Time to Elect a True Progressive: Progress is Pro-Life, Pro-Family and Pro-Freedom

I will do everything I can to ensure that we elect a

In 2008 President Obama said, "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian it is also a sacred union. God's in the mix." Now, look at what he has done. He refuses to defend the very institution which lies at the heart of our social order. To use an old adage, he cries "crocodile tears" on life and marriage. Here is the game plan: make defending life and marriage sound "religious" and then argue that "religious" positions have no place in public policy. He must not be reelected. The future of freedom is at stake.

P>WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - I have been home all day caring for my wife who has been very ill. I am also taking care of our dear grandson whom we are helping to raise. One of our daughters lives with us. She is a single Mom. She chose life and I am proud of her for doing so!

My readers know of my deep and serious concern about the upcoming Presidential campaign in the United States. I believe this is the most important Presidential campaign of my lifetime. I will not keep silent about its importance and will do everything I can to ensure that the current President is not reelected.

The American Public is now aware of the lie behind the Obama Administrations' "Affordable Care Act". Those who purport to be champions of Freedom now seek to compel Christians, especially Catholic Christians, to violate their deeply held religious beliefs and bend the knee to a New Caesar. They will not succeed.

This is precisely what is at stake in the unconstitutional mandate which threatens punitive measures if Catholic and other Christian organizations do not provide abortion inducing drugs, contraceptives, sterilization and referrals to abortions as "preventative" health care under their health insurance plans. The alleged "accommodation" or "compromise", offered after the understandable outcry the mandate incurred, is a fraud.

I write to address a political golden calf; the claim that the current agenda calling itself "progressive" is progressive at all. The term implies progress toward something better. In fact, the political agenda being offered under the moniker of "progressive" is regressive. The dictionary defines "progressive" as an adjective, meaning "Moving forward; advancing." We have lived through the use of word games too many times in the last few decades. The misuse of the word "progressive" is just one more example of what the late great C.S. Lewis, in his "Studies in Words" called "verbicide."

C.S. Lewis warned us about allegedly "progressive" governing schemes wherein a collectivist ideology built upon moral relativism is unleashed in his book entitled "The Abolition of Man." In it we find these insightful words, "A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery."

One of his Essays, found in "God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics" and entitled "Is Progress Possible? Willing Slaves of the Welfare State," warned, "Let us not be deceived by phrases about 'Man taking charge of his own destiny.' All that can really happen is that some men will take charge of the destiny of others. . . . The more completely we are planned the more powerful they will be." 

There is a concerted effort to paint those who adhere to the Jewish and Christian vision of the human person, the family and a truly just civil society as "backward." We are deluged with direct and indirect efforts to portray us as committed to a kind of return to some perceived "dark age". In fact, what we offer is the path to true progress. True progress passes through authentic human freedom.

We are accused of forcing "our view" on others. While those who engage in this kind of word game, using the word "progressive" to promote a regressive cultural revolution, are actually the ones who are intolerant of any view other than their own. Let's consider just two of many policy agenda items of the political "progressives" of our age.

Abortion on Demand

Abortion on demand is the current state of the law in the United States since the infamous decisions of Roe and Doe. Our youngest neighbors in the first home of the whole human race can be killed by surgical instruments, chemical weapons or suction, at any time, for any reason. While restrictions on the practice are being slowly enacted in the States, the current state of the federal law has not changed.

However, our medical science has advanced. We now routinely reach into the womb and offer surgery to these same children in order to help them live fuller lives after birth. Our criminal codes have advanced.  We now prosecute a criminal offender who, in the course of committing another felony, takes their lives as well as their mothers.We take 4D and 3D images of them and send them to our friends. Sadly, the same technology guides the abortionist in his or her execution of those who are "unwanted".  

We all know the truth, that child in the womb is our neighbor. We also recognize the Natural Law written in every human heart which gives us the basis for our criminal codes. The real "Right" is the Right to Life. Without life there can be no other "rights" or liberty. The Right to life is the foundation of the prohibition against killing our innocent neighbor. All human persons have a right to life.

Those currently stealing the label "progressive" made up a so called "right" to reach into the womb for any reason and kill the innocent child. They now use the police power of the State to secure this fictional "right." Is reaching into the first sanctuary of the human race and killing the first immigrants, the first refugees, properly called "progressive"?   

Defending the intentional killing of children in the womb at any time and for any reason is grounded in a counterfeit notion of "freedom" as a raw power over those who are vulnerable and not wanted. Those who defend this practice are not "progressives", in any proper sense of the word, they are barbarians.

Marriage, Family and Society

The leaders of a homosexual equivalency movement are at the forefront of the political movement currently called "progressive". They are committed to a future where homosexual sexual practices are considered morally equivalent to the sexual expression of marital love between a man and a woman.  Is that really "progressive"?

They want a future where the positive law of the Nation will force us to call to be a marriage what can never be a marriage - or face the punitive police power of the State. They are using the courts and the legislatures to enforce a cultural revolution. Now they want homosexual relationships, incapable of achieving the ends of marriage, to be given the same legal status as a marriage.They also want the Police Power of the State to enforce this decree. 

Marriage is not simply a "religious" construct.  The Natural Law reveals - and the cross cultural history of civilization affirms - that marriage is between a man and a woman, open to children and intended for life. Marriage is the foundation for the family which is the privileged place for the formation of virtue and character in children, our future citizens. The family is the first society, first economy, first school, first civilizing and mediating institution and first government. Defending true and authentic marriage between a man and a woman is defending the common good of society.

In 1996 Congress overwhelmingly passed the Defense of Marriage Act. It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. Yet, President Barack Obama unilaterally ordered the US Justice Department to stop defending marriage. Attorney General Eric Holder sent a five-page letter simply announcing the President's decision to the Congress.

President Obama repeatedly insists he is "still wrestling" with his view on "gay marriage."  This kind of false dichotomy between the President's "personal opinion" and his executive leadership reminds me of his past contrived "moral" struggle over abortion. I have finally concluded it is a fraud and a subterfuge.

Have you read the proposed plank being offered as a part of the Democratic Party Platform in this 2012 election campaign? Here are some of the words: "We support the full inclusion of all families in the life of our nation, with equal respect, responsibilities, and protections under the law, including the freedom to marry." Read on, it is anti-marriage, a platform which supports the Homosexual Equivalency agenda. The new Orwellian "newspeak" calls it the "freedom to marry".

In 2008 President Obama said, "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian it is also a sacred union. God's in the mix." Now, look at what he has done. He refuses to defend the very institution which lies at the heart of our social order. To use an old adage, he cries "crocodile tears."

Here is the game plan: make defending true marriage sound "religious" and then argue that such "religious" positions have no place in public policy. However, marriage as between one man and one woman is not only a "religious" position. It is an objective and ontological truth which cannot be changed by changing the definition of a word and then using the police power of the State to force us all to bend the knee to the new definition. To confine marriage to heterosexual couples is not discriminatory. Homosexual couples cannot bring into existence what marriage intends by its very definition.

Our Challenge

The day that Barrack Obama took the oath of office as the 44th President of the United States he said these words "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of remaking America."

Sadly, the America which has resulted from his misguided leadership denies the fundamental human right to life for every human person from conception to natural death. This President refuses to defend true marriage in the face of the counterfeit which threatens the common good of society. In fact, he advances a counterfeit.

In addition, homosexual equivalency activists are being assisted by willing collaborators in the media who support their cultural agenda. We must not let their sophistry go unchallenged!  Words really do matter.  What is masquerading as the "marriage equality movement" is an Anti-Marriage movement. 

Struggle for a Future of Authentic Freedom

There are many other policy issues which demonstrate that the "progressives" of the age are not really "progressive" at all. I will continue to address them as the campaign for the White House unfolds.  We must also ask, is it "progressive" to impede free enterprise and undermine initiative?

The principle of solidarity must be applied alongside of the principle of subsidiarity - lest we end up endorsing collectivism, whether of the right or left. The truly "progressive" economic approach is to expand participation in the robust market economy not suppress it! To promote economic participation and expand opportunity - not penalize ingenuity and initiative.

What is happening is a clash of worldviews, personal and corporate, which involves competing definitions of human freedom, human flourishing and human progress. The positions being espoused and lifestyles being affirmed as "progressive" by those currently using the term as a political label are anything but. They turn the clock back on true human progress.

It is the promotion of faithful, monogamous marriage, family, authentic human freedom, the dignity of every human person - and the insistence that there are objective truths that can be known and unalienable rights that are endowed on all men and women - which have guided true progress in human history.

This is what informs a true humanism, an authentic vision of true progress which has helped to overcome the slaveries that have arisen from flawed ideologies that have treated people as property to be used and manipulated. This is the vision of real progress that has inspired leaders to speak truth to power, condemning the lies that elevate power and function over the primacy of the person, thereby suppressing the deeper and higher values that civilize and set people and Nations free.
 
In 2012 we have at least one authentically 'Progressive' Presidential Candidate who defends life and marriage. He promises genuine progress. He defends life, the family and a future of authentic human freedom. I will not mention his name because the word "progressive" is such a loaded term these days.He may not want to be called a "progressive". But, properly undertood, he is. 

I will do everything I can to ensure that we elect such a "true progressive" to the office of the President of the United States of America. Our future as a truly free people depends upon it. I can tell you this much, it is NOT Barack Obama.

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