The color of the opening ceremonies and the success of our athletes has given many Americans satisfaction that this "once every four years" summer event is back, and NBC stands to rake in the persons watching, and the profits that arise therefrom. Yet they will be missing one very important consumer. The Lovely Bride...

It has been her tradition for as long as she can remember that her parents and brother and she would gather around the television and cheer on the Americans with fervor, patriotism, and enthusiasm. Last night--the opening night of the games--was a far different story in our own home. After a week of travel and sad goodbyes, we parked ourselves on the sofa looking for the ideal entertainment. As she surfed the choices with the remote control (see guys we don't always need to be in charge) she flew right past the HD Olympic coverage. When I queried her as to the reasoning, especially understanding her long-standing love of the Olympics, she stated it so matter of fact, "I'm boycotting."

This from the woman who longs for the event every four years. This from a woman who doesn't "do" sports otherwise.

"Why," I posited with great curiosity?

As if I didn't know that there were plenty of reasons. Forced abortion and sterilization is having hugely negative impact on the quality and span of women's lives in China. When you couple it with a one-child policy that seeks to grow mostly male children, and increasingly fewer females in the population, you see additional negatives on the horizon.

Add to that the sincerely immoral view that the state has all rights to communication, business, religion and the expression thereof, you begin to see something not even one-millionth of the beauty displayed in the opening ceremonies.

Sure the events of the evening were spectacular, but they were a fraud.

As all of the subjects left the field of the great stadium, with the pageantry the evening could include, did those same television cameras capture the punishment any of them endured because of being the slightest bit "off?" And were there cameras rolling yesterday when the family members of our Olympic Volleyball coach were knifed and felled in broad daylight? Our prayers go with the family as one of them ended up passing away. And what of the groups of Christians who are finding hope, faith, and joy in following the teachings of Jesus Christ by the thousands each day and who now this night live in unrelenting and constant fear so as to worry about their freedom literally around the clock. What of the pastors who have been sequestered behind bars in cells no one sees in order to attempt to instill enough fear into them so that they abandon their plan to tell others of the hope that Christ can bring them?

What of the horrific conditions that government's choke-hold control over the marketplace--a hold that disallows hard work to fully succeed?

And what of the incredible military might that China has openly developed under our nose with well documented promises to bring down the West? Continued...