The United States is at the “point of no return” on issues of faith and morality, and the common statement that an election is the most important of a lifetime finally is absolutely true in 2016, according to a statement from prominent evangelical Christian faith leader Dr. James Dobson.
“Every four years, when Americans head to the polls to choose our next president, it’s easy, and frankly common, to label each election as ‘the most important in our lifetime,’” said Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, Family Talk radio and an adviser to presidents.
“However, given the unprecedented nature of this current presidential contest, that statement is finally proven true. Each candidate proposes radically divergent visions for the future of our country, making 2016 a great turning point in the history of America,” he said.
Dobson, who holds 17 honorary doctoral degrees and is a member of the National Radio Hall of Fame after his years of family-oriented radio work and authoring more than 30 books, warned of the loss of religious liberty that could be looming, the loss of the institution of marriage, even the loss of life.
“What hangs in the balance is not only who will occupy the White House, but the many down-ballot candidates and initiatives, our constitutional right to religious liberty, the sanctity of human life, the meaning of marriage and the composition and nature of our entire judiciary,” he warned.
“This election could represent a point of no return for many of the issues Americans hold dear. As Christians, we cannot and must not leave the future of our country to chance. I beg you, the American voter, to go to the polls on November 8th and make your voice heard. The fate of the country depends on it.”
Dobson earlier had endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in the GOP primary for president, then later announced support for Donald Trump when the party’s candidate was chosen.
He explained his continuing support for the New York businessman, despite the media attempts to undermine his candidacy by releasing video of crude comments from more than a decade ago.
“I do not condone nor defend Donald Trump’s terrible comments made 11 years ago. They are indefensible and awful. I’m sure there are other misdeeds in his past, although as Jesus said, ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.’
“I am, however, more concerned about America’s future than Donald Trump’s past. I wonder about how Bill Clinton’s language stands up in private,” he said.
“My condemnation of the former president is on an entirely different level,” Dobson explained.
“To my knowledge, Donald Trump has never abused women physically or had oral sex in the Oval Office with a vulnerable intern. Nor has he committed perjury by lying to Congress for many hours.
“Clinton, on the other hand, lost his license to practice law for that criminal act,” he said.
Dobson, who’s Christian advice is well known to millions across the nation, also recently suggested that when governments go too far, a Christian response is to follow God, not the law.
His comments came regarding a federal appellate court decision affirming a California law demanding that pro-life crisis pregnancy centers promote abortion to women who come to them for help.
“If California attempts to enforce this law then do not comply,” he said. “Make them put you in jail.”
The state law is called the “Reproductive FACT Act, and was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown Oct. 9, 2015, and reviewed and upheld by the Ninth Circuit, widely regarded as the most “progressive” federal court of appeal in the country.
The law went into effect Jan. 1, 2016, but has been largely unenforced while municipalities waited out a series of lawsuits challenging the law’s alleged infringement on free speech rights guaranteed by the Constitution’s First Amendment. This is the fifth time a challenge has been turned away by the courts starting last December.
The law specifies that 75 pro-life pregnancy centers offering ultrasounds – all of which are state-licensed entities that operate completely free of taxpayer funds – post or disseminate a state-mandated disclaimer notifying women in unexpected pregnancies of state-covered abortions and contraception offered through Medi-Cal.
“This law – and laws like it – violate the U.S. Constitution, and they are a violation of our Christian conscience, and this ruling is yet another example of the power of activist judges,” said Dobson. “I encourage anyone with a voice to use it and to do so urgently. I have a simple word of advice to those pastors, priests and others who run California’s crisis pregnancy centers. If California attempts to enforce this law then do not comply. Make them put you in jail.”
WND reported when Dobson noted several important issues in this year’s election, including Trump’s selection of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate.
At the time, he also expressed his approval of “Trump’s commitments to ‘appoint conservative Supreme Court justices, preserve religious liberty, rebuild the military, and defend the sanctity of human life.’”
WND reported in June when Dobson, as well as another firebrand in the community of evangelical Christians, former Rep. Michele Bachmann, joined a special faith advisory panel announced by Trump.
Trump’s campaign said at the time the board would provide advisory support on issues important to evangelical Christians and other people of faith.
The campaign said the appointments were an expression of Trump’s desire to have access to wise counsel, not necessarily an endorsement of Trump by the individual Christian leaders.
Bachmann served four terms in Congress representing Minnesota before she retired. She has never backed away from her support of Christian values and was mocked by President Obama for her expressions of faith.
Dobson has been in open conflict with Obama over the president’s mandate that employers pay for abortions in their employee health care plans, at one point addressing the president with, “Come and get me if you must.” He also affirmed that no matter the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion on “same-sex marriage,” a decision praised and celebrated by Obama, he would follow the Bible.
Dobson was part of a coalition that posted ads with the statement: “We affirm that marriage, as existing solely between one man and one woman, precedes civil government. Though affirmed, fulfilled and elevated by faith, the truth that marriage can exist only between one man and one woman is not based solely on religion but on the Natural Law, written on the human heart.”
They continued, “We will not honor any decision by the Supreme Court which will force us to violate a clear biblical understanding of marriage as solely the union of one man and one woman.”
He said he believes Trump would “unleash Christian activists to fight for their beliefs” if he is elected.
It would be opposite of Obama’s direction.
It was early in Obama’s tenure that Catholic Online and other media outlets reported what appeared to be a deliberate misdirection regarding what the Constitution requires.
Catholic Online noted that in President Obama’s June 2009 speech in Cairo, Egypt, he spoke of a Muslim America and the nation’s “freedom of religion,” but by the November 2009 memorial for the Fort Hood soldiers gunned down by a homicidal Muslim, he was terming it “freedom of worship.”
From that point, “freedom of worship” has become the term of choice, the report said, even though the administration has backtracked in one instance. In that case, Leon Rodriguez, director of the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said in a letter to Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., that the agency now is accepting “freedom of religion,” in addition to “freedom of worship,” as a correct answer to the question, “What are two rights of everyone living in the United States?”
Lankford had asked for the change because of the agency’s use of “freedom of worship” on a naturalization test.
Lankford charged during a congressional hearing that the government was “misrepresenting” the First Amendment.
“We in the United States actually have freedom of religion, not freedom of worship,” Lankford said.
See his comments:
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“The questionnaire civics test,” he said, “has in it one of these things, ‘What are two rights of everyone living in the United States, and it listed out six different things: freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to petition the government, freedom of worship, the right to bear arms. I’d love to see ‘freedom of worship’ switched to ‘freedom of religion.’”
Sarah Torre of the Heritage Foundation said the difference is significant. In practice, the “freedom to worship” seldom has been challenged or even questioned, even in dictatorships like Cuba. But “freedom of religion” is under direct fire. WND has complied a Big List of Christian Coercion about this very topic.
Catholic Online said of the issue: “Let’s be clear … language matters when it comes to defining freedoms and limits. A shift from freedom of religion to freedom of worship moves the dialog from the world stage into the physical confines of a church, temple, synagogue or mosque. … It … 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.”
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