Using Words as Weapons

“The Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech.”  (Matt 22:15)  Thus begins Sunday’s gospel when the Pharisees asked Jesus if it was lawful to pay taxes.  The Pharisees thought they had Jesus trapped, but He turned the tables on them by asking whose image was on the Roman coin and saying, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar to God what belongs to God.”  Although the Roman coins stated that Tiberius Caesar was the ‘son of god,’ Jesus was declaring that God alone is King of all creation.  Caesar can have his coins, but our heart and soul belongs to God. 

The Pharisees were engaged in a political battle to retain control by suppressing Jesus and accommodating the Romans.  They did not want Jesus to cause an uprising, nor did they want to lose their power over the people or the temple.   Hence, their efforts to discredit Him, and when they could not outwit Him, they had Him murdered.   Political struggle has been with us from the beginning of recorded history.  People will do whatever they think necessary to obtain and retain power and control.  The most egregious current example is radical Islamists who rule by might and force, killing or enslaving all who oppose them, much the way Mohammed did in the 6^th century.  Sharia law forbids anyone to oppose Islam, even to the extent that Christian speech is considered treasonous, punishable by death. 

It’s easy to be critical of Islamic extremism, but freedom of religion is being suppressed right here in America as well.  Last week the Mayor of Houston Texas obtained court orders to demand that Christian ministers hand over their sermons, email, and text messages for scrutiny by the government to determine if they were promoting opposition to the mayor’s political agenda.   Imagine the outcry if this had been done to Martin Luther King for opposing existing segregation law, or abolitionists in Lincoln’s time for their opposition to the Supreme Court’s Dread Scott decision, which ultimately led to the Civil War.  The point is that the Supreme Court has been wrong about important issues in the past, trying to enforce their will on the people, even when what they wanted was clearly wrong on moral grounds, e.g.  not just slavery but the right to kill slaves.  State Courts have also frequently been wrong, for example when they decided in favor of segregation laws and when they put limits on voting rights. 

I contend that the court was wrong again when they pronounced in Roe v. Wade that the States had no right to restrict access to abortion; and again more recently when they refused to uphold the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA).  In both cases, the high court took it upon themselves not merely to interpret existing law, but to strike down laws that had been duly passed by Congress and State Legislatures.  Taking their lead from the Supremes, lower courts are frequently overturning not just laws, but State constitutional amendments that had been passed by legislatures or by a majority vote of constituents.  This means that a single judge in a lower court can now impose his political will on the people of a State, or a simple majority of five Supreme Court justices can discard laws passed by Congress.  Our constitution never intended for the courts to have the power to strike down or amend laws, only the legislature can do that. 

Not only are activist judges using words as a weapon to discredit and disregard the will of the people.  Our president imposes his will not only by writing Executive Orders that exceed his constitutional authority, but by administrative fiat in the rules and regulations that are written by the Departments of Health, Education, Treasury, and the EPA, just to name a few.  Without congressional oversight or approval, these departments have published hundreds of thousands of pages of regulations that dictate everything from how much water we can use in our toilets, to requiring religious orders to pay for abortion-inducing drugs against their will. 

In times past, it has often been our clergy who pointed out the injustice or immorality of laws, Martin Luther King being a prime example.  Never the less, our president insists that religious speech should be limited to worship services, and the Mayor of Houston thinks she can harass ministers into being silent on issues they disagree with her on.  Despite having taken an oath to uphold the constitution and the laws of the United States, Attorney General Holder thought he could force a church to hire a gay minister (and lost that one 0-9 in the Supreme Court), and he openly disregarded DOMA while it was still the law of the land, choosing instead to oppose it in court.  The current administration used the IRS in an attempt to suppress the political speech of pro-life and tea party groups by denying them tax-exempt status and harassing them, while quickly approving applications from liberal groups so they could raise money for elections while their conservative counterparts were hampered by the IRS.

I shudder to think what our lame duck president will attempt to do in his final two years in office.  A lot is riding on the upcoming election because if the republicans gain control over the Senate, they may not be able to repeal Obamacare, but at least they can forestall the appointment of more progressive, activist judges to the courts.  Our most fundamental right is the right to speak in public, and this includes sharing our moral views about the right to life, marriage, education, and  how our tax dollars are spent.  When judges and political incumbents trample on that right, they threaten the roots of democracy and the foundations of our Republic.  I urge you to speak out against all efforts to suppress free speech, especially on issues with moral consequences.   People may object that we cannot “impose our morals” on anyone else, but that’s exactly what activist judges are doing when they rescind marriage laws, restrict religious speech, force employers to violate their conscience, and suspend laws regulating the abortion industry.