The
62nd Annual National Prayer Breakfast was held last week in Washington, D.C. According to the testimony of some who were in
attendance, there were several inspirational speakers, scripture readings and
stirring performances.
Regardless
of your political affiliation, it has got to be a highlight of the event to
hear remarks from the President of the United States. But according to Gary Bauer, President of American Values, who was there with
hundreds of other attendees, Bauer was stunned by Obama’s hypocrisy.
Here
are a few examples according to Bauer:
On Life
President
Obama talked about how “we affirm the freedoms endowed by our Creator” … an
obvious reference to the Declaration of Independence. The rest of the line says that we are endowed
“with certain unalienable Rights” … first among them being the ‘right to life.’
Obama left that out. He quoted from Psalm 139, saying we were “wonderfully
made in the image of God” … yet he avoided the previous verse, “You wove me in
my mother's womb.” The president talked
about the “inherent dignity of every human being – dignity that no earthly
power can take away.” Obama said a lot
about religious freedom … yet his namesake ‘Obamacare’ is forcing religious
business owners and institutions to subsidize abortion, sterilization and other
procedures they find morally objectionable.
On Religious Persecution
The
main thrust of President Obama's speech was religious persecution around the
globe. [According to a recent Pew
Research Center study, Christianity is the most persecuted faith.] Obama told the audience that he looked
forward to appointing a new ambassador-at-large for international religious
freedom … yet the position was vacant for more than 2-years during Obama's
first term, and has been vacant for the past 3-months. Clearly it is not a high
priority. He has minimized the importance of religious freedom in his foreign
policy and focused instead on promoting homosexuality. Obama has aggressively
criticized Russia's treatment of homosexuals, while saying relatively little
about churches bombed and torched throughout the Middle East and Africa. This orating
president has seldom emphasized the subject of Christian persecution in his
speeches. When he raises the subject of religious freedom, it is often in
defense of Islam, such as supporting a mosque at Ground Zero or telling a Cairo
audience that one of his responsibilities as president is “to fight against
negative stereotypes of Islam.” Some in
the audience were happy that Obama specifically named Pastor Saeed Abedini, who
was unjustly imprisoned in Iran. But unlike Presidents Reagan and Bush, who
would bring up religious persecution during important negotiations with foreign
leaders, Obama signed a horrible deal with Iran, while the fate of Pastor
Abedini didn't even seem to be an afterthought.
On Marriage
Even
while addressing the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama could not resist
the opportunity to promote same-sex marriage. He did it subtly … lamenting how faith (in his
view) is twisted to “justify hatred and persecution against other people just
because of who they are, or how they pray or who they love.” Healthy societies reject such sentimentality,
and try through law and custom to discourage certain types of ‘love.’ [An adult who is sexually attracted to a child
and who acts on that attraction is and should be discriminated against and
jailed. A man or woman who breaks their
marriage vows because he or she now ‘loves’ someone else is condemned by all
faiths.] In fact, Gallup's polling recently find that adultery is considered the most
morally offensive behavior, more so than cloning, suicide or abortion. Every civilization prohibits legal recognition
of incest … because that particular form of ‘love’ is fraught with obvious
dangers. Likewise, until the last 15-years
or so, virtually every society and every major faith discouraged same-sex
relationships and never considered extending it to marriage. Bauer says, “I suppose it is possible that
throughout all of recorded history every society was wrong and that we have
experienced true enlightenment only in the last decade. I don't buy it. I do not believe we are becoming more
enlightened. Instead, America is being
ripped away from its Judeo-Christian worldview. Same-sex marriage is already being followed by
demands for legal polygamy. The
legitimization of incest won't be far behind.”
I
must say, I agree with Bauer’s conclusion in reference to Obama’s hypocrisy.*
Just because someone attends a prayer breakfast doesn’t make them a conclusive
believer in God … any more than standing in a garage makes one an automobile.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor,
Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
* Def. hy·poc·ri·sy – noun: the practice of
claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does
not conform.
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