Archive for January, 2009
Children Can be Compelled to Receive Homosexual Indoctrination against Parents’ Wishes: Spanish Supreme Court
Found this on Kingfisher:
Children Can be Compelled to Receive Homosexual Indoctrination against Parents’ Wishes: Spanish Supreme Court
By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman, LifeSiteNews
After three days of debate, the Spanish Supreme Court has declared that parents do not have the right to opt out of a national civics program that includes indoctrination in homosexualist ideology and other offensive elements.
The program, “Education for Citizenship,” teaches children to make a “critical evaluation of the social and sexual division of labor and racist, xenophobic, sexist, and homophobic social prejudices” and instructs teachers to “revise the student’s attitude towards homosexuality.” It was formulated by Spain’s Socialist Worker’s Party, which has held power since 2004.
Following the implementation of the program, families sued to secure status as conscientious objectors in the State of Asturias, where the local Supreme Court ruled that they could not exempt their children from the course. They then appealed the case to the Spanish Supreme Court, which ruled against the families yesterday 23-7, in a plenary session.
Organizations representing dissenting families were defiant, arguing that the decision was unconstitutional, and had no authority over the autonomous provinces of Spain. They also announced plans to appeal the ruling to the nation’s Constitutional Court, and beyond.
…
Responding to the call of Spain’s Minister of Education for all provinces to comply with the decision, Blanco stated that “the Minister can’t give orders to the Autonomous Communities” and added that she “can’t change the Constitution nor human rights. That is higher than the hollow words of the Minister.”
Spain’s socialist political establishment, however, was jubilant.
“I celebrate that with this the debate is finished,” said Spain’s Justice Minister Fernandez Bernejo, who added that “this situation has been created by the bad decisions of some autonomous communities who haven’t fulfilled their obligation to educate children well.”
…
Read article here.
1 comment January 31, 2009
Protect the DOMA| Educate
Protect the DOMA| Educate
Many people, even those who already support traditional marriage, are confused about how the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) affects marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships.
1. DOMA protects the right of states not to recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions [states].
2. DOMA defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman for all purposes of federal law.
3. Repealing the DOMA is not the best way to grant civil unions and domestic partnerships federal benefits given to marriages.
If the DOMA is repealed, it is not only possible, but likely that same-gender “marriages” from a state like Massachusetts would have to be recognized in other states.
There is a Facebook group dedicated to clarifying the DOMA:
The group includes links, discussions, and articles–Please join, invite your friends. Let’s get educated about this issue!
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Other Resources:
Get Informed: DOMA defense fund
National Organization for Marriage
Related Blog Posts:
Defense of Marriage Act and the Federal Marriage Ammendment: Let’s break it down.
January 31, 2009
Kirk Cameron: Defends Marriage | Discusses with Bill O’Reilly
Kirk Cameron Defends Marriage | Discusses with Bill O’Reilly
“It saddens me to see how far we’ve fallen from our ideals and the values that our country was based on. But my tactic tends to be to hold up a standard of what I think is right and what I think is true and give it the honor that it deserves and people will tune into that, that will resinate with people, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do with this platform that I have in Hollywood.” ( Nov 2008 )
[hat-tip: Stand]
When I was little I had a crush on Kirk Cameron. I loved watching “Growing Pains.” By the way, why don’t we have we have shows like that anymore? I still love watching the episodes.
Another thing I like about Kirk Cameron, he doesn’t pretend to know everything. He says what he believes, and doesn’t back down.
Thank you Kirk Cameron!
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Related Articles:
1 comment January 30, 2009
Protect the DOMA: clarifying discussion & Facebook Group
Protect the DOMA: Clarifying Discussion and Facebook Group
The other day, I posted about Obama’s plans for repealing the DOMA.
I made a Facebook Group to help clarify some of the issues surrounding the DOMA debate. Please join! and invite your friends.
Facebook Group: Protect the DOMA
I decided to create the group because one of my most awesome readers made this comment:
“Hey, I understand the frustration that would come from repealing the DOMA, but I also see his reasoning behind it. From the White House website it states,
“Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/civil_rights/)
I agree that the same legal rights and benefits should be afforded to those who are in civil unions, that was one of the main arguments against prop 8, and the fact is that not all rights and privileges are given to civil unions at the present time that marriage has. I feel by giving those rights and benefits to the unions we could settle a lot of the people’s arguments of civil unions and marriage not being equal in the eyes of state and national government. This would keep marriage traditional by creating an alternative to marriage that is equal in its governmental benefits. Is there a way they can modify the DOMA without repealing it completely? I’m not too legislation savvy so maybe someone could help me out here.”
What followed was an excellent discussion clearing up some of the misunderstandings about the effects of repealing the DOMA.
Op-Ed said:
“Why? The two relationships are not the same. To claim they are is to ignore the significant challenges to the couple and to society that arise due to the procreative potential of the husband-wife couple. It is toxic to reasoned debate to claim that one group should be treated based on the needs of a different group. It is this toxic claim that forms the basis of the anti-marriage rulings in Connecticut and California, states which attempted to equate civil unions with marriage. Equating civil unions with marriage has done nothing in any state to mollify the crowd seeking to neuter marriage, quite the opposite, in fact.
A more appropriate response to the needs of same-sex couples is to grant them recognition and legal incidents based on their own needs, not pretending they are something they are not. That is the debate this country should be having were the movement to neuter marriage not sucking all the oxygen out of the room. Many of the needs claimed by same-sex couples, for example the fact they may be raising children, are not exclusive to same-sex sexual couples. Were we having the appropriate debate nationally, we would be looking for a way to provide all these relationships with what they need rather than just the homosexually active ones.”
Repealing the DOMA is not the only way to achieve the benefits these unions may need.
What repealing the DOMA will do is open states to forced recognition of other states’ homosexual “marriages.”
Chairm said:
Op-ed has expressed the analysis and the conclusion with which I whole-heartedly concur.
If the proposed relationship type has a core meaning, then, let’s make that very clear. Its meaning, and its purpose, can be discussed in the open — what are its merits and demerits and its costs and benefits to society?
Too much emphasis is placed on the individuals rather than on the societal significance of the reform that SSMers keep pushing. They seek a cultural and social reform — i.e. to change society’s regard for the social institution of marriage — via a radical legal reform that is opposed by society.
The core of SSM argumentation is gay identity politics, not marriage, not love, not justice, not social peace. However, if we strip identity politics out of the argumentation, what is left, is a call for protections.
Marriage is a preferential status, not merely a protective status. If something is tolerated (i.e is accorded a tolerative status and is therefore not outlawed), then, that may be enough, given its lack of harm — or low degree of ill-effect — to society.
But in this day and age, with families outside of marriage made vulnerable in certain ways, there is need for protections. We already have provisoin for such protections but perhaps these need to be made more affordable or accessible in some places. But the need is not defined by gayness. Vulnerability outside of marriage is a social problem — precisely due to the battering that the social institution has been subjected to these past decades.
So the solution is two-fold. First, reinforce the core meaning of marriage and strengthen the social institution (largely through nongovernmental action and by preventing governmental intrusions). Second, shore-up, enhance, establish protections for nonmarital arrangements which experience vulnerabilities.
Instead of “marriage equality”, let’s talk about protection equality for the full range of nonmarital families — again based on need.
As for the insistent campaing to merge SSM (i.e. nonmarriage) with marriage, well, let’s insist that the avowed reformers do their homework and basically respond to the concerns Op-ed has succinctly stated.
In other words:
The pro-SSM side wants SSM to climb up onto the back of marriage. I say, make SSM stand on its own two feet.
On-Lawn wrote:
Way back when Obama was campaigning against Hillary, this issue came up. Hillary only wanted to repeal the part of DOMA and Obama one-upped her with a policy of full repeal.
I think we should press Obama to explain why its necessary to repeal if all he wants to do is enact Civil Unions.
I think, even more importantly, that we find out from everyone pressing Civil Unions in general why they are exclusively homosexual unions. There are many people who can use all the protections of a homosexually headed family, but they are simply not sexual in nature. In fact, “homosexual” is only a subset of same-sex households. We have sisters, mothers, daughters, sons and fathers all banding together for the sake of the children.
The current plowing for Civil Unions is, ironically, setting up the very kind of relationship type exclusively recognized relationship that they proclaim to be against in principle.
Another interesting post which relates to this topic:
800 lb. gorilla in the room & The Opposing View of the Purpose of Marriage
2 comments January 30, 2009
My Body–My Choice
Emissary writes an excellent exploration of pro-choice rational vs. pro-slavery rational. I couldn’t resist re-posting here.
My Body–My Choice
by Emissary, Support the Traditional Family
One of the main arguments for abortion concerns the woman’s body. The fetus grows within her, so it’s technically considered “part of her” during development. And since it’s “part of her body”, she gets to choose what happens to it; termination or birth.
I thought a lot about this argument today, trying to determine what status a fetus has under this “pro-choice” logic. It is obviously not considered to be a human child. It has no right to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. In fact, it’s not even considered to be “alive” by the pro-abortion populace. That would make it even less than a pet. So what would it be? According to the argument, it seems that a woman in essence owns the fetus. That would make the fetus her property.
I’m sorry to say that this isn’t the first time in our nation’s history where people were seen as property. But having made the connection, the arguments sound oddly familiar. Here are just a few.
- Slaves aren’t really “human”; neither are fetuses.
- It’s all about choice — the slave owner’s choice or the woman’s choice.
- It all boils down to economic factors; the slave owners needed slaves to maintain their way of life, and many women cite economic factors for their reason to get an abortion
- Slave owners argued it was actually better for the slaves; they were being converted to Christianity and having a better life than they would have in Africa. Some women also argue that their babies are better off being aborted than living in poverty or being unwanted.
- The real people affected weren’t/aren’t given a voice. Others have to speak/act for them.
Finally, I wanted to comment on an an article that really upset me. The premise is that pro-choice is the compromise position. The reason?
The ruling [Roe v. Wade] rather allowed those who believe a fetus is a human being to keep their fetuses and carry their offspring and those who believe a fetus is not a human being to choose whether they are socially, economically and emotionally ready to have a child.
Now apply the same to slavery.
The ruling [Dred Scott case for example] rather allowed those who believe a slave is a human being to not have slaves and those who believe a slave is not a human being to maintain their lifestyle.
I think if “pro-choice” women realized that they were acting as if a fetus was their property, they might think about their motives a little more. Because, really, “fetus” does not mean “not human”. All it describes is a stage of development — like zygote, infant, toddler, teenager, and adult. And at every stage, human life is worth valuing, protecting, and being responsible for.
[original article here]
11 comments January 29, 2009
Cloaking Extremism: Obama and Same-Sex “Marriage”
Cloaking Extremism: Obama and Same-Sex “Marriage”
by Matthew J. Franck, Radford University
In the 2008 campaign and now that he is in the White House, President Barack Obama has made no bones about his support for the most extreme pro-abortion policies ever espoused by a U.S. president. While certain individuals have attempted to make the case that Obama will actually be “pro-life” or will work to reduce the incidence of abortion, he has already begun to make appointments, fashion policies, and pledge himself to commitments for more such actions that give the lie to this cover story. Already his reversal of the Mexico City policy, a decision to renew foreign aid to organizations promoting and performing abortions overseas, promises to increase the worldwide death toll from abortion. And on the thirty-sixth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, two days after his inauguration, while tens of thousands of Americans participated in the March for Life a stone’s throw from the White House, President Obama issued a statement hailing Roe as “protect[ing] women’s health and reproductive freedom,” declaring that he believes “government should not intrude on our most private family matters,” and proclaiming that the unfettered abortion right protects women’s ability to “have no limits on their dreams.” Never mind that abortion endangers women’s health, physically and psychologically; that Obama’s policy preferences would eliminate parental notification when minor girls seek abortions, thus making government the enemy of the family; and that abortion makes women’s “dreams” and “freedom” dependent on the destruction of their children.
So let it not be said that President Obama’s radicalism on abortion is any mystery to citizens minimally capable of informing themselves. His open extremism on abortion makes it all the more interesting that on the issue of same-sex marriage, where his views are equally out of touch with the mainstream of American opinion, Obama has taken pains to cloak his extremism in denial, obfuscation, and contradiction. Perhaps his effort at concealment arises from a felt need to appear “moderate” on the subject of marriage. The abortion issue has roiled American politics for more than three decades, and the Democratic partisans of abortion have their lines down pat: “safe, legal, and rare”; “reducing unintended pregnancies”; “protecting the right to choose.” And during the recent presidential campaign, the abortion issue had no immediacy. There was no vacancy on the Supreme Court, no major abortion case on the Court’s docket, and no pending legislation in Congress (the “Freedom of Choice Act” was making no headway while George W. Bush was president). And Republican nominee John McCain scarcely made abortion an issue, and said relatively little about the judiciary. This was a lost opportunity for McCain and a free pass of sorts for Obama. The Democratic candidate’s commitment to the unlimited abortion license received little attention from the elite media, and cost him nothing. By the time McCain brought up, in their third debate, Obama’s opposition to protection of infants born alive during attempted abortions, the Democrat felt confident enough of media support to deflect and prevaricate on the subject.
On the marriage issue, on the other hand, Obama apparently felt forced to engineer a more “moderate” position by the appearance of Proposition 8 on the California ballot. (Similar measures on the November ballots in Arizona and Florida had much lower national profiles than the struggle in California.) In California, where 61% of the voters had chosen in a 2000 referendum to prohibit same-sex marriage by statute, the state supreme court had decided last May 15 by a 4-3 vote to overturn that prohibition. The court held that “equal dignity and respect” under the state constitution required the state to accord persons a “right to marry” and other person of the same sex. California law had made civil unions or “domestic partnerships” available to same-sex couples since 1999, and those unions – expanded over time to encompass virtually every attribute of marriage but the name – had been unaffected by the 2000 ballot initiative. But in its May 2008 ruling, the Court decided that such civil union arrangements were not a cause for celebrating the generosity of Californians toward same-sex couples, but grounds for condemning them for “bigotry” and “narrow-mindedness.” The withholding of the name “marriage” was itself the decisive injustice; as the court put it, “the failure to designate the official relationship of same-sex couples as marriage violates the California Constitution.”
Pro-marriage forces immediately swung into action to reverse this radical judicial activism, and succeeded in getting Proposition 8 on the November ballot, a measure to protect the historic definition of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife – again with no effect on the existing civil unions law – in the state constitution. The time was short and the struggle was uphill, with the state’s political, legal, and academic elites, as well as the state and national media, opposing Prop 8. But the activist over-reaching of the state supreme court, the sheer nastiness of the campaign against the proposed amendment, superior organizing, and the support of many churches worked to the proponents’ advantage, and the preservation of marriage in California won the November referendum with 52% of the ballots cast. (This, by the way, was despite a grotesquely biased manipulation of the ballot language by California attorney general Jerry Brown that no doubt cost pro-marriage forces five to ten points.)
This is the context in which Barack Obama shaped his approach to the issue of “gay” marriage in the presidential campaign. In 1996, responding to a candidate survey when he first ran for state senator in Illinois, Obama had said, “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.” But practically no one knew this fact until very late in 2008—after the election, and even then the national media showed no interest when it came to light. So Obama shifted his public stance on the issue. When California evangelical pastor Rick Warren hosted the August 16 “Saddleback Forum” and asked Obama and McCain (in separate appearances) the same questions, one of them was a request to “define marriage.” The following exchange ensued:
Obama: I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian—for me—for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix. But—
Warren: Would you support a constitutional amendment with that definition?
Obama: No, I would not.
Warren: Why not?
Obama: Because historically—because historically, we have not defined marriage in our constitution. It’s been a matter of state law. That has been our tradition. I mean, let’s break it down. The reason that people think there needs to be a constitutional amendment, some people believe, is because of the concern that—about same-sex marriage. I am not somebody who promotes same-sex marriage, but I do believe in civil unions. I do believe that we should not—that for gay partners to want to visit each other in the hospital for the state to say, you know what, that’s all right, I don’t think it any way inhibits my core beliefs about what marriage are [sic]. I think my faith is strong enough and my marriage is strong enough that I can afford those civil rights to others, even if I have a different perspective or different view.
Several things are notable about this response. First, Obama never says he is opposed to same-sex marriage; he only identifies himself as “not somebody who promotes same-sex marriage” (which is not where he stood in 1996, though Warren evidently did not know this). He couches his belief that “marriage is between a man and a woman” as religious in character, and therefore entirely personal. Wherever the question might arise whether to support or oppose the legal creation of same-sex marriages, one could certainly not count on Obama’s opposition to it.
Second, when explaining why he is opposed to a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman (and he and Warren appear to be talking about a federal amendment, not Proposition 8), Obama takes a “federalist” line superficially indistinguishable from John McCain’s position: it’s “a matter of state law.” But this elides the essential point in all the years of controversy since the issue of same-sex marriage surfaced in American politics in the 1990s: that in every jurisdiction in which same-sex marriage has so far been adopted, and in most of them in which “civil unions” have been created, it has not been legislators making the change in “state law,” but judges. State constitutional amendments, and the proposed federal marriage amendment (which Obama opposed in the Senate in 2006), have all been efforts to prevent activist judges from inventing a “right” to same-sex marriage and pretending it already exists in state constitutions (or perhaps one day the federal one). Obama surely knows this perfectly well, but studiously ignores it in his exchange with Warren.
Third, Obama declares his support for “civil unions,” identifies the legal recognition of homosexual relationships as a matter of “civil rights,” and parrots the line of the supporters of same-sex marriage that affording gay couples those “rights” works him and others no harm in their own (heterosexual) marriages. But as a former teacher of constitutional law, he surely also knows that civil unions were the wedge employed by the California supreme court to crack open the tradition of marriage and declare that “equality” required the final step be taken from civil unions to full-fledged marriage. Speaking of the “civil rights” of same-sex couples in egalitarian tones, as Obama does, is an invitation to courts to continue this strategy.
Notwithstanding Obama’s implicitly friendly attitude toward the agenda of same-sex marriage, the national media treated the candidate as being actively opposed to gay marriage, supportive of civil unions, and believing that a federal constitutional amendment was merely unnecessary because the states all look after themselves in defining marriage. When the Obama campaign had to deal directly with the issue of whether to support or oppose Proposition 8 in California, it chose opposition. Since the proposed amendment conformed exactly to the position Obama had sought to plant in the public mind at the Saddleback Forum – opposed to gay marriage but leaving civil unions in place – there could have been some difficulty to face in opposing Prop 8. After all, in coming out against Prop 8, which existed solely for the purpose of correcting a judicial misreading of the state constitution, Obama placed himself on the side of creating same-sex marriage rights by judicial fiat. But Obama’s media enablers smoothed the way. The mainstream story line was still that he was “against” same-sex marriage—hadn’t he said as much in the Saddleback Forum?—but merely opposed to the “extreme” step of giving a victory to one side in the debate by “rewriting” a state constitution. Conveniently overlooked was the fact that pro-marriage forces essentially had no choice but to resort to the most fundamental lawmaking strategy after the state’s high court invented a new constitutional right.
Obama’s have-it-both-ways position made it possible for both sides to cite his support in the Prop 8 campaign in California. Automated phone calls from groups advocating Prop 8 mentioned that Obama opposed same-sex marriage. Groups on the other side responded that the candidate had come out against the proposition. One of the happy consequences, from Obama’s point of view, was that neither outcome in California was likely to work him any harm. And so it proved: while 52% of the electorate voted for Prop 8, Obama won California handily, winning many of the same voters who chose to prohibit same-sex marriage.
Relatively little attention was paid during the campaign to another position Obama had taken: advocating the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) of 1996. DOMA, signed by President Clinton during an election year—the same year Barack Obama declared himself for same-sex marriage when running for state senate in Illinois—consists of two provisions. The first declares that for all purposes under federal law, “marriage” will refer only to a “legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.” The second, enacted pursuant to Congress’s power to make laws governing the “Full Faith and Credit” (Art. IV, § 1) each state is obliged to give the public acts and records of its sister states, relieves the states of any requirement to honor same-sex marriages contracted under the laws of other states.
Established principles of interstate jurisprudence have traditionally left some small leeway for states to decline to give effect to marriages made in other states that would violate their own “public policy.” But the advocates of same-sex marriage have made such headway with liberal activist state judges that it was reasonable even a dozen years ago to fear that state constitutional prohibitions might not suffice as a barrier to the movement’s success. Some state judges might ignore such prohibitions on grounds of Article IV “full faith and credit,” denying Congress’s power to permit non-recognition of the entire class of same-sex marriages. Or similarly inclined federal judges, even less institutionally bound by any provisions in state constitutions, might rule in favor of interstate recognition of such unions. Short of a federal constitutional amendment, only a law like DOMA could stop them. It might not be enough; one can well imagine a federal judicial ruling, on grounds of equal protection for instance, either that every state must recognize the same-sex marriages contracted where they have been legalized, or more broadly that there is a federal constitutional right to be married under the laws of each and every state in the Union.
Perhaps DOMA will prove insufficient. But at the present time it stands as an invaluable bulwark against the judicial imposition of same-sex marriage across the entire nation. And President Obama is on record in favor of its repeal. The new White House website declares:
President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions.
The barest fig leaf remains here of favoring civil unions but not quite endorsing same-sex marriage as such. But the Obama administration is devoted to “equal” status for same-sex couples in every significant respect, for universal application of all the “federal legal rights and benefits” currently available only to married couples, and for repeal of DOMA entirely, including its shield against judicial decisions requiring interstate recognition of same-sex marriages.
The Obama record comes to this: In 1996 state senate candidate Barack Obama was openly in favor of same-sex marriage. In 2006 he voted against a federal marriage amendment in the U.S. Senate. In 2008 presidential candidate Obama declared that he was not a proponent of same-sex marriage, but was careful not to say he opposed it either. He continued to oppose a federal amendment, came out against Proposition 8 in California, and called for the repeal of DOMA, a position he continues to hold as president. No one who understands the legal issues involved with DOMA and the campaigns for state and federal marriage amendments, and who understands the same-sex marriage agenda’s utter dependence so far on activist judges rather than the electoral and legislative processes, can fail to regard the Obama administration as pro-same-sex marriage. If DOMA falls, and federal recognition is given to same-sex unions as equivalent in all but name to marriages, it will only be a matter of months, or a few short years at most, before same-sex marriage is imposed nationwide, in every state and jurisdiction of the Union.
Active participants in the marriage debate understand President Obama perfectly. We who defend the historic tradition of marriage know he is our adversary. “Gay rights” advocates who keep pressing judges to give them a victory know he is completely their friend. Yet somehow the elite media continue to cultivate an image of the president as a “moderate” who occupies the “middle ground” of favoring only “civil unions” and standing fast against “gay marriage.” This presidential image helps one side in the debate – the radical side that would destroy an institution whose history is coterminous with that of human civilization.
Astute political journalists must know better than to believe the image they cultivate. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that they do know better, that they know they are helping the same-sex marriage advocates win the day while also helping President Obama keep those advocates at arm’s length and maintain his popularity with the wider public. But it is essential, for the sake of a candid debate on this vital issue, that the new president be seen not as standing between the contending partisans and above the fray, but as fully invested in the ultimate victory of the radical destroyers of the institution of marriage.
Matthew J. Franck is the Chairman of Political Science at Radford University where he teaches American government, constitutional law, American political thought, and political philosophy. An occasional contributor of articles to National Review Online, Dr. Franck blogs for the “Bench Memos” page and is the author of Against the Imperial Judiciary: The Supreme Court vs. the Sovereignty of the People, published in 1996. A graduate of Virginia Wesleyan College, he received his Ph.D. from Northern Illinois University
original article here
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Related Articles:
Opine Editorials: The Straight Dope
2 comments January 29, 2009
Prop. 8 UPDATE: Militant Homosexual Rights Movement Keeps The Pressure On
Found the following article on Kingfisher. I liked the picture too, because it expresses how I felt as an activist for traditional marriage during prop 8.
It was such a pressure cooker. Emotions were so high.
I felt like people were screaming at me, demanding that I agree with them. They wanted me to say: marriage can be a man and a man or a woman and a woman.
I couldn’t say it. It’s not true.
They called me a bigot.
I voted: Marriage = One Man and One Woman.
They screamed: Bigot. They yelled: Intolerant.
They whispered: We know where you live.
But their arguments have no weight. The pressure cooker has cooled, and the Truth glows out even brighter. There is good reason for society to keep marriage exclusive. Maybe someday they’ll succeed, but no matter what they say, scream, yell, whisper, cry, tantrum, beg…
I’ll calmly respond: Marriage is between a man and a woman.
I’m not about to stop saying True things out loud.
Prop. 8 UPDATE: Militant Homosexual Rights Movement Keeps The Pressure On
by United Families International
Gay-Rights Boot Camp (LA Times):
Determined to avoid the mistakes of their last, losing campaign for gay marriage, gay rights activists are launching the first of what they hope will be many “marriage equality training camps” in Los Angeles this weekend.
The idea is to train activists in “the practical, hands-on skills to organize in their communities to restore marriage equality for same-sex couples to California.”
“The Camp Courage training, inspired by ‘Camp Obama,’ is based on grassroots organizing models that have developed leaders and nurtured progressive social movements for many years, including the fundamentals of community organizing; volunteer recruitment and management; voter persuasion and more,” according to a statement.
Prop 8 Opponents Distribute Maps of Traditional Marriage Supporters’ Homes:
Radical opponents of Proposition 8, the proposition that democratically amended the California constitution to define marriage as the union of one man with one woman, have used a variety of tools to alter, and then reject, the popular will of Californians. They tried running vile ads that unfairly targeted groups such as Mormons. When that failed, they resorted to violence and brutal assaults.
And now, they’ve crossed the line once again. They have posted maps online that very clearly show the addresses of those who donated money to the Prop 8 cause (supporting traditional marriage), including even small donors who gave $50 or less.
UFI blog EXCLUSIVE NEWS:
The UFI blog has learned that up to 1/3 of the Christmas packages that were sent to Californian missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) were not delivered. The LDS church has been widely criticized by the Militant Homosexual Rights Movement for their opposition to Same-Sex Marriage. It is suspected that the Christmas presents were stolen in retaliation to the passing of Proposition 8.
3 comments January 25, 2009
West Coast Walk for Life 2009: 30,000 Celebrate Womens’ Responsibility to Little Bodies
SAN FRANCISCO, January 24, 2009: More than 30,000 pro-life supporters filled the boulevard along San Francisco’s waterfront for more than a mile in the 5th Annual Walk for Life West Coast today, walking behind a 10-foot-long “Abortion Hurts Women” banner.
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I wish I could have been at the march in San Francisco. My goal is to attend the march next year at the U.S. supreme court. So maybe you’ll see me there. I’ll have a sign (love the power of the sign). And probably an apple.
As I was searching for pictures for this post, I found a picture of a counterprotest sign:
KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF MY BODY.
I thought of the little bodies inside of other bodies. Womens’ bodies. And I thought to myself, Yes, keep your laws of those bodies. Those little mini-bodies. So small. They could fit on the tip of your finger.
I wonder why so many people are violently against the idea of giving nine months of one year, to let their body be a place to keep a child. I wonder why so many woman see those bodies inside of their bodies as violent intruders.
I wonder why so many women don’t see adoption as miracle. And those little bodies as a miracle they could give someone else.
Tens of Thousands Crowd San Francisco Waterfront, Rally Against Abortion
7 comments January 25, 2009
Tom Hanks’ Apologizes
Just wanted to throw out an update from previous posts.
Thank you Tom (on behalf all the readers here and people throughout the nation who think it is very american to vote [no matter your religion]).
4 comments January 24, 2009
Day 2: Gorgeous Moms and Dreams of Motherhood
Day 2: Dreams of Motherhood vs. Dreams of Abortion–
Gorgeous Moms
NieNie is a mom. She is a wife. She didn’t finish school because she decided to have baby. A little girl. Followed by three more babies. She doesn’t work because her job is to raise her own children (oh wait, she did spend a few hours a week teaching a yoga class).
She and her husband were in a plane crash earlier this year. NieNie was burned all over (80%…which is everything but one of your arms). She was in a coma for several months.
She’s awake now.
Do you know what she loves?
Do you know the only things she cares about?
Her husband, her children. Just look around her site. They are her life and her love, and it’s gorgeous.
Really, thank you all. Tears gush every time I think about the support from you all.
I LOVE YOU ALL…here’s to a new Nie!…but not so different. At the end of the day Mr. Nielson in his blue juzozs takes me by the hand for bed…like I said, not so different than before the crash(which we endearingly call “BC” and after the crash as “AC”)
from NewNie
I’ve put her button on my blog, because I support gorgeous moms and rad wives. She is one among many many many.
4 comments January 23, 2009
