What’s interesting in the news today?
Open Thread
1. The Resistance begins……
From TheChristianPost “At a press conference in Memphis, Tennessee, members of the Coalition of African-American Pastors joined Christian ministers at the Church of God in Christ’s historic Mason Temple to warn the Obama administration to prepare for massive civil disobedience among pastors and clergy if state bans on gay marriage are deemed unconstitutional.
“If they rule for same-sex marriage, then we’re going to do the same thing we did for the civil rights movement,” said Rev. Bill Owens, president and founder of CAAP. “We will not obey an unjust law.”
“The politicians and courts have tried to take God out of this country,” continued Owens. “This country was founded on Godly principles. We will not stand back.”
Rev. David Welch, president of the Pastor’s Council in Houston, Texas, spoke out at the conference explaining the lengths people of faith might go to resist gay marriage.
“God created marriage between a man and woman and no Supreme Court jurisdiction can define this,” said Welch. “We stand clearly saying we will acknowledge God’s law no matter what the cost, no matter what the price. If they want to fill jails with pastors across the nation of every color, denomination and every size who will stand for the laws of God and His truths.””
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2. Texas isn’t having it.
From TribuneNewsService/MSN “Conservatives responded forcefully to the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage, but nowhere more so than in Texas, which openly defied the ruling.
“No Texan is required by the Supreme Court’s decision to act contrary to his or her religious beliefs regarding marriage,” said Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
Resistance to the ruling was deep-felt across the conservative spectrum and in many of the 14 states, including Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, which have had laws forbidding same sex marriage. To opponents of gay marriage, religious liberty trumps the Supreme Court.
“No court can overturn natural law. Nature and Nature’s God, hailed by the signers of our Declaration of Independence as the very source of law, cannot be usurped by the edict of a court, even the United States Supreme Court,” said Frank Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.”
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More here, from TheStatesman “County clerks can refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples based on religious objections to gay marriage, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Sunday.
Paxton noted that clerks who refuse to issue licenses can expect to be sued, but added that “numerous lawyers stand ready to assist clerks defending their religious beliefs,” in many cases without charge.
The formal opinion did not specify what constitutes a sincerely held religious belief, noting that “the strength of any such claim depends on the particular facts of each case.”
Paxton said Friday’s “flawed” opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned bans against same-sex marriage in Texas and other states, placed religious people in conflict between following their faith and the U.S. Constitution.
“Friday, the United States Supreme Court again ignored the text and spirit of the Constitution to manufacture a right that simply does not exist. In so doing, the court weakened itself and weakened the rule of law, but did nothing to weaken our resolve to protect religious liberty and return to democratic self-government in the face of judicial activists attempting to tell us how to live,” Paxton said.
Paxton’s opinion also noted that judges and justices of the peace can refuse to perform same-sex marriages.”
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3. The Democrats are gettin’ their crazy on.
From Powerline “The floodgates are open, and craziness is pouring out. The Democrats’ Confederate flag victory has them lusting for more. Hillary Clinton says South Carolina is only the beginning:
“It shouldn’t fly there. It shouldn’t fly anywhere,” Mrs. Clinton said of South Carolina….
In her discussion Tuesday with community leaders at Christ the King United Church of Christ in Florissant, Mo., Mrs. Clinton said the flag’s removal would be “just the beginning of what we have to do” to combat racism.
Of course it is. Everywhere, people preemptively abandoned the Stars and Bars. Alabama’s governor directed that it be taken down from that states’s capitol grounds. Amazon, Walmart, eBay and Sears all dropped the flag like a hot potato. Flag manufacturers terminated their Stars and Bars products. One leftist wrote Pope Francis to request that he denounce the use of St. Andrew’s Cross on the Confederate flag:
Doesn’t the fact that Saint Andrew’s cross appears on this evil symbol serve as an insult to the Catholic church which you lead?
But of course, it’s not just the flag. Shouldn’t every reminder of the Confederacy be eradicated? The New York Times headlines: “Calls to Drop Confederate Emblems Spread Nationwide.””
“It isn’t just the states who are participating in this historical cleansing:
Democratic Senators are reviewing the inventory of 100 statues and a few flags in the U.S. Capitol to identify and remove anything representing the Confederacy, in the wake of the Charleston, S.C. shootings in an historic black church.”
Some Democrats even want to dig up the dead over it.
From FoxNewsRadio “Memphis Mayor A.C. Wharton wants to dig up the bodies of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife and remove them from a city park in the latest and perhaps most despicable example of the anti-Southern cleansing spreading across the nation.
“Which African-American wants to have a picnic in the shadow of Nathan Bedford Forrest?” Wharton said in a Thursday press briefing.
In addition to desecrating the graves, Wharton wants to tear down a massive statue honoring the Confederate general who was involved in organizing the Ku Klux Klan. The bodies of Forrest and his wife would be relocated to a cemetery.
Memphis city officials have been waging a fierce and unrelenting war on southern heritage. In 2013, the city council changed the name of Forrest Park to Health Sciences Park. They also changed the names of Jefferson Davis Park and Confederate Park.
So now they want to disinter the dead? What in God’s name is wrong with the mayor? What kind of sick, twisted person wants to dig up dead people?“
No word yet on how they plan on getting around the Tennessee’s Landmark Protections Act of 2013, which prohibits exactly what he’s proposing. But hey, when have Democrats ever let the law stop them?
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4. How republics die.
From PJMedia “Eight hundred years and 11 days after the stamping of the Magna Carta, it’s been an appalling week at the Supreme Court for the Constitution and the rule of law. Today’s ruling is, in a sense, the Roe v. Wade of our generation. And I would think that even if I were gay and wanted to marry.
As I noted on Twitter yesterday, it is entirely possible to like the outcome of a court ruling (or legislation) while being appalled at the process by which it was achieved. For instance, one can be both pro-choice and still believe (as in factRuth Bader Ginsburg does) that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided.
But too many people (including, apparently and sadly, many of the justices themselves, perhaps even including the chief justice) think that the purpose of the Supreme Court is to give them things they like, like subsidies for health care, or the right to marry someone of the same sex. They care only about the results, and are utterly indifferent to the process (as we saw with the way the PPACA was passed). They believe that the ends, if sufficiently desirable,always justify the means. But the means matter.
If, as Chief Justice Roberts implied yesterday, ambiguous laws can be changed by judges per their divination of legislative intent, then there is no law except what the judges think it is. (I would note that in fact his reasoning was fundamentally flawed by his statement that it was Congress’s goal to simply “improve insurance markets.” I think their intent was to increase their control over our health providers, and ultimately lead us down a path to single payer. But neither of us knows.) This was not judicial activism — it was judicial nihilism.
Similarly, if the Fourteenth Amendment contains a hitherto unknown right to marry someone of the same sex, then it contains multitudes of rights that will be discovered in the future by more “enlightened” judges.”
“When we ignore and side step the Constitutional and legal process to achieve a desired end, the bedrock starts to turn to sand. When the laws are ignored by those who have sworn to uphold or review them, the rule of law itself disintegrates. When the public doesn’t care, or understand the role of the branches of government, but votes anyway for people who tell them they’ll just give them stuff they like, that is how republics are lost.”
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Wandering Views 
All I can say about the “ethnic cleansing” of Confederate History and the hatred being directed against the South right now, is be careful when you poke a sleeping bear. As a region we are proud of our history and won’t roll over and give it up. We WILL band together and protect our brothers and sisters of all races and religions, but we won’t tolerate this. I have heard many say over the past week that this is akin to what Reconstruction must be like. The rest of the country has never forgiven the South and we are the last group of people who can be openly mocked and have to stand for it.
I personally don’t care one way or another about the Confederate flag, but I do have a good sense of history. Don’t wipe it out and act like it never existed. I understand they are wanting to ban “Gone With The Wind” now. Be careful. What they take away from one group of people today, they will take away from you tomorrow.
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Some of you may remember Weekender Man” (who had to leave us because a troll kept reporting him to the newspaper where he worked) He posted this on FB over the weekend and it’s humorous but sad;
http://dailycurrant.com/2015/06/26/confederate-flag-kills-7-at-alabama-shopping-mall/
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There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation…
One is by sword…
The other is by debt.”
John Adams 1826.
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Kim, that was shopping mall violence. Nothing to be alarmed about.
I would not be the man who attempts to prosecute a preacher or clerk who refused to perform a wedding or issue a marriage license..
If you want your picture on FoxNews, arrest a Baptist preacher.
Pastor Steve thinks it will come to that. ButI don’t think the country is ready yet.
I don’t see how a Catholic priest can do that. Marriage, to a Catholic, is a holy sacrament.
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#3 — so true, they’re in fine form, indeed. 😦
And it is kind of funny when you think that what the Supreme Court really tried to do is overturn nature and natural law. But I guess I’m not really allowed to say that now. 🙄
Full disclosure: I have a blue-and-white St. Andrew’s cross hitch cover on my Jeep. Will that have to go, too?
As I’ve said, it would be funny if it weren’t so tragically anti-First Amendment.
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Lol. to the article, Kim. I have, no doubt, offended many by sharing it. Let the insults begin. 😉
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I shared it too.
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Plan B: Give the Perverted States of America back to the Indians.
http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/us/native-americans-say-no-to-gay-marriage
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Plan C: Declare war on Turkey, then immediately surrender.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/28/us-turkey-rights-pride-idUSKCN0P80OQ20150628
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We are intolerant? What about the Liberals? Here is an article about a doctor who got fired for “citing the health dangers” of homosexual relationships.
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#2 above: Go Texas! Maybe I should leave ever-increasingly Liberal Missouri for the Lone Star State.
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Peter: You’re finally catching on…
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Geraldo Rivera said today that now people can marry whoever they want to and I thought, No you can;t You can’t marry your sister, someone who is already married or someone else when you are already married. Well, yet.
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The less time you spend listening to Geraldo Rivers, the better you will be.
OTOH, I like what I hear Bobby Jindal saying. I think we have a good batch to choose from.
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Rivera, I know someone will catch that. .
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Funny true story about the Confederate Flag. I live in an integrated working class neighborhood in the Deep South. Most everyone I’ve met seems like good people.. One day I’m driving home and I notice a neighbor on the next street has hung Confederate flag. Hadn’t seen one in awhile but still didn’t worry too much. Few weeks later I see a black family has moved in next door. Now I’m thinking Uh Oh! A couple weeks later I drive by and the two families are having a cook out/ pool party together. By pool party I mean the kids had one of those little plastic pools you get from Wal Mart. They must still be getting along. I haven’t seen the police or Al Sharpton out front yet.
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Sometimes a flag is just a flag.
Although I see where the KKK (all 5 members?) are planning a protest in S.C. on July 18(?). That’ll help.
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I think it was the white house lit up in rainbow colors that kind of did it for me. 🙂
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/erikraymond/2015/06/29/dear-christian-friends-remember-you-are-not-home/
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In talking with a number of Christians last week I was struck by how the Supreme Court decision to legalize same sex marriage brought such an unsettling clarity to their perspective. Any morning fog that lingered in our minds that this was a nation that was at least neutral towards biblical Christianity was quickly eradicated last Friday. With the court’s affirmation, the chorus of celebrations on the news and in our neighborhoods, and then the White House being lit up in rainbow colors to celebrate the decision, it seemed to bring clarity. Most Christians knew this deep down but for some it did not home until last week. At some point they looked up and said, “I’m not welcome here.”
WHAT NOT TO DO
What do you do about this?
Well, we definitely should not turn into a bunch of evangelical jerks. As tempting as it may be to join in the tit-for-tat sarcasm, mocking, and crudeness, we must remember that we have a higher calling than such sophomoric trolling. We reflect Christ in our speech, conduct, and love.
We also should not shut-up. The court’s decision on marriage does not change what we believe about marriage. The Bible is still very clear and the church’s practice remains very clear. This changes nothing for us; we still have a prophetic voice to speak the truth of biblical marriage and how it displays the glory of the gospel. We still have something to say. ….
We do need to remember that this is not our home. Christians have for centuries lived in communities that did not welcome them. However, they made it and the gospel made it.
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