Just a few of weeks ago, I commented, to a Facebook friend, in 2016, we had an election where half the people thought they got screwed.

Who knows, maybe there was sufficient fraud that President Trump was cheated out of a victory, but if there was, he hasn’t been able to prove it.

This country will be greatly damaged by a Biden presidency, but that’s what we are going to have. The proper response now is to support conservatives and libertarians for every office, to take back the House of Representatives in 2022, and defeat Joe Biden in 2024. Do whatever you can to resist the Democrats’ policy initiatives. Be sure to support conservatives and libertarians for state and local offices, and do everything you can to replace school boards with conservatives who will not allow the teachers unions to indoctrinate children with leftist babble.

But, most important of all: go to church! The real solidarity of conservatives comes from faith and a clear understanding of God’s laws and morality. Part of the reason that so many Democratic Governors have been able to trample on our freedom of religion is that not that many Americans, even those who claim to be Christian, actually go to church!

Then I came across this, from the Catholic News Agency:

Only frequent church attendees avoided downward mental health trend in 2020

CNA Staff | December 11, 2020 | 12:09 AM MST

Americans who attend religious services weekly are the only demographic group appearing to show improved mental health in 2020, despite the stresses of the coronavirus pandemic and other events, says a new survey.

The survey otherwise shows significant self-reported mental health declines among those previously in excellent health.

In 2019, about 42% of those who reported attending religious services weekly told Gallup that their mental health was excellent. In 2020, 46% said the same, an increase of 4 percentage points. Only 35% of those who attend services nearly weekly or monthly reported excellent mental health, down 12 percentage points from last year. Among those who attend seldom or never, 29% reported excellent mental health, down 13 percentage points.

While coronavirus restrictions have often limited peoples’ ability to attend religious services, the Gallup survey did not ask respondents whether they faced such limits.

There’s more at the original.

I have previously said that Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) executive orders suspending our constitutional rights and closing churches has made going to Mass a political act of defiance as well as a religious one. The evidence has long shown that the stronger one’s Christian faith is, the more probable that someone will be politically conservative and vote Republican. Quite simply, the more strongly Christian someone is, the more likely he is to hold conservative political positions.

And now we see that going to church leads to stronger mental health as well.

It doesn’t work in every case, obviously. Joe Biden is a Mass-every-Sunday (purported) Catholic, yet his fealty to Democratic political positions is stronger than his belief in the Church’s positions on abortion, homosexuality and ‘transgenderism.’ Of course, his mispronunciation of “psalmist,” when there is a reading from the Book of Psalms in every Catholic Mass does make one wonder if he sleeps through Mass most days, but still . . . .

It’s simple: Mr Biden is both a Catholic, nominally anyway, and a Democrat, but, of the two, being a Democrat is far more important to him than being Catholic. However, he is the outlier, not the norm: the more frequently a Christian attends church, Protestant or Catholic, the more likely he is to hold political views in line with his religious ones.

For conservatives, religion not only reinforces our political views, but actually going to church strengthens our commitment to our religious and political positions.

There is, however, something that the left do not realize and political commentators never seem to mention: the more a person attends church, the more he is accepting of other people of different races:

Religious Trump Voters: How Faith Moderates Attitudes about Immigration, Race, and Identity

By Emily Ekins | February 5, 2019

Increasing political polarization and rising conflict over identity, race relations, immigration, and LGBT rights have left two increasingly divided extremes with a seemingly elusive moderate middle. Many have come to view religious institutions, largely because of their opposition to same‐​sex marriage, as a major contributor to this ever‐​increasing divide — a catalyst for increased intergroup societal conflict rather than a possible cure. However, research from the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group’s VOTER Surveys (Views of the Electorate Research Survey) finds that religious participation may serve as a moderating function in our politics, particularly among conservatives. These national surveys find that Donald Trump voters who attend church regularly are more likely than nonreligious Trump voters to have warmer feelings toward racial and religious minorities, to be more supportive of immigration and trade, and to be more concerned about poverty. These data are important because they demonstrate that private institutions in civil society can have a positive effect on social conflict and can reduce polarization.

Left-right culture wars over the rights of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual) people — particularly government sanction of same-sex marriages — have likely soured many Democrats’ views of Christians. Indeed, a majority (56 percent) of Democrats report unfavorable feelings toward evangelical Christians. This, in large part, may be a response to the 64 percent of churchgoing Christians who oppose legalized same-sex marriage and the half who have cool feelings toward LGBT people, and to the finding that the more frequently people attend church, the more negative their attitudes are likely to be toward gay men, lesbians, and also feminists. Thus, antagonism toward religious institutions is often grounded in the idea that religion is a source of exclusion and oppression rather than of inclusivity and tolerance. Such views are succinctly articulated by a bumper sticker from the Richard Dawkins Foundation: “There is no war on religion: Only opposition of intolerance, oppression, hatred, and stupidity.”

Conservatives’ views of black people, Hispanics, and Asians improve the more frequently conservatives attend religious services

.It may surprise some readers, however, to learn that religious participation may moderate conservatives’ attitudes on other important culture war issues, particularly matters of race, immigration, and identity. Given that the rise of Donald Trump has increased the salience of these issues, this brief uses the 2016, 2017, and 2018 VOTER Surveys to examine how religious and nonreligious people who voted for Donald Trump think about these important issues.

Conservatives’ views of black people, Hispanics, and Asians improve the more frequently conservatives attend religious services. Specifically, favorable feelings toward black people increase from 48 percent among Trump voters who never attend church to 73 percent among those who attend more than once a week — a 25-point increase. Similarly, favorable feelings toward Hispanics and Asians increase from 63 percent and 60 percent, respectively, among secular Trump voters to 72 percent and 80 percent, respectively, among churchgoing Trump voters.

There is much more at the original; internal references from original omitted in the quote.

This is the part the left do not understand: religious conservatives, such as myself, may oppose the idea of same-sex ‘marriage,’ and classifying the ‘transgendered’ as the sex they claim to be rather than the sex they are biologically, but that does not mean we somehow want them all killed. Rather, it means that we wish them to return to mental health and conservative beliefs and values. The conservative and libertarian part of me informs me that what they wish to do in their private lives is between themselves and God, and none of my business; it also informs me that we can not care about their private lives as long as they do not bring those private lives into the public square. Once they do that, they have opened their private choices to public discussion. ^[1]I put the term the way that I do because I do not believe that any homosexual relationship, regardless of how the laws of the state view such, as legitimately a marriage.

Ever since the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals granted Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) appeal in the case Danville Christian Academy v Beshear, allowing him to enforce his executive order closing not only the public schools to in-person instruction — something he undoubtedly has the authority to do — but private religious schools as well, and Danville Christian, along with state Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R-KY), made an emergency appeal to the United States Supreme Court, I have been checking both the Lexington Herald-Leader’s website and SCOTUSBlog for news as to how the case is proceeding. It’s Monday now, a school day, meaning that the failure of the Supreme Court to have decided on the petition for a reversal requires Danville Christian Academy to remain closed to in person instruction today.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Senate Republicans Seek Religious Exemptions to Public-Health Orders

By Jess Bravin | December 4, 2020 | 7:52 PM EST

WASHINGTON—Senate Republicans told the Supreme Court on Friday that religious schools should be exempt from public-health orders issued to combat Covid-19, even if public and secular private schools were required to close.

Danville Christian Academy is asking the high court to exempt it from Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s Nov. 18 executive order halting in-person instruction at all public and private K-12 schools in the state. The small religious school in Danville, Ky., argues that the closure order amounts to religious discrimination, because lesser restrictions were placed on other businesses and institutions, including “daycares, preschools, colleges and universities.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) filed the brief, joined by fellow Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul and 36 other GOP senators. Former Trump White House Counsel Donald McGahn, along with other Republican lawyers from the firm Jones Day, represents the group.

“In the response to Covid-19, state governors across the country have restricted American freedoms in ways previously seen only in dystopian fiction—including by shutting down religious gatherings of all kinds, while inexplicably allowing many secular activities to continue unabated,” they argue.^[1]Footnote by DRP: This verbiage appears to be from US District Court Judge Justin Walker, in On Fire Christian Center v Greg Fischer.

A federal district judge in Frankfort, Ky., agreed with Danville Christian, but on Sunday the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Cincinnati, allowed the governor’s order to take effect.

There’s more at the original, concerning the arguments made by both sides. Governor Beshear claims that he has not treated the private Christian schools any differently than the rest of schools in the state; the appellants claim that he is treating the schools differently than other gatherings of people.

The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal agrees with the Senators:

First Cuomo, Now Newsom

The Supreme Court extends in scrutiny of orders limiting the free exercise of religion to California and Kentucky.

By The Editorial Board | December 6, 2020 | 5:45 PM EST

The media are still preoccupied with Donald Trump, but there is other news, some of it even good. One example is the Supreme Court’s new attention to violations of religious rights in the pandemic.

Late last week the Court vacated a ruling by a district court that upheld California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s sweeping restrictions on religious gatherings. The unsigned order remanded the case for reconsideration in light of the Supreme Court’s November ruling that enjoined similar restrictions in New York (Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo).

Mr. Newsom banned indoor worship services, small and large, for almost all Californians. But even as he strictly limited church attendance, he let liquor stores and cardrooms operate without capping the number of people allowed. This disparate treatment is what the Court scored in New York, and its intervention in California shows its growing impatience with limits on constitutional rights as the pandemic continues.

A separate case out of Kentucky gives the Court another chance to protect the free exercise of religion. In an executive order last month, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear shut down in-person instruction and private and public K-12 schools. That included Danville Christian Academy, which sued along with Kentucky’s Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron.

There’s more at the original.

Federal Judge Justin Walker may have put it best:

The Plymouth Colony’s second Governor, William Bradford, alluded to St. Paul’s pilgrims when he recalled, years later, his fellow colonists’ departure from England. The land they were leaving was comfortable and familiar. The ocean before them was, for them, unknown and dangerous. So too was the New World, where half would not survive the first winter.

There were “mutual embraces and many tears,” as they said farewell to sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers, too young or old or fearful or frail to leave the Old World.

But they sailed west because west was where they would find what they wanted most, what they needed most: the liberty to worship God according to their conscience. “They knew they were pilgrims,” wrote Bradford, “and looked not much on those things” left behind, “but lifted their eyes to heaven, their dearest country and quieted their spirits.”

And, much further down:

It is true that On Fire’s church members could believe in everything Easter teaches them from their homes on Sunday. So too could the Pilgrims before they left Europe. But the Pilgrims demanded more than that. And so too does the Free Exercise Clause. It “guarantees the free exercise of religion, not just the right to inward belief.”

That promise is as important for the minister as for those ministered to, as vital to the shepherd as to the sheep. And it is as necessary now as when the Mayflower met Plymouth Rock.

Richard Warren came to these shores on the Mayflower. Fearing the conditions might be too harsh, he left his wife, Elizabeth, and their five daughters back in England. Feeling that the conditions had improved enough, he sent for them, and they arrived in 1623 on the Anne. Mr Warren left the comforts of home, and of his family, for three years, all to build them a better, freer life.

Our country was settled by people who feared the deprivation of their religion more than they feared death on the North Atlantic, more than they feared death from the Indians, more than they feared death from a complete lack of towns and infrastructure on a wild and unexplored continent. Yet so many of our current government leaders seem to think that our religion and our faith are of so little moment that our religious freedoms can simply be cast aside.

Not just no, but Hell no!
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Cross-posted on RedState.