Today's Cultural Warfare Update
May. 23rd, 2005 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdIn the wake of another study showing a possible biological component to homosexuality, FotF pushes a book they sell mostly saying "does not!!!!!";
FotF action item / news article about Senator Lindsey Graham's attempt to put together a filibuster-rules-change compromise - tells everyone in the country to contact all moderate Republicans against it;
Action item to congratulate President Bush for criticising South Korean stem-cell research efforts;
Focus on the Family main radio broadcast is on the filibuster rules change - I may transcribe and may not;
Main radio broadcast page contains a link to an action item calling for calls to all moderate Republicans against any compromise effort on Senate filibuster rules changes;
CWA propaganda article supporting Senate filibuster rules - I can't call it news, it's just kind of weird, rambly commentary;
CWA article against embryonic stem-cell research, attacking Republican Rep. Mike Castle (Delaware) for expanding funding;
James Watt comes out of the woodwork to write an op-ed in the Washington Post condemning the "Religious Left";
American Psychological Association recommends endorsing marriage rights for same-sex partners;
Long article by the author of "Homosexuality: A Freedom Too Far" against the APA and other psychiatric organisations which oppose "conversion therapy," and keeps re-fighting the 1960s.
----- 1 -----
EDITOR'S PICKS: Resources for Impacting (and Living in) Your World.
Focus on the Family
"Homosexuality & the Politics of Truth"
by Jeffrey Satinover, M.D.
http://www.family.org/resources/itempg.cfm?itemid=2012&refcd=CE05ECZL&tvar=no
In "Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth," psychiatrist
Jeffrey Satinover examines recent research reported in
medical journals and the popular press. He finds many of
these studies flawed and cites evidence that homosexuality
is indeed changeable. He explains how psychology, biology,
choice and habit all interweave to produce deeply imbedded
patterns of sexual behavior.
----- 2 -----
Graham Tries to Broker Filibuster Deal
by Pete Winn, associate editor
Focus on the Family
SUMMARY: There are disturbing reports pro-family Sen.
Lindsey Graham may be succumbing to liberal rhetoric on
the filibuster.
http://www.family.org/cforum/feature/a0036614.cfm
Reports continue to swirl on Capitol Hill that senators of
both parties are working hard on a compromise that could
short-circuit the Republicans' use of the "constitutional
option" to restore Senate tradition regarding the
confirmation of judicial nominees.
But pro-family analysts are especially troubled by
confirmed reports of a deal which could come to fruition
as early as Monday -- just before Senate Majority Leader
Bill Frist, R-Tenn., plans to act to overcome liberals'
unprecedented use of filibusters to block President Bush's
nominees to the federal bench.
The constitutional option is an effort to return the
Senate to the same policy it had on judicial nominees for
214 years -- an up-or-down vote on every nominee with
clear majority support. Senate Democrats altered that
tradition in 2001 when they began to filibuster Bush's
nominees for some top judicial positions.
Last week, the dealmaker was reported to be former Senate
Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss. This time, however,
the culprit is apparently Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.,
according to Bruce Hausknecht, legal issues analyst at
Focus on the Family.
"Although the newspapers have been full of supposed deals
in the last few days," Hausknecht said, "we have heard
from D.C. insiders that Sen. Graham has been seriously
attempting to broker a deal, allowing certain nominees to
be sacrificed while allowing others to go through. This is
a disturbing piece of news."
The basic premise behind such a compromise, Hausknecht
said, involves quid pro quo: The Democrats would allow
floor votes for some of the president's current appellate
nominees, in exchange for Republicans not invoking -- or
not voting for -- the constitutional option. In addition,
Democrats would agree not to use the filibuster against
future nominees, except under "extreme circumstances" --
which have not been defined.
Graham is apparently not alone in the effort to undermine
the Senate majority leader's efforts to end the blockade
against the president's judicial nominees. Why would any
pro-family conservative senator actually work at
cross-purposes to Frist?
"Some senators seem to think the filibuster is a worthy
tool to be retained on executive nominations -- not just
legislative matters, where it is perfectly appropriate,"
Hausknecht said. "Some senators may be posturing for
future political purposes. Some senators may have a
misguided sense of what's at stake in the Senate."
Amanda Banks, federal issues analyst at Focus on the
Family, said it may be that Graham and other conservatives
involved have been influenced by the false rhetoric that
Democrats are putting out.
"The Democrats have had a fair amount of success getting
their message out in the media," she said. "They've
repeated over and over again that the Republicans somehow
want to 'blow up the Senate' and 'change the rules of the
Senate.' This is purely false, but -- if you repeat
something enough -- people start to listen and remember
it."
TAKE ACTION: Please take a moment -- no matter what state
you live in -- to call the district offices of the
senators listed below and relay this message: "No backroom
deals with the liberals that would allow more judicial
filibusters in the future. Support the constitutional
option to end the Democrats' unprecedented filibuster of
President Bush's nominees to the federal bench. It's the
right thing to do."
For district office phone numbers, click the link below
each senator's name.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=531&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=192&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. John Warner, R-Va.
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=595&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=282&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=283&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H.
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=376&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=810&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=365&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=456&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=342&lvl=C&chamber=S
----- 3 -----
White Houses Criticizes South Korean Stem-Cell Policy
Focus on the Family
[Received in email; no URL]
South Korean researchers have created 11 new lines of
embryonic stem cells, and the White House isn't pleased,
according to The Associated Press.
Deputy Press Secretary Trent Duffy called the work in
South Korea human cloning for the purpose of scientific
research.
"The president is opposed to that," Duffy said. "That
represents exactly what we’re opposed to."
The White House also reiterated that Bush would veto any
attempt to allow spending U.S. taxpayers' money on
research to destroy human life. The reference is to a bill
introduced by Reps. Mike Castle, R-Del., and Diana
DeGette, D-Colo., that would erase Bush's 2001 ban on
federally supported stem-cell lines.
Bush affirmed his pro-life stance at the National Catholic
Prayer Breakfast on Friday, encouraging attendees to "pray
that America uses the gift of freedom to build a culture
of life."
TAKE ACTION: Want to thank President Bush for standing by
his pro-life principles? You can call the White House
comment line -- or send an e-mail -- through the
CitizenLink Action Center.
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=20004&lvl=F
----- 4 -----
Focus Radio > May 23, 2005
Speaking Out on Judicial Filibusters
Focus on the Family
Panel Discussion
Our panel provides an update on the Senate's filibuster of President Bush's judicial nominees.
http://www.family.org/fmedia/broadcast/a0036567.cfm
----- 5 -----
Help Prevent Disastrous Filibuster 'Compromise'
Focus on the Family
May 20, 2005
http://www.family.org/cforum/extras/a0036615.cfm
Your phone calls are needed to ensure that Senate tradition is restored as it pertains to the confirmation of judicial nominees.
Word out of Washington, D.C., in recent days is that a "compromise" deal is close to being finalized that would allow Democrats to continue hijacking the Constitution by filibustering any judicial nominee whose views they oppose.
Several Republican senators—including those who claim pro-family credentials—need to hear from thousands of Americans that all attempts to broker such a deal must be stopped. The GOP leadership has come up with a sensible plan to restore Senate tradition by returning to 51 the number of votes needed to confirm a judicial nominee—and that's the plan Graham and his colleagues should support.
Please take a moment — no matter what state you live in — to call the district offices of the senators listed below and relay this message: "No backroom deals with the liberals that would allow more judicial filibusters in the future. Support the constitutional option to end the Democrats' unprecedented filibuster of President Bush's nominees to the federal bench. It's the right thing to do."
For district office phone numbers, click on each senator's name.
[More at URL]
----- 6 -----
Family News in Focus
Monday, May 23, 2005
Focus on the Family
Terry Phillips
* So-called break-through in embryonic stem cell research brings new round of ethical concerns
1. Second time in less than a year, "South Korean have crossed the line of human dignity." Describes embryonic stem cells as "young human beings." "What they do is they create a human being, and sacrifice it for its stem cells, killing a child in the process." - Christian Medical Association. US researchers are "falling behind the rest of the world," which is true, and reporter worries that this will lead to more stem-cell research in the US to catch up. Hopes South Korean discovery will spur passage of anti-cloning bill to prevent that.
* End of the judicial nominee controversy in Senate is fluid but headed for an end
5. "Republicans believe the Constitution demands a simple up-or-down vote." "Several former Senators gathered on Capital Hill to give an insider's point of view." "Hidden agenda by the Democrats." "So why have the Democrats parted from the hallowed traditions of the Senate?" "The fact that the Democrats have been willing to negotiate... so long as we can preserve that right of filibuster... is telling... it's the right to block the President's Supreme Court nominees in the future." "Democrat stalking horse to have control over future Supreme Court nominees."
* San Francisco atheists attempt to put prettier face on God-lessness
7. "Trying to do what church people call outreach." "The Christian message is better funded and better organised, and that's why atheists get pushed around." ACLJ says atheists get the "red-carpet treatment." "They offer nothing!" Calls atheists fools. Alliance Defense Fund: "It should not bother anyone when America decides to honour our roots."
* Can you be Catholic and pro-Abortion? Some U.S. Senators seem to think they can, but Washington Times ad says no
3. American Life League attacks US Senators who are Catholic and pro-choice. "Kicks off their annual Crusade for Life." "You cannot be Catholic and pro-abortion." Demanding that bishops in the church "deal with" Ted Kennedy, John Kerry; bishops should refuse communion to pro-choice Senators. "It's a position you can't differ with the church on its position." "This is basic Catholic teaching." Says pro-choice Catholic senators don't take their faith seriously.
* CBS has replaces 'Joan of Arcadia' with supernatural drama about communicating with spirit world
6. Ghost Whisperer. Parents Television Council: "Apparently CBS is concerned that they were skewing too old, and they feel this is a series that they feel will attract younger viewers." "CBS continues to program sex, language, and violence." "CBS thinks talking to ghosts will skew younger than talking to god."
* Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin survived vote of no confidence – along with Canadian gay marriage bill
2. Marriage rights bill would have died if the Liberal government had fallen. Focus on the Family Canada is fighting marriage rights.
* Shock radio hits new low - Clear Channel's Elliot Segal held contest to find out who had most abortions
4. Washington, DC. Family Research Council, "Unfortunately, none of it falls under the indecency rules of the FCC." Mentions Segal is employed by Clear Channel Communications.
----- 7 -----
CWA: Politicians are Like a Box of Chocolates—You Never Know What You’ll Get
Concerned Women for America
5/23/2005
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/8204/MEDIA/nation/index.htm
Washington, D.C. – Tomorrow Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) may have to use a parliamentary procedure to end a filibuster over Priscilla Owen, President Bush’s nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Last Friday, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) filed a motion to invoke cloture after three days of debate on Owen, who’s been waiting four years for an up-or-down vote.
If Owen fails to receive 60 votes to end the Democrats’ filibuster, Sen. Frist will ask Vice President Richard Cheney, the Senate president, to declare that it requires a simple majority of 51 votes to confirm nominees. Cheney has announced that he will make the ruling and cast the tie vote, if necessary. A Republican majority is expected to affirm the ruling.
“Politicians remind me of Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. They’re either firm, soft-centered or nutty,” said Jan LaRue, Concerned Women for America’s chief counsel. “You can’t be sure what you’ll get until it’s time for them to vote.”
The Republicans reportedly involved in closed-door negotiations with Democrats are John McCain of Arizona, Mike DeWine of Ohio, John Warner of Virginia, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Democrat senators include Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Ken Salazar of Colorado, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. If six Republicans agree to a compromise, Frist won’t have the 51 votes needed.
“All we’ve heard about Republicans involved in the negotiations is that some are ‘opposed’ to supporting Sen. Frist, some are ‘undecided’ and some are ‘uncommitted.’ Democrats have flip-flopped on filibusters. They hate them when it’s their nominees, yet now they act like they’re enshrined in the Constitution. Nineteen tried to end all filibusters in 1995. Cutting a nutty deal with Democrats, who have nothing to lose and everything to gain, makes no sense,” LaRue concluded.
----- 8 -----
Advocates Suppress Poll Data, Opposing Viewpoint to Promote Embryonic Stem-Cell Bill
Concerned Women for America
5/21/2005
By Wendy Wright
American majority still opposes tax funding of research that kills embryos.
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/8202/CWA/life/index.htm
Rep. Mike Castle (R-Delaware) is touting a poll in his efforts to undo President Bush’s policy and lift the limits on federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. But the misuse of this poll and a fake hearing reveal the questionable tactics of the advocates of embryonic stem-cell advocates.
Along with Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colorado), Castle has introduced the "Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act" (H.R. 810), which is expected to have a vote in the U.S. House very soon.
They are citing a poll which found that, among Republicans, 57 percent favored embryonic stem-cell research, with 40 percent opposing.
Yet the poll also found that 58 percent of Republicans want no government funding, or they want only the limited funding permitted by President Bush, of the controversial research. Further, a full 70 percent of Republicans approve of President Bush’s handling of stem cells.
But the media and Castle are silent on these results, which reveal the majority does not support the Castle-DeGette bill. The Associated Press stated that Republicans who dissent from President Bush’s policy are circulating the poll as evidence that “they have the party’s voters on their side even if many fellow GOP lawmakers are not.”
In addition, a recent poll commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops found that most Americans, 52 percent, oppose using tax dollars to fund embryonic stem-cell research. Only 36 percent support it.
Even more – 60 percent – favor funding only stem-cell research that raises no moral problem. Respondents were told that stem cells can be obtained by destroying human embryos or from adults, placentas and other ways harmless to the donor. Scientists disagree on which will be most successful in treating diseases.
Only 22 percent of Americans say they support all methods of stem-cell research, including destroying embryos.
Yet Reps. Mark Kirk (R-Illinois), Judy Biggert (R-Illinois) and Joe Schwarz (R-Michigan), hungry to spend tax dollars on this unproven and immoral research, stooped so low as to even stage what they called an “ad-hoc hearing” this week in Chicago.
[More at URL]
----- 9 -----
The Religious Left's Lies
By James Watt
Washington Post
Saturday, May 21, 2005; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/20/AR2005052001333.html
The religious left's political operatives have mounted a shrill attack on a significant portion of the Christian community. Four out of five evangelical Christians supported President Bush in 2004 -- a third of all ballots cast for him, according to the Pew Research Center. Factor in Catholics and members of other conservative religious communities and it's clear that the religious right is the largest voting bloc in today's Republican Party.
The religious left took note. Political opportunists in its ranks sought a wedge issue to weaken the GOP's coalition of Jews, Catholics and evangelicals and shatter its electoral majority. They passed over obvious headliners and landed on a curious but cunning choice: the environment. Those leading the charge are effective advocates: LBJ alumnus Bill Moyers of PBS fame, members of the National Council of Churches USA and liberal theologians who claim a moral superiority to other people of faith.
Their tactics are familiar. I encountered them more than 20 years ago as President Reagan's secretary of the interior, when I clashed with extreme environmental groups adept at taking out of context -- or in some cases creating -- statements that, once twisted, were attributed to me as if they were my religious views.
Now political activists of the religious left are refreshing those two-decades-old lies and applying them with a broad brush to whole segments of the Christian community: "people who believe the Bible," members of Congress and "Rapture proponents." If these merging groups -- the extreme environmentalists and the religious left -- are successful in their campaign, the Christian community will be marginalized, its conservative values maligned and its electoral clout diminished.
[More at URL]
----- 10 -----
Top Psychiatric Group Urges Making Gay Marriage Legal
Associated Press
Monday, May 23, 2005; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/22/AR2005052200785.html
ATLANTA, May 22 -- Representatives of the nation's top psychiatric group approved a statement Sunday urging legal recognition of same-sex marriage.
If approved by the association's directors in July, the measure would make the American Psychiatric Association the first major medical group to take such a stance.
The statement supports same-sex marriage "in the interest of maintaining and promoting mental health."
It follows a similar measure by the American Psychological Association last year, little more than three decades after that group removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.
[More at URL]
----- 11 -----
How America Went Gay
by Charles W. Socarides, M.D.
Leadership U.
Charles W. Socarides, M.D., is clinical professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in New York. He is president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, and author of Homosexuality: A Freedom Too Far (Adam Margrave Books, Phoenix, Arizona).
http://www.leaderu.com/jhs/socarides.html
For more than 20 years, I and a few of my colleagues in the field of psychoanalysis have felt like an embattled minority, because we have continued to insist, against today's conventional wisdom, that gays aren't born that way. We know that obligatory homosexuals are caught up in unconscious adaptations to early childhood abuse and neglect and that, with insight into their earliest beginnings, they can change. This "adaptation" I speak of is a polite term for men going through the motions of mating not with the opposite sex but with one another.
For most of this century, most of us in the helping professions considered this behavior aberrant. Not only was it "off the track"; the people caught up in it were suffering, which is why we called it a pathology. We had patients, early in their therapy, who would seek out one sex partner after another-total strangers-on a single night, then come limping into our offices the next day to tell us how they were hurting themselves. Since we were in the business of helping people learn how not to keep hurting themselves, many of us thought we were quietly doing God's work.
Now, in the opinion of those who make up the so-called cultural elite, our view is "out of date." The elite say we hurt people more than we help them, and that we belong in one of the century's dustbins. They have managed to sell this idea to a great many Americans, thereby making homosexuality fashionable and raising formerly aberrant behavior to the status of an "alternate lifestyle."
You see this view expressed in some places you would least expect. The Pope says same-sex sex is wrong, but a good many of his own priests in this country (some of whom are gay themselves) say the Pope is wrong. Indeed, in much of academe and in many secondary school classrooms gays are said to lead a new vanguard, the wave of the future in a world that will be more demographically secure when it has fewer "breeders" (which is what some gay activists call heterosexuals these days).
How did this change come about? Well, the revolution did not just happen. It has been orchestrated by a small band of very bright men and women-most of them gays and lesbians-in a cultural campaign that has been going on since a few intellectuals laid down the ideological underpinnings for the entire tie-dyed, try-anything-sexual Woodstock generation. In various ways, Theodore Reich, Alfred Kinsey, Fritz Perls, Norman O. Brown, Herbert Marcuse and Paul Goodman preached a new countercultural gospel: "If it feels good, do it."
[More at URL]
FotF action item / news article about Senator Lindsey Graham's attempt to put together a filibuster-rules-change compromise - tells everyone in the country to contact all moderate Republicans against it;
Action item to congratulate President Bush for criticising South Korean stem-cell research efforts;
Focus on the Family main radio broadcast is on the filibuster rules change - I may transcribe and may not;
Main radio broadcast page contains a link to an action item calling for calls to all moderate Republicans against any compromise effort on Senate filibuster rules changes;
CWA propaganda article supporting Senate filibuster rules - I can't call it news, it's just kind of weird, rambly commentary;
CWA article against embryonic stem-cell research, attacking Republican Rep. Mike Castle (Delaware) for expanding funding;
James Watt comes out of the woodwork to write an op-ed in the Washington Post condemning the "Religious Left";
American Psychological Association recommends endorsing marriage rights for same-sex partners;
Long article by the author of "Homosexuality: A Freedom Too Far" against the APA and other psychiatric organisations which oppose "conversion therapy," and keeps re-fighting the 1960s.
----- 1 -----
EDITOR'S PICKS: Resources for Impacting (and Living in) Your World.
Focus on the Family
"Homosexuality & the Politics of Truth"
by Jeffrey Satinover, M.D.
http://www.family.org/resources/itempg.cfm?itemid=2012&refcd=CE05ECZL&tvar=no
In "Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth," psychiatrist
Jeffrey Satinover examines recent research reported in
medical journals and the popular press. He finds many of
these studies flawed and cites evidence that homosexuality
is indeed changeable. He explains how psychology, biology,
choice and habit all interweave to produce deeply imbedded
patterns of sexual behavior.
----- 2 -----
Graham Tries to Broker Filibuster Deal
by Pete Winn, associate editor
Focus on the Family
SUMMARY: There are disturbing reports pro-family Sen.
Lindsey Graham may be succumbing to liberal rhetoric on
the filibuster.
http://www.family.org/cforum/feature/a0036614.cfm
Reports continue to swirl on Capitol Hill that senators of
both parties are working hard on a compromise that could
short-circuit the Republicans' use of the "constitutional
option" to restore Senate tradition regarding the
confirmation of judicial nominees.
But pro-family analysts are especially troubled by
confirmed reports of a deal which could come to fruition
as early as Monday -- just before Senate Majority Leader
Bill Frist, R-Tenn., plans to act to overcome liberals'
unprecedented use of filibusters to block President Bush's
nominees to the federal bench.
The constitutional option is an effort to return the
Senate to the same policy it had on judicial nominees for
214 years -- an up-or-down vote on every nominee with
clear majority support. Senate Democrats altered that
tradition in 2001 when they began to filibuster Bush's
nominees for some top judicial positions.
Last week, the dealmaker was reported to be former Senate
Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss. This time, however,
the culprit is apparently Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.,
according to Bruce Hausknecht, legal issues analyst at
Focus on the Family.
"Although the newspapers have been full of supposed deals
in the last few days," Hausknecht said, "we have heard
from D.C. insiders that Sen. Graham has been seriously
attempting to broker a deal, allowing certain nominees to
be sacrificed while allowing others to go through. This is
a disturbing piece of news."
The basic premise behind such a compromise, Hausknecht
said, involves quid pro quo: The Democrats would allow
floor votes for some of the president's current appellate
nominees, in exchange for Republicans not invoking -- or
not voting for -- the constitutional option. In addition,
Democrats would agree not to use the filibuster against
future nominees, except under "extreme circumstances" --
which have not been defined.
Graham is apparently not alone in the effort to undermine
the Senate majority leader's efforts to end the blockade
against the president's judicial nominees. Why would any
pro-family conservative senator actually work at
cross-purposes to Frist?
"Some senators seem to think the filibuster is a worthy
tool to be retained on executive nominations -- not just
legislative matters, where it is perfectly appropriate,"
Hausknecht said. "Some senators may be posturing for
future political purposes. Some senators may have a
misguided sense of what's at stake in the Senate."
Amanda Banks, federal issues analyst at Focus on the
Family, said it may be that Graham and other conservatives
involved have been influenced by the false rhetoric that
Democrats are putting out.
"The Democrats have had a fair amount of success getting
their message out in the media," she said. "They've
repeated over and over again that the Republicans somehow
want to 'blow up the Senate' and 'change the rules of the
Senate.' This is purely false, but -- if you repeat
something enough -- people start to listen and remember
it."
TAKE ACTION: Please take a moment -- no matter what state
you live in -- to call the district offices of the
senators listed below and relay this message: "No backroom
deals with the liberals that would allow more judicial
filibusters in the future. Support the constitutional
option to end the Democrats' unprecedented filibuster of
President Bush's nominees to the federal bench. It's the
right thing to do."
For district office phone numbers, click the link below
each senator's name.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=531&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=192&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. John Warner, R-Va.
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=595&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=282&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=283&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H.
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=376&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=810&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=365&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=456&lvl=C&chamber=S
Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=342&lvl=C&chamber=S
----- 3 -----
White Houses Criticizes South Korean Stem-Cell Policy
Focus on the Family
[Received in email; no URL]
South Korean researchers have created 11 new lines of
embryonic stem cells, and the White House isn't pleased,
according to The Associated Press.
Deputy Press Secretary Trent Duffy called the work in
South Korea human cloning for the purpose of scientific
research.
"The president is opposed to that," Duffy said. "That
represents exactly what we’re opposed to."
The White House also reiterated that Bush would veto any
attempt to allow spending U.S. taxpayers' money on
research to destroy human life. The reference is to a bill
introduced by Reps. Mike Castle, R-Del., and Diana
DeGette, D-Colo., that would erase Bush's 2001 ban on
federally supported stem-cell lines.
Bush affirmed his pro-life stance at the National Catholic
Prayer Breakfast on Friday, encouraging attendees to "pray
that America uses the gift of freedom to build a culture
of life."
TAKE ACTION: Want to thank President Bush for standing by
his pro-life principles? You can call the White House
comment line -- or send an e-mail -- through the
CitizenLink Action Center.
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/bio/?id=20004&lvl=F
----- 4 -----
Focus Radio > May 23, 2005
Speaking Out on Judicial Filibusters
Focus on the Family
Panel Discussion
Our panel provides an update on the Senate's filibuster of President Bush's judicial nominees.
http://www.family.org/fmedia/broadcast/a0036567.cfm
----- 5 -----
Help Prevent Disastrous Filibuster 'Compromise'
Focus on the Family
May 20, 2005
http://www.family.org/cforum/extras/a0036615.cfm
Your phone calls are needed to ensure that Senate tradition is restored as it pertains to the confirmation of judicial nominees.
Word out of Washington, D.C., in recent days is that a "compromise" deal is close to being finalized that would allow Democrats to continue hijacking the Constitution by filibustering any judicial nominee whose views they oppose.
Several Republican senators—including those who claim pro-family credentials—need to hear from thousands of Americans that all attempts to broker such a deal must be stopped. The GOP leadership has come up with a sensible plan to restore Senate tradition by returning to 51 the number of votes needed to confirm a judicial nominee—and that's the plan Graham and his colleagues should support.
Please take a moment — no matter what state you live in — to call the district offices of the senators listed below and relay this message: "No backroom deals with the liberals that would allow more judicial filibusters in the future. Support the constitutional option to end the Democrats' unprecedented filibuster of President Bush's nominees to the federal bench. It's the right thing to do."
For district office phone numbers, click on each senator's name.
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Family News in Focus
Monday, May 23, 2005
Focus on the Family
Terry Phillips
* So-called break-through in embryonic stem cell research brings new round of ethical concerns
1. Second time in less than a year, "South Korean have crossed the line of human dignity." Describes embryonic stem cells as "young human beings." "What they do is they create a human being, and sacrifice it for its stem cells, killing a child in the process." - Christian Medical Association. US researchers are "falling behind the rest of the world," which is true, and reporter worries that this will lead to more stem-cell research in the US to catch up. Hopes South Korean discovery will spur passage of anti-cloning bill to prevent that.
* End of the judicial nominee controversy in Senate is fluid but headed for an end
5. "Republicans believe the Constitution demands a simple up-or-down vote." "Several former Senators gathered on Capital Hill to give an insider's point of view." "Hidden agenda by the Democrats." "So why have the Democrats parted from the hallowed traditions of the Senate?" "The fact that the Democrats have been willing to negotiate... so long as we can preserve that right of filibuster... is telling... it's the right to block the President's Supreme Court nominees in the future." "Democrat stalking horse to have control over future Supreme Court nominees."
* San Francisco atheists attempt to put prettier face on God-lessness
7. "Trying to do what church people call outreach." "The Christian message is better funded and better organised, and that's why atheists get pushed around." ACLJ says atheists get the "red-carpet treatment." "They offer nothing!" Calls atheists fools. Alliance Defense Fund: "It should not bother anyone when America decides to honour our roots."
* Can you be Catholic and pro-Abortion? Some U.S. Senators seem to think they can, but Washington Times ad says no
3. American Life League attacks US Senators who are Catholic and pro-choice. "Kicks off their annual Crusade for Life." "You cannot be Catholic and pro-abortion." Demanding that bishops in the church "deal with" Ted Kennedy, John Kerry; bishops should refuse communion to pro-choice Senators. "It's a position you can't differ with the church on its position." "This is basic Catholic teaching." Says pro-choice Catholic senators don't take their faith seriously.
* CBS has replaces 'Joan of Arcadia' with supernatural drama about communicating with spirit world
6. Ghost Whisperer. Parents Television Council: "Apparently CBS is concerned that they were skewing too old, and they feel this is a series that they feel will attract younger viewers." "CBS continues to program sex, language, and violence." "CBS thinks talking to ghosts will skew younger than talking to god."
* Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin survived vote of no confidence – along with Canadian gay marriage bill
2. Marriage rights bill would have died if the Liberal government had fallen. Focus on the Family Canada is fighting marriage rights.
* Shock radio hits new low - Clear Channel's Elliot Segal held contest to find out who had most abortions
4. Washington, DC. Family Research Council, "Unfortunately, none of it falls under the indecency rules of the FCC." Mentions Segal is employed by Clear Channel Communications.
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CWA: Politicians are Like a Box of Chocolates—You Never Know What You’ll Get
Concerned Women for America
5/23/2005
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/8204/MEDIA/nation/index.htm
Washington, D.C. – Tomorrow Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) may have to use a parliamentary procedure to end a filibuster over Priscilla Owen, President Bush’s nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Last Friday, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) filed a motion to invoke cloture after three days of debate on Owen, who’s been waiting four years for an up-or-down vote.
If Owen fails to receive 60 votes to end the Democrats’ filibuster, Sen. Frist will ask Vice President Richard Cheney, the Senate president, to declare that it requires a simple majority of 51 votes to confirm nominees. Cheney has announced that he will make the ruling and cast the tie vote, if necessary. A Republican majority is expected to affirm the ruling.
“Politicians remind me of Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. They’re either firm, soft-centered or nutty,” said Jan LaRue, Concerned Women for America’s chief counsel. “You can’t be sure what you’ll get until it’s time for them to vote.”
The Republicans reportedly involved in closed-door negotiations with Democrats are John McCain of Arizona, Mike DeWine of Ohio, John Warner of Virginia, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Democrat senators include Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Ken Salazar of Colorado, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. If six Republicans agree to a compromise, Frist won’t have the 51 votes needed.
“All we’ve heard about Republicans involved in the negotiations is that some are ‘opposed’ to supporting Sen. Frist, some are ‘undecided’ and some are ‘uncommitted.’ Democrats have flip-flopped on filibusters. They hate them when it’s their nominees, yet now they act like they’re enshrined in the Constitution. Nineteen tried to end all filibusters in 1995. Cutting a nutty deal with Democrats, who have nothing to lose and everything to gain, makes no sense,” LaRue concluded.
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Advocates Suppress Poll Data, Opposing Viewpoint to Promote Embryonic Stem-Cell Bill
Concerned Women for America
5/21/2005
By Wendy Wright
American majority still opposes tax funding of research that kills embryos.
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/8202/CWA/life/index.htm
Rep. Mike Castle (R-Delaware) is touting a poll in his efforts to undo President Bush’s policy and lift the limits on federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. But the misuse of this poll and a fake hearing reveal the questionable tactics of the advocates of embryonic stem-cell advocates.
Along with Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colorado), Castle has introduced the "Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act" (H.R. 810), which is expected to have a vote in the U.S. House very soon.
They are citing a poll which found that, among Republicans, 57 percent favored embryonic stem-cell research, with 40 percent opposing.
Yet the poll also found that 58 percent of Republicans want no government funding, or they want only the limited funding permitted by President Bush, of the controversial research. Further, a full 70 percent of Republicans approve of President Bush’s handling of stem cells.
But the media and Castle are silent on these results, which reveal the majority does not support the Castle-DeGette bill. The Associated Press stated that Republicans who dissent from President Bush’s policy are circulating the poll as evidence that “they have the party’s voters on their side even if many fellow GOP lawmakers are not.”
In addition, a recent poll commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops found that most Americans, 52 percent, oppose using tax dollars to fund embryonic stem-cell research. Only 36 percent support it.
Even more – 60 percent – favor funding only stem-cell research that raises no moral problem. Respondents were told that stem cells can be obtained by destroying human embryos or from adults, placentas and other ways harmless to the donor. Scientists disagree on which will be most successful in treating diseases.
Only 22 percent of Americans say they support all methods of stem-cell research, including destroying embryos.
Yet Reps. Mark Kirk (R-Illinois), Judy Biggert (R-Illinois) and Joe Schwarz (R-Michigan), hungry to spend tax dollars on this unproven and immoral research, stooped so low as to even stage what they called an “ad-hoc hearing” this week in Chicago.
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The Religious Left's Lies
By James Watt
Washington Post
Saturday, May 21, 2005; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/20/AR2005052001333.html
The religious left's political operatives have mounted a shrill attack on a significant portion of the Christian community. Four out of five evangelical Christians supported President Bush in 2004 -- a third of all ballots cast for him, according to the Pew Research Center. Factor in Catholics and members of other conservative religious communities and it's clear that the religious right is the largest voting bloc in today's Republican Party.
The religious left took note. Political opportunists in its ranks sought a wedge issue to weaken the GOP's coalition of Jews, Catholics and evangelicals and shatter its electoral majority. They passed over obvious headliners and landed on a curious but cunning choice: the environment. Those leading the charge are effective advocates: LBJ alumnus Bill Moyers of PBS fame, members of the National Council of Churches USA and liberal theologians who claim a moral superiority to other people of faith.
Their tactics are familiar. I encountered them more than 20 years ago as President Reagan's secretary of the interior, when I clashed with extreme environmental groups adept at taking out of context -- or in some cases creating -- statements that, once twisted, were attributed to me as if they were my religious views.
Now political activists of the religious left are refreshing those two-decades-old lies and applying them with a broad brush to whole segments of the Christian community: "people who believe the Bible," members of Congress and "Rapture proponents." If these merging groups -- the extreme environmentalists and the religious left -- are successful in their campaign, the Christian community will be marginalized, its conservative values maligned and its electoral clout diminished.
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Top Psychiatric Group Urges Making Gay Marriage Legal
Associated Press
Monday, May 23, 2005; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/22/AR2005052200785.html
ATLANTA, May 22 -- Representatives of the nation's top psychiatric group approved a statement Sunday urging legal recognition of same-sex marriage.
If approved by the association's directors in July, the measure would make the American Psychiatric Association the first major medical group to take such a stance.
The statement supports same-sex marriage "in the interest of maintaining and promoting mental health."
It follows a similar measure by the American Psychological Association last year, little more than three decades after that group removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.
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How America Went Gay
by Charles W. Socarides, M.D.
Leadership U.
Charles W. Socarides, M.D., is clinical professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in New York. He is president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, and author of Homosexuality: A Freedom Too Far (Adam Margrave Books, Phoenix, Arizona).
http://www.leaderu.com/jhs/socarides.html
For more than 20 years, I and a few of my colleagues in the field of psychoanalysis have felt like an embattled minority, because we have continued to insist, against today's conventional wisdom, that gays aren't born that way. We know that obligatory homosexuals are caught up in unconscious adaptations to early childhood abuse and neglect and that, with insight into their earliest beginnings, they can change. This "adaptation" I speak of is a polite term for men going through the motions of mating not with the opposite sex but with one another.
For most of this century, most of us in the helping professions considered this behavior aberrant. Not only was it "off the track"; the people caught up in it were suffering, which is why we called it a pathology. We had patients, early in their therapy, who would seek out one sex partner after another-total strangers-on a single night, then come limping into our offices the next day to tell us how they were hurting themselves. Since we were in the business of helping people learn how not to keep hurting themselves, many of us thought we were quietly doing God's work.
Now, in the opinion of those who make up the so-called cultural elite, our view is "out of date." The elite say we hurt people more than we help them, and that we belong in one of the century's dustbins. They have managed to sell this idea to a great many Americans, thereby making homosexuality fashionable and raising formerly aberrant behavior to the status of an "alternate lifestyle."
You see this view expressed in some places you would least expect. The Pope says same-sex sex is wrong, but a good many of his own priests in this country (some of whom are gay themselves) say the Pope is wrong. Indeed, in much of academe and in many secondary school classrooms gays are said to lead a new vanguard, the wave of the future in a world that will be more demographically secure when it has fewer "breeders" (which is what some gay activists call heterosexuals these days).
How did this change come about? Well, the revolution did not just happen. It has been orchestrated by a small band of very bright men and women-most of them gays and lesbians-in a cultural campaign that has been going on since a few intellectuals laid down the ideological underpinnings for the entire tie-dyed, try-anything-sexual Woodstock generation. In various ways, Theodore Reich, Alfred Kinsey, Fritz Perls, Norman O. Brown, Herbert Marcuse and Paul Goodman preached a new countercultural gospel: "If it feels good, do it."
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