Lee Hartman 

Managing Editor

LHartman3@cox.net 

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Uninformed or Apathetic?

Recent news items tell a distressing story about the direction our country is going, and its effect on Christians.

According to recent research by Wilson Research Strategies, Christians don’t have a thorough knowledge of the Fairness Doctrine, hate-crimes legislation or the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

CEO Chris Wilson said the data examined suggests that Christians don’t fully understand the negative impact of these policy proposals on the ministries they support.  “Ministries would avoid any commentary that could be interpreted as relating to political or policy issues or risk action by the FEC,” he said. “Stations would feel pressure to pro-actively drop some radio ministries in favor of music or left-leaning content.”

Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberties Convention, finds it imperative for Christians to know the full impact of the current hate-crimes legislation, which can become law once both chambers reconcile differences between the two versions of the legislation they passed. 

“It’s going to have a very chilling effect on religious speech,” Land said. “There are people in other countries that have been arrested and sent to prison for explaining what Romans 1 says about homosexuality.”

Focus on the Family sent a letter to senators expressing concern that a pastor could be prosecuted for “inducing” a federal hate crime if a sermon resulted in a person committing a violent crime against someone based on sexual orientation.

And as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor on a 13-6 vote, a new Zogby poll shows the majority of Americans oppose her nomination because of concerns she will be a judicial activist.

In the other chamber, in addition to a large majority of Republicans, nineteen Democrats have signed on to a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying they will not vote for the president’s health-care reform unless it specifically excludes taxpayer funding for abortion.  But the leadership in insistent that it stays in.

Polls show the majority of Americans don’t want government-run health care, and particularly not if it includes tax-funded abortion. It’s the same for many other items on Congress’s agenda.

Still, the Democratic leadership and President Obama are determined to ram through their own radical agenda.

Are they uninformed on what Americans want and support? Or do they just not care?

Or is it the American citizens who are apathetic and are not making their voices heard?

They should, because it was their votes that installed the current leadership.

It seems the voters installed a majority of elected officials that don’t represent their values, all for the sake of “change.”

According to Wilson:  “There is a clear need for a widespread and coordinated education campaign to ensure that Christians have the information they need to make an informed decision on all of these issues when action on them in Washington becomes imminent.”

Do Americans, and Christians in particular, understand the importance of making their voices heard, and of voting traditional Christian values?

One thing I hope everyone realizes now, if they didn’t before.

Elections have consequences.