An Answer to "If Christians don’t personally engage in politics, it’s all over for America"

This is a response to a Facebook discussion that arose between one of my cousins, and I.

I won't take issue with the article's content, as it was published in the Opinion section, and the author, Mr. Marshall has the same right as we all do, to argue what he believes to be true. More generally, I would argue the basic premise of 'allowing rights for LGBT persons is infringing on the rights of religious members of our community' is fundamentally flawed.

To support this argument, there are a few things that need to be stated at the outset. First, a belief in fairness is not a "right" until it is written into law. The founders (casting a wide net here to all those in all colonies who established governments supportive of the Constitution) knew this, as they refused to ratify the Constitution until the Bill of Rights was added. They knew that socially accepted norms of fairness are not enforceable, but worse, can be changed over time to suit personal ambition. The only rights you and I share are those 1) written into the Constitution, and 2) in laws that are not deemed by the courts to violate the Constitution. Second, regardless of what one may think of a person with different political, religious, or moral believes, whether that person be straight or gay, black, white, Latino, or oriental, if that person was born in the United States, that person is a citizen of the United States. Finally, an infringement of a right is to deny someone a right that they, as a citizen are entitled to, based upon the law.

Now, with that out of the way...

Argument 1: All Citizens Have the Same Rights

From the Constitution (14th Amendment, Sec. I): "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside." Absent of contrary wording, this means every person born within the United States, straight or gay, black, white, Latino, or oriental is a citizen of the United States. As we read further in this amendment, "...nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Basically, this is saying that it is a violation of the Constitution to infringe upon the rights of any one person without following the law, or rather, we are all entitled to the same set of rights. This is a real problem for those that argue the points raised in the article. How can we prevent two homosexual people from getting married, or adopting a child, holding down a job, or receiving visitors in the hospital when the 14th Amendment is clear on the equality of all citizens, not just religious citizens? (NB: Although there are no specific enumerations of marriage, adoption, obtaining a job or receiving visitors in the hospital in the Constitution, there are many laws at the Federal and State levels covering these topics. So long as those laws are not judged by the courts to be a violation of the Constitution, they would be considered rights.)

Argument 2: Formalizing Equality Is Not an Infringement of Religious Protections

The Constitution is clear on the rights of its citizens on the subject of religion: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." (Amendment I). Put another way, there are two things that are a violation of the Constitution regarding religion: establishing one religion that all citizens must adhere to, and preventing anyone from practicing the beliefs of their own faith. (Of course, we have to agree that there are certain limits here. If a particular faith describes a practice that is a violation of other laws, those laws must take precedence. We don't allow our citizens to be harmed by religious practices.) The problem here is the belief, common among many (but not all) Evangelicals, that by giving rights to a gay person, we somehow take rights away from a religious person. There is nothing in that belief that is supported by the law. Two men getting married may be offensive to one's sensibilities, and it may be thought of as immoral, but two men getting married does not inhibit or prevent a religious person from practicing his or her religion. The church member can still believe what he or she wants. He or she can still attend services, refrain from committing actions that are out of line with their beliefs, pray, read a bible not just in private, but in public, and so on. There is no right to 'not be offended'.

Argued in a different light, consider that the author of the article came right out and stated, "Six Catholic Republican congressmen voted "yes,'...[to HR 5]." Where is the logic that these six decided to remove their own religious rights? Can we honestly say that they voted for in favor of this resolution knowing full well that it will remove their right to practice their religion as guaranteed by the Constitution? Consider that in Congress, there are 0 atheists. Not one member of Congress openly admits non-belief. Yet, 236 members of the House passed the resolution. That's 236 religious persons, overwhelmingly Christians, have voted in favor. Where is the logic that over half of the religious members of Congress support a bill that could infringe upon their own religious protections, much less that would violate a Constitutional protection of religious?

Argument 3: Infringement of One's Rights is an Infringement of Everyone's Rights

This argument tends to be most often explained in the context of the Holocaust because it was so blatant and obvious, but there are countless examples in history. When we start to devalue the worth of one group of people, it is a slippery slope that ends up with other groups being devalued, as well. The problem is that eventually, there becomes a small group of people who end up deciding who's rights are valid and who's are not. In Nazi Germany, it was members of the Nazi party who ended up dictating rights, to the detriment first of Jews. But then it spread to removing the rights of other groups such as homosexuals. This was easy, as homosexuality in the 1930s was so much more frowned upon that it is today. But, when artists and authors started to claim this was unjust, their rights were infringed upon, as well. Concentration camps began to fill up with them as well. Then, when professors, scientists, and politicians who understood the dangers of what was happening began to speak out, they too were jailed and killed. So, what started out as an attempt to infringe upon the rights of one specific group, spread to any citizen who was not aligned with the Nazi party. Again, this was not the only time in history this happened. One of the problems with this (in addition to it being unfair by any measure), is that someday, some other group could come into power, and decide that those who infringed upon the newly-empowered group's rights now deserve no such protections. And so on it goes, each group in power infringing upon the rights of those with whom they disagree. In this world, we all suffer.

Conclusion

Religions deal with morality and faith. Nations deal with laws and rights. When we start to mix the two, it is important to ask ourselves, are if we are trying to use either to promote our own ideas and beliefs, however well-meaning to hurt another group of people who are different that we are. The founders knew this was possible. The protections enshrined in the Bill of Rights were written specifically to prevent that. It is my hope that one day, an atheist, a homosexual, a democrat, and a republican can all sit down together and talk about why they believe what they do in order to educate the others, rather than using our beliefs as a club to beat others down with.

Configure a TP Link Wireless Router for Simple Internet Access

After putting up with a failing wireless for the past two months, I decided to replace it. I ended up purchasing a TP Link Archer C9 wireless router. It operates on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequencies at the same time, and allows for (mostly) full management. After going through the manual, I realized that it did not cover the method I use to integrate the wireless into my home network, so after hours of trying to get this thing set up, I decided to write it down.

The two methods in the manual describe using the Archer C9 as a wireless extender, and connecting directly into the service provider's cable/DSL modem, such that all network traffic going to the Internet would end up going through the router. This is problematic for me, as I have my own firewall connected to the cable modem, and I don't really want to put this new device out in the wild, with a public IP address.

My particular use case involves simply connecting the wireless to a switch on my network, then enabling the wireless so anyone connecting can get access to the internal network, and Internet, but enjoy the protection of the firewall. It looks like this:

In order to get this to work, we have to deviate from the instruction manual just a bit.

Step 1: Connect the Device to the Network
Plug a standard network cable into any of the 4 LAN ports on the back (it doesn't matter which one; just don't connect to the Internet or WAN port). Plug the other end of the cable into a switch that supplies the rest of the house with network connectivity. Plug the power adapter into the wall, then into the device. Turn the power on.

Step 2: Connect to the Wireless
In order to connect for the first time, you'll want to connect to the wireless, first. You'll see the default SSIDs show up. Select one, then when asked for a password, type the device's PIN (the 8-digit code printed on the back  label).

Step 3: Configure a Password
The router is delivered with a default password. It's the same 8-digit PIN used as the wireless password. When starting the configuration for the first time, you'll be asked to configure a new password. Type in each of the provided boxes on the screen.

Step 4: Configure the LAN Interface
Once you are logged in, you will be presented with a page that has three tabs, Quick Setup, Basic, and Advanced. We'll be working strictly in the Advanced tab. Once in Advanced, select the Network item in the left menu, then select LAN. Here, you can set up the device's IP address and Subnet mask. Select an IP address that is 1) in the same subnet as your firewall or cable modem, and 2) is not being served through DHCP. (If you don't know, check your cable modem configuration or that of your firewall, if you have one. If DHCP is enabled, there will be a set of starting and ending IP addresses for the range. The TP Link's IP address must be outside of this range.) Finally, click Save.

Step 5: Configure DHCP
I'm serving addresses via DHCP from my internal firewall, so I don't need a second DHCP server. I just disabled it. If you need to assign IP addresses to new devices automatically, perform 5b, otherwise perform 5a.

5a. Click the DHCP Server link further down in the Network group of options we opened earlier. Uncheck the Enable DHCP Server checkbox, then hit Save.

5b. Select a starting and ending IP range in the IP Address Pool boxes. Set the Default Gateway to be the IP address of your firewall or cable modem. Set the Primary and Secondary DNS addresses. Normally, if you have a device connected to the cable modem, it will obtain these addresses from your service provider's DNS servers. You can also look around the Internet for a couple of publicly-available DNS servers. Once complete, hit the Done button.

6: Set Up the Wireless Radios
Next, Click on the Wireless item on the left menu, and select Wireless Settings. You'll want to set the Network Name(SSID) field to something you can easily recognize on your phone, tablet, or laptop. Next set the Security to WPA/WPA2-Personal (the other options are for older technologies, and are not nearly as secure). Version and Encryption can bot be left on Auto. Give the wireless a good password. Generally, a 20-character (or longer) password is considered appropriate. Use a combination of Upper and lower case characters, numbers, and one or more special characters. I have found that combining a word with a number with a nonsense word that is easy to remember tends to be a good method. For example:
BoBcat.8675309-XPEKT
This is relatively easy to remember, but long enough, and using enough different types of characters that it will be difficult to crack using a brute-force attack. Also, change this password every quarter or every 6 months at the latest. The longer it sits on the router, the more time people have to try to figure it out. Leave the remaining settings as they are, and click Save. If you look in the upper right corner, you should see a line that looks like:
2.4GHz | 5 GHz
This allows you to switch between each radio's configuration settings. (I'm running version 1.2.4; earlier versions just put the 5GHz radio settings underneath the 2.4GHz radio settings.) Click on the 5GHz to show that radio's settings. repeat the steps in this section for that radio, with a few differences: specifically, use a different SSID and a different password. Everything else can remain as set above, or on the defaults.

Step 7: Set Up the Time
At the bottom of the left menu is a tab called System Tools. Select that, then select Time Settings. Select your timezone, then hit Save.

Step 8: Reboot
Click the Reboot icon in the upper right corner of the configuration page, then wait. This step is critical, as if there are any settings that did not get saved, they will be lost the next time the router loses power.

Step 9: Test
You should now be able to connect to the Wireless, and access the Internet.