The Perils of Gay Marriage

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Americans are embroiled in emotional arguments for and against gay marriage. Some embrace the biblical Christian prohibitions against homosexuality. Others believe that only the personal desires of consenting adults matter. Through the tug-of-war, three distinct issues emerge: legal, moral, and historical.

Our American Constitution, based upon biblical principles given to ancient Israel at the foot of Mt Sinai thousands of years ago, recognizes inalienable rights given to us by God. This system of Christian law, signed by our founders as our national contract, identifies right and wrong, as defined by God—values that remain unchanged through time.

More than a century ago America naively set its collective feet on a different path to embrace the religion of secular humanism—the belief in man, which makes his wants and needs central in importance. Secular humanism embraces civil rights—rights assigned by men and, thus, subject to change by men. Under secular humanism, what was right a century ago may be wrong today, while yesterday’s wrong may now be acceptable.

The legal dilemma that faces America today is this: what law do we uphold? Are we a nation of Christian beliefs and practices, with obedience rewarded by the Divine Giver? Or have we changed our collective will to favor the law of secular humanism and its mantra of “civil rights”? Under the former, we reject homosexual union; under the latter we are condemned to embrace it, as civil rights, defined by current popularity, assure equality of wants to all individuals.

Concerning the moral issue, moral law originates with God and He has repeatedly stated His position on this matter. One such example is Leviticus 18:22: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind”. As God, by His nature, is unchanging through the ages, that commandment remains in force.

If the moral law is viable, historic and modern evidence will prove its worth; and, indeed, they do. In all cultures, the public reason for marriage has been the best interest of the family and the next generation. Indisputably, children flourish in stable homes with loving parents, male and female, who provide moral guidance. The natural marriage of a man and a woman has been universal in every society known to man. Since earliest times, societies have refused to legalize unions that damage families and children: marriage to the very young, those closely related, those married to someone else, to non-humans, and those of the same gender.

 

Our modenr world, awash in newfound "wisdom", is experimenting with history's proven principles. Do we really believe that gender doesn't matter? Voluminous research shows that the love of fathers and mothers is different: as a rule, fathers give stricter, earned love, while mothers love more gently and unconditionally. Children who receive both kinds of love fare better. It is not in the best interests of society to legalize marriages where children receive a double dose of one kind of love and none of the other.

Will same sex unions affect the stability of our homes? Evidence says they will. The chaos of no fault divorce has already wreaked havoc on families, leaving half of all children in America likely to witness their parents’ divorce. Statistically, these children decline in every measure of well-being: they suffer more physical and emotional problems, run afoul of the law more often, have more illegitimate children, and do worse in school. Scandinavia’s adoption of gay marriage a decade ago shows that same gender marriages are far less stable than traditional marriages. Compared with heterosexual couples, the divorce rate among homosexual men is 50% higher; among lesbian women 170% higher. Thus, gay marriage will surely increase our already skyrocketing divorce rates; hardly a recommendation to welcome same sex unions.

Our declining birth rates also caution against same sex marriage. A birth rate of 2.1 children per woman is required to hold a population steady. Birth rates are falling worldwide: 1.4 among Italians, Germans, and Japanese, and 1.7 among Caucasian Americans, with decline predicted to continue for the next 50 years.  At some point, simple math will require us to become concerned about the survival of our world cultures, including America’s. Does it then make sense to legitimize marriage unions that are biologically incapable of sustaining the birth rate?

There are viable reasons--legal, moral and historical--why same gender marriages have been prohibited in past cultures. We now contemplate embracing a social experiment that has been rejected by every known society in recorded history. We must rethink this issue. The needs of society matter more than the wants of some people. The divine commandment is still in place, our basic human nature hasn’t changed, history still repeats itself, and family needs remain the same.  Despite social pressures to do otherwise, deliberately creating fatherless and motherless families is unwise!

Pamela Romney Openshaw

Author of Promises of the Constitution: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

www.promisesoftheconstitution.com

Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development: Property Rights Under Attack

 

Many developing movements in government and society threaten our way of life. One of these is Agenda 21, which claims to protect the environment but in reality aims for unwitting community and state cooperation to bring the land and homes of individuals and businesses under government control.

 

Agenda 21 was born in the 1970s under the protective wings of world government, a growing movement that will reduce the United States to one of many vassal states under international control. Under this movement our resources and economic wealth would no longer be ours--they would be doled out to nations around the globe; our economy leveled to make us all equally poor. The pattern of sound government and moral leadership created in America and offered to the world for over two centuries has faded as we, ourselves, lose the pattern.  

 

The goal of Agenda 21 is to restructure the lifestyles of every person on earth by controlling private property, including food, transportation, and family size. Under Agenda 21, private ownership of land will disappear. This major reorientation would prohibit individual rights and entrench government rights. Individual agency—the right to choose—would become a distant memory.

 

Posed as “sustainable development”, this movement is creeping through America, driven by local and state officials who are ignorant of its true agenda and are wooed by the government funds it offers. American presidents have succumbed, either innocently or deliberately: Bill Clinton, both George Bushes, and our current president fully embraced worldwide Agenda 21.

 

Under Agenda 21, the inalienable rights previously given to people belong, instead, to the land, itself—a ludicrous concept. Its advocates say land is too valuable to waste on individuals who generate wealth through its use, thereby creating social injustice. The possession of private property is denied in multiple ways: outright seizure, condemning, restricting or dictating use of lands, or through zoning mandates and land easements. Land ownership, whether from homeowners, farmers, or industry, then falls to the all-powerful government which determines its use, consumes its profits and disperses them at its will throughout the globe. No assurance is given that the profit from the land will return to those who worked to earn it.

 

The right to own property--anything one possesses, including life, itself--is fundamental to freedom. God, Himself, instituted property rights, inherent in His commandment to Adam and Eve to replenish and subdue the earth. Our Founders solidified property rights in the Constitution. If we do not own property—food, shelter, transportation--we are at the mercy of those who do for our maintenance and even our lives. Your life is also your property, and those who advocate government domination, such as Agenda 21 proposes, have historically disrespected the lives of those they control.

 

Agenda 21 is part of the fundamental change promised in the elections of 2008 and 2012. Omitted from the campaign rhetoric was the reality that those changes will eliminate the middle class, dropping all of us into poverty. This movement is well underway; Florida, for example, has locked up over 2,000,000 acres of land from public use since 1990.  These policies are being drafted and implemented nationwide without the sanction of constitutional process. Under our United States Constitution the laws and policies that govern us are to be created by those we elect to do so. Any other method of law is tyrannical. The policies and programs of Agenda 21 have not been drafted or voted upon by our constitutional representatives. Presented as being in our best interest, Agenda 21 and other freedom-destroying movements will not improve our lives or keep us safer.

 

Other lesser-known future proposals under Agenda 21 are alarming: population control by government decree, with medical care denied to mother and child in unauthorized pregnancies; severely restricted transportation choices, fuel availability and vehicle use; substantially increased taxation; government-set limits on water usage and allowable waste; and forced community action. Agenda 21 would allow government planners to enter your home and control your actions within—a major assault to your personal liberty.

 

This movement is emphatically not in our best interests, either as free individuals or as a free nation. Involved citizens can have a real impact in refusing Agenda 21 in their home communities and states.

 

I encourage the following to turn back this alarming program:

 

First, educate others; talk to neighbors, family and other concerned individuals. Create interest in this issue and investigate it together. Effective community action works best when done in groups.

 

Second, contact local and state officials: your mayor and city councilmen; your senator, state representative and governor. Explain and discuss your concerns reasonably. Attend your city council meetings. Watch your city government for “sustainable development”, “open space”, “critical habitat”, “national heritage areas”, “the Wetlands Project” (designed to lock up 50% of American lands) and similar terminology. Visit the website of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), the organization driving Agenda 21, to learn if your community has signed on (go to members, global members, U.S. and scroll down to look for your city). Investigate proposed programs and their funding. Local officials often miss the implications behind Agenda 21’s benign, even warm-hearted, friendly appearance. Teach them, supervise, and express your confidence that they will refuse participation.

 

Third, watch your schools and your children’s homework for signs of ICLEI. Look for materials that promote sustainable development and the other “buzz words” mentioned above. Contact your principal and school board to object when necessary, inform your friends and encourage them to join you. A few voices can change policy.

 

Founding Father John Adams said that property must be secure or liberty does not exist. It is by the use of our property in all its forms that we exercise our freedom. Under Agenda 21 our inalienable rights of property ownership are under attack. God gave us use of the earth in its fullness; it is our God-given responsibility to keep it so.

 

- Pam

 

 

The Right to Privacy and Anti-Discrimination Bills



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Most of us are willing to allow others the right to make their own choices, even if we don’t agree with those choices. New legislative trends concerning discrimination, however, are inviting absurd unintended consequences and are denying the right to privacy assured us under our Constitution.

Such is the case with the anti-discrimination legislation emerging in several states; for example, SB-262 in Utah’s 2013 legislative session. While on the surface these laws appear benevolent, the legal implications of such legislation open Pandora’s Box, bringing consequences never intended by those who naively sponsor the bills. Our state and federal constitutions already prohibit discrimination; additional legislation is unnecessary. We need only enforce the laws we have.

Read excerpts below from a Wall Street Journal article about the unintended consequences of similar legislation in Massachusetts. Note that the rights of the many are being destroyed to cater to the feelings of the few. Such matters bring an air of absurdity to the entire legislative process, leaving many of us feeling that the world has been turned upside down.

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Make Way for Transgender High School
'Gender identity' trumps any squeamishness girls might feel about sharing bathrooms with boys.

By JAMES P. EHRHARD

On July 1, 2012, a law went into effect in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts titled "An Act Relative to Gender Identity”, commonly termed "transgender." Transgender students are those whose assigned birth sex doesn't match their "internalized sense of their gender," the directive says, and they "range in the ways in which they identify as male, female, some combination of both, or neither." Therefore, "the responsibility for determining a student's gender identity rests with the student." (note: in past, a person’s gender identity has rested with his or her  physical characteristics.)

The new law's strongest proponents estimated that no more than 33,000 people would come under the umbrella of those having "gender identity" concerns. That means the statute was rewritten to cover 0.51% of the state's population (6,464,144 as of July 2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau), even though advocates for the change were never able to show evidence of widespread transgender discrimination. The need for this addition to the antidiscrimination law was never clear. The existing statute appeared to apply to every citizen of Massachusetts who could conceivably be the object of discrimination. "Sexual orientation" was already on the menu.

 There was always a hint of the absurd in the movement for "An Act Relative to Gender Identity."  The 11-page directive, released on Feb. 15, reads like it was written by someone who believes that anatomical and biological differences between the sexes are about as significant as the differences between individuals in shoe size or hair color.

Some of the highlights include allowing transgendered and gender-questioning students to use the bathrooms of their choice or to play on sports teams that correspond to the gender with which they identify. Under the…guidelines, a 16-year-old high-school junior who says that he believes he is a girl has the right to use the girls bathroom and locker room. (But before boys who are unconfused about their gender get any bright ideas, the guidelines are ready: The transgender feelings must be "sincerely held." School staff can challenge anyone who seems to be making the assertion for "some improper purpose.") If a female student feels uncomfortable and objects to the boy's presence when she is in the bathroom, the rules say, the complaint "is not a reason to deny access to the transgender student." (note: the rights of 0.51% of the population now take precedence over the rights of the 99.49%).

It is a given that nearly all teenage girls will feel deeply uncomfortable having an anatomical male of any sort using the same bathroom or locker-room shower. That is the reality of human life, and no young woman should be forced to endure such embarrassment. As for an anatomical but transgender girl showering in the boys locker room, that hardly bears contemplating.

…what the guidelines don't recognize is that it is impossible to erase the differences between the sexes, even if a politically connected few would wish it so. It is entirely possible, though, to erase common sense and replace it with a policy that gives transgender students more rights and privileges than their classmates.

*Mr. Ehrhard, the owner of the law firm Ehrhard & Associates, P.C., in Worcester, Mass, is an elected member of the Tantasqua (Sturbridge, Mass.) Regional District School Committee.

- Pam

Enemies Within ; Enemies Without

Threats to our safety come from two sources: exthernal and internal - those outside the nation and those within. People who clamor for gun registration and cry that we should deny gun owndership have naively ignored the internal thread - that which comes from a government run amok. They have failed to see that those we trust sometimes betray us. Gun restrictions invite our civitimization by internal forces.

 

How unwise! Surely this is like protecting your property from mountain lions while ignoring the wolves in the front yard.

 

Follwing are exceprts on the threat from internal forces from Promises of the Constitution: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, pp. 232-33

 

Every successful, prosperous nation must defend itself against enemies, including those within the governemtn. A major part of our protection comes from the Second Amendment, which reads: Because a well-regulated state militia is necessary for the security of a free people, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed by the federal government."

 

The Senate subcommitte on the Constitution, in its 1982 report entitled The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, investigated and reported the intent of the Founding Fathers on this topic. The subcommittee states: "The conclusion is thus inedscapable that the . . . Second Amendment . . . indicates that . . . [the] inidividual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner" is our constitutional right.

 

If the government takes weapons from peaceable citizens, it leaves them at the mercy of criminals and despots. History demonstrates that a nation sliding into despotism typically forces gun registration, then provokes an incident that "requires" the confiscation of weapons. George Masion, [a] drafter of the [Constitution and the] Virginia Bill of Rights, accused the British of having plotted "to disarm the people - that was the best and most effective way to enslave them."

 

History begs us to not forget that we bear arms to protect ourselves from enemies without, and within, the government.

 

Citizens, beware!

 

- Pam

Rights In The Constitution: Owning Guns

Will taking away our guns keep us safe? Hardly! As one woman recently said, ‘How does leaving me defenseless, make me safer?” Good point!

 

The following article was published in the Daily Herald, Provo, Utah, in January, 2013. Read it to learn about about “soft targets”, America’s resting militia, and human nature.

 

Staying Safe in America

 

Pamela Romney Openshaw

 

Americans are appropriately dismayed about recent infringements on their second amendment rights. The pros and cons of private gun ownership are debated loudly, leaving people confused about the basic arguments and asking for clarification of the core issue. That core issue is this: the inalienable right to keep ourselves safe carries with it the intrinsic right to own weapons of protection.

 

Government officials currently argue that the Second Amendment does not apply to the right of citizens to bear arms. This absurd position is blind to reality and ignorant of mankind’s history. Individuals have always understood personal protection as a responsibility and a right. Who can better protect us than we, ourselves? No army, police force, or hired enforcer can care enough to offer the safety we provide for ourselves when threatened. A government that would deny gun ownership to its citizens denies them the right to protect themselves and their families.

 

How can one find protection without owning modern weapons—most especially, guns? The answer is that he cannot. A knife is no deterrent—it requires that one be within arm’s reach of the assailant. Neither can bows and arrows, bullwhips, or firecrackers. Without a gun, one is likely left with the kitchen spatula for defense—hardly a threat to an assailant!

 

In colonial America citizens were obligated to own and operate protective weapons. Patrick Henry said: “A well regulated militia, composed of gentlemen and freemen, is the natural strength and only security of a free government . . . The great object is that every man be armed.” Richard Henry Lee, another prominent Founder, wrote: “To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.” Early American men formed a resting militia—a resounding barrier against threat or aggression. So serious was this obligation that the U.S. Militia Act of 1792 required all able bodied male citizens between the ages of 18 and 44 to keep weapons on hand. Adulthood meant responsible weapons use and control.

 

The world has not changed. Human nature still leads the powerful--those with weapons--to usurp the rights of the weak—those without weapons. Without weapons, citizens become “soft targets”; easy prey for the malevolent. It is not the use of the weapons that deters crime, but the possibility that they can be used. If resistance is possible, the criminal is less likely to act. Thus, increasing gun ownership in the populace reduces overall crime rates by reducing the number of soft targets.

 

Australia’s experience offers a chilling example of citizen safety in relation to personal gun ownership. Though gun violence in relatively safe Australia had been trending downward for decades, the government banned private gun ownership in 1996 after a violent shooting episode. Crime rates--murders with guns, gun assaults, and armed robberies--rose. Of greater concern was the dramatic increase in home burglaries, with accompanying assaults on the defenseless elderly. Criminals knew that homeowners had lost the means to challenge them and gun crimes surged. Meanwhile, the development of a thriving black market made it harder to control crime.

 

Gun control does not curb crime. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate subcommittee that investigated, then issued the 1982 report entitled The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, explained the investigations's findings: "If gun laws...worked, the sponsors...should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of crime rates reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying...establishes the repeated, complete, and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime.

 

Nor does gun control stop the lawless. Those that want the criminal life will find it.  While disarming law abiding citizens is easy, there are few things more difficult than disarming the lawless, especially with many guns already available in society.

 

 

Private citizens must not be left defenseless, their basic safety in jeopardy. We must retain the right to keep and bear arms.

 

- Pam

 

 

Coming of Age in the Constitution

I never thought much about the Constitution in my younger years. Yes, it was important (yawn); but it seemed complicated and, frankly, less than important. Why worry about an aged document when the American government seemed to be fine and I was sure it would continue to be so without my attention. There was so much to do--leave all that to politicians and old men. I trusted their judgments, whatever they were.
 

Then I heard some in the media mock the Founding Fathers and my feelings started to change. That was going too far. It didn’t make sense—if the Constitution was a good thing, how could the men who wrote it be bad? Doesn’t good fruit come from a good tree?
 

I began to study their lives and times. My more enlightened friends worried about government policies and patriots were protesting our lack of freedom. I couldn’t see any freedoms I’d lost until I noticed the interference from bureaucrats and pesky regulations in my father’s produce company in the Southwest. A friend’s father got fined for not wearing his seatbelt and a woman at church had her children temporarily taken from her because her home was messy when authorities responded to an emergency call.  I wasn’t opposed to seatbelts nor did I like messy homes; I just didn’t believe the authorities should make those decisions.
 

My tipping point came because of vitamins. I believed in them; the federal government apparently didn’t. A national organization informed me the federal government was threatening to cut off access to vitamins. How dare they--no one had the right to make that decision for me; that was my choice! I wrote my congressmen and representatives. They responded, the measure was defeated (though surely not just because of me), and I saw the power of representation. My voice mattered. I’ve never looked back.
 

Today, I study the Constitution. To me it is political scripture—it has simplicity, depth, the ring of truth. I pray to understand our political system and the document that gave it birth. I study the issues, make informed decisions, and express my opinion to elected officials. I no longer assume that all lawmakers automatically have my best interests at heart—I let them prove it.

 

I know the issues that matter most to me—the loss of tiny lives through abortion, the God-given right to own personal property, the right of self-protection. I vett organizations that speak wisely for these issues and “put my money where my mouth is” with contributions.
 

With my greater attention has come greater patriotism, greater exasperation with elected officials, greater thirst for freedom. I speak out now to friends and associates; I challenge standard assumptions and the status quo.

 

My process culminated in a book: Promises of the Constitution: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.  My heart is in it. I hope you’ll join me through its pages.
 

 

- Pam

Welcome!

Welcome to

 

IN THE CONSTITUTION

 

A blog about what’s happening to conservative Christian values in America.

 

Visit this site to make sense of the news. Find out how current events affect our liberty and prosperity.

 

Our perspective: if the original Constitution worked so well, let’s get it back. And it did work! In 1905, 116 years after the Constitution became law, the United States produced 50% of the world’s goods with just 5% of its land mass and 6% of its population.

 

That was then. Today, a mere shadow of past glory, we are in trouble!  Taxes plunder us, regulations suffocate us, and the money stripped from us is wasted on cronies, trivia and pork. Our vast welfare system rewards unwed mothers and deadbeat dads, debt threatens our survival, businesses flee our soil, we borrow money to reward those who hate us, and Christian values are becoming illegal.

 

I am Pamela Romney Openshaw, author of books on the Constitution. My first, Promises of the Constitution: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, is the Constitution’s biography, told in 1 ½  page “bites” packed with concise information  fun facts and interesting stories. My second, Lessons of the Constitution and workbook, pair with Promises of the Constitution as a teaching program for families and youth.

 

Check out my website: www.promisesoftheconstitution.com

 

Others who recommend my work.

 

Tim Ballard, author of The Covenant said: “If every family in the nation would read this book, the blessings of the Constitution would be restored and we would be saved as a nation!”

 

Kimberly Fletcher, president of HomeMakers for America, said: “Every woman in America should own a copy of this book, refer to it often, and share it with her children.”

 

Bob Copper, retired business man said: “Your book should be required reading for everyone who votes.”

 

That said, I hope you will trust me to guide your understanding of our marvelous, God-given United States Constitution!

 

Enthusiastically, Pam