California SB 54: Oppose Senator Leno’s attempt to allow out-of-state neutered marriage
From Protect Marriage:
As if the Legislature doesn’t have enough issues to deal with given the chronic $26 billion state budget deficit, some legislators are advancing a new bill in Sacramento designed to rip a huge hole in Proposition 8 and further undercut traditional marriage in California.
We need your help immediately to contact legislators and the Governor to oppose Senate Bill 54, which seeks to undermine Proposition 8, and further attempts to sneak this change by the people of California through a legislative maneuver known as the “gut and amend.”
Last week, Senator Mark Leno stripped out the contents of SB 54 – dealing with health care coverage — and inserted language that would legalize gay marriages performed in other states and nations prior to the passage of Proposition 8. This proposal is in direct conflict with California’s constitution – as amended by the passage of Proposition 8 – that provides only marriage between a man and a woman will be valid or recognized in California. Further, it goes well beyond the California Supreme Court’s decision that allowed to remain valid a limited number of same-sex marriages performed in California last summer before Proposition 8 passed.
It is simply wrong and undemocratic for liberal gay activists like Senator Mark Leno to attempt to circumvent the decision of voters and rewrite our constitution behind our backs with this sneaky “gut and amend” maneuver. That’s why we’re asking you to take action TODAY and urge the legislature, and if it gets to him, the Governor, to oppose this effort to undermine Proposition 8.
Please become an active supporter by opposing SB 54.
Senator Leno’s SB 54 is such a direct assault, and your action will make a difference.
SB 54 will be heard THURSDAY in the Assembly Judiciary Committee. While the odds of stopping the bill here are low, we think that applying pressure now will drive up more no votes on this bill, which helps increase the odds of the Governor vetoing the bill. If the bill makes it to his desk, we are ultimately looking at an effort designed to encourage Governor Schwarzenegger to veto this legislation.
But for now, the fight is in the State Assembly!
Write your state Assembly representative expressing your opposition to SB 54. Ask him or her to vote against SB 54 if it makes it to the Assembly floor.
In particular, if any of the following members of the Assembly Judiciary Committee represent your home area, please call or email them immediately to urge them to oppose SB 54. Your immediate action will send a clear message that Californians are watching and will not sit idly by while liberal legislators attempt to rip a huge hole in Proposition 8.
Assembly Member Mike Feuer (D – West LA, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood)
Assemblymember.feuer@assembly.ca.gov
(310) 285-5490
Assembly Member Van Tran (R – Costa Mesa, Garden Grove)
Trish.zanella@asm.ca.gov
(714) 668-2100
Assembly Member Julia Brownley (D – Calabasas, Oxnard)
Assemblymember.Brownley@assembly.ca.gov
(818) 596-4141
Assembly Member Noreen Evans (D – Santa Rose, Napa)
Assemblymember.evans@assembly.ca.gov
(707) 546-4500
Assembly Member Dave Jones (D – Sacramento)
Assemblymember.jones@assembly.ca.gov
(916) 324-4676
Assembly Member Steve Knight (R – Palmdale, Victorville)
Assemblymember.knight@asm.ca.gov
(661) 267-7636
Assembly Member Paul Krekorian (D – Burbank)
Assemblymember.krekorian@assembly.ca.gov
(818) 558-3043
Assembly Member Ted Lieu (D – El Segundo)
Assemblymember.lieu@assembly.ca.gov
(310) 615-3515
Assembly Member William Monning (D – Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel)
Assemblymember.monning@assembly.ca.gov
(831) 425-1503
Assemblyman Jim Nielsen (R – Redding, Yuba City)
Assemblymember.nielsen@assembly.ca.gov
530-223-6300
1 comment July 9, 2009
Marriage: On Celebrating 50th Anniversaries
If Possible Include Shoe Polish, Car, and Highway
I saw this car while I was driving the other day, and it made me so happy. (I felt like I was participating in the celebration.)
1959. 50 years.
Rock on.
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Add comment July 7, 2009
Happy Fourth of July
Iwo Jima Flag Raising on Mount Suribachi.
I was half listening to a radio show yesterday, and there was this man on discussing an experience fighting at Mount Suribachi (or maybe it was the son talking about his father?). He was the one asked to get the flag. The one raised in this picture. They’d already raised one, but it wasn’t big enough, and they need another. So he went back to the shore, he waded out to a boat and got a bigger one. While he was there he grabbed as many apples and sandwiches as he could. He filled his pockets. His comrades had been fighting for days and hadn’t eaten any “real” food.
I’m so grateful for men willing to go days without eating food, (fighting their guts out and too many times dying) to preserve freedom.
Thank you.
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Add comment July 4, 2009
Filling Baseball Cleats: Tony Gwynn and Tony Gwynn
The Stuff of Legends
I love it when rad legendary dads help their sons create their own legends. Go Padres!
It’s déjà vu all over again in San Diego by Tom Friend
“The Padres wanted the kid. They couldn’t justify taking him in the first round of the 2003 draft, but they decided the second round was the absolute right spot. First of all, the goodwill in town would be off the charts, and the organization needed more speed in its farm system. The team was all set to select him with the 41st overall pick when … the Milwaukee Brewers took him at No. 39. "We thought we were going to get him," Towers says. "I was kind of — I’m not going to say ticked — but I remember saying, ‘We’re going to take some heat on this one. We’re going to get crushed by the media. We lost out on a Gwynn?’"
Like it or not, Anthony was finally leaving home, and he assured a concerned Alicia — who couldn’t handle the Little League catcalls — that he wouldn’t cave under the expectations.
"You know what, Mom?" he said before leaving for the airport. "I really, truly have embraced this, because I’m really proud of what dad did, and I know these are his accomplishments. I’m walking his path, but I’ll create my own accomplishments."
Alicia beamed: "That’s right. That’s right. You do you. Don’t do your dad. Do you."
Imagine her surprise when he came back three years later with a strange new name: Tony Gwynn Jr.”
[…]
But then, on the next to last day of the 2007 season, the hometown Padres came to Miller Park [Tony Jr.’s team] with a magic number of one. San Diego led 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth, and all that stood between San Diego and its third straight postseason appearance was … someone calling himself Tony Gwynn Jr.?
Facing his Uncle Trevor with two outs, two strikes and a man on base — the same Uncle Trevor who was baseball’s all-time saves leader — Little T ripped a triple down the first-base line on a pitch down at his shins.
His father, Mr. Padre, leaped in the air [I love how his dad cheers!]. Every other Padre, including owner and family friend John Moores, slumped in their chairs. TV cameras caught Moores’ wife, Becky, saying "s—." It was too cruel: a Gwynn ripping the Padres’ hearts out. A Gwynn emasculating Trevor, of all people. A Gwynn ultimately costing the Padres a playoff berth. But as the kid stood on third base, dusting himself off, a chill came over Alicia Gwynn.
"I said, ‘This is vintage Tony Gwynn,’" she remembers. "It was so eerie when I looked at that hit. The pitch was out of the strike zone, but he put it where he put it.
"That’s when I saw the first sign. That’s when I said, "Hmmmmm.’"
Read the entire article here
[hat-tip goes to my big bro for sending me the link.]
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Add comment July 2, 2009
Feminist Studies, Research, and Indoctrination
Why It’s so Difficult to Have Real Academic Discussion On Feminist Topics
I have a hard time when feminists purposely distort facts and/or use their platform as a man-bashing megaphone. That doesn’t increase understanding. And it doesn’t help any woman find value in herself.
My hope: that society will support and value men and women equally. The two genders are different, but combined make up humanity. The king is nothing without the queen. The queen is nothing without the king.
Both are celebrated here.
Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship
by Christina Hoff Sommers
“‘Harder to kill than a vampire.’ That is what the sociologist Joel Best calls a bad statistic. But, as I have discovered over the years, among false statistics the hardest of all to slay are those promoted by feminist professors. Consider what happened recently when I sent an e-mail message to the Berkeley law professor Nancy K.D. Lemon pointing out that the highly praised textbook that she edited, Domestic Violence Law (second edition, Thomson/West, 2005), contained errors.
[…]
Lemon’s Domestic Violence Law is organized as a conventional law-school casebook — a collection of judicial opinions, statutes, and articles selected, edited, and commented upon by the author. The first selection, written by Cheryl Ward Smith (no institutional affiliation is given), offers students a historical perspective on domestic-violence law. According to Ward:
‘The history of women’s abuse began over 2,700 years ago in the year 753 BC. It was during the reign of Romulus of Rome that wife abuse was accepted and condoned under the Laws of Chastisement. … The laws permitted a man to beat his wife with a rod or switch so long as its circumference was no greater than the girth of the base of the man’s right thumb. The law became commonly know as ‘The Rule of Thumb.’ These laws established a tradition which was perpetuated in English Common Law in most of Europe.’
Where to begin? How about with the fact that Romulus of Rome never existed. He is a figure in Roman mythology — the son of Mars, nursed by a wolf. Problem 2: The phrase "rule of thumb" did not originate with any law about wife beating, nor has anyone ever been able to locate any such law. It is now widely regarded as a myth, even among feminist professors.
[read more of the listed errors here]
Feminist misinformation is pervasive. In their eye-opening book, Professing Feminism: Education and Indoctrination in Women’s Studies (Lexington Books, 2003), the professors Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge describe the "sea of propaganda" that overwhelms the contemporary feminist classroom. The formidable Christine Rosen (formerly Stolba), in her 2002 report on the five leading women’s-studies textbooks, found them rife with falsehoods, half-truths, and "deliberately misleading sisterly sophistries." Are there serious scholars in women’s studies? Yes, of course. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, an anthropologist at the University of California at Davis; Janet Zollinger Giele, a sociologist at Brandeis; and Anne Mellor, a literary scholar at UCLA, to name just three, are models of academic excellence and integrity. But they are the exception. Lemon’s book typifies the departmental mind-set.
[…]
All books have mistakes, so why pick on the feminists? My complaint with feminist research is not so much that the authors make mistakes; it is that the mistakes are impervious to reasoned criticism. They do not get corrected. The authors are passionately committed to the proposition that American women are oppressed and under siege. The scholars seize and hold on for dear life to any piece of data that appears to corroborate their dire worldview. At the same time, any critic who attempts to correct the false assumptions is dismissed as a backlasher and an anti-feminist crank.”
Full article here
6 comments July 2, 2009
Rad Dad: The Lawnmower Edition
I had to get someone new to mow my lawn.
A few days ago, I was talking to a man who lives near by, and he said he had a 14-year old son who could mow it for me. I was very grateful because my grass was getting really really really long. He said he’d send his son that same day.
So later, I heard the sound of a mower and my doorbell at the same time. The dad was standing out on my porch. Over his shoulder I could see his son pushing away at the lawn mower. The mower was almost as big as the kid (he was real small and skinny). I had a pang in my stomach, and I thought he’s working so hard I should pay him one hundred dollars.(I really wished I could afford to pay him one hundred dollars. He deserved it.)
Anyways, the dad said he’d come along to help make sure his son knew the system. I think this was his first “summer-job” lawn. I looked again, over the dad’s shoulder, at the skinny kid trying to mow through my jungle (up-hill). I felt so grateful to his son, and pleased to participate in the summer-lawn-mowing rite of passage.
Then the dad informed me that I have a really aggressive weed/vine growing that I need to be careful about controlling. He told me he’d pull it out for me, and that he’d trim back my bushes (the bushes were taking over the lawn…can you tell my yard is sort of a jungle?). He said I didn’t need to pay extra. He was just there to help his son.
I thanked him profusely (what else could I do?) went inside, and continued with my indoor-activities.
My back lawn is not huge, but it runs on a hill.
It wasn’t long before I noticed the dad was mowing the lawn uphill and his son was mowing the downhill.
I thought: that is a rad dad.
Showing his son how to work. Picking up the slack where his son just could not do it (the grass was so long). Also! Showing his son service and how to do a job right. The dad didn’t care about getting paid, he just wanted to make sure his son knew what he was doing.
I was always taught not to watch people work, so it was already hard enough for me to stay inside. But when I saw that dad mowing the uphill because his son couldn’t do it— I felt like I was witnessing something sacred. No one else saw. I only saw flashes. Back and forth. Switching off.
I left an envelope of money for the kid on the patio table. I wrote his name on the envelope. And “Thank You” with an exclamation mark.
But the price of that memory for that kid is irreplaceable. Irreplaceable.
I’m happy I got to witness even flashes of that kind of love.
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photo: old faithful
5 comments June 28, 2009
CA Sb572: Ask Schwarzengger to Veto Harvey Milk Day
Harvey Milk was no Martin Luther King, Jr.
If California’s Senate has it’s way, California’s public school children will be singing the praises of homosexual activist Harvey Milk, and his radical multisexual agenda every May 22nd. In a non-opt out day— schools, children and parents will have no choice but to celebrate this man and the radical agenda of his political movement.
Sound familiar? It is. The governor vetoed this identical legislation less than a year ago saying that support of Harvey Milk and his policies were not a part of public school education. He was right, but those pushing the same-sex agenda in our public schools are hoping that this is the year he’ll change his mind.
[For more info read Beetle Babee: Got Milk? Harvey Milk Day Bill Passes CA Senate Education Committee]
The opposition remains strong among the “silent majority.” A recent poll found only 1 out of 5 Californians want a statewide “day of significance” honoring Harvey Milk.
But homosexual-agenda advocates are turning up the heat. Sean Penn, who starred in the movie “Milk” about the late San Francisco homosexual activist, has talked to Schwarzengger to ask him to sign SB 572. So has Milk’s homosexual activist nephew.
Homosexual-bisexual-transsexual activist groups are working hard to pass “Harvey Milk Gay Day” into law. They’re generating calls and emails to Schwarzenegger urging him to sign this horrible bill.
This is a dynamic situation that could go either way. But one thing’s for sure. If Arnold Schwarzenegger receives more calls, emails and faxes supporting “Harvey Milk Gay Day,” he will be tempted to sign it.
What you Can do
Kindly but firmly tell him or her, “I’m calling to urge the Governor to veto SB 572, “Harvey Milk Gay Day,” like he did last year.
Parents don’t want this, and children don’t need this. Schools should teach children academics, not the ‘lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender’ values of Harvey Milk.”
Beliefs/Quotes from Harvey Milk:
- Religion is DANGEROUS: “More people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, my friends, that is true perversion.” (Harvey Milk, speaking at a homosexual rally in 1978.)
- All doors of sexual experimentation MUST be opened: “If a bullet should go through my head let that bullet go through every closet door.” (Harvey Milk quote)
- If you think you might be homosexual, you MUST declare yourself gay or lesbian: “Milk believed strongly that coming out was the responsibility of every gay man and woman.” (Source)
- Gay and lesbian “marriages” are good and natural: “So much of the spirit represented with the Supreme Court’s decision last week is the spirit of Harvey Milk and his legacy manifesting today in real change.” (San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom on the unveiling of a bust of Harvey Milk at city hall, May 28, 2008. (Source)
For more info read Beetle Babee: Education, Not Indoctrination! Stop Harvey Milk Day in CA Public Schools
8 comments June 26, 2009
Michael Jackson Dies.
She told me her name was billie jean, as she caused a scene
I am very sad right now. Sometimes I think, if he wasn’t famous, he’d be living a normal life, dealing with normal tragedies and hard things without that harsh harsh spotlight of famousness making everything crazier than it needs to be.
He made some rad music. But I would sacrifice “Billie Jean”, if it meant he could have had some real peace and happiness in this life.
Thank you Michael Jackson. For being born. My prayer for you: peace.
Read news article here
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Add comment June 25, 2009
Jim DeMint: Hate Crimes Legislation and Religious Liberty
I just found this over at A Banner is Unfurled:
A letter from Jim DeMint:
Religious Leaders,
The long debate over the "separation of church and state" has convinced many religious leaders that their opinions are not welcome in political debates. Many pastors hesitate to explain that government policies have helped cause the decline to America’s culture, morality, and spirituality. Many people of faith have given up their freedom of speech and the freedom to practice their religious principles in all areas of their lives.
I am writing you today to remind you that religious principles and biblical teachings produced the values and policies that made America exceptional, prosperous, and good.
In recent decades, Congress and the courts have adopted policies that have proved destructive to faith, families, and freedom in America, but no one action has been as damaging as the "hate crimes" legislation will be. This hate crime legislation will replace "equal justice under law" with arbitrary justice based on the race, religion, or sexual orientation of criminals and their victims. More importantly, it will lead to the criminalization of biblical truth as "hate speech."
Under this legislation, a pastor who teaches that homosexuality is wrong could be accused of a hate crime or charged with "inducing" a violent crime against a gay person.
Please tell your congregation this legislation is not about "hate" (all violent crimes are hateful); it is about taking away your freedom to speak and preach biblical truth. It takes away your right to say that some things are wrong. We need millions of Americans to call and email their Senators, especially Democrat Senators who are pushing this legislation. Majority Leaders Harry Reid has promised to pass this legislation in the next few weeks (the House already has).
To learn more about the "hate crimes" legislation, refer to Family Research Council’s reference page on the topic, www.frc.org. And to find the email addresses and phone numbers of your Senators, link to www.senate.gov. or call the Capitol operator at 202-224-3121. Please act this week.
Sincerely,
Jim DeMint
U.S. Senator
For more on Hate Crime Legislation check out:
Why Unnecessary Hate Crimes Laws Deny Equal Protection.
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2 comments June 25, 2009
