Introduction, Traditional Service, May 13, 2012
St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Florissant, MO

We did not decide that Jesus would suffer and die.
He chose to give himself for us
and for all humanity.
 
We did not decide that Jesus would live again.
God raised him up 
to walk among us, to teach us, to deliver us.
 
We do not chose compassion
for the least of these,
to comfort those who are afflicted,
to stand with those who are alone.
Our God put Jesus in our world, 
and in our lives, and in our hearts.
 
We do not choose to be saved.
I have decided to follow Jesus
because Jesus decided on me. 


Found on Line:
"I Have Decided To Follow Jesus"
Biola University King's Men
at Granada Heights Friends Church
La Mirada, CA

Introduction, Traditional Service, May 6, 2012
St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Florissant, MO

The parable of the Good Samaritan is a story
told by Jesus about himself and about us.
 
Jesus can be seen in the faces of the abused,
as a hungry child in a foreign land,
in the anguish of loss or guilt.
 
When we see suffering and a chance to heal,
when we see violence and a chance for peace,
when we see wrong and a chance for right,
that is when we find Jesus wounded near our path.
That is when we have a chance
to be that Samaritan.
 
Every moment and every hour and every day,
gives us a chance to stop and meet our Lord.
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.


Found on Line:
"This Is The Day That The Lord Has Made"
Second Baptist Church in Las Vegas Nevada

Introduction, Traditional Service, March 25, 2012
St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Florissant, MO

Jesus teaches that life is about
more than materialism.
That we do not live by bread alone.
That those who hunger and thirst
after righteousness are truly blessed.
 
But Jesus does more than understand pain.
He does more than sympathize with despair.
He does more than recognize human need.
 
Jesus has been to the depths of human pain.
He has lived the deepest despair,
and the greatest need.
When we are in pain, our God is not only with us,
he has been there before us.
 
And when we look outside ourselves, 
and see the face of human need, 
it is the face of Jesus.

Found on Line:
"Amen"
Gospel Choir de Argentina

Introduction, Traditional Service, April 22, 2012
St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Florissant, MO

 When we are wounded, we struggle to forgive. 
 When we see the pain 
 we ourselves have caused, 
 forgiveness is harder to find. 
 
 But the God who created a universe, 
 bringing into his creation the beginning of life, 
 the God who gave meaning to that life, 
 that God can heal the wounds we have caused 
 and can heal the wounds within us. 
 
 The Creator who gives us air to breathe, 
 and ground on which to stand, 
 that Creator cares enough to walk among us, 
 to walk with us through the depths of guilt. 
 And to forgive. 


Found on Line:
"Ask Seek & Knock"

Introduction, Traditional Service, April 15, 2012
St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Florissant, MO

 We are given a message of life. 
 We worship a God who has walked among us. 
 When we are afraid, we know he is with us now. 
 
 We are given a message of hope. 
 When we look inside 
 and do not like what we find, 
 we know he died for us, 
 and we are worth dying for. 
 
 We are given a message of love. 
 When we see anyone in a life of desperation, 
 we know we are seeing Jesus. 
 
 We are given a message of Truth. 
 When we feel lost, we remember that 
 his words are a lamp, 
 guiding us on a journey home. 


Found on Line:
"Thy Word"
Amy Grant

Introduction, Traditional Service,
Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012
St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Florissant, MO

 Jesus knows our pain 
 more than we know ourselves. 
 With every step, with every turn, 
 he stays with us, 
 he suffers with us, 
 he despairs with us. 
 And he walks with us 
 to a new understanding of life. 
 
 The miracle that is Jesus 
 touches us in everyday living. 
 The miracle is that pain itself can be the seed 
 of a deep and profound joy. 
 Hopelessness can be the foundation of hope. 
 The storm inside can grow into healing. 
 
 An arrest and crucifixion 2000 years ago 
 can be the beginning of a new way of life 
 for you and me. 
 
 It gets better. 
 The promise of Jesus is it gets better. 
 His promise is our promise. 
 It gets better. 


Found on Line:
Up From the Grave

Introduction, Traditional Service, April 1, 2012
St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Florissant, MO
 
Father, into your hands I commend my spirit 
 It is finished 
 
 We are taught, and more than taught. 
 We are touched. 
 We are loved, and more than loved. 
 The God who created us has walked among us. 
 
 The one who suffered for us suffers with us. 
 The one who cried out, abandoned and forsaken, 
 has been there before us 
 whenever we feel alone. 
 
 One day God’s plan for us will be fulfilled. 
 One day all suffering will end. 
 One day the hard journey will be complete. 
 
 On that day, and in every hour until then, 
 we commend to God all we are, 
 all we ever hope to be. 
 We are not afraid. 
 The hand of Jesus is on our shoulder. 
 
 And every step takes us home. 


Found on Line:
"Hosanna In the Highest" by David W. Music
Sung by Westminster Choir for Palm Sunday, April 5, 2009
Westminster Presbyterian Church in Dallas, Texas

Introduction, Traditional Service, March 18, 2012
St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Florissant, MO

 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 
 Jesus was not only fulfilling an ancient Psalm. 
 He was suffering the pain and despair 
 of the darkest part of the human soul. 
 
 When we feel abandoned, Jesus has been there. 
 When we feel alone, 
 he has walked our path before us. 
 When nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, 
 he knows. 
 Jesus knows more than pain. He knows despair. 
 
 When we feel alone, 
 the hand on our shoulder is real. 
 God came to us, walked among us, 
 and lived as a man. 
 
 He experienced our hopelessness, 
 and became our hope. 
 Jesus has lived our weakness. 
 
 We can live in his strength. 


Found on Line:

Controversy continues on contraception, and for reasons that go deeper than might be generally recognized. The idea that citizenship begins at conception involves a practical consequence that can be brutal to women when it goes from theory to practice. Religious freedom to one side becomes the freedom to practice economic feudalism to the the other.

In North Carolina, New Hanover County turned down a state grant to the County Health Department. Part of the funding was for IUDs for women who go to county clinics. Right-to-life principles, when applied rigidly, collide to the right of women to practice most forms of family planning.

The theory among the most ardent right-to-life true believers is that the moment of conception should also be the beginning of citizenship, with the new zygote having all the rights of a fully formed adult.

This is even more significant than it may sound at first. Most zygotes, formed as the sperm meets the egg, do not result in pregnancy as we normally define it. In fact, the vast majority of zygotes never make it to the uterine wall. They travel down fallopian tubes, one after another, tumbling about, competing to get to that wall. Most never make it. Even successful pregnancies come about because just one out of many blastocysts, the fertilized eggs, get attached to the wall. Later, the egg that managed to get attached becomes an embryo.

An IUD, when successful, prevents any zygotes from attaching. Anything that keeps zygotes from attaching and becoming embryos is what the most extreme opponents of contraception call an "abortifacient."

Well, not anything. Most zygotes never make it no matter what. Otherwise most sexually active women would not only be pregnant almost every minute, they would be constantly pregnant with multiple embryos in various stages of development. So those who see human citizenship beginning at the moment of conception have confined their activities to preventing abortion. Life may begin at conception, but protection would begin at implantation.

Or so it was until recently.

That struggle has advanced. Now the fight has been taken further up the tube. Most methods of birth control are under attack, aspirin being one exception.

This is one reason the Republican Commissioners of New Hanover County in North Carolina voted to keep IUDs out of the hands of women who rely on county clinics. There was also a moral reason. According to the Wilmington Star News, some of those on the Board of Commissioners were opposed because "they didn't think taxpayers should foot the bill for contraceptives that could go to people who were irresponsible." Sexual irresponsibility among women was the issue.

Apparently a lot of women, and men who like women, took exception. The entire matter is going to be raised again. The County Board may reconsider whether to overturn their new policy.

Nationally, Republicans see the issue of contraception as one of religious freedom. They do not want employers to be required to participate in contraceptive choices they may disagree with. They feel strongly enough about this be unwilling to follow the Democratic compromise. President Obama has famously proposed that religious employers be exempt from involvement, but that insurance companies themselves be required to provide contraceptives independent of those employers.

One argument that has been made by those who think contraception is none of an employer's business is that women occasionally take contraceptives for medical reasons other than birth control. That is why some Republicans have suggested a more moderate course, one involving compromise.

In Arizona, Republicans on the state Senate Judiciary Committee have voted out a bill that would allow employees the contraceptive coverage they want directly from insurance companies for reasons other than birth control. If employers oppose contraception on moral grounds they may intercede. Employers would have the right to interrogate employees about why they want contraceptives. Where employers are not satisfied with details of the morality of employee lives, they could demand medical records to back up claims of medical need.

Under the Arizona Republican legislation, female employees who do not submit to questioning about their sexual habits or fail to produce private medical records on demand for the perusal of their bosses could be fired for cause.

It's about freedom of religion and the moral conscience of employers. Don't force me to participate against my religious order.

It's also about the freedom of employees to make independent choices about their health without giving up insurance coverage or privacy. Stay out of my bedroom.

The most workable solution seems to me the Obama doctrine.

NOYB.
Don't ask.
Don't tell.

In response to T. Paine's Nice Quiz, But America Is Still A Christian Nation

Despite these varying beliefs, nearly all of the founders still had reverence towards God and purposely laid the foundation of our country’s building firmly on those Judeo-Christian principles accordingly. Indeed our country was never intended to be founded, built, and sustained in strict segregation from God, Christ, or religion.

- T. Paine, March 13, 2012

Mr. Paine,

I realize that you could find quotes where Founders, Blessed be He, support the idea of a Christian nation. That was, if you will recall, my original contention. Let me repeat: Some, Bless, did, Some Bless, did not, and to varying degrees.

So, you are probably asking yourself what your mistake was? How, you say, did I box myself in? I can help you with that, sir.

Your biggest mistake: you quoted Thomas Paine as an example of someone affirming Christianity. You did this, by Googling and finding a quote. Bad idea sir, as you stumbled upon a deist affirmation for your example. Let’s go over it:

“The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools, in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only, has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator himself, they stop short, and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of his existence. They labour with studied ingenuity to ascribe every thing they behold to innate properties of matter, and jump over all the rest by saying, that matter is eternal.”
-- “The Existence of God--1810” – Thomas Paine

OK, I will ignore the fact that Thomas Paine passed away in 1809, because I still accept the basic authenticity of the quote. It comes from one of his many pamphlets. This one was called “A Discourse at the Society of Theophilanthropists.” Read it. It is short and tolerable. He declares what later becomes known as the Clockwork Universe, meaning that some Supreme Creator built the Universe using the same laws that regulated Himself, and then abandoned it. Everything in nature is equally divine, and all other divinity we ascribe to things was made up by mankind. He did not embrace Christianity in the pamphlet you referenced. He renounced it in favor of this Deist philosophy. You just quoted from a pamphlet where he renounces atheism and Christianity equally. Your quote, taken out of context deceives, and in context refutes your thesis.

Next Quote: "To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.”

I remember distinctly noting originally that some of the founders supported a Christian nation and others did not. Supplying a quote in support of this thesis would seem to corroborate my argument. Perhaps you can find a supporting quote for this idea from George Washington. Maybe that would be powerful. I will wait.

Next Quote: “The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend to all the happiness of man.”
- Thomas Jefferson

You accidentally left out the whole quote and the backstory. I know you were pressed for time and this probably troubles you very much. Fear not, I have it. First, let me provide the whole quote:

“Now, which of these is the true and charitable Christian? He who believes and acts on the simple doctrines of Jesus? Or the impious dogmatists, as Athanasius and Calvin? Verily I say these are the false shepherds foretold as to enter not by the door into the sheepfold, but to climb up some other way. They are mere usurpers of the Christian name, teaching a counter-religion made up of the deliria of crazy imaginations, as foreign from Christianity as is that of Mahomet. Their blasphemies have driven thinking men into infidelity, who have too hastily rejected the supposed author himself, with the horrors so falsely imputed to him. Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christian.”

Jefferson was rejecting religious dogma (Christianity). He did NOT reject Jesus. He knew that Jesus not born of a virgin and that He was not part of a man-made divine Trinity (as he stated overtly. Can you guess which quote?), but he also believed that Jesus was nonetheless a good man. Jefferson rejected almost everything Christianity teaches in favor of most things Jesus believed. Have you heard of the Jefferson Bible? The quote you kindly provided was one part of one of many letters Jefferson wrote in rebuttal to Christian Theology. I am not sure why you included it, as I had already provided quotes from Jefferson that do the same thing.

Next Quote: “Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus.”

Thomas Jefferson did not reject Jesus. He rejected Christianity. He made that clear. Were you able to determine which of the quotes in the original post came from Jefferson? Notice that none of them were a rejection of Jesus. He rejected Christian Theology, miracles, the Bible, the Trinity, but not Jesus Himself.

Next Point you made: “Hamilton began work with the Rev. James Bayard to form the Christian Constitutional Society.”

Hamilton was a card-carrying Episcopalian. What did you expect? Was this point intended to further my thesis about the Founders, Blessed be He? Some of Them, Glory, were Christians. Remember the article I wrote about this?

Next Point: “In Benjamin Franklin's 1749 plan of education for public schools in Pennsylvania, he insisted that schools teach "the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern."

I was not aware of this, but if he did, I suspect this is because he thought Christianity was better than the others.

Next Quote: “John Adams and John Hancock: We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus!”

So, it your contention then, that when I said this: “Some Founders, Hallowed in Righteousness, wanted a government that acknowledged Christianity in a substantial way, Others, Holy Others, did not.” I was right? It would seem so, as almost every quote you provided corroborated this and not a single one rebutted it. Providing examples of Founders, O’ Holy Ones, embracing Christian theology does nothing to refute the argument that some Founders, O’ Glory, wanted the nation to be a Christian one, and Others, Glory Glory, did not.

Nonetheless, I do appreciate the fact that you provided a balanced approach, where you included some quotes that in full support the non-Christian side of the argument and some that support the Christian side of the argument. You did not prove the non-Christian side or the Christian side of the argument. In fact, your essay soundly refutes both, just as mine before it did.

You did one thing very well: supported the thesis of my article to a tee, and I thank you for that, sir.

In addition to his worthy contributions here, John Myste supports a periodic thesis or two on his own site.

Please visit John Myste Responds.

In response to John Myste's Quoting The Holy Icons of History

I have plenty more quotes for your entertainment, but I didn’t want to overwhelm you with too much joy at once.

I know it is hard to conceive of what dastardly men would have made such statements, so I will give you a clue: each of the quotes were written by Deists and each of the quotes were written by Holy Men. OK, that’s all you get. Go! Go! Go!

- John Myste, March 11, 2012

Mr. Myste, I fully acknowledge and have never said otherwise that the Founding Fathers were a group of men with diverse opinions on law, politics, and religion. Some were indeed Deists and not Christian, as you have stated. That said, I have encountered quite a few intelligent people (and some that were not so intelligent) over the years that have automatically assumed some Founders to be Deists when some of their words and deeds are contrary to such an assertion. This is especially true of such influential founders such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. I fully acknowledge that my name-sake was a Deist however. Despite these varying beliefs, nearly all of the founders still had reverence towards God and purposely laid the foundation of our country’s building firmly on those Judeo-Christian principles accordingly. Indeed our country was never intended to be founded, built, and sustained in strict segregation from God, Christ, or religion.

The first amendment in the Bill of Rights guarantees our free exercise of religion (The Obama administration notwithstanding) and was meant to ensure that a state religion would not be foisted upon America, like the Anglican Church was upon the English.

Indeed I find it ironic that our Declaration of Independence, the very founding document of the United States of America, would probably be deemed un-Constitutional by the leftists in our nation’s courts today because of all of that annoying “God-talk” contained therein. It is almost certain that the 9th circuit court of appeals would find it un-Constitutional. There is a reason why it is the most oft-overturned circuit in the country, but I digress.

I suppose I can provide a tit for tat response for most of your anti-Christian quotes above, but I suspect that it would fall on deaf ears. Further, I am too lazy to do the research. I did, however, pull up some supporting quotations from a previous post of mine, including from some of those “supposed” deists, regarding their thoughts on faith, Christ, and its importance to our nation.

“The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools, in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only, has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator himself, they stop short, and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of his existence. They labour with studied ingenuity to ascribe every thing they behold to innate properties of matter, and jump over all the rest by saying, that matter is eternal.”
“The Existence of God--1810” – Thomas Paine

"To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian"
[May 2, 1778, at Valley Forge]
– George Washington

“The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend to all the happiness of man.”
- Thomas Jefferson

“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus.”
– Thomas Jefferson

Hamilton began work with the Rev. James Bayard to form the Christian Constitutional Society to help spread over the world the two things which Hamilton said made America great:

1. Christianity
2. a Constitution formed under Christianity

“The Christian Constitutional Society, its object is first: The support of the Christian religion. Second: The support of the United States.”
– Alexander Hamilton

"For my own part, I sincerely esteem it [the Constitution] a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests."
– Alexander Hamilton [1787 after the Constitutional Convention]

In Benjamin Franklin's 1749 plan of education for public schools in Pennsylvania, he insisted that schools teach "the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern."

In 1787 when Franklin helped found Benjamin Franklin University, it was dedicated as "a nursery of religion and learning, built on Christ, the Cornerstone."

John Adams and John Hancock: We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus!
[April 18, 1775]

John, perhaps I am missing the grander purpose of your rebuttal, other than as an opportunity to quiz me. Needless to say, if you were merely trying to deny the fact that nearly all of the Founders believed in God, and most believed in Christianity specifically, than I would say that you failed, my friend. If such is the case, I will graciously accept your concession in the manner in which it was offered, accordingly, sir!

In addition to his noble, and endless, struggle here to educate John Myste on the error of his ways, T. Paine writes for his own site, where his grand purpose is unmistakeable.

Please visit Saving Common Sense.

When Jesus saw his mother,
and the disciple whom he loved standing near,
he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son!"

Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!"

Found on Line:
From Brazilian Television
"Amazing Grace / My Chains Are Gone"
Jotta A

In Reply to T. Paine, of Saving Common Sense

Barton does this sort of thing often, without conscience. He is as dishonest a polemicist as you will ever find purporting to be an historian. Not to put too fine a point on it, he lies in service to the Lord. T. Paine, at Saving Common Sense, describes Barton as "a brilliant historian with nearly encyclopedic knowledge of America’s history".

- Burr Deming, March 10, 2012

Mr. Deming, from what source did you discover the duplicitouness of Mr. Barton? Please, oh please, tell me that it wasn't something as reliable as MediaMatters or the ilk.

- T. Paine, March 10,2012

Mr. Paine,

I assume that you and your remarkable historian are quite knowledgeable about what the Founders, blessed by He, thought about this Christian nation. I have always contended, it would seem falsely, that the Entity we reference as the Founders is a Fictitious Entity: that the Founders, Glorified be His Name, were actually groups of men with diverse political agendas, much as we would find today if we started over. Some Founders, Bless, wanted a strong federal government; others, Bless, preferred a weaker federal government. Some Founders, Hallowed in Righteousness, wanted a government that acknowledged Christianity in a substantial way, Others, Holy Others, did not.

I have read a lot about what the Founders thought about the American Christian Nation. I recommend this book to those of you who don’t know as much as T. Paine: “American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation.” It is really good, not only because the author argues my belief, but because it is objective. It honestly acknowledges some of the Sacred Founders, Blessed be He, wanted one thing and the Others another. It also honestly acknowledges that most of Them recognized the Christian tradition of the new American citizens to be.

Now, quiz time. Mr. Paine, can you tell me who penned each of the following quotes?

"It is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told in the New Testament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised thereon, against which I contend. The story, taking it as it is told, is blasphemously obscene"

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”

“Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics.”

“Yet this is trash that the Church imposes upon the world as the Word of God; this is the collection of lies and contradictions called the Holy Bible! This is the rubbish called Revealed Religion!”

“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”

"In the affairs of the world, men are saved not by faith, but by the lack of it."

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."

"The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead is the story of an apparition, such as timid imaginations can always create in vision, and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been told of the assassination of Julius Caesar."

"To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, God, are immaterial is to say they are nothings, or that there is no God, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise"

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."

“The story of the redemption will not stand examination. That man should redeem himself from the sin of eating an apple by committing a murder on Jesus Christ, is the strangest system of religion ever set up.”

I have plenty more quotes for your entertainment, but I didn’t want to overwhelm you with too much joy at once.

I know it is hard to conceive of what dastardly men would have made such statements, so I will give you a clue: each of the quotes were written by Deists and each of the quotes were written by Holy Men. OK, that’s all you get. Go! Go! Go!

John Myste shares wisdom from all on whom the rain falls, the Holy and unHoly alike.

Please visit John Myste Responds.

In reply to Burr Deming's
It Can't Get Worse for the GOP - Then News from Missouri

Not only had the religious issue been removed by shifting the burden directly to insurers...

- Burr Deming, March 7, 2012

I feel like I have fallen down the rabbit hole. How is it that incredibly brilliant people fail to see that President Obama’s “compromise” is not a compromise at all regarding freedom of religion rights? Specifically in the case of some of the Catholic Church’s charitable organizations etc, under the new law they are required to provide insurance that covers contraception and abortifacients. This compromise is nothing more than a silly game of semantics. Now with this “compromise” in place, the Catholic Church still has to provide insurance which still covers contraception and abortifacients. Where the hell is the compromise, sir? Do you think that just because the church doesn’t have to “pay” for the contraception that it removes them from their moral obligation? They still have to offer insurance that covers something which goes against one of the primary tenets of the faith.

Continuing, “He was trying to keep the focus on the vanished religious issue, not on women's rights.” This whole debate had indeed been a masterful job of political jujitsu by the left. How in the world did requiring free contraception become a woman’s health issue? That is patently the most absurd argument I have ever heard. The fact that so many people are buying the silly argument further proves that the ability for critical thought in this country had seriously waned. I could understand this being a women’s health issue if Obama was requiring that insurance companies cover with no co-pay for things like mammograms or pap smears--- you know, things that actually can detect cancers and legitimately be preventative measures. Ironically, Obama is requiring free contraception, when the pill has been clinically linked to causing a lot higher probability of breast and other cancers in women. The world has truly gone mad.

As for Ms. Fluke, I don’t know if she is crazy like a fox or flat out stupid. How does an obviously intelligent young lady enroll in one of the most prestigious CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY law schools in the country at Georgetown University knowing that she is required to purchase health insurance from the CATHOLIC university that does not offer contraception and then have the audacity to complain about not having someone else pay her $3000 contraception bill while attending?

As for Mr. Limbaugh, I will categorically state that what he said regarding Ms. Fluke was stupid and wrong. He did far more harm to the cause by having done so, and unfortunately he gave the hypocrites of leftist free speech a huge target. As for putting a bust of Limbaugh in the capitol rotunda, well despite the fact that Mr. Limbaugh is a Missouri native, it strikes me as a rather foolish and unnecessarily incendiary idea.

T. Paine writes for his own site, where faith is never false.

Please visit Saving Common Sense.

Just when you thought the story couldn't get more absurd. It is an object lesson on how fragile an intended message can become. A dependable religious freedom argument became an issue of religious tribalism, then one of subjugation of women.

The abortion debate has simmered for a long time. In theory, it should be a close call. There really is no position that does not, on close examination, have an element of absurdity. When it becomes a matter of practicality, when women are regarded as needing to be educated by agents of the state before making private decisions, theory becomes insult. When ultrasound becomes transvaginal, intrusive government becomes transcendent - much more personal than a bumper sticker.

And Virginia lawmakers, from the Governor to the legislature, got a lesson in humility that became humiliation.

It got worse.

The contraceptive-religious debate became jujitsu when President Obama took religious institutions out of the middle of contraceptive insurance coverage by mandating insurance companies to provide such services directly. Republican legislators doubled down, hosting congressional hearings about the religious freedom issue almost immediately after it had disappeared.

None of that was supposed to happen. It was supposed to be a well orchestrated attack on a newly popular President, still loathed by ardently committed cultural conservatives of the Pat Buchanan wing. Republicans tried valiantly to keep the issue alive. But it transmuted even as they held it close.

It got worse.

The Congressional hearings were a bust. Not only had the religious issue been removed by shifting the burden directly to insurers, but Republicans proved to be so thoroughly tone deaf, it was as if they deliberately tried to insult women and those men not captivated by hostility toward wives, daughters, mothers, and friends.

First they empaneled a group of witnesses notable for the absence of women, then they pointedly prohibited Democrats from presenting their sole witness, a young woman.

Just when it couldn't get worse, it got worse anyway.

The chairman of the committee pronounced the woman "unqualified." His intended meaning was that she was not a religious leader. He was trying to keep the focus on the vanished religious issue, not on women's rights. He accomplished the opposite. The message became visually simple. She was not a he.

For a time, Republicans were forced to the limpest misrepresentation.

Did they ignore for years identical insurance requirements in state after state? In effect for a generation with no sign of protest or even notice? Even now they respond with indignation, two wrongs, even many many wrongs, don't make a right. As if that was the point. In fact, it went to motive. The issue had become transparently political. Otherwise it would have been on somebody's agenda long ago.

Didn't the President use those state examples as a model of how to provided needed coverage to women without requiring involvement by religious groups? It's still wrong, insisted religious opponents, for women employees of these groups to violate religious law by going against the wishes of their employers. And so a more basic issue was revealed.

And so, the religious issue of freedom of religious institutions to follow their collective conscience transmuted. In the public mind, the issue become religious only in the sense that religious conservatives had declared birth control to be immoral and insisted on keeping women from committing something sinful.

That impression was bronzed and preserved as Rush Limbaugh suddenly dominated the national discussion. By the time he eventually apologized, after three days of constant personal attacks on one young woman, the damage was lasting. Rush had been loudly denounced by Democrats, but only tepidly reproved by Republicans. "Not the words I would have used" was the sharpest condemnation by any GOP office holder or candidate with one exception. Only John McCain said publicly that Rush was wrong, wrong, wrong.

After those terrible Three days of the Cut-and-Thrust, Rush finally said he was sorry about his choice of words. Well.... two words.

Finally, finally, finally, Republicans sighted a possible end to the tornado. Super Tuesday has arrived. The result was not exactly conclusive, but it was a respite from the contraceptive crush. It was a reprieve from the preeminent Republican voice calling women ... what choice of more gentile words would he have preferred? Ladies of the night? Soiled doves? Call girls?

It was over. The pitiful attack on birth control, the derogatory denigration, the lackluster criticism against the attacker. Whew. It had been like Wile E. Coyote landing hard on the bottom of the canyon, waiting for the giant rock to come down. The GOP had hit rock bottom.

That's when Republican state legislators here in Missouri announced the ceremony to occur in May in Jefferson City, the capital of the state.

A bust of Rush Limbaugh is to be placed in the official Capitol Rotunda to be viewed by citizens for all time. Honoring the great man himself.

Ka-boom.