Dear Congregational Leader,

Our nation faces a fork, a divergence between the high road and the low road -- and you and your congregation could very well determine the direction we take. The high road upholds America's peaceful tradition of Judeo-Christian tolerance and morality. The low road marches us toward militant secular-paganism, militant Islam, or both.

The high road upholds traditional marriage between one man and one woman, and the sanctity of innocent human life that springs from such unions. The low road favors homosexual "marriage" and child sacrifice (we're not referring to familiar abortion here – see below).

The high road upholds the rights of pastors, priests and rabbis to "speak truth to power" in the tradition of Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, (and for Christians) John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, Stephen and Jesus. The low road would officially censor the Judeo-Christian view from the public square.

Shepherds and Watchmen

DISCLAIMER: Who are we to so encourage you? Well, just a handful of Americans who are also rabbis, priests, pastors and teachers ourselves – Jews, Catholics Protestants, black, white and brown – who fervently pray that the light of the Judeo-Christian view, the light of the Scriptures and Liberty, will never, ever be snuffed out in our precious, free and tolerant land. We have nothing whatsoever to do with any national political campaign or candidate, and we certainly are not telling you or anyone how (or whether) to vote, endorse, or oppose – nor do we ourselves here do so.

But, you no doubt recognize that it is the role of congregational leaders to guard our sheep – and to stand as the Good Shepherd would to protect them from moral error (Ezekiel 34). You surely realize that we as watchmen will be held to account if we fail to sound the alarms (Ezekiel 33). So, we urge only that you pray, preach and teach according to conscience and your rights of free speech and free exercise of religion, fully protected by the First Amendment. In that spirit, here are some hard, documented facts your congregation needs to know right now.
 

• Barack Obama favors (in his own words) "the full and unequivocal repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act,"¹ which protects your state and all others from forced legal recognition of same-sex "marriages" performed in Massachusetts, California or elsewhere.² John McCain, on the other hand, supports the Defense of Marriage Act.³ People have a right to live as they choose in America, but they shouldn’t have the right to redefine marriage for all others of Judeo-Christian heritage or faith.
  

• Barack Obama also favors: Homosexual civil unions (the legal equivalent of marriage with respect to childrearing, adoption⁴, inheritance, tax and hiring law and freedom of association, requiring costly new government and insurance benefits that natural, traditional families and the rest of society must subsidize).⁵ He seeks to "ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits" of natural, traditional marriage are extended to same-sex couples.⁶ Quite contrary to impressions conveyed in the Vice Presidential debate, Sen. Obama does indeed support state-by-state homosexual marriage, by way of Supreme Court orders that override legislatures and dignify what we once called "sodomy" with religious legitimacy (and of course, the President appoints Supreme Court Justices).⁷ Sen. McCain, on the other hand, supports NONE of these things
  
  

  Mixing Religion & Politics Example of 2008 Obama campaign literature being distributed to churchgoers, without disclosure on the issues of Same-Sex Unions and Child Sacrifice.

  
  
• Barack Obama also favors full, open homosexual integration into our armed forces and military barracks.⁹ Our military women aren't required to bunk and bathe with male soldiers; is it appropriate to force any of our troops to do so with declared homosexuals? What about morale? And, Sen. Obama supports automatic "same-sex citizenship" for foreign homosexual "permanent partners" of U.S. gays.¹⁰ John McCain, on the other hand, supports NONE of these things.¹¹ (By the way, we've never met John McCain – nor does he or his campaign have anything whatsoever to do with this newsletter. We also disagree with him on a number of issues.)
 
• Barack Obama would expand the horror of tax-payer funded Partial Birth Abortion in the USA – a barbaric procedure that involves delivering all but the head of a fully-developed infant, piercing the infant's skull, and sucking his or her brains out.¹² Sen. Obama supports late-term, tax-funded abortion on demand – for any reason or no reason at all.¹³ John McCain, on the other hand, has a strong voting record in favor of defending innocent human life.¹⁴

• Barack Obama voted over three straight legislative sessions¹⁵ to kill Illinois' Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA) – which requires a baby who survives a late-term abortion receive protection equal to that granted other newborns. One of Sen. Obama's Illinois votes was against a version of this lifesaving bill passed unanimously, bipartisanly, and in essentially identical form at the Federal level, with the support of John McCain.¹⁶
  

A writer in The Jerusalem Post asks, "how doctrinaire must one be to defend actual infanticide? ...what in the life-affirming Judeo-Christian value system could possibly give license to kill live babies?"¹⁹ Asked recently, "When does a baby get human rights?" Sen. Obama replied that "answering that question with specificity, uh, you know, is, is, uh, above my pay grade." You can see it on YouTube.²⁰

When a fully-formed baby is butchered by way of Partial Birth Abortion, or a child with Down Syndrome is left to die in a utility room, can there be any doubt that the child has been sacrificed to some "American idol" such as Self, Convenience or that ancient false god, Mammon? Was Leviticus 18:21 merely a suggestion?

Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech,
for you must not profane the name of your G_d. I am the LORD.

Eyewitness to Illinois Infanticide

And, from Genesis to Leviticus to Romans to Revelation, could either Testament of the Bible be much clearer about the Lord's rejection of sexual immorality in general – and homosexual behavior in particular? Do we now hold that Moses (echoed by Paul in Romans 1) is meekly offering an option from the Lord Almighty in Leviticus 18:22-23?

Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is an abomination.

Barack Obama recently contested the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by declaring that, "I do not agree with General Pace that homosexuality is immoral."²¹ Well, Senator, how about agreeing with your Creator?

We Reject Racism and Bigotry

Here's what this journal of opinion is not at all about: Race or partisanship. We categorically reject racial bigotry of any kind, and with Martin Luther King Jr., we hold that a man should be judged by the content of his character, not the color of his skin.

With the Founders, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." The meteoric rise of Sen. Obama says so very much about our great country and how we have, to a considerable extent, put the evils of slavery, racial segregation, and Jim Crow bigotry behind us.

But, as pastors and rabbis writing jointly, we simply cannot support any social agenda that falsely equates the inherent, G_d-given traits of race and ethnicity with G_d-forbidden carnal desires and volitional decisions to pursue immoral sexual relations – or which asserts the "right" to kill an innocent, fully-formed child at the very point of birth.


The Law, Prophets and all of Scripture

The Law, Prophets and all of Scripture compel us to preach and teach that a decision to sacrifice the life of a child or to pursue same-sex intercourse or lesbianism, is a gravely serious matter of... sin.

Yes, politically-incorrect as it may be to say these days, same-sex unions and child sacrifice are still sins – as with others such as adultery, incest, pederasty, bestiality, substance abuse, and prostitution.

Marriage (de jure and de facto) is between a husband and wife, and cannot be anything but that as a matter of divine, interlocking design. Marriage is about bringing together men and women in holy union so children can have mothers and fathers. Do we really want to teach the next generation that half of humanity—either fathers or mothers, the offspring of Adam and Eve —are simply dispensable, unimportant? To enshrine same-sex unions in law is a hubristic attempt to redefine divine design, an arrogant act of humanistic defiance.

Besides, our young people are confused enough right now with sexual messages. Why, for Heaven’s sake, confuse them further? Although free societies must tolerate certain pathologies to a point, the Bible, medical science, and demographic science in combination make it abundantly clear that no healthy society should encourage, institutionalize or subsidize the immoral, unnatural practices of homosexuality and child sacrifice.

The USA, Israel and other western societies simply cannot afford to promote sexual immorality, venereal disease, infanticide and population decline -- if they are to compete demographically, defend freedom from its enemies, and finance social safety-net programs for the poor, disabled and elderly over the long run. Over and over again, Scripture seems to say that The Wealth of Nations springs neither from material things nor from military might, but out of obedience to the Lord Almighty.  Indeed, it appears Adam Smith borrowed that phrase in 1776 from the Book of Isaiah  (chapters 61 and 66) – and that a Hidden Hand may be working even now, in world credit and capital markets, to humble us all. Are we able, as in Daniel 5, to read whatever writing is on the wall?  In Heaven's and Nature's economy, what goes around comes around.


The Judeo-Christian View

With the Founders, again, we hold that all human beings "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty" – even in the case of helpless babies at childbirth!²² Such is the Judeo-Christian view, and the American outlook, and it is one that we of the Jewish and Christian faiths feel compelled by conscience to uphold – along with the very Biblical, very American free speech rights of pastors, priests, rabbis and other spiritual leaders to "speak truth to power."
 

Three Who Survived Gestation: Obama, McCain...and Trig Palin

Could Down Syndrome impair ethical development as much as some university degrees? At a place called Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, little people with Trisomy, like Trig Palin, have been destroyed by M.D.’s, inside and outside the womb – and Sen. Barack Obama voted to kill-off protections for those babies (see Eyewitness to Illinois Infanticide video above). About 90% of American children with Trisomy/Down Syndrome are killed before birth.

If a politician holds that homosexuality is not immoral, if he pushes for homosexual unions, gay military integration, "same-sex citizenship" and complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act -- which protects states from forced recognition of "gay marriages" performed elsewhere -- then we as leaders have both the right and the sacred, affirmative duty to somehow make sure our congregations know the documented facts.

If, like ancient King Manasseh or Herod, a sitting or aspiring leader endorses child sacrifice – especially by bloody, excruciating means such as Partial Birth Abortion – we must not only preach from the Bible on the sanctity of innocent human life, we are honor-bound to alert our congregations to precisely what sort of barbarism that person stands for.

We regret to say it, but sadly, these are indeed things for which Sen. Obama defiantly has stood, against the Torah and all of Scripture. And, in campaign literature circulating to churchgoers this year (see above) Sen. Obama has NOT clearly disclosed these positions. Let us be clear: We are NOT against Sen. Obama as a person or individual. We believe in the power of prayer and redemption to turn hearts and minds. We ARE duty and honor-bound, however, to firmly oppose the policies on same-sex unions and child sacrifice that Sen. Obama has formally embraced – and of which we must earnestly pray he repents, whatever office and influence he wields next year.


First Amendment Freedoms – Religion and Speech

There are "false prophets" out there who say that pastors, priests and rabbis cannot teach, preach and pray before their congregations on what the Bible says regarding homosexuality and child sacrifice -- while explaining where sitting officials and candidates stand on those issues.

These "secular imams” say a church or synagogue must observe a "gag rule" against moral criticism or application of Judeo-Christian standards to our leaders. Well, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – which protects the American freedoms of Speech, Religious Exercise, Assembly and the Press -- says that view is dead wrong. With a mouseclick,²³ you can download an authoritative list of guidelines with safe church/synagogue and pastoral practices for any congregation of any outlook. With another mouseclick,²⁴ you can find your way to a group for your state that offers congregational voter guides detailing where your state and federal candidates stand on moral issues.

For anyone of Catholic/Christian liturgical tradition, Fr. Frank Pavone offers via mouseclick a three-year lectionary on defending the Judeo-Christian Culture of Life from horrific forces that would bring new holocausts to this earth.²⁵

Although we do not here suggest that any congregation do so, you may be surprised to learn that "no church has ever lost its tax-exempt status for endorsing or opposing political candidates. This history alone should alleviate any unfounded fear."²⁶ One church even ran a newspaper ad (which upset the "Religious Speech Police"!), but contrary to wide misreporting, its actual tax-exempt status was unaffected.

And, yet, if the Free Exercise Clause means anything, religious leaders indeed must freely exercise those rights to inform their congregations where both the Bible, Judeo-Christian tradition and the politicians stand on matters of ethics, morality and public policy. If we do not, the “Mullahs of Secularism” – or perhaps the mullahs of militant Islam -- may one day forbid Torah references to the Children of Israel as G_d’s Chosen, Gospel preaching of the Messianic hope, or Judeo-Christian teaching on tolerance and morality.

All Saints, a liberal California church, preached a famous pro-John Kerry sermon in 2004, but the "speech police" huffed and puffed… and then crept away. In 2006, Pastor Ken Taylor at Calvary Assembly of God in Algoma, Wisconsin preached a "naughty" sermon that – Heaven forbid – combined Biblical ethics with naming the names of politicians! Then, he and his attorneys put the sermon up in a humorous YouTube video (watch it nearby) with a dare to the forces of censorship.

So far, the censors have proven be roaring paper tigers, or perhaps cowardly lions, when it actually comes to shredding the First Amendment.  Yet, their “roar” – and that of cheerleading speech-gaggers like the Rev. Barry Lynn, a member of Sen. Obama’s denomination – chills the free exercise of our Jewish and Christian faiths.

So, if you're a religious leader who somehow feels that it is John McCain who is in the wrong to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act and oppose same-sex unions, that Sen. McCain is in the wrong to oppose Partial Birth Abortion ... well, our Constitution also protects your right to use all of the information herein to educate your congregation as well!  Free speech and free exercise of religion are precious rights we all should be exercising and upholding – because the First Amendment gives us all, as a matter of peaceful religious conscience, the right to be wrong. Yet, in gentle and respectful hope of persuading you (or anyone) who may differ with us on the life-and-death issue of Child Sacrifice, we offer here the somber words of Dr. Bernard Nathanson:

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© 2008 The Judeo-Christian View, All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to reproduce this journal (print or electronic), accompanying Sermon Outline (print, electronic or DVD versions) with attribution to our web address.