Tea Parties and a Rare but True Beauty Queen

South Florida Tea Parties and Tax Fever

Therefore because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine (Amos 5:11, ESV)

Did you hear about the South Florida Tea Party last week? According to the Sun-Sentinel an amazing 2,500 (amazing for this liberally minded region) citizens joined several thousand others nationally, in protesting our federal government's recent spendfest of bail-out money, proposed tax increases and the New Deal like alphabet soup of social programs to combat the 'Great Recession.' Many today feel like our governments are using the current economic crisis to feed it's addiction to tax and spend.

The police records of major cities are filled with the names of those who commit crimes to feed their drug habits. These felons begin with a mere sampling of the narcotic, but that “recreational” use soon gives way to higher doses as tolerance rises. It takes more and more of the substance to satisfy their hunger, and they even victimize the poor to gain money for their next fix. Heroin or crack cocaine is their likely drug of choice. For the politician, it can be taxes. Certainly the Bible teaches the legitimacy of taxes; unlike heroin, they are not illicit in moderation. But their narcotic effect can drive the government to perversity.

Israel’s Jeroboam II (798-747 B.C.) reigned during a time of prosperity generated by his father Joash. Despite a considerable treasury, Jeroboam pressed for strict enforcement of ever-ascending taxes. The collections financed winter and summer palaces for the king and luxurious conditions for his powerful associates (3:15; 6:4-6). The prophet Samuel warned of this two centuries earlier when the people demanded a monarch—“He [the king] will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants” (1 Sam. 8:14). In Amos’s day, this “taking” had become a “trampling,” even of the poor. Some inner-city churches organize “neighborhood watches” to discourage the predatory practices of drug dealers and their desperate customers. They keep their eyes peeled for those who, for the sake of their own agendas and comfort, dishearten and victimize good people. By extension, many churches could join Amos in his watch for those who, in their spiraling addiction to revenue, bewilder and cripple the populace.

Rare but True -Beauty contestant chooses 'biblically correct' over PC

On Sunday, Miss California Carrie Prejean, 21, was asked in the Miss USA pageant by blogger Perez Hilton, an open homosexual and one of the pageant's judges, about her stance on same-sex marriage. Responding, Prejean said she personally believed marriage should be between a man and a woman. We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, in my country and in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman," she said. "No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised. I think that it should be between a man and a woman."

Although Miss North Carolina, Kristen Dalton, won the title, Prejean has made the rounds of television news and talk shows, addressing the controversy that her answer may have cost her the Miss USA crown. Prior to the interview segment of the pageant, Prejean reportedly was the hands-down favorite to win. Wonders never cease in America's free-fall from a grace when a beauty queen contestant of all people, takes a correct and biblical stand for truth, suffering persecution in the process.