Senators, Media, and Deception

Senator Mark Begich,

On August 20th I sent you and Ms. Murkowski a message regarding the crisis in Iraq and Syria. This message regards a serious domestic threat from within. I hope you will read it with open eyes, an open heart, and a prayerful disposition.

The headlines in the July 17^th Fairbanks Daily News-Miner says it all: Senators Vote in Support of Restoring Access to Contraceptives. There is a single word that sums up this headline and the promotion of the fallacy that women’s contraception is being taken away from them: disinformation. The KGB perfected this technique during the Cold War and the Democratic Party (and media allies) is using it to great effect today.
The good thing about your vote for this bill is that it puts you, and over 50 other senators, on record for desiring to dismantle a sacred right vested in our constitution: the freedom to live out one’s beliefs through their religious observance without government involvement or interference. The bad news is that the American people are only 6 senators short of their own government imposing an unjust and immoral law that moves them one step closer to tyranny.

Living in accordance with one’s beliefs, particularly as it relates to the Judeo-Christian heritage of the United States, is not limited to any one or more spheres that the government deems acceptable but guides us in every aspect of our lives. It has become abundantly clear over the past several years that the party of Mark Begich and allies in the media have adopted the saying, “Whatever advances the message is moral” by Vladimir Lenin: and what usually advances the message is the “War on Women” narrative. It has been used to good advantage in recent times and it is being used now. As a matter of fact, Mr. Begich, you apparently have decided to let Planned Parenthood run your campaign since you regurgitated this message in your response to Dan Sullivan winning the Republican senate primary.

In contributing to the disinformation frenzy, you are reported in the July 17^th News-Miner to say that, “60,000 Alaska women stand to lose contraceptive coverage from their employers.” Wow. First, I must admit that I’m really impressed with the 60,000 number because those women constitute something like ¾ of the entire population of the Fairbanks area, including our two military bases. Second, I’m encouraged that you think that Alaska has so many religiously devout employers who are still guided by a firm foundation of Christian morality: the same morality heralded by George Washington and the other founders of our nation. You go on, “I am proud to stand with Senator Murkowski, because we both know that Alaska women want to make their decisions about reproductive care based on the recommendation of their doctors, not the religious beliefs of their bosses.” Translation: religious beliefs are subjective, possibly irrational, and certainly have no place outside of the home or church. Since I just mentioned him, it was our first President who said, “It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.” George Washington didn’t say these words within the walls of a church or the privacy of his home, but spoke them boldly in the capacity as this nation’s first President. Businesses like Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood have merely taken this to heart in their practices inside and outside the home.

I will yield this one point: there is a War on Women, of sorts: but the Democrat Party (with occasional allies like Lisa Murkowski) is waging it.  If you, Mr. Begich, truly cared about “reproductive care” for women, then you would support the myriad number of laws that many states enacted to provide for safer (for women if not for their unborn children) and cleaner abortion facilities with better qualified and trained doctors and staff that occurred after Kermit Gosnell’s clinic-of-horrors facility in Philadelphia shocked the nation. However, the “pro-woman” Democrats want to eliminate all of these new restrictions in order to keep abortions unregulated and on a fast track; and as you know a new bill you would like to pass would do just that: wipe away any and all state limitations restricting women from terminating a pregnancy up until birth. But why stop there? The president didn’t. Barack Obama claimed in the Illinois state senate that a child should not receive life support if a baby (he called it a fetus, I guess that makes it less human) was born alive after a botched abortion if the mother had intended to end abort. Therefore, by this logic a newborn gasping for air in these cases is merely a ‘failed intention’ instead of a child. Many of us have a different word for withholding life support to a child born alive after a botched abortion: infanticide. There’s another thing you Democrats don’t mention when discussing “reproductive care”: the definitive link between oral contraceptives and abortion to breast cancer.

The hysteria and deception coming from your party, Mark Begich, and your army of media allies regarding the Hobby Lobby case flies in the face of the evidence. The majority of Supreme Court Justices found that this part of Obamacare failed to meet the demanding test of The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) - championed by many prominent Democrats - requiring government to enact laws that do not “substantially burden” religious freedom without a compelling state interest. Once that threshold has been met, the state must choose the “least restrictive means” of advancing its interest. The Court concluded that the government could choose a different means of providing access to contraception without requiring the family business to violate their beliefs. The government itself could even fill the gap. As Justice Samuel Alito pointed out, the Obama administration would exclude people like the families which own these companies (Hobby Lobby, Conestoga Wood, etc) “from full participation in the economic life of the nation.” He also mentioned that the RFRA “was enacted to prevent such an outcome.”

As senators, you and Lisa Murkowski should be doing everything in your power to help this country economically, but instead you want to punish companies who want to live in accordance with many of the principals and values that created this unique and exceptional nation. Make no mistake; the uniqueness of the United States did not come about in spite of the religiosity of its people but because of it. Companies like Hobby Lobby are not discriminatory or putting women in danger because they object to paying for four abortifacients (abortion inducing drugs) out of a total of twenty kinds of contraceptives/drugs. Women aren’t and won’t be denied access to those four drugs and you know it, but you must force Hobby Lobby and all companies to comply because it increases Democrat party control over the public and helps to “transform America” in the image of the President and his party. Even if Hobby Lobby objected to all twenty contraceptives – like many Catholic businesses and non-profits do (not to mention religious orders like Little Sisters of the Poor) – women’s access to these items will be unimpeded. But your party won’t rest until it has achieved forced compliance.

It is astounding, Mark Begich, that you think it is “common sense” to strip Americans from fully living their lives in accordance with our traditional religious faith and values and would trade our First Amendment rights for a bald-faced lie. You lied to me in a private message after you helped pass Obamacare that it would not cover abortion “services”, and you are lying now. Because of judges who share misguided and destructive views like yours, small business owners who are trying to live their lives in accordance with beliefs that have sustained this country for 238 years are being harassed, fined, and ordered to “sensitivity training” for “discriminating” against homosexual couples. As this trend continues many of them will be run out of business in the name of “tolerance”. In 1830 Alexis de Tocqueville understood that the religious nature of the American people and the values and morals that came from it was critical to the success of the fledgling republic. In 2014 it is a travesty that Mark Begich, Lisa Murkowski, and 52 other United States Senators are oblivious to this basic truth and would strip the American people of their fundamental rights so we can face a brave new world of their design.