A registrar in England is refusing to perform gay weddings because they violate her conscience and deeply held religious convictions. She is taking her local council to court over the matter. The secular approach is a very invasive one which insists that simply being “offended” is grounds for all kinds of lawsuits. And while we at Liberty Letters find the secular legal outlook that protects the favored minority of the moment from being "offended" by another man's views, a dangerous assault on freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion. Yet, we wonder why it is that these freedom loving individuals won't extend the same protections against "being offended" to Christians around the world? Can't they see that this movement they've attached themselves to is not about freedom, but statist control? Not about protecting private moral decisions, but vigorously assaulting that moral order, the Judeo-Christian ethic, that stands in the way of political revolution?

Read the story in the UK's Daily Mail.

The Liberty Letters are written by NewsMax pundit Steve Farrell and friends; and are a project of The Latter-day Center for Moral Liberalism.

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A Liberty Letters wacko environmentalism moment courtesy of IVA:

Ø Unfortunately for environmental alarmists, there has been no global warming now for almost a full decade, even though carbon dioxide concentrations are up about 4% since 1998. In fact, the southern hemisphere last year experienced one of its coldest winters on record, with record low temperatures and widespread frost and snow. It snowed in Buenos Aires for the first time in 89 years, and in Johannesburg for the first time in 25 years, while Chile suffered losses of $200 million in agriculture because of the tough winter. Even New Hampshire set a record for December snowfall, breaking a mark that had stood since 1876. (Br-r-r! Where did global warming go? - The Boston Globe)

Ø As you have been warned in this space, environmental authorities
in Britain are now calling for the evacuation of any room in which a compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL) breaks, because of its mercury content. The UK Environment Agency insists that debris not be removed
with a vacuum cleaner, but rather must be handled with rubber gloves, sealed in a plastic bag, and taken to official recycling sites. Good luck with that. (WorldNetDaily: Warning: Vacate room when CFL bulb breaks)

A Liberty Letters PS.: The environmental movement is not about protecting the environment, but about promoting the state, especially a future socialist state under the United Nations where your views about the environment, if you have any, will be relegated to "Who cares!" The best check on pollution is free enterprise coupled with the old legal approach of only going to the law, and that the traditional court system, when your back yard, your water supply, your whatever has been tainted by negligence or design. This with a removal of case law, making each issue to be handled by a case by case basis; and add to this, environmental law drafted, legislated, controlled and thus accountable to local voices, is the better, more inspired policy. There may be occasional exceptions to such an approach; but under the Jeffersonian approach to such exceptions, they must always and forever be treated as exceptions, with the general law still in force.

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When it comes to "limited government" as defined by the Founding Fathers, Liberty Letters sides with the inspired electoral college process created in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, one which rather than making for a pure democracy (or something like unto it) gave us representative government - but more than that: mixed forms for representation coupled with a variety of checks and balances that prevented power from concentrating, as well as providing a check on passionate and frequent overthrows of the law. Change was not to be impossible when desirable, but only after a deliberate process of debate, reasoning, and separation of time from any supposed crisis (outside of war). The Electoral College system set up for electing Presidents of the United States is part of that inspiration.

The Idaho Values Alliance, the Idaho Affiliate of American Family Association notes today:

Not too many people are happy with the current proess of selecting presidential nominees – too long, too expensive, too confusing. The simplest solution would be to go back to the system envisioned by the Founders and enshrined in the Constitution. According to the Founders, what this season should be about is not electing a president but electing the people who will elect a president.

 

 

As Article II of the Constitution says, Election Day is not the day to choose a president but rather the “Time of chusing (sic) the Electors.” This is a reflection of the often-forgotten historical truth that the Founders created a republic, not a democracy, when they established the government of the United States.

 

 

The Electoral College was designed by the Founders to consist of those people that the voters of each state have chosen, on the first Tuesday in November, to actually select the next president of the United States.

 

 

We should not, at this stage of the process, be hearing from presidential candidates but rather from candidates for the position of Elector.

 

We should be hearing from Idahoans seeking to convince us, by the criteria they will use in casting their votes, that they can be trusted to pick a president on our behalf.

 

 

The system is designed to work in such a way, according to Article II and the 12th Amendment, that we would not know who our next president is until the sealed Certificates listing the votes of every Elector from every state are opened by the President of the Senate in the presence of a joint session of Congress in Washington, D.C.

 

 

Then, if no one candidate received a majority of the votes, the House of Representatives would choose the next president from the top five vote getters in the Electoral College.

 

Bottom line: if we’re disenchanted with the current process, there’s no reason not to go back to the Constitution and do it the way we’re supposed to.

We agree, but add: An additional step to true election reform would be to repeal the 17th Amendment of the Constitution, which amendment called for the direct election of U.S. Senators by the people, rather than by the Founder's method, which was the election of Senators by their state legislatures - a radical departure. The Founder's formula sought to provide a vital check against the concentration of power on the national level, provide a balance of power between the states as well (by giving every state, large or small, two Senators directly responsible to their respective state governments and interests), and also a check against socialistic schemes for the forced redistribution of the wealth which they were sure would arise in the more democratic house (and thus this was a check on the dangers of pure democracy). And to coincide with these, election of Senators by their state legislatures was supposed to provide for more statesmanship, more independent thought, more sense of history, more sense of moral maturity, for the thought was that by in large these Senators - thus elected - would be the tried and tested senior statesmen from each state.

When one really considers what the Founder's did, and what later generations undid with the 17th Amendment, we are also led to exclaim, "If only we were to repeal and return, here would be true campaign-finance reform!" For it would mean, in large part, an end to millions of dollars from corporations and other private interest groups flowing into election campaign coffers for senatorial and presidential elections. Only in the House would the problem continue to be the problem we have today …  just as the Founders predicted and wanted. It was the House that represented directly the passions, whims, and or legitimate concerns of the people, and yes, groups of people (associations). There they would be aired in either their glory or shame … but they would be aired … and then hopefully, even if some of the more shameful measures made it through, then in the Senate, a more mature legislative body, representing a different constituency would provide the balance, checking the bad, and only concurring with the good.

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It doesn't get worse than this - the grassroots candidate that raised $20 million this quarter, more than the next closet Republican in the field by $9 million, has been snubbed from their debates this upcoming weekend.

Liberty Letters suggests that you email Fox News and respectfully voice your disappointment, even outrage. Tell them that you believe in free elections, free speech, and the democratic process, and that you thought they did too.

Just what are they afraid of when it comes to Ron Paul? Read the story here: Newsmax.com - Ron Paul Furious over Fox Debate Snub

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I do not know if all Americans have faith in their religion - for who can read to the bottom of hearts? - but I am sure that they believe it necessary to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion does not belong only to one class of citizens or to one party, but to the entire nation; one finds it in all ranks. - Alexis de Tocqueville, as quoted in "American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation,"  Jon Meacham

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Liberty Letters presents the Phyllis Schlafly report:

The Plan to Ditch the Electoral College
The liberals really don't like our constitutional process of electing
Presidents by the Electoral College, and every few years they come up
with a new plan to abolish, change or bypass it, sometimes by
unconstitutional means. One such plan has been launched by three losers
who were defeated in the 1980 Reagan landslide: John Anderson, Birch
Bayh and John Buchanan.

Our Constitution requires that a president be elected by a majority
of votes in the Electoral College, with each state's vote weighted
based on its population. But some who took an oath to defend our
Constitution are plotting to undermine its essential structure by a
compact among as few as eleven of the most populous states.

The plan of this Campaign for the National Popular Vote (NPV)
is to get states with at least 270 votes in the Electoral College to
enact identical bills requiring their own electors to ignore the winner
of their own state's election and cast all their state's ballots for
the candidate who the state believes received more popular votes than
the other candidates nationwide, even if he fails to win a majority of
the popular vote.

It's ridiculous and un-American to try to force electors to
vote against their constituents. Yet NPV wants to require a state like
Louisiana to vote for the candidate who won in other states such as New
York. The U.S. Constitution established our method of electing
presidents and it has served us well for more than two centuries. It
ain't broke and doesn't need fixing.

The Electoral College represents the inspired genius of our
Founding Fathers. It was part of the great compromise which transformed
us from thirteen rival colonies into a constitutional republic.

This great compromise gave us a Congress consisting of the Senate based
on equal representation of the states and the House based on
population. The Electoral College is the mirror image of this brilliant
compromise and allows all states to be players in the process of
electing our President.

The Electoral College is the successful vehicle by which a
presidential candidate achieves a majority in a functioning political
process. NPV is an outrageous proposal to construct a fake majority by
stealing votes away from some candidates and transferring them to
another candidate.

Because of third parties, we've had many elections (including
three of the last four) when no presidential candidate received a
popular-vote majority. Abraham Lincoln won less than 40% of the popular
vote and relied on his Electoral College majority for his authority.

Basing the election on a plurality of the popular vote while
ignoring the states would be like the New York Yankees claiming they
won the 1960 World Series because they outscored the Pirates in runs
55-27 and in hits 91-60. No one challenges the fact that the Pirates
fairly won that Series, 4 games to 3.

The fact that most elections are very close makes the Electoral
College particularly advantageous. With our loose election procedures
(that need to be reformed in several ways), it's easy to make credible
charges of election fraud. We remember the Florida recount in 2000 and
the attempt to recount Ohio in 2004. If the popular vote were
controlling, chaos would be the predictable result in any close
election. An allegation of voter fraud in one state would begin a fatal
chain reaction of challenges and recounts as campaign managers try to
scrape up additional hundreds of votes in many states at once.

The elimination of the Electoral College would overnight make
irrelevant the votes of Americans in about 25 states because candidates
would zero in on piling up votes in large-population states. Big-city
machines would take over, and candidates from California or New York
would enjoy a built-in advantage. The Electoral College provides an
essential safeguard against the democratic factionalism decried by
James Madison in Federalist 10.
The Electoral College ensures that no single faction or issue can elect
a president because he must win many diverse states to be elected.

The NPV slogan "Every Vote Equal" is stunningly dishonest
because the NPV proposal is based on legalizing vote-stealing and on
changing the rules of presidential elections by a compact of as few as
eleven states instead of the 38 states needed to amend the
Constitution. NPV should be repudiated.

The NPV proposal would also eliminate the constitutional role
of Congress in dealing with the occasional happenstance of a candidate
failing to get a majority of Electoral College votes. The Constitution
dealt adequately with that problem in 1824.

The NPV plan has been editorially endorsed by the New York Times, which called the Electoral College "an anti-democratic relic." The New York Times
could demonstrate its devotion to democracy by adopting a democratic
one-share-one-vote system of control of its own newspaper instead of
its current system that locks in a preferential voting category for the
Sulzberger family holdings.

Other Bad Plans to Rewrite the Constitution
Some
people, especially liberals, just don't like our United States
Constitution. Every few years, they come up with wild or devious plans
to make major changes. The would-be rewriters of the Constitution do
not merely propose amendments to remedy a problem, as allowed for in
Article V. They seek structural change after hurling put-downs such as
archaic, out-of-date, and dating from the horse-and-buggy era.

The latest to imagine that he can write a 21st century
improvement on our great Constitution is University of Virginia
professor Larry J. Sabato, whom the Washington Post
once dubbed "the Mark McGwire of political analysts." His rhetoric may
be on steroids but his ideas for a "more perfect" Constitution sound
like warmed-over Rhodes-scholar dissatisfaction with impudent American
revolutionaries who dared to reject the British system and write an
original document. Here are some of Sabato's "23 Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution," which he set forth in his new book entitled A More Perfect Constitution.

• Sabato wants to make all former Presidents and Vice Presidents
  "National Senators." I guess the prospect of Bill Clinton as First
  Gentleman in the White House isn't a sure thing, so we should meanwhile
  guarantee him a speaking platform in the Senate.
• Sabato would erase the great compromise of our
  Constitution which produced a federal union: the bicameral Congress
  with the House based population and the Senate based on state
  representation. He wants to give the 10 most populous states two
  additional Senators, the 15 next most populous states one additional
  Senator, and the District of Columbia one Senator.
• Of course, Sabato doesn't like our Electoral College. The
  liberals have been carping about the Electoral College system for
  years, and when Hillary Clinton celebrated her victory as Senator from
  New York, her first pronouncement was that we have "outlived the need
  for an Electoral College" and it should be abolished.Sabato wants to manipulate the Electoral College in a way he claims
  will reduce the chances that a president will win without a majority of
  the popular vote. The public should be reminded that we've had many
  elections (including three of the last four), when no presidential
  candidate received a popular-vote majority. Sabato can't prevent this
  unless he bans third parties. We are fortunate that we now have a
  proven system that allows our President to achieve an Electoral College
  majority that validates his election.
• Sabato would abolish the constitutional provision that the
  President and Vice President shall be "a natural born citizen." That
  will bring cheers from the open-borders crowd eager to build a majority
  of diverse people unfamiliar with our American rule of law.
• Sabato wants to elect our President and all Senate and
  House members at the same time. He would accomplish this by changing
  House terms from two to three years, and setting Senate terms to
  coincide with presidential elections. But our Constitution was not
  designed for efficiency of process in either elections or legislation.
  It was designed to limit the power of government in order to preserve
  liberty. Sabato wants to allow Members of the House of Representatives
  to be appointed (rather than elected) in the event of extensive deaths
  or incapacitation. It's a very undemocratic idea ever to abandon the
  requirement that House Members must be elected by the people.Sabato's proposals are a potpourri of so many bad liberal ideas.
  His proposed constitution would require two years of mandatory national
  (military) service for all young men and women, and taxpayer financing for congressional campaigns.
• Sabato calls for giving federal judges guaranteed
  cost-of-living pay increases. That's one more way to reinforce special
  privilege for elitist judges.
• Sabato wants to write a new procedure for a four-month
  presidential primary system into the Constitution. Whatever problems we
  have with primaries cannot be remedied by imposing the rigidity of a
  constitutionally mandated calendar.
• Who knows what mischief is lurking under Sabato's proposal
  that his new constitution would require an automatic registration
  system for U.S. citizens in order to guarantee that their right to vote
  is not "abridged by bureaucratic requirements"? Is this an underhanded
  way to help the liberals repeal state requirements that voters show a
  valid ID?
• The worst of all Sabato's proposals is to call for a new
  Constitutional Convention that would scrap our present Constitution and
  start over from a clean slate. We don't see any James Madisons, George
  Washingtons or Ben Franklins around today, and we're mighty worried
  about the men who think they are capable of rewriting our Constitution.

When Sabato gathered a few people to discuss his proposals, Supreme
Court Justice Samuel Alito summed up the reaction not only of those at
the meeting, but of the rest of us, too. "I'm pretty fond of the
Constitution we have now," he said. Thank you, Justice Alito. So are
we.
D.C. Is Not a Congressional District
Some
current Members of Congress are toying with a devious plan to subvert
the District Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8,
clause 17), which makes clear that the District of Columbia is not
a state or a congressional district, and that Congress is given the
power "To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever over
such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of
particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of
the Government of the United States."

Our Constitution's framers decided on a separate and
independent federal enclave to serve as the seat of the new government,
a territory outside of and independent from every state. This means
that the District of Columbia does not have its own Senators and
Representatives. That decision was not a mistake by the Founding
Fathers, but was an integral part of the original constitutional design
to keep the seat of our Federal Government out of the political
process.

In the 1980s, the liberals who don't like our Constitution the
way it was written tried to eliminate this provision by a proposed
constitutional amendment to give Washington, D.C. representation in the
Congress "as though it were a state." The proposed amendment, called
the "D.C. Representation" Amendment, passed Congress, but it was
rejected by the American people and died on August 22, 1985, after a
decisive majority of 34 of the 50 states refused to ratify it.

The 23rd Amendment, which was ratified in 1961, is our modern
reaffirmation of the District of Columbia as a unique juridical entity
in the American system. The 23rd Amendment allows District residents to
vote for President and Vice President just like all other citizens, and
even gives them an electoral vote disproportionately larger than all
but the smallest states. That should have been the end of it, but some
misguided Members of Congress keep trying to make an end run around the
Constitution.

Some liberal Members of Congress led by Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA)
have launched an attempt to bypass the District Clause of the U.S.
Constitution by pretending the District is something that it isn't.
They would give the District a House seat by stating: "The District of
Columbia shall be considered a Congressional district for purposes of
representation in the House of Representatives."

Assuming that a Representative from the District would always
be a Democrat, the Democrats hope to get Republicans on board by
including in the D.C. bill a provision to increase the number of House
members from 435 to 437 and give the extra Representative to Utah, a
Republican state.

The chief problem with this plan is that it is unconstitutional — D.C. is not a state and not
a Congressional district, and it should not have voting power in
Congress. The District of Columbia already has more voting power than
it is entitled to in the Electoral College.

Creating a Race-Based State
Hawaii
is asking Congress to create a Hawaiian race-based government for
persons with Native Hawaiian blood living anywhere in the United
States. A Native Hawaiian is defined as anyone of the "indigenous,
native people of Hawaii" who is a "direct lineal descendant of the
aboriginal, indigenous, native people" who resided in the Hawaiian
Islands before 1893 and "exercised sovereignty" in that region. That
convoluted definition must have been written by lawyers. The use of the
word sovereignty is peculiar because only nations and kings or queens
exercise sovereignty. Hawaii was a monarchy in 1893, and Queen
Liliuokalani exercised sovereignty, but the bill can't mean only her
direct lineal descendants.

So, to be a Native Hawaiian, you don't need to have lived in
Hawaii or ever had any affiliation with Native Hawaiian culture,
language or politics. You just need to have one drop of the right kind
of blood.

The Hawaii bill would create a racially separate government that would
operate like an Indian tribe with its own laws and racial voting
restrictions anywhere in the United States. This new "tribe" would
include about 20% of Hawaii's residents plus some 400,000 Americans
nationwide, making it larger than all Indian tribes. The people under
the jurisdiction of this new government would not be defined by
geography, community or cultural cohesiveness, but by race. This sort
of racial division, separatism, and ethnic separation is so offensive
that it's hard to see how grown-ups could be seriously considering it.

Hawaii is our preeminent example of the success of the melting-pot
theory: people of all races have intermarried for nearly two centuries.
Nearly half of all marriages in Hawaii are interracial, a figure that
is ten times higher than the rest of the United States. Three-fourths
of those who claim to be "pure" Native Hawaiians marry other races.
More than half of those who claim to be "part" Native Hawaiian do
likewise.

We are trying to spread democracy around the world, but that
message doesn't seem to have reached Hawaii. This bill does not assure
that the new race-based government will be democratic; nothing in the
bill prevents it from becoming a theocratic monarchy (with a new Queen
Liliuokalani?). Nor is there any procedure to enable Hawaiians to
decide whether they want to authorize this race-based government in our
midst.

When Hawaii became a state, it became settled law that Hawaiians would
accept the United States Constitution and give up its monarchy,
separate government, and sovereignty for Native Hawaiians. We had a
national consensus both in and out of Hawaii that Native Hawaiians
would be Americans, not treated as a separate racial group. Advocates
for Hawaiian statehood then repeatedly emphasized that Hawaii is a
melting pot of racial and national origins who are joined in a common
patriotism and faith in American institutions.

Creating a race-based society would take us in the wrong direction.
It's a step backwards, offensive to our Constitution and to our
national commitment to equal justice for all.
Deceitful Tactics to Make Puerto Rico a State
Even
though Puerto Rico has three times voted against becoming a U.S. state,
yet another effort is being made to persuade Puerto Rico to change its
mind by the Puerto Rico statehood bill (H.R. 900).
Of course, the Democratic Party thinks making Puerto Rico our 51st
state is a cool idea because that would give the Democrats two
additional U.S. Senators and 6 to 8 additional Members of the House,
more Congressional representation than 25 of our 50 states.

Despite millions of dollars being spent to promote statehood,
on December 13, 1998, Puerto Ricans voted only 46.5% for statehood,
2.5% for independence, and 50.5% for "none of the above," which must be
seen as an endorsement of the status quo, the present commonwealth
status.

The Puerto Rican independence faction is small, but that doesn't mean
its members would acquiesce in being outvoted in a democratic election.
They are among the most militant groups in the world and are
responsible for domestic terrorist incidents in the United States. The
1998 percentage of Puerto Ricans favoring statehood was approximately
the same as in the 1993 referendum. It is asking for big trouble to
admit a new state in which nearly half the people oppose the idea.

The most important issue about Puerto Rico statehood is that it
would transform the United States overnight into a bilingual nation. At
least half of Puerto Ricans don't speak English, and Puerto Rico's
leaders are antagonistic to the whole idea of having English as our
official language. English is the language of our Declaration of
Independence and our United States Constitution. It would be divisive
and troublesome to admit a state whose people don't speak the language
of our founding documents.

Puerto Rican statehood would cost the rest of us plenty in
taxes. The average income of Puerto Ricans is less than half that of
our poorest state. The infrastructure and environment are far below
American standards, so statehood would bring immediate demands for
massive federal funding.

The smoking gun proving that Puerto Rico statehood is designed to make
us a bilingual nation is H.Con.Res.11 introduced by Rep. Jose Serrano
(D-NY), who is also the sponsor of the Puerto Rico statehood bill.
H.Con.Res.11 levels a stinging attack on English as our national
language and demands that the Federal Government "oppose" our many
state laws and bills that designate English as our official language.

H.Con.Res.11 demands that our government provide services in
languages other than English and even encourage all U.S. residents to
learn languages other than English. The bill falsely asserts that our
nation has "drawn strength from a diversity of languages," whereas the
truth is that having English as our common language is a principal
factor in making us e pluribus unum.

H.Con.Res.11 is dishonestly entitled "English Plus Resolution"
and is all dressed up in flowery rhetoric to make it appear that its
purpose is to protect Native American Indian languages. That ruse
doesn't fool anyone; it's obvious that the bill is just cover for the
impudent demand that we accept Puerto Rico as a Spanish-language or
bilingual state.

Serrano's statehood bill, H.R.900,
would set up two plebiscites that rig the process to deceive Puerto
Ricans into voting for statehood. In the first plebiscite, scheduled
for this year, Puerto Ricans would be given a choice of (a) remaining
as a U.S. territory or (b) pursuing an (undefined) "constitutionally
viable permanent non-territorial status."

If the majority chooses (a), Puerto Rico would be required to
vote again at least every eight years (presumably until they are
bamboozled into voting for statehood). If the majority chooses (b), a
second plebiscite would be held at which Puerto Ricans could choose
between "only" two "nonterritorial" options: statehood or independence.

Not only is the double-plebiscite procedure rigged to prevent a vote to
continue the present commonwealth status, but the ballot propositions
are written so that only a lawyer can figure out what they really mean.

A vote on Puerto Rico would have momentous effects on whether
America remains "one nation, indivisible" or whether we start down the
road of countries that have fought bloody wars when minority
populations tried to maintain a separate language and cultural identity
within another nation, such as Quebec, Ireland, Bosnia and Iraq.

With a 92% turnout in the October 30, 1995 referendum in
Quebec, secession lost by only a razor-thin margin: 50.6% of Quebeckers
voted to keep Canada one nation, while 49.4% voted for Quebec to secede
from Canada. The close vote adversely affected Quebec's financial
markets and caused a flight of capital and people.

Puerto Rico is a vestige of the 19th century era of
colonialism; we got it as booty in the Spanish American War of 1898. In
the 21st century, colonialism is so retro; we should give Puerto Rico
its independence. Tell your Representatives to vote NO on all Puerto
Rico bills.

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"We have explored the Temple of Royalty and found that the idol we have bowed down to has eyes which see not, ears that hear not our prayers, and a heart like the nether millstone. We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven and with a propitious eye beholds His subjects assuming that freedom and thought and dignity of self-direction which He bestowed on them. From the rising to the setting of the sun, may His Kingdom come." - Samuel Adams, Address to the Third Continental Congress

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Southwestern Oklahoma State University recently prohibited its employees from using the word "Christmas" in emails and voicemails - meaning no employee is allowed to wish anyone a "Merry Christmas" - and the school's Director of Human Resources actually visited various campus departments and ordered that the words "Christ" and "Christmas" be covered up in decorations.

The IT department was ordered to change the introduction page of the university's data base to remove a statement that said: "Have a very Happy Holiday . Merry Christmas . Happy New Year."

If you'd like to politely protest this latest expression of the Secular Inquisition, you may call the university's president John Hays at (580) 774-3766 or email him at president@swosu.edu and request that he reverse the ban on "Christmas." (Note: you will probably be told erroneously that there is nothing to the story; leave your message anyway.)

Liberty Counsel: Southwestern Oklahoma State University Bans The Word "Christmas"

Liberty Letters response to President Hays

Dear President Hays:

I know, at least I'm almost sure, that of all places where freedom of religion, speech, and the press ought to be protected under the first amendment charge that "Congress (and I would hope every other law-making or rule making body is included under the spirit of this clause) shall make NO LAW … prohibiting the free exercise thereof" that you would see the wisdom in not proscribing the free religious speech of your employees.

I urge you to reconsider your black listing of permissible speech - anything secular apparently - but nothing religious, you know, nothing that really defines who a person is and how he feels about life, his neighbor, and the holiday in question - and which instead leaves but a void to be filled and thus a prejudice in favor of, every other philosophy on life … some of them not so good.

Bah Humbug to your policy! And instead, Merry Christmas to you and your fellow collegians!

Liberty Letters source: Our friends at the Idaho Values Alliance. Used with permission.

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Radical environmentalism, just keeps getting sillier. Britain's, The Telegraph reports:

Pubs are likely to pump hundreds of thousands of tons of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a result of the smoking ban.

Policy advisers predict that emissions from patio heaters in pubs and restaurants will increase from 22,200 tons of greenhouse gases a year to up to 282,000 tons - the equivalent of flying a jumbo jet 171 times around the Earth.

Heaters will be used for more than 237 days a year, when outdoor temperatures are lower than 15C, says the report, from Market Transformation. A further 80,000 tons of carbon dioxide will be produced next year by patio heaters in private gardens, according to an earlier study by the Energy Saving Trust.

Environmentalists say the heaters must now be banned if Britain is to meet carbon dioxide emission targets.

Tony Juniper, of Friends of the Earth, said: "The impacts of the smoking ban are positive, but this should not cause more problems for the environment. Either smokers will have to give up smoking or simply put on a jumper."

Liberty Letters Comment: Silly or revealing? Is there really concern for the environment, or just animosity toward the free world, and human progress?

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… the advent of Jesus Christ upon earth was required to teach that all the members of the human race are by nature equal and alike. - Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy In America," 1835.

Liberty Letters Comment: Alexis de Tocqueville, who with a philosopher's and sometimes a prophet's pen understood so much about America and her destiny … understood this above all other realities: that the American miracle in liberty was the by-product of the best in Christianity … of men inspired to live, govern, learn, and prosper under the sway of the Higher Laws and perfect moral code of Jesus the Christ. And as to the equality of men before the judgment bar of God, did not Christ teach such things when he held up as examples to the Jews - the Good Samaritan, the Women at the Well, a Roman Centurion, and others outside of the House of Israel; as well as the poorest of widows, the repentant adulteress, and the boy born blind? And was this not his message when he rebuked those in Israel for failing to realize that "where much is given, much is required," nor to understand that their father was not Abraham (for they did not the works of Abraham), but the devil?  Indeed, it was Christ who taught us, and still teaches us to judge a person, or a group, by his fruits, not his genealogical line, nor the color of his skin, nor his sex. Alexis de Tocqueville knew this. Every early American school child knew this. But do we today?

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Democracy in America, vol.2, p.8
AT different periods dogmatical belief is more or less abundant. It arises in different ways, and it may change its object or its form; but under no circumstances will dogmatical belief cease to exist, or, in other words, men will never cease to entertain some implicit opinions without trying them by actual discussion. If everyone undertook to form his own opinions and to seek for truth by isolated paths struck out by himself alone, it is not to be supposed that any considerable number of men would ever unite in any common belief. But obviously without such common belief no society can prosper—say rather no society can subsist; for without ideas held in common, there is no common action, and without common action, there may still be men, but there is no social body. In order that society should exist, and, a fortiori, that a society should prosper, it is required that all the minds of the citizens should be rallied and held together by certain predominant ideas; and this cannot be the case, unless each of them sometimes draws his opinions from the common source, and consents to accept certain matters of belief at the hands of the community.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.9 - p.10
If I now consider man in his isolated capacity, I find that dogmatical belief is not less indispensable to him in order to live alone, than it is to enable him to co-operate with his fellow-creatures. If man were forced to demonstrate to himself all the truths of which he makes daily use, his task would never end. He would exhaust his strength in preparatory exercises, without advancing beyond them. As, from the shortness of his life, he has not the time, nor, from the limits of his intelligence, the capacity, to accomplish this, he is reduced to take upon trust a number of facts and opinions which he has not had either the time or the power to verify himself, but which men of greater ability have sought out, or which the world adopts. On this groundwork he raises for himself the structure of his own thoughts; nor is he led to proceed in this manner by choice so much as he is constrained by the inflexible law of his condition. There is no philosopher of such great parts in the world, but that he believes a million of things on the faith of other people, and supposes a great many more truths than he demonstrates. This is not only necessary but desirable. A man who should undertake to inquire into everything for himself, could devote to each thing but little time and attention. His task would keep his mind in perpetual unrest, which would prevent him from penetrating to the depth of any truth, or of grappling his mind indissolubly to any conviction. His intellect would be at once independent and powerless. He must therefore make his choice from amongst the various objects of human belief, and he must adopt many opinions without discussion, in order to search the better into that smaller number which he sets apart for investigation. It is true that whoever receives an opinion on the word of another, does so far enslave his mind; but it is a salutary servitude which allows him to make a good use of freedom.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.10
A principle of authority must then always occur, under all circumstances, in some part or other of the moral and intellectual world. Its place is variable, but a place it necessarily has. The independence of individual minds may be greater, or it may be less: unbounded it cannot be. Thus the question is, not to know whether any intellectual authority exists in the ages of democracy, but simply where it resides and by what standard it is to be measured.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.10 - p.11
I have shown in the preceding chapter how the equality of conditions leads men to entertain a sort of instinctive incredulity of the supernatural, and a very lofty and often exaggerated opinion of the human understanding. The men who live at a period of social equality are not therefore easily led to place that intellectual authority to which they bow either beyond or above humanity. They commonly seek for the sources of truth in themselves, or in those who are like themselves. This would be enough to prove that at such periods no new religion could be established, and that all schemes for such a purpose would be not only impious but absurd and irrational. It may be foreseen that a democratic people will not easily give credence to divine missions; that they will turn modern prophets to a ready jest; and they that will seek to discover the chief arbiter of their belief within, and not beyond, the limits of their kind.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.11
When the ranks of society are unequal, and men unlike each other in condition, there are some individuals invested with all the power of superior intelligence, learning, and enlightenment, whilst the multitude is sunk in ignorance and prejudice. Men living at these aristocratic periods are therefore naturally induced to shape their opinions by the superior standard of a person or a class of persons, whilst they are averse to recognize the infallibility of the mass of the people.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.11
The contrary takes place in ages of equality. The nearer the citizens are drawn to the common level of an equal and similar condition, the less prone does each man become to place implicit faith in a certain man or a certain class of men. But his readiness to believe the multitude increases, and opinion is more than ever mistress of the world. Not only is common opinion the only guide which private judgment retains amongst a democratic people, but amongst such a people it possesses a power infinitely beyond what it has elsewhere. At periods of equality men have no faith in one another, by reason of their common resemblance; but this very resemblance gives them almost unbounded confidence in the judgment of the public; for it would not seem probable, as they are all endowed with equal means of judging, but that the greater truth should go with the greater number.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.11
When the inhabitant of a democratic country compares himself individually with all those about him, he feels with pride that he is the equal of any one of them; but when he comes to survey the totality of his fellows, and to place himself in contrast to so huge a body, he is instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his own insignificance and weakness. The same equality which renders him independent of each of his fellow-citizens taken severally, exposes him alone and unprotected to the influence of the greater number. The public has therefore among a democratic people a singular power, of which aristocratic nations could never so much as conceive an idea; for it does not persuade to certain opinions, but it enforces them, and infuses them into the faculties by a sort of enormous pressure of the minds of all upon the reason of each.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.12
In the United States the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own. Everybody there adopts great numbers of theories, on philosophy, morals, and politics, without inquiry, upon public trust; and if we look to it very narrowly, it will be perceived that religion herself holds her sway there, much less as a doctrine of revelation than as a commonly received opinion. The fact that the political laws of the Americans are such that the majority rules the community with sovereign sway, materially increases the power which that majority naturally exercises over the mind. For nothing is more customary in man than to recognize superior wisdom in the person of his oppressor. This political omnipotence of the majority in the United States doubtless augments the influence which public opinion would obtain without it over the mind of each member of the community; but the foundations of that influence do not rest upon it. They must be sought for in the principle of equality itself, not in the more or less popular institutions which men living under that condition may give themselves. The intellectual dominion of the greater number would probably be less absolute amongst a democratic people governed by a king than in the sphere of a pure democracy, but it will always be extremely absolute; and by whatever political laws men are governed in the ages of equality, it may be foreseen that faith in public opinion will become a species of religion there, and the majority its ministering prophet.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.12 - p.13
Thus intellectual authority will be different, but it will not be diminished; and far from thinking that it will disappear, I augur that it may readily acquire too much preponderance, and confine the action of private judgment within narrower limits than are suited either to the greatness or the happiness of the human race. In the principle of equality I very clearly discern two tendencies; the one leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other inclined to prohibit him from thinking at all. And I perceive how, under the dominion of certain laws, democracy would extinguish that liberty of the mind to which a democratic social condition is favorable; so that, after having broken all the bondage once imposed on it by ranks or by men, the human mind would be closely fettered to the general will of the greatest number.

Democracy in America, vol.2, p.13
If the absolute power of the majority were to be substituted by democratic nations, for all the different powers which checked or retarded overmuch the energy of individual minds, the evil would only have changed its symptoms. Men would not have found the means of independent life; they would simply have invented (no easy task) a new dress for servitude. There is—and I cannot repeat it too often—there is in this matter for profound reflection for those who look on freedom as a holy thing, and who hate not only the despot, but despotism. For myself, when I feel the hand of power lie heavy on my brow, I care but little to know who oppresses me; and I am not the more disposed to pass beneath the yoke, because it is held out to me by the arms of a million of men. - Alexis de Toqueville

Liberty Letters Comment: Extremes in Democracy and Equality and Libertarianism bring about the danger de Toqueville prophetically warns about, that there is a dark side to some approaches to freedom. On the one hand, were we to not rely upon commonly held ideas taught and accepted in the public sphere, we would all be starting over anew … constantly - a fools errand. On the other hand, over-reliance and belief in the democratic principle as a religion of sorts, creates a crushing reliance upon "the majority" view of things (or in our day, perhaps the media orchestrated majority view, which may in fact not be the majority view) that becomes both unwritten and legislated law. One thinks of political correctness, academic accreditation, fierce intolerance in various "science" journals for opposing point of view. Thus, controls of the majority become oppressive, and thus in the information age looms the danger and reality of a nation of students and citizens who no longer know how to think, to reason, to judge, for lack of training, opportunity, and for fear.

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Men will not accept truth at the hands of their enemies, and truth is seldom offered to them by their friends: for this reason I have spoken it. I was persuaded that many would take upon themselves to announce the new blessings which the principle of equality promises to mankind, but that few would dare to point out from afar the dangers with which it threatens them. To those perils therefore I have turned my chief attention, and believing that I had discovered them clearly, I have not had the cowardice to leave them untold.

I trust that my readers will find in this Second Part that impartiality which seems to have been remarked in the former work. Placed as I am in the midst of the conflicting opinions between which we are divided, I have endeavored to suppress within me for a time the favorable sympathies or the adverse emotions with which each of them inspires me. If those who read this book can find a single sentence intended to flatter any of the great parties which have agitated my country, or any of those petty factions which now harass and weaken it, let such readers raise their voices to accuse me. - Alexis de Toqueville, "Democracy In America, Volume II."

Liberty Letters Comment: Which are we? The party coward focused on the blessings of being a Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian, or that statesmen who searches out and stands by right and wrong, good and better, and has vision enough to be more concerned with the long view than expediency and the "crisis" of the moment?

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Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 7

As a child growing up in New York, I was attracted to the opposite sex. When I saw a pretty little girl flash a smile, my heart fluttered, my cheeks blushed, I shuffled my feet and shyly looked the other way.

I always liked girls. No one had to tell me that I should. I just did.

When I became a teen, little changed. I still adored them, though when I thought of females, I began to think of marriage. Holy matrimony seemed like a prerequisite to happiness and completeness. Don't ask me why. It was instinct. I knew I was born to be married; and fortunately, no man, woman or institution stepped in to pervert nature's instincts.

Public schools, you see, and even television, still defended traditional values and helped reinforce what nature had implanted.

Ben Franklin, a man from a value-laden era, and a man who was not the philanderer anti-American historical revisionists make him out to be (he firmly believed in the law of chastity, for instance), (1) expressed long ago what I by nature felt as a teen. In an attempt to persuade a young friend to reject the idea of a mistress and embrace the institution of marriage, Franklin wrote:

Marriage is the proper remedy. It is the most natural state of man, and therefore the state in which you are most likely to find solid happiness. Your reasons against entering into it at present appear to me not well founded. The circumstantial advantages you have in view by postponing it are not only uncertain, but they are small in comparison with that of the thing itself, the being married and settled. It is the man and woman united that make the complete human being. Separate, she wants his force of body and strength of reason; he, her softness, sensibility, and acute discernment. Together they are more likely to succeed in the world. A single man has not nearly the value he would have in that state of union. He is an incomplete animal. He resembles the odd half of a pair of scissors. If you get a prudent, healthy wife, your industry in your profession, with her good economy, will be a fortune sufficient. (2)

One Flesh He might have added, for it fit, "Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord" (3) and God's command to our first parents, "[to become] one flesh." (4)

Franklin and the revelations are right. There really is something about this marriage thing, an extraordinary opportunity ordained by God and Nature to become something we cannot be alone (and not become with a person of the same sex).

Two people, man and woman, mutually bound by love and sacred covenants, become one flesh in the natural unity of sexual intercourse; they become one flesh through children, who literally possess their combined genetic code; they become one heart and mind through the common endeavor of raising these children through thick and thin; and hopefully, through their common devotion to God, His laws, and their duty to serve their fellow man and, firstly, each other, they become one forevermore.

But this is not all. They also become one, as Franklin noted, because of natural differences between man and woman, which interlock and complement each other in a wonderful symphony achieved through a lifetime of give and take, sacrifice and patience, struggle and mutual reform.

It is an ingenious and inspired plan devised to stretch man, refine him, and teach him to love others more than he loves himself, a plan which, besides being religiously sanctioned, has met with the approval and sanction of every great civilization.

Family and National Stability

And here's why: All societies have learned that the family is basic and fundamental to national stability and happiness. When families fall apart, so do nations.

French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville knew that a collective animosity or negligence toward the family was the sort of destabilizing force that fomented revolutions, while strong families prop up and prosper free government, as was the case in early 19th century America. In his classic work, "Democracy in America," he observed:

But when the American retires from the turmoil of public life to the bosom of his family, he finds in it the image of order and of peace. There his pleasures are simple and natural, his joys are innocent and calm; and as he finds that an orderly life is the surest path to happiness, he accustoms himself easily to moderate his opinion as well as his tastes. While the European endeavors to forget his domestic troubles by agitating society, the American derives from his own home that love of order which he afterwards carries with him into public affairs. (5)

America rose, Europe fell. No wonder. Unfortunately, the cultural differences between Europe and the United States are now dimming. Generally, we still have stronger families than they, and thus more stability, strength and freedom; but, simultaneously, the anti-family values that brought the terror and instability of the French Revolution have gained a considerable and militant foothold here in the United States, and may, if left unchecked, beckon our downfall.

Marx's Loathing of Family

It was the ideology of communism founder Karl Marx that led the charge against marriage and the family that unsettles us today. In language fuming with hatred, loaded to the hilt in reckless, sweeping generalizations and on fire with revolution, Marx decried Western Civilization's belief in the "hallowed co-relation" of husband to wife and parent to child as a "bourgeois claptrap [artifice]" which is "disgusting." To him and his cohorts, capitalist children are thought of by their parents as nothing more than "articles of commerce and instruments of labor," whereas wives and daughters are thought of by their capitalist husbands and fathers as nothing more than "common prostitutes"; and bourgeois marriage is thought of by men in general as nothing more than "a system of wives in common," (6) for, according to Marx's dark view of the Capitalist Christian culture, every Capitalist, like every Christian, cheats on his wife and abuses his children.

Such a world!

But he didn't stop there, no. Since the family stinks, then why not a free-sex society where anything goes? It sounds all too familiar. Marx has, in many respects, won the day. He teaches in our schools, writes the scripts in Hollywood and sends down edicts from the bench.

Yet, Marx's modern beneficiaries, the various ‘victim's' lobbies of the anti-family movement, ought to consider the possibility that they have been exploited alright, by political opportunists who employ "a technique that is as old as the human race, a fervid but false solicitude for the unfortunate over whom they thus gain mastery, and then enslave" (7) – that is, exploited, and ultimately duped into slavery, by a moral, even a religious appeal from the very folks who say they abhor such things in public life!

Nevertheless, not all things are as they seem to be. Sometimes a chunk of free cheese obscures a deadly trap. Or to put it another way, in this case, behind the smoke screen of supposed rights for things thousands of years of culture, religion and law have rejected as harmful, it seems plain that a red eye emerges, wickedly, haughtily peering down on marriage and the family intent on overthrowing the existing moral and political order.

Joining hands with the same are myriads of individuals and institutions pressing forward, unwisely, unwittingly, perceiving a benefit in being thus encouraged, and thus exploited, many of them ironically doing so in the name of preserving religious freedom. Those who do, miss the mark about religion in public life, and in truth, hold hands with Marx, the Devil, and every tyrant who ever hoped to enslave the children of men.

And so we have come full circle. And yet, whether it remains politically correct or not, marriage between a man and woman, and children raised by mother and father are still divine institutions; and as such, the nation that makes war on them will rue the day as surely as the sun rises tomorrow; while the nation that rises up and defends them will save itself.

The only question is, to which will we cleave?

Steve Farrell is a pundit with NewsMax.com, associate professor of political economy at George Wythe College, editor of the Liberty Letters, author of the inspirational classic "Dark Rose," and founder and president of the Latter-day Foundation for Moral Liberalism: preserving and promoting the Judeo-Christian ethic, the U.S. Constitution, and lessee-faire in the 21st Century.

Footnotes

1. Franklin was in his 80s, beset with several incapacitating physical maladies – gout, boils and huge (some have said softball size) gall bladder stones (during the time he was supposedly philandering!) – and was thought of by the ladies in France, and the French in general, as "harmless," "sober," "a Quaker," a man of "simplicity and innocence," one of the "paragons of the age," "beloved Papa," and was proclaimed in the title of a portrait of Franklin commissioned in France as a "Man of Character." It was true, at this age, that women enjoyed his company, and he theirs. Especially appealing to him was that French women were educated.

But the accusations against him as a philanderer were made by political enemies, denied by Franklin and those who knew him best (teaching on the principle of chastity, he counseled his son ‘to avoid the very appearance of evil,' as a result of these political charges), and were, besides slander and libel, at his advanced age and particularly in his medical condition, nonsense as well. The one charge that might honestly be held against him was that he fathered a child in his youth, which today's revisionist ‘historians' mention in such unkind ways as "he fathered a bastard child," but they rarely, if ever, tell the full story, that Franklin was quick to rectify his mistake and took good care of his obligations to mother and child the rest of his life, even finding honorable and profitable employment for the boy as he grew older.

This helps us understand why Franklin counseled so strongly against the same weakness in others. He learned the hard way, and wished to prevent others from sharing in the same fate. In light of all this, here's a point to ponder: To the Christian who repents, God remembers the sin no more, but ‘historians,' particularly those who wish to destroy America's heritage, unveil just how un-Christian, how ill-motivated, they truly are by drudging up old mud, again and again – indeed, conjuring up new mud while they're at it.

2. Franklin, Benjamin, Letter, June 25, 1745.

3. Holy Bible, 1 Corinthians 11:1.

4. Ibid., Matthew 19:5-6, Mark 10:8, Genesis 2:24, 1 Corinthians 6:15-20, Ephesians 5:31.

5. de Tocqueville, Alexis. "Democracy in America," Book 1, Chapter 17.

6. Marx, Karl. "Communist Manifesto," for all the quotes from Marx in these two paragraphs.

7. David O. McKay, former president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, warned: "We … warn our people in America of the constantly increasing threat against our inspired Constitution. … The proponents thereof are seeking to undermine our own form of government and to set up instead one of the forms of dictatorships [which] is now flourishing in other lands. These revolutionists are using a technique that is as old as the human race, a fervid but false solicitude for the unfortunate over whom they thus gain mastery, and then enslave them." (See: Cannon, Donald Q. ed., "Latter-day Prophets and the United States Constitution," Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1991, pgs. 120 - 121.)

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Having failed in their effort to persuade Americans to put the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) into the U.S. Constitution, despite spending tens of millions of dollars and enjoying the support of Big Media, three Presidents, and dozens of prominent politicians of both parties, the feminists are now trying to give us an even more dangerous ERA through ratification of a UN Treaty on Women enforced by busybody bureaucrats from foreign countries. This treaty has the pretentious label of United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Signed by Jimmy Carter in 1980, and repeatedly promoted by Bill and Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Senate has wisely never ratified it.The notion is downright ridiculous that American women (the most fortunate class of people who ever lived) should submit to a treaty that dictates uniform rules for 185 other nations, all of which treat women far worse than the United States. Ratification of CEDAW would be craven kowtowing to the radical feminists, exceeded only by the treaty's unlimited capacity for legal mischief.

Article 1 purports to abolish discrimination against women "in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field." What other fields do the feminists have in mind?

Article 2 reiterates that the treaty would "eliminate discrimination against women by any person, organization or enterprise," including "laws, regulations, customs and practices." Our "customs" should be none of our government's business, much less the business of the United Nations.

Article 3 would require us to pass new federal laws not only in political but also in "social, economic and cultural fields."

Article 5 would require us "to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women" and to "ensure" that we are following United Nations dictates about "family education."

Article 10 would make it a federal responsibility to ensure "the elimination of any stereotyped concept of the roles of men and women at all levels and in all forms of education . . . by the revision of textbooks and . . . teaching methods." We certainly don't want the UN to revise our textbooks! Remember, the feminists consider it a "stereotype" that children should be raised by a mother and father married to each other.

Article 11 would chain us to the feminist goal that wages should be paid on subjective notions of "equal value" (i.e., the discredited notion of "comparable worth") rather than on the free market or on U.S. legal standards of equal pay for equal work. It would also require us to "establish" another long-time feminist goal, a federal "network of child-care facilities."

Article 12 would guarantee "access to health care services, including those related to family planning," and Article 16 would require us to allow women "to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children." The text doesn't use the word "abortion," but CEDAW's compliance committee has interpreted this feminist jargon to mean approval of abortion, and has pressured 37 nations to legalize or increase access to abortion. The CEDAW committee has held that nations should provide public funding of abortion, and has even criticized nations that have laws to allow medical professionals to opt out of providing abortions. The European Parliament in 2002 adopted a report calling for removal of all limitations to abortion, citing CEDAW as its authority. Some pro-abortion U.S. Senators claim that they can paper over this problem by inserting an "understanding," but an "understanding" in regard to a treaty has no legal force whatsoever. (For further information, see National Right to Life document, 2-1-07)

Article 17 creates a monitoring committee in charge of "progress." This consists of "23 experts," on which the United States might some day have one vote out of 23. The current committee includes representatives from Algeria, Cuba and Bangladesh and a vice chairman from Zimbabwe. No doubt the "experts" will always be "experts" in feminist ideology and tactics, such as Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, or a president of NOW.

CEDAW's international "experts" have already issued negative reports about the practices of countries that were foolish enough to ratify the treaty. The committee criticized Ireland for "promoting a stereotypical view of the role of women in the home and as mothers," Belarus for "such symbols as a Mother's Day" because it promotes "a negative cultural stereotype," and Slovenia because "less than 30% of children under three years of age were in formal day care." The committee recommended "the decriminalization of prostitution in China."

Article 16 also orders a massive interference with U.S. laws as well as with our federal-state balance of powers by obligating the federal government to take over all family law, including marriage, divorce, child custody, and marital property. When Edmund S. Muskie was Secretary of State, he issued a memo stating that the treaty completely fails to take into account "the division of authority between the state and federal governments in the United States." His memo also admitted that this treaty applies "to private organizations and areas of personal conduct not covered by U.S. law."

CEDAW would give foreign bureaucrats and activist judges extraordinary powers to revise U.S. laws, education and customs to comport with radical feminist ideology.

Senator Jesse Helms kept CEDAW in the bottom drawer for years after it was signed by Jimmy Carter, but the new Democratic Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden, has dusted it off and is trying to get the Senate to ratify it. Tell your Senators to vote NO on CEDAW. Even better, tell President Bush to UNsign this Carter-signed UN Treaty just as he UNsigned the Clinton-signed International Criminal Court Treaty.
More Lobbying for More Feminist Pork
The feminists have cooked up a new plan to raid the U.S. Treasury for more feminist pork. They want Congress to pass the I-VAWA (International Violence Against Women Act). They are using a report issued in October 2006 by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called "In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence Against Women." The report is said to be based on interviews with 24,000 women conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO report asserts that one in three of the world's women, in some countries as many as 70%, experience violence in their lifetime, usually from their own partner, which is the rationale for calling it domestic violence. I'm surprised the feminists don't claim 100%, since "violence" is broadly defined to include non-physical "psychological and economic" actions.

Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) says the "statistics are appalling." Indeed they are. But it doesn't follow that the solution is the UN "In-Depth" report's demand for "consultation with women's [i.e., feminist] groups" with "adequate funding streams" to develop "international standards" for all nations. All UN projects pertaining to women follow the feminist model: break up the family, force women into the workforce, and send kids to daycare.

A new feminist front group called the Women's Edge Coalition is partnering with Amnesty International U.S. to lobby for congressional passage of I-VAWA which, of course, would create millions of dollars of feminist pork. I-VAWA's stated mission is to carry out a campaign of policy advocacy and education, consulting with dozens of U.S organizations, grassroots organizing, and working with strategic media partners (i.e., getting the media to do their propagandizing).

You can bet that a primary purpose of I-VAWA money will be to lobby the U.S. Senate for ratification of CEDAW so that its UN monitoring committee can force U.S. compliance with feminist goals. That agenda includes everything from requiring unlimited abortion rights to rewriting our school textbooks to eliminate all so-called "stereotypes" and gender-specific references.

Our Senators are taunted with the assertion that the United States should be embarrassed because 185 countries have ratified CEDAW, while we have not. I'm glad the Senate so far has had the good sense to reject a treaty that fraudulently makes people believe it will improve the lot of Americans.

CEDAW has had no effect in stopping the horrible crimes against women that take place in so many non-Christian countries. Many of these countries persist in social norms that justify abuse against women, such as genital mutilation, forced marriage, honor killing, murder of unborn and born female babies, and polygamy. Ratification of CEDAW by their governments has done nothing to stop these atrocities.

Pakistan has ratified CEDAW. That's the country where a tribal council ordered a young woman gang-raped to avenge her brother's crime of being seen with an unchaperoned woman from another tribe. Gang rape is common in Pakistan.

Nigeria has ratified CEDAW. That's a country where women are stoned to death for the crime of adultery. Islamic law, called Shariah, calls for death to women who commit adultery, but a lesser punishment for adulterous men.

Saudi Arabia has ratified CEDAW. That's the country where 14 girls died inside a Mecca school that went up in flames. Religious police kept rescuers from entering the building because some of the girls were not wearing their head coverings. Colombia has ratified CEDAW. That's a country where thousands of women a year are sold into sex slavery. Similar outrages take place in India, Nepal and Thailand, which have also ratified CEDAW.

All these countries are eligible to sit on CEDAW's monitoring committee of 23 "experts" who monitor "progress" and order compliance. I-VAWA is based on the lie that violence against women is the same problem in the United States as in other countries and that "international standards" are the solution.

Any "international standards" would vastly diminish the rights and benefits American women now enjoy. American women, the most privileged class of people on the face of the earth, are the beneficiaries of the Judeo-Christian civilization, including the requirement in the Ten Commandments to honor mothers and the Christian religion that honors the Virgin Mary and respects women.

Tell your Members of Congress to vote No on I-VAWA.

ERA Is Still a Bad Amendment

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution, was voted out of Congress on March 22, 1972 and sent to the states for ratification. ERA was passionately debated across America from 1972 to 1982, rejected by the American people, and died at the end of its extended time limit on June 30, 1982.

ERA was born in the era of the women's suffrage amendment and first introduced into Congress in 1923. For nearly 50 years, all those Congresses had the good judgment to leave ERA buried in committee.

In 1971, the women's liberation movement burst on the scene with massive support from the media. Its leaders demanded that we change to a gender-neutral society in which we would all be forced to treat men and women exactly the same no matter how reasonable it might be to respect differences. These feminists chose ERA as their principal legislative goal so they could use the U.S. Constitution to force all Americans to accept a gender-neutral agenda.

A radical feminist organization called the National Organization for Women (NOW) stormed the halls of Congress, secured signers for a discharge petition, and forced ERA out for a vote. Apparently convincing many members of Congress that they represented all women, the House passed ERA by an overwhelming margin on October 21, 1971, and the Senate did likewise on March 22, 1972, sending ERA to the states and giving them seven years in which to pass ratification resolutions in 3/4ths of the states (38 is the necessary number to become part of the U.S. Constitution).

Women were falsely led to believe that ERA would put women in the U.S. Constitution. But as anyone can see from the text, ERA would not put women in the Constitution — it would put "sex" in the Constitution. The text of ERA is: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."

ERA had a righteous name and incredible momentum. Within the first year, ERA was ratified by 30 states, and ERA needed only 8 more states to become part of the U.S. Constitution. Supporting ERA were all those who had pretensions to political power from left to right — from Ted Kennedy to George Wallace — and three Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter. ERA was actively supported by most of the pushy women's organizations, a consortium of 33 women's magazines, numerous Hollywood celebrities, and 99% of the media. There weren't any friendly TV and radio talk show hosts who now fill the airways, no Rush Limbaugh talking about feminazis, no Fox News, no "no spin zone." We had no internet, no email, no fax machines.

But American women rejected ERA. Our Stop ERA campaign was launched with the February 1972 Phyllis Schlafly Report called "What's Wrong with �Equal Rights' for Women?" Over the 10 years, I wrote nearly 100 issues of my Report about ERA, which staked out the battleground: the legal rights that women would lose if ERA were ever ratified.

We showed that ERA was a fraud. While pretending to benefit women, it actually would be a big takeaway of rights that women then possessed, such as the right of an 18-year-old girl not to be drafted and sent into military combat. We got our facts straight from the writings of the pro-ERA legal authorities: Yale Law School Professor Thomas I. Emerson's 100-page article in the Yale Law Journal, and ACLU lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg's 230-page book Sex Bias in the U.S. Code (17.84 MB pdf file). Those documents confirmed our arguments that ERA would draft women into military combat, abolish the presumption that the husband should support his wife, take away Social Security benefits for wives and widows, and cause all kinds of legal mischief.

We showed that ERA would give enormous power to the federal courts to define the words in ERA: "sex" and "equality of rights." Section 2 of ERA would give vast new powers to the Federal Government over all laws that allow traditional and reasonable differences of treatment on account of sex: marriage, property, divorce, alimony, adoptions, abortion, homosexual laws, sex crimes, private and public schools, Boy and Girl Scouts, prison regulations, and insurance.

The ERAers could not show any benefit to women, not even in employment, since employment laws were already sex-neutral. The ERAers said their Amendment would put women into the Constitution. But the Constitution doesn't mention men or women; it uses only sex-neutral words such as "we the people," person, citizen, inhabitant, President and Senator.

The media were solidly hostile and never gave us equal time to debate the issues. But we did have equal time at state legislative hearings. Year after year in the 1970s, we presented legislators with the powerful arguments and documentation provided by the Phyllis Schlafly Report. I ultimately testified at 41 state hearings.

The military draft was a strong argument in the early years because we were just coming out of the Vietnam War. The ERAers, most of whom were well over draft age, claimed that they wanted girls to be drafted. That argument was hard to sell to young women who did not see it as a benefit to be forced to register for the military draft and serve in combat like men. Nor did wives see it as a benefit for ERA to make unconstitutional all state laws that make it the duty of the husband to support his wife.

From 1973 to 1975, the ERAers won only five more states, but five other states rescinded their previous ratifications, and the ERAers were running out of time to win any more states.

International Women's Year (IWY) became the feminists' plan to win ratification in the remaining states. Bella Abzug was then a Member of Congress, and she got Congress to appropriate $5 million for a tax-funded IWY convention in Houston in November 1977.

The International Women's Year convention opened in Houston, featuring every feminist you ever heard of; 3,000 members of the media were on hand to give them total press and television coverage.

But all that media coverage exposed to the American people the real goals of the feminists and the radical effects of ERA: taxpayer funding of abortions and the entire gay rights agenda. ERAers argue that since abortion happens only to women, it is sex discrimination to deny taxpayer funding for abortions. And, since the word used in ERA is "sex," not women, ERA would require us to grant same-sex marriage licenses. The International Women's Year conference in Houston proved that ERA's real agenda is taxpayer-funded abortions and special gay rights.

A couple of months later, a reporter asked the Governor of Missouri, "Governor, are you for ERA?" He replied, "Do you mean the old ERA or the new ERA? I was for equal pay for equal work, but after those women went down to Houston and got tangled up with the abortionists and the lesbians, I can tell you ERA will never pass in the Show Me State."

When the feminists realized time was running out and they could not win 38 states by the seven-year deadline, they ran for help to President Carter who, with Congress, gave them a crooked 3-year time extension.

Congress passed an ERA Time Extension to change "within seven years" in the original ERA resolution to 10 years, 3 months, 8 days, 7 hours and 35 minutes, so that the time limit was extended to June 30, 1982 instead of expiring on March 22, 1979. Congress passed this unfair Extension by only a simple majority vote instead of by the 2/3rds majority required for constitutional amendments. Political cartoonists had a field day, describing the Time Extension as giving three more innings to a baseball game that was not tied up.