Every conservative by now should have noticed that February has become Ronald Reagan Month for Republicans. The man’s birthday was last week, February 6, the forerunner to Lincoln’s birthday (February 12), Washington’s birthday (February 22), and President’s Day (February 17). Throughout the nation, county and statewide Republican groups have been changing their longtime annual Lincoln Day dinners into Reagan Day dinners. I’m speaking on Reagan multiple times this month, including at the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, where we’re releasing (pardon the plug) my new book that endeavors to answer the question “What is a Reagan conservative?”
Thus, this is also a time when conservatives reach back for various nuggets of wisdom from the Gipper that are badly needed as our current president fundamentally transforms the nation Reagan so loved. Among those nuggets, one that you likely will not hear is a gem of a Reagan speech delivered in Dallas 30 years ago. It offers a desperately needed message on religious tolerance. Today’s diversity-preaching and tolerance-professing liberals have been unrelenting in their current campaign of religious intolerance. They mandate that everyone, including religious believers, pay for contraception and abortion drugs; those who disagree are framed as favoring a “war on women.” They vigorously demonize and sue anyone who disagrees with them on gay marriage: a Christian florist in Washington state, a Christian wedding photographer in New Mexico, a Methodist group in New Jersey, Catholic Charities in Massachusetts and Illinois, Christian bakers in Oregon and Colorado, and on and on.
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