DESTROYING THE REPUBLIC
In the past several weeks the various branches of the Federal government have virtually destroyed the very fabric of our Constitutional Republic. Obama has continued with his efforts to dismantle our economy and the Constitution with more illegal and unconstitutional Federal agency regulations and with the promise of more Executive orders aimed at gutting the Bill of Rights.
The Republican controlled Congress did its part by passing mostly secret legislation that apparently gives Obama the right to enter into International treaties and send them to Congress for a straight up or down majority vote, with no amendments allowed. This action totally ignores the provisions of Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution that requires that all treaties entered into by the President be ratified by a two thirds majority of the United States Senate.
Now we have two decisions by the Supreme Court that have trashed the Constitution by once again giving rubber stamp approval to the entirely unconstitutional Obamacare legislation by essentially rewriting the law. Then it ignores the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution that states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
The fact is that the word marriage does not appear anywhere in the Constitution and certainly not in the Fourteenth Amendment. The laws concerning marriage are therefore entirely in the hands of the states. Yet, five unelected SCOTUS justices have placed their own political agenda above the Constitution and created a new Federal law mandating the acceptance of gay marriage by all 50 states.
The effect is expertly summed up by two of the country’s outstanding Constitutional attorneys: William Olson and Herb Titus. Both have been working with the United States Justice Foundation on various projects for years and the article printed below is the last of 14 articles prepared for the USJF by some of the finest legal minds in the country. All can be viewed on our website at www.usjf.net.
We intend to be in the forefront of resistance to this declaration of a dictatorship in our country.
Building the Resistance to Same-Sex Marriage
(fourteenth in a series of articles)
Obergefell v. Hodges: Illegitimate, Unlawful, and a Fraud on the American People
by Herbert W. Titus and William J. Olson; June 26, 2015
There is simply no other way to say it.
The Supreme Court’s decision today redefining marriage to include couples of the same sex is wholly illegitimate and unlawful. A nullity. Worthy only to be disobeyed.
Anyone who says otherwise -- that the rule of law requires recognition of same-sex marriage -- is committing a fraud. And any State official -- like Governor Robert Bentley of Alabama -- who says that his oath of office requires unconditional obedience to the Supreme Court’s mandate to issue same-sex couples licenses to marry is mistaking his oath to the Constitution as if it were an oath of absolute obedience to five justices who happen to be sitting on the nation’s highest court.
As Chief Justice Roberts in dissent has described the action taken today:
“Five lawyers have closed debate and enacted their own vision of marriage as a matter of constitutional law. Stealing this issue from the people ....”
And just who are these lawyers? Justice Scalia reminds us that they are all educated at either Harvard or Yale, from the east- and west- coasts, not from the vast middle of the country, and not a single one an evangelical Christian or a Protestant, and then observes:
“The strikingly unrepresentative character of the body voting on today’s upheaval would be irrelevant if they were functioning as judges, answering the legal question whether the American people had ever ratified a constitutional provision that was understood to proscribe the traditional definition of marriage.”
Indeed, from the outset of his bare majority decision, Justice Kennedy did not even act like a judge. Rather, he wrote as if he were an existentialist philosopher seeking the meaning of life, as if the “liberty” protected in the Constitution was a personal quest “to define and express [one’s personal] identity.”
But the Constitution is not some philosophical work written by Jean Paul Sartre. Rather, it is a political and legal document designed by America’s founders to secure the unchanging God-given rights to life, liberty, and property which are deeply rooted in the 18th century soil of the nation. Justice Kennedy showed no regard for these fixed principles, opting for an evolutionary approach to law -- asserting that the existential definition of marriage changes with changing times.
However, the very purpose of our Constitution is, as Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in Marbury v. Madison, to make “permanent” those principles that the people desired. And, so that those principles would not be “mistaken or forgotten,” the people committed them to writing. Thus, Marshall wrote “it is the province and duty for the courts to say what the law is,” not to make it up as we go along.
As today’s dissenting Chief Justice observed, “[t]hose who founded our country would not recognize the majority’s conception of the judicial role”:
“They after all risked their lives and fortunes for the precious right to govern themselves. They would have never imagined yielding that right on a social policy to unaccountable and unelected judges. And they certainly would not have been satisfied by a system of empowering judges to override policy judgments so long as they do so after ‘a quite extensive discussion.’”
And, as the capstone of his dissent, the Chief Justice concluded: “the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.” In those nine simple words, Chief Justice Roberts explained why this decision of the Court is not law. If the Constitution had nothing to do with it, the Court had no jurisdiction to issue it. It is, therefore, a nullity.
In the words of Justice Felix Frankfurter, a brilliant jurist who understood the dangers of hubris on the highest court in the land -- may Obergefell v. Hodges prove to be a “derelict on the waters of the law.” And it will be -- but only if the American people rise up and resist this gross perversion of the rule of law.
Approximately one month ago, the U.S. Justice Foundation began to organize the writing and publication of a series of articles in a series entitled “Building the Resistance to Same-Sex Marriage.” This project was undertaken in the hope that the Supreme Court would not recklessly decide the same-sex marriage case, but nonetheless, we prepared for the worst, and sadly, the Supreme Court has disappointed us again. Hopefully over the coming weeks and months, state and local government officials and the people at large will be able to draw from these articles justification and techniques to resist the Supreme Court’s lawless decision.
In Article II, we established that the Fourteenth Amendment in no way addressed the issue of same-sex marriage. In Article III, Robert Reilly explained how poorly these cases have been litigated by government lawyers supposedly defending same-sex marriage. In Article IV, Pastor James Taylor explained the biblical and moral basis for traditional marriage. In Article V, Houston attorney J. Mark Brewer anticipated how courts will manipulate today’s rulings to penalize those in business and the professions who embrace biblical marriage. In Article VI, former Congressman John Hostettler explained that if a soldier has the duty to disobey an unlawful order, how could a state official not have that same duty? In Article VII, former federal magistrate Joe Miller discussed why it would be a violation of federal law and judicial ethics for Justices Ginsburg and Kagan to participate in the decision, yet both did so today.
In Article VIII, Pastor Matthew Trewhella provided a historical context for Christian resistance by lower government officials to illegal actions by higher government officials, known as “The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate.” In Article IX, we discussed the apparent efforts of the Supreme Court to bury the motion for recusal filed by the Foundation for Moral Law so that Justices Ginsburg and Kagan could more easily disregard their duty. In Article X, constitutional attorney Edwin Vieira explained how decisions like today’s decision violate the Constitution’s “good behavior” standard, leaving them susceptible to removal. In Article XI, former U.S. attorney Tom Ashcraft laid out the process by which Congress can limit the jurisdiction of federal courts, using the power Congress was expressly given in the U.S. Constitution. In Article XII, Senior Virginia Delegate Robert G. Marshall discussed how Congress could immediately use the Appropriations Power to prevent implementation of an unlawful decision such as that issued today. And lastly, in Article XIII, former Oklahoma Representative Charles Key described the responsibility and duty of every citizen, when serving on a jury, to decide both the facts and the law in every case, known as jury nullification.
This series of articles has demonstrated that a Supreme Court decision mandating same-sex marriage would be illegitimate. As Blackstone said, it would not just be bad law; it would be no law at all. That decision has now transpired. These articles also demonstrate that the American people and our elected officials have many ways to resist the unconstitutional decision of the Court. The question now is, will our political leaders abandon the true Constitution to embrace the decision of the Court?
In the coming days we will continue to be releasing articles further discussing the justification for and techniques that can be used by Congress, state officials, and the American people to resist today’s unlawful decision. We urge supporters of traditional marriage to view today’s loss as a setback, but by no means a final decision of anything. The battle continues.
Herbert W. Titus taught Constitutional Law for 26 years, and concluded his academic career as the Founding Dean of Regent Law School. William J. Olson served in three positions in the Reagan Administration. Together they have filed over 80 briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court, and dozens more in lower courts, addressing important public policy issues. They now practice law together at William J. Olson, P.C. They can be reached at traditionalmarriage@lawandfreedom.com or twitter.com/Olsonlaw.
This article is part of a series on “Building Resistance to Same-Sex Marriage.” Please support this important work with a contribution to the U.S. Justice Foundation. Permission is freely granted to publish, copy, reproduce, distribute, or excerpt from this article for any purpose. -- Michael Connelly

Black civil rights icon and former Mayor of Atlanta Andrew Young says that debate over the Confederate flag is a divisive non-issue which completely distracts from the real problem – the fact that 93% of blacks are killed by other blacks.
Young is widely recognized as a prominent activist for the African-American civil rights movement, having been a personal friend and supporter of Martin Luther King. Young marched with King in Selma, Alabama and was with King when he was assassinated. He was also instrumental in pushing through the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Young, a former Democratic Congressman, was also the United States Ambassador to the United Nations and served as President of the National Council of Churches USA. He cannot be dismissed as an “Uncle Tom” or an apologist for right-wing Republicans.

Who is Responsible for the Atrocities in the Muslim World?

• If colonialism were the main problem, Muslims, too, still are, colonizers -- and not particularly "humanitarian" ones, at that.
• Islamic jihad and Islamic violence; the sanctioning of sex slavery; dehumanization of women; hatred and persecution of non-Muslims have been commonplace in the Islamic world ever since the inception of the religion. Deny everything and blame "the infidel."
• But is it America that tells these men to treat their wives or sisters as less than fully human? If we want to criticize the West for what is going on in the Muslim world, we should criticize it for not doing more to stop these atrocities.
• Trying to whitewash the damage that the Islamic ideology has done to the Muslim world, while putting the blame of Islamic atrocities on the West, will never help Muslims face their own failures and come up with progressive ways to resolve them.

Every time the ISIS, Boko Haram, Iran, or any terrorist group in the Muslim world is discussed, many people tend to hold the West responsible for the devastation and murders they commit. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Blaming the failures in the Muslim world on Western nations is simply bigotry and an attempt to shift the blame and to prevent us from understanding the real root cause of the problem.
When these Islamic terrorist groups abduct women to sell them as sex-slaves or "wives;" conduct mass crucifixions and forced conversions; behead innocent people en masse; try to extinguish religious minorities and demolish irreplaceable archeological sites, the idea that this is the fault of the West is ludicrous, offensive and wrong.
Western states, like many other states, try to protect the security of their citizens. What they essentially need, therefore, are peaceful states as partners with which they can have economic, commercial and diplomatic relations. They do not need genocidal terrorist groups that destroy life, peace and stability in huge swaths across the Muslim world.
Western states also have democratic and humanitarian values, which Islamic states do not. The religious and historical experiences of the Western world and the Islamic world are so enormously different that they ended up having completely different cultures and values.
The West, established on Jewish, Christian and secular values, has created a far more humanitarian, free and democratic culture. Sadly, much of the Muslim world, under Islamic sharia law, has created a misogynistic, violent and totalitarian culture.
This does not mean that the West has been perfect and sinless. The West still commits some appalling crimes: Europe is guilty of paving the way for the slaughter of six million Jews in the Holocaust, and for still not protecting its Jewish communities. Even today, many European states contort logic to recognize Hamas, which openly states that it aims to commit genocide against Jewish people.
The West, however, accepts responsibility for the failures in its own territories: for instance, not being able to protect European women from Muslim rapists. These men have moved to Europe to benefit from the opportunities and privileges there, but instead of showing gratitude to European people and government, they have raped the women there, and tried to impose Islamic sharia law.
If we want to criticize the West for what is going on in the Muslim world, we should criticize it for not doing more to stop these atrocities.
The West, and particularly the U.S., should use all of its power to stop them -- especially the genocides committed against Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims in the Muslim world.
We should also criticize the West -- and others, such as the United Nations and its distorted Gaza War report -- for supporting those who proudly commit terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, and we should criticize the West for not siding with the state of Israel in the face of genocidal Jew-hatred.
We should criticize the West for letting Islamic anti-Semitism grow in Europe, making lives unbearable for Jews day by day.
We should criticize the West for having accepted without a murmur the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus for more than 40 years.
We should also criticize the West for leaving the fate of Kurds, a persecuted and stateless people, to the tender mercies of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria -- and now the Islamic State (ISIS). On June 25, ISIS carried out yet another deadly attack, killing and wounding dozens of people in the Kurdish border town of Kobani, in Syrian Kurdistan.
And we should criticize especially the current U.S. government for not being willing to take serious action to stop ISIS, Boko Haram and other extremist Islamic groups.[1]
The list could go on and on. Moreover, it would not be realistic to claim that these groups or regimes all misunderstand the teachings of their religion in exactly the same way.
It would also not be realistic to claim that the West has created all these hundreds of Islamic terror groups across the Muslim world.
The question, then, is: Who or what does create all these terrorist groups and regimes?
In almost all parts of the Muslim world, systematic discrimination, and even murder, are rampant -- especially of women and non-Muslims. Extremist Islamic organizations, however, are not the only offenders. Many Muslim civilians who have no ties with any Islamist group also commit these offenses daily. Jihad (war in the service of Islam) and the subjugation of non-Muslims are deeply rooted in the scriptures and history of Islam.
Ever since the seventh century, Muslim armies have invaded and captured Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Zoroastrian lands; for more than 1400 years since, they have continued their jihad, or Islamic raids, against other religions.
Many people seem to be justifiably shocked by the barbarism of ISIS, but Islamic jihad does not belong just to ISIS. Violent jihad is a centuries-long tradition of Islamic ideology. ISIS is just one jihadist army of Islam. There are many.
All of this is an Islamic issue. The free West has absolutely nothing to do with the creation and preservation of this un-free culture.
The West has, on the contrary, been the victim of Islamic military campaigns and imperialistic pursuits: Christian peoples of Europe have been exposed to Ottoman invasions and subjugation for centuries. The fall of Byzantine Empire marked the peak of Islamic Jihad in Christian lands. Many places in Europe -- including Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, and Cyprus, among others -- were all invaded and occupied by the Ottoman armies. Other targets, including Venice, Austria, and Poland, had to fight fierce defensive wars to protect their territories.
The historical and current troubles in the Muslim world are not, therefore, problems "imported" from an outside source; they are internal cultural and political problems, which Muslim regimes and peoples have reproduced for centuries.
Some of the things that women in Saudi Arabia may not do were listed in The Week magazine: Saudi women are not allowed to "go anywhere without a male chaperone, open a bank account without their husband's permission, drive a car, vote in elections, go for a swim, compete freely in sports, try on clothes when shopping, enter a cemetery, read an uncensored fashion magazine and buy a Barbie and so on."
Of course, there is nothing specific in Islamic scriptures about cars, fashion magazines or Barbie Dolls. But there is enough there that indicates why all of these abuses, and more, are widespread across the Islamic world, and why the clerics, imams and muftis approve them.
The central issue is to see how the lines that the Islamic theology draws seed the soil in which this kind of discrimination systematically buds, why it is extolled and how it is advocated.
Saudi Arabia is not the only Muslim country where women are dehumanized. Throughout almost the almost the entire Muslim world -- including Turkey, considered one of the most "liberal" Muslim countries -- women are continually abused or killed by their husbands, ex-husbands, boyfriends, fathers, brothers or other males. [2]
Is it America that tells these men to treat their wives or sisters as less than fully human?
Is the West really what stops them from respecting human rights or resolving their political matters through diplomatic and peaceful ways? Are Muslims too stupid to make wise decisions, and act responsibly? Why should Americans or Europeans have evil wishes for the rest of the world?
Demonizing Western nations -- even after all of their cultural, scientific and rational progress -- is simply pure racism.
"The belief that the West is always guilty is among the dozen bad ideas for the 21st century," wrote the Australian pastor, Dr. Mark Durie. "This irrational and unhelpful idea is taught in many schools today and has become embedded in the world views of many. It is essentially a silencing strategy, sabotaging critical thinking."
Another term that prevents one from understanding the root causes of the conflicts in the Muslim world is "moral relativism" -- a politically correct term that really means moral cowardice.
Defending "moral relativism" and saying that "all cultures are equal" really means saying a culture that encourages child marriages, beating women and selling girls on slave markets has a value equal to a culture that respects women and recognizes their rights, and which renounces wanton violence.
Another popular target of blame for the failures in the Muslim world is historical British colonialism.
If colonialism were the main problem, however, Muslims, too, were, and still are, colonizers -- and not particularly "humanitarian" ones, at that. The Muslim colonizers do not even seem to have contributed much to the culture of the places they invaded and colonized. In fact, they have actually delayed the progress of the areas they colonized. The printing press, for instance, came to the Ottoman territories almost 200 years later than to Europe.
"Books... undermine the power of those who control oral knowledge, since they make that knowledge readily available to anyone who can master literacy," wrote Professor Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. This threatened to undermine the existing status quo, where knowledge was controlled by elites. The Ottoman sultans and religious establishment feared the creative destruction that would result. Their solution was to forbid printing." [3]
"European Empires -- the British, French and Italians -- had a short-lived presence in North Africa and the Middle East compared with the Ottoman Empire, which ruled over that region for more than 500 years," said the historian Niall Ferguson.

"The culture that exists in the greater Middle East and North Africa today bears very, very few resemblances to the culture that Europeans tried to implement there, beginning in the late 19th century and carrying on through to the mid-20th century.
"You can't say it is the fault of imperialism and leave out the longest living empire in the Middle East, which was the Ottoman Empire, a Muslim Empire, which went back much farther than any of the European Empires mentioned in that piece."

Muslim states continue to occupy and colonize various territories -- including Kurdistan, Baluchistan and the northern part of Cyprus, an EU member state.
"One of the most tragic consequences of the 1974 Turkish invasion," according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cyprus, "and the subsequent illegal occupation of 36.2% of the territory of the Republic of Cyprus, is the violent and systematic destruction of the cultural and religious heritage in the occupied areas.
"Hundreds of historic and religious monuments in various regions of the occupied areas have been destroyed, looted and vandalized. Illegal 'excavations' have been carried out and cultural treasures have been stolen from museums and private collections and were sold abroad."
Muslim groups and regimes continue to persecute indigenous peoples such as Assyrians, Chaldeans, Mandaeans, Shabaks, Copts, Yezidis, and Bedoon, among many others.
"A substantial segment of the Bedoon population lives with the constant threat of deportation hanging over it," according to the analyst Ben Cohen. "Around 120,000 Bedoon live without nationality and with none of the rights that flow from citizenship."

"Its members cannot obtain birth or marriage certificates, or identity cards, or driving licenses. They are banned from access to public health and education services. Their second-class status means they have no access to the law courts in order to pursue their well-documented claims of discrimination. And on those rare occasions that they summon the will to protest publicly—as they did in 2011, when demonstrators held signs bearing slogans like, 'I Have a Dream'—the security forces respond with extraordinary brutality, using such weapons as water cannons, concussion grenades, and tear gas with reckless abandon."

It is not the West or Israel committing these crimes against the Bedoon community; it is Kuwait, a wealthy Islamic state, which treats defenseless people as if they are slaves.
In Qatar, another wealthy Islamic state, Nepalese migrants building a football stadium, "[h]ave died at a rate of one every two days... This figure does not include the deaths of Indian, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi workers.... The Nepalese foreign employment promotion board said that 157 of its workers in Qatar had died between January and mid-November" last year. In 2013, the figure for that period was 168."

The family of a Nepalese migrant worker, who died in Qatar, prepares to bury him. Nepalese laborers in Qatar are forced to work in dangerous conditions, and die at the rate of one every two days. (Image source: Guardian video screenshot)

"In Libya, naturalisation is only open to a man if he is of Arab descent," reported the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). "And many Akhdam in Yemen, a small ethnic minority who may be descendants of African slaves, are reportedly unable to obtain citizenship."
Is that not apartheid?
In Kuwait, only Muslim applicants may seek naturalization, while Libya's nationality law allows for the withdrawal of nationality on the grounds of conversion from Islam to another religion."
Is that not apartheid? Apartheid laws seem to reign over many places in the Muslim world.
Trying to whitewash the damage the Islamic ideology has done to the Muslim world, while putting the blame of Islamic atrocities on the West, will never help Muslims face their own failures and come up with progressive ways to resolve them.
"All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though," wrote the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins on Twitter, after which other Twitter users piled on to criticize him.
It seems that having oil reserves, per capita, that dwarf anything available to Western countries does not create leading scientific nations.
What holds Muslims back when they have unmatched advantages of underground treasures? Why did the scientific revolution not happen in the Muslim world? Why has much of Islamic history been marked by aggressive jihad?
Islamic jihad and Islamic violence; the sanctioning of sex slavery; dehumanization of women; hatred and persecution of non-Muslims and homosexuals; suppression of free speech; and forced conversions have been commonplace in the Islamic world ever since the inception of the religion.
Many teachings in the Islamic scriptures, as well as the biographies of the founder of the religion, set up the parameters where these abuses not only occur but remain protected on a gigantic scale. These are the teachings that have become the culture of the Muslim world.
Sadly, most Muslims have wasted much time, energy and resources on killing and destruction, but -- with the exception of some civilization's most dazzling artistic splendors -- not on scientific and cultural advancement.
Recently, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, the former Prime Minister of Qatar, said that claims that Qatar paid bribes to win the hosting rights of the 2022 World Cup were "not fair" and stemmed from the West's Islamophobia and racism towards Arabs.
Recent events indicate that he was, at best, "misinformed."
Deny everything and blame "the infidel" for your shortcomings. Nothing is more important than your honor, and nothing worse than your shame.
If Muslims wish to create a brighter future, nothing is stopping us but ourselves. We should learn to analyze critically our present and our past.
Human rights activists and academics in the West are lying to Muslims about their culture, and bashing and threatening America, Europe or "Zionism" for the problems of Muslims; this can never lead to any positive developments in the Muslim world. It is the Islamic culture and religious ideology that are responsible for these problems
If there is ever going to be an enlightenment, reform or renaissance in the Muslim world, only a hard look and hard questioning can be its starting point.

UK: Belfast Pastor Faces Prison for "Grossly Offending" Islam

• James McConnell's prosecution is one of a growing number of examples in which British authorities — who routinely ignore incendiary speech by Muslim extremists — are using hate speech laws to silence Christians.
• "My church funds medical care for 1,200 Muslim children in Kenya and Ethiopia. I've no hatred in my heart for Muslims... I believe in freedom of speech. I'm going to keep on preaching the gospel. I have nothing against Muslims, I have never hated Muslims, I have never hated anyone. But I am against what Muslims believe. They have the right to say what they believe in and I have a right to say what I believe." — James McConnell, Pastor.
• "Since the Islamic State took over, it [Mosul] has become the most peaceful city in the world." — Raied Al-Wazzan, Executive Director, Belfast Islamic Center. Al-Wazzan is now trying to leverage the controversy over McConnell's remarks to shame local politicians into providing him with free public land to build a mega-mosque.

An evangelical Christian pastor in Northern Ireland is being prosecuted for making "grossly offensive" remarks about Islam.
James McConnell, 78, is facing up to six months in prison for delivering a sermon in which he described Islam as "heathen" and "satanic." The message was streamed live on the Internet, and a Muslim group called the police to complain.
According to Northern Ireland's Public Prosecution Service (PPS), McConnell violated the 2003 Communications Act by "sending, or causing to be sent, by means of a public electronic communications network, a message or other matter that was grossly offensive."
Observers say that McConnell's prosecution is one of a growing number of examples in which British authorities — who routinely ignore incendiary speech by Muslim extremists — are using hate speech laws to silence Christians.
McConnell, who turned down an offer to avoid a trial, says the issue of Christians being singled out for persecution in Britain must be confronted, and that he intends to turn his case into a milestone trial "in defense of freedom of speech and freedom of religion."

Pastor James McConnell of Belfast: "I have no regrets about what I said. I do not hate Muslims, but I denounce Islam as a doctrine and I make no apologies for that. I will be pleading 'not guilty' when I stand in the dock in August."

The controversy began on the evening of Sunday, May 18, 2014, when McConnell, the founding pastor of the Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle, an evangelical mega-church in northern Belfast, preached a sermon on a foundational verse of the Christian Bible, 1 Timothy 2:5, which states: "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."
Preaching with an oratorical flourish common to traditional Protestantism, McConnell said (sermon begins at 22m, 40s):

"For there is one God. Think about that. For there is one God. But what God is [the Apostle] Paul referring to? What God is he talking about? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
"The God who we worship and serve this evening is not Allah. The Muslim God, Allah, is a heathen deity. Allah is a cruel deity. Allah is a demon deity. A deity that this foolish government of ours ... pays homage to, and subscribes financial inducements to curry their favor to keep them happy....
"While in Muslim lands Christians are persecuted for their faith; their homes burned, their churches destroyed, and hundreds of them literally have given their lives for Christ in martyrdom. A lovely young [Sudanese] woman by the name of Miriam, 27 years-of-age, because she has accepted Christ as her Savior, will be flogged publicly and hanged publicly. These fanatical worshippers are worshippers of the god called Allah. Ladies and gentlemen, that is a fact and it cannot be denied and it cannot be refuted.
"I know the time will come in this land ... and in this nation to say such things will be an offense to the law. It would be reckoned erroneous, unpatriotic. But I am in good company, the company of [Protestant Reformers] Luther and Knox and Calvin and Tyndale and Latimer and Cranmer and Wesley and Spurgeon and such like him.
"The Muslim religion was created many hundreds of years after Christ. Mohammed, was born in 570. But Muslims believe that Islam is the true religion, dating back to Adam, and that the biblical Patriarchs were all Muslims, including Noah and Abraham and Moses, and even our Lord Jesus Christ.
"To judge by some of what I have heard in the past few months, you would think that Islam was little more than a variation of Christianity and Judaism. Not so. Islam's ideas about God, about humanity, about salvation are vastly different from the teachings of the Holy Scriptures. Islam is heathen. Islam is satanic. Islam is a doctrine spawned in Hell."

McConnell's comments about Islam comprised less than ten minutes of a 35-minute sermon that focused on Christian theology.
The blowback was as swift as it was predictable. The Belfast Islamic Center, which claims to represent all of the 4,000 Muslims thought to be living in Northern Ireland, complained to police, who dutifully launched an investigation into whether there was a "hate crime motive" behind McConnell's remarks.
McConnell later issued a public apology, but he refused to recant. He also rejected a so-called informed warning. Such warnings are not convictions, but they are recorded on a person's criminal record for 12 months. Anyone who refuses to accept the warning can be prosecuted, and McConnell now faces six months in prison. The first hearing of his case is set for August 6.
In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph, McConnell said he would rather go to prison than disavow his comments about Islam.

"I am 78 years of age and in ill health but jail knows no fear for me. They can lock me up with sex offenders, hoodlums and paramilitaries and I will do my time.
"I have no regrets about what I said. I do not hate Muslims, but I denounce Islam as a doctrine and I make no apologies for that. I will be pleading 'not guilty' when I stand in the dock in August.

McConnell said that the charges against him were symbolic of the persecution Christians are facing in Britain today:

"It is a case of back to the future. In the first century, the apostles were jailed for preaching the gospel. Early Christians were boiled in oil, burnt at the stake and devoured by wild beasts. If they faced that and kept their faith, I can easily do six months in jail."

McConnell's attorney, Joe Rice, vowed to fight the case "tooth and nail." He said:

"I don't agree with everything Pastor McConnell says but his prosecution represents a threat to freedom of speech and freedom of religion. If we're moving into a genuinely pluralist society, these freedoms must be extended to Christians as much as they are to others."

After public prosecutors announced that they plan to call eight witnesses in McConnell's prosecution, Rice said:

"Rest assured we will call many, many more. This will be a landmark case with leading political, religious and academic figures giving evidence.
"The logic of the decision to prosecute Pastor McConnell means that many clerics — including Catholic priests and other evangelical pastors — could now find themselves under investigation for preaching with passion.
"My client's remarks weren't addressed at individual Muslims but at Islam in generic terms."

McConnell stressed that he does not hate Muslims. "My church funds medical care for 1,200 Muslim children in Kenya and Ethiopia," he said. "I've no hatred in my heart for Muslims, but I won't be stopped from preaching against Islam." He added:

"I apologized last year if I had unintentionally hurt anyone's feelings. I would defend the right of any Muslim cleric to preach against me or Christianity. I most certainly don't want any Muslim clerics prosecuted but I find it very unfair that I'm the only preacher facing prosecution."

In an interview with the Guardian, McConnell reiterated that he is "not going to be gagged." He said:

"The police tried to shut me up and tell me what to preach. It's ridiculous. I believe in freedom of speech. I'm going to keep on preaching the gospel. I have nothing against Muslims, I have never hated Muslims, I have never hated anyone. But I am against what Muslims believe. They have the right to say what they believe in and I have a right to say what I believe."

The executive director of the Belfast Islamic Center, Raied al-Wazzan, is leading the push to prosecute McConnell. "This is inflammatory language and it definitely is not acceptable," he said in an interview with the BBC.
Al-Wazzan is now trying to leverage the controversy over McConnell's remarks to shame local politicians into providing him with public land, for free, to build a mega-mosque in Belfast. "We need the land from the government," he told the BBC. "And there is a huge demand for it. The Muslim population is growing in Belfast, in Northern Ireland, but especially in south Belfast."
In January 2015, al-Wazzan drew attention to himself when he praised the Islamic State's rule of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, where jihadists have killed or expelled all of the city's 2,000-year-old, 60,000-strong Christian community. Speaking to the BBC, al-Wazzan said: "Since the Islamic State took over, it [Mosul] has become the most peaceful city in the world."
After local politicians called for the government to cut public funding for the Belfast Islamic Center, al-Wazzan recanted. But the Belfast Islamic Center's website continues to prominently display the writings of a Muslim extremist named Bilal Philips, who has been banned from entering the UK because of his preaching of violence against Jews, Christians and homosexuals, and his glorification of Islamic suicide bombers.
McConnell summed it up this way: "Islam is allowed to come to this country, Islam is allowed to worship in this country, Islam is allowed to preach in this country and they preach hate. And for years we are not allowed to give a tract out, we are not allowed in Islam, we are not allowed to preach the gospel. We are persecuted in Islam if we stand for Jesus Christ."

The Strategic Consequences of "Grexit"

• Last January, ISIS revealed that it is smuggling terrorists into Europe by hiding them among the immigrants leaving Turkey.
• "If Europe leaves us in the crisis, we will flood it with immigrants, and it will be even worse for Berlin if in that wave... there will be some jihadists of the Islamic State, too." — Panos Kammenos, Defense Minister of Greece
• Greece is a member of NATO. The whole world witnessed how the Defense Minister of one NATO country was threatening other NATO members with unleashing Islamic terrorists on them.
• A Greek exit will lead to a power vacuum in the southeastern corner of Europe, which Russia (and China) will be only too eager to fill. The Chinese are currently negotiating with the Greek government to acquire an even larger part of the port of Piraeus.

Last weekend, Greece failed to reach an agreement with its three creditors, the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. A bankruptcy of the Hellenic Republic is now imminent. If it materializes, a so-called Grexit will follow: Greece will be forced to leave the Eurozone -- the group of 19 European Union (EU) member states that use the euro as their common currency. Leaving the Eurozone automatically means that, under the EU treaties, Greece will also have to leave the EU.

Across Greece, people have been lining up to withdraw money from cash machines, most of which have run out of money, after the government ordered banks to close for six days starting Monday. (Image source: Reuters video screenshot)

Grexit is likely to lead to economic and political turmoil in Greece, a hugely important strategic country, which borders on an increasingly unstable part of the world. Greece lies on the Mediterranean, fewer than 350 kilometers to the north of the Libyan coastal town of Derna, a stronghold of the Islamic terrorists of ISIS. It was here that, last February, ISIS beheaded 21 Coptic Egyptian prisoners, and vowed to conquer Europe. The threat to Greece's eastern borders is even greater. Greece is currently being inundated by illegal immigrants, arriving from Turkey by sea. Each day in June, human traffickers were transporting between 650 and 1,000 migrants by boat from Turkish ports to Greece. Last January, ISIS revealed that it is smuggling terrorists into Europe by hiding them among the migrants leaving Turkey.
If Greece leaves the EU, it is highly unlikely that it will try to prevent the illegal immigrants from travelling on to the rest of Europe. On the contrary, in March, Greek defense minister Panos Kammenos vowed to flood the rest of Europe with immigrants if the EU should allow Greece to go bankrupt. "If Europe leaves us in the crisis, we will flood it with immigrants, and it will be even worse for Berlin if in that wave of millions of economic immigrants there will be some jihadists of the Islamic State, too," the Greek minister said. All the newcomers to Greece, Kammenos said, would be given papers, so they "could go straight to Berlin." Greece is a member of NATO. The whole world could witness how the defense minister of one NATO country was threatening other NATO members with unleashing Islamic terrorists on them.
A Greek exit from the EU will not only mean a rupture with its Western European neighbors, who are all members of NATO as well, but is also likely to affect the entire Atlantic partnership. It will lead to a power vacuum in the southeastern corner of Europe, which Russia will be only too eager to fill.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was recently in Moscow to sign a gas deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The deal allows the Russians to build a natural gas pipeline across Greece that will carry Russian gas to Europe. The construction of the pipeline will not only create 20,000 new jobs in Greece, but Russia will also pay Greece hundreds of millions of dollars annually in transit payments. Speaking about the pipeline deal, Putin offhandedly remarked to the international media that he saw no support for the Greeks from the EU.
There are also rumors that Athens might allow Russia the use of Greek military bases. Russia is expanding militarily in the Black Sea and the eastern part of the Mediterranean. Greece could also serve as a base for the Russians to strengthen their position in the Balkans. If Greece were to turn its back on NATO, it could become a geographical link between Russia and its Balkan vassal, Serbia -- a process that would link the three Christian-Orthodox nations of Russia, Serbia and Greece.
But the Russians are not the only ones closely following the events in Greece and hoping for geopolitical benefits. For some time, China's influence in Greece has also been expanding. The Chinese state-owed Cosco Group recently bought the container terminal in Greece's largest port, Piraeus. The port was privatized after demands from the EU. The Chinese are currently negotiating with the Greek government to acquire an even larger part of Piraeus.
Both Russia and China are eager to strengthen their position in Greece if it were to turn its back on Europe and NATO. The consequences of Grexit will not merely be economic. The strategic implications are at least as important, and far-reaching.

CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES MUST BE GUARDED

 

There is danger in the misuse of power.  Some of the counter-balances in the Constitutional system which the Founding Fathers erected, have been let to decompose.  One outstanding neglect is in the mismanagement of the organized militia, and the proper use, care and ownership of firearms.  This, unfortunately, has been greatly neglected.  The federal and state governments have both been working toward the gradual elimination of all firearms.  Check out Public Law 87-297 – the shocking program for “general and complete disarm-ament” of the people of the United States.  The United States State Department once published a document called ‘FREEDOM FROM WAR” (1961) that laid out their intention to completely disarm the people. Unfortunately, the State Department has discontinued publishing this document that exposes this unwise and evil intention; however, the document can be seen in its entirety on the Internet at http://www.mikenew.com/pub7277.html

 

 

 

Constitutional Principle:  You cannot place the control of your right to arms under the control of the same people in whom you were meant to ‘guard against’ because of the opportunity the circumstance presents to public officials for tyranny in government. 

 

 

 

Evil thoughts are born in the minds of animated beings (people), not in tools made of metal. Guns do not invent the idea of killing. They are inanimated tools.  Guns do not inhale and exhale. They are not made of flesh and blood.  They do not hold animosities or grudges, and they do not run around looking for people to assault.  They only follow orders of whoever picks them up and operates them, using the energy the gun was meant to possess.   Generally speaking, it is the holder of the weapon, whose finger pulls the trigger who is responsible for its ability to fire.  It is the person who uses a gun for improper purposes who does the “assaulting”!  Who then should be described as being guilty of “assault”?  The gun?  Or the person who pulls the trigger?  Criminals have guns for assault.  Good law-abiding people do not own assault weapons. “Mis-users” of firearms are to blame for the criticism firearms are receiving today. 

 

 

 

Too little attention is being given to the thirst of some politicians (presidents and the like) for one solitary governing system over the entire world:  a “world government” steeped in communism, to which some have become dedicated.  The intention of the use of the gun is the focus to which, we should be drawn.  The “world government” proponents are building a “world army”, and those soldiers will be greatly armed, many times over, against the rightful liberties of the American people.  It would help to vote for new representatives, and eliminate all the gun grabbers in Washington, D.C. , and stay on constant watch!

 

 

 

Constitutional Principle:  Guns are a God-given right. Our Founders reasoned it properly.  Guns are the instruments which support God-endowed rights.  They are tools for preservation of the individual, his home, his land, and his other natural God-given rights.  They have great force, which often is of essential value within our republic.  Their force, when properly used, is used within our system to defend, protect, guard, and to secure freedom and liberty – not to assault!  The gun itself does not decide to pull the trigger.  That responsibility is left up to humans. Criminals are the assaulters!  Not the guns!  Out of 350,000,000 people, the percentage is low of those who severely abuse guns; however, that percentage could have been of a much lower sum if the government had not allowed the “well-regulated” militia to dissipate in America after the Civil War.  It is logical that a man (or woman) must have some sort of aid for the defense of him (or her) self, and for that of his (or her) country, other than just bare hands. 

 

 

 

Constitutional Principle:  The true militia is an armed population.

 

If we are not to go back to using knives, bows and arrows, clubs, or like today, cans of spray paint, for our defense, we must wrestle with the subject of the proper use of guns by armed citizens, and the restoration of proper training of the citizenry, individually and  collectively, as in a well-regulated militia.  It is the original Constitutional militia training that needs to be restored.  We are a nation who kill our young and future citizens in abortions, but leave open the gates for totally untrained people and criminals to enter, who come from communist countries, and are unaware of the purpose of our militia system. 

 

 

 

Constitutional Principle:  The right to arms is the keystone of our liberty.

 

The keystone amendment that backstops all of the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights is the Second Amendment.  It is the linchpin for all other rights in the Bill of Rights, a document that cannot be repealed, revoked or rescinded.  The Second Amendment carries a “shall not be infringed” order with it.  Yet, the well regulated militia has been infringed, and if no corrective action is taken, the right to arms itself is headed for gradual dissolution. The well-regulated militia was constitutionally meant to include the whole people.  

 

 

 

Constitutional Principle:  The Constitution and the Bill of Rights belong to the people.

 

It is highly important to keep in mind that both the 1789 Constitution and the 1791 Bill of Rights were ratified by the people.  These two documents belong exclusively to the people.  They are their possession!   The Bill of Rights and its Second Amendment were meant to be in perpetuity and never repealed, revoked, or rescinded.  This is the reason the key rights were placed inside this sanctuary.  Congress does not possess the power or the authority to violate it.  The Dianne Feinstein’s, and others today of her kind in government service, are in serious violation of our laws.  

 

 

 

Constitutional Principle:  Consent of the governed is a requirement.

 

There is only one way that the prime rights in the Bill of Rights can be taken away (snookered away) from the people, in violation of the endowment given to them by the Creator, and that is, if the people can be mentally manipulated (brain washed) to request, consent, require, or support that such general and complete disarmament be done.  There never has been any true permission granted, nor consent given to prohibit use of hand guns by the people.  Today only a falsified document stands in federal records authorizing a complete prohibition of all hand guns.  There never has truly been the required “consent of the governed” obtained!  The globalists dream of fulfilling “the general and complete disarmament program” (the congressional law signed by John Kennedy, known as Public Law 87-297 for U.S. co-operation in world disarmament) exists as the authority for such madness!

 

 

 

When the militia was operating in proper order from George Washington’s time to the Civil War time period, anyone who was not mentally or physically fit to be a member of the militia was discovered and dismissed by the Brigade Inspector of each county.  A Brigade Inspector was in existence and in charge of every county in the U.S.A wherein every man was required to take annual militia training unless two practicing surgeons declared him unfit.  In that time period, farmers were trained to be soldiers overnight if and when it was necessary.

 

 

 

Constitutional Principle: The people are the final authority in a republic.

 

In spite of their falsifying the “consent of the governed” to abide by Public Law 87-297, the federal government has been hesitant to enforce the civilian population to disarm other than on a gradual basis, outlawing only certain guns at a time, periodically.  Closing and realignment of U.S.A. military bases was achieved under the Base Realignment and Closing Commission (BRAC) just a few years back.  The plan for a totally disarmed population is a scandal of great magnitude!  When the militia was operating in proper order from George Washington’s time to the Civil War time period, anyone who was not mentally or physically fit to have a weapon or to be a member of the militia was discovered and dismissed by the Brigade Inspector.  The Brigade Inspector was in charge of each county’s militia in every state of the Union.  Every man was required to take militia training unless two practicing surgeons declared him unfit.  The plan to disarm Americans cannot be stopped unless the people are awakened in time and are made to realize that their republic is being turned into a dictatorship.

BS

 

Obama has no power to overrule the Bill of Rights

 

 

 

Vice-president Joe Biden has thoroughly disgraced himself today by making such a shocking statement that he wants President Obama to issue an executive order to call for total gun confiscation in our nation! No American president has the power to break into and reverse the keystone amendment in the Bill of Rights! To do so would be an intolerable violation of the Oath of Office, which the president and his vice-president took "to support and defend the Constitution".

 

 

 

Just the thought of something so opposite to the mind of a sane person, Biden's statement should cause the nation to wonder about the mental health of Joe Biden and others like him who are holding high positions in our republic. Since Biden is of such intention, he should step down now or be immediately impeached. No American president, nor his vice president, can ever be vested with such power as to enable him to order or consider such an evil and unwise thing!

 

 

 

The presidents and his assistant should be a respectable commander-in-chief of our military. Can he command the defense of our nation without arms? Apparently, Biden thinks (or hopes) that Obama has the power to destroy our defense systems. This is not true!

 

 

 

First off, Obama has no power to overrule the Bill of Rights! It is a long standing historic Constitutional principle that the Bill of Rights is not subject to repeal, revoke or the rescinding process! The Bill of Rights is a confirmation of the rights that the Creator has endowed upon man. We need to remember that the Bill of Rights was ratified by the people, it is their document, their possession, and their authority! It cannot be set aside or over-ridden without their expressed permission!     

 

 

 

The people are not foolish enough to knowingly divest themselves of their authority or their guns.  Without guns, the people would have no authority! Guns equal authority! Doesn't Vice President Biden know that? If it is "crime" that worries Biden, why did he not call (four years ago) for the borders to be closed rather than allow so many criminals to enter our country? How can we be sure that the tragic crimes, which have occurred, are not pre-arranged? It is no wonder more people feel the need to buy guns!

 

 

 

Our nation is a republic.  The definition of a republic is that the people within are in charge of their government - the people of the republic are the ultimate authority! The main reason that the Second Amendment was written was to keep the people as the ultimate power! The 1789 Constitution would not have been accepted without the right to keep and bear arms. An unarmed nation has no authority!  They cannot protect themselves against criminals, nor would they have recourse against tyrannical leaders and representatives.

 

 

 

Up until the Civil War era, the militia included the whole people, and the name of every able-bodied male was sent to the local Brigade Inspector who conducted proper militia training. Not only was invasion from without being guarded against, the intention of the Founding Fathers was to keep the federal government itself from destroying our liberty from within. The need to guard our liberty is more essential now than ever before.

 

 

 

We have witnessed a number of acts by the federal government, which are responsible for ongoing damage. For example, the Congress has passed a law, and President John F. Kennedy has signed it, which transfers our entire national armed forces over to the control of a communist infiltrated international group (the United Nations) on a permanent basis!

 

As this law proceeds, the U.S.A. will soon have no more army, no more navy, nor an air force of its own, and American citizens are expected to be totally disarmed! This law (which is the foundation for these planned changes) is called Public Law 87-297, the Arms Control and Disarmament Act. (You are urged to read it on the Internet). It was designed to support a world army filled with soldiers from communist countries. They are already here! Many foreign soldiers from communist countries are now planted on American soil. This should never have been allowed!

 

Isn't this law the REAL reason Biden keeps pushing to disarm Americans? The world army won't be disarmed! In the last several years, our federal administration has been revamped by the creation of the Homeland Security Department. The HSD merged the military and our civilian law enforcement systems (the police) together. In other words we have been revamped so that we can be controlled under the planned world-wide military government operation. These changes allow our system of government to be operated under a dictatorship, which makes it easy to understand why there is such a strong drive to disarm the American citizens.

 

Also, in recent years, it was discovered that the people's (so called) "permission" was obtained for their firearms to be prohibited. This false permission was secretly entered into the government records under the planning and management handled by the federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA). This falsification of the people's so-called "permission to be disarmed" is exposed in the Page 340 swindle.

 

There was no permission given by the people for their guns to be prohibited. This scandal is a sleeper and the basis upon which Vice President Biden and President Obama will proceed in their effort to forcibly disarm Americans. The only way the federal government can continue to move us under a militarized and socialistic/communist world government is by the technique of gradualism. The Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights cannot be over-ridden, but the anti-gunners still hope they will be able to swindle the people into believing they have lost the battle and will then surrender their arms.

 

Somehow, the people must be made to see through the whole program that the anti-gunners are working on, so that they will realize why we are being made defenseless as individuals and as a country. Then, the public can more readily understand why Vice President Biden has made such a foolish and impossible proposal to Barack Obama. Americans need to examine how much global government managers are running and ruining this country. Unless they realize this, they will succumb to the propaganda that is being foisted upon them continually by the anti-gunners.

 

Without guns, the people will not only lose their authority and freedom, but will also lose their right to own land.

 

Let us hope that the shocking laws that have already been signed will be a wake-up call to the people that the right to arms is the key we Americans must hold on to, if we are to save ourselves from a complete wipe out, arranged by our own government.  Immediate impeachment of any public official that calls for us to be disarmed is the answer.          

 

BS

The master planners devised the strategy of a merger - a Great Merger - among nations.
But before such a merger can be consummated, and the United States becomes just another province in a New World Order, there must at least be the semblance of parity among the senior partners in the deal. How does one make the nations of the world more nearly equal? The Insiders determined that a two-prong approach was needed; use American money and know-how to build up your competitors, while at the same time use every devious strategy you can devise to weaken and impoverish this country. The goal is not to bankrupt the United States. Rather, it is to reduce our productive might, and therefore our standard of living, to the meager subsistence level of the socialized nations of the world.
The plan is not to bring the standard of living in less developed countries up to our level, but to bring ours down to meet theirs coming up... It is your standard of living which must be sacrificed on the altar of the New World Order."

Gary Allen in his book "The Rockefeller File"

"The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching aim - nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements [BIS] in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations ... Each central bank sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."

Carroll Quigley in his book "Tragedy and Hope"

 

The Scorpion, The Frog and The Pope

• Despite attempts by post World War II popes to reconcile with the Jews, Pope Francis has, perhaps inadvertently, taken the first steps to disassemble any progress toward that goal.
• The Pope's declaration inspires the already hate-infested Palestinians to commit murder with a symbolic pontifical blessing.
• It might be premature to assign the term "anti-Semitism" to Pope Francis's current "missteps." However, it does not push the envelope too far to suggest that the Pope's view of the Jews and Israel is a product of a lifetime of Catholic and Replacement Theology bias.
• At this momentous time, the Pope's repentance would be a welcome acknowledgement of Israel's right to exist.

Pope Francis recently declared Palestine to be a state. Thus, he writes a new chapter in the divisive history between Catholics and Jews.
The history of the Catholic Church is a two-thousand year old story of anti-Judaism, conspicuous by frequent massacres, murders, forced conversions, torture, pogroms, expulsions, demonization and other unspeakable acts of violence and offense.
The fable of the Scorpion and the Frog illustrates the notion that certain acts are not merely random chance but are as predictable as a "DNA" profile.

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?"
The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too."
So they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog has just enough time to gasp "Why?"
The scorpion replies: "Because it is my nature; it is what I do...."

This year, the Catholic Church is celebrating the 50^th Anniversary of Nostra aetate. Written in 1965, the document is a declaration of the relation of the Catholic Church to non-Christian religions including Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists and Jews (or what the document calls "Abraham's stock").
Its purpose was to promote "unity and love among men." At the same time, it served as a tool to start the repair of what had become an insurmountable rift between Catholics and Jews.
While the document has played a role in bridging one of the wide gaps between the two groups by releasing Jews from the burden of responsibility for the death of Jesus, it nevertheless fails to address a key issue for Jewish people -- the declaration of Israel as their historic, legitimate and legal homeland.
During the first few months after Pope Francis's March 2013 election, the Jewish community expressed hope that the Catholic Church would continue what appeared to be a warming relationship.

"Francis declared that 'since the Second Vatican Council, we have rediscovered that the Jewish People are still for us the holy root that produced Jesus.' He also stated that despite the horrors inflicted on the Jewish People by the Shoah, 'God never abandoned his covenant with Israel, and notwithstanding their terrible suffering over the centuries, the Jewish People have kept their faith. For this, we will never be sufficiently grateful to them as a Church, but also as human beings...."

Some optimistic Jewish leaders argue that, while there is a lot more work to do, the process of reconciliation has been steadily moving forward.
Current events, unfortunately, suggest a more pessimistic perspective.[1]
Israel is battling for its legitimacy and its very existence on every front, and Jews throughout the world are confronting a vigorous, revitalized and often violent resurgence of anti-Semitism.
Even as the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas call almost daily for death to the Jews, the Pope has declared terrorist and Holocaust denier, Mahmoud Abbas, "a man of peace."
In his declaration of Palestine as a recognized "state", the Pope has spurned Israel's existential security concerns in order to advance a bond with the Palestinians before both parties have agreed to even basic terms of a peace agreement.
The symbolic timing (May 13) of the Pope's ex officio declaration of a Palestinian state couldn't be more obvious or more offensive to Israel: 1. Israel's Independence Day celebrates the birth of the State in 1948; 2. Nakba Day (Catastrophe Day), the Palestinian day of mourning for the loss of their land to the State of Israel; 3.The summer celebrations of Nostra aetate, commemorating a vision of harmony.
Such a reckless affirmation is also a caustic reminder that Jewish-Catholic reconciliation work is far from complete.
Is the Catholic Church, like the scorpion, simply standing against the Jewish state because it is part of Church's DNA? Do the Pope's sympathies with the Palestinian narrative suggest the beginning of a return to the days of a Catholic Church riddled with thousands of examples of Jew-hatred?
Among the many diverse threads woven into the fabric of the Church, anti-Semitism stands at the forefront. The fabric of all of Christianity was set against the Jews from the outset.
While the timing of the Pope's announcement was shocking, it was nonetheless predictable. It is an echo of a long-held theology of the Catholic Church, which turned against its own Jewish heritage within a mere fifty years after the Apostle Paul died.[2]
The theological grandfather of contemporary Christian anti-Semitism is known as "Replacement Theology" or what is dubbed by scholars "supersessionism." This is the ancient idea that the Christian Church "replaced" God's "chosen" people.
By 135 CE, the newly emerging gentile Church had lost much of the Jewish vigor that had energized the period of the Hebrew New Testament writings.
In the generation after the Apostle Paul died, the gentile Church Fathers began penning tomes of anti-Jewish theology and commentary.[3] Early second-century writers and theologians such as Tertullian and Origen inverted the Jewishness of the Jesus story and began to demonize the Jewish people, using their very own Hebrew scriptures as a cudgel.
The thesis of "Replacement Theology," according to Dr. Jim Showers, Executive Director of Friends of Israel, "maintains that, because the Jewish people rejected Jesus as the Messiah, God has replaced or superseded ethnic Israel with the Church and punished them by rescinding all of His covenant promises."
This early narrative proclaimed, "the Church as the New Israel," and fused with the idea that "the Church is the heir of God's promises to Abraham". Thus, the Church nullified God's original, unequivocal, irrevocable and eternal promise of the land and nation to Israel in His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It was these early Church Fathers (125 - 325 CE) who first carved the "DNA" of Jew hatred in stone.
At the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, the Church put its final stamp on an anti-Jewish legacy. Among the Council's many proclamations, it designated a pagan day, Easter, to replace Passover as a way to separate itself from its Jewish roots.
At the conclusion of the Council, Constantine's summary letter to the attending Bishops stated:

"For it is unbecoming beyond measure that on this holiest of festivals we should follow the customs of the Jews. Henceforth let us have nothing in common with this odious people... We ought not, therefore, to have anything in common with the Jews... our worship follows a... more convenient course... we desire dearest brethren, to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews... How, then, could we follow these Jews, who are almost certainly blinded."[4]

"Replacement Theology" deliberately poisoned the ancestral roots of Christianity. The two-thousand year war against the Jewish people began there.
Despite attempts by post-World War II popes to reconcile with the Jews, Pope Francis has, perhaps inadvertently, taken the first steps to disassemble any progress toward that goal. By preemptively positing a Palestinian state, he has essentially re-ignited the ceasefire lines of this age-old conflict. The Pope's declaration inspires the already hate-infested Palestinians to commit murder with a symbolic pontifical blessing.
The New York Times reported on the occasion of Pope Francis's 2014 visit to the Holy Land:

"Pope Francis plans to give a strong show of support for a sovereign Palestinian state when he makes his first visit to the Holy Land this weekend, becoming the first pontiff to travel directly into the occupied West Bank rather than passing through Israel.
The pope's decision to fly straight to Bethlehem from Jordan would be a symbolic lift to the Palestinians at any time. But its resonance is even greater given his tremendous popularity, his focus on the downtrodden, and his timing amid the recent collapse of peace talks and the Palestine Liberation Organization's unity pact with the militant group Hamas."

On that same visit, the Pope also made a "surprise" stop at an Israeli security wall to pray and to pose for photos. "By chance," he parked himself for prayer within camera range, beneath graffiti with the slogan: "Bethlehem look like Warsaw Ghetto." Does he need to say more?

Pope Francis approaches the separation barrier near Bethlehem, May 25, 2014. (Image source: Al Jazeera video screenshot)

After nineteen centuries of Christian persecution; after a modern-day genocide upon which the Catholic world turned its back, just when the Jewish people and Israel might have looked for a ray of hope toward continued reconciliation, Pope Francis is making a pact with the devil. "Nothing new here," said the scorpion to the frog; "it is what I do."
Perhaps it is premature to assign the term "anti-Semitism" to Pope Francis's current "missteps." However, it does not push the envelope too far to suggest that the Pope's view of the Jews and Israel is a product of a lifetime of Catholic and Replacement Theology bias.
At this momentous time, the Pope's repentance would be a welcome acknowledgement of Israel's right to exist.

Susan Warner is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of Gatestone Institute and co-founder of a Christian group, Olive Tree Ministries in Wilmington, DE, USA. She has been writing and teaching about Israel and the Middle East for over 15 years. She can be reached at israelolivetree@yahoo.com.