July 19, 2010

Obama's Tendentious Redefinition of Freedom

Catholic Online catches President Barack H. Obama in a seismic shift in rhetoric, one that could betoken grave changes in the very concept of religious freedom:

The change in language was barely noticeable to the average citizen but political observers are raising red flags at the use of a new term "freedom of worship" by President Obama and Secretary Clinton as a replacement for the term freedom of religion. This shift happened between the President's speech in Cairo where he showcased America's freedom of religion and his appearance in November at a memorial for the victims of Fort Hood, where he specifically used the term "freedom of worship." From that point on, it has become the term of choice for the president and Clinton.

So what's in a word? Isn't freedom of worship simply a quaint synonym for freedom of religion? Well, no; worship is a much narrower word than religion, and the freedom envisioned is a crabbed and crippled one:

In her article for "First Things" magazine, Ashley Samelson, International Programs Director for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, stated, "To anyone who closely follows prominent discussion of religious freedom in the diplomatic and political arena, this linguistic shift is troubling: "The reason is simple. Any person of faith knows that religious exercise is about a lot more than freedom of worship. It's about the right to dress according to one's religious dictates, to preach openly, to evangelize, to engage in the public square. Everyone knows that religious Jews keep kosher, religious Quakers don't go to war, and religious Muslim women wear headscarves-yet "freedom of worship" would protect none of these acts of faith...."

It also could exclude our right to raise our children in our faith, the right to religious education, literature or media, the right to raise funds or organize charitable activities and the right to express religious beliefs in the normal discourse of life....

Samelson writes, "The effort to squash religion into the private sphere is on the rise around the world. "And it's not just confined to totalitarian regimes like Saudi Arabia. In France, students at public schools cannot wear headscarves, yarmulkes, or large crucifixes. The European Court of Human Rights has banned crucifixes from the walls of Italian schools."

So why would Obamunism suddenly demand a slimmer creed of freedom than the full-bore freedom of religion? What does the administration gain from the switch to freedom of worship? Alas, I fear it's yet another act of appeasement of the usual suspects, more creeping acceptance of the virulent form of "jihadist" totalitarianism: Barack Obama is signalling that the United States, despite the words of our Founders and in our own Bill of Rights, no longer believes Moslem nations violate fundamental liberty when they discriminate against the infidel -- where "infidel" means anyone who doesn't submit to the precise form of Wahhabism, Salafism, or Khomeiniism demanded by the State.

We no longer vigorously oppose religious violence, from head-chopping and suicide bombing down to "honor" killings and throwing acid in the faces of unveiled women. We don't want to anger militant Islamists by insisting that schools be something less than -- and something more than -- propaganda mills for extremist, anti-Western, anti-Christian, and especially anti-Jew hatred that twists lives and warps souls. America, in the person of the President of the United States, is more solicitous of the feelings of those engaged in a "holy war" against us than he is of the lives and freedoms of their victims.

In other words, it's just another "bow from the waist" abasement to the so-called "jihad."

Catholic Online gingerly points at this explanation but appears too nervous actually to pull the trigger:

In the administration's defense, Carl Esbeck, professor of law at the University of Missouri, is quoted by Christianity Today as saying, "The softened message is probably meant for the Muslim world, said. Obama, seeking to repair relations fractured by 9/11, is telling Islamic countries that America is not interfering with their internal matters."

"Internal matters" such as publicly stoning women to death for the crime of being raped.

Everyday, in every way, the Obamacle expresses his disdain for traditional American virtues and his passionate belief -- probably deeper than anything else he learnt in the pews of Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ -- that there is nothing exceptional about the United States... unless it's that America is exceptionally racist, sexist -- and religist.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, July 19, 2010, at the time of 12:39 PM

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The above hissed in response by: Nerys Ghemor at July 19, 2010 9:24 PM

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