It pays to know your rights. Black’s Law Dictionary defines inalienable rights as rights which are not capable of being surrendered or transferred without the consent of the one possessing such rights. This statement implies that the possessor must demand his rights, thus Morrison v. State, Mo, App., 252 S.W. Sd 97,101.
In Black’s Law Dictionary, under lawful, we read, “the principal distinction between the terms ‘lawful’ and ‘legal’ is that the former contemplates the substance of the law, the latter the form of law.” It pays to know the difference. “Lawful” implies an ethical or moral content in the law, whereas “legal” is constructive. Lawful fraud would be a contradiction. Legal fraud would be a construction that was passed off as law, such as robbing Peter to pay Paul.
What about free contraceptives? In principle, it is robbing Peter to pay Paul. In fact, however, according a court decision, the amount of cost to the individual being robbed is so miniscule that it does not fit with robbing Peter to pay Paul. This was the idea in Flast v. Cohen when the Supreme Court was asked to pass judgment on forcing the taxpayers to financially help church schools in New York.
The First Amendment allows for freedom of religion. Religion defined: a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe. A religion can be anything a group of people choose to believe. In groups there is power. In power there is conflict. In religion, there is rationalization, robbing the individual of his inalienable rights. So why, you might ask, should a religion be allowed to question the law? The law hardly has the authority to force a religion to pay for contraceptives. It pays to know the law. Let us separate the chafe from the wheat.
Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, D.C., calls Obama’s attack on religious liberty an “invasion” that requires religious people to speak out in opposition. Religion that began with Abraham is arguably the greatest of world problems at the moment.
Cardinal Wuerl has authored a book entitled Seek First the Kingdom: Challenging the Culture by Living Our Faith; that is, the Catholic faith. It pays to know the “Higher Law,” the background of the U.S. Constitution. Nothwithstanding freedom of religion, the laws by which men live must be the “embodiment of essential and unchanging justice,” and we salute the Founding Fathers for their experiment in ordered liberty.
Cardinal Wuerl takes Jesus’s words for his title. “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). Coincidentally, I’ve taken Jesus’s words in my book title In Earth as It Is in Heaven 2012 (Matthew 6:10). There is an important distinction to be made. The kingdom of God is universal, as was Jesus. He was not a Catholic. Jesus was a representative of the “Higher Law,” the moral intelligence of man—that which is lawful.
The kingdom Cardinal Wuerl refers to is entered by the new birth, meaning a greater understanding of the workings of the universe. I mean by this that there is a progressive order in our lives, in our world, in the galaxies, in God’s dealing with humanity—an increasing purpose that is evidenced throughout the ages, and this increasing purpose is through the individual. I know because I’ve experienced it. I’ve been born again to live the life I was intended to live—not though religion but through moral intelligence—directly from God. There is nothing as empowering.
What would our world be if everyone looked within for God? We don’t know. This has never been the case. It pays to know Jesus. Jesus speaks of the mistakes in judgment of the Pharisees and scribes. He called them hypocrites. He warned his people of wolves in sheep’s clothing. “The kingdom of God ‘comes not with outward show’ (Luke 17:20), but is chiefly that which is inward and spiritual (Romans 14:17); while the kingdom of heaven is organic, and is to be manifested in glory on the earth” (a footnote in my Scofield Study Bible). Thus, in earth as it is in heaven, but seek ye first the kingdom of God, the two merge. We are born a self seeking independence, our mission in life to become selfless.
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