Sometimes in life one has to celebrate the "little" victories. One such "little" victory occurred this past Monday when the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex marriage ceremony. The decision of the judges was 7-2 in favor of Mr. Phillips. Mr. Phillips was the owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop located in Lakewood, Colorado. He was sued by two homosexual men for his refusal to bake a wedding cake for them on the basis of his religious beliefs. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission entered the case on the side of the plaintiffs. The Supreme Court strongly rebuked the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for its excessively hostile attitudes toward Mr. Phillips and his religious convictions. It truly was a great day for Mr. Phillips and gave a measure of hope that other Christian business people might experience a similar result.
Yet, here is where I call this just a "little" victory. In ruling on this case - Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission - the Court did not broaden its judgment to include other similar cases pending within the lower courts. Their decision only applied to that of Mr. Phillips. So there is still uncertainty about how the Court might rule in other cases that involve the conflict between the religious liberty of a business owner and a person's right to purchase services from that business - whether it is flowers, or cakes, or pictures, or invitations. But "little" victories can soon add up to "big" victories.
Last week I wrote of the continued violence within the Gaza Strip and stated that the responsibility for this unrest could be laid at the feet of the leadership - Hamas. This past week, Efraim Karsh, the director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and editor of the Middle East Quarterly, wrote a very interesting article that was published in The Jerusalem Post on June 3. You can find this article at: www.meforum.org/articles/2018/it-s-not-gaza-s-economy,-stupid. I would like to quote from this article so as to document what is truly the reason for the continued unrest within the Gaza Strip. "No cliché has dominated the discourse on the Gaza situation more than the perception of Palestinian violence as a corollary of the Strip's dire economic condition. No sooner had Hamas and Israel been locked in yet another armed confrontation over the past weeks than the media, foreign policy experts and politicians throughout the world urged the immediate rehabilitation of Gaza as panacea to its endemic propensity for violence. Even senior members of the Israel Defense Forces opined that a 'nonmilitary process' of humanitarian aid could produce a major change in the Gaza situation.
"While there is no denying the argument's widespread appeal, there is also no way around the fact that it is not only completely unfounded but the inverse of the truth. For it is not Gaza's economic malaise that has precipitated Palestinian violence; rather, it is the endemic violence that has cause the Strip's humanitarian crisis.
"For one thing, countless nations and groups in today's world endure far harsher socioeconomic or political conditions that the Palestinians, yet none have embraced violence and terrorism against their neighbors with such alacrity and on such a massive scale. For another thing, there is no casual relationship between economic hardship and mass violence. On the contrary, in the modern world it is not the poor and the oppressed who have carried out the worst acts of terrorism and violence but, rather, the militant vanguards from among the better educated and more moneyed circles of society, be they homegrown terrorist groups in the West or their Middle Eastern counterparts."
The author then proceeds to give facts concerning the education and financial means of those who have led the modern terrorist movement. The facts were alarming. He then states how, under the leadership of Hamas, the socioeconomic environment among those living within the Gaza Strip has deteriorated.
"In short, it is not socioeconomic despair but the total rejection of Israel's right to exist, inculcated by the PLO and Hamas in their hapless West Bank and Gaza subjects over the past 25 years, which underlies the relentless anti-Israel violence emanating from these territories and its attendant economic stagnation and decline.
"This, in turn, means that so long as Gaza continues to be governed by Hamas's rule of the jungle, no Palestinian civil society, let alone a viable state, can develop. Just as the creation of free and democratic societies in Germany and Japan after World War II necessitated a comprehensive sociopolitical and educational transformation, so, too, it is only when the local population sweeps its oppressive rulers from power, eradicates the endemic violence from political and social life, and teaches the virtues of coexistence with Israel that Gaza can look forward to a better future."
This article is highly recommended. More money is not the answer to the problems within the Gaza Strip. The solution is a change of leadership and a change of focus from destruction to construction, from violence to peace, from hatred toward one's neighbor to reaching out to accept help from that neighbor. Will this happen? Only if there is a concerted effort on the part of the people to seek to improve their lives. To be honest, right now I truly do not see that happening any time soon. So the violence will continue. The plight of the people living within the Gaza Strip will continue to be deplorable. The response from the Western world media will continue to cast blame at the feet of Israel for the plight found within the Strip. Tunnels will continue to be dug. Rockets will continue to be fired into Israel. Israeli warplanes will continue bombing Hamas leadership sites. And people will continue to die.
I close with an article, written by Jarrett Stepman, and published by The Daily Signal on May 21. It is titled, "Only in America's Schools Could 'Partying Like It's 1776' Be Offensive." "At the rate we are going, saying 'good morning' might become offensive. The principal of Cherry Hill High School East in New Jersey issued an apology after some students deemed the public school's prom theme, 'Party Like It's 1776.' to be insensitive. 'I am writing to apologize for the hurt feelings this reference caused for members of our school family, ' Dennis Perry wrote Friday in a letter, according to the Cherry Hill Courier Post. 'I especially apologize to our African American students, who I have let down by not initially recognizing the inappropriateness of this wording,' he said.
"The principle announced that tickets would not be needed to get into the prom, a name would suffice, the tickets would be redesigned, and 'safeguards' would be laid down in the future to make sure nobody is offended by anything the school does. What is especially ridiculous about this whole situation is that the school is hosting the prom at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, a building that pays tribute to the nation's founding documents.
"Every American, of any background, has a good reason to celebrate 1776. While it is true that the promise of freedom imbued in the Declaration of Independence wasn't extended to everyone initially, it nevertheless set the stage for an advancement of liberty in the future."
Friends, what happened in 1776 truly changed the course of the world. What those men, in that room in Philadelphia, created has been a tool that has challenged the political and civil landscapes of nearly every nation on the face of the earth. The Declaration of Independence, together with the Constitution, written about a dozen years later, form two of the most powerful documents ever written by human governmental leaders. Neither document is perfect, but the foundation they have created has stood the tests of nearly two and a half centuries.
The article concludes: "It is said and disturbing to think that modern Americans today cannot unite behind something as universal as the Spirit of '76. Episodes like these are making Americans lose faith in their public schools, and demonstrate why the issue of school choice is so essential. Education goes beyond test scores and angling to get into competitive colleges. It's about preparing young people to live as free citizens in a constitutional republic. If our schools are failing to do that, parents need the tools to pressure them to do a better job of teaching them American values and American history. At the very least, we must give parents the option to put their children in a school that will. Americans face dire consequences if we allow this system of public education to go unfixed.
"John Adams once said that Independence Day would be celebrated as one of the most important in history (though the nation's second president mistakenly thought it would be celebrated July 2). 'I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival,' Adam's wrote in a letter to his wife, Abigail, adding: 'It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.'"
So well put, Mr. Adams.
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