It is a Solemn Day

   

From United Families International

The air is crisp and cold. Flags are waving. People are cheering. The military salutes. Another President is inaugurated. And people who care about families, marriage between a man and a woman, the sanctity of life and religious liberty stand by the side and wait with baited breath.

Is he really going to abolish all abortion restrictions?  Will he repeal the Defense of Marriage Act?  Will he appoint judges who will strip churches of their right to preach their beliefs?  Will he ask Congress to ratify the most terrifying treaty to come from the UN?

It is a solemn day when a President is inaugurated who promises to oppose the values that this country was founded on.

It is a solemn day when the strident voices of feminism at the United Nations are cheering.

It is a solemn day when those who feel the State has more say over the education of a child than the parents are giddy with enthusiasm.

It is a solemn day when those who promote the taking of the lives of unborn children are counting how many more abortions will now be able to take place.

It is a solemn day.

Those of us who have fought so hard to achieve the victories of the DOMA, Proposition 8, the defeat of the ratification CEDAW treaty, the rights of doctors to refuse abortions, and the ban on partial-birth abortions are saying, “We will not give up!” We will not allow the family to be destroyed! We will not allow our children to be raised by the State! We will not allow the gay-agenda to define the environment in which our children will be raised!

The battlefield is being readied. The forces are assembling. Choose to become engaged. Decide that you will be a part of the fight. United Families International will help you. We will be the voice of thousands around the world who want to be successful in this battle. Together we will fight for the values we hold most dear. Together we will defend families, sanctity of life, traditional marriage and religious liberty.

Beverly Rice, UFI President

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O God of our Many Understandings: A “Prayer” for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama

Today we celebrate the inauguration of the first black president of the United States of America. However, the ceremony has already been tainted by the words of openly gay Episcopal Bishop, Rev. Gene Robinson.

He claims his words are a prayer. But instead of words of sincere gratitude, sincere faith in God, sincere humility, Robinson’s words drip with pretentiously didactic cliches promoting his own agenda.

At one point during the prayer, people laugh-- not for their own irreverence, but for the irreverence of Robinson’s words.

A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama

By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

Opening Inaugural Event

Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC

January 18, 2009

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women in many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless this nation with anger – anger at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and our world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah. [Laughter from crowd]

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

© Copyright 2004-2006 by The Diocese of New Hampshire, The Episcopal Church

 

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