SCOTUS, Obamacare, and the Constitution....

I have been puzzling for some time about why Obamacare was not simply overturned on the basis that it violates Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution requiring that all revenue legislation originate in the House of Representatives.

I just figured out why.

Article 1, Section 7 says,

"All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills."

The House had originally passed its own version of the healthcare act, which was rejected by the Senate.  Instead, the Senate took H.R. 3590, a bill revising the Internal Revenue Code with regard to housing tax breaks for military personnel, gutted it, incorporated some of the aspects of the rejected House Bill, added loads of its own amendments (as permitted by Article 1, Sec. 7), and passed it.  Since the original revenue-related legislation originated and was passed in the House, Obamacare is a legal tax.  And since the Democrats knew that H.R. 3590 revised the Internal Tax Code, they also from the outset that this was a new series of taxes.

Just one more example of the lengths to which the Democrats went to force Obamacare on us - turning a tax break for military personnel into the single biggest package of new taxes (21 of them) in the history of the United States.

A Response to the “Evangelical Statement of Principles for Immigration Reform”...

More than 100 "evangelical" organizations have banded together to publicly call on the church to push for amnesty for more than eleven million illegals now living in the US.  Focus on the Family and the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission are just a couple such organizations.


As a fundamental, Bible-believing Christian who is also an ordained minister of the Word, I am well aware of the biblical teaching to love our neighbor, just as I am also aware of the teaching regarding showing mercy.

I am likewise aware of the clear teaching of Romans 13:1-5, 

"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience."

The course of action for which you advocate is contrary to God's clear instructions that we obey the laws established by our authorities. The individuals for whom you advocate are those who have CHOSEN to disobey the laws of our country; now they demand that we set those laws aside and give them the entrance for which thousands of others stand in line and patiently wait as they navigate our immigration system.


Worse, this course of action violates the Bible's clear teaching that forgiveness first requires repentance. You would have us offer amnesty where no repentance, rather, defiance, has been shown. Our salvation first requires us to recognize our sins. It then requires us to repent of those sins. Finally, it requires us to receive God's forgiveness on HIS terms - not ours. As this applies to the current situation, illegals must first recognize that they have violated our laws, that they have stolen livelihoods from the families of the citizens whom they displaced. They must turn away (repent) from their illegal status and activities. Finally they must make application for citizenship in the manner specified by the laws of our country.


Will this have potentially adverse ramifications for the families of illegals? Obviously, the answer to that question is Yes. But therein lies the problem with sin; it affects not only the sinner, but many associated with the sinner as well. Likewise, because of the choices of parents, children may face undesirable consequences, as is true of any situation in which a lawbreaker has children. Or as is stated in the proverb found in Ezekiel 18:2, 

"...The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." 

Yet, even in this passage there is hope for the children of illegals: 

"Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is just and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself" (Ezekiel 18:19-20). 

Many of the children of illegals are old enough to make application for citizenship on their own, or to acquire citizenship through serving in the armed forces of our country. If they do what is right, it is possible for them to legally obtain the citizenship they now DEMAND by way of amnesty.


God's love and mercy is offset by His justice. All three characteristics are integral to who God is, and to emphasize love and mercy to the exclusion of His justice is to misrepresent His character and teachings.


I implore you to reconsider the course of action to which you call others who name the name of Christ, and to recognize once again the explicit teaching of Romans 13. 

68th Anniversary of the D-day Landings.....

‎"6 June 1944. Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces, began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France."

To all who served and died on this longest, momentous day that led to final defeat of the Nazis, D-day, Thank you.

Selective Prosecution and the Michigan Marijuana Law....

An article appearing in the Grand Rapids Press on June 4 claims that the federal government is practicing "selective prosecution" against holders of Michigan Medical Marijuana cards.  This resulted in a number of postings by newly-minted supporters of States' Rights, arguing that the federal government has no business prosecuting these people in the first place, and calling on those of us who have long supported the precept of States' Rights to back their cause.  One individual went so far as to say that selective prosecution violates due process and the Equal Protection Clause, to which I replied:

No, it doesn't. Just as Michigan state laws include preeminence clauses that override local ordinances and laws, so do federal laws. Their prosecution of MM users is in line with those laws, and they aren't obligated to cut you ANY slack. 

 As I said before, this is what happens when you elect officials who interpret the Constitution as affording the fed the power to override the protections of States' Rights that were an integral part of the Bill of Rights any time it desires to do so. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments were included specifically to make these sorts of federal power grabs impossible, but the continued election of officials who choose to believe that the Commerce and "Necessary and Proper" clauses override those explicit protections has brought us to where we are today. 

 I almost have to laugh at all this. Many of you who are now angry with Obama because he isn't honoring his word about this voted for the man in the first place because he promised you all sorts of things that violate States' Rights - like Obamacare, for example. You can't pick and choose. You voted for officials who told you from the outset that their understanding of the Constitution gives them the right to do exactly what they are doing now. If you are going to be for States' Rights, then you have to be for States' Rights even when it doesn't necessarily benefit you. If you are going to vote for a man who believes that the Commerce and "Necessary and Proper" clauses give the federal government the right to override the explicit protections of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments at will, then you have no business complaining when that elected official actually does it. 

 You voted for him. Now it's up to you to see if you can change him. Good luck with that.

For the record, I don't believe in luck.  I felt it appropriate to wish them something I don't believe exists as they try to perform a task that I don't believe possible to achieve.  Both are fairy tales. 

Memorial Day 2012...

It isn't about steaks, fireworks, and road trips to vacation spots, its about MREs (or C Rats, as the case may have been), firefights, and convoys through insurgent-held territory to get support to your buddies. It's about joyful meetings at the door when family members came home from their deployments - or about the feeling of dread experienced when a non-descript government car pulled up to the house. Years in service at home and abroad.

We remember.

To all who served - or are still serving - Thank You.

Forces of Darkness....

Mayor George Heartwell of Grand Rapids, MI, made the following statement at a recent fundraiser:

"What's not to love about that?" said Heartwell, a former Planned Parenthood board chairman. "Yet every year the forces of darkness seek to deprive women" of the health care and reproductive education they get through Planned Parenthood.

"Ultraconservative political forces in league with ultraconservative religious forces have mounted a frontal assault against Planned Parenthood. This is a time like no other to rally behind Planned Parenthood. It's time for us to fill their treasury."

So pro-life supporters are now the "Forces of darkness"? 

"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" Isaiah 5:20. When fighting for life equates to darkness, we are truly on a downslide. 

A Response to the Call for Gay Marriage......

Let’s assume for the moment that the argument put forward by homosexuals is correct, and they really are born this way.  The assertion today is, if they were born this way, then it is wrong to expect them to change.  They can’t change who they are.

OK, for the sake of discussion, let’s accept that premise.

There is even scripture to back it up.

Psalm 51:5 says, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”  Sin is an inbred part of the human condition.  It is part and parcel of who we are by birth and by inclination.

We are predisposed to lie, cheat, gossip, kill, fornicate, adulterate, and steal - just to name a few.  The name of the sin doesn’t matter; the fact of the matter is that the predisposition to do these things is part of who we are.

Using the logic put forward by the homosexual lobby, then, we shouldn’t designate anything as illegal.  After all, the person who engages in these, or any number of other things, all labeled sin in the Bible, is simply following the inclination with which they were born.

But we don’t think like that.  We expect people to change their predisposition to conform to societal, and more importantly, moral and Biblical norms.  We expect them to stop stealing, or lying, or cheating, or fornication, or killing - all of the things that are labeled as sin in the Bible.  And we have no problem saying that GOD can change them.  After all, that is why God sent His Son, Jesus, to die for us - to deliver us from our sins (“...the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age...”,Gal. 1:3-4)

Homosexuality is no different than any other disposition labeled by the Bible as sin.

The Bible clearly teaches that homosexuality is sin.  Leviticus 18:22 says, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”  That doesn’t get much clearer.  Oh, but you say, that was the OLD TESTAMENT; we live under the NEW TESTAMENT, and it doesn’t say anything like that.  For me to accept that line of reasoning first requires me to believe that Malachi 3:6 (“For I the Lord do not change...”) and James 1:17 (“...the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.) are wrong, and God’s character is variable and changing.  Since God says His character doesn’t change, I have to reject that line of reasoning.  

OK, so lets play along for a moment and see what the New Testament tells us.  

Romans 1 tells us that, because man rejects the revealed Truth of God contained in His Word AND in creation (verses 18-21) and professes himself to be wise according to his own ideological and intellectual constructs - setting himself up as the ultimate measure of truth (verses 22-23) - GOD GAVE MAN UP (verse 24).  What was one of the many results? 

“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.  For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” (verses 24-27)

Men having intercourse with men and women having intercourse with women.  Today this is known as homosexuality.  That is the NEW Testament teaching.  Paul doesn’t stop there, though.  He goes on to say in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

Wait a second, Paul explicitly names homosexuality in these verses.  Yes, he lists a whole lot of others as well (remember what we said at the beginning about other sins?), but he specifically names homosexuality.  But wait a minute - I thought all sins were the same!  Paul puts that notion to rest in this chapter as well.  Take a look at verses 13 and 18:

“The body is not meant for sexual immorality...Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body” (verses 13, 18).

Yes, all sins are reprehensible to God, but He takes special exception to sins of a sexual nature - that’s not MY interpretation, those are the explicit words of God through the Apostle Paul!

So let’s go back to where we began.  We are all predisposed to different sins.  In that respect, homosexuality is no different than any other sin.  But just as we expect people to change, to stop practicing all of the other sins we listed previously, SO THE BIBLE SAYS THERE IS HOPE FOR THE HOMOSEXUAL!  Regardless of what is being spouted by psychiatrists and psychologists today, one’s predisposition can be changed.

You see, 1 Corinthians 6 doesn’t leave us in our sin without any recourse or hope of redemption.  Remember verses 9-10, the verses that specifically name homosexuality along with the laundry list of other sins?  These verses are followed by verse 12:

“And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (bolding added).

The Bible, contrary to politically correct social theory, tells us that, just as it is possible for our predisposition toward all other sins to be changed, SO CAN ONE’S PREDISPOSITION TOWARD HOMOSEXUALITY!!!  Is this just my interpretation?  NO!  Read the verses for yourself!

You see, there is no parallel between homosexuality and being African-American, even though this is one of the strongest arguments used by the homosexual lobby to garner support.  And the article published by ABC News tells us that there are many African-American pastors - even those who regularly advise the President - who aren’t buying it (“Obama calls pastors to explain gay marriage support; black churches ‘conflicted' by president's decision”).  Being black - or yellow, or red - is not a sinful predisposition.  Christ didn’t die to save one from being a different color.  But the Bible tells us that He DID die to save us from our sinful dispositions so that we could live lives that please God.  He saved us to DESTROY our old dispositions so that He can give us NEW ones, dispositions that desire to follow the revealed Truth of God’s Word.  As Paul tells us in Romans 5:6-7,

“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.  For he that is dead is freed from sin.”

As this debate continues to unfold, there are many who assert that this has nothing to do with religion, or Christianity, or the Bible, that the Bible really doesn’t spend a lot of time addressing it - as if God has to say something many times in order for us to take Him seriously.  And after all, Jesus didn’t say anything about homosexuality.  You’re right.  He didn’t.  When given the perfect opportunity to change the one-man/one woman paradigm, as recorded in Matthew and Mark, He went right back to the truth given in Genesis 2:23-24, 

“Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

Is this about hating homosexuals?  No.  This is about loving them by giving them the Truth of God’s Word.  You see, Proverbs 26:28 tells us that ”A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin.”  We don’t accuse the doctor of hating us when he or she gives us truth that we would rather not hear.  We acknowledge that they are looking out for our welfare.  If we accept this as true in the context of human wisdom, then how much more true is it when the wisdom we share is of DIVINE origin?  

Michigan Legislative Prayer Caucus....

There have been reports appearing in the media questioning the propriety of a legislative prayer caucus that  appeals to the God of the Bible, rather than a non-sectarian god.


To those who ask this question, I offer the following response:

"Mr. President,

The small progress we have made after 4 or five weeks close attendance & continual reasonings with each other-our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ays, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of Government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances.

In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection.- Our prayers, Sir, were heard, & they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor.

To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth- that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that "except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move-that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that Service."

Benjamin Franklin, July 28, 1787

This is why prayer is offered each day in Congress in Washington, D.C. I fail to see why it is suddenly inappropriate for our state legislators to engage in prayer directed to the same Judeo-Christian God to whom Benjamin Franklin attributed our success as a nation.

Swamp Wars and Illegal Immigration....

I enjoy watching Swamp Wars, featuring the Venom 1 team of the Miami-Dade fire department.  One of the re-runs shown over the weekend documented the rescue of a large iguana that had gotten stuck in a chain link fence.  The officer successfully freed the animal from the fence, then put it into a pet carrier for transport.  As she did so, a neighbor asked to see the iguana, wondering aloud why it was necessary to remove it from the area.  The officer explained that, since the iguana was an invasive species, it would have been illegal to release it back into the wild.  The neighbor protested that such iguanas were seen all the time in the neighborhood; she didn't think that they represented a problem.  Then she made this statement:

"I don't think it's fair that an animal, just because it's not native of this territory, should be, you know, removed because of that. Being American equals to being an immigrant."

Wow.  Open borders logic applied not only to illegal immigration, but now to invasive species as well.  A person or an animal is American by virtue of migrating (as opposed to immigrating) here - regardless of the method of entry or the damage that might be caused.  I am 100% in favor of legal immigration; my own family came to be in this country that way four generations ago. But LEGAL is the operative word.  Anything else is invasive.

SB59 Being Debated In MI State Senate Now - Contact Your Senator NOW!!!

This bill will provide for concealed carry in pistol free zones (among other things).

"Under the legislation, permit holders would be allowed to carry guns in the so-called “pistol-free zones” if they undergo an extra nine hours of training beyond the current eight.
They also would have to fire an extra 94 rounds at the range beyond the 98 the legislation requires for a basic permit. Just 30 rounds are required now."

Gun on his hip, state Sen. Arlan Meekhof demonstrates his support for allowing concealed handguns in schools and other public places | MLive.com

I am urging everyone to contact their Michigan State Senator to urge them to vote for an amended version of SB 59.  As you can see above, this bill would permit CPL holders to concealed carry (CC) in a "pistol free" zone if they take additional class hours, fire nearly three more boxes of ammo, and then REQUEST an exception to "pistol free" zones.  Someone with a CPL who chooses to open carry (OP) in a "pistol free" zone, however, may do so without any additional class hours or anything else required in this bill.  This is fundamentally discriminatory under the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution, places an undue burden on those who have a Constitutional Right to CC in these areas, and is a violation of the recent federal district court (Maryland) ruling which states that the mere existence of the right in the Second Amendment (also stated in the Michigan Constitution) is all the justification we need to exercise our right to carry; legislation adding requirements to this right amounts to "rationing" of the right (Judge Legg, Woollard v. Sheridan, 2012).


We need to flood the offices of our state senators (Michigan legislature) with calls/emails/faxes urging them to amend SB 59 to eliminate the additional requirements and to establish OC/CC parity with regard to the right to carry in so-called "gun free" zones in Michigan.  Links to the Michigan State Legislative Directory can be found in the right column of this blog.


There is no time to lose.