Mountain Views News          Saturday, July 12, 2014

B4

OPINION

Mountain Views-News Saturday, Jully 12, 2014 

 

Mountain 
Views

News

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson

CITY EDITOR

Dean Lee 

EAST VALLEY EDITOR

Joan Schmidt

BUSINESS EDITOR

LaQuetta Shamblee

SENIOR COMMUNITY 
EDITOR

Pat Birdsall

SALES

Patricia Colonello

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WEBMASTER

John Aveny 

CONTRIBUTORS

Chris Leclerc

Bob Eklund

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Hail Hamilton 

Rich Johnson

Merri Jill Finstrom

Lori Koop

Rev. James Snyder

Tina Paul

Mary Carney

Katie Hopkins

Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Greg Welborn

Renee Quenell

Ben Show

Sean Kayden

Marc Garlett

 LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

GREG Welborn


HOWARD Hays As I See It


IMMIGRATION HYPOCRISY

“In My line of work 
you’ve got to keep 
repeating things over 
and over and over again 
. . . to kind of catapult 
the propaganda.”

- President George W. 
Bush, May 2005

 It’s the first time 
this happened in the 
five years of this column. I received a 
pre-publication note (not from Susan) 
informing me of a factual misstatement 
in my submission, warranting 
correction before going to press.

 I went back to my research and found 
that I had, in fact, been correct – but 
offered more precise alternate language. 
Unfortunately, what ended up in print 
was something else entirely that made 
no biological sense.

 Normally, I would’ve let it slide. It 
appeared that a fact I’d stated was in 
conflict with a certain bogus talking 
point; one that has attained a degree 
of acceptance and credibility by virtue 
of being repeated “over and over and 
over again”. But since the issue in 
question was also the stated “key issue” 
in the Right Turn column appearing 
opposite mine last week, I thought I’d 
better straighten it out – though the 
propaganda has already been catapulted.

 In her debut column last week 
(congratulations and welcome), Abigail 
Welborn dismisses the result of the 
Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision 
as “making someone pay for their own 
abortification procedures” She states, 
“The key issue in this case was whether a 
closely-held company, owned by deeply 
religious people who object to abortion 
on well-documented religious beliefs, 
should be forced to pay for medications 
which cause a women’s (sic) body to self-
abort a fetus (the medication known as 
an abortifacient).” Her observation is 
that “Four Liberal justices believe that 
an American can be forced to violate 
their religious beliefs to pay for another 
person’s abortion.”

 Coverage for abortion is banned under 
the Affordable Care Act, as is coverage 
for drugs serving that purpose (such as 
RU486 and Mifeprex). That’s how it was 
passed by Congress and signed into law 
by the president. 

 The four methods at issue in the Hobby 
Lobby case don’t involve “abortification”, 
“abortifacients”, means to “self-abort a 
fetus” or abortion-whatever. The groups 
promoting the case through to the 
Supreme Court realized that arguing 
for a corporation’s “right” to determine 
contraception access for its female 
employees was a non-starter. Make it 
about “abortion”, however, and you’re 
guaranteed to fire up the base.

 For the record, the four methods 
Hobby Lobby objected to were:

 1) Plan B: Functions by inhibiting 
ovulation

 2) ella (the manufacturer gives it the 
small “e”): Inhibits ovulation, though 
a dose higher than the standard 30 mg 
may affect the uterine lining

 3) Mirena: a hormonal IUD, changes 
cervical mucus to block sperm

 4) ParaGard: a copper IUD, acts as a 
spermicide

 As noted by Susan Woods, former 
director of the FDA’s Office of Women’s 
Health, “their only connection to 
abortion is that they can prevent the 
need for one.”

 Physicians for Reproductive Health and 
the American College of Obstetricians 
and Gynecologists spelled it out in 
their amicus brief to the Court: the 
medical, scientific and legal definition 
of pregnancy is the condition occurring 
as a result of ovulation, fertilization 
and then implantation. None of the 
four methods in question affects that 
condition.

 In the end, though, the Supreme 
Court ruled that medical, scientific 
and legal realities don’t matter. It’s the 
religious “belief” of a corporation alone 
that entitles it to deprive thousands 
of women employees preventive care 
options under the nation’s healthcare 
law – trumping whatever “beliefs”, 
religious or otherwise, the women 
might hold themselves.

 Besides, the Court ruled there was 
a “less restrictive” option available. 
Closely-held corporations could submit 
to their insurers the EBSA (Employee 
Benefits Security Administration) 
Form 700. It’s provided for under the 
ACA to allow religious non-profits 
to take themselves out-of-the-loop 
in arranging, providing, and paying 
for contraceptive coverage for their 
employees.

 That Form 700 consists of four spaces 
filled out on a single page; “Name of 
the objecting organization”, “Name and 
title of the individual” signing for the 
organization, contact information on 
that individual, and a dated signature 
certifying that “on account of religious 
objections, the organization opposes 
providing coverage for some or all of 
any contraceptive services that would 
otherwise be required to be covered”.

 There was assurance the ruling was 
limited in scope, and derision of those 
who warned of a “slippery slope” - that 
the ruling might be expanded upon. 
The ruling in fact remained as it was – 
for about three days.

 On the Thursday following the Monday 
ruling the Court, in an unsigned 
majority opinion, agreed with Wheaton 
College, a self-proclaimed “Christian” 
institution in Illinois, that filling out 
those four spaces on that Form 700 
in itself constituted a “substantial 
burden” on its “free exercise” of religion 
– that “signing the form would be 
impermissibly facilitating abortions”. 
Never mind who’s providing for what 
and the fact it has nothing to do with 
abortion, anyway.

 Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined 
in dissent with Justices Kagan and 
Ginsburg, disagreed with Wheaton’s 
contention it’s up to the institution, 
not the law or the courts, to determine 
for itself what constitutes a “substantial 
burden”, “thus. . . depriving hundreds 
of Wheaton’s employees and students of 
their legal entitlement to contraceptive 
coverage.”

 In the dissent she sought to make 
“absolutely clear: I do not doubt that 
Wheaton genuinely believes that signing 
the self-certification form is contrary 
to its religious beliefs. But thinking 
one’s religious beliefs are substantially 
burdened - no matter how sincere or 
genuine that belief may be - does not 
make it so.”

 It’s not about abortion, but contraception. 
It’s not the “free exercise” of religion, 
but corporate and institutional boards 
allowed to impose their “beliefs” on their 
employees, depriving them of their own 
rights under the Constitution and the 
Law. Filling out a one-page form is not a 
“substantial burden”.

They can “keep repeating things over 
and over and over again”, but that “does 
not make it so.”

That we have a humanitarian crisis on our southern border is 
beyond question. One doesn’t need to be a bleeding-heart liberal 
to be deeply moved and concerned by the plight of children 
being thrown on the tops of trains to make a thousand mile trek 
across very hostile territory with the desperate hope that they 
will reach safety at journey’s end. Whether you’re a parent or 
simply someone with a smidgeon of compassion, you have to be 
saddened and angered by the wave of desperate, vulnerable humanity that’s being 
manipulated by traffickers and the liberal elite. Americans rightly ask why we can’t 
come together to solve this problem, only to find that the barricades to resolution 
are manned by the hypocrites of the Left.

The numbers are staggering. Unaccompanied alien children (UACs) were fewer 
than 1,000 five years ago. By 2011, there were 16,067, then 24,481 in 2012 and 38,833 
in 2013. Significant numbers that are dwarfed by the 90,000 projected for 2014, 
made all the more devastating by the fact that the composition has shifted from 
Mexican children to those of Central America, thus geometrically increasing the 
length and dangers of the trip. Even the simple question of why finds its answer 
at the doorstep of this President’s hypocrisy. People make journeys of this length 
and danger because of both desperation and promise. People may be tempted to 
leave their homeland to escape its desperate environment, but they only actually 
make that journey when there’s some degree of promise they will be able to stay 
somewhere better.

 The crisis of civil war and drug violence in Central America actually peaked in 
2009, and the situation is less desperate now than it was five years ago. So why the 
increase in UACs over those same 5 years? Because, Americans are not the only 
ones who realize this President selectively enforces the immigration laws. While 
he uses a press conference to counsel Central American parents not to send their 
kids, his actions belie another reality. Fox News Latino reported that upwards of 
80% of these Central American children are entitled to some form of protection, 
extended stay, visas or asylum. This president (like another I can remember) can 
look squarely into a camera to say one thing while practicing another.

 But the hypocrisy doesn’t stop with the President. There are many on the Left who 
are swift to vilify Americans who want a legitimate solution to the immigration 
problem yet secretly benefit from the current escalating problem. Their names are 
not foreign to us: Reid, Pelosi, Silicon Valley and Wall Street CEOs, and ethnic 
activists. Their only policy proposal at this juncture is to guilt trip Americans into 
$3.7 billion of supplemental emergency spending which will pointedly not allocate 
one thin dime to additional border security. We’re to believe that spending more 
in humanitarian aid without securing the border won’t simply entice more to make 
the journey in hopes of receiving expanded aid benefits.

 But let’s consider the personal costs and burdens. Nancy Pelosi vilifies those who 
won’t grant immigration amnesty, knowing she’s rich enough to not feel a burden 
from the increased taxes necessary to pay for expanded social services. Liberal 
Silicon Valley and Wall Street donors will not see their neighborhoods impacted by 
the influx, nor will they see the quality of their childrens’ private school educations 
disturbed, but they will benefit from cheap labor for their factories. The rest of us 
have to do the hard – but I would add, the very American – work of actually folding 
in the newly arrived to our schools, neighborhoods and hospitals. This is not to 
denigrate in any way the charitable and welcoming nature which is quintessentially 
American, only to make the obvious point that there limits to what our already 
overburdened system can further bear.

 Then there are the cynical political calculations, which are more than tinged 
with a nasty bigotry of their own. We witness the immigration activists who try 
to rally illegal immigrants under the banner of “Viva La Raza” – loosely translated 
as “long-live the race” while simultaneously spitting accusations of bigotry against 
those of us who feel the nation is better off when all immigrants – of any color or 
ethnicity – assimilate into American society rather than to maintain an allegiance 
to narrow ethnicity. The angrier and more aggrieved newly arrived immigrants 
feel, the greater the constituency for the activists. One wonders whether they will 
ever really want “the problem” solved.

 Vote counting motives also extend to the leadership in the Democratic Party. 
Those who rely heavily on the government for support and sustenance are 
unlikely to vote for reasonable controls on the escalating costs of inefficient 
government aid programs. Maintaining an open, unsecured border while 
enticing the world’s masses with the promise of ample benefits upon arrival 
may be good election strategy, but it will hurt the country. When the number 
of people taking from the system exceeds the number contributing to the 
system, the country will decline, but those making the promises calculate they 
will retain the privileges of power and position.

 Despite the chants, slogans and contemptible slurs thrown at us, Conservatives 
want a reasonable solution. We’re not advocating the deportation of millions who 
have made homes here and are contributing members of our society. But at the 
same time, we suffer the predicament of those who have remained in their own 
countries dutifully obeying our laws while on immigration waiting lists. We want 
to help those who are really in need, but want make sure we don’t simply encourage 
millions more to unnecessarily burden the system. In short, we stand ready to 
negotiate a comprehensive solution with reliable negotiating partners. We just can’t 
find any of those in the current crop of Liberal hypocrites.

About the author: Gregory J. Welborn is a freelance writer and has spoken to several 
civic and religious organizations on cultural and moral issues. He lives in the Los 
Angeles area with his wife and 3 children and is active in the community. He can be 
reached gregwelborn2@gmail.com

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OUT TO PASTOR A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder

HAVE A BLESSED DAY; NOW FIRE ME IF YOU DARE!

I must confess to a severe case 
of poverty. I never took a vow 
of poverty; it just seems to have 
worked out that way for me. I 
am so poor the church mice have 
packed their bags and moved on. 
If I knew where they moved to, I might join them.

 Being poor can have its advantages, but I have yet to 
run across any.

 I am so poor I am not able to pay attention, especially 
when watching some television program with the 
Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. This has caused 
no small problem with my wife. We love an evening 
of unwinding before the TV watching some of our 
favorite programs. I must confess those programs are 
getting less and less each year. Soon we are going to 
have to go back to reading books.

 Together we will be watching a program, and when 
I say ”we,” I do it with certain modifications. My wife 
will get up and go to the kitchen for something and 
when she returns, she asks me a question, ”What 
happened?”

 I look at her with one of my infamous quizzical looks 
and respond, ”Where?”

 She then explains she is talking about what happened 
on the TV program while she was away. I then tell her, 
”I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

 This seems to be a source of real frustration for her.

 ”If you can’t afford to pay attention,” she will say 
sarcastically while rolling her eyes, ”couldn’t you at 
least rent some attention some time?”

 I tried explaining to her that old age is making me a 
little more forgetful. She, however, is not buying it, so 
there goes my income stream.

 For me, watching television is not an obsession; it is 
more like a distraction. I do not follow every little bit 
on the television screen. For me it is not a matter of 
life or death, it is just a matter of recreation. I know 
that nothing on TV is real. We can be in the middle 
of the next program and I do not realize that the first 
program has ended. Talk about confusing!

 When something does catch my attention, boy does it 
have my attention.

 ”Did you,” I ask my wife, ”hear that?”

 Then it is role reversal in prime time. I will not say she 
acts like me, just that it comes pretty close to it. Not 
quite Oscar material, but close.

 ”What?” She said with a very confused look on her 
face.

 So I had to explain the news story that I just happened 
to catch. I do not know all of the details, I was not 
paying that much attention, just that someone was 
fired from their job for saying to a customer, ”Have a 
blessed day.”

 I have met many customer service people that said 
things that I would want them to be fired from, but 
this has never been on my list.

 My wife then asked the question I was thinking. 
”What is wrong with telling someone to have a blessed 
day?”

 I could not figure it out. It is like at Christmas time 
some places do not want their employees to say to 
the customer, ”Merry Christmas.” The reasoning 
is, it might offend someone. What about us who 
are offended when somebody does not say Merry 
Christmas to us? This matter of being offended can go 
both ways. There should be an equal offended person 
law. There is a law for everything else.

 I just would like to meet the person who is offended 
by somebody saying to them, ”Have a blessed day.”

 Later that evening I was watching a new crime/
detective story on TV and all of a sudden, I heard some 
words that were offensive. They were saying curse 
words that I have never heard on TV before. I have 
always believed that if you have to use curse words, 
it is because your vocabulary is drastically lacking in 
intellectual responses to the world around you.

 Here is my dilemma. Why can you say curse words 
on TV, which everybody knows is scripted, but you 
cannot say, ”Have a blessed day,” without getting fired?

 If I was in business I would want my employees to 
greet my clients with a cheerful, ”Have a blessed day” 
and not some awful curse words.

 I was complaining about this to a friend of mine who 
explained to me that curse words on television are 
considered ”literary license.” Who is paying for that 
license I am wondering.

 All of this has to do with the PC syndrome in our 
country today. The problem is what was PC yesterday 
is no longer PC today. Who knows what tomorrow’s 
PC will be.

 What I cannot accept is the fact that being crude and 
rude is PC and saying something nice is not. Have we 
reverted to the caveman mentality? Is being nice is no 
longer acceptable behavior?

 I like what David says, ”Bless the LORD, O my soul: 
and all that is within me, bless his holy name” (Psalms 
103:1).

 Perhaps the reason people are offended by that phrase 
is because they know that only God has the power to 
bless. If I am being blessed by God, I am going to turn 
around and bless people around me.

 So, for those offended by that phrase let me say, ”Have 
a blessed day. And fire me if you dare.”

 Rev. James L. Snyder is pastor of the Family of God 
Fellowship, PO Box 831313, Ocala, FL 34483. He lives 
with his wife, Martha, in Silver Springs Shores. Call 
him at 1-866-552-2543 or e-mail jamessnyder2@att.
net or website www.jamessnyderministries.com.

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