The Perriello Paradigm: The Compromise of Faith for the Advancement of Political Power

 

“How great was once Rome, when the Patricians in her Senate ruled with nobility, seeking strength from the gods, for the betterment of her people. How sad is Rome now, for not only have the gods been forsaken, but the interests of her people as well. For this reason, we cease to be.”
-Gnaeus Silanus

Former 5th District Representative Tom Perriello, has suddenly reappeared into the Virginia political picture , much to the chagrin of current Lt. Governor Ralph Northam no doubt. Current polls, if they are to be trusted after the POTUS election last November, show him leading Northam, who was the heir apparent in the Virginia Democratic Party, much akin to the anticipated coronation of Hillary Clinton. If the state Democratic Party employs the same stratagems against either Perriello or Northam, as was utilized by the national party against Bernie Sanders, well, interesting will be an understatement.

Perriello seems determined to intermix his positions of personal faith against the political expediency of the times, and as has reported on this blog, already, Perriello seems determined to appeal to the most barbaric and heinous of policy issues, the right to kill the unborn. Given all of the vast and sundry issues of far greater significance, Perriello has chosen this matter, upon which to make his highest priority, judging by his press releases. Perriello would propose a Virginia Constitutional Amendment to protect a woman’s right to choose, in first legislative session. What are “We the People” to believe. Does anyone remember the old Tom Perriello? The one who was anti-abortion? Tom Perriello allegedly held to his Catholic faith and possessed an anti-abortion record. In 2009, Perriello voted for the odious Stupak amendment, a dramatic extension of the infamous Hyde amendment, which Hillary Clinton adamantly opposed. The Stupak amendment would have prohibited insurance companies that participate in the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges from covering abortion. Its stated purpose was to prevent federal subsidies from paying for abortion, since insurance plans on the exchanges are subsidized for most customers. But the amendment was phrased so broadly that it would’ve forced insurance companies on the exchanges to drop abortion coverage for all women. Women with plans that covered abortion would see that coverage dropped, and the amendment would restrict insurance companies’ ability to offer supplemental abortion coverage. Moreover, the amendment would’ve hampered liberal states’ ability to offer abortion services using state and local funds. After derailing ACA negotiations in the House in the last weeks of 2009, the Stupak amendment wound up excluded from the Senate bill. However, Representative Perriello ultimately cast his ballot IN FAVOR of this version of the ACA.

Compare Perriello’s record with Northam’s, who is unapologetically pro-choice, campaigned on reproductive health care, and spearheaded the fight against Virginia’s anti-abortion transvaginal ultrasound bill, garnering extensive national attention to the invasive measure when he railed against it on the floor of the state Senate.

So which Tom Perriello is actually running for Governor? The newly reinvented Perriello, whose handlers and financial puppet masters have seen the generational difference as demonstrated in the last presidential election, or the old Perriello, one who once proudly strutted his faith publicly, with as much gusto as a North Korean armor and missile parade? I remember a Perriello who once stated that:

“Tithing in my faith tradition is about giving 10 percent of what you have, and the most precious commodity we have on the campaign is our time. And it reminds us why we are doing this in the first place, and we always leave a little more inspired and fired up than when we went in, and I think that’s an important part of keeping the focus on serving the people and not the political games.”, and “It’s not just a matter of going to church or being able to quote some Bible verses. It’s really an authenticity that I think people look for, of saying is this guy motivated by something other than power”

So which Perriello is it? I’m doubt even he can be certain, nor can any of the candidates whose method of being elected, is to appeal to the most base of human vices. As pathetic and despicable as this is, it is neither nothing new nor is it surprising. Having just celebrated Easter, I see Perriello sharing much in common politically with Pontius Pilate, for he also had a most inconvenient political issue that he had to find a creative and expeditious manner to overcome.

I have always been essentially amazed that one of the historic parties of this nation could even consider, much less aggressively work, to have adopted the sins of Romans 1 as their platform. A position which we observed with the Democratic Party platform in 2012. These seeds of decline were sown in the early 1960’s, and though we are now witnessing a sad new day in our country, in light of Scripture, it should not be surprising. There was a time when political parties used to differ on economics, etc., but were united in the basic Judeo-Christian characteristics upon which our nation was formed, now differ dramatically on the most basic of issues. Issues that invade the realm of God’s law and morality. Currently, given Perriello’s focus of primary attention as evidenced by his campaign promise, his “ideal” situation would see Virginia passing out condoms so people can fornicate at will and for those who happen to get pregnant in the process, Perriello advocates that you kill the baby at the will of the mother. A position irreconcilable to his purported Catholic faith.

Perriello I suppose can be seen as the new standard bearer for the party. He and those like him, will appeal to a younger base, both chronologically and in values. Again, a course of action to be anticipated in the political climate resulting from the SCOTUS decision in the summer of 2015. It is Romans 1! Romans 1 says God will judge! God has judged throughout human history, nations that experience sexual freedom. Romans chapter 1 lays that out clearly: the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against those who advocate sexual freedom, sexual conduct outside of marriage. And that’s an indication of the demise of a nation. Romans 1 also says that God will judge those nations that advocate homosexual behavior, a position that Perriello will most surely have to take a public stance on. Seeing his stance on the issue of abortion, it is logical to think what his stand must be on that as well. A Governor is a leader, and when you are voting for a leader, you’re voting for someone who has some sense of morality. Since the Bible says that the role of government is to punish evil doers and protect the good, and thus this is the basis of our Constitution, we’d better have somebody in power who understands what is good and what is evil. If a person—anyone who claims even a sinew of allegiance to God, His law and value system—can think homosexuality, abortion, sexual freedom, hating God are not evil, then you better go back and check your Bible again. I am hard pressed to find it possible for people with that kind of agenda, to be able to protect those who do good and punish those who do evil? That is Romans 13’s definition of the role of government.

Discussion could be had about foreign policies, should we protect as many defenseless people from evil aggressors as possible? We could talk about economics, is it right to get into irreparable debt? Is that responsibility? We could talk about the economics of if you don’t work, you don’t eat, which is what the Bible says. However those are the least of concerns in comparison to the eternal immutable truths regarding character and virtue sin and real freedom. The adaptation of a Romans 1 platform, sexual freedom, homosexuality, the murder of infants, and the elimination of God. This is what Perriello is supporting, the elimination of God. When you have an advocacy of support for the slaughter of infants and homosexuality, complete sexual freedom, you have a formula for divine judgment. If one has any sense of justice or any sense of righteousness and if one wants to make a little bit of a voice heard about what is right and about the role of government being to punish evil doers and protect the people who do right, then one must speak up. I’m not sure what God has in the future, but I do know having studied the past, I can take His side and give Him honor.

I have found it amazing and tragically ironic, that those who pride themselves on defending the rights of the weak, murder them in the womb when they are the most weak. What kind of hypocritical and self-congratulating pseudo-humanitarians advocate a deadly force of violence unleashed against infants that makes the Nazi Holocaust look mild by comparison, is that? In our world, we’re slaughtering between fifty and sixty million babies a year. In the United States on record is 1.5 million abortions a year. Every third baby conceived is murdered in the womb. Four thousand a day plus, 170 an hour—Planned Parenthood alone kills one every ninety-five seconds. The Physicians Association of Planned Parenthood released a statement: “Abortion is a treatment for unwanted pregnancy, the second sexually transmitted disease.” Pregnancy is a sexually transmitted disease. Our nation is murdering a whole generation of humans in mass infanticide that was legalized in January of 1973 by the Roe v. Wade decision made by an unrighteous group of people on the Supreme Court. Now forty-three percent of all women have an abortion and forty-seven percent of abortions are repeats. It’s legal to do to a child what you might be arrested for doing to a cat, or a dog, or certainly an eagle. Yet, this is Perriello’s foremost concern to protect, his paradigm of the next generation of democrats.

I suppose there exists yet another financial opportunity, something else that can generate tax revenue. In Asia, the trauma over abortion, over the tens of millions of abortions that are done there. China is a major leader in abortions. They’re the only nation probably in the world that has a more liberal approach to that than America does; has unleashed upon the Asian women a horror of guilt and suffering from having abortions. And so there have been temples erected literally with the expressed purpose of memorializing water babies. They’re Buddhist temples and the person who feels some need to memorialize that the baby that they aborted can go to these temples, and they can purchase for a large sum of money a small little Buddha as a memorial for the aborted child, and that Buddha will be put on display there. And there are temples that have, for example, 10,000 of these little Buddhas on display on the grounds. It has become a commercial attraction where people come and take photographs of them. It costs many hundreds of dollars to get the supposed relief that comes from purchasing your little Buddha, and then additionally you can buy a prayer. One can buy a prayer for about $120.00 and they will pray for your water baby. Additional abortions, it’s only $40.00 each additional abortion. So the Buddhists have figured out a way to make money even after the abortion, on the guilt and the sadness of people. That is sufficiently depraved enough to guarantee democratic support. It earns money and makes you “feel” better.

How did we ever get here, where we just massacre infants in the safest place in the womb? Where we literally go in there and kill them? How did we get to this place? Well, we just have to go back and understand that Satan is a murderer from the beginning. This is satanic. This is a satanic thing. He is the father of lies and he’s the father of murder. He is the first murderer. He would have murdered God if he could have—deicide in heaven—and he was thrown out. And when he came down to earth, he moved Cain to kill Abel and unleashed on the world the whole array of murders that has characterized human existence—goes on relentlessly in everything from slaughtering little infants in the safest place in the womb to massacring people the way we’re seeing it around the world in the Middle East even now, and everything in between.

Satan particularly goes after babies. He did in Moses’ day; he did in Jesus’ day. He wanted to kill all the young children in Egypt because of the fear that a deliverer would come. He wanted to kill all of the two-year-old and under babies in and around Jerusalem for fear that the King was coming—Satan is a murderer. All of this is reflective of satanic hatred of the purposes of God and the life that God creates. Any religion, or political posturing, that has as its objective and goal the killing, of anybody, especially the innocent unborn, is straight out of hell. That’s satanic. The early church was cognizant of this, Christianity has always been against murder of any kind, especially against the murder of an unprotected infant in a womb. The Didache, codification of early Christian writings, said, “You shall not murder a child by abortion.” That’s how explicit it was. You shall not murder a child by abortion. The Didache saw the way of death as full of cursing, murder, adulteries, murders of children, and abortion—abortion. The church has always said abortion brings the judgment of God because it is murder. The Reformation didn’t change that. Abortion has always been seen as violence, slaughter, and it brings divine judgment. It isn’t new and the church’s stance isn’t new. And the Word of God is very clear. It is amazing however, in a so-called Judeo-Christian environment, which has been the kind of worldview that America has been born in, that we have reached the point that we have where one of the two political parties in this country  advocates slaughtering innocent infants in the womb as a part of its platform.

Why? The reasons Perriello puts forth gives you these. “It’s a matter of freedom; a woman has a right over her own body.” That’s not her body. That’s somebody else’s body. That’s not her body. “Oh women shouldn’t be victimized by men.” You’re not a victim if you lie down with a man. “Well, the child may have some genetic defect or some issue.” Look, we all are defective; it’s only a question of degree. “We have to do some eugenic abortions to eliminate birth-defective children, because of cost, trouble.” “Women need total reproductive freedom, women must have abortion as a backup to contraceptive failure.” Murder as a backup. And by the way, in Perriello’s perfect world this would all be paid for you—by you with your tax money! The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution says, “No person shall be deprived of life.” “No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law.” What’s the due process for an infant in the womb? Legalized murder. The court ignored the reality of life beginning at conception, which is when life begins, at that point you have a person. Criminals in our history have been prosecuted successfully for killing unborn children in an attack on a pregnant woman. A person can be prosecuted even today for killing an unborn infant in the womb of a mother, but a mother can’t be prosecuted for killing that infant. So there’s the scene, the bottom line is, you have persons being murdered, and this is the primary foremost paramount issue of Perriello’s campaign promise and political agenda.

The question is, how can he? How is he able to claim this position politically yet also lay hold to the precepts of the Catholic faith? Only he knows the answer. However, the more prescient question is, is this a man any other individual claiming spiritual or religious values of faith can support, and is this something one can, with a clean conscience, truly want to be a part of? Hypocrisy is hideous. What cancer is to the body, hypocrisy is to the church and to a society. It is a killing agent.

Unfortunately, hypocrisy is self-evidently addictive, and even though Jesus reserved His most severe words of condemnation for the hypocrite, our current culture and political climate seem forever enamored by that lifestyle. Seeking it rather than truth or authenticity. Christ warned His disciples, we must be aware of hypocrisy-pretending to be something we are not, acting with a mask covering our face. Hypocrisy is a terrible sign of trouble in one’s heart, it waits only for the day of exposure. For as John Milton put it in Paradise Lost, “neither men nor angels can discern hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible-except to God.”

Thus far, America has learned some hard and painful truths from the democratic offerings for candidates. Bill Clinton taught us that a man’s public and private life are inexorably linked; and from Obama, we learned that elections have consequences. Perriello is yet another continuation of an ever evolving gelatinous manifestation that embodies only one known truth—we don’t really know what he really thinks, believes or stands for, making him the quintessential candidate to not vote for.