In My Opinion
By L.N.P.

July 2034

Sometimes, though, I can't help reminiscing a bit, thinking back to those days where there was still a chance, still some choices to be made. And I can't help but wonder why no one ever seemed to choose what seemed right to me. Like, I remember the case of the Alabama judge, his name was Roy Moore (and to think I can't even remember what I had for breakfast today!) who was put on trial because he refused to take his granite sculpture of the Ten Commandments out of his courthouse. I was awfully confused by that one, especially since everybody knew there was a plaque of the Ten Commandments right over that old Supreme Court Building they used to occupy. All that poor judge was trying to do was to acknowledge God and his sovereignty, just as the Founders did in 1776 when they grounded their case for liberty in theology. Judge Moore argued that The Declaration of Independence based its claim on "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," rejecting the tyranny of man (King George III) and acknowledging the sovereignty of God. Moore installed his 2.5-ton monument, he said, "to mark the beginning of the restoration of the moral foundation of law to our people and a return to the knowledge of God in our land."

At the time there was a huge to do over it all, with the ACLU and other "politically correct" organizations suing the judge, the state and everyone else. Those who supported the judge were heard to say that our nation will either restore the foundation on which it came into existence, or give in to secular supremacy. One well-known African American leader said, "I think he goes in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr., who at great personal risk defied the laws of the state." And another supporter added, "To think that our nation's lawmakers would ever turn their backs on the very moral foundation of our country is just heartbreaking." Nevertheless, his heart must have been broken, because the monument came down, and the judge lost his case. There most certainly wasn't any restoration of the moral foundation of law to our people as the judge had hoped. But most people didn't even notice.

Of course, after that there were so many nuisance complaints and lawsuits, so much pressure from the liberal majority party, and so many judges who acted way beyond their authority, that slowly but surely every trace of religion was obliterated from American public life. Fact was, those so-called "guardians" against an "establishment of religion" ended up establishing secular atheism as the religion of the state! First they took "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance. Soon after that, "In God we Trust" was eradicated from our coins and paper money; I was surprised they left it on until 2010 what with all the fuss that was made. It was a lot harder when they had to "revise" the Declaration of Independence to rid it of the references to our Creator, and it took a Constitutional Amendment in 2016 to take "In the year of our Lord" off the United States Constitution, but it all got done eventually. You can imagine how thankful I am that my column is on a privately owned website or, as you know, it would be illegal for me to even write the word "God." As it is, I'll be fined heavily, but that's a small price to pay for those of us who remain believers.

What really strikes me as terribly ironic as I near my 90th birthday is that I can't write God, but I can write the "F" word, along with any other word once considered profanity, right here in my column, ever since they made it legal to use it on the radio and on network television. (Of course, as a Christian it still offends me, and I just refuse to do it.) We really had a major shake-up concerning what was obscene, what was indecent, and what were First Amendment rights back there in the early 2000s. There was a lot of FCC stuff after that Janet Jackson girl revealed her breast during the Super Bowl (which seems kind of strange now, considering that everyone danced stark naked during last year's Super Bowl) and someone else used the "N" word on the radio. Soon, the liberals won that battle too, claiming that if you didn't want to watch something, you could just install a v-chip or change the channel. That didn't help with live broadcasting, however, and even though many pro-family groups lobbied hard to get a 5-second delay law passed, it never did happen. Now it's anything goes, so I just don't watch much TV anymore. I still read my Bible every day, even though it's so worn out I can barely see the verses. I bought this last one in 2025, right before they were banned.

But that's nothing compared to what happened on the Internet! Way back in 2004, the Supreme Court struck down COPA, the Child Online Protection Act supported by Presidents Clinton and Bush. That Act was a good thing in my opinion, because it authorized fines up to $50,000 to punish pornographers for placing material "harmful to minors" within easy reach of children on the Internet. All it did was require adults to use access codes before viewing objectionable material online. But the ACLU and other critics of the anti-pornography law said that COPA would result in restricting the First Amendment rights of adults who wanted to view or purchase such materials. Heaven forbid, is what I said under my breath, but the ACLU attorney said, "We're very pleased with the decision. The status quo is still with us and the court made it safe for artists, sex educators and Web publishers to communicate with adults without risking jail time."

Now, as I recall it, George W. Bush had been saying, "With the Internet, pornography is now instantly available to any child who has a computer. And in the hands of the wrong people, the Internet is a tool that lures children into real danger. We're waging an aggressive nationwide effort to prevent the use of the Internet to sexually exploit and endanger children." But maybe you've heard tell, no one took him very seriously back then. And Jan LaRue, chief counsel for Concerned Women for America also warned, "This is a devastating defeat for kids, parents and the Constitution. Minors have no First Amendment right to view this kind of porn, and smut-peddlers have no right to expose them to it." But no one much cared about her opinion either, especially the next three Presidents: John Kerry, John Edwards and Michael Moore. By the time Moore's term of office ended, children were being bombarded with sexually explicit email and advertising every time they logged on to the internet, and sex crimes in the United States had reached unimaginable proportions. Of course, that was when they were still called "crimes." Now, pedophilia is just considered another lifestyle, so kids are pretty much on their own these days.

The kids that are left, I mean. Don't see nearly as many of the little tykes as I used to, which to me is a terrible shame. Personally, I think that came about because of two other things that happened in my late fifties and early sixties. The first was the "Same Sex Marriage Law" that made it legal for members of the same sex to enter into the sacred union of holy matrimony. That hit a lot of us really hard, what with us believing that marriage was a sacrament God intended specifically for a man and a woman, but Biblical interpretations were scoffed at even then, with people calling them "politically incorrect" and just plain intolerant. Although polls showed that the majority of Americans felt the same way I did, those judges took matters into their own hands again, and soon men were marrying men, and women were marrying women, and before long, no one seemed to notice any more. I'll never forget the day my young grandson came home from college in tears, saying that his girlfriend had announced that she was marrying another girl. Of course, now that all seems so commonplace, what with gay and lesbian marriages being the norm, but back then it still was a shock. And as the years went by, naturally there were less and less children being born. (a fact that doesn't make our current President, Rosie O'Donnell very happy either, being as how she loves kids so much. Which in turn makes people say she's getting a little too conservative in her old age.)

So I'm not sure if it was just all those same sex marriages that reduced the number of children I see, or if it was that horrible partial birth abortion episode that wound up, just as some predicted, leading to our current policy regarding infanticide. In 2004, if you recall, the National Abortion Federation, along with many in what was then called the Democratic (now Liberal) party fought against the Partial Birth Abortion Act, claiming that it violated a federal constitutional "right" to abortion. Most people in the country actually believed that taking the life of a partially born child by this procedure was "barbaric and should be off-limits to the medical community." Even The American Medical Association said that partial-birth abortion was never medically necessary. But as you know, that was when our country was way into what I call its moral slide, and once it slid, it never looked back. The American Center for Law and Justice, one of the very last vestiges of conservatism, warned repeatedly that without "strong legal barriers and vigorous societal condemnation, partial birth procedures would open the way to legal infanticide." And of course, they were right. Once people found it tolerable to murder babies already three quarters of the way out of the womb, it was only logical that we'd end up with OMAB, our new "One-Month After Birth" policy. Now, for those couples still having children, they have been given the legal "right to choose" up until the first month of the baby's life. Certain groups (and you know the ones I'm referring to) are now lobbying for a 3-month choice, claiming that it's hard to know whether the child will be perfectly healthy, or terribly inconvenient until they've been around at least 3 months. I sure hope I don't live to see the time when that law passes, but I suppose nothing would surprise me anymore.

There's one good thing, though. I still meet with my little group of believers every week. Of course, we have to gather in our homes, what with the churches being declared offensive to the majority's right to see nothing that resembles religion on public streets (they tore our church down in 2020, along with all the rest). But, we still take great comfort in knowing that we'll spend eternity in a far far better place. If I wanted to, I could just go to the local "Quality of Death Center" and ask for an injection of their serum. But I'm so old-fashioned and stubborn that I'll just wait until my Maker decides it's my time. I have to admit, though, I'm definitely ready; in fact, I can hardly wait til He calls.

Send me your opinions at LParis@netlistings.com