Religious Bigotry

            Do Democrats hate Christians?  It is becoming increasingly apparent that they do.  How foolish.  Do they really believe that alienating Christians will persuade the electorate to vote Democratic?  Yet, evidence keeps mounting that they harbor a deep resentment if not outright hatred for people who prefer to live their lives according to Christian precepts.

            The latest assault was by presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke who would deny tax exemptions to any religious institution that opposes gay marriage.  He’s not alone.  Elizabeth Warren has said that Christians who believe in the biblical definition of marriage are hateful.  Similar comments have been uttered by Pete Buttigieg and Cory Booker. 

            They are not the first, only the more prominent ones, because their presidential aspirations have put their anti-religious bigotry on display. 

            What’s at stake here is not just the selection of the next president.  It is the fate of our country as a God-fearing nation.  If the left has its way, we will be ruled by militant secularists who would have Christians violate their religious principles. 

            We’ve already seen it: banning bibles and Christmas carols at VA hospitals; lawsuits against religious displays on public squares; forcing schools to adopt an LGBT curriculum while preventing parents from excusing their children from such instruction; boycotting Chick-fil-A; forcing Sisters of the Poor to buy insurance coverage for contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs; suing vendors who refuse to provide services for gay weddings; abortion rights up to and even beyond live birth. And so on.

            As Attorney General William Barr so aptly put it recently, “This is organized destruction.  Secularists and their allies have marshalled all the forces of mass communication, popular culture, the entertainment industry and academia, in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.”

            The Democratic presidential debates are making it increasingly clear that voters at all levels of government will have to choose between religious freedom and individual morality on one side, and on the other a new secular morality imposed by socialists and others on the left who do not believe we are capable of governing ourselves.

Trumpian Calculations

            The word “calculating” has two very different meanings. The primary one has to do with computations, like in mathematics. The second one is much different; it means shrewd and crafty, or worse, coldly scheming or conniving. I haven’t seen the second meaning applied to President Trump’s decision on pulling troops out of Syria, but I think it fits him perfectly.

            The president’s announcement appeared to be impetuous, a snap decision justified by his desire to “bring our boys home.” It was nothing of the kind. It was calculated to appease Turkey’s president, Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey is a member of NATO and long an ally of ours. But lately Erdogan has been playing footsies with Vladimir Putin and makes clear that Turkey’s ties with Russia will strengthen if we don’t give him what he wants. That would put our strategic air base in Incirlik in jeopardy, and Trump doesn’t want to lose Incirlik’s missiles. Not on his watch.

            So, what is the price of Erdogan’ extortion? Freedom to attack and destroy the Kurds in their Syrian stronghold bordering Turkey. Why couldn’t he have just done it anyway? Well, there were 50 to 100 Americans in the way, and Erdogan could not risk retaliation from the U.S. for accidentally blasting those Americans with his tanks. Until Trump pulled them out, that is. As we see in the news, the Kurds are now being massacred.

            The Kurds have been our allies. The ISIS caliphate could not have been destroyed without them. But for Trump the extinction of the Kurds is a small price to pay to keep Turkey on our side. After all, he says, the Kurds didn’t help us in World War II. Or in Normandy. What ignorant nonsense.

            Trump’s craven decision has been met with condemnation by members of his own party. He richly deserves it. Add “craven” to the definition of calculating. It means cowardly.