Earlier this week, President Obama gave his first major campaign speech with the State of the Union Address. I do not want to use this article to knit pick everything the President said in his speech (youtube search “CATO State of the Union” and you will find a good video knit picking the speech), but I will say America did not learn anything new from the speech. We saw President Obama use his great oratory skills to deliver a speech that was filled with his ideologies. However, I do want to address a statement that has been made multiple times throughout the Republican Primary by Newt Gingrich. Newt says that there is a war on religion in this nation. Is this statement a true and legitimate statement?
Newt Gingrich loves to play to his audiences and right now his audience is conservative Americans. It is no surprise the former Speaker of the House would use this right wing statement to help garner support for his campaign, but is this statement a fallacy or legitimate? Monday of this past week was the annual March for Life protest in Washington DC. I searched CNN.com, MSNBC.com, and ABC.com to see what their approximations were for the amount of protesters at the march. What I found was one or two video clips of the march and three or four articles with the same approximation. They all said that “thousands” gathered in DC for the protest. I then Google searched March for life 2012 and the second article I clicked on said that close to a half million people gathered in DC for the March for Life. The main stream media down played the March for Life and made it look like just a gathering of “a thousand” religious and conservative Americans. I guess the main stream media only cares for protests that cause millions of dollars in property damage, consist of people defecating and using drugs in public, and have an extreme left wing message. Also, recently a group of kids were suspended from school for Tebowing in the hallway of their school. The kids lined up across the hallway and simultaneously Tebowed. The principal of the school suspended them because they created a “fire hazard” for the school. Tim Tebow was also in the controversial spotlight when Real Time host Bill Maher tweeted a highly inflammatory tweet about the Bronco’s loss to the Bills on Christmas Eve. I will not post the tweet here for fear of being suspended for having vulgar language in one of my articles. Bill Maher is an outspoken atheist that believes if you believe in God or a higher power then you are stupid. (I am not kidding youtube “O’Reily Maher religion debate” those are his words not mine) You be the judge if Gingrich’s statement is legitimate. All of these examples happened recently and all have a similar theme. A religious person or group is down played or criticized for what they believe.
In one of the recent Republican debates the candidates were asked about religion and the Presidency. Out of all the responses Rick Santorum’s really struck me as the best. In summary he said that the rights of all citizens of America are God given rights, and that it is the responsibility of the government to protect those God given rights. Our basic rights for being American citizens are the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. America is the nation we are today because our founders believed in the philosophy of John Locke, which said a person’s rights do not come from the government, but they come from God. Our founders built this nation where the government could not do anything to abridge its citizens’ rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The founding principle of America comes from God. Religion helped create our nation. Once again you be the judge if the war on religion is a fallacy or legitimate.
