasks seem to be more acceptable.

                We made our first choices as spirit children while living in the presence of our Heavenly Father.  He called all of us together in a grand council meeting to explain His plan for our salvation and eternal happiness.  We all used our agency to choose to follow Jesus Christ.  We know this because we have physical bodies of flesh and blood.  Those who chose to follow Satan never received physical bodies and never will.

                We know agency was one of the main causes of a great war between those who chose to follow Jesus Christ and those who chose to follow Satan.  When Heavenly Father asked for a volunteer, Satan said that he would bring all of us back to the presence of our Father.  He would take away our agency and force us to do good things.  When Heavenly Father rejected Satan’s plan, Satan rebelled and was cast out of heaven with all his followers.

                Agency is a necessary part of Heavenly Father’s plan of salvation and happiness for His children.  We need agency in order to be tested, and we must be tried to see whether we are worthy to be like Heavenly Father.  During His creation of man in his mortal state, God said, “We will prove [test] them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them” (Pearl of Great Price, Abraham 3:25).  Without the great gift of agency, we would not be able to prove ourselves. 

                When we choose to live according to the law of God, we strengthen our agency.  When we make right choices we increase our power to make more right choices.  As we obey each of the commandments of Heavenly Father, we become free to learn and obey other commandments.  We grow in wisdom and in strength of character.  Our faith in Jesus Christ increases, and we find it easier to make right choices.

                We all made the right choice in heaven and came to earth for further testing.  Heavenly Father wants us to grow in faith, power, knowledge, wisdom, and every good attribute.  We can continue to grow if we keep God’s commandments and make right choices.  As we learn and understand, we will become more like our Heavenly Father.

                Agency requires that there be a choice.  We cannot truly choose unless we are presented with at least two options.  This is probably the main reason why Heavenly Father allows Satan to tempt us to do bad things.  God revealed this very thing to Moses:  “I caused that he should be cast down.  And he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice” (Pearl of Great Price, Moses 4:3-4).

                Satan continues to oppose the work of God and does everything he can to destroy God’s work.  He does not love us or desire that we accomplish anything good.  In fact, he wants us to be his slaves, and he uses many disguises to take us into captivity.  He is so miserable that he desires that all of us are miserable like he is. 

                When we choose to follow Satan, we limit our choices.   The following example shows how this works.  Suppose you saw a sign on the seashore such as the following:  “Danger – whirlpool.  No swimming allowed.”  We could consider this to be a restriction, but we would be wrong because we still have many other choices.  We could choose to:  (1) swim somewhere else, (2) play on the beach, (3) watch the sunset, (4) go home, (5) ignore the sign and go swimming, or (6) make any other choice.  If we chose to go swimming and got caught in the whirlpool, our choices would become very limited very quickly: try to escape, call for help, or drown.

                In order to fully understand agency, we must understand that we are free to choose a course of action, but we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.  We are responsible for our actions because we have agency or the freedom to make choices.  Consequences are a natural result of any choice – whether good or bad.  If we touch a hot surface, we will be burned.  If we jump off a cliff, we will get hurt.  It is like picking up a stick:  if we pick up one end of the stick, we automatically pick up the other end of the stick also.  Whenever we make a choice – any choice – we also choose the consequence of that choice.  Choice and accountability go together hand in hand. 

                Heavenly Father gives us commandments in order to direct us away from the dangers of Satan and moving toward eternal life.  Commandments are like a fence at the top of a cliff:  they keep us on the road and moving forward.  One of the commandments is that we should “watch and pray always” that we may receive Heavenly Father’s help in making good choices.  If we are trying to live the commandments of Heavenly Father, He will never allow us to be tempted beyond what we have the power to resist.  If we continue to make good choices, we will eventually gain exaltation, progress eternally, and receive a fulness of joy.  

Righteousness and Wickedness

                The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is the simple fact that righteousness leads to prosperity and happiness while wickedness leads to misery and sorrow.  Our nation is quickly sliding down a very slippery slope because there is much wickedness in our nation, particularly among those who are doing their best to destroy our God-inspired Constitution.

                This week we watched videos of Ferguson, Missouri, being trashed and burned because rioters did not agree with the decision made by the grand jury investigating the death of Michael Brown.  For whatever reason the people apparently thought they had the right to destroy private property belonging to other people as well as public property belonging to the people as a whole.  Why were they rioting and trashing their community?   They believe that a white cop defending himself from assault shot a black man simply because he was black.  The cop feared for his life and testified that he would have shot the man even if he were white.  The rioters cry out for justice but will not accept justice when looking right at it.  Justice was done – just not the kind the rioters thought should happen.

                Glenn Beck  believes that the violence and unrest in Ferguson is “just the beginning of what will happen to our cities if we don’t change course.

                “The world is so screwed up.  You don’t know what up is and down is.  You have no idea what good and bad, right and wrong is….”

                After describing the rioting in Ferguson, Beck urged Americans to do what President Abraham Lincoln did.  He gave the Gettysburg Address

 and turned Americans to God.  President Lincoln gave this address at Thanksgiving time and “it turned the war.

                “We were losing everything up to that point, but it turned the world.  Because he said, `We need to humble ourselves.’  Are we not a nation that needs to be humbled?  My gosh, I don’t even know what we stand for anymore, except for money and power and greed and corruption.  That’s not the America I know or love.”

                Beck told his listeners the “biggest problem with our nation right now” is that political parties divide Americans to remain in power.  He said that radicals and revolutionaries are “trying to ignite an American spring.

                “That’s all they’re trying to do…. `If we can get the American people to riot, if we can just get them to stop being who the American people truly are…’  Don’t you see?  Everything about what they’re trying to do to us is to rip us away from the good peaceful, charitable, kind people we truly are.  That’s not how we always are, but historically, America always rights itself.  It always leans back towards decency, courage, and kindness and charity.  We always right ourselves.”

                Beck asked Americans to “look at our history and see who we truly are.”  Look for the good things and reconnect with God.  Beck knows and understands that civilizations that turn from God are eventually destroyed if they do not “right” themselves.  He too sees America heading down the slippery slope faster and faster, often with pushes by the President of the United States and other progressives working with him.

                The United States of America is not the first nation to exist on this continent.  At least two other civilizations lived here and were destroyed when they “ripened in iniquity.”  Will the USA follow the same path?  We will not if we will listen to the voice of prophets and be obedient to their counsel.  The following examples from modern scriptures exhort us to be obedient to God’s commandments and receive the blessings of prosperity and happiness; they also tell us that we cannot prosper or be happy in wickedness.

                After the Savior Jesus Christ visited the ancient inhabitants of the American continents, the people became very righteous.  “And the Lord did prosper them exceedingly in the land; yea, insomuch that they did build cities again where there had been cities burned.

                “And now, behold, it came to pass that the people of Nephi did wax strong, and did multiply exceedingly fast, and became an exceedingly fair and delightsome people….

                “And it came to pass that there was no contention among all the people in all the land; but there were mighty miracles wrought among the disciples of Jesus….

                “And it came to pass that there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people

                “And there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness; and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God” (Book of Mormon – Another Testament of Jesus Christ, 4 Nephi 1:7, 10, 13, 16-17).

                In King Benjamin’s speech to his people before his death, he included, “And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God.  For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness.  O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it” (Book of Mormon – Another Testament of Jesus Christ, Mosiah 2:41).

                While a prophet named Alma was counseling his son, he taught about wickedness and happiness:  “Do not suppose, because it has been spoken concerning restoration, that ye shall be restored from sin to happiness.  Behold, I say unto you, wickedness never was happiness” (Book of Mormon – Another Testament of Jesus Christ, Alma 41:10).

                Even with all this counsel, the Nephites became so wicked they were battling each other.  They followed the Jaredites, a previous civilization, into complete extinct because they turned from God and broke His commandments.  Without obedience to the commandments, God cannot bless.

                In the latter days the Prophet Joseph Smith received a revelation including this information:  “There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated –

                “And when we obtain any blessing form God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated” (Doctrine and Covenants 130:20-21).

War on Women

                The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is the simple fact that there is no “war on women.”  Democrats try to convince women that Republicans hate them and even abuse them, but it is Democrats who use women for political purposes.

                Debbie Wasserman Schultz, congresswomen from Florida and Democratic National Committee chair, recently accused Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker of abusing women.  In speaking to a group of women at the Milwaukee Athletic Club, Ms. Wasserman Schultz said:

                “Scott Walker has given women the back of his hand.  I know that is stark.  I know that is direct.  But that is reality.”  She continued with further insults:  “What Republican tea party extremists like Scott Walker are doing is they are grabbing us by the hair and pulling us back.  It is not going to happen on our watch.”

                Ms. Genevieve Wood at The Daily Signal  apparently believes that Ms. Wasserman Schultz not only insult Governor Walker but all women.  In addition, she claims that the insult to Governor Walker “makes light of the real issue of domestic abuse” by using the same words to describe actual physical abuse and political policies. She continued with her description of how Democrats, not Republicans, wage a “war on women.”

                “The truth is, Wasserman Schultz and all her left-wing pals marching in the `war on women’ parade are the ones who continue to pull women back.  They are the ones who want to deny women the freedom of choosing their own doctor or the school that is best for their child.  They are the ones who want to keep women in the dark about the health risks of abortion.  They are the ones who have promoted economic policies resulting in more Americans being on food stamps than ever before.  It is under their leadership that fewer Americans either have or are looking for job today than at any point since 1978.  And they are the ones that continue to keep women’s confidence down with false rhetoric and numbers about equal pay.

                “Unfortunately, there is plenty of evidence that rhetoric often trumps reality….

                “The Left uses the `war on women’ mantra not because it’s real but because, to date, it has worked.  They don’t care about women as individuals; they care about them as a monolithic voting bloc.  The only potential positive outcome of Wasserman Schultz’s comments is that perhaps American women will finally see her and other `war on women’ shills for what they really are:  outrageous.”

                Nia-Malika Henderson of the Washington Post believes the Democrats continue to speak about the “war on women” because this theme has helped Democrats to win past elections.  This time, however, Ms. Wasserman Schultz went too far, and Democrats are circling the wagons around her.

                I am insulted at the idea that women might actually believe the Democrats when they make their claims.  Are women really so confused and unthinking?  Can they not see that they are being used as pawns for political purposes?  I agree that Democrats are not interested in women as individuals and only care about them as a voting bloc.  I hope women open their eyes and see things as they really are and not as Democrats try to paint them.