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This weekend President Obama crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches.
His speech at the event was soaring and passionate.
However, some feel he is crossing the wrong bridge. And trying to take this country along with him.
On Friday, before Saturday's march, President Obama invoked the "spirit of Selma" to justify his executive amnesty policies.
President Obama told those gathered for the Selma event, "That's what it means to love America. That's what it means to believe in America. That's what it means when we say America is exceptional."
He said, "We were born for change"..."Look at history."
Noting a long list of notables in American history, from Lewis and Clark to the "fire fighters who rushed into those buildings on 9/11" he suggested that we are all them---they are all us.
He continued: "We're the gay Americans whose blood ran in the streets of San Francisco and New York, just as blood ran down this bridge."
What?
Is the president crossing the same bridge as those who came before him in Selma, or has he taken a hard left turn and missed the Pettus bridge altogether?
A significant number of black pastors feel he has.
Rev. Dr. Roland A. Caldwell says those who are working to advance the redefinition of marriage by overturning the vote of the people through the courts are saying that "Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and our forefathers apparently died in vain."
Black pastors are also saying that kind of comparison "is a distortion of our country's cultural and legal history."
By most all accounts the president's speech Saturday in Selma was well delivered. It was a significant event in the history of this nation.
But the president's linkage of this authentic Civil Rights event with his proposed amnesty and the homosexual agenda was not well received by all.
President Obama on Friday invoked the "spirit of Selma," saying, "The notion that some kid that was brought here when he was two or three years old might somehow be deported at the age of 20 or 25 even though they've grown up as American, that's not who we are"----"That's not true to the spirit of what the march on Selma was about."
He said, "When you think about the principle that was upheld that day and in the subsequent days at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, it was the promise of an inclusive America."
Really?
What does an "inclusive America" look like in the relativistic mind of the secular progressive?
Granting amnesty to select illegal immigrants, as the president is attempting to do through executive order, is the exact opposite of "an America where everybody is equal under the law."
By what logic does he grant amnesty to an illegal that came here when he was 15 but deny it to one who came when he was 18, as his executive order does?
By what logic is an illegal immigrant who came to this country in 2010 entitled to stay, but an illegal immigrant who came in 2011 deserving of deportation?
How is this the "spirit of Selma?"
Last week we were shown just where this bridge to "inclusiveness," as defined by today's secular progressives, can lead.
The undergraduate governing body at the University of California, Irvine, voted this week to remove the American flag and all other flags from its lobby, after arguing in part that flags are “symbols of patriotism or weapons of nationalism.”
The language of the bill claims that flags “construct cultural mythologies and narratives that in turn charge nationalistic sentiments,” and further charges that “flags construct paradigms of conformity and sets homogenized standards for others to obtain which in this country typically are idolized as freedom, equality, and democracy.”
The bill’s long case against the hanging of American flags includes the accusation that it “has been flown in instances of colonialism and imperialism,” and that “symbolism has negative and positive aspects that are interpreted differently by individuals."
The bill defines the doctrine of "inclusiveness" with this: “[F]reedom of speech, in a space that claims to be as inclusive as possible, can be interpreted as hate speech."
The bridge to inclusiveness leads to this? Apparently.
Just a few months ago a large group of black pastors gathered to express a strong voice of opposition to gay marriage in Michigan, where a state ban on gay marriage was overturned by Federal District Judge Bernard Friedman.
The ruling was immediately condemned by this large group of black pastors.
Rev. Dr. Roland A Caldwell said, "Judge Friedman has neglected the vote of 2.7 million voters in the state of Michigan. Moreover, he has said to the almost 70 percent of Black citizens who voted in favor of marriage protection that our voting rights are no longer protected. Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.and our forefathers apparently died in vain."
Strong words.
He, along with the group of Black pastors, also condemned the attempt to link the homosexual agenda with the Civil Rights movement.
They said it's a lie that the gay marriage movement shares a common moral footing with the civil rights movement.
Yet it is President Obama who is the most active advocate of that very moral linkage.
They told the press, "The fact that American media or other factions erroneously characterize the traditional meaning of 'marriage' as being on par with the civil rights deprivations of Black Americans does not make it so. Comparing the dilemmas of same sex couples to the centuries of discrimination faced by Black Americans is a distortion of our country's cultural and legal history."
President Obama told the audience in Selma, "We respect the past, but don't pine for the past."
Is this the bridge our president seeks to lead us across? Apparently.
The president concluded his Selma speech with, "You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered by what is, because you're ready to seize what ought to be."
Interpretation: "The remaking of America is well under way"---President Obama in Missouri on his 100th day in office.
The president's words are lofty, but in the philosophical environment of the secular progressive, those words are a bridge to nowhere.
How can anyone possibly discern what "ought to be" when "ought" is constantly changing and evolving---absent of a moral right and wrong?
Our Founders drew wisdom from the unchanging, absolute Word of God. Those values and principles became the foundation of the most prosperous, blessed, free nation in the history of the world.
May that same wisdom draw us all back to those principles and values as we elect our next president.
Be Informed. Be Vigilant. Be Discerning. Be Prayerful. Be Blessed.