The Biden administration appears to be bent on eliminating the First Amendment freedom of religious expression from the United States despite claims the president is a “devout Catholic.”
Each parent has a personal responsibility to raise their children with the foundation to become responsible adults, in concert with the parents’ system of beliefs. This applies to children whether they’re adoptive, foster, or biological.
However, the Biden administration proposes a rule preventing parents with firm religious convictions from becoming foster parents.
The proposed rule, named the Safe and Appropriate Foster Care Placement Requirements, would necessitate that foster parents “utilize the child’s identified pronouns, chosen name, and allow the child to dress in an age-appropriate manner that the child believes reflects their self-identified gender identity and expression.”
Those who refuse to “affirm” the potential rule because of their religious beliefs would be deemed “unsafe” and ultimately rejected as candidates to be foster parents.
In response, state attorneys general from 19 states sent a letter of complaint to the Department of Health and Human Services, in which they observed the “rule seeks to accomplish indirectly what the Supreme Court found unconstitutional just two years ago.”
In Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love refused to contract with Catholic Social Services to provide foster care services unless they agreed to certify couples who are same-sex as suitable foster parents. The court ruled that the city’s refusal “cannot survive strict scrutiny and violates the First Amendment.”
Ironically, the proposed rule would hurt the foster care system because it heavily relies on foster parents and faith-based organizations to operate.
“In Arkansas, for example, one faith-based group was credited with recruiting almost half of the foster homes in the state,” said the American Family Association, “and in New Mexico, every private placement agency is Christian.”
However, it isn’t just the foster care system. House and Senate committees recently questioned officials at the Justice Department on their targeting of religious Americans.
GOP Senator Josh Hawley peppered FBI Director Christopher Wray with questions.
“Are Catholic choirs now breeding grounds for domestic terrorism?” Hawley asked. “The FBI sure seems to think so. Thanks to brave whistleblowers, we know the FBI has been interviewing priests and choir directors as part of their attempts to go after ‘traditionist Catholics.’ Shameful.”
Republican Representative from Texas, Chip Roy, questioned Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke about the arrest last year of faith-based anti-abortion activist Mark Houck for an alleged scuffle he had with an employee at an abortion clinic a year earlier.
When Houck learned the FBI was interested in the case, he contacted the FBI and volunteered to come in independently.
The FBI declined, and several dozen agents surrounded his home with guns drawn in an early a.m. raid.
Houck was then carted off in front of his wife and seven children in handcuffs. When the case was trialed, the jury reviewed all the evidence and quickly acquitted him.
Rep. Roy asked Clarke, “Have you apologized to [Houck] on behalf of the DOJ for that grave violation of his civil rights? Having his family have to watch him being raided at his home?”
“We follow the facts and apply the law; that’s our job…” That would be a definite “no.”
We may be able to accept these are “mistakes,” but they repeatedly have happened. However, they don’t seem to happen to:
• Anti-Israeli, pro-Hamas activists screaming death to Jews.
• Anti-semites, doing the same.
• BLM and Antifa protesters who destroy property or injure others.
• LGBTQ activists introducing kids to inappropriate material.
• Climate alarmists who deface artwork and then glue themselves to it.
Hmm…very strange. But it’s not just here. Around a month ago, a pro-life activist in England was arrested for a second time for the crime of praying…silently “in her head” — across the street from a known abortion mill.
“Isabel Vaughan-Spruce has been given a fixed penalty notice by the Thought Police,” said a self-described “troublesome priest,” the Reverend Calvin Robinson. He continued saying she was:
• Clearly not harassing anyone.
• Clearly caused harm to no one.
• Clearly not protesting.
But she was, in fact, “arrested for silently praying in her head, again!”
In the Catholic-majority country of Spain, its Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, made it illegal for Catholics to pray the Rosary in public. Before his current post, Sánchez served as secretary-general of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party.
Socialists? No way!
However, America is unique. The “new world” was initially settled by Pilgrims, who made the difficult and deadly journey in search of religious freedom.
The freedom of religion was deemed so crucial to the Founders that it was enshrined into the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The government cannot take away this inalienable right. It can only defend and protect it — whether it hurts someone’s feelings or clashes with an individual’s “preferred pronouns.”
