FIGURING OUR THE CHARACTER OF BIDEN?

                         FIGURING OUT THE CHARACTER OF BIDEN?                                                                                                 IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - HTTP://WWW.CINOPSBEGONE.COM - FRI. AUG. 28,2020

 

The Wall Street Journal, Main Street, William  McGurn, Tues. Aug. 25, 2020 

"Joe Biden's Leap of Faith"

 

    "By now Joe Biden's rosary must be the most famous beads in the world. "The cradle Catholic who carries a rosary wherever he goes," reports Jesuit Magazine America. "Biden almost has rosary beads in his pocket," says the Washington Post. Even Rolling Stones piously chimes in presenting the the former Vice-President as a practicing Catholic "wears his late son Beau's rosary on his wrist."

    It all feeds Mr. Biden's image as the scrappy Irish Catholic kid from Scranton, Pa. Today it is an image that also serves a crucial political purpose to soothe voters that might be troubled by a man who presents himself  as an ordinary Catholic even as he advocates for abortion on demand, with no restrictions and paid for by taxpayer dollars where necessary.

 

But in this election there's a new religious wrinkle, much more consequential than the ... debate over whether Mr. Biden is or isn't a good Catholic. For the issue today is no longer whether progressive dogmas from abortion and marriage equality to gender identity will prevail. Most already have.

    The question is now whether those who dissent from the new orthodoxy will be admitted to live their lives and run their institutions in accordance with their beliefs. Let's start with nuns. A campaign ad released features Mr. Biden happily chatting with Catholic nuns on St. Peter's Square. These "lovely women he says having always inspired him because they are all about being their brother's keeper.  He even chose a nun to offer the convention's opening prayer the night he accepted the nomination for president....

 

     The sisters (Little Sisters of the Poor) have since won at the Supreme Court. Mr. Biden's response? Restore the mandate with the fake exemption the Little Sister's objected to in the first place. This is how "lovely women" who live out a vocation of tending to the least among us can expect to be treated under the a Biden presidency.

    Now unlike, say, his running mate Kamala Harris, you won't catch Mr. Biden talking about the Knights of Columbus as though it were a hate group whose members are unfit for federal judge-ships. It's not his nature. Nevertheless a Biden-Harris administration would mean a federal bureaucracy less interested in accommodating religious Americans and their institutions than in constricting them. Democrats say so in their platform, in which they "reject" the "broad religious exemptions" that "allow businesses, medical providers, social service agencies and others to discriminate." In other words, religious liberty.

 

    This is the sleeper threat. It's already playing out in everything from licensing requirements (the Supreme Court is now deciding whether Catholic agencies that don't place children with gay couples can offer foster care) and tax exemptions (Orthodox Jewish Schools fear losing their status for adhering to biblical definitions of marriage) to conscience protections (a nurse  in Vermont was forced to participate in arranging an abortion against her will).

    Mormons meanwhile wonder if the Equity Act, which is meant to protect LGBTQ Americans and is strongly backed by Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris, would make Brigham Young University students ineligible for federal research dollars...

 

    All these things will come in the name of "reproductive health,""equity," "Inclusion" and "nondiscrimination." And a Biden administration would push them. How do we know? ... It's hard to find a single religious-rights case where the Democrats took the religious side. He rattles off the list...

 

    President Trump was mocked when he said Mr. Biden would "hurt God and hurt the Bible." But however inartful the words, today's Democratic Party is willing to use the full force of the federal bureaucracy to bring religious institutions to heel - no matter how genuinely Joe Biden may love his rosary beads.

 

"Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have this; upside down," says Bill Mumma, CEO and chairman of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. "The constitution protects religion from government interference. But in their views, any government objective, no matter how controversial, takes priority over religious belief."

George H. Kubeck

Twice at the Democratic Convention the words "under God" were left out in the pledge of allegiance.