Liberals Embrace Perry's Christian Values

Liberals Embrace Perry's Christian Values
By Jeffrey Lord on 9.20.11 @ 6:08AM

ACLU, Shriver, Cuomo, Yoko Ono, Reid, Obama stand up for Texan's beliefs.

Actions, as they say, speak louder than words.

And whatever the fear-mongering from the American Left about Texas Governor Rick Perry's belief that America should be based on "Christian Values" (Perry believes in a Theocracy! Perry believes in a Christian Dominion! Oh My God Perry really believes in God!) -- when push comes to shove, like iron filings to a magnet, there are no more fervent Perryites in the land responding to Christian values than some celebrated members of the American Left.

Including -- particularly including -- that notorious Christian Values group known as the American Civil Liberties Union.

Say what?

That's right. From one end of America to the other, the bluest of the blue turn positively crimson when the question is to live as Governor Perry suggests -- or not. Without fail the choices they make in both their personal and public lives have them choosing Perry's Christian Values over any other alternative.

Names?

There are names aplenty. They will be named here. And their actions are, thanks to their celebrity or political influence, well out there for all to see. No scurrilous, gossipy tidbits here. Just the facts ma'am. Just the facts.

So. Let's take a walk through this interesting list of liberals who exemplify Rick Perry's call for living life according to "Christian Values."

First, the Christian Values themselves.

Christian Values, or perhaps more accurately Judeo-Christian Values, are, to a considerable degree, based on a series of rules straight from the Bible. Rules that are considered such an outrageous violation of "separation of church and state" according to liberal talking points, that only last week the American Civil Liberties Union filed another of those famous liberal complaints regarding the posting of these unspeakable rules in a Virginia school district. This one was filed against the Giles County School Board for allowing the rules to surface in the Narrows High School, where a lone student and parent protested. Says the Associated Press: "The lawsuit says the display unconstitutionally promotes a specific religious faith and serves no secular purpose."

Catch that line? A "specific religious faith"? The display "serves no secular purpose."

Really? Really?

The rules, of course, are the Ten Commandments. And according to the ACLU they have "no secular purpose" -- a position with which American leftists everywhere are always nodding vigorously.

Or are they?

A most interesting fact of life -- if strangely never noted -- is that when the rubber hits the road all manner of celebrated American liberals, led by the ACLU itself, cling to the Ten Commandments with the tenaciousness of a dog discovering his last bone. Teeth bared, suddenly furiously aggressive, these liberals want their favorite Commandments obeyed NOW. Right NOW! Or there will be hell to pay. And there frequently is.

So let's take a stroll through the secular world the ACLU believes has no use for the Ten Commandments. (And yes, as your basic Congregationalist Protestant with lots of Catholic family members let me allude that my source is a Protestant King James version. Purchased, I might add, in that non-Catholic hold-out known as the Westminster Abbey gift shop. So for some readers the order -- but not the Commandments -- may be different!) The very Commandments at the core of the Christian Values Governor Perry says are so important -- and for which he is being mocked by liberal critics.

• Maria Shriver, Governor Andrew Cuomo, and The Seventh Commandment: Ms. Shriver has been involved in a massively public and extremely vigorous defense of the Seventh Commandment. What does the Seventh Commandment say? "Thou shall not commit adultery."

In a case that was everywhere a few short months ago, it was revealed that Shriver's husband, movie star, and now-former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, had been engaged in an adulterous affair with the family housekeeper. From which adulterous affair has come a son. This violation of the Seventh Commandment drove Shriver into a state of furious anger, we are told, and took a severe emotional toll on her children with the ex-governor. Said Shriver in a calmer public statement to People Magazine about her husband's violation of the Seventh Commandment:

"This is a painful and heartbreaking time. As a mother, my concern is for the children. I ask for compassion, respect and privacy as my children and I try to rebuild our lives and heal."

Added another vigorous if surely unwitting defender of the Seventh Commandment identified only as a close Shriver friend: "The magnitude of this betrayal and selfishness knows no bounds. I imagine her profound sadness that she was lied to for so long right under her nose, in her own house."

As the world also knows, her anger over her husband's refusal to obey the Seventh Commandment has now prompted Shriver to file for divorce, ending her marriage of some 25 years.

Says Schwarzenegger himself about his repeated violations of the Seventh Commandment: "There are no excuses, and I take full responsibility for the hurt I have caused. I have apologized to Maria, my children and my family. I am truly sorry."

Alas, Ms. Shriver is not the only headliner in the large Kennedy family circle to have suddenly expressed such outrage at the breaking of a Christian Value that forms the bedrock of Governor Perry's much mocked belief in "Christian Values."

Several years ago the now-Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, was in the headlines daily with similar anger about the violation of the Seventh Commandment. At the time, Cuomo was married to Shriver's Kennedy cousin Kerry, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy. The Cuomos, of course, had children. According to the vast news coverage of the day, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo was discovered to be having a Seventh Commandment-violating affair with the husband of a close friend. Andrew Cuomo was pictured by aides to be so devastated he was curled up on the floor in a fetal position. In tears when not enraged at this cold disregard for a Rick Perry Christian Value.

Not long afterwards the future governor and Ms. Kennedy divorced, their marriage irretrievably broken because of Andrew Cuomo's insistence that his wife had violated the Seventh Commandment. To underscore the potency of the Seventh Commandment, during Cuomo's recent and successful campaign for governor, opponent Carl Paladino accused Cuomo himself of adultery, then said he had no evidence of same. Either way the potent nature of the allegation can do serious harm to someone seen as falsely making the allegation -- or, as Arnold Schwarzenegger has discovered, proved to have in fact violated the Seventh Commandment that is part of Rick Perry's Christian Values.

• Yoko Ono, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and the Sixth Commandment: Ms. Ono, famously, was married to ex-Beatle John Lennon. Lennon was shot to death in December of 1980 by a crazed fan named Mark David Chapman. Chapman was convicted of a violation of a New York State law wholly based on the Sixth Commandment -- second degree murder -- and sentenced to twenty years to life. He has six times been denied parole as punishment for violating the Sixth Commandment. The Commandment reads in its entirety: "Thou shalt not kill."

In an interview with Time magazine given only a year ago, in September of 2010, Ono is every bit the advocate for the Sixth Commandment. She is angry -- furious some 30 years later that the Sixth Commandment was violated by Mark Chapman. And is clearly not disposed to advocate releasing Chapman from his jail cell, where he has been forcibly restrained since that cold December night three decades ago when he quite vividly violated the Sixth Commandment and killed Ono's husband, John Lennon. To underline her belief in the Sixth Commandment and that there must be penalties for violating this particular value of Rick Perry's, Yoko Ono has written to the New York State parole board repeatedly opposing Chapman's release

On October 22, 2009, President Obama signed into law legislation designed to strengthen the legal enforcement of penalties for violating the Sixth Commandment. Titled "The Matthew Shepard Act" the legislation established special penalties if the Sixth Commandment violation involved an intentional physical attack "because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person." Mr. Shepard, a young gay man living in Wyoming, was beaten to death by attackers because of his sexual orientation. So committed to the support of the Sixth Commandment were President Obama, who signed the law, and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, that they referred to this particular violation of the Sixth Commandment as a "hate crime."

• Harry Reid and the Fifth Commandment: Senate Majority Leader and longtime liberal Harry Reid is vehement in his defense of the Fifth Commandment. Quite specifically, he is an ardent supporter of a government program that is specifically designed to support the principle of the Fifth Commandment. That Commandment reads: "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God is giveth thee."

"Leave Social Security alone," Reid has snapped per the Hill newspaper in his unyielding defense of those who are the ultimate beneficiaries of Social Security -- aging fathers and mothers. In fact, it is Governor Perry who has taken heat for his insistence that the Social Security system not only is about to fail the core principle of the Fifth Commandment, but is a "Ponzi scheme" which needs to be radically restructured to protect the Christian Value Social Security is specifically designed to protect.

• Michael Moore, the Daily Kos, Keith Olbermann, Tavis Smiley, and the Ninth Commandment: It is by now almost a catechism of the American Left. "Bush Lied, People Died." To accuse former President George W. Bush of lying about WMDs in Iraq, a passionate pastime for the above mentioned among others, is, of course, to admit a specific and special passion for the Ninth Commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor."

Neighbor" in the global sense here being the unfortunate Saddam Hussein, late dictator of Iraq. The alleged "fact" that "Bush lied" (as opposed to being wrong) has all but driven the left into the frothing frenzies that testifies to their passionate belief in Governor Perry's Christian Values that prohibits "false witness" or, as the dictionary defines it, "a person who has lied." Think of that image for a moment: Michael Moore, a Rick Perry Christian Values supporter. Huh.

• Barack Obama, the AFL-CIO, and the Fourth Commandment: This Commandment is particularly sacred -- to American labor and, as Americans have learned, the President. The entire premise of the 40-hour work week and Barack Obama's golf habit are premised entirely on this section of the Fourth Commandment: "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work…"

Entire labor contracts are negotiated around the centerpiece that is the Fourth Commandment. Indeed, thanks to the insistence of organized labor, the Fair Labor Standards Act is federal law, enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor. If an American worker is forced to work more than five days a week -- let alone six -- he or she is entitled to something called "overtime pay." A cash recognition of the importance of the Fourth Commandment to the "secular purpose" that is everyday life in the American workplace.

And as mentioned -- let's not neglect President Obama. Here's the New York Times, the paper of record, dutifully recording Obama's faithful adherence to the Fourth Commandment -- possibly his personal favorite of the Ten. The President's way of not doing any work on Sunday? Why… golf, of course.

But perhaps the most vivid defenders of Governor Perry's stance on Christian Values comes from the American Civil Liberties Union. It seems that while the ACLU has filed that Virginia lawsuit saying that the posting of the Ten Commandments in a public school serves no "secular purpose" -- the ACLU itself is in fact repeatedly and busily demanding that the Commandments be obeyed in one secular court decision after another. In fact, the ACLU's devotion to Ten Commandments is so devout one might even wonder if it was created by the late Reverend Jerry Falwell.

Examples?

• The ACLU Supports the Sixth Commandment: As this is written, the ACLU is leading its website with a call for support of the Sixth Commandment. It seems there is an execution pending in Georgia for one Troy Davis. Davis has been convicted of killing a Savannah, Georgia police officer. But while the headlines go to the ACLU's protest that Davis is innocent, in fact the ACLU is standing firmly by Rick Perry's belief that violating the Sixth Commandment -- thou shalt not kill -- is a crime. Not only that, they are demanding the state of Georgia not kill Mr. Davis. Quite noticeably the ACLU is decidedly not asking that the Christianization of the Georgia statute books be halted and murder removed from the books as a crime. This is a complete contradiction of their Virginia argument that the posting of the Ten Commandments serves no "secular purpose." In Georgia that secular purpose was writing a law that made killing a human being -- a police officer in this case -- a crime. Yet the ACLU is not only making no attempt whatsoever to remove a Christian Value-turned-statute from the law books of Georgia. It argues only over the punishment for breaking that Commandment-turned-statute, and in the case of Troy Davis, whether Davis was justly convicted.

• The ACLU Supports The Eighth Commandment: On January 19, 2005 the ACLU pushed to have the Michigan State Police, in the ACLU's words, "stop re-victimizing victims of identity theft." Which is to say, in describing someone who has had something stolen from them as a "victim" of what the ACLU terms "theft" -- the group is identifying itself as a staunch supporter of the Eighth Commandment's Christian Value: "Thou shalt not steal."

Nowhere has the ACLU advocated that the concept of theft -- stealing -- be removed from the statues of the State of Michigan. Which is to say that once again the ACLU, by its own standards, is insisting that the Eighth Commandment be used as a weapon of the secular law. Literally serving the "secular purpose" of sending those who are proven to have violated the Eighth Commandment to jail.

• The ACLU Supports the Fifth Commandment: There is no group who is as fierce a defender of the rights descending from the Fifth Commandment: "Honor thy father and thy mother."

The ACLU has fought all the way to the Supreme Court (where, by the way, the image of Moses holding the Ten Commandments is literally carved in stone over the East Front of the Court) to limit the government's ability to interfere with child rearing decisions. As this is written it is championing the rights of elderly prisoners to be released "to their families to care for them."

One could go on here, of course. And on and on and on.

But the central fact is that the ACLU's lawsuit in Virginia insisting that the posting of the Ten Commandments has no "secular purpose" is a laughable… ahhhh… false witness.

Every inch of American law and its underlying values springs forth from a staunch -- one might even say culturally instinctual -- belief in Christian Values. The image of Moses is not only carved in stone over the U.S. Supreme Court, a marble relief portrait of Moses the "Lawgiver" (as the House refers to him) stares down at the House of Representatives from a prime spot over the House gallery doors.

The ACLU itself may be engaged in a daily effort to tinker with this or that aspect of the law -- but never, ever does it try to eliminate the central premise of the Ten Commandments themselves.

To the ACLU -- and all the left-wingers named above -- adultery is still adultery and they want punishment in some fashion when it is committed. Maria Shriver and Governor Cuomo two prominent cases in point -- and they are not even close to being alone on the issue. The idea of committing murder is something that Yoko Ono -- one of the most prominent culturally radical leftists of her day -- simply refuses to abide. In her case a full three decades after her husband's life was violently taken. The left-wing gay community doesn't want penalties for murder abolished -- it wants the idea of murder broadened to include "hate crimes." And San Francisco's Nancy Pelosi was right there with them. Bush lied, they said. He bore false witness -- and they wanted him impeached.

And on and on this devotion to one or another of the Ten Commandments goes.

Do the Ten Commandments serve a "secular purpose" in a high school in Virginia?

Of course they do. Just ask that well-known group of believers in Governor Rick Perry's Christian Values.

That would be the American Civil Liberties Union.
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To read another article by Jeffrey Lord, click here.