Considerable amounts of ink and pixels have been spilled in recent months over the question of who is an American, who is unAmerican, and who is anti-American. There is an easy way to tell: Use the Declaration of Independence as your guide.
The Declaration is the most quintessentially American document ever produced. It defines in unmistakable and unambiguous terms what America stands for. Simply put, someone who affirms the truth claims of the Declaration is a true American. Someone who is indifferent to its truth claims is un-American. And someone who is hostile to its truth claims is anti-American.
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What, then, does it mean to be an “American?”
First, Americans believe in absolute truth. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, … ” said the founders. There is such a thing as truth, an American would say, and we believe in it, and we defend it. An American believes, as did the founders, that certain things are true and other things are false. There is none of this business of everybody having his own truth. In fact, the founders observed that there are certain truths that are so obviously true on the very face of things that they do not even require proof; they are “self-evident.”
Thus someone who is indifferent to the question of truth is unAmerican because he does not care about this fundamental American ideal. And someone who is hostile to the idea of truth, or who is hostile to the self-evident truths the founders affirmed, is anti-American because he has pitted himself against a bedrock American principle.
Second, Americans believe man is a created being, not an evolved one. The very first self-evident truth the founders embraced is that “all men are created equal,” and that there is a “Creator” with a capital “C” who has granted them certain fundamental, non-negotiable rights. In other words, an American does not believe that man emerged from the primordial glop with some kind of ancestral connection to baboons and chimpanzees. No, an American believes, as the founders did, that man has been created in the image of God and is distinct and far above members of the animal kingdom in worth, value, and dignity. Man is not just a “trousered ape” but is an entirely different order of being altogether—a being who has not just a soul but also a spirit.
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So an American believes man is a created being. Someone who is indifferent to the question of whether man is created or evolved is unAmerican. And someone who actively opposes the concept of a Creator and the concept of man as created in God’s image is anti-American.
Third, an American believes our rights come to us from God, not from government. An American believes that such rights are “unalienable,” which means that no earthly power has the moral authority to deprive us of any single one of these rights because they are a gift to us from God.
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So an American believes that our rights come to us from a Creator God. An unAmerican is indifferent to the question. And an anti-American vigorously contests that idea and believes that rights are a gift to us from a beneficent government rather than the Creator.
Fourth, an American believes that babies have a right to be born. An American believes that no earthly power—not Congress, not the Supreme Court, not Planned Parenthood, nor a hospital in England—has any moral or legal right whatsoever to deprive a baby in the womb or a disabled newborn of its right to live. An anti-American is someone who supports the killing of babies in the womb and tries to lock up the Americans who expose this evil. Thus they seek to deprive babies of their right to life and undercover investigators of their right to liberty.
Fifth, an American believes that bakers, florists and photographers have a God-given right to liberty, a God-given right to manage their business affairs according to the dictates of their own conscience. An American believes that he should not be required by government to do work against his will, which is slavery, or to do work that violates his own conscience, which is tyranny. An American in name only believes that such artisans should be punished, fined, put out of business or sued for everything they own. And someone who is indifferent to this issue is not a bad person; he is just an unAmerican one.
Sixth, an American believes that the right to private property is a sacred right, a gift from God, and that government is not allowed to deprive homeowners of their property or deny farmers and ranchers the use of their property (apart, of course, from the proper use of eminent domain or as a consequence of the commission of a crime). The founders would be appalled at the way in which the abuse of eminent domain and the use of environmental regulations have shredded this unalienable right. An American believes the right to private property is a gift from God. An anti-American despises this right and treats it as something that government can readily dispose of if it will serve the progressive agenda.
— Bryan Fischer, American Family Association, The Declaration Exposes Americans in Name Only, July 10, 2017
Right, and how many of those “Christians” who are fighting for the English baby are rejoicing over the repeal of the ACA and loving that the GOP wants to deny coverage to expectant mothers, the mentally ill, and disabled people?
And about the rights of those who want to refuse service to people they deem as sinful? Do we have the right to refuse service to religious fanatics? Can someone say “I don’t do Christian weddings; it’s against my personal beliefs?”
As usual, it’s all about them.
He just missed one tiny detail. An American needs to have been born in America, or have American parents, or become an American citizen.
Mind you, he also takes the somewhat arrogant position that an American can only be someone who agrees with his own views. So you need to be superstitious, anti-science, and a climate change denier to be a true American. Sounds to me like he’s about as diametrically opposed to what a sensible American (can apply to any modern western country), as perceived by the founding fathers, might think as it’s possible to be.
My late grandfather, an unrepentant racist and bigot, refused to do business with black people. He often bragged that any black person who pulled into his garage and gas station would be ordered to leave, and if they refused, he would chase them away with a shotgun. He never forgave President Johnson for signing the Civil Rights Act and making it illegal for him to refuse service to black people. He claimed he had a “God-given right” to kick black people out of his place of business, and it was “un-American” to “force’ him to do business with black people.
70 years later, nothing has changed; unrepentant, nasty, bigoted little turds like Fischer have just replaced “black people” with “gay people.” I have absolutely no doubt that if nasty little turds like Fischer had their way, Jim Crow laws would be back in effect, and applied not only to Blacks and LGBTQ people, but to Hispanics, Asians, Women, Muslims, Jews, Atheists, etc. Because cis white straight men like Fischer have the “God-given right” to refuse service to everyone else, doncha know….
If Fischer and his followers are the “real Americans,” then to hell with America.
Belief has nothing to do with being an American or not. Place of birth, however, does….
He thinks that everyone who disagrees with him isn’t an American – that’s not how this works!