Letter to the Editor: Stand Together

By WILLIAM SHARP Castle Dale

Dear Editor,
It appears that if an issue has anything to do with worshiping God or keeping His commandments, the atheist left is determined to make the religious right bow.
They have succeeded in forcing Christians to stop the traditional American practice of openly worshiping God in state owned schools and government buildings. Now they are determined to take their agenda to the next level and force Christians to participate in their Godless termination of innocent children.
California and New York, under the direction of the left have enacted laws forcing employers to provide health care benefits which include coverage of abortifacient methods of contraception: i.e. birth control pills, the morning after pill, and RU 486, all of which act all of the time or part of the time to abort a child after conception (ask your local doctor to see the physicians insert contained with these pills, detailing how they work and exactly what they do).
At the center of this controversy is the Catholic church and our 2,000 year old stand against all abortions and abortifacient methods of birth control. As a major employer in both California and New York, the Catholic church now is engaged in a major court battle seeking to maintain their religious freedom to reject participation in these acts which clearly violate 2,000 years of our history, teaching and practice. According to observers the outlook is grim and courts stacked with left facing judges are about to attempt to force Catholics to obey a law which clearly violates their beliefs.
Like Daniel, Paul and others in the Bible who declared that “it is better to obey God than man,” the Catholic church has long ago taken a stand on such matters. The Gospel of Life #74 states that “Christians, like all people of good will, are called upon under grave obligation of conscience not to cooperate formally in practices which, even if permitted by civil legislation, are contrary to God’s law. Indeed, from the moral standpoint, it is never licit to cooperate formally in evil….”
This was the American way. The First Amendment to the Constitution: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, is now interpreted as Government shall make numerous laws respecting all establishments of religion and shall prohibit nearly all of the free exercise thereof and force religions to compromise on their moral beliefs. To quote a few of those who created American freedom: “Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God” Thomas Jefferson; “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other,” John Adams; “We must all hang together, or, assuredly, we shall all hang separately,” Benjamin Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.
Defending the right of the religious to refuse participation in gross acts which violate long held beliefs was the American way . If we are to avoid the complete take over by the atheist left, the Christian right must stand together and uphold religious freedom regardless of our differing beliefs.