Subject: HR2431 - Those that oppose the Bill
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 01:45:26 +0000
To: "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>
From: Eddie Chumney
To: heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Subject: HR2431 - Those that oppose the bill.
I will be including a point - counterpoint of HR2431 in several
articles. The article below is from a voice that does not support
the bill. In another article, I have posted the viewpoint of the
Christian Coalition who supports the bill.
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WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS Website
(http://www.whtt.org/religiou.htm)
THE TROJAN HORSE AT THE GATE
"In God do we trust, for our cause is just" -
Francis Scott Key
(http://www.whtt.org/980309cc.htm)
Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey has promised a vote
before Easter on HR2431, the ill-named Freedom From Religious
Persecution Act, which is correctly titled A Bill to Provide for the
Office of Religious Persecution Monitoring and to Provide for the
Imposition of Sanctions Against Countries Engaged in Patterns of
Religious Persecution and for Other Purposes("ORPM"). The power to
pass this bill appears overwhelming. The Freedom from Religious
Persecution Act will provide religious bondage, not freedom; It
legitimatizes persecution by persecution's most fiendish experts, big
government; it creates another government agency with unbridled power
to control thought.
The promoters of ORPM are the same Warmakers George Bush called
"the new world order." Their puppets who are selling world religious
control to the public are the TV evangelists and Political Christian
leaders, including Pat Robertson, Christians Coalition and many
others.
The author of the bill is Career Bureaucrat and Senior Fellow
at the internationalist, Hudson Institute, Michael Horowitz. Freedom House, a
Council on Foreign Relations world government front, is its major
promoter. Sponsors of the legislation are Frank Wolf (R-VA),
Republican Senator Arlan Spector of Pennsylvania, an abortion advocate
and practicing socialist. Avowed homosexual Congressman Barney Frank
is one of the latest among the 105 co-sponsors. However, most of its
support has come, strange as it may seem, from conservative
Republicans responding to urging from nationally prominent Christians,
media evangelists and Christian organizations.
If HR2431 is passed by Congress, it will legitimize the
President's past executive war orders in places like Bosnia and
Sudan, and allow future embargoes and blockades to be turned on and
off like a spigot. The Act effectively legitimatizes the United
Nations' Covenants as documents to be observed by our lawmakers. In
effect, the United Nations becomes the equivalent of a warmaking CIA,
on call at the whim of the President's appointee. In the name of
protecting the world from "Religious Persecution" the bill grants
warmaking powers to President Clinton.
Why would any Christian leader want to give the President
more of the Executive power that thrust us into the last Gulf War? On
November 4,1997, President Clinton sanctioned Sudan by imposing a War
Powers Act, cutting off its fledgling oil production before it could
be started. Again it is the poor in Sudan, and the consumers in
America who pay the cost in higher prices. Our Christian leaders say
nothing about all this child starvation in Arab countries. We wonder,
why not?
Christian promoters admit that the ORPM recognizes and
legitimizes the United Nation's religious tenets. Pat Robertson on the
700 Club, Gary Bauer of Family Research Council, officials of
Christian Coalition are among the many political Christian leaders who
assure us the new agency will forever remain small and benign and will
not monitor Americans. Americans were once told the same thing about
the IRS, and that would NEVER take more that 3%, and only from the
wealthy.
The United Nations has commenced monitoring
religions in America even before the bill is passed, a sign of things
to come. On January 28, 1998, the Atlanta Journal Constitution carried
a story entitled "EMORY DRAWS U.N. RELIGIOUS OFFICIALS." The United
Nations was at Emory University for a forum on the status of religious
freedom in the southwestern United States. The article tells us that
the UN Special Rapporteur is submitting a report to the Security
Council on the state of religion around the world. In other words, the
United Nations is already monitoring race relations under the color of
religion--not in some foreign country--here.
The position of Special Rapporteur On Religious
Intolerance was established by the United Nations Commissioner On
Human Rights in 1986. The standard for examining religions, according
to the Special Rapporteur Abdelfattah Amor, "is the UN's 1981
Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and
Discrimination Based on Religious Belief."
Mr. Amor was also in Arizona interviewing Indian
tribes in search of religious persecution only a week later, and where
else he went we do not know. But we do know the Office of Religious
Persecution Monitoring will have total authority to pick up where the
UN leaves off in monitoring any group they want to examine--anywhere.
If the UN can monitor southwestern Indians or
black Americans in the southeastern United States under pretext of
religious persecution, why couldn't homosexual claim their perversion
is a religion, or abortion advocates claim persecuted status? What if
the ORPM decided parents are persecuting children by teaching them at
home? The ORPM has free reign to define what a religion is and to
define persecution.
Amazingly, Christian Leaders of groups, including David
Hodel's Christian Coalition, tell us the ORPM will not monitor
Americans. But the monster Congress is about to create cites the same
United Nations covenants in its Section 2., that Mr. Amor is quoting
for his authority for monitoring religion in Atlanta and Phoenix. Can
the political Christians restore our freedom if they are lost?
The ORPM also enjoys control over immigration whenever the
Office judges that religious persecution is involved. The Director of
the ORPM could unilaterally declare "Native American" population of
Mexico a "persecuted religion" under HR2431 and could declare the
entire population eligible for resettlement in the US at taxpayer
expense.
Because we are debating over life and death for those
sanctioned, and because the religious freedom of future generations
hangs on the defeat of HR2431, is necessary that we confront head on
the argument made by certain Christian apologists for HR2431. The
following are excepts from an Alert by Christian Coalition dated March
5, 1998 (emphasis added):
"For many communities of faith around the world, the
simple act of worshipping in a church or at home creates a real threat
of brutal persecution such as enslavement, imprisonment, rape, murder
-- even crucifixion. To help address this worldwide horror,
Congressman Frank Wolf (VA) and Senator Arlan Specter (PA) introduced
the `Freedom From Religious Persecution Act' (H.R. 2431). Christian
Coalition supports this legislation....A terrible misconception is
that this bill would establish a powerful government office that would
threaten religious liberty within the US and worldwide. This is simply
not true. An office would be established in the State Department that
WOULD ONLY ACT IN A `FACT FINDING' CAPACITY."
"The Director, after being confirmed by the Senate, would
be responsible for gathering information of reports of widespread and
ongoing persecution in foreign countries and make annual reports to
Congress to determine if those countries should be subject to the
penalties established in H.R. 2431."
"We are targeting the week of March 9-13 as the `lobby'
week for contact and communication in support of the Freedom From
Religious Persecution Act, H.R. 2431."
WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS believes Christian Coalition already
has reason to know the above is deceptive or outright false. The
statement that HR2431 was amended to lodge the ORPM Office in the
State Department is true, but irrelevant. What is important, is the
power it enjoys. CC's statement that the agency only has power to
perform `fact-finding' and not to make decisions is provably untrue
simply by reading the bill.
HR2431, Sec. 5 (b)clearly states the Director is
appointed by the President with advise and consent of the Senate, and
(c) "shall serve at the pleasure of the President." This process is
similar to Cabinet appointees.
Sec. 5(3) provide the Director will "consult with" the
Secretary of State but in no way does this suggest subornation to the
State Department.
Sec. 5(5) the Director shall "coordinate with the
Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of
Commerce and Secretary of Treasury to insure that the provisions of
this act are carried out." Clearly, the director remains in control.
Sec. 6.(a) defines Reports to Congress--no other
requirements are implied, and the act does not even say what Congress
can do if they don't like the report.
Sec. 7.(a)(1)(A) "The Director shall notify the
relevant United States department and agencies and such departments
and agencies shall"-(i) "prohibit all exports to the responsible
entity---" etc.
Sec. 7(a)(3.) provides for penalties for U.S.
Citizens, also at the complete authority of the Director.
The ORPM is so powerful it can order other
departments, including State, to place sanctions on its chosen
victims. The language of the act is clear. Once appointed and
confirmed by the Senate, the ORPM Director has near total authority,
except that the President can remove him as with any Cabinet
appointee.
Clearly, the Director makes the decisions and has only
to "report" and "confer" with others, a mere formality. Would
Christian Coalition or Dr. James Dobson ( another ORPM supporter)
recommend we tell our kids they may do anything they wish so long as
they report and coordinate with parents?
Because the bill is unusually concise there can be no
excuse for Christian Coalition misleading their readers. Please
forgive our frank language, but Christian Coalition has born false
witness in its Alert. We challenge Christian Coalition to correct this
error and publicly repent because of the grave nature of this act. As
in the Gulf War, some of the life lost will be our own children. And,
there is no way to replace a lost freedom.
Congress is being pressured to pass HR2431 by
internationalist Warmakers. The movement is funded and controlled by non-government
organizations, including Hudson Institute and the Council on Foreign
Relation's dominated Freedom House. The goal of these organizations is
and always has been international government.
Once created, the Office will no doubt be staffed by
Warmakers appointees like Horowitz and Wolf, with window-dressing
selected from prominent Christian leaders. The ORPM would be no more
acceptable with Billy Graham as its first Director than it would be
with Janet Reno.
If you have any remaining doubts about what HR 2431 says,
read the bill. Those who read the bill oppose it; those who wrote it
are its supporters. And those who do not read are no better off than
those who cannot read.
The House Internal Relations Committee (see below) has
heard and amended the bill and is expected to pass H.R. 2431 to the
floor in March. Matt Salmon has led opposition so far. Donald Manzullo
of Illinois is said to oppose the bill--thank them for their continued
leadership.
A Call To Action:
Demand a "no" vote in Congress on HR2431, and
S-772. Start with the Committee members listed below.
Spread this alarm. The enemy is inside the gate.
CAPITOL SWITCHBOARD: 1-800-522-6721,1-202-225-3121
HOUSE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS COMMITTEE
REPUBLICANS: Benjamin Gilman, NY
(Chairman);William Goodling, PA;
James A. Leach, IA; Henry Hyde, IL; Doug Bereuter,
NE; Christopher Smith, NJ; Dan Burton, IN; Elton
Gallegly, CA; Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, FL; Cass
Ballenger, NC; Dana Rohrabacher, CA; Donald
Manzullo, IL; Edward Royce, CA; Peter King, NY; Jay Kim,
CA; Steve Chabot, OH; Mark Sanford, SC; Matt Salmon, AZ;
Amo Houghton, NY; Tom Campbell, CA; Jon Fox, PA; John
McHugh, NY; Lindsey Graham, SC; Roy Blunt, MO; Kevin
Brady, TX.
DEMOCRATS: Lee Hamilton, IN; Sam Gejdenson, CT;
Tom Lantos, CA; Howard Berman, CA; Gary Ackerman, NY;
Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, AS; Matthew Martinez, CA; Donald
Payne, NJ; Robert Andrews, NJ; Robert Menendez, NJ;
Sherrod Brown, OH; Cynthia McKinney, GA; Alcee Hastings,
FL; Pat Danner, MO; Earl Hilliard, AL; Brad Sherman, CA;
Robert Wexler, FL; Steve Rothman, NJ; Bob Clement, TN;
Bill Luther, MN; Jim Davis, FL.
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