Radio Talk Show Host Lars Larson Endorses Joe Miller for U.S. Senate

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Anchorage, Alaska. October 4, 2016 — On his program on Monday evening, nationally syndicated talk show host Lars Larson endorsed Libertarian candidate Joe Miller for U.S. Senate in Alaska.

“One of the last places in the world you’d expect to find a RINO Republican would be Alaska and yet there is one there named Lisa Murkwoski,” said Larson.

He continued, “And the man who is running to beat Lisa Murkowski and replace her in the senate is a guy I feel very strongly about, Joe Miller.”

Miller agreed with Larson’s assessment about Murkowski. “She’s wrong on every conservative plank almost of the Republican Party. In fact, I align far closer to that than she does. It’s one of the reasons we had such a push to get into the race from Republicans,” said Miller.

After a member of the Alaska Republican Party’s Central Committee was expelled for openly backing Joe Miller over Murkowski, five others stepped down in order to do so. (Listen to some of them speak about their decision in the radio ad below.)

Miller has also been endorsed by conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin, Alaska Right to Life, Gun Owners of America, Combat Veterans for Congress, and has the backing of the Alaska Republican Assembly.

Joe Miller is a limited government Constitutionalist who believes government exists to protect our liberties, not to take them away. He supports free people, free markets, federalism, the Constitutional right to life, the 2nd Amendment, religious liberty, American sovereignty, and a strong national defense.

The TMI Election: We Know So Much About Both Candidates, so Why Are There Still So Many Undecided?

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As the world waits with bated breath to hear what Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, may or may not have to say about Hillary Clinton’s emails, it’s a good idea to take a step back from October Surprise Fever and think about the wisdom of basing our political decisions on big, shocking revelations that might not even exist.

I get that secrets are exciting, but both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have been public figures for decades. They have enough public statements between them to fill a library. And they’ve both been angling for the job of president for what seems like forever. We know so much about both of their lives, more than we know about pretty much anyone besides our close friends and family. So the question is, what could possibly emerge at this late date that would change our opinion of either of these politicians?

Since Clinton is reportedly the subject of the leaks, let’s start with her. We know that Clinton spoke lightly about defending a rapist, we know that she is a habitual liar, not to mention her private email server and its contents. We know that a U.S. ambassador was killed on her watch as secretary of state, we know that her foundation has accepted millions in donations from foreign countries and big banks, the latter which she voted to bail out under TARP. We know that she has supported wars that have claimed a million lives. And we know that she wants to raise taxes, increase regulations, and further compromise our constitutional rights.

Is this not enough information? If all of the above is not enough to convince you that Hillary Clinton is unfit to be president, then what ever would be?

Trump is scarcely better. People are making hay about his tax returns, with the implication that the discovery of tax improprieties would somehow destroy his candidacy. But we already know things about Trump that are way worse than a little tax avoidance. In fact, there is a large portion of the GOP base (myself included) who regards keeping as much of your money from the government’s grasping hands as possible as more of a virtue than a vice. But even if you do frown on taking advantage of tax loopholes, would that revelation be more shocking than Trump’s public record?

We know that Trump has advocated killing the families of terrorists, that he regards immigrants broadly as rapists and murderers, that he has advocated shutting down portions of the internet, and that he thinks the proper role of the presidency is to bully individual companies over where they decide to build factories. We know that he has a short temper and is easily provoked. We know that he brags about taking advantage of crony subsidies at the expense of the taxpayer, and that he has tried to use eminent domain to force landowners off their property for his own benefit. We know that he habitually uses demeaning and offensive language towards women, and that personal insults are his rhetorical weapon of choice. We know that he has supported gun control and universal health care before claiming not to support those things. We know that he wants to strengthen libel laws, making it effectively illegal to criticize him. We know that, if elected, he would be fickle, capricious, and unpredictable, hardly desirable qualities in a commander in chief.

Come on, America. Stop pretending some October revelation is going to be a game changer. We know who these people are. We know their weaknesses and, to the extent they exist, their strengths. We have all the information we need to make an educated, well-informed vote. It may be an unattractive decision to have to make, but nothing Julian Assange or anyone else has to say is going to make it any easier. And hey, as much as the media may try to deny it, there are always third parties. (For more from the author of “The TMI Election: We Know So Much About Both Candidates, so Why Are There Still So Many Undecided?” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

We All Avoid Taxes

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Give Donald Trump credit for going big. When he wanted to declare a $915,729,293 loss on his 1995 tax returns, the software used by his accountant couldn’t accommodate anything higher than a seven-figure loss. The accountant had to add the first two digits, “91,” with a typewriter.

The improvisation gets to what is most noteworthy about Trump’s tax gambit, which is the sheer scale of it.

As reported by The New York Times from leaked Trump tax documents, the businessman declared the enormous loss to avoid paying federal income taxes in future years, perhaps for almost the next two decades. The report was quickly deemed a bombshell, but it didn’t reveal anything illegal or — besides the jaw-dropping number — even unusual.

The so-called net operating loss carryforward that Trump took advantage of is not an exotic loophole in the tax code. Many industrialized countries have similar provisions. In 2014, more than a million taxpayers declared net operating losses. The provision simply reflects that if you, say, lose $100,000 setting up a business and earn $50,000 the next year, it makes no sense for the government to tax the $50,000 as if it were the only part of the equation; the loss should be accounted for, too.

Whenever there is a story like this in the political news, liberals trot out the old chestnut from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.” Never mind that civilized society existed on this continent long before the institution of the federal income tax as we know it in 1913. The rejoinder to those congratulating themselves on paying taxes is, Do you take deductions? Do you employ an accountant? Or, Do you pay taxes that you don’t technically owe?

Almost no one does the latter, of course, at least not intentionally. We all operate in keeping with another chestnut from another jurist, Judge Learned Hand. He wrote in a 1935 case: “Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.”

Hillary Clinton may rend her garments over Trump’s minimization of his tax liability, yet the Clintons surely aren’t maximizing their own. As tax expert Ryan Ellis points out in a Forbes column, the Clintons realized a capital loss of $700,000 in 2015, which they can use to offset future capital gains.

The damage to Trump of the Times story is probably not his tax strategy. The candidate had all but admitted to it during the first debate, when he called avoiding taxes “smart.” Rather, the vulnerability for Trump is the fact — stated in black and white in his own filings — that he lost nearly a billion dollars by recklessly overextending himself in the 1990s. This will be thrown back at him every time he touts his business acumen. In other words, all the time.

Trump is also done no favors by his overzealous surrogates, Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie. They were out on the Sunday shows calling him a “genius” for his tax avoidance. This is not only over-the-top (were “shrewd” and “canny” deemed insufficient descriptors?), it implies that there was some complex manipulation at work. It would have been much better to emphasize the pedestrian nature of Trump’s tax maneuver, rather than blowing it up into an unsurpassed triumph of a master at gaming the tax code.

If Trump had released his taxes or even some of them, he wouldn’t have been vulnerable to a leak that, coincidentally, hit the news as the campaign enters the homestretch. He has enough enemies that he could be certain that information about his taxes would get out, and there may be yet more to come. He teed up this October Surprise. (For more from the author of “We All Avoid Taxes” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Clinton Estate Tax Plan Would Affect Many Families, Not Just the Very Rich

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Hillary Clinton’s newly proposed top estate tax rate of 65 percent on $1 billion estates can sound innocuous enough to the average taxpayer. Last year only a handful of estates would have been large enough to have been affected. If that was all there was to the new Clinton estate tax announced in September, most families would be wiser to focus on other things.

But Clinton’s 65 percent estate tax is really just the tip of the iceberg. She also wants to lower the level at which estate taxes become payable to only $3.5 million. By contrast, Donald Trump would eliminate the estate tax.

In addition, Clinton’s website says she would end the current law pertaining to capital gains—which her website calls an “egregious loophole”—whereby inheritors of assets bought decades ago only owe tax when they sell them, not when they inherit them. Under her plan, a much larger capital gains tax than now would be due, and it would be due at death.

A person mourning a loved one might have no choice but to sell inherited assets to pay capital gains taxes. Clinton’s website states that “[Her estate tax plan] will include exemptions to ensure this change only affects the high-income families who by far benefit the most from this loophole, and protects middle-class families.” However, no details as to the exemptions have been announced. (For more from the author of “Clinton Estate Tax Plan Would Affect Many Families, Not Just the Very Rich” please click HERE)

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First Look at the Hillary 2024 Campaign Poster

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It would appear that the lack of excitement among Democrats (and the nominee’s insults of both Democrats and Republicans alike) has led to a reset by her advisers.

After eight years of President Trump (and what about my proposed campaign slogan of America needs a Trump Card?), no matter what the increasingly skewed polling results say, Hillary’s campaign is doomed. With that said, word on the street is that she wants to run again.

By that time, of course, the bloated catlady’s failing body won’t be around for the campaign (in spite of all the “yoga”), so what better way to keep her plugging away than this?

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(For more from the author of “First Look at the Hillary 2024 Campaign Poster” please click HERE)

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EXPOSED: The Corrupt Clinton Foundation You’ve Never Heard Of

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Three months after leaving the White House in 2001, former President Bill Clinton arrived in India to cheering throngs to help those who had just lost a million homes in the aftermath of a massive earthquake that killed 20,000 and injured 166,000.

In classic Clinton style, he solemnly promised that his new nonprofit — called the American India Foundation (AIF) — would rebuild 100 villages. Rajat Gupta, his millionaire co-chairman, pledged $1 billion for the victims.

It never happened. Years later, AIF’s annual reports were reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation and show only seven villages were partially rebuilt by Clinton’s group, and a mere $2.7 million of $53 million raised over a decade went to the earthquake victims.

The rest went for completely unrelated projects, including “accelerating social change,” fighting AIDS, “sustainable development,” and working for “digital equalizers.”

Paltry aid for the victims notwithstanding, Clinton handsomely profited from the charity as AIF’s top officers poured more than $13 million into the Clinton Foundation and others generously gave to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s political campaigns. (Read more from “EXPOSED: The Corrupt Clinton Foundation You’ve Never Heard Of” HERE)

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Tim Kaine Defies the Bible and Makes a Mockery of the Church

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No matter how hard Democratic vice-presidential hopeful Tim Kaine tries to pass off his invented religion as “Catholic,” he will fail. That is because Kaine’s views are not actually Catholic or in any meaningful sense even Christian.

For 2,000 years, Christians have agreed on the sanctity of human life. Kaine’s own church teaches that abortion is always and everywhere a grave evil (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2270-2275). There is absolutely no wiggle room here. Yet Tim Kaine, who campaigns as a Catholic, supports legalized abortion and touts a 100 percent rating on Planned Parenthood’s scorecard, America’s number one baby killer. He is also endorsed by NARAL Pro-Choice America for his 100 percent pro-abortion voting record.

The Bible is equally clear about homosexual acts, which the Catholic Church teaches are “intrinsically disordered,” “contrary to the natural law,” and “under no circumstances [to] be approved” (CCC 2357). In the same breath, the Church distinguishes between the homosexual acts and the persons with homosexual attraction. About the persons with homosexual attraction, the Church says, “They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity” (CCC 2358).

Loving God and loving our neighbor is the Great Commandment upon which “all the law and the prophets” depend (Mt. 22:36-40). The church has always taught to love the person, but hate the sin. This commandment applies to each and every one of us and to all sins under the sun “since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). While we are called to love our neighbor, encouraging our neighbor to commit grave sin is the most unloving thing we can do.

Like Jesus, we must show authentic and unconditional charity to the person who is in sin while rejecting the sinful actions that threaten his soul. We must do this humbly, knowing full-well that we are miserable fellow sinners, in desperate need of God’s saving grace. Charity and truth, both attributes of God himself, work together. They’re not in tension.

Distorting Truth for Political Gain

For political gain, Tim Kaine has distorted and defied Pope Francis’ words, the Church’s teaching, and Holy Scripture itself. Kaine spoke on Sept. 10 at the high-powered LGBT Human Rights Campaign dinner in Washington D.C. where he self-identified as a “devout Catholic.”

In the speech, he admitted that the Catholic Church is opposed to same-sex marriage. However, he held out to the audience the fantasy that the Church will change her 2,000-year teaching to fit the liberal zeitgeist. He then proceeded to distort Genesis 1 and Pope Francis’ comments to match his own ideology. He said that such change may occur “because my church also teaches me about a creator in the first chapter of Genesis, who surveys the entire world including mankind and [says], ‘It is very good,’” referencing Genesis 1:31. “Pope Francis famously said, ‘Who am I to judge?’ And to that I want to add: Who am I to challenge God for the beautiful diversity of the human family? I think we’re supposed to celebrate it, not challenge it.”

Kaine conveniently snipped off the Scripture passages that came before and after. In Genesis, God created them “male and female” (Gen. 1:27) and commanded them to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28) which is only possible within the sexual union of one man and one woman. Adam confirms that Eve is “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” (Gen 2:23-24).

The Bible is Clear — And Kaine is Wrong

Could it be any clearer that Holy Scripture affirms that sexual relations and marriage is between one man and one woman? To see the full picture, here are just some of the Holy Scripture passages that directly speak about the grave evil of homosexual acts:

“Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable” (Lev. 18:22).

“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error” (Rom. 1:26-27).

“But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband” (1 Cor. 7:2).

“Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10).

Nor can Kaine really hide behind Pope Francis’ words, which do not mean what the secular press pretends. As the pope explained his comment (“Who am I to judge?”):

If a person is gay and seeks out the Lord and is willing, who am I to judge that person? … I was paraphrasing by heart the Catechism of the Catholic Church where it says that these people should be treated with delicacy and not be marginalized. … I prefer that homosexuals come to confession, that they stay close to the Lord, and that we pray all together. … You can advise them to pray, show goodwill, show them the way, and accompany them along it.

Confession — that is where Catholics go to repent their sins and gain the grace to avoid them in future. Does that sound like a papal stamp of approval? Pope Francis is calling on us to accompany them in kindness, charity, and truth — most importantly through our own example — yet not to become complicit by praising the sins that damage them.

Truth and Charity: Not Mutually Exclusive

Correcting Kaine’s misleading statements, his own bishop, Francis DiLorenzo of Richmond, responded that “the Catholic Church’s 2,000-year-old teaching to the truth about what constitutes marriage remains unchanged and resolute. As Catholics, we believe, all humans warrant dignity and deserve love and respect, and unjust discrimination is always wrong … Marriage is the only institution uniting one man and one woman with each other and with any child from their union. Redefining marriage furthers no one’s rights, least of all those of children, who should not purposely be deprived of the right to be nurtured and loved by a mother and a father.”

Tim Kaine has no right to treat Church teachings and the Bible like a buffet in a cafeteria, picking the teachings he finds convenient.

The call of the Christian in every generation is to communicate both truth and charity. Truth without charity is a “noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1), and charity without truth is plain sentimentality. May we all live out the call to continual personal conversion, as well as the call to charity in truth and truth in charity. (For more from the author of “Tim Kaine Defies the Bible and Makes a Mockery of the Church” please click HERE)

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An American Horror Story: Vignettes From Hillary’s First Hundred Days

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On Friday, January 20, 2017, a woman with time-worn features raises her right hand on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. She places her left hand flat on a book of law as she stands in front of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and takes the oath of the Presidency. Roberts’ presence chafes her. She’d voted against his nomination, considering him too conservative to fit her radical views on judicial interpretation. Today, though, she’ll overlook it. Vindication proves curative enough for past ills.

The years as First Lady, her time as the Democratic Senator from New York, and later, as Secretary of State — they have all culminated here, in the office of which she’d been in steely-eyed pursuit of for so long. She had survived the Benghazi debacle, and the classified email leaks. The puerile public had even overlooked those phones smashed with hammers. She’d finally crushed the noxious right-wing conspiracy that had hounded her every move. She would gut the system from the inside out just as she’d promised Saul Alinsky she would.

There was only the fight, and she’d won. He’d have been proud.

In rural Ohio a few weeks later on a day of waning winter, Susan Frazier and her husband Tom sit anxiously in front of a family counselor at the faith-based Agape Adoption agency. Unable to conceive, they have waited three years to adopt an infant. But with a heavy sigh, the counselor explains that the baby promised to them will instead go to a lesbian couple in Columbus. When asked why, she says that a recent law prohibits the agency from exhibiting a preference for married couples over LGBTQ individuals seeking adoption. Seeing the pain on both of their faces, she reveals that threatened with impossible fines and so many children needing homes, they felt pressured to comply despite their religious beliefs. Religion, the counselor reminds them, is no longer good for anything but church.

The next day, Susan and Tom flip on the news. An image of Chicago O’Hare flickers on the screen. The airport’s glass wall gapes like a wound, smoke spiraling heavenward. Bodies draped with white sheets lay in rows on the concrete. Susan grabs Tom’s hand. Two Syrian refugees with ties to ISIS have driven a construction vehicle through a barrier, into the main terminal and opened fire with AK 47s. In a display of force, the President quickly announces she has temporarily suspended the Second Amendment right to keep and carry a firearm. Not only will all gun sales be immediately suspended, the Democratic Congress has also approved her order for a federal weapon registry. Failure to register any and all firearms with the federal government will result in confiscation and forfeiture of the firearm(s) and any property or assets related to the transporting or housing of those firearm(s).

Susan and Tom look at each other, unsettled by the idea of “suspending” a constitutional right. Tom’s hunting rifle is used only to put venison on the table in winter. But this was a special circumstance, right? Susan reaches for a stack of mail during the commercial break, and an envelope catches her eye. It’s a tax liability statement from the Internal Revenue Service. They haven’t paid enough. Her confusion bleeds to anger as she shoves the statement toward her husband. Didn’t this President promise them lower taxes?

On the television, the President is now shaking hands with Xi Jinping, the Communist leader of the People’s Republic of China. With practiced ease, she promises the press corps that under her administration, trivialities like human rights won’t interfere with more important issues like global warming. She says nothing of the imprisonments and executions ordered by the smiling Chinese dictator standing to her left. But she is keen to apologize for America’s previous hostility toward communism.

Tom Frazier is deployed the next week. An Army air defense artillery officer, he is on his way to Aleppo to fight a war he does not understand and never seems to end. His command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has been subjected to hours of training on transgender sensitivity and “white privilege,” but no instruction on code of conduct or law of land warfare. When he finally boards the plane for the 14-hour flight to Syria he feels acutely unprepared to fight a hidden enemy. His seat mate remarks with acid in his voice that this President doesn’t know when to quit. She is, he reminds Tom, the one who sends people in but doesn’t bring them home.

Within a few months of the President’s taking the oath, Paul Watford — an appellate judge from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and former clerk to far-left Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — is confirmed for the U.S. Supreme Court. Within a matter of weeks, he essentially codifies the president’s gun grab by ruling with the majority in nullifying the Second Amendment right to carry a fire arm. Shortly thereafter, he denies a church’s Equal Protection claim.

The President calls a press conference, praising both decisions as the none-too-soon death knell of conservatism. She explains that in particular, religion has been given “special treatment” for too long. In matters of Equal Protection and Free Exercise, churches have used religious freedom as code for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia and Christian supremacy for too long. The President promises that religious freedom will no longer be used to deny others equality.

Susan flips off the radio in her car. She touches the cross around her neck and ignores the rising knot in her throat.

The Ohio leaves return to green. Susan is still without her husband, and she’s received no promise of his return. Today, she flips the towel she’s using for the dishes over her shoulder, and clicks on the television, where the President sits at her desk in the Oval Office, pen mid-signature, flanked by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards. This is a common sight, Susan thinks, this President and her many bills. The trio of well-dressed women exchange beaming smiles and congratulatory hugs. The President has signed the Freedom of Choice Act, a bill that legalizes abortion-on-demand, while simultaneously repealing the Hyde Amendment prohibiting federal funding for abortion. All taxpayers will now be forced into partnership with Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. The towel falls from Susan’s shoulder. She realizes that the baby for which she so desperately longs is now simply another woman’s temporary mistake. A mistake she is being forced to pay for.

Susan is gnawed by a growing regret as she remembers the snaking lines at the polling place last year. She remembers driving by, muttering that some people were just too consumed with politics. She recalls the campaign signs and the heated rhetoric and the televised debates. She remembers trying to ignore it all, trusting it would work out. That she was just one person, and even without her vote, it would all work out.

Wouldn’t it? (For more from the author of “An American Horror Story: Vignettes From Hillary’s First Hundred Days” please click HERE)

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New Lawmakers’ Project Aims to Support Religious Institutions

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A new project has been launched to show the need of religious institutions, which are in danger of losing influence in society as they face challenges to their existence today.

“We need our faith-based institutions,” Republican Study Committee Chairman Bill Flores, R-Texas, said at the launch of the America Without Faith project at the Hillsdale College Kirby Center in Washington, D.C., in September.

The project, launched by the largest conservative caucus in Congress, the Republican Study Committee, aims to reinforce the importance of religious institutions’ role in civil society. These institutions have a long history in the maintenance of civil society, and have played an important role in solving problems such as drug addiction, illiteracy, hunger, homelessness, and supporting families living below the poverty line.

It was created “to help members of Congress and religious liberty advocates communicate about how important the work of faith-based groups are for our nation today,” the RSC said in a press release.

“I think we’ve seen the president [Barack Obama] of the executive branch try to belittle or embarrass Christians in particular and to say that we’re ignorant and that therefore we’re discriminatory. … I think by trying to marginalize us and intimidate us that he’s taken that sort of mindset and pushed it through the entire government bureaucracy,” said Flores, who will oversee the project. “It’s up to us as Americans to try to start rolling that back.”

Since the inception of America, religious institutions have played a foundational role in the country. They’ve been a boon to preserving a strong civil society, but now, according to the RSC, they exist on “shaky ground” as targets of both cultural and governmental forces have formulated strategies to create friction in their ability to do their work.

“Over the past decade they have faced repeated challenges to their very existence, including threats to revoke their tax-exempt status,” says the RSC.

“There are strong cultural forces afoot that want America to become a more and more secular nation,” Howard Husock of the Manhattan Institute said at the Hillsdale College event. They pose a “risk of politicizing philanthropy,” Husock warned, adding, “America is the most generous and charitable country on earth, but our public policies could put an end to that.”

Flores, a supporter of Yellowstone Academy, a nonprofit faith-based institution with 350 students in Houston, Texas, talked about the difference in success rates between the federal government and religious-based institutions.

According to Flores, less than 20 percent of students graduate from public high schools in that part of Houston. However, “the first class of students that came in as 4 year olds at Yellowstone just graduated from high school in May with a 98 percent graduation rate,” he said.

“No federal bureaucrat can make that happen,” Flores added. “No federal bureaucrat can institute that sort of change in a community that’s been struggling for decades.”

A strong correlation exists between religious practice and a vibrant civil society, because “religious practice promotes the well-being of individuals, families, and the community,” wrote Patrick F. Fagan, a senior fellow and director of the Center for Research on Marriage and Religion at the Family Research Council.

“Regular attendance at religious services is linked to healthy, stable family life, strong marriages, and well-behaved children,” Fagan, a former senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, added. “The practice of religion also leads to a reduction in the incidence of domestic abuse, crime, substance abuse, and addiction.”

“Why punish the organizations that are serving their communities, providing free social services, and helping our economy?” Alison Howard, director of alliance relations at Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal aid group, said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal.

“Religious institutions should be free to live out their mission in society without threat of punishment by the government and the political elite,” she added.

Gridlock in Washington, Flores said, makes it impossible to introduce new legislation to stop these forces from eroding the influence of faith-based institutions. Although, for him, all hope is not lost.

“The best way to have this happen is for this message to get out to real world America, to the grassroots of America, and everybody says ‘Aha, we have got too close to that tipping point, it’s time to start pulling back,” Flores concluded, highlighting the urgency of the problem. (For more from the author of “New Lawmakers’ Project Aims to Support Religious Institutions” please click HERE)

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3 Ways to Use the Vice Presidential Debate to Talk About Religious Liberty

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Since both candidates in Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate have a record when it comes to religious liberty, you can bet the topic will come up—giving you the opportunity to talk with the people in your life about a deeply important issue.

Unsurprisingly, religious liberty is a tricky topic to navigate because it’s personal. People feel strongly about the ability to live life as they want, but some betray the concept of tolerance by crying “intolerant!” if others want to live life through the lens of their faith.

So, how do you talk about religious liberty with someone who thinks the government can force people to violate their beliefs? Here are some guidelines that allow you to tread lightly and expertly discuss the issue without fear and trembling.

Common Ground

We’ve talked in the past about how common ground is disarming, and we’re going to make that case again.

Liberals frequently cry “intolerant!” when conservatives start to talk about religious liberty. Don’t let them.

Though it’s become a dirty word, tolerance is important—we should be able to disagree with each other and then live side-by-side in peace. Tolerance doesn’t mean defeat, but it does require kindness and respect from both parties.

Acknowledging the common ground of tolerance creates a safe space to examine, discuss, and disagree. And addressing the elephant in the room—“we disagree on this issue, but it’s ok. I’ll maybe kinda sorta still like you when this is over. Now let’s talk about it”—frees you up to make your case and rightly frames your motivation.

The liberal on the other side of the conversation can’t claim you’re intolerant if you just said you believe we should be able to disagree, discuss, and then live in peace side-by-side.

Goodbye, argument of intolerance. Hello, civil discussion.

Examples

Unfortunately, there are numerous examples of folks trying to run businesses, practice medicine, or simply move up the corporate ladder but have been punished for not wanting to violate their beliefs.

Here is the latest from The Daily Signal on the Oregon bakers who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony in January 2013. Nearly four years later, the bakery is closed and the case is still moving through the court system (think of those hefty legal bills).

This article explains why a 70-year-old florist is facing seven figures in legal fees for refusing to make flower arrangements for a same-sex wedding.

Illinois signed into law a bill that forces doctors to tell their patients about the benefits of abortion and refer them to abortion providers, even if the doctor is pro-life.

These are powerful examples to use when arguing for religious liberty. Not only do you have plenty to choose from, but the person you’re talking to will more quickly recognize the person you’re defending.

Words

Be inclusive. Don’t point fingers. Go on offense, not defense.

When you talk about religious liberty, you’re not only making a case for your beliefs, but also for the beliefs of those you disagree with. If you’re going to argue for tolerance, that means both sides are able to live and let live. So come at this conversation with an attitude of “I care deeply about my beliefs, but also about yours.”

Words and phrases like “tolerance,” “live and let live,” and “no one should be forced by government” go a long way in illustrating what we have in common despite party affiliation—that this country was founded so that people could live free from burdensome government interference.

Here’s hoping you’re able to make a case for religious liberty that emphasizes its importance for both sides. Religious liberty doesn’t just protect those who identify as “religious,” it also benefits those that don’t. It’s an argument for all, and that’s an easy argument to make. (For more from the author of “3 Ways to Use the Vice Presidential Debate to Talk About Religious Liberty” please click HERE)

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