Today's Cultural Warfare Update
Jul. 25th, 2005 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdA short note: I haven't listed or reprinted all the many, many continuing, bannered alerts and action items to support John Roberts's nomination for Supreme Court justice. They've all got these running, and for the most part, they're on huge banner headlines. So just take those as read - they're really throwing resources at this nomination. I've included just a few of the more important references here.
The NY Times runs an article on Zach - in the fucking FASHION AND STYLE section. What the fuck?!;
Kentucky group to raise money to put Texas-style 10 commandments monuments in courthouses;
Pounding a beat, pistol in hand, an Iraqi woman soldier is a novelty in Baghdad - she got started before, in the popular militia under the old regime;
Focus on the Family accuses Senator Durbin of demanding a "religious test" on John Roberts;
FotF talks about the urgency to get Roberts on the court in time for several "pro-family interest" cases, in particular, a Don't Ask/Don't Tell case;
Weird FotF article on the stem-cell research bill, opening more lines for Federal research funding - FotF is, of course, stridently opposed;
FotF on attempts to get at documents written by John Roberts as a Republican presidential staff attourney;
Oklahoma parential-notification bill upheld by 10th Circuit Court of Appeals;
FotF outraged as Food Network drops Boy Scout joint promotion over the BSA's anti-gay policies - includes action item (ACTION ITEM);
Concerned Women for America action item to support bill requiring Federal support for the Boy Scouts despite their religious requirements (ACTION ITEM);
Paul Weyrich article about renewing the Culture War as the central component of the "next conservatism," because winning the political war isn't enough;
Agape Press; ACLU's "pro-homosexual bullying tactics" are similar to Chairman Mao's - funny, I hadn't noticed the mass executions, collectivisation projects, or starvation programmes;
Local and state governments are passing resolutions and ordinances ordering libraries to pull GBLT-themed material out of the libraries, or restrict them to adult-only sections - the trend is alarming librarians;
Vermont inn legal battle over a lesbian couple's civil unions ceremony;
Fundamentalist legal groups use Canadian marriage as a basis to renew the call for an anti-marriage amendment.
----- 1 -----
Gay Teenager Stirs a Storm
By ALEX WILLIAMS
Published: July 17, 2005
MEMPHIS
IT was the sort of confession that a decade ago might have been scribbled in a teenager's diary, then quietly tucked away in a drawer: "Somewhat recently," wrote a boy who identified himself only as Zach, 16, from Tennessee, on his personal Web page, "I told my parents I was gay." He noted, "This didn't go over very well," and "They tell me that there is something psychologically wrong with me, and they 'raised me wrong.' "
But what grabbed the attention of Zach's friends and subsequently of both gay activists and fundamentalist Christians around the world who came across the entry, made on May 29, was not the intimacy of the confession. Teenagers have been outing themselves online for years, and many of Zach's friends already knew he was gay. It was another sentence in the Web log: "Today, my mother, father and I had a very long 'talk' in my room, where they let me know I am to apply for a fundamentalist Christian program for gays."
"It's like boot camp," Zach added in a dispatch the next day. "If I do come out straight, I'll be so mentally unstable and depressed it won't matter."
The camp in question, Refuge, is a youth program of Love in Action International, a group in Memphis that runs a religion-based program intended to change the sexual orientation of gay men and women. Often called reparative or conversion therapy, such programs took hold in fundamentalist Christian circles in the 1970's, when mainstream psychiatric organizations overturned previous designations of homosexuality as a mental disorder, and gained ground rapidly from the late 90's. Programs like Love in Action have always been controversial, but Zach's blog entries have brought wide attention to a less-known aspect of them, their application to teenagers.
[More at URL]
----- 2 -----
Fiscal court endorses plan to put Commendments monument on courthouse grounds
WKYT / WYMT
27 Newsfirst / Mountain News
http://www.wkyt.com/Global/story.asp?S=3627435
MARION, Ky. -- Crittenden County officials endorsed a Baptist preacher's plans to put a Ten Commandments monument on the courthouse grounds in western Kentucky.
The Rev. Tony Alexander, pastor of Glendale General Baptist Church, intends to raise money to donate the monument. "Christian people need to take a stand," he said.
The $1,200, six-foot granite tablet inscribed with the commandments will be placed on the lawn near another monument at the courthouse 45 miles northeast of Paducah. The county Fiscal Court approved Alexander's plans Tuesday.
"These are the laws God handed down," Alexander said. "If we can't abide by them, the local laws aren't worth much."
Alexander hopes to collect donations from local churches to cover the $3,000 cost. The monument will be ordered within the next week and should arrive in six weeks, he said.
The fiscal court's unanimous vote comes weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on two cases concerning such displays, banning framed copies in McCreary and Pulaski county courthouses in Kentucky but upholding a six-foot granite monument near the Texas Capitol.
[More at URL]
----- 3 -----
Pounding a beat, pistol in hand, an Iraqi woman soldier is a novelty in Baghdad
WTNH.com
http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=3631874
(Baghdad, Iraq-AP, July 23, 2005 6:05 PM) - Pounding her Baghdad beat, wrapped in a bulletproof vest and brandishing a pistol, Sgt. Bushra Jabar definitely stands out in the new Iraq.
She's the only woman in the Iraqi Army unit patrolling the Kharkh district in the heart of the capital.
"Sometimes women on the street think I'm a man, from my uniform and gun," says Jabar, 34. "The other soldiers use a man's version of my name to call me."
Her day starts with a ride to her base in the back of a military pickup truck. She's wearing a tight orange blouse, her fingernails painted black with white dots, her jet-black hair flowing in the wind. Occasionally she waves her pistol at other vehicles to get out of the way.
Then the mother of four changes into camouflage fatigues, tucks her hair under a cap and hits the streets.
Iraq has long enjoyed a reputation for having progressive views about women in the workplace, but Jabar has her problems.
She has been in the Iraqi Army for two years, but her platoon leader, Lt. Raad Abid Jassim, doesn't sound enthusiastic about having her in his unit in a religious neighborhood.
"We are in a poor neighborhood. People don't like it. The women are insulted," he said. "Men complain to me about her clothes."
When Saddam Hussein was in power and recruiting volunteers for a militia, she stepped forward. Then came the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the dictator.
[More at URL]
----- 4 -----
DURBIN EMBRACES RELIGIOUS TEST FOR NOMINEE
http://www.family.org/cforum/feature/a0037318.cfm
by Pete Winn, associate editor
Focus on the Family
SUMMARY: When is it allowable to question a nominee's
religion? Never.
Senate hearings on Judge John Roberts' bid to succeed
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor haven't even
been formally scheduled yet, and already liberal Senate
Democrats are looking for all the ammunition they can to
stop the nomination from moving forward.
Focus on the Family Action Chairman James C. Dobson,
Ph.D., compared the hot summer the nation has been
experiencing to the "hot time" liberal groups and senators
have in store for Roberts.
"It's going to get a lot hotter, you can count on that,"
Dobson said in a program to be aired Tuesday on his
nationally syndicated radio broadcast, "and it is being
turned up right now on John Roberts and his family. You
can expect to hear a great deal of animosity from liberal
senators and leftist groups who will stop at nothing to
derail any nominee who looks like he might be
conservative."
The salvos appear to have begun -- with at least one
prominent Democratic senator giving the appearance of
impropriety by focusing on the nominee's religious faith.
In an informal meeting reported in the Los Angeles Times,
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley
said that liberal Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., asked
Roberts what he would do if the law required a decision
that conflicted with his religion. When pressed, Roberts,
a Roman Catholic, reportedly told Durbin that he would
probably have to recuse himself -- or exclude himself from
that particular case.
[More at URL]
----- 5 -----
FALL COURT CASES ACCENTUATE THE SUMMER HEARING PROCESS
http://www.family.org/cforum/feature/a0037319.cfm
by Bruce Hausknecht, legal issues analyst, Focus on the
Family Action
SUMMARY: If confirmed, the president's nominee will
immediately weigh in on cases of prime pro-family
interest.
No time to rest.
The importance of Judge John Roberts' nomination to the
Supreme Court last week was underscored by the
announcement of the court's calendar for this fall.
If confirmed in time for the start of the new term Oct. 3,
then-Justice Roberts would dive headlong into the
controversial issues of our time.
Among the cases scheduled to be heard include: Parental
notification for minors seeking abortions; pro-life
picketing at abortion clinics; use of hallucinogens in
worship services; "Don't ask, Don't tell"; and
physician-assisted suicide.
[More at URL]
----- 5 -----
SENATOR THREATENS MAVERICK STEM-CELL FUNDING AMENDMENT
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0037316.cfm
Focus on the Family
[No author credit]
SUMMARY: In spite of strong Senate opposition as well a
promised presidential veto, Sen. Specter may break ranks.
Political gamesmanship is expected this week in the U.S.
Senate and living human embryos are caught in the middle.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said conservatives opposed to
federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research are
sitting on legislation providing money.
Specter said he's on a personal mission to fund embryonic
stem-cell research, and he's leaving no doubt where he
stands on the issue.
"(There are) those who say that it is the destruction of
human life, which I believe it is not," he said.
Specter said he's waited long enough for a vote and is
threatening a maverick amendment to an appropriations
bill, something Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kans., calls a bad
idea.
"They say, 'Well, we've been waiting,' -- I've been
waiting a long time to get a vote on cloning," he told
Family News in Focus. "This is something we need to take
up all as a package. We've put forward a responsible
package to do that. That's the way it needs to happen."
And there's more politics, with a presidential veto of
embryonic stem-cell funding promised, Brownback said some
senators are hedging their political positions.
[More at URL]
----- 6 -----
Sensitive Documents Written by Roberts Will Remain Locked
Focus on the Family
Newsbriefs
July 25, 2005
[Received in email; no URL]
Democrats in Washington are displeased with the news that
some documents written by Supreme Court nominee John G.
Roberts while he worked for two Republican presidents will
not be released for review during the confirmation
process, The Associated Press reported.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said some of the
material is "very sensitive, very deliberate information"
and should not be unrestricted.
"Generally, that's not something that the administration
or any White House would be inclined to share because it
is so sensitive," Gonzales said, "in my judgment, does
chill communications between line attorneys and their
superiors within the Department of Justice."
Some Democrats, such as Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., want the
White House to release "in their entirety" any documents
written by Roberts.
While Democrats have yet to request such material, if it
does happen, Gonzales said that each appeal would receive
careful consideration.
----- 7 -----
Oklahoma Abortion Law Stands Up in Court
Focus on the Family
Newsbriefs
July 25, 2005
[Received in email; no URL]
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected two
attempts by an Oklahoma abortion provider to challenge the
state's parental notification law, The Christian Post
reported.
Nova Health Systems filed suit in an attempt to block the
enforcement of law, passed in May 2005, requiring doctors
to provide written notification to parents of minor
patients at least 48 hours before an abortion. Nova
claimed the law doesn't provide sufficient protection of
minors' rights.
In a second case, Nova challenged a 2001 law that makes
abortion providers responsible for any medical costs
incurred when they perform an abortion on a minor without
parental consent or notification.
In both cases, the court ruled in favor of upholding
Oklahoma law. Bebe Anderson, attorney for Nova, said the
clinic may decide to pursue the issue at a later date.
----- 8 -----
FOOD NETWORK RENEGES ON BOY SCOUT TROOP
TV's Food Network takes Boy Scout idea off the table.
http://www.family.org/cforum/feature/a0037291.cfm
by Aaron Atwood, assistant editor
Focus on the Family
SUMMARY: TV's Food Network takes Boy Scout idea off the
table.
When the Food Network asked "How do you Iron Chef?" on its
Web site, Boy Scout Troop 99 of Colorado Springs
responded. They were accepted -- then rejected because
they pledge to "being morally straight."
The troop had been doing Iron Chef competitions at
campouts and Scoutmaster Dave Maher thought a vignette of
his troop cooking up a storm would make a great promo for
the company.
The competition gives two chefs an identical cache of food
and challenges each to outdo the other in creativity and
taste. Maher's crew takes cooking seriously and had the
Boy Scout version of the popular TV program down to a
science. Maher said some of the food threw the Scouts for
a loop.
"One of the foods I put in initially was an eggplant,"
Maher said. "A lot had never seen it before."
Maher answered the casting call and the producers
responded. In a few weeks Maher was discussing with the
show's staff the logistics of hauling cameras to its next
campout. Would there be electricity? Do you need parking?
What date works best?
The excitement faded when Food Network producers took the
idea to parent company, E.W. Scripps.
"It went to Scripps for a rubber stamp but got shot down
at corporate approval," Maher explained. "Scripps was
unwilling to work with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA)
because of the Boy Scouts' position -- policies which they
perceive are the Boy Scouts' discriminatory practices on
gays."
[More at URL]
TAKE ACTION: You can send your comments to the Food
Network's parent company through the CitizenLink Action
Center:
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=7865286
----- 9 -----
Support Needed for Senate Boy Scout Bill
Concerned Women for America
7/25/2005
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/8610/CWA/nation/index.htm
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has introduced the Support Our Scouts Act of 2005, a measure that would turn back the ruling of a liberal judge that prevents the Pentagon from supporting the annual Boy Scout Jamboree, held at Virginia’s Fort A.P. Hill. Call your Senators at 202-224-3121 and tell them to support this effort. Bob Knight, director of CWA’s Culture & Family Institute has more. Click here to listen.
----- 10 -----
The Centrality of Culture
7/25/2005
By Paul M. Weyrich
Concerned Women for America
The old sins have become virtues and the old virtues have become sins.
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/8608/CWA/misc/index.htm
At the heart of the challenge facing the conservative agenda lays one simple fact: While we focused our efforts on politics, our opponents on the left focused instead on culture.
Each of us won. Compared to where the conservative movement was the year I came to Washington, 1967, we are today immensely stronger politically. Republicans, most of whom are at least nominally conservative, control both Houses of Congress and the White House. That is success on a grand scale.
Regrettably, our opponents have won an equally large victory over our culture. What was called the "counter-culture" in the 1960s now controls almost every cultural venue: the entertainment industry (which is now the most powerful force in our culture), the government schools, the media, and even many churches. The ideology usually known as "Political Correctness," which is really the cultural Marxism of the infamous Frankfurt School, is using every type of cultural institution in our country to achieve its purpose, which is the destruction of traditional Western culture and the Christian religion. All we have to do is look around us and compare what we see with the America of the 1950s to understand how vast their victory is. The old sins have become virtues and the old virtues have become sins.
The nub of the problem is this: Culture is stronger than politics. Despite everything conservatives have achieved in politics, the left's cultural victory trumps ours. That is why even when we win election after election, our country continues to deteriorate.
The next conservatism will have to have solving this problem as its central theme. Conservatives have already taken some important steps in doing so. Starting in the mid-1980s when the Free Congress Foundation introduced "cultural conservatism," parts of the conservative movement have come to realize that if we lose the culture war, we also lose everything else. Culture is no longer at the periphery of conservatives' concerns, although it may not yet be at the center where I think it needs to be. And, I have to add, some neo-conservatives have been quite helpful to other conservatives in the fight to save our traditional culture, while others have had foreign policy as their focus. They ignore the cultural issues.
The question is, how can we win this fight? In 1999, I wrote an open letter to conservatives with a somewhat radical answer to that question. Instead of trying to retake existing institutions from the cultural Marxists, a battle I do not think we can win, I proposed we separate our lives and the lives of our families from those institutions and build our own institutions instead. In that letter, I wrote,
[More at URL]
----- 11 -----
Knight: ACLU's Pro-Homosexual 'Bullying' Tactics Reminiscent of Chairman Mao
By Bill Fancher
Agape Press
July 21, 2005
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/7/212005d.asp
(AgapePress) - One pro-family advocate feels the ACLU, in its effort to force the homosexual agenda in American schools, is using the bullying tactics of Chairman Mao to "reprogram" staff and students on the issue of homosexuality.
In California and Kentucky, the American Civil Liberties Union has gone to court to force reluctant school systems to take part in pro-homosexual promotions. Settlement of an ACLU court case in California includes a mandatory daylong faculty training on what the legal groups calls "diversity, discrimination and harassment, focused primarily on issues pertaining to actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity." And earlier this month in the Bluegrass State, the ACLU accused the Boyd County Board of Education of failing to hold up its end of an agreement to provide mandatory training focused on "sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination."
Bob Knight is director of the Culture and Family Institute (CFI), affiliated with Concerned Women for America in Washington, DC. Knight contends the ACLU is trying to undermine parents' values. "The ACLU is probably best described as the 'Anti-Christian Legal Unit,' because Christians kids in these public schools are being told that their beliefs amount to a form of bigotry," he says.
[More at URL]
----- 12 -----
Gay pride policies alarm librarians
St. Petersburg Times
July 17, 2005
Copyright Times Publishing Co. Jul 17, 2005
URL encapsulated because of length; click here
When the Hillsborough County Commission voted last month to prohibit county government from promoting and acknowledging gay pride events, the move caused an outcry.
Commissioners, who passed the policy in response to gay pride book displays in local libraries, have been inundated with e-mails, letters and phone calls, many criticizing the vote. Local chapters of the NAACP, Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio and City Council members condemned the action.
More than 2,000 people marched from the library to County Center on a Sunday afternoon to protest the policy.
But the Hillsborough County Commission isn't the first government body to take action in response to gay-themed books and displays in libraries.
"We are seeing an increase in challenges to materials that have to do with gay and lesbian issues and an increase in legislation that addresses those kinds of materials in libraries," said Beverley Becker, director of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom.
In 2001, the mayor of Anchorage, Alaska, ordered a gay pride book display removed from a library. A federal judge ordered it back on the library's walls.
This spring, Oklahoma legislators passed a resolution requiring that all gay-themed materials be shelved in adult book sections. Louisiana lawmakers introduced a similar resolution that failed.
[More at URL]
----- 13 -----
Vermont Inn Sued for Resisting Same-Sex Civil Union Ceremony 7/24/2005
By Lindsey Douthit
Couple with eight children doesn’t want to promote homosexuality.
http://www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp?id=8607&department=CFI&categoryid=family
Homosexual activists have targeted a small, family-owned inn in Vermont and are threatening its owners with financial ruin if they do not provide planning, resources and accommodation for a same-sex civil union ceremony.
Jim and Mary (full name withheld at their request), a married couple in Vermont, own and live in an inn, where they raise their eight children. The family also offers wedding planning services, in which they spend extensive time with the brides and grooms to plan receptions, catering, flowers, decorations and entertainment. They recently received an award for being outstanding innkeepers.
Little did they know that one day a single phone call would turn their lives upside down.
Susan Parker, a lesbian, phoned the inn to ask about holding a civil union reception there. Neither Jim nor Mary refused to host the event, but Jim explained that their Roman Catholic beliefs about marriage might make it difficult for him to “put his heart behind the project” and pour hours into the planning process. Jim never said “no,” and even said that if the client “really desired” to hold the reception, then he would be willing to meet with her to discuss possible arrangements. Parker responded by going to the Vermont Human Rights Commission, which slapped Jim and Mary with discrimination charges.
[More at URL]
----- 14 -----
New Canadian Gay Marriage Law Will Have 'an Effect on America'
Christian Underground/CharismaNOW
July 26, 2005
http://www.charismanews.com/a.php?ArticleID=11579
Christian legal groups say Canada's recent decision to become the fourth country to legalize gay marriage will impact the United States. Last Wednesday, Canadian Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin signed a landmark bill that grants same-sex couples legal rights equal to those in traditional unions between a man and a woman -- something already legal in eight of Canada's 10 provinces and in two of its three territories, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
The Senate voted 47-21 last Tuesday to adopt the legislation to legalize homosexual marriage despite fierce opposition from conservatives and religious leaders. On June 28, the bill was passed by the House of Commons.
The law gives homosexual activists in America a significant moral boost in their push to redefine marriage, Baptist Press (BP) observed.
"There's a lot of Canadians that will move to the United States, and some of [them] will want to have these different states ... recognize their Canadian same-sex marriage licenses," Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, an Orlando, Fla.-based law firm, told BP. "That's why it's so critical that we move forward with a federal Marriage Protection Amendment to amend our U.S. Constitution to preserve marriage as between one man and one woman."
The new law also permits gay American couples to "marry" in Canada and file a suit back home for recognition of the license. Canada's marriage laws do not require residency, BP reported. Massachusetts recognizes gay marriage, but it has a law that prevents out-of-staters from "marrying" if their home state would not recognize it. The law is being challenged in state court.
"Canadian policy and the policy in other countries has an effect on what America does -- unfortunately -- and we can't just shrug it off and try to insulate ourselves," Dale Schowengerdt, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian law firm, told BP. "It's just right across the border. It strikes too close to home."
Matt Daniels, president of the Virginia-based Alliance for Marriage (AFM), agreed with Staver that America needs a constitutional marriage amendment because of the Canadian law. AFM was the first group to promote the amendment.
[More at URL]
The NY Times runs an article on Zach - in the fucking FASHION AND STYLE section. What the fuck?!;
Kentucky group to raise money to put Texas-style 10 commandments monuments in courthouses;
Pounding a beat, pistol in hand, an Iraqi woman soldier is a novelty in Baghdad - she got started before, in the popular militia under the old regime;
Focus on the Family accuses Senator Durbin of demanding a "religious test" on John Roberts;
FotF talks about the urgency to get Roberts on the court in time for several "pro-family interest" cases, in particular, a Don't Ask/Don't Tell case;
Weird FotF article on the stem-cell research bill, opening more lines for Federal research funding - FotF is, of course, stridently opposed;
FotF on attempts to get at documents written by John Roberts as a Republican presidential staff attourney;
Oklahoma parential-notification bill upheld by 10th Circuit Court of Appeals;
FotF outraged as Food Network drops Boy Scout joint promotion over the BSA's anti-gay policies - includes action item (ACTION ITEM);
Concerned Women for America action item to support bill requiring Federal support for the Boy Scouts despite their religious requirements (ACTION ITEM);
Paul Weyrich article about renewing the Culture War as the central component of the "next conservatism," because winning the political war isn't enough;
Agape Press; ACLU's "pro-homosexual bullying tactics" are similar to Chairman Mao's - funny, I hadn't noticed the mass executions, collectivisation projects, or starvation programmes;
Local and state governments are passing resolutions and ordinances ordering libraries to pull GBLT-themed material out of the libraries, or restrict them to adult-only sections - the trend is alarming librarians;
Vermont inn legal battle over a lesbian couple's civil unions ceremony;
Fundamentalist legal groups use Canadian marriage as a basis to renew the call for an anti-marriage amendment.
----- 1 -----
Gay Teenager Stirs a Storm
By ALEX WILLIAMS
Published: July 17, 2005
MEMPHIS
IT was the sort of confession that a decade ago might have been scribbled in a teenager's diary, then quietly tucked away in a drawer: "Somewhat recently," wrote a boy who identified himself only as Zach, 16, from Tennessee, on his personal Web page, "I told my parents I was gay." He noted, "This didn't go over very well," and "They tell me that there is something psychologically wrong with me, and they 'raised me wrong.' "
But what grabbed the attention of Zach's friends and subsequently of both gay activists and fundamentalist Christians around the world who came across the entry, made on May 29, was not the intimacy of the confession. Teenagers have been outing themselves online for years, and many of Zach's friends already knew he was gay. It was another sentence in the Web log: "Today, my mother, father and I had a very long 'talk' in my room, where they let me know I am to apply for a fundamentalist Christian program for gays."
"It's like boot camp," Zach added in a dispatch the next day. "If I do come out straight, I'll be so mentally unstable and depressed it won't matter."
The camp in question, Refuge, is a youth program of Love in Action International, a group in Memphis that runs a religion-based program intended to change the sexual orientation of gay men and women. Often called reparative or conversion therapy, such programs took hold in fundamentalist Christian circles in the 1970's, when mainstream psychiatric organizations overturned previous designations of homosexuality as a mental disorder, and gained ground rapidly from the late 90's. Programs like Love in Action have always been controversial, but Zach's blog entries have brought wide attention to a less-known aspect of them, their application to teenagers.
[More at URL]
----- 2 -----
Fiscal court endorses plan to put Commendments monument on courthouse grounds
WKYT / WYMT
27 Newsfirst / Mountain News
http://www.wkyt.com/Global/story.asp?S=3627435
MARION, Ky. -- Crittenden County officials endorsed a Baptist preacher's plans to put a Ten Commandments monument on the courthouse grounds in western Kentucky.
The Rev. Tony Alexander, pastor of Glendale General Baptist Church, intends to raise money to donate the monument. "Christian people need to take a stand," he said.
The $1,200, six-foot granite tablet inscribed with the commandments will be placed on the lawn near another monument at the courthouse 45 miles northeast of Paducah. The county Fiscal Court approved Alexander's plans Tuesday.
"These are the laws God handed down," Alexander said. "If we can't abide by them, the local laws aren't worth much."
Alexander hopes to collect donations from local churches to cover the $3,000 cost. The monument will be ordered within the next week and should arrive in six weeks, he said.
The fiscal court's unanimous vote comes weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on two cases concerning such displays, banning framed copies in McCreary and Pulaski county courthouses in Kentucky but upholding a six-foot granite monument near the Texas Capitol.
[More at URL]
----- 3 -----
Pounding a beat, pistol in hand, an Iraqi woman soldier is a novelty in Baghdad
WTNH.com
http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=3631874
(Baghdad, Iraq-AP, July 23, 2005 6:05 PM) - Pounding her Baghdad beat, wrapped in a bulletproof vest and brandishing a pistol, Sgt. Bushra Jabar definitely stands out in the new Iraq.
She's the only woman in the Iraqi Army unit patrolling the Kharkh district in the heart of the capital.
"Sometimes women on the street think I'm a man, from my uniform and gun," says Jabar, 34. "The other soldiers use a man's version of my name to call me."
Her day starts with a ride to her base in the back of a military pickup truck. She's wearing a tight orange blouse, her fingernails painted black with white dots, her jet-black hair flowing in the wind. Occasionally she waves her pistol at other vehicles to get out of the way.
Then the mother of four changes into camouflage fatigues, tucks her hair under a cap and hits the streets.
Iraq has long enjoyed a reputation for having progressive views about women in the workplace, but Jabar has her problems.
She has been in the Iraqi Army for two years, but her platoon leader, Lt. Raad Abid Jassim, doesn't sound enthusiastic about having her in his unit in a religious neighborhood.
"We are in a poor neighborhood. People don't like it. The women are insulted," he said. "Men complain to me about her clothes."
When Saddam Hussein was in power and recruiting volunteers for a militia, she stepped forward. Then came the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the dictator.
[More at URL]
----- 4 -----
DURBIN EMBRACES RELIGIOUS TEST FOR NOMINEE
http://www.family.org/cforum/feature/a0037318.cfm
by Pete Winn, associate editor
Focus on the Family
SUMMARY: When is it allowable to question a nominee's
religion? Never.
Senate hearings on Judge John Roberts' bid to succeed
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor haven't even
been formally scheduled yet, and already liberal Senate
Democrats are looking for all the ammunition they can to
stop the nomination from moving forward.
Focus on the Family Action Chairman James C. Dobson,
Ph.D., compared the hot summer the nation has been
experiencing to the "hot time" liberal groups and senators
have in store for Roberts.
"It's going to get a lot hotter, you can count on that,"
Dobson said in a program to be aired Tuesday on his
nationally syndicated radio broadcast, "and it is being
turned up right now on John Roberts and his family. You
can expect to hear a great deal of animosity from liberal
senators and leftist groups who will stop at nothing to
derail any nominee who looks like he might be
conservative."
The salvos appear to have begun -- with at least one
prominent Democratic senator giving the appearance of
impropriety by focusing on the nominee's religious faith.
In an informal meeting reported in the Los Angeles Times,
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley
said that liberal Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., asked
Roberts what he would do if the law required a decision
that conflicted with his religion. When pressed, Roberts,
a Roman Catholic, reportedly told Durbin that he would
probably have to recuse himself -- or exclude himself from
that particular case.
[More at URL]
----- 5 -----
FALL COURT CASES ACCENTUATE THE SUMMER HEARING PROCESS
http://www.family.org/cforum/feature/a0037319.cfm
by Bruce Hausknecht, legal issues analyst, Focus on the
Family Action
SUMMARY: If confirmed, the president's nominee will
immediately weigh in on cases of prime pro-family
interest.
No time to rest.
The importance of Judge John Roberts' nomination to the
Supreme Court last week was underscored by the
announcement of the court's calendar for this fall.
If confirmed in time for the start of the new term Oct. 3,
then-Justice Roberts would dive headlong into the
controversial issues of our time.
Among the cases scheduled to be heard include: Parental
notification for minors seeking abortions; pro-life
picketing at abortion clinics; use of hallucinogens in
worship services; "Don't ask, Don't tell"; and
physician-assisted suicide.
[More at URL]
----- 5 -----
SENATOR THREATENS MAVERICK STEM-CELL FUNDING AMENDMENT
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0037316.cfm
Focus on the Family
[No author credit]
SUMMARY: In spite of strong Senate opposition as well a
promised presidential veto, Sen. Specter may break ranks.
Political gamesmanship is expected this week in the U.S.
Senate and living human embryos are caught in the middle.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said conservatives opposed to
federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research are
sitting on legislation providing money.
Specter said he's on a personal mission to fund embryonic
stem-cell research, and he's leaving no doubt where he
stands on the issue.
"(There are) those who say that it is the destruction of
human life, which I believe it is not," he said.
Specter said he's waited long enough for a vote and is
threatening a maverick amendment to an appropriations
bill, something Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kans., calls a bad
idea.
"They say, 'Well, we've been waiting,' -- I've been
waiting a long time to get a vote on cloning," he told
Family News in Focus. "This is something we need to take
up all as a package. We've put forward a responsible
package to do that. That's the way it needs to happen."
And there's more politics, with a presidential veto of
embryonic stem-cell funding promised, Brownback said some
senators are hedging their political positions.
[More at URL]
----- 6 -----
Sensitive Documents Written by Roberts Will Remain Locked
Focus on the Family
Newsbriefs
July 25, 2005
[Received in email; no URL]
Democrats in Washington are displeased with the news that
some documents written by Supreme Court nominee John G.
Roberts while he worked for two Republican presidents will
not be released for review during the confirmation
process, The Associated Press reported.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said some of the
material is "very sensitive, very deliberate information"
and should not be unrestricted.
"Generally, that's not something that the administration
or any White House would be inclined to share because it
is so sensitive," Gonzales said, "in my judgment, does
chill communications between line attorneys and their
superiors within the Department of Justice."
Some Democrats, such as Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., want the
White House to release "in their entirety" any documents
written by Roberts.
While Democrats have yet to request such material, if it
does happen, Gonzales said that each appeal would receive
careful consideration.
----- 7 -----
Oklahoma Abortion Law Stands Up in Court
Focus on the Family
Newsbriefs
July 25, 2005
[Received in email; no URL]
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected two
attempts by an Oklahoma abortion provider to challenge the
state's parental notification law, The Christian Post
reported.
Nova Health Systems filed suit in an attempt to block the
enforcement of law, passed in May 2005, requiring doctors
to provide written notification to parents of minor
patients at least 48 hours before an abortion. Nova
claimed the law doesn't provide sufficient protection of
minors' rights.
In a second case, Nova challenged a 2001 law that makes
abortion providers responsible for any medical costs
incurred when they perform an abortion on a minor without
parental consent or notification.
In both cases, the court ruled in favor of upholding
Oklahoma law. Bebe Anderson, attorney for Nova, said the
clinic may decide to pursue the issue at a later date.
----- 8 -----
FOOD NETWORK RENEGES ON BOY SCOUT TROOP
TV's Food Network takes Boy Scout idea off the table.
http://www.family.org/cforum/feature/a0037291.cfm
by Aaron Atwood, assistant editor
Focus on the Family
SUMMARY: TV's Food Network takes Boy Scout idea off the
table.
When the Food Network asked "How do you Iron Chef?" on its
Web site, Boy Scout Troop 99 of Colorado Springs
responded. They were accepted -- then rejected because
they pledge to "being morally straight."
The troop had been doing Iron Chef competitions at
campouts and Scoutmaster Dave Maher thought a vignette of
his troop cooking up a storm would make a great promo for
the company.
The competition gives two chefs an identical cache of food
and challenges each to outdo the other in creativity and
taste. Maher's crew takes cooking seriously and had the
Boy Scout version of the popular TV program down to a
science. Maher said some of the food threw the Scouts for
a loop.
"One of the foods I put in initially was an eggplant,"
Maher said. "A lot had never seen it before."
Maher answered the casting call and the producers
responded. In a few weeks Maher was discussing with the
show's staff the logistics of hauling cameras to its next
campout. Would there be electricity? Do you need parking?
What date works best?
The excitement faded when Food Network producers took the
idea to parent company, E.W. Scripps.
"It went to Scripps for a rubber stamp but got shot down
at corporate approval," Maher explained. "Scripps was
unwilling to work with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA)
because of the Boy Scouts' position -- policies which they
perceive are the Boy Scouts' discriminatory practices on
gays."
[More at URL]
TAKE ACTION: You can send your comments to the Food
Network's parent company through the CitizenLink Action
Center:
http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=7865286
----- 9 -----
Support Needed for Senate Boy Scout Bill
Concerned Women for America
7/25/2005
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/8610/CWA/nation/index.htm
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has introduced the Support Our Scouts Act of 2005, a measure that would turn back the ruling of a liberal judge that prevents the Pentagon from supporting the annual Boy Scout Jamboree, held at Virginia’s Fort A.P. Hill. Call your Senators at 202-224-3121 and tell them to support this effort. Bob Knight, director of CWA’s Culture & Family Institute has more. Click here to listen.
----- 10 -----
The Centrality of Culture
7/25/2005
By Paul M. Weyrich
Concerned Women for America
The old sins have become virtues and the old virtues have become sins.
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/8608/CWA/misc/index.htm
At the heart of the challenge facing the conservative agenda lays one simple fact: While we focused our efforts on politics, our opponents on the left focused instead on culture.
Each of us won. Compared to where the conservative movement was the year I came to Washington, 1967, we are today immensely stronger politically. Republicans, most of whom are at least nominally conservative, control both Houses of Congress and the White House. That is success on a grand scale.
Regrettably, our opponents have won an equally large victory over our culture. What was called the "counter-culture" in the 1960s now controls almost every cultural venue: the entertainment industry (which is now the most powerful force in our culture), the government schools, the media, and even many churches. The ideology usually known as "Political Correctness," which is really the cultural Marxism of the infamous Frankfurt School, is using every type of cultural institution in our country to achieve its purpose, which is the destruction of traditional Western culture and the Christian religion. All we have to do is look around us and compare what we see with the America of the 1950s to understand how vast their victory is. The old sins have become virtues and the old virtues have become sins.
The nub of the problem is this: Culture is stronger than politics. Despite everything conservatives have achieved in politics, the left's cultural victory trumps ours. That is why even when we win election after election, our country continues to deteriorate.
The next conservatism will have to have solving this problem as its central theme. Conservatives have already taken some important steps in doing so. Starting in the mid-1980s when the Free Congress Foundation introduced "cultural conservatism," parts of the conservative movement have come to realize that if we lose the culture war, we also lose everything else. Culture is no longer at the periphery of conservatives' concerns, although it may not yet be at the center where I think it needs to be. And, I have to add, some neo-conservatives have been quite helpful to other conservatives in the fight to save our traditional culture, while others have had foreign policy as their focus. They ignore the cultural issues.
The question is, how can we win this fight? In 1999, I wrote an open letter to conservatives with a somewhat radical answer to that question. Instead of trying to retake existing institutions from the cultural Marxists, a battle I do not think we can win, I proposed we separate our lives and the lives of our families from those institutions and build our own institutions instead. In that letter, I wrote,
What I mean by separation is, for example, what the homeschoolers have done. Faced with public school systems that no longer educate but instead "condition" students with the attitudes demanded by Political Correctness, they have seceded. They have separated themselves from public schools and created new institutions, new schools, in their homes.I suggested conservatives should consider doing the same thing in many other areas of our lives (entertainment might be the most important with health care a close second).
[More at URL]
----- 11 -----
Knight: ACLU's Pro-Homosexual 'Bullying' Tactics Reminiscent of Chairman Mao
By Bill Fancher
Agape Press
July 21, 2005
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/7/212005d.asp
(AgapePress) - One pro-family advocate feels the ACLU, in its effort to force the homosexual agenda in American schools, is using the bullying tactics of Chairman Mao to "reprogram" staff and students on the issue of homosexuality.
In California and Kentucky, the American Civil Liberties Union has gone to court to force reluctant school systems to take part in pro-homosexual promotions. Settlement of an ACLU court case in California includes a mandatory daylong faculty training on what the legal groups calls "diversity, discrimination and harassment, focused primarily on issues pertaining to actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity." And earlier this month in the Bluegrass State, the ACLU accused the Boyd County Board of Education of failing to hold up its end of an agreement to provide mandatory training focused on "sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination."
Bob Knight is director of the Culture and Family Institute (CFI), affiliated with Concerned Women for America in Washington, DC. Knight contends the ACLU is trying to undermine parents' values. "The ACLU is probably best described as the 'Anti-Christian Legal Unit,' because Christians kids in these public schools are being told that their beliefs amount to a form of bigotry," he says.
[More at URL]
----- 12 -----
Gay pride policies alarm librarians
St. Petersburg Times
July 17, 2005
Copyright Times Publishing Co. Jul 17, 2005
URL encapsulated because of length; click here
When the Hillsborough County Commission voted last month to prohibit county government from promoting and acknowledging gay pride events, the move caused an outcry.
Commissioners, who passed the policy in response to gay pride book displays in local libraries, have been inundated with e-mails, letters and phone calls, many criticizing the vote. Local chapters of the NAACP, Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio and City Council members condemned the action.
More than 2,000 people marched from the library to County Center on a Sunday afternoon to protest the policy.
But the Hillsborough County Commission isn't the first government body to take action in response to gay-themed books and displays in libraries.
"We are seeing an increase in challenges to materials that have to do with gay and lesbian issues and an increase in legislation that addresses those kinds of materials in libraries," said Beverley Becker, director of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom.
In 2001, the mayor of Anchorage, Alaska, ordered a gay pride book display removed from a library. A federal judge ordered it back on the library's walls.
This spring, Oklahoma legislators passed a resolution requiring that all gay-themed materials be shelved in adult book sections. Louisiana lawmakers introduced a similar resolution that failed.
[More at URL]
----- 13 -----
Vermont Inn Sued for Resisting Same-Sex Civil Union Ceremony 7/24/2005
By Lindsey Douthit
Couple with eight children doesn’t want to promote homosexuality.
http://www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp?id=8607&department=CFI&categoryid=family
Homosexual activists have targeted a small, family-owned inn in Vermont and are threatening its owners with financial ruin if they do not provide planning, resources and accommodation for a same-sex civil union ceremony.
Jim and Mary (full name withheld at their request), a married couple in Vermont, own and live in an inn, where they raise their eight children. The family also offers wedding planning services, in which they spend extensive time with the brides and grooms to plan receptions, catering, flowers, decorations and entertainment. They recently received an award for being outstanding innkeepers.
Little did they know that one day a single phone call would turn their lives upside down.
Susan Parker, a lesbian, phoned the inn to ask about holding a civil union reception there. Neither Jim nor Mary refused to host the event, but Jim explained that their Roman Catholic beliefs about marriage might make it difficult for him to “put his heart behind the project” and pour hours into the planning process. Jim never said “no,” and even said that if the client “really desired” to hold the reception, then he would be willing to meet with her to discuss possible arrangements. Parker responded by going to the Vermont Human Rights Commission, which slapped Jim and Mary with discrimination charges.
[More at URL]
----- 14 -----
New Canadian Gay Marriage Law Will Have 'an Effect on America'
Christian Underground/CharismaNOW
July 26, 2005
http://www.charismanews.com/a.php?ArticleID=11579
Christian legal groups say Canada's recent decision to become the fourth country to legalize gay marriage will impact the United States. Last Wednesday, Canadian Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin signed a landmark bill that grants same-sex couples legal rights equal to those in traditional unions between a man and a woman -- something already legal in eight of Canada's 10 provinces and in two of its three territories, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
The Senate voted 47-21 last Tuesday to adopt the legislation to legalize homosexual marriage despite fierce opposition from conservatives and religious leaders. On June 28, the bill was passed by the House of Commons.
The law gives homosexual activists in America a significant moral boost in their push to redefine marriage, Baptist Press (BP) observed.
"There's a lot of Canadians that will move to the United States, and some of [them] will want to have these different states ... recognize their Canadian same-sex marriage licenses," Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, an Orlando, Fla.-based law firm, told BP. "That's why it's so critical that we move forward with a federal Marriage Protection Amendment to amend our U.S. Constitution to preserve marriage as between one man and one woman."
The new law also permits gay American couples to "marry" in Canada and file a suit back home for recognition of the license. Canada's marriage laws do not require residency, BP reported. Massachusetts recognizes gay marriage, but it has a law that prevents out-of-staters from "marrying" if their home state would not recognize it. The law is being challenged in state court.
"Canadian policy and the policy in other countries has an effect on what America does -- unfortunately -- and we can't just shrug it off and try to insulate ourselves," Dale Schowengerdt, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian law firm, told BP. "It's just right across the border. It strikes too close to home."
Matt Daniels, president of the Virginia-based Alliance for Marriage (AFM), agreed with Staver that America needs a constitutional marriage amendment because of the Canadian law. AFM was the first group to promote the amendment.
[More at URL]
