America’s Leadership – Does Their Position on the Issues Matter?

Someone recently asked me “does a person's belief in abortion or not, have an impact on whether that person should be a public office holder?” My answer is an emphatic yes! Each elected official develops a sphere of influence as they work to persuade voters to support their platform. Most spend months, if not years, building a base of supporters who place their confidence in the belief the elected official will vote according to the promises made and platform outlined during the campaign. These voters have the expectation that when legislation is proposed or appointments are to be made, those they elect will vote according to the values and ideologies they promoted.

Abortion is one of the deeply emotional issues of our day that quickly divides groups of people, just as slavery did in the 1800s. Some say it is a decision that should be left to a woman, her God and her doctor. Others, such as me, rely on the Bible’s view of those that shed innocent blood and we demand it must stop. And then there are a host of arguments in between. There are some who support the Darwinist/Eugenics notion that only the favored races should be allowed to live, hence Margaret Sanger’s (founder of Planned Parenthood) Negro Project to control the birth rate of blacks. There are others who express concern about who will take care of all the unwanted children if abortion is stopped. And then there are those who support abortion as a means to fix the anomalies that occur in pregnancies (i.e. mental or physically impairment of babies). Whatever road you take on the issue, I submit there are real consequences to the devaluing of life.

One of those consequences is the cavalier killing of others throughout our society. An extreme example of the death angel visitations is the number of shootings that occur in school environments. Parents often think that when they send their children to school, they are in a safe environment and they need not worry as they release their children into the hands of educators. Not so. Even before the April 20, 1999 Columbine massacre, we saw a bevy of shootings across the country. In 1996 a 14 year old killed a teacher and two students in his algebra class in Moses Lake Washington. In February 1997 a sixteen year old shot and killed his principal and another student in Bethel, Alaska. Pearl, Mississippi mourns the two students that were killed by a 16 year old who also killed his mother. Another 14 year old in West Paducah, KY killed three students as they prayed! Residents of Stamps, Arkansas lost two of their students when they were shot in the school parking lot, Jonesboro, Arkansas had four students and one teacher killed at a middle school by a 13 and 11 year old. Fayetteville, Tenn. mourned one student that was shot and killed. In Springfield, Oregon two students were killed by a 15 year old. In Richmond, VA a teacher and guidance counselor were shot and wounded by a 15 year old. These were all before Columbine! Since then we have experienced another 33 school shootings around the United States, the lion share of which were committed by other teens typically between the ages of 13 and 19.

On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day, with pregnant and recently pregnant women being more likely to be victims of homicide than to die of any other cause. I found an article that gives a summary of over thirty cases where the pro-abortion husband or boyfriend killed or severely beat their partner in an effort to get rid of their child after she chose to carry the child to term rather than abort it as the man desired. In many of the cases the man then dumped the body as if it were trash or attempted to burn it to cover up his crime. http://www.gracecentered.com/abortion_does_it_really_matter.htm.

Across the nation blacks disproportionately avail themselves of the services of the abortionist. While only 13% of the population, over 35% of the abortions are performed on black women. In Georgia where I now reside, that number is even more startling, because over 58% of the abortions performed in the state are performed on black women. Is it any wonder then that the black on black crime rate follows this pattern? In 2005, homicide victimization rates for blacks were 6 times higher than the rates for whites. Offending rates for blacks were more than 7 times higher than the rates for whites. Between 1976 and 2005, 52.5% of those committing homicides were black and of those homicides, 94% of blacks killed were killed by other blacks.

This cavalier regard for life has permeated every fabric of our society and now spills over into other areas as we see more and more values related issues disintegrating. Just last week we learned that at least one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease. In the black community that number is at 48%! What stunned me about this study was not the numbers actually. What stunned me was the response of those advocating for sex education that the reason for this increase in sexually transmitted disease is due to abstinence only programs. Is it me or is this faulty logic? If the youth are encouraged to abstain but choose not too, and the disease is sexually transmitted, . . . No the issue is that Planned Parenthood and other associated organizations have duped many, including pastors and other Church leaders, into believing that self-control is impossible among our youth so we should promote their agenda of so-called “safe” sex.

Does it matter whether our candidates support abortion? Again, I say yes. Each legislator has an ability to create a legal and moral environment during their tenure in office. This is especially true of those seeking the presidency. It does matter that Barack Obama chooses to create an environment of unrestrained sex by advocating for sex education for five year olds. It does matter that he actively promotes sexual activity among teens “ in a honest and reasonable way” as he stated in a 2007 Planned Parenthood meeting. It does matter that he wants to use the bully pulpit of the presidency to promote this sexual agenda among our youth. http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3386492.

It matters that Hilary Clinton wants to appoint “judges to our courts who understand that Roe v. Wade isn’t just binding legal precedent, it is the touchstone of our reproductive freedom, the embodiment of our most fundamental rights, and no one - no judge, no governor, no Senator, no President - has the right to take it away.” It matters that she “will sign into law the Freedom of Choice Act, which would codify Roe v. Wade and send a renewed signal to the courts that the will of Congress and the President is to keep abortion legal”.

It matters that our legislators promote and encourage a culture of death as they support the pro-abortion initiatives of today.

Barack – Uh Uh!

My daughter and I were watching a particular movie one night and at its conclusion she turned to me and said “Mom, write uh-uh across it and mail it back” to the minister that released it. After reviewing the audios of Barack Obama’s comments during a Town Hall meeting at Hocking College on March 3, I find myself in another uh-uh moment.

When I heard that Barack Obama had pointed to the Sermon on the Mount as justification for support of civil unions, I thought he must have been confused since I could not recall anything in the Sermon on the Mount that related to a person’s sexual behavior. Though I am no more a Theologian than Barack Obama is, I am pretty astute when it comes to understanding what I am reading, so I thought I would pull out my Bible and read the sermon again. After doing so, I went to the Internet to see if I could get the actual verbiage he used thinking that perhaps he had been misquoted. I found it and I realized that he had not been misquoted and had gone even further in his commentary by including his beliefs on abortion as well. (http://www.cnsnews.com/cns/audio/2008/030308Obama1.wav) (http://www.cnsnews.com/cns/audio/2008/030308Obama2.wav).

After giving it some thought, I reached the same conclusion that some others had; perhaps Senator Obama was making reference to Matthew 7:1-6, the passages that address judging others. Hmmm. That particular passage has been used by some, on many occasions, to obliterate all the other passages of Scripture that reference behavior, whether sexual or otherwise. Even lay persons who are not trained in hermeneutics know to look for more than one passage of Scripture to bring clarity to a matter. There are at least two or three scriptures about same sex behavior that takes the Romans 1 passage out of the realm of obscurity Senator Obama is seeking to relegate it to. So why reference it? Would Senator Obama really want us to believe he is guided by Judeo-Christian values and not the principles of the some other religion, even the one whose call to prayer he describes as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”?
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/opinion/06kristof.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Barack+Obama+Call+to+prayer&st=nyt&oref=slogin

There is one thing none of us can judge – whether or not Barack Obama, at some point in his life, confessed with his mouth the Lord Jesus and believed in his heart that God raised him from the dead. Since the confession is one that is heart driven, only God and Senator Obama can testify to whether it was made or the sincerity of the confession. What we can do, however, is measure whether he has produced good fruit as a result of his confession, for God said you will know the false prophet by his fruit (Mathew 7:16) .

From where I am sitting that fruit is pretty rotten right about now and every American, and every follower of Jesus Christ should be on the alert, heeding the warning that is sounding.

Regardless of which side of the aisle your politics fall on, every one of us should be able to make a ‘righteous judgment” (John 7:24) about the questions that are before us. First, does it matter that a candidate for President of the United States cites only those sections of the Bible that fit his political leanings? Does it matter that a candidate considers the baby in the womb to be nothing more than a decision between a woman, her physicians and her God? I say yes it does.

Somewhere in recent history we saw a turn in our social mores and some would now require Americans to look into the bedrooms of some of its citizens. How else can we tell the sexual orientation of an individual? And, if you don’t care to partake in that particular adventure, you are labeled homophobic or some other epithet and are shouted down. Legislators , many of whom want you to acknowledge their sexual orientation, sponsor legislation designed to force all of America to accept the sexual proclivities of a few. I say yes, it does matter what a candidate’s position is on the issues.

For the past 35 years America has been asked to ignore the medical facts that acknowledge that the baby in the womb is a person. Despite the giant leaps that have been made in the medical profession, we have been indoctrinated to believe that the 4 dimensional child on the film, is a blob of tissue, an anomaly or a fetus. Never mind that the physician that aborts even the youngest baby must count its body parts before it can be determined a successful abortion. Never mind that bags and bags of human body parts have been found in garbage bags outside of abortion sites. Forget that one of the most heinous medical procedures of our time required the baby to be partially delivered before it was stabbed in the head, then pulled from the birth canal. According to some, these facts mean nothing in the face of a “woman’s right to choose”. Again, I say yes it does matter what a candidate considers good policy, especially in this area where innocent blood is shed with impunity. Where does it stop?

It stops when you and I come to our senses and begin to look at the candidates not just through the lenses of their political spin or partisan rhetoric. We must begin to examine the candidates and their issues through lenses that scrutinize the content of their character and clarifies their stance based on a Biblical world view. We can no longer continue to sit back and accept the doctrines that the pro-abortion and homosexual lobbies throw at us. We must no longer accept that our belief that the entire Bible is true is somehow intolerant, homophobic or denies a woman’s choice. We all get to choose the lifestyle, the behaviors, the positions we take. Let us exercise our right to choose to stand on what God says is right, for ourselves, our children, our nation and our government.