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Mike Lee @BasedMikeLee - The people in this painting—on the deck of the Speedwell in 1620—are the Pilgrims whose departure from Holland is commemorated in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
The painting depicts the first leg of their long journey, which would end in Massachusetts.
They were sailing to England to join the Mayflower, the ship that would ultimately carry them to Plymouth after the Speedwell proved unseaworthy and had to turn back.
They left Europe to build a community grounded in the Bible, family, and the conviction that every human life is made in the image of God and is therefore sacred.
William Brewster holds the open Bible.
Pastor John Robinson lifts his hands toward heaven.
Children gather around their parents.
Even the armor lying on the deck is telling: they were not abandoning the need for self-defense, but seeking to establish a new community ordered by their faith rather than endless conflict.
What would they make of Massachusetts’ new law extending abortion rights until the moment of birth?
I imagine they’d be absolutely horrified.
They crossed an ocean so their children could live free under God’s law, not so later generations could decide which unborn children may be discarded, including those already capable of surviving outside the womb.
The same Christian moral framework that shaped their understanding of religious liberty also taught them that the deliberate taking of innocent human life is a grave offense against God—and against the most vulnerable among their fellow human beings.
The painting hangs in the Capitol as a reminder of the people who helped plant the seeds of this nation.
Massachusetts was their destination—and their destiny.
The law just signed there is a profound rejection of the moral inheritance they carried ashore.
https://x.com/BasedMikeLee/status/2087612867596206100