Merry Christmas!

The Wise Men

by G.K. Chesterton

Step softly, under snow or rain,
    To find the place where men can pray;
The way is all so very plain
    That we may lose the way.

Oh, we have learnt to peer and pore
    On tortured puzzles from our youth,
We know all labyrinthine lore,
We are the three wise men of yore,
    And we know all things but the truth.

We have gone round and round the hill
    And lost the wood among the trees,
And learnt long names for every ill,
And served the mad gods, naming still
    The furies the Eumenides.

The gods of violence took the veil
    Of vision and philosophy,
The Serpent that brought all men bale,
He bites his own accursed tail,
    And calls himself Eternity.

Go humbly…it has hailed and snowed…
    With voices low and lanterns lit;
So very simple is the road,
    That we may stray from it.

The world grows terrible and white,
    And blinding white the breaking day;
We walk bewildered in the light,
For something is too large for sight,
    And something much too plain to say.

The Child that was ere worlds begun
    (…We need but walk a little way,
We need but see a latch undone…)
The Child that played with moon and sun
    Is playing with a little hay.

The house from which the heavens are fed,
    The old strange house that is our own,
Where trick of words are never said,
And Mercy is as plain as bread,
    And Honour is as hard as stone.

Go humbly, humble are the skies,
    And low and large and fierce the Star;
So very near the Manger lies
    That we may travel far.

Hark! Laughter like a lion wakes
    To roar to the resounding plain.
And the whole heaven shouts and shakes,
    For God Himself is born again,
And we are little children walking
    Through the snow and rain.

Michael Carr, radical Log Cabin Republican, running for Colorado state senate

Michael Carr is the Republican candidate for Colorado’s State Senate District 31 due to a vacancy committee appointment. But his past remarks are a cause for great concern to anyone not on board with the LGBT political agenda.

I saw Carr speak at a February meeting of the Coalition for a Conservative Majority as part of a panel on diversity in the conservative movement.

Carr described himself as an Irish Catholic from the south side of Chicago. He now lives in the Capitol Hill neighborhood with his partner. Carr brought up the Illinois civil unions bill and how he had supported it and lobbied for it.

There was something about the bill he didn’t mention.

The State of Illinois used the civil unions bill to shut down Catholic adoption agencies that contracted with the state government to continue their decades of service. The oversight of over 2,500 children was displaced to other agencies in an entirely unnecessary move.

In the audience question time I addressed Carr about how that bill pushed Catholic Charities out of doing adoptions. I asked him whether there is a "zero sum game" situation between gay rights advocates and religious and social conservatives.

Carr had an easy out.

The closure of Catholic Charities adoption agencies was a shock to those who believed the promises that religious freedom would be protected.

All he had to do was voice his support for religious freedom protections and lament the bill wasn’t passed in a way that respects the diversity of opinion on a controversial issue.

Instead, Carr spent a few minutes defending the need for government to be neutral and serve everybody.

“Is there a zero-sum game?” I asked again. Again he dodged.

His comments were in line with his April 12, 2011 remarks at the Illinois Log Cabin Republicans blog opposing a bill to secure the right of religious organizations to continue their adoption services. Carr said supporters of that bill “should be ashamed of themselves.”

There is nothing shameful in recognizing that a married man and a woman are better for raising children than any other family structure. There is nothing shameful at wanting a child to be brought up morally right.

There is nothing shameful about Catholics and others running adoption agencies in partnership with the state in a way that reflects their moral principles.

Carr’s position allows LGBT activists to bar Catholics and others who rightly object to homosexual relations from their place in public service. As the fate of adoption agencies in Illinois shows, the pretty talk of tolerance and diversity is empty.

Carr’s Democratic rival, the openly gay State Sen. Pat Steadman, is the sponsor of Colorado’s proposed civil unions bill. But even Steadman adopted language protecting religious adoption agencies into his bill.

The sorry state of the Republican Party means that religious believers and others who reject gay political causes have few friends.

Carr himself helped put on the GOP state assembly ballot a pro-civil unions resolution that won a majority vote, but failed to reach a 2/3 supermajority necessary for adoption.

There are some bright lights in our state. Colorado’s Republican House Speaker Frank McNulty threw the legislature into a special session rather than adopt civil unions. But the Republican House majority rests on a one-vote margin and is being vigorously contested in the 2012 election.

For years, pundits and party activists have been telling social conservatives to keep quiet. The present situation is what social conservatives get for taking their advice.

Colorado caucus resolution against conscience-violating contraception mandates

The federal contraception and sterilization insurance coverage mandate is in the news. Many Catholic parishes have heard from the pulpit about the dangers this poses to religious liberty and public morality. The mandate’s narrow religious exemption does not apply to Catholic health care systems, charities, and educational institutions.

Religious colleges may even be forced to provide free contraceptives to their unmarried students in their insurance plans. Religious hypocrisy is disgusting. But in this case it is being made mandatory!

Coloradans who are registered members of a political party can take a concrete step in upcoming weeks to push the political process towards reform of the federal regulation and of a 2010 state law (H.B. 1021) which does much the same thing.

Go to your party’s local caucus and stick around for the entire meeting. Vote delegates you trust on this issue to go to the county, congressional and state assemblies, or stand as a delegate yourself.

And at the appropriate point of the caucus, introduce this resolution to make your party’s leaders pay attention:

Resolution to Restore Religious Freedom and Moral Conscience in Health Insurance Mandates

Whereas religious liberty is a foundational principle of the United States and the great state of Colorado;

Whereas federal and state governments are violating this noble freedom by mandating that conscientious objectors provide no-co-pay insurance coverage for sterilization procedures and contraceptives, including abortion-causing contraceptives;

Whereas these mandates pose great difficulties for local educational institutions like Colorado Christian University and Regis University, which are involved in the moral formation of young people;

Whereas these mandates pose great difficulties for religious health care systems and charities whose religiously-motivated endeavors have contributed to the general welfare;

Whereas the religious and moral objections of all employers are worthy of protection and reasonable accommodation;

Be it resolved that:

The Democratic / Republican Party shall secure effective legal exemptions for institutions and businesses with religious and / or moral objections to providing insurance coverage for sterilization procedures and contraceptives.

(Be sure to edit the final passage so the party of your caucus is the one mentioned.)

The GOP Caucuses are on Feb. 7, while the Democratic Caucuses are on March 6.

See www.cocaucus.org for more information.