Show Support For Religious Liberty

What do you do when your religious beliefs conflict with what your government demands of you? Most of us living in the United States have never had to worry about that. Unfortunately, some have...and it's going to get worse. Two examples:

California has a law requiring any employer who offers a prescription drug coverage to include coverage of prescription contraceptives in that coverage. Catholic Charities of Sacramento challenged the law on the grounds that their religious beliefs prohibited them from supporting contraceptives. They lost.

Two fertility doctors in California, Christine Brody and Douglas Fenton, both refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian woman due to religious objections. They did refer the woman to another doctor who performed the procedure for her. She sued them anyway, and the doctors lost.

Most of us do not provide insurance coverage or fertility treatments, so some might be inclined to think these events don't affect us. If you do think that, you are wrong. Why? The once-ironclad guarantee we had that the government could not "prohibit the free exercise" of religion is no more. In other words, one person's "right" to not be offended is now considered a higher legal priority than another person's desire to refrain from practices that are against his religious beliefs. Our ability to live our religion legally has become subject to world's popular judgment of whether those religious beliefs are acceptable or not. Considering that most of the "popular" opinion out there is that the LDS Church is a cult, I'm not optimistic about how many of my beliefs will meet the world's standards.

There is hope, and there is specific action that can and should be taken today. A new law went into effect in January intended to protect health care workers who act on their conscience. Unfortunately, there is already an effort to overturn this law. The Department of Health and Human Services is taking public comments on the issue through April 9th. Comments in support of the law can be submitted at http://www.adoctorsright.com.

Remember:

"Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition." - Barack Obama, June 28, 2006

Liberty vs. Debt

How often have we heard the General Authorities (especially President Hinckley) warn us that indebtedness is another form of slavery? They understand a simple truth: if we don't have economic liberty, then we don't have any real liberty. Hopefully you and your families have heeded their warnings and have gotten your own financial house in order as best you can. If you have, you certainly understand just how liberating it is.

Now, I must ask - is it enough for us to stop with our own families? I've done my best to stay debt-free, but am I really? I found this chart today, put together by the Heritage Foundation, that shows what will happen if our government's current budget plans are followed (tax increases and all):

So, in spite of my best efforts, am I really free? That debt in 2019 is equivalent to over $40,000 for every single man, woman, and child in America, including me. There will be absolutely nothing I can do to escape it. Have a family of five? Your share will be like having a full mortgage to pay without having a house to show for it.

I cannot expect to remain free if I don't live within my means. Can we expect our nation to remain free if it won't live within its means? There is precious little time to put a stop to this. We must demand responsibility from our representatives, no matter what party we or they belong to. We must DEMAND that our nation remain free, and that includes economically!

A Better Option

It has been my observation that any time any problem gains the attention of the people of this country, the first and only reaction is: "What is the government going to do to fix this?" If our problems will ever be solved, we must start looking to a different source.

"Believe it or not, at one time the very notion of government had less to do with politics than with virtue. According to James Madison, often referred to as the father of the Constitution: 'We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of the government—far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.' ”

Where do we stand now? We stand at a point in time where the Ten Commandments of God are banned from the halls of our governments. We may firmly believe in our religion and in our rights to exercise our religion, but too many people, including too many LDS people, share the belief that religion has no place in government. The Constitutional text that was written to protect religion from government has been twisted to protect government from religion.

"In fact, the framers of the Constitution probably assumed that religious freedom would establish religion as a watchdog over government, and believed that free churches would inevitably stand and speak against immoral and corrupt legislation. All churches not only have the right to speak out on public moral issues, but they have the solemn obligation to do so. Religion represents society’s conscience, and churches must speak out when government chooses a course that is contrary to the laws of God."

If there is any hope for the future of America, it must be based on the morality of her people.

"If we would maintain the independence and freedom the Founding Fathers intended, we must work to preserve and protect the moral foundation upon which they built the U. S. government. We must stand boldly for righteousness and truth, and must defend the cause of honor, decency, and personal freedom espoused by Washington, Madison, Adams, Lincoln, and other leaders who acknowledged and loved God. Otherwise, we will find ourselves in the same predicament President Lincoln observed in 1863."

"Said Lincoln: 'We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of their own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!'"

"Let us resolve to make our own families truly free by teaching them that God holds us all accountable. His laws are absolutes; breaking them brings misery and unhappiness; keeping them brings joy, happiness, and the blessings of heaven. Let us teach our families and others the importance of moral responsibility based on the laws of God."

[Note: All paragraphs in this post that are in quotations are quoting M. Russell Ballard's talk, Religion in a Free Society, from the October 1992 Ensign. Like everything else I quote, I recommend you read it in its entirety.]

Just how important is the Constitution?

"Next to being one in worshiping God, there is nothing in this world upon which this Church should be more united than in upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States." - David O. McKay, October 1939 General Conference

A dose of optimism

For those of you who, like me, have been a little pessimistic about our nation's current course. This is also from God, Family, Country:

"Time is on the side of truth, and truth is eternal. Those who are fighting against freedom and other eternal principles of right may feel confident now, but they are shortsighted.

"This is still God's world...In due time, when each of us has had a chance to prove himself--including whether or not we are going to stand up for freedom--God will interject himself, and the final and eternal victory shall be for free agency. An then shall those weak-willed souls on the sidelines and those who took the wrong but temporarily popular course lament their decisions.

"Seldom has so much responsibility hung on so few, so heavily; but our numbers are increasing, and we who have been warned have a responsibility to warn our neighbor...Time is on the side of truth, and the wave of the future is freedom. There is no question of the eventual, final, and lasting triumph of righteousness. The major question for each of us is what part will we play in helping to bring it to pass.

"This is a glorious hour in which to live. Generations past and future will mark well our response to our awesome duty. There is a reason why we have been born in this day. Ours is the task to try to live and perpetuate the principles of Christ and the Constitution in the face of tremendous odds. May we, with God's help, have strength for the battle and fill our mission in honor for God, family, and country."

Saving the Constitution and Ourselves

The Book of Mormon and our nation's founders were in complete agreement about what it would take for our nation to remain free:

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. " - John Adams

"Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ, who hath been manifested by the things which we have written." - Ether 2:12

In God, Family, Country, President Benson asked, "What, then, in this time and season may best equip us to save our Christian constitutional legacy, while at the same time rescuing our own souls?" Not surprisingly, his answer did not focus on elections or political agendas. He gave six suggestions (I've paraphrased his descriptions of his suggestions, but, as always, I highly recommend reading this on your own):

• Spirituality. Spirituality is the foundation upon which any battle against tyranny must be waged. This is basically the struggle of the forces of Christ versus the antichrist, so it is imperative that our people be in tune with the supreme leader of freedom, the Lord.
• Balance. A man has duties to his church, his home, his country, and his profession.
• Courageous Action. Today you cannot effectively fight for freedom and not be attacked. While we don't need to go out of our path of duty to find a cross to pick up, a man is a coward who refuses to pick up a cross that clearly lies within his path. A man must not only stand for right principles, he must also fight for them. Those who do can be proud of the friends they've gained and the enemies they've earned.
• Education. We are going against the greatest, most insidious propaganda campaign of all time. We cannot believe all we read. We must sift. We must learn by study and prayer. Study the scriptures, and study the mortals who have been most consistently accurate about the most important things.
• Health. To meet and beat the enemy will require clear heads and strong bodies. Let us take into our bodies and souls only those things that will make us more effective instruments.
• Be Prepared. We have a duty to survive, not only spiritually but also physically. Not survival at the cost of principles, for that is the surest way to defeat, but survival that comes from intelligent preparation.

Finally, President Benson wrote: "Those who hesitate to get into this fight because it is controversial fail to realize that life's decisions should be based on principles, not public opinion polls. There were men at Valley Forge who weren't sure how the revolution would end, but they were in a much better position to save their own souls and their country than those timid men whose major concern was deciding which side was going to win, or how to avoid controversy."

Educational Self-Reliance

D&C 93:53 - "And, verily I say unto you, that it is my will that you should...obtain a knowledge of history, and of countries, and of kingdoms, of the laws of God and man, and all this for the salvation of Zion."

If we fail to obtain knowledge in these areas, we are in trouble spiritually, because we aren't obeying a commandment of God, and temporally, because the decisions we make in ignorance (what policies to support, who to vote for, etc...) will almost never be the correct decisions.

Many of us may assume that we got everything we need from the history and civics classes we had in high school or college. If you fall into that category, consider this: if we relied solely on that same education, we would think that we descended from apes, and that sexual promiscuity is normal and healthy. Not everything that comes out of public education is correct, and we should have no reason to assume that the civics education we received was entirely correct. According to Ether 8:25, the evil one "seeketh to overthrow the freedom of all lands". One easy way for him to do that is to have people who are ignorant of history and laws.

I'm not saying the civics education we got in high school or college came from Satan. I am saying that we have the responsibility to make our own effort to ensure that it was both correct and complete, and to make up the difference if it wasn't. If you aren't sure, any of the books listed at the bottom of this page would be a great place to start looking.