Today's Cultural Warfare Update

Focus on the Family launches anti-marriage-rights blitz; there are a zillion of these things. They've sent out the special sooper-dooper action items, they're cranking out the anti-gay articles; it's hardcore and will presumably stay that way through the vote next week. James Dobson is also dedicating half this week's regular half-hour broadcasts to drumming up support for the amendment.

Here's the "Targeted Senator" list from one of their items:

Arkansas — Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, Democrats
Colorado — Ken Salazar, Democrat
Florida — Bill Nelson, Democrat
Indiana — Evan Bayh, Democrat
Louisiana — Mary Landrieu, Democrat
Maine — Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, Republicans
Montana — Max Baucus, Democrat
Nebraska — Chuck Hagel, Republican
New Hampshire — John Sununu, Republican
North Dakota — Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, Democrats
Pennsylvania — Arlen Specter, Republican
Rhode Island — Lincoln Chafee, Republican
South Dakota — Tim Johnson, Democrat

These are the unannounced/undecided Senators they're trying to get on their side in the US.

Meanwhile, in Canada, the Canada Family Action Coalition and Focus on the Family Canada are ramping up the C-38 revote fight; they're working for a late-summer vote, which they think gives them their best shot of banning same-sex marriage in Canada again.

Locally, the R-65 signature gathering effort is peaking; they need to get enough signatures in by June 6th. I've no idea whether they'll make it. They've had surprisingly few signature-gatherers on the ground; the effort has been almost entirely through mailings and churches, with pastors delivering impassioned sermons against LBGT people, followed by referendum signings in the lobby afterwards. Is their network large enough to get anti-gay initiatives on the ballot without having to step outside? We'll find out in another week.

And now, today's news;

I may have to start reading superhero comics again: Batwoman is a dyke;

Don't look for this to get any fundamentalist coverage, but it appears that the "rhythm method" may, in fact, kill more fertilised embryos than any other form of non-barrier birth control, helping demonstrate yet again that Apparently, Jesus Does Not Give A Rat's Ass About These Cells;

Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM/"news" story for the anti-marriage-rights Marriage Protection Amendment; vote is next week;

Focus on the Family contentless newsbrief about the New York marriage case, still underway;

Focus on the Family fax-based ACTION ITEM - they're saying faxes are "harder to ignore" than email;

FotF apologises for fax system issues; they say they were "overwhelmed" by the response and that it's fixed now;

FotF ACTION ITEM on the FMA and slightly-less-content-free newsbrief about the New York marriage rights case; basically, Focus on the Family loads up on scare-stories about major issues whenever they're up for a vote and includes action items;

Speaking of which, here's a rerun of the Catholic Charities case, with an urge to support an anti-marriage amendment at the end, and also saying that marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples is inherently oppressive to Christians and that "religious liberty is at stake";

And another one; a fire department board member - a volunteer - who supported the anti-marriage-rights petition in Massachusetts gets questioned on it by a gay member of the local city council; the council as a whole decides not to include him on the new board; Focus on the Family makes it T3H GAY MAFIA;

Maggie Gallagher's latest dark warnings that the Senate had better not leave marriage up to the courts - they should kick it to the curb now, and shut off the whole "new conflicts for neighbours" that it brings up;

Family Research Council's lead item - their front page blurb - is an anti-marriage petition effort, to be delivered to Congress before the amendment vote;

FRC president Tony Perkins's email newsletter includes an ACTION ITEM to support the anti-marriage amendment;

FRC has set up a "Media War Chest" fund to pay for national anti-marriage commercials; they're asking for donations;

Faith and Freedom Network says the fact that marriage-rights supporters also oppose Referendum 65 (to remove GBLT civil rights protections in Washington State) is proof that their referendum really is necessary to preserve marriage; personally, I don't see how you'd expect people who support marriage rights not to oppose a referendum against civil rights law;

American Family Association/Agape Press reports on Catholic League supporting a school for firing a gay teacher on the basis that he was looking for dates with... other gay men;

Former judge Roy "Ten Commandments" Moore is running for Alabama governor as a Republican; current polling shows him with a lead over the Republican incumbent;

LifeNews ACTION ITEM reports that the Oglala Sioux tribe has voted "to ban all abortions on their reservation" and has suspended President Fire Thunder for 20 days pending investigation - however, work on the clinic is proceeding; the action item is to "voice your thoughts on the abortion business to [the] Oglala Sioux Tribe";

Family Research Council applauds Supreme Court for upholding the right of the Boy Scouts to engage in religious discrimination against atheists and agnostics while still getting government money;

Concerned Women for America run article supporting Catholic Charities of Boston's refusal to place adoptive children with legally-married same-sex couples, warns of general doom, talks up Maggie Gallagher;

CWA endorses Marie Waldron for California assembly;

CWA on George Will column against the insipid "Values Voters" label for theoconservatives: our values are real, everybody else's are stupid, broken, or evil;

Focus on the Family Canada, REAL Women of Canada, other anti-marriage groups working on dumping C-38, which legalised marriage in Canada; they want a vote late this summer, which is when they see their best chance at getting the law overturned;

Vote Marriage Canada is still the umbrella group, now working to overturn C-38 and ban lesbian and gay civil marriage;

Focus on the Family Canada ACTION ITEM to lobby MPs to vote to ban lesbian and gay marriage in Canada, and reverse C-38; they're starting now;

Focus on the Family Canada's "Marriage and Homosexuality: A Christian Response" lists a lot of the usual material, tho' much more mildly stated than the American version;

FotF Canada: women are getting abortions in Canada for gender selection;

Focus on the Family USA; "Another Victory for the Boy Scouts," allowing the group to continue discriminating against agnostic and atheist youth while still getting government support;

Focus on the Family USA again, talking about how "both sides" are trying to get abortion initiatives on the South Dakota ballot, but not noting that the pro-rights side already has their signatures in - and the anti-abortion side hasn't; meanwhile, they quote an antiabortion activist against the idea of a public vote; "When the legislators were debating the House Bill 1215, they were overwhelmed with calls and e-mail and letters from the constituents. The people of South Dakota actually already voted";

Focus on the Family USA mocks new Batwoman comic;

Conservative MP Garth Turner (Toronto) calls out Canadian theoconservatives, speaks a bit too bluntly for the Institute for Canadian Values; they're demanding he be disciplined, and imply that he's a racist;

Canada Family Action Coalition has about a zillion items out today; the first is an update on the efforts to rally MPs against marriage rights, and to overturn marriage law in Canada;

CFAC letter on the effort to allow a broad-range of anti-gay discrimination by teachers, other government employees; it failed in Alberta, but they're bringing it back up again next year; this is the bill that I would have supported had it only protected religious groups, but it went well beyond that - which was the point;

CFAC: gay rights and abortion rights lead directly to padeophilia;

CFAC: Canada needs the "bold, honest, and civil kind of leadership" exhibited by California governor Schwarzenegger;

Faith and Freedom Network sent out a Referendum 65 (anti-civil-rights) urgent update on the 28th, calling on pastors to redouble their efforts to get signatures from their congregations and get them in by June 6th.

( Articles and excerpts below )

this incompetence cannot go on, and yet, it will

Sack
Secretary
of
Defense
Donald
Rumsfeld
NOW

don't know what it'll take

Impeach
President
Bush
NOW

And get rid of Vice President Cheney while you're at it. I mean, for the love of god, what does it take? What do you need? Honestly, how much more abusive do you have to get than this:

Douglas Kmiec , who as head of the Office of Legal Counsel helped develop the Reagan administration's strategy of issuing signing statements more frequently, said he disapproves of the ``provocative" and sometimes ``disingenuous" manner in which the Bush administration is using them.

Kmiec said the Reagan team's goal was to leave a record of the president's understanding of new laws only in cases where an important statute was ambiguous. Kmiec rejected the idea of using signing statements to contradict the clear intent of Congress, as Bush has done. Presidents should either tolerate provisions of bills they don't like, or they should veto the bill, he said.

``Following a model of restraint, [the Reagan-era Office of Legal Counsel] took it seriously that we were to construe statutes to avoid constitutional problems, not to invent them," said Kmiec, who is now a Pepperdine University law professor.

By contrast, Bush has used the signing statements to waive his obligation to follow the new laws. In addition to the torture ban and oversight provisions of the Patriot Act, the laws Bush has claimed the authority to disobey include restrictions against US troops engaging in combat in Colombia, whistle-blower protections for government employees, and safeguards against political interference in taxpayer-funded research."

[...]

One prominent conservative, Richard Epstein of the University of Chicago Law School, said it is ``scandalous" for the administration to argue that the commander in chief can bypass statutes in national security matters.

``It's just wrong," Epstein said. ``It is just crazy as a matter of constitutional interpretation. There are some pretty clear issues, and this is one of them."

Where do you have to go? Where? What's it take? Tell me. Please.