People of faith will help re-elect Trump, Pence

Sally and Earl Claire
State Committeewoman and Committeeman
Highlands County FL

Our president and his administration have done more for people of faith in three years than any other president in our lifetimes. In a prior guest column on Feb. 27, 2017, I wrote that “People of faith finally have a friend again in the White House. Persecution will end. Religious liberty will be protected again.” As widely reported, people of faith helped elect our president and vice president in 2016, and they will help re-elect them in 2020. There are for two primary reasons, the first is that we have an administration that for the first time in our history is totally engaged in faith issues.

• President Trump is championing religious freedom! Since taking office, President Trump has tasked his administration with doing everything it can to protect our “first right” as citizens. For National Religious Freedom Day on Jan. 16th, the president took another important step to safeguard our religious liberties. Read President Trump’s Proclamation for Religious Freedom Day, 2020.
• President Trump appointed former Governor Sam Brownback, as Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. He serves as our spokesman for oppressed religious minorities
• President Trump has nominated and had confirmed 187 conservative judges so far, including two to the US Supreme Court. All were selected because of their commitment to interpreting the Constitution and the laws according to the original meaning of the words. These actions are of tremendous benefit for generations to come, for they help ensure that laws must be made by elected legislators who are accountable to “we the people.”
• President Trump declared Jan. 22nd as National Sanctity of Human Life Day.” This administration supports life; and is actively engaged in actions to defund the Planned Parenthood abortion mill. President Trump will be the first president to speak in person at this year’s March for Life.
• President Trump supports and champions Israel. He boldly did what President Obama would not do; he recognized Jerusalem as the capital and moved our embassy there.
• We judge a tree by its fruit and this tree is producing good fruit for all people of faith.
• The second reason that people of faith will get involved and will turn out and vote in record numbers to re-elect the president is the clear recognition of what it would mean to lose the election.
• America would again enter the downward spiral toward socialism with the erosion of religious liberty and our freedoms of worship. Nations who have embraced socialism have seen churches wither and close and a sharp increase in persecution of people of faith. The attacks on priests and the sharp rise in anti-Semitism in France and the UK are grim reminders.
  • New York Democrats passed a law allowing infanticide and many blue states are now trying to copy.
• Democrats have taken the mention of God totally out of their party platform, and they would continue their agenda to marginalize God and people of faith given total control.
• In states controlled by the left, persecution of people of faith is increasing. Many do not want Florida to become another California, or New York, or worse.

In a recent article in Breakpoint, Joseph Backholm discussed the oft-misunderstood notion of the “separation of church and state.” “First, the “separation of church and state” isn’t in the Constitution. It’s Thomas Jefferson’s paraphrase of the First Amendment, which he included in a letter to Baptists in Connecticut — who feared government intrusion into their faith. Which leads to the second point: The “separation of church and state” is meant to protect the church from the state.

”The “religious left” condemn and despise our president despite his unequaled accomplishments, and they attack and persecute his supporters. They would rather have an administration that openly rejects God, marginalizes people of faith, and supports infanticide! Yes, the president is a sinner. So was King David and so was the apostle Paul, but God used them to accomplish His purposes.

The noted theologian Wayne Grudem, author of “Systematic Theology,” responded to a recent attack by the religious left on the president and summed it up succinctly in an article on Dec 30, 2019 in Townhall, when he wrote: “I prefer freedom. I agree with our Declaration of Independence that liberty is an “unalienable right” that has been bestowed on us by our Creator. I’ll vote again for Trump.”
Many faith leaders from the religious left have no inhibitions about sharing their positions on liberal issues and against conservatives both in print and from their pulpits.

President Trump and Vice President Pence will be re-elected in 2020. People of faith and leaders of the conservative faith community will not be intimidated, and they will not be silent. They recognize all that has been accomplished for all people of faith by this administration and they will continue to stand-up and speak-up to preserve our religious freedom and liberty.
E.J. Claire is a resident of Lake Placid and the Republican State Committeeman for Highlands County. Guest columns are the opinion of the writer, not necessarily that of the Highlands News-Sun. January 26, 2020