Kentucky Clerk Found In Contempt For Refusing To Issue Marriage Licenses 3SEP15

RIGHT wing "religious" fanatics will make kim davis a martyr. She is nothing of the sort. She could have followed the law, done her job, or at the least allowed the other clerks in her office who would have issued marriage licenses to same sex couples but she decided to deny the courts and break to law. We live in a Republic, not a theocracy, and so kim davis can sit in jail until she agrees to do her job or resign. Well done to District Judge David L Bunning for finding her in contempt and ordering her held in jail, thank you for enforcing the law. From +NPR .....

Kentucky Clerk Found In Contempt For Refusing To Issue Marriage Licenses

September 03, 2015 9:06 AM ET

Eyder Peralta

Updated at 1:39 p.m. ET

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis listens to a customer following her refusal to issue marriage licenses at the Rowan County Courthouse on Tuesday.

Timothy D. Easley/AP

A federal judge found a Kentucky clerk at the center of the national debate over same-sex marriage in contempt of court after she defied the Supreme Court by refusing to issue marriage licenses in protest of such marriages.
Kentucky Public Radio's Ryland Barton reports that District Judge David L. Bunning ordered Kim Davis taken into custody by federal marshals "until she complies" with a court order.
Davis, the Rowan County clerk, has become the most prominent elected official to refuse to abide by a Supreme Court decision that made same-sex marriage legal across the United States.
The plaintiffs in the case had asked the judge to fine Davis until she complied, but Barton reports that "the judge said that he wasn't convinced fines would have compelled" Davis to issue licenses.
As we've reported, a lower court had ordered Davis to issue marriage licenses, despite her religious objections. She appealed and then went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court to ask that the lower court's decision be put aside while she waited for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit to issue an opinion on the matter.
On Monday, the Supreme Court denied that stay, tacitly ordering Davis to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Davis has refused.
In a motion filed with the court Wednesday, her lawyers argued that it is presently "impossible" for Davis to comply with the court order because it "irreparably and irreversibly violates her conscience by directing her to authorize and issue SSM licenses bearing her name and approval."
Legal scholars disagree with that assessment.
Here's how Katherine Franke, a law professor at Columbia University, where she heads the Public Rights/Private Conscience Project, explained it to NPR's Robert Siegel earlier this week:

FRANKE: She has absolutely no legal ground to stand on. As a public official, she's supposed to abide by the law and perform her public duties, which are issuing marriage licenses to qualified couples. Same-sex couples are now qualified to marry in the state of Kentucky, so she is refusing to do her job.
SIEGEL: But are there protections — even for public officials — for some religious convictions that might, in some ways, conflict with someone else's performance of the same job?
FRANKE: Of course. Kim Davis has all sorts of religious liberty rights secured under the First Amendment and under other laws. But they are not at stake in this case. All she's asked to do with couples that come before her is certify that they've met the state requirements for marriage. So her religious opposition to same-sex marriage is absolutely irrelevant in this context.

It's worth noting that in an amicus brief filed Wednesday, Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers asked the court to "temper its response."
The laws of the state, argues Stivers, have not yet caught up with the Supreme Court decision that made same-sex marriage legal across the whole United States.
In fact, Stivers argues, state law currently contains penalties for performing prohibited marriages — such as those between people who are "nearer of kin ... than second cousins" — but does not contain penalties for refusing to issue licenses to those who are permitted to marry.
So, Stivers argues, the court should slow down and let the Legislature sort this out before holding Davis in contempt.
As we reported Wednesday, because Davis is an elected official she cannot be fired from her job. Instead, she would have to be impeached by the state's House of Representatives and tried by the state's Senate.
Barton reports that she could be held in custody until she changes her mind or until her term ends four years from now.
Barton tells our Newscast unit that the judge decided to put her in custody after the plaintiffs questioned Davis on whether she had received offers of financial support.
If there was the potential of an "endless supply of money for her to pay her fines," she would have no incentive to comply with the court order, the judge decided.
Update at 12:26 p.m. ET. Still Waiting:
The hearing at the federal court in Ashland, Ky., was scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. ET. There are no cameras allowed inside the courthouse and reporters are not being allowed to send dispatches.
That means we'll have to wait for an update until after the hearing is over. We'll update this post as soon as we receive word.
Kentucky Public Radio's Ryland Barton is tweeting from the scene.

GLENN ARCHER ON THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE 21MAR14

"The church must never become a government factory, carrying on a nationalized industry of religion with the people as the bolts and nuts; with God reduced to the role of cramped advocate of current national policy. Surely the pages of history are replete and the examples in many a foreign country convincing that this kind of church-state union — whatever the original motives, or however noble the original purposes — winds up with a state that is less than stable and a church that is less than sanctified, and with the poor still hungry."
-Glenn Archer

Now.....want to provoke hysteria.....tell a Tea Bagger or a Red Stater that the Arizona Hate-The-Gay Bill also legalizes Sharia law.

HERE is a refresher for those "martyrs", those propagandist decrying the "war on Christianity" in the US, just a little quiz to verify if your religious liberty is being threatened by our government and / or their leftist agents. From Daily Kos and HuffPost.....

Rev. Emily C. Heath

Clergy, United Church of Christ
Posted: 09/05/2012 11:33am

 

The Long, Sordid History Of Discrimination Against Christians in America

Steven D

Many of you of you may have heard that Christians have had their freedom trampled upon - again - because AZ Governor Brewer vetoed a bill that would have legalized the ability to discriminate a Christian's god-given right to refuse to do business with icky homosexuals anyone on the basis of their religious convictions.  The first amendment of the Constitution allegedly protects the religious freedom of all Americans.  Just read the religious freedom clause:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...

Despite the language that clearly protects the rights of every person of faith to practice their religion without interference from the government, Christians have been marginalized and attacked for their beliefs for centuries in America.  You may find this hard to believe, but it's all perfectly true.  Consider, for example, the first god-given right that was taken away from Christians in America: The Right to Persecute Witches
Before the constitution was written, Christians freely exercised their religious beliefs regarding the necessity to kill demonic witches.  Consider  perhaps the most famous example of the freedom to exercise one's religion in American History: the Salem Witch Trials.

From June through September of 1692, nineteen men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft, were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village, for hanging. Another man of over eighty years was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges. Hundreds of others faced accusations of witchcraft. Dozens languished in jail for months without trials.

Those were literally the good old days.  Sadly, after the Constitution was ratified, the record of Christians freely exercising their right to eradicate witches from our great nation essentially ended.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Just try to find a state where Christians are permitted to lawfully try and execute the many witches in our midst.  You can't!  Witches are even a protected class according to the US courts!  What better example exists of the current atmosphere of persecution and discrimination against the Christian religion by the Government?  Witches can cast their spells and curses and true believers in the Risen Christ can do nothing to protect themselves from these witches evil influences on our nation.
Imagine yourself as a good Christian man (or woman) today, who, by happenstance or the many demonic influences that run rampant in our society, has the misfortune to run across a witch (or any number of other, similar devil worshiping practitioners of the dark arts).  Can you take out your trusty Bushmaster XM-15 or other firearm and shoot them dead right there on the spot?  Of course you can't, at least not if you claim you shot them in the exercise of your religious faith.  Sure, you could lie and claim you acted out of a reasonable fear of death or serious bodily harm and thus shooting that witch was a justified act of self-defense, but honestly, should a God-fearing, Jesus-walking believer have to lie merely to pursue the dictates of his or her faith by sending said witch straight to Hell?  Yet that is precisely the position in which today's Christians find themselves.
However, taking away the right of Christians to rid the world of witches was only the beginning of numerous instances where the Government denied the rights of Jesus' followers to put their faith into practice. Follow me below the orange stylized pentagram (* shudders involuntarily *) for the rest of the story.

The Right to Own Slaves
Now I know what some of you are going to say, that slavery is immoral, cruel and savage, and that no one - ever - should be allowed to buy and sell human beings as if they were cattle.  In response all I can say is that it's in the damn (forgive me Lord) Holy Bible!  It's God's own word that some of us are intended to be slaves and others to be slave owners, and when you mess with God's plan for mankind, you set yourself up for a world of cow manure.  It's pretty clear that slave owners back in the day were just practicing their faith as they saw it.  You want proof?  Here's your proof right at ya from Josiah Priest (a Godly name if there ever was one), from his book "Bible Defence of Slavery" published in 1853!

[S]ee Genesis ix, 24—27, as follows: "And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him: and he said, cursed be Canaan (Ham); a servant of SERVANTS shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan (Ham) shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan (Ham) shall be his servant." ...[Bishop] Newton maintains ... that the curse of Noah upon Ham, had a general and an interminable application to the whole [negro] race, in placing them under a peculiar liability of being enslaved by the races of the two other brothers.
The curse, therefore, against Ham and [the negro] race was not sent out on the account of that one sin only. But as the deed was heinous, and withal was in unison with his whole life, character and constitutional make, prior to that deed, the curse, which had slumbered long, was let loose upon him and his posterity, as a general thing, placing them under the ban of slavery, on account of his and their foreseen characters. [...]
The appointment of this race of men to servitude and slavery was a judicial act of God, or, in other words, was a divine judgment. [...]
... The great and everywhere pervading fact of their degraded condition, both now and in all time, more or less, is the very climax-witness that, in the above conclusion, we are not mistaken—namely, that the negro race, as a people, are judicially given over to a state or peculiar liability of being enslaved by the other races.

Hey, you don't mess with divine judgment, if that's what you believe.  Now I am well aware of all the prominent so-called 'anti-slavery' Christians of the time who vehemently argued that slavery was against God's will, but they were free to exercise their right not to own slaves based on their religious beliefs.  Christians who believed that slavery was divinely ordered by God, on the other hand, had their right to own slaves ripped from the cold dead hands in the terrible War of Northern Aggression.  Why were the abolitionists' religious beliefs tolerated, while the faith of so many good Christian slave owners disregarded and their property rights stolen by the same Federal Government that tolerated the beliefs of Muslims, Jews and "Liberal Christians" (which we all know are not true Christians - but I digress).  Hypocrisy, thy name is Abraham Lincoln!
Of course, after the end of that terrible war, other Christians have fought many losing battles in defense of their right of religious freedom.  For example:
The Right to Take More Than One Wife
The Mormons (okay, I know they're heretics, but in this one instance let's accept that they are at least semi-Christians) were coerced into accepting monogamy before the State of Utah was permitted to join the Union.

...Church president Wilford Woodruff wrote in his journal on Sept 25, 1890, “I have arrived at a point in the history of my life as the president of the Church…where I am under the necessity of acting for the temporal salvation of the church.”  On that date, just four months after the fateful decision of the Supreme Court, President Woodruff issued the “Official Declaration” which proclaimed the end of polygamy among the Mormons:
    Inasamuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise.
    In the October 6 session of the general conference of the church, the congregation “unanimously sustained” this declaration as “authoritative and binding.”  Polygamy no longer had official sanction.

Losing the right to enjoy the sexual favors take more than one wife might not have been as bad as losing all of one's slaves, but it was still a persecution of people of faith and a denial to practice that faith as they saw fit.  And, if that meant denying 60 year-old patriarchs from marrying thirteen year old girls, well so be it.
A Brief List of Other Examples of Christian Persecution
Well, I could go one forever (and I would if I had the time and energy), but a brief list of other rights the federal and state governments have taken from the faithful should be sufficient to make my point.
Health Care
Christians no longer can pray to God to heal their children, but instead face imprisonment for practicing their beliefs regarding spiritual health care.
Defense of Christianity from Baby Killers
The right to execute abortionists and bomb abortion clinics has also been denied the most devout followers of Jesus Christ. Whatever happened to "Onward Christian Soldiers?"  Apparently they are all deemed terrorists now instead of freedom fighters.
The Gay Agenda to Stick It to Christians
And of course, the latest blow, Gov. Brewer's veto of a bill that would have protected the right of any individual to practice his or her religion by discriminating against teh Gay.  One can only hope that our Lord will be merciful, and not punish the State of Arizona with a plague of toads or possibly an ever worsening drought for failing to allow his people to follow his dictates and not force themselves to become servants to Sodomites.
Why All the Hate For Christ's Most Devoted Followers?
One must ask oneself, where did our great nation, founded on Judeo-Christian principles (mostly Christian, no offense to the Jews), go so disastrously off track when it came to protecting the rights of Christians?  Well, the answer to that question, as to most issues that plague us, was an activist Supreme Court. Specifically the Supreme Court of 1878, which decided the case of Reynolds v. United States when it interpreted the free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment as narrowly as possible.  Naturally the case involved a Christian (okay, a Mormon, but as previously noted we'll stretch the definition of Christianity in cases like these).  The case involved a man charged with violating the law against polygamy.  he argued protection under the first amendment. Of course, the Court found a way to screw him over.  Here is the core of their decision:

Accordingly, at the first session of the first Congress, the amendment now under consideration was proposed with others by Mr. Madison. It met the views of the advocates of religious freedom, and was adopted. Mr. Jefferson afterwards, in reply to an address to him by a committee of the Danbury Baptist Association (8 id. 113), took occasion to say: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions -- I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."
Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment thus secured. Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.

Let me remind you that this same Supreme Court held heathen Indians members of the Native American Church could be discriminated against when they smoked peyote as part of their "religion." Then our liberal Congress turned right around and changed the law to permit them to smoke peyote as often as they wished as part of their religious rituals.
So, taking psychedelic drugs if you're part of some cult (or a resident of Colorado and the Socialist State of Washington) is okay, but obeying the commands of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and his Father, get spit upon.  I mean, what is more subversive of good order than gays flamboyantly prancing around and holding orgies in front of the kids spending their tourist dollars at desert resorts and spas while young people get high (legally in Colorado and Washington)?  No wonder our country is in such a mess.
All I can add to this, is God* help us.
* By which I mean the true God of the Bible as revealed by scripture, prophecy, and broadcast to millions every day by outstanding evangelical preachers like Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham and others too numerous to mention.

A Short Quiz: How to Determine If Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened in Just 10 Quick Questions 5SEP12

It seems like this election season "religious liberty" is a hot topic. Rumors of its demise are all around, as are politicians who want to make sure that you know they will never do anything to intrude upon it.

I'm a religious person with a lifelong passion for civil rights, so this is of great interest to me. So much so, that I believe we all need to determine whether our religious liberties are indeed at risk. So, as a public service, I've come up with this little quiz. I call it "How to Determine if Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened in Just 10 Quick Questions." Just pick "A" or "B" for each question.

1. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am not allowed to go to a religious service of my own choosing.
B) Others are allowed to go to religious services of their own choosing.

2. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am not allowed to marry the person I love legally, even though my religious community blesses my marriage.
B) Some states refuse to enforce my own particular religious beliefs on marriage on those two guys in line down at the courthouse.

3. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am being forced to use birth control.
B) I am unable to force others to not use birth control.

4. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am not allowed to pray privately.
B) I am not allowed to force others to pray the prayers of my faith publicly.

5. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) Being a member of my faith means that I can be bullied without legal recourse.
B) I am no longer allowed to use my faith to bully gay kids with impunity.

6. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am not allowed to purchase, read or possess religious books or material.
B) Others are allowed to have access books, movies and websites that I do not like.

7. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) My religious group is not allowed equal protection under the establishment clause.
B) My religious group is not allowed to use public funds, buildings and resources as we would like, for whatever purposes we might like.

8. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) Another religious group has been declared the official faith of my country.
B) My own religious group is not given status as the official faith of my country.

9. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) My religious community is not allowed to build a house of worship in my community.
B) A religious community I do not like wants to build a house of worship in my community.

10. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am not allowed to teach my children the creation stories of our faith at home.
B) Public school science classes are teaching science.

Scoring key:

If you answered "A" to any question, then perhaps your religious liberty is indeed at stake. You and your faith group have every right to now advocate for equal protection under the law. But just remember this one little, constitutional, concept: this means you can fight for your equality -- not your superiority.

If you answered "B" to any question, then not only is your religious liberty not at stake, but there is a strong chance that you are oppressing the religious liberties of others. This is the point where I would invite you to refer back to the tenets of your faith, especially the ones about your neighbors.

In closing, no matter what soundbites you hear this election year, remember this: Religious liberty is never secured by a campaign of religious superiority. The only way to ensure your own religious liberty remains strong is by advocating for the religious liberty of all, including those with whom you may passionately disagree. Because they deserve the same rights as you. Nothing more. Nothing less.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/27/1280813/-The-Long-Sordid-History-Of-Discrimination-Against-Christians-in-America?detail=email

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-emily-c-heath/how-to-determine-if-your-religious-liberty-is-being-threatened-in-10-questions_b_1845413.html

A Short Quiz: How to Determine If Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened in Just 10 Quick Questions & The Long, Sordid History Of Discrimination Against Christians in America 5SEP12&27FEB14

HERE is a refresher for those "martyrs", those propagandist decrying the "war on Christianity" in the US, just a little quiz to verify if your religious liberty is being threatened by our government and / or their leftist agents. From HuffPost.....

Rev. Emily C. Heath

Clergy, United Church of Christ
Posted: 09/05/2012 11:33am

It seems like this election season "religious liberty" is a hot topic. Rumors of its demise are all around, as are politicians who want to make sure that you know they will never do anything to intrude upon it.

I'm a religious person with a lifelong passion for civil rights, so this is of great interest to me. So much so, that I believe we all need to determine whether our religious liberties are indeed at risk. So, as a public service, I've come up with this little quiz. I call it "How to Determine if Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened in Just 10 Quick Questions." Just pick "A" or "B" for each question.

1. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am not allowed to go to a religious service of my own choosing.
B) Others are allowed to go to religious services of their own choosing.

2. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am not allowed to marry the person I love legally, even though my religious community blesses my marriage.
B) Some states refuse to enforce my own particular religious beliefs on marriage on those two guys in line down at the courthouse.

3. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am being forced to use birth control.
B) I am unable to force others to not use birth control.

4. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am not allowed to pray privately.
B) I am not allowed to force others to pray the prayers of my faith publicly.

5. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) Being a member of my faith means that I can be bullied without legal recourse.
B) I am no longer allowed to use my faith to bully gay kids with impunity.

6. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am not allowed to purchase, read or possess religious books or material.
B) Others are allowed to have access books, movies and websites that I do not like.

7. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) My religious group is not allowed equal protection under the establishment clause.
B) My religious group is not allowed to use public funds, buildings and resources as we would like, for whatever purposes we might like.

8. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) Another religious group has been declared the official faith of my country.
B) My own religious group is not given status as the official faith of my country.

9. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) My religious community is not allowed to build a house of worship in my community.
B) A religious community I do not like wants to build a house of worship in my community.

10. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am not allowed to teach my children the creation stories of our faith at home.
B) Public school science classes are teaching science.

Scoring key:

If you answered "A" to any question, then perhaps your religious liberty is indeed at stake. You and your faith group have every right to now advocate for equal protection under the law. But just remember this one little, constitutional, concept: this means you can fight for your equality -- not your superiority.

If you answered "B" to any question, then not only is your religious liberty not at stake, but there is a strong chance that you are oppressing the religious liberties of others. This is the point where I would invite you to refer back to the tenets of your faith, especially the ones about your neighbors.

In closing, no matter what soundbites you hear this election year, remember this: Religious liberty is never secured by a campaign of religious superiority. The only way to ensure your own religious liberty remains strong is by advocating for the religious liberty of all, including those with whom you may passionately disagree. Because they deserve the same rights as you. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Thu Feb 27, 2014 at 02:25 PM EST

The Long, Sordid History Of Discrimination Against Christians in America

by Steven D

Many of you of you may have heard that Christians have had their freedom trampled upon - again - because AZ Governor Brewer vetoed a bill that would have legalized the ability to discriminate a Christian's god-given right to refuse to do business with icky homosexuals anyone on the basis of their religious convictions.  The first amendment of the Constitution allegedly protects the religious freedom of all Americans.  Just read the religious freedom clause:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...

Despite the language that clearly protects the rights of every person of faith to practice their religion without interference from the government, Christians have been marginalized and attacked for their beliefs for centuries in America.  You may find this hard to believe, but it's all perfectly true.  Consider, for example, the first god-given right that was taken away from Christians in America: The Right to Persecute Witches
Before the constitution was written, Christians freely exercised their religious beliefs regarding the necessity to kill demonic witches.  Consider  perhaps the most famous example of the freedom to exercise one's religion in American History: the Salem Witch Trials.

From June through September of 1692, nineteen men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft, were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village, for hanging. Another man of over eighty years was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges. Hundreds of others faced accusations of witchcraft. Dozens languished in jail for months without trials.

Those were literally the good old days.  Sadly, after the Constitution was ratified, the record of Christians freely exercising their right to eradicate witches from our great nation essentially ended.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Just try to find a state where Christians are permitted to lawfully try and execute the many witches in our midst.  You can't!  Witches are even a protected class according to the US courts!  What better example exists of the current atmosphere of persecution and discrimination against the Christian religion by the Government?  Witches can cast their spells and curses and true believers in the Risen Christ can do nothing to protect themselves from these witches evil influences on our nation.
Imagine yourself as a good Christian man (or woman) today, who, by happenstance or the many demonic influences that run rampant in our society, has the misfortune to run across a witch (or any number of other, similar devil worshiping practitioners of the dark arts).  Can you take out your trusty Bushmaster XM-15 or other firearm and shoot them dead right there on the spot?  Of course you can't, at least not if you claim you shot them in the exercise of your religious faith.  Sure, you could lie and claim you acted out of a reasonable fear of death or serious bodily harm and thus shooting that witch was a justified act of self-defense, but honestly, should a God-fearing, Jesus-walking believer have to lie merely to pursue the dictates of his or her faith by sending said witch straight to Hell?  Yet that is precisely the position in which today's Christians find themselves.
However, taking away the right of Christians to rid the world of witches was only the beginning of numerous instances where the Government denied the rights of Jesus' followers to put their faith into practice. Follow me below the orange stylized pentagram (* shudders involuntarily *) for the rest of the story.

The Right to Own Slaves
Now I know what some of you are going to say, that slavery is immoral, cruel and savage, and that no one - ever - should be allowed to buy and sell human beings as if they were cattle.  In response all I can say is that it's in the damn (forgive me Lord) Holy Bible!  It's God's own word that some of us are intended to be slaves and others to be slave owners, and when you mess with God's plan for mankind, you set yourself up for a world of cow manure.  It's pretty clear that slave owners back in the day were just practicing their faith as they saw it.  You want proof?  Here's your proof right at ya from Josiah Priest (a Godly name if there ever was one), from his book "Bible Defence of Slavery" published in 1853!

[S]ee Genesis ix, 24—27, as follows: "And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him: and he said, cursed be Canaan (Ham); a servant of SERVANTS shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan (Ham) shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan (Ham) shall be his servant." ...[Bishop] Newton maintains ... that the curse of Noah upon Ham, had a general and an interminable application to the whole [negro] race, in placing them under a peculiar liability of being enslaved by the races of the two other brothers.
The curse, therefore, against Ham and [the negro] race was not sent out on the account of that one sin only. But as the deed was heinous, and withal was in unison with his whole life, character and constitutional make, prior to that deed, the curse, which had slumbered long, was let loose upon him and his posterity, as a general thing, placing them under the ban of slavery, on account of his and their foreseen characters. [...]
The appointment of this race of men to servitude and slavery was a judicial act of God, or, in other words, was a divine judgment. [...]
... The great and everywhere pervading fact of their degraded condition, both now and in all time, more or less, is the very climax-witness that, in the above conclusion, we are not mistaken—namely, that the negro race, as a people, are judicially given over to a state or peculiar liability of being enslaved by the other races.

Hey, you don't mess with divine judgment, if that's what you believe.  Now I am well aware of all the prominent so-called 'anti-slavery' Christians of the time who vehemently argued that slavery was against God's will, but they were free to exercise their right not to own slaves based on their religious beliefs.  Christians who believed that slavery was divinely ordered by God, on the other hand, had their right to own slaves ripped from the cold dead hands in the terrible War of Northern Aggression.  Why were the abolitionists' religious beliefs tolerated, while the faith of so many good Christian slave owners disregarded and their property rights stolen by the same Federal Government that tolerated the beliefs of Muslims, Jews and "Liberal Christians" (which we all know are not true Christians - but I digress).  Hypocrisy, thy name is Abraham Lincoln!
Of course, after the end of that terrible war, other Christians have fought many losing battles in defense of their right of religious freedom.  For example:
The Right to Take More Than One Wife
The Mormons (okay, I know they're heretics, but in this one instance let's accept that they are at least semi-Christians) were coerced into accepting monogamy before the State of Utah was permitted to join the Union.

...Church president Wilford Woodruff wrote in his journal on Sept 25, 1890, “I have arrived at a point in the history of my life as the president of the Church…where I am under the necessity of acting for the temporal salvation of the church.”  On that date, just four months after the fateful decision of the Supreme Court, President Woodruff issued the “Official Declaration” which proclaimed the end of polygamy among the Mormons:
    Inasamuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise.
    In the October 6 session of the general conference of the church, the congregation “unanimously sustained” this declaration as “authoritative and binding.”  Polygamy no longer had official sanction.

Losing the right to enjoy the sexual favors take more than one wife might not have been as bad as losing all of one's slaves, but it was still a persecution of people of faith and a denial to practice that faith as they saw fit.  And, if that meant denying 60 year-old patriarchs from marrying thirteen year old girls, well so be it.
A Brief List of Other Examples of Christian Persecution
Well, I could go one forever (and I would if I had the time and energy), but a brief list of other rights the federal and state governments have taken from the faithful should be sufficient to make my point.
Health Care
Christians no longer can pray to God to heal their children, but instead face imprisonment for practicing their beliefs regarding spiritual health care.
Defense of Christianity from Baby Killers
The right to execute abortionists and bomb abortion clinics has also been denied the most devout followers of Jesus Christ. Whatever happened to "Onward Christian Soldiers?"  Apparently they are all deemed terrorists now instead of freedom fighters.
The Gay Agenda to Stick It to Christians
And of course, the latest blow, Gov. Brewer's veto of a bill that would have protected the right of any individual to practice his or her religion by discriminating against teh Gay.  One can only hope that our Lord will be merciful, and not punish the State of Arizona with a plague of toads or possibly an ever worsening drought for failing to allow his people to follow his dictates and not force themselves to become servants to Sodomites.
Why All the Hate For Christ's Most Devoted Followers?
One must ask oneself, where did our great nation, founded on Judeo-Christian principles (mostly Christian, no offense to the Jews), go so disastrously off track when it came to protecting the rights of Christians?  Well, the answer to that question, as to most issues that plague us, was an activist Supreme Court. Specifically the Supreme Court of 1878, which decided the case of Reynolds v. United States when it interpreted the free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment as narrowly as possible.  Naturally the case involved a Christian (okay, a Mormon, but as previously noted we'll stretch the definition of Christianity in cases like these).  The case involved a man charged with violating the law against polygamy.  he argued protection under the first amendment. Of course, the Court found a way to screw him over.  Here is the core of their decision:

Accordingly, at the first session of the first Congress, the amendment now under consideration was proposed with others by Mr. Madison. It met the views of the advocates of religious freedom, and was adopted. Mr. Jefferson afterwards, in reply to an address to him by a committee of the Danbury Baptist Association (8 id. 113), took occasion to say: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions -- I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."
Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment thus secured. Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.

Let me remind you that this same Supreme Court held heathen Indians members of the Native American Church could be discriminated against when they smoked peyote as part of their "religion." Then our liberal Congress turned right around and changed the law to permit them to smoke peyote as often as they wished as part of their religious rituals.
So, taking psychedelic drugs if you're part of some cult (or a resident of Colorado and the Socialist State of Washington) is okay, but obeying the commands of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and his Father, get spit upon.  I mean, what is more subversive of good order than gays flamboyantly prancing around and holding orgies in front of the kids spending their tourist dollars at desert resorts and spas while young people get high (legally in Colorado and Washington)?  No wonder our country is in such a mess.
All I can add to this, is God* help us.
* By which I mean the true God of the Bible as revealed by scripture, prophecy, and broadcast to millions every day by outstanding evangelical preachers like Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham and others too numerous to mention.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-emily-c-heath/how-to-determine-if-your-religious-liberty-is-being-threatened-in-10-questions_b_1845413.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/27/1280813/-The-Long-Sordid-History-Of-Discrimination-Against-Christians-in-America?detail=email 

# # #

To Young Christians Speaking Out Against Anti-Gay Discrimination: Thank You & You Brought Me a Beer — and Took My Picture 27&24FEB14

JUST as the wildly popular prosperity gospel (a perversion of Christianity justifying greed and the neglect of the needy), the discrimination gospel, a perversion of Christianity justifying adaptation of secular laws that are based on hate and prejudice, do more harm to Christianity in this country than any of the right wing fabricated attacks on our faith. There is nothing Christian about endorsing, encouraging and participating in discrimination in the secular world against anyone, for any reason. The religious can live their private and public religious lives as they feel their faith teaches them to. But in this Republic, and I thank God this is still a Republic and not a theocracy, the rights of all are protected equally (at least are supposed to be) by our constitution and laws. Churches and all other faith communities can not be forced to accept practices they believe violate their faith. They can not be forced to endorse and perform any marriage they feel is immoral, they can deny whoever they choose membership in their church and deny whoever they choose access to the sacraments of their faith. But individuals do not have the right, in a Republic, to impose their religious beliefs on everyone else in the public sphere. That is the beauty of the separation of Church and State. Not only is the Church (all religions) protected from the State, the State (all citizens) are protected from the Church. This from Sojourners on the controversy over LGBT rights, same sex marriage and legalized secular discrimination raging in all parts of the Christian church in America....
“Never in my life has my very faith been called into question like this.”

Jesus is love illustration, patrice6000 / Shutterstock.com

That’s what young evangelical writer Jonathan Merritt told me this week. His statement followed a media firestorm, ignited when both he and Kirsten Powers, weighed in on proposed laws in Kansas and Arizona that would have allowed business owners to deny service to gay couples, based on conservative religious beliefs about homosexuality. Merritt and Powers each suggested that justifying legal discrimination against gay and lesbian couples might not be the best form of Christian outreach and raised consistency issues of whether discrimination would also be applied to other less than “biblical” marriages, or if just gays and lesbians were being singled out.
Their columns in both the Religion News Service and the Daily Beast have provoked intense responses from many Southern Baptists (where Merritt has his own heritage), those who call themselves Neo or “New” Calvinists, and other assorted critics from the political right.
Neither Merritt nor Powers took clear theological positions on all the sexuality issues involved. But both have been stunned by the responses from emails, tweets, and angry phone calls. The 1,200 Twitter notifications, messages, and calls from “leaders” that Merritt has received in the last few days include, “You only pretend to worship Jesus.” “You’re not a Christian.” “You are the enemies of Christianity.” “You’re marginalized now.” “You’re damaged goods.” “You’re on the outs now.”
Merritt and Powers were not questioning the gospel; they were “just asking whether we should discriminate against a whole group of people.” Both columnists believe Christians can honestly disagree on these complicated questions surrounding sexuality, but wanted to raise a discussion about whether passing laws that discriminate based on one religious point of view was wise, especially in this rapidly changing culture.
As proof of the cultural shifts that are underway, some striking new data in a report by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute came out this week. The report shows that most religiously unaffiliated Americans now support civil marriage rights for same-sex couples. But so do most white mainline Protestants, white and Hispanic Catholics, and Jews. The generational divide is even more dramatic: strong majorities — across the political spectrum — of 18- to 33-year-old millennials support protecting gays and lesbians in the workplace, and most, religious and not, support the right of same-sex couples to marry. The report even states that “White evangelical Protestant millennials are more than twice as likely to favor same-sex marriage as the oldest generation of white evangelical Protestants (43% vs. 19%).”
The PRRI polling also confirms earlier data showing that 70 percent of young people believe “that religious groups are alienating young adults by being too judgmental on gay and lesbian issues.” More religious leaders are becoming painfully aware that this is one of the primary reasons that young people are leaving or not joining churches today.
That is why the articles by young Christian writers like Jonathan Merritt and Kirsten Powers are so important, and the vitriolic attacks on them by some of their elders is so alarming and sad.
Many argue that the heart of this debate isn’t sexuality, but religious liberty. Merritt addresses that concern, quoting Martin Luther King, Jr.’s insightful distinction between private and public domain:

“I think there is a great difference between the two … I don’t think anybody should have the right to just come in my house that I may privately own …. But now if I turn my house into a store — if I turn it into a department store, if I turn it into a lunch counter, or anything like that — then I have certain obligations to the public beyond my particular whims … If a business is in the public market, then it cannot deny access …. [a business owner] should not have the freedom to choose his customers on the basis of race or religion.”

Differing theological views on important issues of sexuality will need time, patience, deep biblical reflection, respectful discourse, and religious liberty to be worked out in the churches. But the perception of Christian faith is in grave danger when Christians try to use the law to publically discriminate against those who don’t adhere to their point of view. I am a deep believer in religious liberty, but it must not be used as an excuse for discrimination in the public square or the public marketplace against people with whom we disagree.
And let me express my gratitude for a new generation of Christians who are trying to positively raise these tough issues for the sake of our witness in the world. As one of the few wise commentators said back to Merritt and Powers, “It’s hard to witness to people that you won’t serve.” Unlike what some of their critics have said, I say to these young voices: you will not be “on the outs” but rather, you are keeping many of your generation “in” the conversation about faith. Thank you.

Jim Wallis is president of Sojourners . His book, On God's Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn’t Learned About Serving the Common Good, is now available. Watch the Story of the Common Good HERE . Follow Jim on Twitter @JimWallis.

You Brought Me a Beer — and Took My Picture

by Joe Kay 02-24-2014 | 4:40pm

My flight home from Phoenix over the weekend got pushed back, so I wound up spending an extra night at an airport hotel. Also, I got an $8 food voucher from the airline. I decided to eat at the hotel.

Mug of beer, Yellowj / Shutterstock.com

The restaurant was located on the top floor of the hotel with a nice view of downtown. There was a small bar near the entrance. A handful of hotel visitors were enjoying complimentary drinks and watching the Olympics on a flat-screen television.
I was greeted at the door by Melody, a transplant from Erie, Pa., who doubles as a bartender and a server. When I mentioned that I had a food voucher, she offered condolences for my scrambled travel plans. She also offered me a free beer.
Glass of red ale in hand, I picked a table in a corner of the restaurant, ordered a spinach salad and went back to reading a book about the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the long struggle to get the country to live up to its ideal that everyone should be treated as an equal child of God.
I couldn’t help but think about my 10 days in Arizona watching the state legislature debate and ultimately pass a bill that would allow business owners and individuals to refuse service to anyone on grounds of religious freedom. The impetus was a New Mexico case involving a photographer who refused to take photos of a gay couple.
The bill was promoted as a religious liberty issue. Opponents pointed out that it was the definition of discrimination — people would be singled out for unequal treatment.
The bill isn't limited to sexual preference. It could allow anyone to refuse to serve anyone so long as they can justify it as an exercise in religion. And there would be no requirement that the person refusing service is being consistent in their practice. For instance, they could refuse to serve someone who violates one Biblical injunction while readily serving those who violate many other Biblical injunctions.
Isn’t this discrimination counterfeiting as religion? Personal prejudice cross-dressing as devotion?
And I couldn’t escape the delicious irony in all of it: The bill was promoted by those claiming to follow a Jewish rabbi who urges his followers to love without hesitation or reservation and to serve others without condition or judgment.
Is it any wonder why so many people throw up their hands and run away from what sometimes gets passed off as religion? Isn't it interesting that those who describe themselves as non-religious often grasp the spirit of religion far better than those who go to church religiously?
As those thoughts went through my head, another glass of beer showed up at my table. During one of her passes down the aisle, Melody noticed that I was nearly finished with the first one and went out of her way to bring me another.
She showed me an act of kindness. She did it without inquiring about my beliefs, my lifestyle, or my values.
She saw I was thirsty and gave me a drink. That’s all.
Sound familiar?
When I was thirsty, you brought me a beer. When I wanted a photo, you took my picture. You did it with kindness and without question. You showed me what it means to serve unconditionally.
You lived those words: Love one another.
Joe Kay is a professional writer living in the Midwest.

http://sojo.net/blogs/2014/02/27/young-christians-speaking-out-against-anti-gay-discrimination-thank-you 

http://sojo.net/blogs/2014/02/24/you-brought-me-beer-%E2%80%94-and-took-my-picture 

Armed Revolution May Soon Be Necessary 1MAI13

I have a bumper sticker on my Jeep (actually a lot of bumper stickers) 'STOP BITCHIN AND START A REVOLUTION', but it doesn't advocate armed revolution. Who does believe armed revolution in America just might be necessary? No surprise here, it's a majority of the gop / tea-baggers of course. They say it may be necessary in defense of our civil liberties, outrageous hypocrisy from those whose politics threaten our Republic, our Constitution, our civil liberties and civil rights. From Mother Jones...

—By Kevin Drum

| Wed May. 1, 2013 2:28 PM PDT

I don't really know how seriously to take this, but here's a question from the latest Fairleigh Dickinson poll. Apparently, nearly half of all Republicans believe that we might need an armed revolution in the near future to "protect our liberties." Hell, even a fifth of Democrats think the same thing. Is this the effect of brain rot caused by listening to Rush and the NRA too much, or is it just a bit of harmless affinity mongering? I'm not sure. Either way, though, I'd sure like it a lot better if this number were somewhere south of 5 percent.

Political Blogger

Kevin Drum is a political blogger for Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. RSS |TWITTER

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/05/armed-revolution-may-soon-be-necessary

Lawrence Lessig: We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim A TED TALK FEB 2013

A TED talk on the damage the citizens united decision has done to our Republic. And then think about what you should be doing to fix it, and if the effort is worth it to you or if you are one of those apathetic bitchers that runs your mouth. DEMOCRACY IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT.

http://youtu.be/mw2z9lV3W1g
itpc://www.ted.com/download/podcast/type/talks/slug/LarryLessig_2013/ext/mp4/quality/regular/sf_format/xml

Once upon a time, there was a place called Lesterland. Now Lesterland looks a lot like the United States. Like the United States, it has about 311 million people, and of that 311 million people, it turns out 144,000 are called Lester. If Matt's in the audience, I just borrowed that, I'll return it in a second, this character from your series. So 144,000 are called Lester, which means about .05 percent is named Lester. Now, Lesters in Lesterland have this extraordinary power. There are two elections every election cycle in Lesterland.One is called the general election. The other is called the Lester election. And in the general election, it's the citizens who get to vote, but in the Lester election, it's the Lesters who get to vote. And here's the trick. In order to run in the general election, you must do extremely well in the Lester election. You don't necessarily have to win, but you must do extremely well.

Now, what can we say about democracy in Lesterland? What we can say, number one, as the Supreme Court said in Citizens United, that people have the ultimate influence over elected officials, because, after all, there is a general election, but only after the Lesters have had their way with the candidates who wish to run in the general election. And number two, obviously, this dependence upon the Lesters is going to produce a subtle, understated,we could say camouflaged, bending to keep the Lesters happy. Okay, so we have a democracy, no doubt, but it's dependent upon the Lesters and dependent upon the people.It has competing dependencies, we could say conflicting dependencies, depending upon who the Lesters are. Okay. That's Lesterland.

Now there are three things I want you to see now that I've described Lesterland. Number one, the United States is Lesterland. The United States is Lesterland. The United States also looks like this, also has two elections, one we called the general election, the second we should call the money election. In the general election, it's the citizens who get to vote, if you're over 18, in some states if you have an ID. In the money election, it's the funders who get to vote, the funders who get to vote, and just like in Lesterland, the trick is, to run in the general election, you must do extremely well in the money election. You don't necessarily have to win. There is Jerry Brown. But you must do extremely well. And here's the key: There are just as few relevant funders in USA-land as there are Lesters in Lesterland.

Now you say, really? Really .05 percent? Well, here are the numbers from 2010: .26 percent of America gave 200 dollars or more to any federal candidate, .05 percent gave the maximum amount to any federal candidate, .01 percent -- the one percent of the one percent -- gave 10,000 dollars or more to federal candidates, and in this election cycle, my favorite statistic is .000042 percent — for those of you doing the numbers, you know that's 132 Americans — gave 60 percent of the Super PAC money spent in the cycle we have just seen ending. So I'm just a lawyer, I look at this range of numbers, and I say it's fair for me to say it's .05 percent who are our relevant funders in America. In this sense, the funders are our Lesters.

Now, what can we say about this democracy in USA-land? Well, as the Supreme Court said in Citizens United, we could say, of course the people have the ultimate influence over the elected officials. We have a general election, but only after the funders have had their way with the candidates who wish to run in that general election. And number two, obviously, this dependence upon the funders produces a subtle, understated, camouflaged bending to keep the funders happy. Candidates for Congress and members of Congressspend between 30 and 70 percent of their time raising money to get back to Congress or to get their party back into power, and the question we need to ask is, what does it do to them, these humans, as they spend their time behind the telephone, calling people they've never met, but calling the tiniest slice of the one percent? As anyone would, as they do this,they develop a sixth sense, a constant awareness about how what they do might affect their ability to raise money. They become, in the words of "The X-Files," shape-shifters, as they constantly adjust their views in light of what they know will help them to raise money, not on issues one to 10, but on issues 11 to 1,000. Leslie Byrne, a Democrat from Virginia,describes that when she went to Congress, she was told by a colleague, "Always lean to the green." Then to clarify, she went on, "He was not an environmentalist." (Laughter)

So here too we have a democracy, a democracy dependent upon the funders and dependent upon the people, competing dependencies, possibly conflicting dependenciesdepending upon who the funders are.

Okay, the United States is Lesterland, point number one. Here's point number two. The United States is worse than Lesterland, worse than Lesterland because you can imagine in Lesterland if we Lesters got a letter from the government that said, "Hey, you get to pick who gets to run in the general election," we would think maybe of a kind of aristocracy of Lesters. You know, there are Lesters from every part of social society. There are rich Lesters, poor Lesters, black Lesters, white Lesters, not many women Lesters, but put that to the side for one second. We have Lesters from everywhere. We could think, "What could we do to make Lesterland better?" It's at least possible the Lesters would act for the good of Lesterland. But in our land, in this land, in USA-land, there are certainly some sweet Lesters out there, many of them in this room here today, but the vast majority of Lesters act for the Lesters, because the shifting coalitions that are comprising the .05 percent are not comprising it for the public interest. It's for their private interest. In this sense, the USA is worse than Lesterland.

And finally, point number three: Whatever one wants to say about Lesterland, against the background of its history, its traditions, in our land, in USA-land, Lesterland is a corruption,a corruption. Now, by corruption I don't mean brown paper bag cash secreted among members of Congress. I don't mean Rod Blagojevich sense of corruption. I don't mean any criminal act. The corruption I'm talking about is perfectly legal. It's a corruption relative to the framers' baseline for this republic. The framers gave us what they called a republic, but by a republic they meant a representative democracy, and by a representative democracy, they meant a government, as Madison put it in Federalist 52, that would have a branch that would be dependent upon the people alone.

So here's the model of government. They have the people and the government with this exclusive dependency, but the problem here is that Congress has evolved a different dependence, no longer a dependence upon the people alone, increasingly a dependence upon the funders. Now this is a dependence too, but it's different and conflicting from a dependence upon the people alone so long as the funders are not the people. This is a corruption.

Now, there's good news and bad news about this corruption. One bit of good news is that it's bipartisan, equal-opportunity corruption. It blocks the left on a whole range of issues that we on the left really care about. It blocks the right too, as it makes principled arguments of the right increasingly impossible. So the right wants smaller government. When Al Gore was Vice President, his team had an idea for deregulating a significant portion of the telecommunications industry. The chief policy man took this idea to Capitol Hill, and as he reported back to me, the response was, "Hell no! If we deregulate these guys, how are we going to raise money from them?"

This is a system that's designed to save the status quo, including the status quo of big and invasive government. It works against the left and the right, and that, you might say, is good news.

But here's the bad news. It's a pathological, democracy-destroying corruption, because in any system where the members are dependent upon the tiniest fraction of us for their election, that means the tiniest number of us, the tiniest, tiniest number of us, can block reform. I know that should have been, like, a rock or something. I can only find cheese. I'm sorry. So there it is. Block reform.

Because there is an economy here, an economy of influence, an economy with lobbyists at the center which feeds on polarization. It feeds on dysfunction. The worse that it is for us,the better that it is for this fundraising.

Henry David Thoreau: "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." This is the root.

Okay, now, every single one of you knows this. You couldn't be here if you didn't know this, yet you ignore it. You ignore it. This is an impossible problem. You focus on the possible problems, like eradicating polio from the world, or taking an image of every single street across the globe, or building the first real universal translator, or building a fusion factory in your garage. These are the manageable problems, so you ignore — (Laughter) (Applause) — so you ignore this corruption.

But we cannot ignore this corruption anymore. (Applause) We need a government that works. And not works for the left or the right, but works for the left and the right, the citizens of the left and right, because there is no sensible reform possible until we end this corruption. So I want you to take hold, to grab the issue you care the most about. Climate change is mine, but it might be financial reform or a simpler tax system or inequality. Grab that issue, sit it down in front of you, look straight in its eyes, and tell it there is no Christmas this year. There will never be a Christmas. We will never get your issue solveduntil we fix this issue first. So it's not that mine is the most important issue. It's not. Yours is the most important issue, but mine is the first issue, the issue we have to solve before we get to fix the issues you care about. No sensible reform, and we cannot afford a world, a future, with no sensible reform.

Okay. So how do we do it? Turns out, the analytics here are easy, simple. If the problem is members spending an extraordinary amount of time fundraising from the tiniest slice of America, the solution is to have them spend less time fundraising but fundraise from a wider slice of Americans, to spread it out, to spread the funder influence so that we restore the idea of dependence upon the people alone. And to do this does not require a constitutional amendment, changing the First Amendment. To do this would require a single statute, a statute establishing what we think of as small dollar funded elections, a statute of citizen-funded campaigns, and there's any number of these proposals out there: Fair Elections Now Act, the American Anti-Corruption Act, an idea in my book that I call the Grant and Franklin Project to give vouchers to people to fund elections, an idea of John Sarbanes called the Grassroots Democracy Act. Each of these would fix this corruption by spreading out the influence of funders to all of us.

The analytics are easy here. It's the politics that's hard, indeed impossibly hard, because this reform would shrink K Street, and Capitol Hill, as Congressman Jim Cooper, a Democrat from Tennessee, put it, has become a farm league for K Street, a farm league for K Street. Members and staffers and bureaucrats have an increasingly common business model in their head, a business model focused on their life after government, their life as lobbyists. Fifty percent of the Senate between 1998 and 2004 left to become lobbyists, 42 percent of the House. Those numbers have only gone up, and as United Republic calculated last April, the average increase in salary for those who they tracked was 1,452 percent. So it's fair to ask, how is it possible for them to change this? Now I get this skepticism.

I get this cynicism. I get this sense of impossibility. But I don't buy it. This is a solvable issue. If you think about the issues our parents tried to solve in the 20th century, issues like racism, or sexism, or the issue that we've been fighting in this century, homophobia, those are hard issues. You don't wake up one day no longer a racist. It takes generations to tear that intuition, that DNA, out of the soul of a people. But this is a problem of just incentives, just incentives. Change the incentives, and the behavior changes, and the states that have adopted small dollar funded systems have seen overnight a change in the practice. When Connecticut adopted this system, in the very first year, 78 percent of elected representatives gave up large contributions and took small contributions only. It's solvable,not by being a Democrat, not by being a Republican. It's solvable by being citizens, by being citizens, by being TEDizens. Because if you want to kickstart reform, look, I could kickstart reform at half the price of fixing energy policy, I could give you back a republic.

Okay. But even if you're not yet with me, even if you believe this is impossible, what the five years since I spoke at TED has taught me as I've spoken about this issue again and again is, even if you think it's impossible, that is irrelevant. Irrelevant. I spoke at Dartmouth once, and a woman stood up after I spoke, I write in my book, and she said to me, "Professor, you've convinced me this is hopeless. Hopeless. There's nothing we can do." When she said that, I scrambled. I tried to think, "How do I respond to that hopelessness? What is that sense of hopelessness?" And what hit me was an image of my six-year-old son. And I imagined a doctor coming to me and saying, "Your son has terminal brain cancer, and there's nothing you can do. Nothing you can do." So would I do nothing? Would I just sit there? Accept it? Okay, nothing I can do? I'm going off to build Google Glass. Of course not. I would do everything I could, and I would do everything I could because this is what love means, that the odds are irrelevant and that you do whatever the hell you can, the odds be damned. And then I saw the obvious link, because even we liberals love this country.

(Laughter)

And so when the pundits and the politicians say that change is impossible, what this love of country says back is, "That's just irrelevant." We lose something dear, something everyone in this room loves and cherishes, if we lose this republic, and so we act with everything we can to prove these pundits wrong.

So here's my question: Do you have that love? Do you have that love? Because if you do,then what the hell are you, what are the hell are we doing?

When Ben Franklin was carried from the constitutional convention in September of 1787, he was stopped in the street by a woman who said, "Mr. Franklin, what have you wrought?"Franklin said, "A republic, madam, if you can keep it." A republic. A representative democracy. A government dependent upon the people alone. We have lost that republic. All of us have to act to get it back.

Thank you very much.

(Applause) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. (Applause)

Speakers Lawrence Lessig: Legal activist

Lawrence Lessig has already transformed intellectual-property law with his Creative Commons innovation. Now he's focused on an even bigger problem: The US' broken political system.

Why you should listen to him:

Lawyer and activist Lawrence Lessig spent a decade arguing for sensible intellectual property law, updated for the digital age. He was a founding board member of Creative Commons, an organization that builds better copyright practices through principles established first by the open-source software community.

In 2007, just after his last TED Talk, Lessig announced he was leaving the field of IP and Internet policy, and moving on to a more fundamental problem that blocks all types of sensible policy -- the corrupting influence of money in American politics.

In 2011, Lessig founded Rootstrikers, an organization dedicated to changing the influence of money in Congress. In his latest book, Republic, Lost, he shows just how far the U.S. has spun off course -- and how citizens can regain control. As The New York Times wrote about him, “Mr. Lessig’s vision is at once profoundly pessimistic -- the integrity of the nation is collapsing under the best of intentions --and deeply optimistic. Simple legislative surgery, he says, can put the nation back on the path to greatness.”

Read an excerpt of Lessig's new book, Lesterland >>

"In [Republic, Lost], Lessig ... details how money came to corrupt our government, how our broken system hurts both the Left and the Right, and what it will take to return American democracy to its rightful owners – the people."

Rolling Stone blog, October 5, 2011

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Quotes by Lawrence Lessig

• “[Conservatives] go to church, they do lots of things for free for each other. They hold potluck dinners. … They serve food to poor people. They share, they give, they give away for free. It’s the very same people leading Wall Street firms who, on Sundays, show up and share.”
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• “[Conservatives] understand: There are places for the market and places where the market should not exist, where we should be free to enjoy the fellowship of others. They recognize: Both of these things have to live together.”
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• “All of the great Disney works took works that were in the public domain and remixed them.”
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• “[The U.S. has] an economy of influence — an economy with lobbyists at the center, which feeds on polarization. It feeds on dysfunction. The worse that it is for us, the better that it is for this fundraising.”
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• “When the pundits and the politicians say that change is impossible, [we must say,] ‘That's just irrelevant.’ We lose something dear … if we lose this republic, and so we act with everything we can to prove these pundits wrong.”
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• “You don't wake up one day no longer a racist. It takes generations to tear that intuition, that DNA, out of the soul of a people.”
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