Echoing and Paraphrasing Martin Luther King "I Have a Dream"
Ten score and ten years ago, the Declaration of Independence declared that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. This momentous decree gave hope to all people who desired religious freedom and life, liberty and the pursuit of holiness. This momentous decree came as a great beacon of light, of hope, to the millions of people worldwide who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.
Thirty-two years later the child in the womb is still shackled by the chains of discrimination and murder. The baby in the womb is still languishing in the medical clinics and hospitals throughout the four corners of America, and finds himself an outcast and refuse in his own land.
So we come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men and women would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!
Yet, "One dark day in January of 1973, SATAN donned judicial robes! Robes flowing, gavel in hand, he swept onto the floor of the United States Supreme Court. He presided over the most atrocious travesty of justice that ever took place, and he declared - we now have the 'right' to murder the most innocent babies in their mothers' wombs, in what should be the safest place in the universe for them! And since then, tens of millions of babes have been assassinated in their own mothers' wombs! The darkness indeed grows deeper."
Although every holocaust or civil rights violation ever perpetuated is an unprecedented event, the homicidal scourge of abortion has led to a perverse and homicidal philosophy which has thrust us into an era of massive attacks on human life unprecedented in history.
Although it is much easier to express outrage than to stand up bravely, those who want to win the world for Christ must have the courage to come in conflict with it. We have been coerced to believe that it is better to expose the truth than to condemn the error. Apparent peace, bought and paid for by the cowardice creates an abyss where previously there had only been a ditch. Dr. Martin Luther King declared to his adversaries who denounced him for putting his morality on other people that, "I am not here to regulate morality, but to restrain the heartless." Our country's heritage in recognizing basic human and civil rights for all is in the finest tradition of past civil rights movements.
Lincoln's words resound again today in America. On many a defeated field there was a voice louder than the thunder of a cannon. It was the voice of God crying, "Let my people go." … "Great multitudes begged and prayed that I might answer God's voice by signing the Emancipation Proclamation, and I did so believing we never should be successful in the great struggle unless the God of Battles has been on our side." Lincoln realized that the Civil War was a judgment by Almighty God over the sin of slavery. In his Second Inaugural Address, he said, "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills it to continue, until all the wealth piled up by the bondsmen's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." As the Civil War, with God's judgment upon America for the sin of slavery, a greater judgment is on America for the sin of abortion. Today we see the horrifying work of God's hand in the signs and judgments already upon us because of the legalized murder of innocent babies in their mothers' wombs. The blood of Abel and that of all the murdered innocents cries to heaven for justice, and America will shed tears for every drop of blood shed by these innocent victims. (Gen 9:6) "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image." If we do not heed these warnings, we will read these words upon entering the abyss: "Give up all hope, all ye who enter here."
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Christian pro-lifer. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the babies in their mother's wombs are granted their full citizenship rights. The whirlwind of revolt will continue to shake the foundation of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy justice by violence or hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high planes of truth and justice. We must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with the love of Christ.
There are those asking the devotees of civil rights of the baby in the womb, "When will you be satisfied?" We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. Man has given himself over to a lie in search of an illusionary freedom apart from the truth itself. The beginning of freedom is to be free from sin.
The defense and protection of life is not the ministry of a few but the responsibility of all. We should be by grace what our Lord Jesus was by nature, a child of God, and a child of the Immaculate Virgin.
I am not unmindful that many of you have come here out of great trial and tribulation. Some from the narrow cells of prison where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Conformity to our Lord Jesus Christ enables us to achieve union with Him!
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Louisiana, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. I still have a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day the sons of pro-lifers and the sons of former abortionists will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood and see that never again will blood be shed against the most innocent babies in the womb. I have a dream that Mississippi sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice and become the first state in our nation freed from the bonds of baby-murdering clinics. I have a dream that one day my children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by their size but by the sacredness of their humanity.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside let freedom ring." And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. When we let freedom ring from every village, from every state and city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children will be free at last.
"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, the babies are free at last."
Richard Mahoney
