Day Two of Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing was supposed to be when the probing questions about her fitness for the bench would begin. Instead, we were treated to more of the same from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee — a public charade that seemed like a healthcare campaign event for liberal policy priorities.

Ranking Democrat Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), who famously accused Barrett several years ago of having a “dogma” that lived loudly within her, opened with a blunt defense of the Left’s sacred cow. “Do you agree that [Roe v. Wade] was wrongly decided?” she asked Barrett. To her credit, Judge Barrett wisely declined to take the bait — but even then Feinstein wouldn’t let up, continuing to push her on the issue.

The posturing by Democrats rarely cracked throughout the day. After being quizzed by Senator Dick Durbin (R-Ill.) ad nauseum over gun rights and other issues, Judge Barrett politely pushed back. “To the extent, Senator Durbin, that you’re suggesting that I have some sort of agenda on felon voting rights, or guns, or campaign finance, or anything else — I can assure you and the whole committee that I do not.” Right after spending his entire time of questioning implying that she had an agenda, Durbin had to backtrack: “I didn’t say that, and I wouldn’t say that.”

Throughout the day, Barrett showed an empathetic, compassionate firmness throughout the questioning, identifying with the questioner but refusing to be bulldozed.

Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) finally highlighted what needed to be raised: the legal and constitutional maze on abortion created by the courts over decades. “Have we created a monster,” Lee asked? “Have we ourselves through our own inaction … created the … circumstances….causing people to protest outside of a nonpolitical entity? I think we have to ask ourselves that question from time to time.” The source of tension, as Lee pointed out, is that the people have been cut of out of the process on one of the most fundamental of rights — the right to life.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that Democrats were trying to spin the notion of court-packing, Sen. Lee pointed out, “[i]n recent days I’ve seen some in the media, some in this body, try to redefine what it means to pack the court… [which would do] immense political and constitutional harm to our system of government.” He was right to point this out.

After Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) spent his allotted time on a tirade about “dark money,” Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) pointed out the hypocrisy, since the biggest spenders in this election are overwhelming giving to Democrats. “Of the top 20 organizations spending money for political speech in 2016, 14 of them gave virtually all of their money to Democrats,” Cruz argued. “Only three of the top 20 gave to Republicans. What did that mean in practice? That meant the top 20 Super-PAC donors contributed $422 million to Democrats and $189 million to Republicans.”

But Cruz wasn’t done. “Joe Biden, although he refuses to answer just about anything about whether or not he will pack the Court, he did tell the American people the voters do not deserve to know whether he is going to pack the court. Truly a statement of disrespect and contempt for the voters, unusual in our political process.” As the Texas senator reminded us, we are “one vote away from the Second Amendment being erased from the Bill of Rights. None of our Democratic colleagues admit that that is their agenda yet those are the justices that Democratic presidential nominees are promising they will appoint, justices who will take away your right to criticize politicians, who will allow censorship, who will allow movies and books to be banned, who will erase the Second Amendment from the bill of rights. And how about religious liberty,” Cruz continued, before listing a whole host of ways in which the courts had twisted the meaning of the First Amendment.

Later in the day, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) shamed Senate Democrats for engaging in religious tests in recent years and highlighted other issues with fundamental constitutional rights like religious freedom sure to come before the Court again.

All in all, Barrett continues to show herself fully worthy of confirmation. Indeed, we are one vote away in so many key cases, and that’s why it’s so important to confirm Barrett and fill that seat!

Originally published here.

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Bible Probe a Testament to HUD’s Priorities

On Facebook, Wilhoit Properties says, “It is our sincere desire to do everything possible to make your stay here a long and happy one.” Unless, older residents found out, that stay includes the Bible. In Oklahoma, one of the 16 states where Wilhoit runs a senior living facility, a controversy has been brewing since March, when one of the tenants said all of the religious material in the common areas disappeared. A resident had complained about an angel decoration at Christmas, and that was apparently enough to scrub 116 properties clean of anything remotely religious. At least until Secretary Ben Carson got involved.

“Religious liberty is at the core of our nation’s identity and will be upheld under the Fair Housing Act,” Secretary Carson warned on Friday. “Barring religious materials infringes upon this right, and the Trump administration will not stand for discrimination against any group for practicing their religious traditions.” Wilhoit, along with Vintage Housing, Inc., will be the subject of a HUD investigation, Dr. Carson announced, after receiving complaints from residents who have been angry at the purging of Christian literature.

“If this isn’t stopped,” a family member said to a reporter back in March, “it will escalate…there is power in numbers. All I want is for this to be reversed and the books to be returned to the empty shelves.” According to the resident, books, puzzles, and decorations were all stripped from the libraries and gathering places. If that’s true, Carson’s team says, and there is obvious religious discrimination in this case, then they’ll demand a resolution — or refer the charges to the Department of Justice.

Either way, it’s refreshing to see Secretary Carson go to bat for religious liberty. With just 21 days until the election, it’s also another important reminder of what November 3rd is all about. What’s at stake is nothing less than our First Freedom. And we all need to ask ourselves: will it be safer under President Trump or Joe Biden? Read our platform comparison to find out.

Originally published here.

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Barrett Gives Senate Cause for Confirm

It took more than an hour and a half for someone to say it, but Senator Ben Sasse (R-Nebr.) finally did. Looking around the hearing room at the socially-distanced Democrats, he said bluntly, “I do not know what any of that has to do with why we’re here today.” Like the liberals before her, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) had just finished five minutes of requisite Trump bashing, apparently forgetting that it was Amy Coney Barrett on the stand, not the president of the United States. Every eighth grader tuning in would be “really confuse[d]” about what the Senate was doing, Sasse said. But grown-ups weren’t. To the Left, this wasn’t a sincere discussion about America’s highest court — it was a campaign rally. And a revealing one at that.

For long stretches of the morning, the bench almost seemed like an afterthought. Liberal senators ripped into the administration’s coronavirus response, the White House’s “misplaced priorities,” repeating lies about the president’s racism, his health care positions, and other half-truths that held no relevance to the proceedings of the day. But then, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) pointed out, there is an election in a few weeks, “so those attacks are not surprising.” What is surprising, at least to people watching, is how little anyone heard about the nominee. “I think part of the reason,” Cruz said accurately, “is that on any measure, her credentials are impeccable.”

When Democratic senators managed to pull themselves away from their 2020 soundbites long enough to focus on the issue at hand, they tried fearmongering on Obamacare — claiming that every American would lose their health insurance if Barrett is confirmed. Some senators even brought gigantic pictures of people back home who are “scared” of this nominee, worried she’ll “rip away” their insurance. She’s a “judicial torpedo,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) argued dramatically, a “smokescreen,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) piled on, before beating a dead horse on coronavirus failures.

In the rare moments when Democrats weren’t harping on Obamacare, they took turns calling the nomination an “illegitimate charade” — still smarting from 2016 when they didn’t control the Senate or have the votes to confirm Barack Obama’s activist choice, Merrick Garland. Senator Cruz and others took their time dismantling the argument, pointing to the 29 times in history when a president in an election year has made a nomination to the Supreme Court. Only now, Cruz argued, are Democrats calling the system the founders designed “partisan.” “The framers of the Constitution deliberately set up a system of checks and balances, so that nobody can become a Supreme Court nominee without both the president and the Senate… That design of checks and balances limits power and protects the voters.” And in 2016, “voters made a clear choice.”

Maybe it’s time, Senator Sasse said, to remind this country “what a president [is] for, what a senator is for, and what Judge Barrett is doing here before us today… This is basic civics, not politics… Civics is the stuff that all Americans should agree on…” Like the Constitution, like this process. “Civics doesn’t change every 18 to 24 months because the electoral whims change or because polling changes.” And yet, he went on, there’s this confused idea that the Supreme Court is “just another arena for politics.” That’s wrong, he insisted. “If you don’t like the policies in America, elect different people… Fire the politicians.” But judges are supposed to be impartial, not “super legislators whose black robes are fake and truthfully they’re wearing red or blue jerseys underneath.”

Then, in a final warning, he held the Democrats’ gaze and said slowly, “court-packing” is like saying “we should blow up our shared civics.” When Joe Biden stood in front of reporters this weekend and said that voters don’t “deserve” to know his position on that fundamental issue, even the reporters were taken aback. As Dr. Albert Mohler tweeted, that’s like saying, “I’ll tell you my position on monogamy only after you marry me.” Court packing is not “judicial reform,” Senator Sasse insisted, and anyone who uses that language “is playing the American people for fools.”

Meanwhile, one half of the presidential ticket who refuses to answer questions about court-packing (or, as Sasse called it, “partisan suicide bombing”), spent her turn in the Judiciary Committee claiming that Barrett’s hearing was “put[ting] people’s lives at risk.” Then, without a hint of irony, went on to lobby for a justice more committed to abortion on demand. “…[W]hat is at stake with this Supreme Court nomination… [is] Roe v. Wade,” Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) argues, “which recognizes a woman’s right to control her own body… Safe and legal abortion is at risk.”

Barrett, for her part, listened quietly, enduring the campaign speeches from Democrats, and the equally passionate Republican rebuttals that followed. When it was finally her turn, what Americans heard were not the opening remarks of a religious zealot, handmaid, or public enemy #1 of the U.S. health care system. They heard the thoughtful, compelling, and straight-forward speech of a woman who’s admired by colleagues on both sides for her love of the Constitution, her humble embrace of a judge’s role, and the personal warmth she has for her family, her great mentor, and America. She took her time accepting the nomination, she said, because of the sacrifices it would require. In the end, Barrett says, she chose to accept it because, “I believe deeply in the rule of law and the place of the Supreme Court in our nation. I believe that Americans of all backgrounds deserve an independent Supreme Court that interprets the Constitution and our laws as they are written. And I believe I can serve my country playing that role.”

So do we. Join us in calling on every senator to confirm the president’s stellar nominee, Amy Coney Barrett. Act now by clicking on FRCAction.org/FillThatSeat. Then, encourage your friends and family to do the same. For more information on the president’s stellar nominee, check out FRC’s new publication, “Why Amy Coney Barrett Should Be Confirmed to the Supreme Court.”

Originally published here.

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Freedom Sunday: ‘It’s Time for the Church to Be the Church Again’

Just seven short months ago, it seemed unthinkable that local governments in America would openly ban churches from opening while allowing other facilities to remain open. But then the coronavirus pandemic happened, which revealed the anti-religious nature of many in the seats of power in our country.

On Sunday, October 11, the church declared: “Enough.” “It is time. It is time for the church to be the church in America again,” said FRC President Tony Perkins during Freedom Sunday: It’s Time at a packed service from Calvary Chapel Chino Hills in California that was also livestreamed. Numerous speakers joined the service both live and remotely in a chorus of prayer and encouragement for believers across America to stand for their beliefs and their freedom.

“Religious freedom is in danger all across the board,” said Dr. Al Mohler, noting that it’s not just Christians that are facing unconstitutional restrictions on worship services, but also orthodox Jews in places like New York City. “We as Christians understand why — theologically and constitutionally — freedom of religion is the first freedom. If it’s violated, none of the other freedoms will stand … we are doing what the Founders and Framers of this nation would have respected.” Dr. Mohler was blunt about what the church needs to do: “It is time to say: enough is enough.”

Pastor Brian Hermsmeier of Slate Mills Baptist Church in Sperryville, Virginia did just that by standing up to Governor Ralph Northam (D) and challenging his unconstitutional restrictions limiting the size of church gatherings but not having similar limits on other facilities like restaurants and grocery stores. His courage led to the governor withdrawing his church restriction. Pastor Hermsmeier’s message to pastors for Freedom Sunday was to not be concerned with what people might say: “As a pastor, we shepherd our flock. I don’t want the people to fear. Pastors, you should fear the Lord. You have a responsibility to obey the Lord and fear him. Don’t fear man, fear him.”

Bestselling author Eric Metaxas emphasized the foremost importance of the church at this time: “The church is the last voice against what they [on the Left] are trying to do.” He underscored the true nature of the battle and what the church will need to do: “We’re fighting against something that’s not flesh and blood … It’s manifesting itself in a political way, and we need to stand with all our might and main and recognize what it is that we’re fighting and recognize that as much as we better vote, we better pray, and we better fast and pray, because that’s what we’re dealing with.”

Pastor Christian Ionescu knows all about the kind of persecution that can happen when leftist extremists gain power. He fled communist Romania and is now the pastor of Elohim Romanian Pentecostal Church in Chicago, where local authorities have tried to stop his church from meeting in person by blocking their parking lot.

“The church is not a video game,” Ionescu said. “We cannot operate online alone.” After many of his congregants found ways around the restrictions and met at his church in person, the city threatened to demolish his church. He is currently pressing his church’s case all the way to the Supreme Court.

“I think this society has no immunity to the Marxist agenda,” Ionescu warned. “They classify and divide citizens and antagonize them, young versus old, poor versus rich, black versus white, especially in America, religious denomination versus religious denomination versus the intellectuals. And the list can go on and on.” He had a strong message for leftists in the government: “Stop making us believe that you care more than we do … Stop quoting the Scriptures. You have nothing to do with the Scriptures. You are godless. You do not care about the Bible. You do not care about the church. Stop lecturing us in theology.”

Bishop Vincent Mathews, Jr. of the Church of God in Christ in Memphis brought a spirited message of unity to Freedom Sunday: “We must rise up and stand as God has called us to do. You’re not a black Christian, I’m not a white Christian, you’re not a Latino Christian or an Asian Christian. We are the body of Christ, and as we join together and serve, God will be magnified, and God will be lifted up, and Jesus will be lifted up in our land as we pray together and Satan is rebuked.”

Be sure to watch the entire Freedom Sunday: It’s Time broadcast, which also features Pastor Che Ahn, Ken Blackwell, Jerry Boykin, Garry Leist, Wayne Grudem, Amado Huizar, Rep. Mike Johnson, John MacArthur, Rob McCoy, Virginia Prodan, Carol Swain, Larry Taunton, and more.

Originally published here.