Bonus Cultural Warfare Update
Apr. 18th, 2005 11:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdAnd here I thought it was a slow Monday.
Jeffrey Hart - a Reagan and Nixon speechwriter - notes that the Bush presidency is not conservative, but is both populist and radical;
Human Events writes that there is no option short of the 'Nuclear option' for the Judiciary;
Phyllis Schlafly writes similarly in Human Events, in part two of the anti-judiciary trifecta, running off a list of areas where courts "should" have no jurisdiction, such as DOMA;
Pat Buchanan pens the third article in the set, demanding that Congress try to restrict the judiciary's jurisdiction, such as with regard to "gay marriage";
Monday's Focus on the Family Family News in Focus finally went online;
Bill Frist is joining Dobson, Coulson, et al, in their churchcast; will accuse Democrats of being anti-Christian;
Fundamentalists gearing up to fight new HPV vaccine - HPV causes cervical cancer, but because it's sexually transmitted, fundamentalists see a vaccine opposing the idea of abstinence-only - yes, they'd rather have _dead women_ than _sexually active women_, usually they reserve that kind of hatred for gay men.
----- 1 -----
Forum: The Evangelical effect
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sunday, April 17, 2005
The Bush presidency is not conservative. It is populist and radical, says Jeffrey Hart, its policies deformed by the influence of Christian extremism
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05107/489080.stm
During the 2000 Republican primaries, in the third televised debate, the candidates were asked by a panelist to name the political philosopher who had most influenced them. Most replied in a conventional way, Tocqueville always a safe bet. No one would say Machiavelli, of course. But George W. Bush answered "Jesus Christ."
Silence. That answer wavered in the air like a knuckle ball, the panelists were afraid to whiff.
Too bad, because Jesus teaches little or nothing about politics. His focus is inward, to the purity of the soul.
No doubt Bush meant that to be a good man is to be a good president. But that would have been a subject for debate. Jimmy Carter was widely thought a good man, as was the first George Bush. Neither ranks high as a president. Franklin Roosevelt was thought deceptive and disingenuous, but was elected four times and usually ranks in the top 10 among presidents.
One thing everyone can agree upon about Bush is that as president he has brought religion into politics in a way unknown to recent memory. And he has owed both of his electoral victories to his Evangelical Christian base. This indispensable base has profoundly affected his policies, foreign and domestic.
The Bush presidency often is called conservative. That is a mistake. It is populist and radical, and its principal energies have roots in American history, and these roots are not conservative.
[More at URL]
----- 2 -----
There Is No Option Other than the 'Nuclear Option'
by David Limbaugh
Posted Apr 11, 2005
Human Events
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7123
I think Republican Party honchos may be underestimating the grassroots passion over the judiciary. The outrage against activist courts -- and by no means are all of them activist -- is real, growing and far from a fringe phenomenon.
Conservative activists have been patiently waiting for some action, just some evidence that the Republican Party is going to pay more than hollow Beltway lip service to this issue. Year after year, though politicians are elected promising change, little evidence emerges that the promises are being fulfilled.
More and more conservatives are advocating civil disobedience to combat what they consider to be extra-constitutional decisions by state and federal courts, like the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's brazen validation of homosexual marriage.
It is inconceivable that the Massachusetts judges were unaware that they were acting beyond the scope of their constitutional authority by judicially rewriting the state constitution. But that doesn't bother secular liberals, on or off the bench, because the "ends" to them are sufficiently important to justify practically any means.
[More at URL]
----- 3 -----
Next We Should Starve the Courts
by Phyllis Schlafly
Human Events
Posted Apr 12, 2005
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7130
The courts so purposely humiliated Congress in the Terri Schiavo case that some U.S. representatives are finally beginning to talk back. Non-elected judges have flagrantly abused the legislative and executive functions of government for so many years that we wonder why a reaction has taken this long.
With the whole world watching, a mere probate judge in Florida thumbed his nose at a congressional subpoena and refused to comply. Then the federal judiciary closed ranks behind him, asserting its independence from and supremacy over not only an act of Congress, but even over the life of an innocent and defenseless woman.
Eleventh Circuit Judge Stanley Birch stuck in the knife, asserting that Congress unconstitutionally "invades the province of the judiciary and violates the separation of powers principle." We marvel at the chutzpah of a federal judge charging Congress with violating the separation of powers after we've endured years of judges legislating from the bench, rewriting our Constitution, distorting our history, assaulting our morals, saving vicious criminals from their just punishment, raising taxes and inflicting us with foreign laws.
When a man's honor is impugned, he can pretend he didn't hear the insult or he can come out fighting. Congress can't pretend it didn't hear Judge Birch's insult, so Congress must take action to curb the imperial action of supremacist judges.
Rep. Patrick McHenry (R.-N.C.) responded that we saw "a state judge completely ignore a congressional committee's subpoena and insult its intent" and "a federal court not only reject, but deride the very law that Congress passed." House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R.-Wis.) who has likewise had enough, said, "Terri's will to live should serve as an inspiration and impetus for action."
Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R.-Texas) spoke for Americans who believe in the Constitution when he said, "The Congress of the United States for many, many years has shirked its responsibility to hold the judiciary accountable. No longer."
[More at URL]
----- 4 -----
Fighting and Winning the 'Judges War'
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Human Events
Posted Apr 12, 2005
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7134
Is America a democratic republic, where the laws are made by elected legislators? Are we a federal republic, where social questions are decided by the states?
Or has America become a judicial dictatorship, where Supreme Court justices render final judgment on all social and moral issues -- from the death penalty to abortion to homosexual rights to religious displays to the Pledge of Allegiance. This question of power lies behind the "Judges War" that has broken out in this capital.
Tom Delay (R.-Texas) ignited the fuse. When Terri Schiavo died after a Florida judge starved her for two weeks, the enraged House majority leader roared, "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." Declared Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, judicial seizures of power could lead people to "engage in violence." At a conference on "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny," Phyllis Schlafly, first lady of American conservatism, declared, "Tom Delay and Sen. Cornyn need to be backed up."
These are "scary times for the judiciary," warned The Washington Post. Things could "turn ugly."
----- 5 -----
Family News in Focus
Focus on the Family
Monday, April 18, 2005
* Some hospitals ignore end-of-life directives
1: "In 40 states, end-of-life directives might be ignored, even if clear, legal, and undisputed by family members." The concept of futility has "reached a place where there is a qualitative acessment." "There is no guarantee your wishes will be honoured" that you want extraordinary measures - if an ethics board decides it's futile or that it's ethnically inappropriate.
* US opposes UN religious defamation resolution
3: Religious defamation rule voted by UN; US votes against it; American Values Coalition says, "There's no doubt there was an agenda here... what we have here is an attempt b y a number of Islamic countries to follow their own agenda." "Islam got a pass." "They have been so inclusive... even by saying that radical fundamentalist Islam is being picked upon... radical Islam is right in the centre of most of these problems."
* Current state of religious freedom in old USSR
4: US Commission on International Religious Freedom worried about state of religious freedom in Russia. 1997 law on religious freedom sets of various levels of rights for various religions. "But it's better than it was, even just after the collapse of the Communist government." US rep from Church of Christ: "The government is much more open, and freer." "The people are really surprised by the religious freedom they have." Other groups less impressed.
* Churches to air simulcast aimed at stopping judicial filibusters
2: "Hundreds of churches are signing up to air" the churchcast mentioned earlier - "Justice Sunday" is about changing filibuster rules. "If this fails, I am very concerned tha tmost of his pro-family pro-life agenda will be thwarted by this radical minourity in the United States Senate." "It's a struggle against black-robed tyranny." "These judges... affect public policy and law their entire lifetime!" Demands for more activism in churches. frc.org (Family Research Council) has church-signups.
* San Francisco County Assessor known for marrying homosexual couples steps down
6: San Francisco Teng says she resigned because of a recent divorce. California Family Policy group says the timing is suspicious.
* Lesbian teens accused of killing one of the girls' grandparents
7: "Two Georgia teens behind bars..." FotF claim is they killed one of theirs' grandmother "so they could continue their lesbian relationship." Presumably this is getting coverage so they can scare people about DANGEROUS HOMOSEXUAL DYKES or something. One got two consecutive life terms; the other got three(!) to be served simultaneously.
** NOT LISTED IN SUMMARY:
5: Congressional legislation: Core Blood Stem Cell Act of 2005. National cord blood banks, initial funding of $15M. Harvesting blood from placenta... stem cells from cord blood are somehow different than stem cells.
----- 6 -----
Frist Set to Use Religious Stage on Judicial Issue
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
The New York Times
Published: April 15, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/15/politics/15judges.html?
WASHINGTON, April 14 - As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing judicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as "against people of faith" for blocking President Bush's nominees.
Fliers for the telecast, organized by the Family Research Council and scheduled to originate at a Kentucky megachurch the evening of April 24, call the day "Justice Sunday" and depict a young man holding a Bible in one hand and a gavel in the other. The flier does not name participants, but under the heading "the filibuster against people of faith," it reads: "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith."
Organizers say they hope to reach more than a million people by distributing the telecast to churches around the country, over the Internet and over Christian television and radio networks and stations.
[More at URL]
----- 7 -----
Will cancer vaccine get to all women?
16 April 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Debora MacKenzie
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/mg18624954.500
DEATHS from cervical cancer could jump fourfold to a million a year by 2050, mainly in developing countries. This could be prevented by soon-to-be-approved vaccines against the virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer - but there are signs that opposition to the vaccines might lead to many preventable deaths.
The trouble is that the human papilloma virus (HPV) is sexually transmitted. So to prevent infection, girls will have to be vaccinated before they become sexually active, which could be a problem in many countries.
In the US, for instance, religious groups are gearing up to oppose vaccination, despite a survey showing 80 per cent of parents favour vaccinating their daughters. "Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV," says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group that has made much of the fact that, because it can spread by skin contact, condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are against other viruses such as HIV.
"Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex," Maher claims, though it is arguable how many young women have even heard of the virus.
[More at URL]
Jeffrey Hart - a Reagan and Nixon speechwriter - notes that the Bush presidency is not conservative, but is both populist and radical;
Human Events writes that there is no option short of the 'Nuclear option' for the Judiciary;
Phyllis Schlafly writes similarly in Human Events, in part two of the anti-judiciary trifecta, running off a list of areas where courts "should" have no jurisdiction, such as DOMA;
Pat Buchanan pens the third article in the set, demanding that Congress try to restrict the judiciary's jurisdiction, such as with regard to "gay marriage";
Monday's Focus on the Family Family News in Focus finally went online;
Bill Frist is joining Dobson, Coulson, et al, in their churchcast; will accuse Democrats of being anti-Christian;
Fundamentalists gearing up to fight new HPV vaccine - HPV causes cervical cancer, but because it's sexually transmitted, fundamentalists see a vaccine opposing the idea of abstinence-only - yes, they'd rather have _dead women_ than _sexually active women_, usually they reserve that kind of hatred for gay men.
----- 1 -----
Forum: The Evangelical effect
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sunday, April 17, 2005
The Bush presidency is not conservative. It is populist and radical, says Jeffrey Hart, its policies deformed by the influence of Christian extremism
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05107/489080.stm
During the 2000 Republican primaries, in the third televised debate, the candidates were asked by a panelist to name the political philosopher who had most influenced them. Most replied in a conventional way, Tocqueville always a safe bet. No one would say Machiavelli, of course. But George W. Bush answered "Jesus Christ."
Silence. That answer wavered in the air like a knuckle ball, the panelists were afraid to whiff.
Too bad, because Jesus teaches little or nothing about politics. His focus is inward, to the purity of the soul.
No doubt Bush meant that to be a good man is to be a good president. But that would have been a subject for debate. Jimmy Carter was widely thought a good man, as was the first George Bush. Neither ranks high as a president. Franklin Roosevelt was thought deceptive and disingenuous, but was elected four times and usually ranks in the top 10 among presidents.
One thing everyone can agree upon about Bush is that as president he has brought religion into politics in a way unknown to recent memory. And he has owed both of his electoral victories to his Evangelical Christian base. This indispensable base has profoundly affected his policies, foreign and domestic.
The Bush presidency often is called conservative. That is a mistake. It is populist and radical, and its principal energies have roots in American history, and these roots are not conservative.
[More at URL]
----- 2 -----
There Is No Option Other than the 'Nuclear Option'
by David Limbaugh
Posted Apr 11, 2005
Human Events
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7123
I think Republican Party honchos may be underestimating the grassroots passion over the judiciary. The outrage against activist courts -- and by no means are all of them activist -- is real, growing and far from a fringe phenomenon.
Conservative activists have been patiently waiting for some action, just some evidence that the Republican Party is going to pay more than hollow Beltway lip service to this issue. Year after year, though politicians are elected promising change, little evidence emerges that the promises are being fulfilled.
More and more conservatives are advocating civil disobedience to combat what they consider to be extra-constitutional decisions by state and federal courts, like the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's brazen validation of homosexual marriage.
It is inconceivable that the Massachusetts judges were unaware that they were acting beyond the scope of their constitutional authority by judicially rewriting the state constitution. But that doesn't bother secular liberals, on or off the bench, because the "ends" to them are sufficiently important to justify practically any means.
[More at URL]
----- 3 -----
Next We Should Starve the Courts
by Phyllis Schlafly
Human Events
Posted Apr 12, 2005
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7130
The courts so purposely humiliated Congress in the Terri Schiavo case that some U.S. representatives are finally beginning to talk back. Non-elected judges have flagrantly abused the legislative and executive functions of government for so many years that we wonder why a reaction has taken this long.
With the whole world watching, a mere probate judge in Florida thumbed his nose at a congressional subpoena and refused to comply. Then the federal judiciary closed ranks behind him, asserting its independence from and supremacy over not only an act of Congress, but even over the life of an innocent and defenseless woman.
Eleventh Circuit Judge Stanley Birch stuck in the knife, asserting that Congress unconstitutionally "invades the province of the judiciary and violates the separation of powers principle." We marvel at the chutzpah of a federal judge charging Congress with violating the separation of powers after we've endured years of judges legislating from the bench, rewriting our Constitution, distorting our history, assaulting our morals, saving vicious criminals from their just punishment, raising taxes and inflicting us with foreign laws.
When a man's honor is impugned, he can pretend he didn't hear the insult or he can come out fighting. Congress can't pretend it didn't hear Judge Birch's insult, so Congress must take action to curb the imperial action of supremacist judges.
Rep. Patrick McHenry (R.-N.C.) responded that we saw "a state judge completely ignore a congressional committee's subpoena and insult its intent" and "a federal court not only reject, but deride the very law that Congress passed." House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R.-Wis.) who has likewise had enough, said, "Terri's will to live should serve as an inspiration and impetus for action."
Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R.-Texas) spoke for Americans who believe in the Constitution when he said, "The Congress of the United States for many, many years has shirked its responsibility to hold the judiciary accountable. No longer."
[More at URL]
----- 4 -----
Fighting and Winning the 'Judges War'
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Human Events
Posted Apr 12, 2005
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7134
Is America a democratic republic, where the laws are made by elected legislators? Are we a federal republic, where social questions are decided by the states?
Or has America become a judicial dictatorship, where Supreme Court justices render final judgment on all social and moral issues -- from the death penalty to abortion to homosexual rights to religious displays to the Pledge of Allegiance. This question of power lies behind the "Judges War" that has broken out in this capital.
Tom Delay (R.-Texas) ignited the fuse. When Terri Schiavo died after a Florida judge starved her for two weeks, the enraged House majority leader roared, "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." Declared Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, judicial seizures of power could lead people to "engage in violence." At a conference on "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny," Phyllis Schlafly, first lady of American conservatism, declared, "Tom Delay and Sen. Cornyn need to be backed up."
These are "scary times for the judiciary," warned The Washington Post. Things could "turn ugly."
----- 5 -----
Family News in Focus
Focus on the Family
Monday, April 18, 2005
* Some hospitals ignore end-of-life directives
1: "In 40 states, end-of-life directives might be ignored, even if clear, legal, and undisputed by family members." The concept of futility has "reached a place where there is a qualitative acessment." "There is no guarantee your wishes will be honoured" that you want extraordinary measures - if an ethics board decides it's futile or that it's ethnically inappropriate.
* US opposes UN religious defamation resolution
3: Religious defamation rule voted by UN; US votes against it; American Values Coalition says, "There's no doubt there was an agenda here... what we have here is an attempt b y a number of Islamic countries to follow their own agenda." "Islam got a pass." "They have been so inclusive... even by saying that radical fundamentalist Islam is being picked upon... radical Islam is right in the centre of most of these problems."
* Current state of religious freedom in old USSR
4: US Commission on International Religious Freedom worried about state of religious freedom in Russia. 1997 law on religious freedom sets of various levels of rights for various religions. "But it's better than it was, even just after the collapse of the Communist government." US rep from Church of Christ: "The government is much more open, and freer." "The people are really surprised by the religious freedom they have." Other groups less impressed.
* Churches to air simulcast aimed at stopping judicial filibusters
2: "Hundreds of churches are signing up to air" the churchcast mentioned earlier - "Justice Sunday" is about changing filibuster rules. "If this fails, I am very concerned tha tmost of his pro-family pro-life agenda will be thwarted by this radical minourity in the United States Senate." "It's a struggle against black-robed tyranny." "These judges... affect public policy and law their entire lifetime!" Demands for more activism in churches. frc.org (Family Research Council) has church-signups.
* San Francisco County Assessor known for marrying homosexual couples steps down
6: San Francisco Teng says she resigned because of a recent divorce. California Family Policy group says the timing is suspicious.
* Lesbian teens accused of killing one of the girls' grandparents
7: "Two Georgia teens behind bars..." FotF claim is they killed one of theirs' grandmother "so they could continue their lesbian relationship." Presumably this is getting coverage so they can scare people about DANGEROUS HOMOSEXUAL DYKES or something. One got two consecutive life terms; the other got three(!) to be served simultaneously.
** NOT LISTED IN SUMMARY:
5: Congressional legislation: Core Blood Stem Cell Act of 2005. National cord blood banks, initial funding of $15M. Harvesting blood from placenta... stem cells from cord blood are somehow different than stem cells.
----- 6 -----
Frist Set to Use Religious Stage on Judicial Issue
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
The New York Times
Published: April 15, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/15/politics/15judges.html?
WASHINGTON, April 14 - As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing judicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as "against people of faith" for blocking President Bush's nominees.
Fliers for the telecast, organized by the Family Research Council and scheduled to originate at a Kentucky megachurch the evening of April 24, call the day "Justice Sunday" and depict a young man holding a Bible in one hand and a gavel in the other. The flier does not name participants, but under the heading "the filibuster against people of faith," it reads: "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith."
Organizers say they hope to reach more than a million people by distributing the telecast to churches around the country, over the Internet and over Christian television and radio networks and stations.
[More at URL]
----- 7 -----
Will cancer vaccine get to all women?
16 April 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Debora MacKenzie
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/mg18624954.500
DEATHS from cervical cancer could jump fourfold to a million a year by 2050, mainly in developing countries. This could be prevented by soon-to-be-approved vaccines against the virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer - but there are signs that opposition to the vaccines might lead to many preventable deaths.
The trouble is that the human papilloma virus (HPV) is sexually transmitted. So to prevent infection, girls will have to be vaccinated before they become sexually active, which could be a problem in many countries.
In the US, for instance, religious groups are gearing up to oppose vaccination, despite a survey showing 80 per cent of parents favour vaccinating their daughters. "Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV," says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group that has made much of the fact that, because it can spread by skin contact, condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are against other viruses such as HIV.
"Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex," Maher claims, though it is arguable how many young women have even heard of the virus.
[More at URL]
