It has been reported that, “More than 12,000 military service members refusing the COVID-19 vaccine are seeking religious exemptions, and so far they are having zero success.” This quote is from an article titled, “Troops find religious exemptions for vaccines unattainable.”
The United States Constitution was adopted as the law of our nation when three fourths of the original thirteen states voted to ratify it on June 21, 1788. About three and a half years later the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution known collectively as the Bill of Rights was ratified on December 15, 1791.
The addition of the Bill of Rights was to address concerns that the basic freedoms the nation’s citizens had come to enjoy in this nascent nation would not be abridged by a powerful federal government. We became a nation governed by law rather than a nation governed by the tyranny of a monarch.
The First Amendment is considered a cornerstone for the following nine in the Bill of Rights. Our basic freedoms such as freedom of speech, of the press, to peacefully assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances are in it. I think it is significant that the first freedom protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution is, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Over the course of the history of the Supreme Court of the United States there have been moments when the Court has arrogated the invention of rights not mentioned explicitly in the Constitution and in violation of the Tenth Amendment which declares, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or the people.”
The two most egregious examples of this are the opinions of the Court in Roe v. Wade, and Obergefell v. Hodges. There is not a single word in the Constitution that addresses abortion or marriage and for this reason abortion and marriage have been considered historically and traditionally under the legislative purview of each individual state.
In both cases the Supreme Court violated the Tenth Amendment to rule as they please, and our President violated the First Amendment in mandating members of the Armed Forces to be vaccinated despite their religious convictions.
In other words, our government is saying members of our military should put their lives in harm’s way to secure our freedom to exercise our religion while denying them exercising that same right.
The spiritually and morally darkest period of Israel’s history is recorded in the book of Judges. This time was characterized by the verse, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes,” Judges 21:25. I cannot think of a clearer definition of anarchy than this.
If our nation devolves from a constitutional republic ruled by law into monarchial-like tyranny it will be because our Supreme Court and President led the way.
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