He Is Risen

According to Google's homepage, Sunday is noteworthy as...Cesar Chavez's 86th birthday. Happy Si Se Puede Day!

Burning Inside: More Afghan Koran Killings

Breaking news from the Kabul desk as more Americans, this time two officers of unknown rank, have been killed in the aftermath of the wayward disposal of some Korans. 

A gunman killed two American advisers inside a heavily guarded government compound in Kabul Saturday, officials said, as protests against the burning of copies of the Muslim holy book roiled the country for a fifth day. 

U.S. officials said the assailant remained at large as neither an apology from President Barack Obama nor gunfire from Afghan police could quench public outrage over what NATO insisted was an inadvertent desecration of the Quran. 

Two Afghan officials said the ministry shooting did not involve any Afghans. They spoke anonymously to discuss a NATO incident. One of the officials noted that the shooting occurred inside a secure room at the ministry that Afghan staff do not have access to. 

NATO confirmed that two service members were killed, but spokesman Lt. Col Jimmie Cummings said "initial reports say it was not a Western shooter." He declined to provide further information. 

A U.S. official in Washington confirmed that the two killed were American. The official spoke anonymously to discuss information that had not been publicly released.
"The assailant is unknown, and an aggressive search is under way to determine who is responsible," Pentagon press secretary George Little said.

At this point, we've moved past the point of passionate displays and are now seeing the calculated use of "outrage" to attack American military personnel in the hopes there will be no retaliation from quailing Americans. Looks like it's working just great if you are into whipped up frenzies. 


When the US originally invaded Afghanistan, most thinking people - obviously this excludes fifth-column leftists - knew that the country would never be pacified entirely so that walking in you could guess that there would be some low level of conflict no matter what we did. And that's what we ended up with. While Iraq burned, Afghanistan was about as quiet as you would expect. But that wasn't good enough for wise-guy Democrats who declared the Afghan war to be some sort of "dropped ball," based on what I have no earthly idea. It's not as if an anti-war party would have any idea how and when to fight a war. 


While a surge in Iraq was necessary to pacify a war-torn country, the completely unnecessary surge in Afghanistan looks to have destabilized a pacified country. Heck of a job. 

Denouncio: Rick Santorum and Obama's Christianity

Remember last month after the New Hampshire primary when Mitt Romney began "pivoting towards the general election" by laying into Obama, more than into his rivals (some of whom he labeled "desperate Republicans")? Now Mitt's trying to figure out how to lay a glove on the motels-and-rental-cars candidacy of Rick Santorum while Santorum is starting to go after the president: 

White House candidate Rick Santorum on Saturday questioned President Barack Obama's Christian values and attacked GOP rival Mitt Romney's Olympics leadership as he courted tea party activists and evangelical voters in Ohio, "ground zero" in the 2012 nomination fight. 

Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator known for his social conservative policies, said that Obama's agenda is "not about you. It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your jobs. It's about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology.

The White House was not amused.

Obama campaign deputy press secretary Ben Labolt said Santorum's comment was "the latest low in a Republican primary campaign that has been fueled by distortions, ugliness, and searing pessimism and negativity." He said it was "a stark contrast with the President who is focused everyday on creating jobs and restoring economic security for the middle class."

Fighting for the middle class? Is that what the contraception mandate is all about? 


The media is presenting this as Santorum - the "hardline" Catholic, natch - questioning Obama's Christian faith, as if somehow the issue of Rev. Wright and his liberation theology church had been laid to rest (it wasn't and is ripe for re-litigating). But, actually, it's much worse than that: Santorum was obliquely referring to the socialism that informs Obama's policies and practices. That's the "phony ideal" and "phony theology." Frankly, it's about time one of the GOP candidates got to the nub of the matter. 


I keep hearing that Santorum can't win, and that we should all get behind President Ford, er, Mitt Romney. But, Santorum is the guy saying the things I want to hear, and I don't think I'm alone in thinking this. I don't want to hear tortured excuses about Romneycare/Obamacare or TARP. I want hear a principled attack on these matters from someone who knows what he's talking about. Right now, that guy is Rick Santorum. Let's hope he can keep things going. 

Double Your Dose: Obama Compromises With the Catholic Church

The Obama Administration's regulation ordering religious institutions, including the Catholic Church, to provide contraceptives and abortion services as part of their employees' health insurance programs started enough of a storm that he felt compelled to come out and announce a compromise. The new Grand Bargain? Well, let's see what you think: 

President Obama on Friday announced that religious organizations will no longer be required to offer free birth control to female employees next year, a shift in policy aimed at tempering intensifying political backlash over religious freedom. 

Under the new approach, insurance companies, rather than religious organizations, will be obligated to offer contraception for free to the institutions' employees 

"The result will be that religious organizations won't have to pay for these services, and no religious institution will have to provide these services directly," Obama, who was flanked by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, said at the White House. "Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventive care. That includes contraceptive services no matter where they work."

Does this make any sense? The Catholic Church, among others, must still provide employee health insurance plans that cover birth control, but they don't have to "pay" for them. The insurance companies will! As if the objection is having to shell out $15-20! Newsflash genius: the Catholic Church doesn't want to offer any kind of birth control to their employees (or to anyone else). Also, is Obama so out of it that he doesn't realize that the "free" birth control that insurance companies are now being tasked to give away - is this even legal? - will not be free. They will simply increase premiums to cover the "free" stuff. 


This compromise is so dumb, and so one-sided, it literally amazes. I honestly hope Obama et al. came up  with this because they figured we were too dumb to know better. To think that the president and his team sincerely believe this is a workable way forward is too much. They can't be this ignorant about the insurance market and religious conscience. Can they?


Obama, by the way, couldn't announce his magnanimous compromise without his usual arrogant attack on the people who would interfere with his transformative vision for the US. 

Obama said he ordered the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last week to quickly come up with a new policy to satisfy the complaints of religious organizations because it was clear to him that some in Washington were turning the debate over religious freedom into "political football.

A political football?? Look in the mirror, jerk. No one was banning condoms and pills. Not one American alive today  has been without ready access to birth control. You're the one who (needlessly) put the football up in the air. Not only that, I don't think there are very many people "in Washington" who have as loud as the Catholic bishops in condemning this nonsense. This is way beyond "Washington," bud.

Wars Of Religion: The Left's War On America's Catholics

Along with being financially unsustainable (the CLASS Act) and unconstitutional (the individual mandate), Obamacare also contains provisions that are nothing more or less than an assault on religious mores. Among other things, Obamacare requires any health care facility in the United States to offer contraceptives. Not a big deal, you might say, but you might not be in the business of operating a Catholic hospital. 

Under the 2010 health care law colloquially known as “Obamacare,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human services is determinedly plowing forward with its so-called “contraceptive mandate”—all private health plans are to cover contraception and sterilization as “preventive services” for women, and the mandate includes individuals and groups with moral or religious objections. 

This is a policy so clumsily intrusive that even the University of Notre Dame is complaining about it; President Father John Jenkins, C.S.C., in a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, said the mandate places Notre Dame (and, of course, all Catholic colleges) in an “impossible position” of having to defy Church teaching. “[The mandate] would compel Notre Dame to either pay for contraception and sterilization in violation of the church’s moral teaching, or to discontinue our employee and student health care plans in violation of the church’s social teaching, 

The government’s position is that their notion of “women’s health” must trump moral or religious concerns. It seems that one of the most fundamental freedoms provided for by our Constitution and the Bill of Rights ends at the beginning of a double-X chromosome.

That's not the only example of the secular leftist state seeking to bring religious institutions to heel. In Illinois, Catholic Charities is going out of the business of placing children for adoption because a court has upheld the state's demand that all adoption services be willing to place kids with same-sex couples. And the Obama Administration just finished arguing in the Supreme Court that the government should have the final say in determining whether someone is "ministering" for a church, a case that arose, not surprisingly, from an employment dispute of the sort beloved by the Left. Russell Shaw, for one, sees this as de facto if not de jure persecution. 

The persecution of religion in America has begun, with the Catholic Church a prime target.

Don’t think I’m making the wild-eyed claim that this new persecution either is or ever is likely to become a bloody one resembling the purges of the French and Mexican revolutions or the communist war on religion—eruptions of violence in which thousands of clergy, religious, and lay faithful were killed. It won’t be a repetition of the Spanish Civil War, just 75 years ago, when death squads of the anticlerical left executed the incredible total of 12 bishops, 283 religious women, 4,184 priests, 2,365 religious men, and an unknown number of laity whose only crime was to be faithful Catholics.

No, the persecution of religion in the United States won’t be like that. It will be a tight-lipped campaign of secularist inspiration in which the coercive power of the state is brought to bear on church-related institutions to act against conscience or go out of business.

The hostility that Democrats hold against all religious persons should be obvious. Along with the daily insults against the "anti-science" theocrats on the Right, Democrats have attacked religious expression at every turn. Catholics are under particular assault, as the Church's teachings on abortion, pre-marital sex, and contraception are absolutely antithetical to the Left's more, uh, groovy approach to the issues. Yet, Catholics are, more often than not, Democrats. More important, the loudest proponents of Obamacare - I'm thinking Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy, especially - are showy in their Catholicism, going as far as to invoke the Church's charitable works in arguing for the government's taking control of the health care system. Even as they waved their rosary beads, though, they must have known that their carefully crafted legislation would hit Catholic charitable works where they live - at the intersection of faith and compassion. 


And what's the Church's response to this? Letters! Outraged letters! I'm not expecting bishops to be lying down in front of tanks or anything, but they should at least be willing to look at the world as it is and not how they wish it were. It is the the institutions of the Left, whether the ACLU, the Democrat Party, the Academy, Hollywood that have attacked the Church. Yes, the First Amendment can protect their religious freedom, but you actually have to use the First Amendment, not just let it sit there on the page. That means speaking out against those politicians who have shown themselves to be anti-Catholic in their legislating. It means suing to defend your rights. And, if needed, it means disobeying any law that would force the Church to give up its teachings in exchange for remaining in the government's good graces. 


Do that and you will find wide majorities support you, even if they are not Catholic. Do nothing, and they won't even know you are in trouble. 

Does Mitt Romney Have a Mormon Problem?

Mitt Romney famously has trouble convincing the GOP base that he is a reliable candidate for president. Mostly this arises from the undeniable fact that he is a NE Republican and former governor of Massachusetts (for heaven's sake!) who repeatedly embraces left-wing causes such as health care reform, cap & trade, and China bashing a little too quickly and comfortably. It is a legitimate question whether the man who helped pass a larval version of Obamacare in MA is really the person to lead the repeal of the Democrats' hard won health care reform bill. It's no wonder that, while Mitt has been maintaining about 20-25% support in polls, he has not been able to convince the 75-80% of GOP primary voters who have been actively seeking out the "Not Romney" candidate.

But, a subtext of the Romney campaign, both now and in 2008, is the quietly persistent argument that he is close to unelectable because he is (whisper, whisper) a Mormon. Supposedly, for evangelical Christians, this is almost a deal breaker on its own. While I am no born-again Bible thumper - at best I am an Episcopalian who doesn't go to church - I do know enough to say that I just don't feel it. If being a Mormon is a disqualifier, then being a Jew or a Muslim is probably a disqualifier, too, and I'm not going to go along with that. 

All of that is to lead up to Southern Baptist leader Robert Jeffress, who introduced Rick Perry at the Values Voters Summit in DC the other day, and then promptly gave an interview in which he declared that Mormonism is a non-Christian cult; that Christian voters had a duty to vote for a competent Christian over a competent non-Christian; and (my favorite) that Mitt Romney will not be saved. 

Reverend, and I say this with all due respect, do you know just how many American presidents have been elected to office whose behavior was such that they are not going to be saved? Being hell-bound is certainly not a disqualifier for higher office in the United States, I'm afraid. 

More important, can you tell me what it is about Mormonism that makes Mitt Romney unfit to be president? I am not talking about theology here. I get it that "real" Christians don't view Mormons as being "one of us." But, Mitt Romney is not running for Pope. He is not running to head the Southern Baptist Convention. He is running for president. His religious duties, should he beat Obama, will be to have his picture taken going to church, and to say "God bless America" at the end of his speeches. That's about it. 

I've known quite a few Mormons in my day. They were all hard working, solid citizens with an impressive work ethic, and boundless good cheer. For whatever reason, these attributes, especially the last one, have been the source of a lot of mockery from the tolerant left. More important, Mormons have long been citizens of the United States, and so badly wanted Utah to become a state that they were willing to give up some of their more noxious practices in order to obtain statehood. I'm not saying this makes them above criticism, but it does entitle them to a certain amount of decency and respect. The fact that a man in Jeffress's position can't extend that to the Mormons is, frankly, disturbing. 

Jeffress has also declared Catholicism to be a cult, as well. If someone said this to me on the bus, I would get up and find another seat. But, it's all good if you are a Southern Baptist "leader," I guess. 

Not only that, this sudden demand that we elect only Christians is a definite escalation in the sort of standards evangelicals demand from their presidential candidates. In the past, GOP candidates have had to adopt the pro-life, pro-family views of social conservatives. And that's fine. But, now - at least under the Jeffress standard - GOP candidates must also adopt the religious doctrine of evangelicals. Really? To be president? GOP candidates have a hard enough time mastering the nuances of Roe v Wade. Are they really going to have master religious dogma so that they are better able to determine which Christian sect is a cult and which one is for real? 

The conservative coalition is often described as a three-legged stool with fiscal cons on one leg, security hawks on the second, and social cons providing the third. There's a lot of overlap among the three. Indeed, I don't think you can be conservative without believing the basic political tenets of each leg. Where you land depends on your sense of what the nation's priorities should be. Jeffress is coming perilously close to the approach of leftist coalition members, who basically demand obeisance to their discrete set of beliefs/demands in exchange for their ability to deliver votes and money. Whether he meant to or not, Jeffress showed more than a little Reverand Al in his sotto voce demand that Republicans support a non-Mormon for president, or else. 

This is a dangerous business. Bill Bennett, for one, denounced Jeffress from the podium at the Values Voters Summit. I agree wholeheartedly with Bennett's message, but when you find yourself publicly denouncing your political allies, that's never a good position to be in. Reports from the scene say that there were audible gasps and murmurs from the crowd, along with applause. There's a bad taste in a lot of mouths on both sides as a result of this. 

Needless to say, this is yet another unforced error by Rick Perry who, no doubt, desperately wants to talk about the economy and jobs jobs jobs; but who keeps having to put out these self-starting brush fires. 

The Mormons have tax-exempt status from the IRS. They have a clearly articulated doctrine. They have impressive temples. They do charitable works that should humble the rest of us. And so on. At least by the loose standards of the secular world Mitt Romney is seeking to preside over as president, that's enough to make you a religion, not a cult. I honestly don't think it needs to be that simpler.