A column from Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD) in recognition of National Women’s History Month. As a female serving in the United States House of Representatives, she explores the accomplishments of women in America, and the challenges they face today.

Thomas Hopu and Hiram Bingham were the first missionaries to Hawaii, arriving MARCH 31, 1820. Devising a 12-letter alphabet, they translated the Bible, set up a school, a church, a newspaper and convinced women to wear dresses. Idolatry and human sacrifice had previously been ended by King Kamehameha II and his Queen mother Ka’ahumanu.

Liberal and open-ended interpretation of the Constitution has rendered it practically meaningless, opening the door to steady growth of the federal government and its inexorable encroachment in our lives over the last half century. The problems we are having today all originate here.

The “progressive” movement wars against natural law, pushes perpetually failed secular-socialist policies and places — above constitutionally safeguarded individual liberty — thickheaded tenets of postmodern political correctness. Liberal elites demand tolerance for all things perverse and find intolerable all things righteous.

It should be of no surprise when Barack Obama and the Left use and play the “race card” to enrage and arouse the oppressed passions of black Americans. The black population in this country have been purposely oppressed by the Left in this country from the very beginning. Tragically their oppressors are received as their saviors and those who would have their best interests in mind.

Even if the individual mandate included within Obamacare is overturned, the administration and its leftist allies stand poised to undermine the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Constitution itself. At their core, these efforts are designed to undermine the very document that protects individual freedom and limits federal government power by delegitimizing the Court which is specifically created to protect those liberties.

Pastor of a mega church in California, New York Times bestselling author, philanthropist, Rick Warren has obtained tremendous influence and power in the last 15 years. His most recent endeavor has been the bridging between world faiths. While many would see this as a laudable, even admirable, action, many are now deeply concerned.

Lincoln’s National Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer was observed April 30, 1863. Two days later, a freak accident occurred which changed the course of the war.

This whole sorry Trayvon Martin ordeal and all the satellite stories that have come from it this week, just further illustrate the diseased culture of the Left.  The Democrats are no one’s friend, but the people in the black community are largely blind to this fact.  Since the 1960s, when the welfare state was established and the entitlement mentality was hatched in the hearts of so many Americans, the black family itself has spiraled steadily downward toward disintegration.

When feminists talk about abortion, they do so in terms of women’s rights.  Legalized abortion empowers women, they assert, because it puts them in control over their bodies; it gives them the choice whether or not to bear a child who has been conceived.  What these proponents of “liberty” fail to consider, however, is that in many cases women are “choosing” abortion at the behest of someone else.