Every person shall be at liberty to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.  No person shall be compelled to attend, or, against his consent, to contribute to the erection or support of any place of religious worship, or to pay tithes, taxes, or other rates for the support of any minister of the gospel or teacher of religion.  No money shall be appropriated or drawn from the treasury for the benefit of any religious sect or society, theological or religious seminary; nor shall property belonging to the state be appropriated for any such purpose.  The civil and political rights, privileges, and capacities of no person shall be diminished or enlarged on account of his religious belief.

This, of course, is a direct offshoot of Amendment 1 of the Constitution of the United States, and is fairly straightforward on its face.

I'm a pretty big believer in the constitutional concept of keeping church and state separate.  The faith I practice holds that both the church and state are both instituted and sanctioned by God, and that the proper relation between them is preserved only when each remains within its divinely assigned sphere of influence and uses its divinely entrusted means of operation.  Thus, with regard to church and state, those who practice the same faith as me reject - among other things - any attempt by the state to restrict the free exercise of religion.

So I was understandably distressed to hear from a friend of mine on the Kent County Committee on Religious Freedom of an attempt by one municipality in this county to dupe every religious organization within its borders into complying with federal, state, and local laws . . . including laws with which those religions may be compelled by conscience to disagree.

If you are in the Southeastern portion of Michigan and want to give your non-representing "representatives" some last minute instructions on where you stand before their vote this Thursday/Friday on health care "reform", you are invited to attend a rally in front of the offices of Rep./Sen. Levin or Rep. Peters (take your pick), tomorrow March 16th, from 4:00pm until 6:00pm.

* * *

Quick! Change the Subject — Teamsters President James P. Hoffa would love to manipulate TEA partiers for his own purpose.

Protecting Small-Business Owners From Stealth Unionization — Patrick Wright testified before the Michigan House, and more lawmakers propose bills to end forced unionization.

A Good Head on Your Shoulders — "Michigan brain drain" myth debunked.

Trade Disagreement — NAFTA's role in Michigan's economic situation.

Well, imitating pretty much sums up all that they can do.

Governor Palin will be in northwestern Oakland County on May 1 for the Americans for Prosperity-sponsored Defending the American Dream Summit.

28Furthermore, since they  did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved  mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with  every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of  envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are  gossips, 30slanderers,  God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they  disobey their parents; 31they  are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know  God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they  not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who  practice them. - Romans 1 (NIV)

Sitting in an airport, on his way home to Michigan, Rep. Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, is chagrined. "They're ignoring me," he says, in a phone interview with National Review Online. "That's their strategy now. The House Democratic leaders think they have the votes to pass the Senate's health-care bill without us. At this point, there is no doubt that they've been able to peel off one or two of my twelve. And even if they don't have the votes, it's been made clear to us that they won't insert our language on the abortion issue."

..."If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That's one of the arguments I've been hearing," Stupak says. "Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue -- come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we're talking about."

"The Tea Party protesters are being manipulated by the very same conglomerates that are causing their problems . . ." Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.

This quote from a Detroit News op-ed is just one more in a long train of smears against the Tea Party movement by political leftists in government, media and academia; and by beneficiaries of the big-spending government status quo such as union bosses like Hoffa. Other recent examples include Thomas Frank in the Wall Street Journal this week, and the MSNBC host who melted down while interviewing a guest identified with the movement, accusing it of harboring "people who want to kill blacks and Jews."

They even do it unconsciously, as when Public Broadcasting person Gwen Ifill used the pejorative "teabagger" to refer to opponents of President Obama, not knowing of the term's sexual origin, the source of it being coined as a Tea Party insult. Ifill's ignorance  - and she's not the only one in media who has displayed this example - reveals that her only information about the movement (if not the world in general) comes from sources on the left.  

This reflexive smearing of the Tea Party movement is interesting. Left-brained people just can't imagine how those who believe in limited government and economic liberty could possibly be sincere and motivated by good will. One result is that when they look at free-market friendly non-profit organizations like the Mackinac Center they presume that these are cynical agents fronting for the class interests of a corporate plutocracy.

As for grassroots Tea Party protestors, the smear-jobbers imagine that these people must be motivated by something dark including racism and other forms of bigotry. At best they are ignorant dupes, manipulated by cynical elites and tricked by "false consciousness" into opposing their own best interests.

One of my colleagues believes that the insults are part of a willful delusion. The long range implications of the alternative to the "corporate puppets" theory is just too awful for them to contemplate. Specifically, that the Tea Parties are indeed a genuine bottom-up, grassroots movement that represents a sea change in the climate of public opinion regarding the big government welfare/regulatory state.

This frightening prospect causes liberal statists and government spending beneficiaries to become not just discombobulated when disussing Tea Parties and partiers, but unhinged, a' la' Thomas Frank and that MSNBC person.

The Michigan Republican Party Issued this release today:

Lansing, MI--The Michigan Republican Party would like to remind Democrat candidate for secretary of state Jocelyn Benson that Michigan has 83 counties, not 82.

In a recent interview, Benson apparently had a little trouble recalling the number of Michigan counties when she said she had received donations from, "People in 50 of the 82 counties in Michigan..."

 "How can we expect Jocelyn Benson to run proper elections in the state when she doesn't even know how many counties there are in Michigan," asked Jennifer Hoff, MRP Communications Director.  "Apparently all that pandering to Howard Dean, George Soros and other liberal Democrats is distracting her from a basic understanding of the state she calls home.

 "We encourage Jocelyn Benson to visit the Library of Michigan's "Michigan Kids" web page as it lays out basic state facts for school children including the number of counties.  Or, she can visit Michigan.gov where the names of all counties are listed and numbered," Hoff said.

As I fought off "Milk through the nose" worthy guffaws, I realized there is a remarkable similarity to the common math issues that the Democrats seem to repeatedly reveal..  Obama thinking there are 57 or 58 states..  Spending more on health care saves money.. etc..