Tag Archives: Religion

Current Events

A COVID Christmas

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Please allow me to take this moment to say that I sincerely hope  all my blessed followers had a wonderfully merry Christmas regardless what your local dictators may have said. Mine said have a joyous Christmas with your families and friends, but then I consider myself fortunate by choice to have a sensible, for the people, Governor. My bride and I go to church every Sunday and then to a late breakfast at one of our favorite restaurants.  Life is good in Florida.

I will wish you a very happy new year if you can. I will not have a happy one as best as I can see into the near future. Our MSM wants you to believe 2020 was the worst ever. Well, don’t chalk it up to record books just yet for 2021 may prove to be a close competitor.

Here another thought provoking article from one of my favorite authors.

 

By: G. Maresca

 

American religiosity has been in decline for more than a generation and with the added fear of COVID-19, many Christian leaders have deserted their flocks.

Welcome to Christmas 2020, where the biggest crisis is not a virus but a lack of faith.

Church leaders have conceded to government diktats in this era of COVID-19 in a doleful attempt to brand themselves as benevolent.

The Constitutional right to freely worship, virus or not, was underscored with the recent Supreme Court ruling prohibiting arbitrary limits on church attendance.  Despite the court’s 5-4 decision, religious liberty has never been in more need of defense, especially when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo dismissed the ruling as “irrelevant” and “political.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom had imposed a 10 p.m. curfew, which would have made attending Christmas midnight Mass, a criminal offense.  Perhaps Newsom would find Mass more acceptable if it were celebrated in the French Laundry restaurant – site of his crowded birthday party?  This is another example of directives made by the faithless affecting the faithful in the ongoing leftist agenda to secularize America.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen would be appalled how the church hierarchy has acquiesced to the state.  The state prohibits Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, yet liquor stores remain open.  Churches should have had the same rights as beer distributors, pot smokers and abortion clinics – all deemed essential.

Mandatory masking, overflowing hand sanitizer, and social distancing are in vogue in houses of worship, but what is missing are the children.  Churches will not survive without them.  Few in the pews are under age 50.  Sign-up sheets, roped off pews, and parking lot services did little to bring anyone back, let alone evangelize.

Limiting, or worse, cutting off sacramental grace from Christ’s mercy has only deepened the divide.  The science supporting lockdowns has failed to stop the spread, and may prove deadlier than the virus it was meant to heed.

If anything, COVID-19 underscores daily that no human endeavor can prevent our eventual death from any cause.

Any government that has the authority to restrict your livelihood, family gatherings, and houses of worship is worse than any virus.  The alternative is subservience, empty pews, and lost souls.

The COVID-19 generation may never come back.  The unrelenting attack on Christianity will never cease until the faithful stop kowtowing to tyrants.  Science isn’t going to save you and it is no coincidence Democrats are leading the charge.  What do you expect from a political party that has forced religious sisters to provide for contraception?   The left knows all too well that faith can be exorcised by breaking one’s spirit and will.

Too many politicos claiming to be Christian believe Jesus Christ came to put a chicken in every pot rather than to feed souls and offer salvation.  As long as a portion of a bishop’s budget is generated from government service contracts, towing the party line will be its low-hanging fruit.

Where are the bishops’ supernatural faith?

Where are today’s St. Thomas Mores, and St. Joan of Arc’s, or Fulton Sheens?

Prophetic voices must emanate among the bishops to speak truth to this abuse of government power.  As suicides and other mental health issues increase, we need more prayer, not less.  The secularist, dictatorial governors and mayors and designated so-called experts seeking to oppress worship reveal their contradictory priorities, daily.

Christmas is not the time to take counsel of your fears, but recall the hope that only a sincere faith provides.  Has there been a year in living memory when the Christmas promise is in such demand?  The reason for the season is here, and never leaves.  Jesus was born during one of the darkest periods in human history as the Roman Empire begot moral depravity on an unparalleled scale.  Our Lord did so by entering the world in the humblest of ways to show He will go anywhere when invited.

In a remarkable sign, Jupiter and Saturn crossed paths this past week appearing as one body in the night sky.  They were closer than they have been in nearly eight centuries and was labeled the “Christmas Star.”

Many need to heed the message the angels announced that first Christmas: Fear not!

The child whose birth we celebrate is Emmanuel, “God with Us.”

If God is with us, who can be against us?

 

Originally posted 2020-12-26 10:26:05.

Current Events

Marines in Flight

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Are those Marines in the photo above running to a fight or running away from a fight? Well, Fellow Marines, it appears the current sick societal norms have now finally affected our Corps. Sadly they are running away from a fight — UNBELIEVABLE! I am sickened by the below article, which by the way was sent to me by my bride. 

The U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) has a legendary history of bravery and esprit de corps when it comes to defending America’s freedom. From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, the Corps hasn’t shrunk back from meeting any foe of the United States. So it may surprise some to learn that recently the Marines surrendered to a single activist who complained that an instructor at an upcoming seminar on strategy and tactics was a Christian.

The USMC scheduled an annual training for military lawyers earlier this month, at which the Battle of Gettysburg would be discussed. The instructor for one portion of that training was supposed to be Jay Lorenzen, an Air Force veteran who taught for 10 years at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Lorenzen’s biography, provided to the military lawyers in advance of the training, included references to Christianity, including his affiliation with Campus Crusade for Christ, now known as Cru, and a couple of religious-themed courses he teaches in his spare time. Several of those lawyers complained to Mikey Weinstein, who heads up a secular, anti-Christian group called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, that Lorenzen was going to teach about religion.

That allegation was false. It didn’t matter.

Weinstein, himself an Air Force veteran, is adamantly opposed to any form of Christian expression within the military, and immediately contacted the USMC to voice his displeasure at Lorenzen’s scheduled appearance at the training, calling Lorenzen a “fundamentalist Christian extremist parachurch official.” Within 64 minutes, according to Weinstein, the USMC informed him that the event had been canceled. It was replaced with an instruction regarding systemic racism within the military.

First Liberty Institute, a public interest law firm specializing in religious liberty, represents and has represented military personnel, including chaplains, who have seen their religious freedom rights unfairly and unconstitutionally curtailed by the various military branches. The legal firm is calling a foul.

Jeremy Dys is the Special Counsel for Litigation and Communications for First Liberty. In an op-ed this week, he explained why the USMC is making a big mistake in this case.

“Let us be very clear: the Marine Corps bravely cancelled a speaker chosen to lead a discussion on the battlefield tactics and leadership lessons of Gettysburg based upon his expertise as a retired military officer and academy professor because that retired officer, in his speaker’s bio, confessed to be religious and associated with a religious organization,” Dys said.

“Such open discrimination against people of faith is unbecoming of our beloved Marine Corps. From Article VI of the U.S. Constitution to cases like Trinity Lutheran to numerous Department of Defense (DOD) policies, the law is clear: the government cannot require a religious test for office, nor insist that religious people be excluded from benefits—like teaching to a class of Marine Corps reservists—because they are religious.”

In a statement furnished to Fox News, the USMC confirmed only that the event had been cancelled when scheduled attendees “raised concerns” about Lorenzen.

When the Marines go into full retreat mode over the issue of religious freedom, it’s time for an explanation and some new direction from the Department of Defense. The treatment of this instructor should not be allowed to stand.

Bullshit, it’s time for some serious discourse by we Marines with some of the so-called leaders of our active Corps. I would expect the retired Generals to be rising up in protest, but then maybe not. There are a few I know personally who will certainly come up on line. They were going to discuss the Battle of Gettysburg, not the resurrection of Jesus. I am seriously sickened by this action. Commandant, where are you taking my Corps?

Originally posted 2020-08-08 11:11:51.

Current Events

The Corps Part IV

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Okay Marines, don’t know if you picked up on this back in September when it happened. I did but I saved it for this series on “The Corps.”

A Sikh Marine is now allowed to wear a turban in uniform

From The Marine Times

By Philip Athey

The new headgear for Sikh Marines.

On Sept. 23, 1st Lt. Sukhbir Toor possibly became the first Marine lawfully wear a turban in a Marine Corps uniform.

The Marine Corps granted Toor the ability to wear his turban, uncut hair and a beard in uniform, in accordance with his Sikh faith, unless he deploys to a combat zone or while he is wearing a dress uniform in a ceremonial unit, The New York Times first reported.

The young Marine and the lawyers who represent him said the accommodations mark progress, but do not go nearly far enough accommodate the Marine in his Sikh faith.

The accommodations he was granted, “effectively amounts to a denial … it’s almost asking someone to compartmentalize their identity,” said Giselle Klapper, his lawyer from the Sikh Coalition advocacy group.

After several requests and lawsuits the Army changed policy in 2017 and now allows Sikh soldiers to wear articles of their faith and turbans with minimal restrictions.

Toor, the son of Indian immigrants, joined the Corps in 2017 and is serving as an artillery officer in 3rd Battalion, 11th Marines, at Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center Twenty nine Palms, California.

The Marine told The New York Times that when he first joined he was willing to cut his hair, shave his beard and wear the traditional Marine Corps covers, believing it was wrong to ask for something from the Marine Corps before he gave anything back.

But when he was selected for promotion to captain in the spring, he decided it was time to ask.

“I finally don’t have to pick which life I want to commit to, my faith or my country,” Toor told the Times. “I can be who I am and honor both sides.”

Sikhs traditionally wear five articles of faith that signify commitment to their religion. The articles include a small wooden comb known as the “kanga,” a small knife or ceremonial sword called “kirpan,” cotton “soldier shorts” or slightly longer underwear called the “kachera,” a small steel bracelet known as a “kara,” along with going without cutting their hair or beard, known as “kesh.”

The turban, or dastaar, over the centuries became closely linked to the Sikh religion. It is in the code of conduct and bears nearly the same amount of importance as the other articles, according to Learn Religions.

In June Lt. Gen. David Ottignon, the head of Manpower and Reserve Affairs wrote a letter granting Toor the ability to wear the turban and unshorn hair, but only in limiting circumstances.

“The real world consequences of the failure of a forward deployed Marine unit, such as the one you lead, could jeopardize the lives of Marines and those relying on them to complete their mission,” the general added. “The Corps cannot experiment with the components of mission accomplishment in forward units without assuming the risk of mission failure.”

Under the initial restrictions Toor was prevented from wearing his articles of faith while he was assigned to units that may deploy on short notice, like 3rd Battalion, 11th Marines, where he currently serves.

“Look, I’m on the ground level with the trigger-pullers every day,” Toor told the Times. “To them, I don’t think it makes a difference. We have men, women, people of all races in my platoon. We all wear green, we all bleed red. My Marines didn’t respect me because of what I had on my head.”

Toor also was banned from wearing a turban or beard in dress uniform in any ceremonial position, arguing it would hurt recruitment along with the Corps’ ability to convince the American people that it was “cohesive group of warriors capable of defending the nation’s interest.”

Toor immediately appealed the decision and received slightly greater accommodations that allowed him to wear a turban and beard while in garrison.

But he says the deployment restrictions and the restrictions on ceremonial units that remained were still unacceptable.

Klapper argued the deployment restrictions might put Toor’s career at risk if the Corps forced him to choose between a deployment and his beard.

She was also appalled by the reasoning by the Marine Corps when it came to ceremonial units.

“We’re saying the reason you can’t serve, or you can’t maintain your religious identity, the reason we have to erase essentially your religious identity is because you are in a public facing role” the lawyer said. “That to me is problematic because in reality it’s not under the law a reasonable argument and it’s also just extremely outdated in my view.”

The Marine Corps has not yet responded to questions about Toor or the branch’s decision to limit his accommodations.

Klapper and the other lawyers representing Toor have since sent a letter to the Marine Corps asking it to reconsider its decision in this case with the hopes that the Corps will either follow the Army’s precedent or at least work with Toor’s representatives to come to an agreeable solution.

But, if the Marine Corps does not come to the bargaining table or accept greater accommodations, the lawyer is prepared to sue the Corps in federal court, she said.

Appears no one in authority within the military is capable of uttering the word: “NO”. What about Women Marine Sikh’s. Can they wear that diaper on their head and cover their face? Of course, CMC Berger can’t say no, SECDEF will chew him out. Plus, we have to follow the U.S. Army’s lead. I mean hell we are no longer a separate and distinct service. Check out the Army’s story. Copy and paste the link below; you won’t believe it! If it wasn’t so tragic it would be laughable. I’m sure this uniform change will really help the poor recruiting issue.

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-army/2017/01/05/new-army-policy-oks-soldiers-to-wear-hijabs-turbans-and-religious-beards/

Originally posted 2021-11-27 10:03:48.