By L.A. Williams, Correspondent
Christian Action League
As Christians in America prepare to celebrate the birth of their Savior, many may find themselves having to fight for their right to do so in a country that was founded on religious freedom.
“The secularists push continues to remove any and all Christian references from our society,” said the Rev. Mark Creech. “And every time we allow it, we add momentum to their movement and give away our most fundamental right to freely exercise our faith.”
A handful of recent incidents illustrate the point:
Christmas trees are banned from University of North Carolina libraries; Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has come under attack for her favorable remarks on faith during the Capitol tree lighting; and just in time for the holidays an activist judge in South Carolina halted the production of license plates that feature a cross and the words “I Believe.” We won’t even mention the fact that children in Wilmington nearly lost their right to sing “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” at a school program because of a complaint that the song included the words “Christmas” and “Santa.”
“Some of these incidents and the bizarre ‘politically correct’ arguments used to justify suppression of Christian expression are ludicrous to the point of hilarity,” said Creech, “but in truth this is no laughing matter. It goes to the very heart of our Constitution.”
Sarah Michalak, the associate provost who nixed the long tradition of having trees in the UNC libraries did it in the name of diversity of course, telling the media that “We strive in our collection to have a wide variety of ideas. It doesn’t seem right to celebrate one particular set of customs.”
So, as UNC-Wilmington professor Mike Adams points out, “for Michalak, there is an easy remedy to the problem of representing only one belief system when one is supposed to represent many: Add even less belief systems until you don’t represent any!”
Apparently, as Adams has also pointed out, this imperative to offer diverse ideas was not part of UNC’s thinking when it assigned a Muslim prayer book to freshmen a few years ago.
“The students were not allowed to choose a prayer book from a list of ‘all belief systems.’ They were only allowed to ‘celebrate one particular set of customs,'” Adams writes.
As for the Pelosi incident, the Rev. Rob Schenck of Washington, D.C.-based Faith and Action told the media that when he went to thank Pelosi for keeping Christ in the observance of Christmas at the capitol, Pelosi told him she “got mugged for that,” referring to political pressure.
“If one of the most liberal, arguably left-wing political leaders in our country, the woman third in succession to the presidency, is getting pummeled for lighting a Christmas tree and allowing Christmas carols on the lawn of the Capitol, that would qualify as a war against Christmas,” Schenck told WorldNetDaily.
The war in fact is against not only Christmas, but Christians, as evidenced Thursday in South Carolina, when U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie issued an injunction halting the state from producing specialty “I Believe” license plates after complainants said the tags violated the separation of church and state.
South Carolina’s Lt. Governor Andre Bauer told the media that drivers requesting the Christian plate should be able to share the road with those already displaying the state’s secular plate which says “In Reason We Trust.”
“You know, it’s amazing to me that atheists and non-believers can purchase a secular license plate that they requested, but that same first amendment right given to them they now deny to others who want to purchase a different type of license plate,” Bauer said.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State had filed a lawsuit against the plates which had been approved by S.C. lawmakers in July, only after the state was already offering some 200 different plates to let drivers show off their support for trendy environmental causes or hobbies such as bicycling, fishing, golfing, square dancing and NASCAR. The state charges up to $70 for those plates with the profit sent to the sponsor. No organization was to benefit from the sales of the “I believe” plate.