Today's Cultural Warfare Update
Feb. 13th, 2006 11:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdConcerned Women for America's shift to Christian Reconstructionism seems to have picked up speed; I don't know whether this is just a coincidence of stories or what, but they're linking to Reconcstructionist pages, they've got a Reconstructionist writer now (his article is below), and they're starting to pull out their extra-rabid anti-gay rhetoric, including reviving the "queers are all child molesters" rhetoric, piling that on top of the "diseased fag" rhetoric they never completely gave up. That's kinda scary.
In other news, Focus on the Family has revived the "Hitler was Darwin's fault" rhetoric, fundamentalists are still trying to pretend Dover didn't happen, and there are a couple of new American-sponsoured/American-aided Canadian fundamentalist sites out there.
But for now, here's today's news.
United Arab Emirates bans Brokeback Mountain, calling it intrinsically offensive to all Muslims;
Small pro-science Christian movements appear to be starting up, in much-belated reaction to the 30-year fundamentalist campaign against it;
World of Warcraft blocked a gay gamer guild; protests caused higher-ups to reverse the lower-level decision and they've apologised;
BBC News: marriage is good for the health of lesbians and gay men - but they still use scare-quotes around "marriage";
Report from a pair of French protesters counter-protesting an Islamist march in Paris;
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ravyngyngvar translates documents from the 1933 Blasphemy issue in Norway, posts in his journal;
Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM against marriage rights - they're pushing the Federal amendment again, with a goal of a March vote;
FotF story about a California lawsuit against the Boy Scouts using California land despite being in continual violation of California anti-discrimination law (religion, sexual orientation); since when is Robert Bork their spokesman?!;
Wisconsin to "shut out Intelligent Design" by limiting science teaching to testable scientific theories; that's good, because Creationism is fucking stupid, but the fundamentalists are upset;
Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM to support anti-marriage amendment in Idaho;
FotF attacks religious groups discussed in the NYT article as trying to "silence" creationists by expressing support for, well, science;
Senator Jim Talent (R-Missouri) withdraws support for anti-"cloning" bill that would severely restrict genetic research in this country;
Concerned Women for America article by Lee Duigon - yes, that's another man writing for cWa - saying that homophobia isn't a problem, queers are a problem; also, he's with the Chalcedon Institute, an explicit Christian Reconstructionist group, the movement founded by Rushdooney that wants to implement old testament religious law as universal law;
Here's an article currently on the front page of the Chalcedon Institute web site that CWA links to, explicitly calling for the rejection of rationalism and (re-)establishment of theological rule;
Concerned Women for America's Robert Knight pushes Virginia state constitutional amendment banning marriage and civil unions for queers in all forms; vote will be in November;
CNS News: opposition to abortion and the rights of GBLT people will continue to push the Conservative agenda for the next few years; doesn't use use scare quotes around marriage, also prefixes with "counterfeit";
*** CWA's Linda Harvey spins the newest version of the "Corruption of the Innocent" - homosexual monsters trying to destroy YOUR CHILDREN; calls for an outright ban on any contact with children by any GBLT person OR any person who supports the rights of GBLT people, accuses supports of GBLT rights (GBLT or straight) of supporting child molestation; includes an extended version of the "disturbed, diseased fags" rant;
American Family Association ACTION ITEM to support the anti-marriage-rights MPA mentioned above;
Creationist Kent Hovind pushes new approach against evolutionary theory; it's just another repackaging, but it seems to the point of dropping species origin entirely from science classes;
Canadian fundamentalist Brian Rushfeldt joins the American fundamentalist chorus saying "nobody in the heartland will see Brokeback Mountain"; this hasn't been coming true, despite furious attempts to make it so;
"Pro-Life Search" licenses Google technology, calls itself "The Web's First Pro-Life Search Engine"; fees paid by users go in small part to anti-abortion-rights organisations;
Family Research Council pushes Federal anti-marriage amendment;
Canada Family Action Coalition: "Sodomy is sodomy is sodomy"; opposes equalisation of age-of-consent laws in Canada;
American fundamentalist political group Focus on the Family's "Institute of Marriage and Family Canada" opens;
Focus on the Family's Citizen magazine: Hitler and the Nazi party were the fault of Darwin and evolutionary theory.
----- 1 -----
UAE bans Brokeback Mountain
By Afkar Abdullah
9 February 2006
Long URL elided
SHARJAH — The Ministry of Culture and Information will not allow the screening of the Hollywood film Brokeback Mountain in the UAE because of scenes involving homosexuals.
"Brokeback Mountain is a film which has nothing positive about it. The portrayal of the sexual behaviour of its main character is offensive to eastern societies, particularly Muslims and the Arabs since Islam forbids abnormal behaviors like homosexuality," said Dr Abdullah Al Amiri, Chairman of the Committee of Financial, Economical and Industrial Affairs of Sharjah Consultative Council yesterday.
“The film will upset the people of this culture and tradition,” he said, explaining that there were scenes showing two men romantically inclined to each other.
[More at URL]
----- 2 -----
At Churches Nationwide, Good Words for Evolution
By NEELA BANERJEE and ANNE BERRYMAN
Published: February 13, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/13/national/13evolution.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
On the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin, ministers at several hundred churches around the country preached yesterday against recent efforts to undermine the theory of evolution, asserting that the opposition many Christians say exists between science and faith is false.
At St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, a small contemporary structure among the pricey homes of north Atlanta, the Rev. Patricia Templeton told the 85 worshipers gathered yesterday, "A faith that requires you to close your mind in order to believe is not much of a faith at all."
In the basement of an apartment building in Evanston, Ill., the Rev. Mitchell Brown said to the 21 people who came to services at the Evanston Mennonite Church that Darwin's theories in fact had compelled people to have faith rather than look for "special effects" to confirm the existence of God.
"He forced religion to grow up, to become, really, faith for the first time," Mr. Brown said. "The life of community, that is where we know God today."
The event, called Evolution Sunday, is an outgrowth of the Clergy Letter Project, started by academics and ministers in Wisconsin in early 2005 as a response to efforts, most notably in Dover, Pa., to discredit the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools.
[More at URL]
----- 3 -----
Gay rights win in Warcraft world
By Mark Ward
Technology correspondent, BBC News website
Monday, 13 February 2006, 08:42 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4700754.stm
The maker of the hugely popular online game, World of Warcraft, has changed its policy on gay teams following an outcry from many players.
Blizzard was accused of being heavy-handed by threatening to expel a player for advertising a gay-friendly team or guild.
Blizzard has officially apologised to the guild recruiter, saying the warning should never have been issued.
[More at URL]
----- 4 -----
Gay marriage 'is good for health'
BBC News
Tuesday, 14 February 2006, 00:20 GMT
Gay "marriage" could boost the mental and physical health of homosexuals, doctors believe.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4708710.stm
Rates of depression, drug abuse and cancer are higher in the gay community than among heterosexual people.
The report said civil partnerships, which were introduced in England and Wales in December, were likely to reduce prejudice and social exclusion.
The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health article was based on previous studies in other countries.
[More at URL]
----- 5 -----
Islamic Protestors in Paris Come Face to Face with an Unexpected Counter-Protest
Sunday, February 12, 2006
posted by Erik @ 12:49 PM
http://no-pasaran.blogspot.com/2006/02/islamic-protestors-in-paris-come-face.html
"An eye for an eye! A tooth for a tooth!" Echoing protests around the world and wearing all kinds of costumes from the Middle East and the Muslim world, 4,000 Islamic demonstrators march through Paris denouncing the cartoons and the alleged (and convenient) lack of respect towards Islam.
When they arrive at La Nation, they are met with two figures wearing slightly different costumes and slightly different signs.
One, in red and white, is (silently) wearing a sign with the Danish flag saying "Support Denmark, Support free speech". Besides (silently) wearing a sign reading "Free Cartoonist" on it, the other, the founder of the BAF protest warrior-type organisation, is holding a (fake) severed hand, a pen among its fingers.
[More at URL]
----- 6 -----
Blasphemy, Arnulf Øverland and "Christianity, the tenth plague."
Ravyng Yngvar
February 12, 2006
http://ravyngyngvar.livejournal.com/1199.html
When (Livejournal) Solarbird wrote about the controversy surrounding the Mohammed caricatures that were originally published in Jyllands-Posten, and later reprinted in the Norwegian Christian weekly Magazinet, the Norwegian blasphemy paragraph (§142) came up.
[More at URL]
----- 7 -----
D-DAY FOR MARRIAGE PROTECTION SCHEDULED IN SENATE
The battle is on to amend the U.S. Constitution.
Focus on the Family
Family News in Focus
February 13, 2006
by Pete Winn, associate editor
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0039519.cfm
The U.S. Senate is slated to take up the Marriage
Protection Amendment (MPA) on June 5, and pro-family
leaders say it's time for prayer and action.
The amendment would constitutionally define marriage as
the union of one man and one woman.
Until last Friday, when Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist,
R-Tenn., announced he had scheduled a vote, there had been
almost nothing but silence on the subject since 2004 --
the last time it came up for Senate action.
Now the MPA is back on the front burner.
[...]
"Last time, the cloture vote was all we had," she said.
"We actually didn’t have an up-or-down vote in the Senate
because we did not reach that 60-vote threshold -- the
vote was 48-50, with two senators not voting."
Banks said she believes there are at least five more votes
in favor of cloture, bringing the number of supporters to
at least 53. That change is due to the 2004 election --
when the Senate saw a net gain of five conservative seats.
"We still need seven more votes," she said. "It's
important for everyone to contact their senators -- no
matter how they may have voted last time -- to let them
where the people they represent stand."
[...]
TAKE ACTION: Please consider taking this issue before the
Lord in prayer. Then, as He directs, also consider taking
action.
As you do, keep in mind that pro-family lobbyists think
it's important to contact your state's two U.S. senators
right away to let them know how you feel about the
Marriage Protection Amendment.
Before you write them, however, please visit CitizenLink's
Marriage Protection Action Center.
http://www.family.org/cforum/extras/a0031537.cfm
[More at URL]
----- 8 -----
WISCONSIN SEEKS TO SHUT OUT INTELLIGENT DESIGN THEORY
Legislation would limit scientific discussion in schools to evolution.
Focus on the Family
Family News in Focus
February 13, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0039516.cfm
If you can't beat them, keep them from showing up --
that's the tack Wisconsin evolutionists and liberal
lawmakers are taking to keep the study of intelligent
design out of the public schools.
Intelligent design explores the idea that some aspects of
biology are too complicated to be explained by evolution
and instead point to an unnamed designer.
The legislation under consideration would allow only
"testable" scientific theories and those given the OK by
the National Academy of Sciences to be taught. That's seen
as limiting the curriculum to evolution alone.
The bill would allow intelligent design to be discussed
only in a nonscientific context. For example, it could be
raised in a science class, but only if the teacher
explains why it is not a science. Otherwise, intelligent
design would be relegated to religion, social studies and
philosophy courses.
[More at URL]
----- 9 -----
IDAHO SENATE ABOUT TO KILL MARRIAGE AMENDMENT A THIRD TIME
If you live in Idaho, express your support for the Marriage Amendment today.
Focus on the Family
Family News in Focus
by Mona Passignano, state issues analyst
February 13, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/statenews/a0039517.cfm
The Idaho Senate is poised to reject a state marriage
amendment for the third time. The state House has already
approved it, but it must also clear the Senate to be
placed on the ballot for the people to decide.
Idaho does have a Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that
defines marriage as between one man and one woman, but
that law is only one activist judge away from being
overturned. The laws have always been vulnerable to
judicial activism.
In December 2005, Iowa’s DOMA was challenged as
unconstitutional by six homosexual couples. Then in
January, a judge in Maryland struck down a 1973 state law
that defined marriage as one man and one woman only.
Probably the most infamous example happened in 2003, when
the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts struck down
the state's laws on traditional marriage. In the year
following that decision, more than 6,000 same-sex couples
were legally married in that state.
[...]
TAKE ACTION: Contact your state senator and urge him or
her to support the constitutional amendment to protect
marriage – HJR 2. To get contact information for your
senator, visit the Cornerstone Institute of Idaho Web site
and follow the instructions there.
http://www.cornerstoneofidaho.org/
[More at URL]
----- 10 -----
Churches Express Support for Evolution
Focus on the Family
Newsbriefs
February 13, 2006
[Received in email; no URL]
Hundreds of churches nationwide celebrated the birth of
Charles Darwin on Sunday by discussing his contributions
to science and their relationship to religion, The New
York Times reported.
In 2005, a group of academics and ministers in Wisconsin
began the Clergy Letter Project as a way to influence
public schools to shy away from offering science
curriculum that challenged the theory of evolution. The
Clergy Letter Project is behind Evolution Sunday.
Michael Zimmerman, dean of the College of Letters and
Sciences at the University of Wisconsin and a member of
the Clergy Letter Project, wants those who discredit
evolution silenced.
"There was a growing need to demonstrate that the loud,
shrill voices of fundamentalists claiming that Christians
had to choose between modern science and religion were
presenting a false dichotomy," he said. To reject
evolution "is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance
and transmit such ignorance to our children."
But Robert Crowther, director of communications for the
Discovery Institute, said a poll in Ohio revealed the
majority of people want their children to have more
information, not less.
"Ohioans want Darwin’s theory of evolution fully and
completely presented, including the theory's strengths and
weaknesses," he said. "Seventy-five percent favor teaching
intelligent design alongside of Darwinian evolution. Even
after all the attacks on intelligent design by the
dogmatic Darwin-only lobby, the public clearly wants to
know more about the theory and make up their own minds."
----- 11 -----
Missouri Senator Changes Stance on Cloning
Focus on the Family
Newsbriefs
February 13, 2006
[Received in email; no URL]
An otherwise solidly pro-life, pro-family member of the
U.S. Senate took to the floor last Friday and told his
colleagues he was withdrawing his support for a ban on
human cloning.
Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., spoke for a half-hour trying to
justify why he was ending his four years of support for S.
658, legislation sponsored by Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.,
and Mary Landrieu, D-La., that would specifically ban the
cloning and destruction of human embryos for research.
Talent said he now supports a proposed form of stem-cell
research that utilizes cells which he said have been
"ethically harvested."
Carrie Gordon Earll, senior analyst for bioethics at Focus
on the Family Action, said Talent's change of mind was
disappointing. But it was all the more troubling because
the research he's pinning his hopes on would be unaffected
by the legislation -- while the cloning and killing of
human embryos would still be legal unless the ban is
enacted.
"The reason his gives for this action is questionable in
our view," she said, "as it is based on a
misrepresentation of what the legislation would prohibit.
Senator Talent could have maintained support for the
Brownback bill while also supporting other research
options."
Earll said, according Talent's Senate speech, she expects
the senator to still oppose a pro-cloning ballot
initiative in his home state of Missouri.
----- 12 -----
'Homophobia' Is Not the Problem
Concerned Women for America
2/13/2006
By Lee Duigon
The wages of sin remain whether anyone thinks it’s a sin or not.
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/10128/CFI/family/index.htm
Wouldn't it be nice if all of society supported and affirmed homosexual behavior?
If all the problems faced by homosexuals arise from “homophobia,” fueled by us bigots in the conservative Christian camp, then to eliminate “homophobia” would be to eliminate the problems.
So runs the prevailing orthodoxy in the “‘gay’ community,” very succinctly expressed by phrases like “the high cost of homophobia,” etc.--and trotted out, opportunistically, at every opportunity.
Witness the words of Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, trying to attach a rider to the death of Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: "From the beginning, Mrs. King understood that homophobia is hate, and hate has no place in the Beloved Community that she and Dr. King envisioned for our nation and our world." Neither Dr. nor Mrs. King is in a position to object to Foreman's crass opportunism.
But this orthodoxy is dead wrong. If the Christian Right and all vestiges of “homophobia” were to disappear by magic, homosexual behavior still would be problematic.
It would still be a sin, and the homosexually inclined person's spiritual problems would persist, no matter what society said. The behavior is a sin not because we say it is, but because the Bible says so. Whatever the damage done by “homophobia,” the damage done to society by the homosexual movement is considerable. Among other things, it has accelerated Western civilization's falling away from faith in God, as timeless truths are reduced to cultural relativism.
[...]
Lee Duigon is a Christian free-lance writer who periodically writes for Concerned Women for America’s Web site. His work can be seen featured regularly at www.chalcedon.edu.
[More at URL]
[Editor's note: see below. The next article is on the front page of www.chalcedon.edu as I collect this. This is what CWA is linking to.]
----- 13 -----
What Went Wrong with the Christian Right
Dr. Gary North
January/February 2006
http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/article.php?ArticleID=239
The answer is simple: the Christian Right has refused to break with the worst assumptions of the pre-Christian Right.
Before discussing what is wrong, we should discuss what is right. What is right is Biblical covenant theology.
Biblical Covenant Theology
Covenant theology has five points. First, God is absolutely sovereign. That is, He has predestinated everything. He is different from the creation, yet He has entered into the creation, above all through the Second Person of the Trinity’s incarnation as Jesus Christ.
Second, God rules in history covenantally, meaning hierarchically and judicially, primarily through mankind. After the Fall of man, God has dealt with redeemed men in a special way, which includes granting to them the lawful authority to impose judgments in history, including civil judgments.
Third, God has revealed His law for mankind in the Bible, though also in nature. Both man and nature are fallen, which places the Bible, God’s Word, as the central source for wisdom and ethics. It alone is trustworthy.
Fourth, as the providential sustainer of the universe, God judicially imputes meaning and then brings salvation (healing, deliverance) to individuals, societies, and nature, based on the comprehensive judgment brought against Jesus Christ at Calvary. We are therefore to think God’s thoughts after Him, subordinating our thoughts to the Bible.
Fifth, the new heavens and new earth, announced by Isaiah, will progressively replace Satan’s kingdom in history before Jesus comes in final judgment. To put these points in one sentence, the Bible teaches predestination, theocracy, theonomy, presuppositionalism, and postmillennialism.
Covenant theology is an inescapable concept. It is never a question of covenant theology vs. no covenant theology. It is a question of which covenant theology.
Having summarized the Bible’s doctrine of the covenant, I will now summarize the covenant theology of the pre-Christian Right.
American Covenant Theology
First, God is not absolutely sovereign. Man’s free will acts as a retarding factor on God’s decree. God’s decree is not comprehensive. God may or may not know the future perfectly, but men are surely sovereign in accepting or rejecting the gospel, and therefore sovereign over less important matters as well.
Second, God rules hierarchically through mankind, but He no longer has selected redeemed men to exercise special authority in civil affairs.
Third, God’s revealed law is confined to the Old Testament, which is no longer binding. Mankind is to be ruled by means of natural law, which is common to all men. Man and nature are fallen, but this has not seriously impaired the operation of natural law, as discovered by fallen man.
Fourth, God imputes meaning to all things and then salvation to individuals, but He does not save societies. Salvation is souls-only. So, in order to maintain society apart from specific redemption, truth must be available to all men on a common-access basis.
Fifth, because God saves souls only, and because the souls saved will remain a minority throughout history, society will remain unredeemed until Jesus comes again.
To put these points in one sentence, the Bible teaches free will, democracy, natural law theory, common-sense rationalism, and pessimillennialism (premillennialism or amillennialism).
We now turn to the area of applied theology. Each of these rival covenant theologies has undergirded a specific way of looking at the world. Each has produced a rival social outlook: in education, economics, politics, psychology, and popular culture. Each has produced a rival program of reconstruction.
Christian Reconstruction
Christian Reconstruction (capital R) can be said to have appeared as a developed theological system with the publication of Rousas John Rushdoony’s book, The Institutes of Biblical Law in 1973. That marked the resurrection of a lost Protestant tradition: a 300-year hiatus since the publication of Richard Baxter’s A Christian Directory, published in 1673. Baxter’s book was a work of Protestant casuistry: the application of Christian principles to society.
Rushdoony’s first book was on Cornelius Van Til’s philosophy: By What Standard? (1959). Van Til was a strict presuppositionalist philosopher — unique in church history. He was a true radical. Rushdoony explained and affirmed Van Til’s approach: a rejection of natural law theory and all common-ground systems of rationalism. This offered Rushdoony a strategy of reconstruction: education.
[...]
The Christian Right wants a halfway house between democracy and theocracy. It also wants a halfway house between theonomy and autonomy, revelation and rationalism, creationism and evolutionism. It wants equal time for Jesus, which means equal time for Satan.
Their allies, the humanists, want no time for Jesus. They want the votes and donations of the faithful, but nothing more. They generally get what they want.
[More at URL]
[Editor's note: I just wanted to make it absolutely clear what Concerned Women for America and anybody linking to Christian Reconstructionism websites are linking to: THEOCRATIC RULE LIKE IN IRAN, ONLY CHRISTIAN-FLAVOURED. Execution for non-Christians is specifically mentioned in this article. Theocracy is specifically supported in this article. Christian Reconstructionism _does not_ support democratic principles. Period. Concerned Women for America gets invited to all the big White House events, and they are supporting and supported by pure, unadulterated theocrats. That's where we are today.]
----- 14 -----
Virginia Likely to Vote on Marriage Amendment in November
Robert H. Knight
Concerned Women for America
January 27, 2006
http://www.cwalac.org/article_298.shtml
Virginia’s voters should expect to see a constitutional marriage amendment on the ballot this November. The Virginia Senate voted 28 to 11 on Wednesday to pass a bill authorizing a ballot vote. On January 16, the House of Delegates passed a marriage amendment bill by 76-20 after defeating several measures that would have eliminated language barring civil unions.
Two recently elected new delegates, David Poisson (D-Loudoun County) and Chuck Caputo (D-Fairfax County) voted against the marriage protection amendment. Poisson had defeated Richard Black (R), one of the most conservative members of the Assembly and a former sponsor of the marriage amendment.
The two houses must vote once more on each other’s bill, even though they have identical language. “Now that everybody’s on record, it’s clear that passage is inevitable,” said Michael Bowman, Director of State Legislative Relations for Concerned Women for America. “We’re pleased and confident that Virginia is moving to protect marriage. Now we’re looking toward the Wisconsin Legislature to place their marriage amendment on the ballot in November.”
Patricia Phillips, CWA’s Virginia State Director, gave credit for this week’s Senate victory to pro-family activists, including CWA volunteers. CWA of Virginia has made a five-minute video to educate churches about marriage, Phillips said. To get a copy of the video, call (703) 444 1740 or view it at http://va.cwfa.org/.
“Now the statewide campaign begins!,” Phillips said. “We need grassroots support to write letters to the editor, call local radio shows, and help detect the misinformation we expect the media to repeat.”
[More at URL]
----- 15 -----
Abortion and 'Gay Rights' Still High on Conservative Agenda
By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
February 13, 2006
Long URL elided
(CNSNews.com) - The contentious social issues of abortion and homosexual "rights" will continue to feed public debate and drive American politics, according to experts on those issues who addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C., Friday.
While they believe conservatives are gaining ground on those issues, the speakers agreed there is still much work to be done to protect both unborn children and the traditional definition of marriage.
Alan Chambers -- president of Exodus International, a ministry to those seeking to leave the homosexual lifestyle -- told CPAC attendees that Americans have come "to depend on counterfeits." He compared the country's obsession with sex to its growing consumption of fast food.
"Fast food is a counterfeit. And it may fill you up, but a long-term diet of it will kill you," Chambers argued. "Parallel this with our over-sexed culture. More men today find pleasure from a computer screen, from magazines or movies, through fantasies and through pre and extra-marital relationships than they do lifelong, loving and committed marriage relationships with a member of the opposite sex."
[...]
"Marriage has become a counterfeit means of validation to the small percentage of 'gay' men and women who are fighting to co-opt it," Chambers argued. "Marriage rights mean forced acceptance and forced validation of their broken lives and broken hearts."
He concluded that homosexual "marriage," if legalized, "will not only result in altering marriage from its created purpose, to bring forth healthy children and a healthy society, but rather it will destroy those children and the world that we leave them."
[More at URL]
----- 16 -----
Fairy Tales Don't Come True
Concerned Women for America
2/13/2006
By Linda Harvey
Impressionable children get caught in the lies about the [sic]
[Editor's note: the subheading is cut off in the original]
A Culture & Family Institute Special Report
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/10130/CFI/resources/index.htm
Josh is 13 and, like many kids his age, he's often unhappy. Everything about his life is uncertain. He's only 5 feet 4 inches tall, and many of the girls in his middle-school class are taller. He has no idea how his body will end up. Will he be tall, short, plain, handsome? He's slightly overweight and hasn't found a sport he excels in. He only has two or three close friends. Sometimes his voice changes an entire octave, up or down, at a moment's notice. He's an average student, and he sometimes dreads going to school because it doesn't interest him much.
On top of all this, Josh has troubles at home. His parents don't get along. His father works long hours, and his mother yells a lot. She's stressed out over unpaid bills, problems with his older sister, who sometimes uses drugs, and her own ongoing treatment for depression. They don't have family dinners except around holidays, and they haven't been on a family vacation in two years. Josh can't remember the last time he had a conversation with either parent involving more than two sentences.
In other words, Josh is a lot like many American adolescents. His family has only casual ties to a church, and his parents consider themselves moderate politically, when they have time or interest to think about it.
Josh's standards are being formed largely not by parents of high character, but by the American culture, including television, his public school and the Internet. That's where he developed a keen curiosity about sex, and it's also where he gets his information and values. And his values right now are leaning toward believing he might be a homosexual.
He has absorbed information at school that most homosexuals are victims of terrible discrimination, even sometimes violence, so "good" people are those who accept homosexuality, bisexuality and gender changes. Most of his teachers believe that homosexuality isn't a choice and that students with same-sex attractions should just accept them. At least three separate school offerings left him with these ideas: a book on different types of families his teacher read aloud in third grade; a sixth grade anti-bias and "tolerance" unit; and an assignment in his literature class where he read a novel about teen boys exploring homosexuality.1
After reading that book, he got on the Internet, found some Web sites (including several "gay" porn sites) and decided he was homosexual. He wanted to talk to someone but his parents were too busy, and they probably wouldn't really object much anyway. The church they sometimes attend had a sermon last year about the hatefulness of those "other" churches that disapprove of homosexuality. His dad said he thought the minister was probably "gay," and his mom just nodded. Josh has no significant barriers to exploring homosexuality, because he has never heard or read an opposing viewpoint. Not at school, not on any TV sitcoms, not on the Internet (because relatively few sites exist), and not at his church.
If he's a homosexual, he thinks, this would explain why he craves being close to other boys. Sometimes he thinks it's just because he never sees his dad, but he's not sure. Also, girls aren't interested in him. Girls seem like a lot of trouble. It would be so much more fun to be physical with someone who likes the same things he does - Playstation, movies and role-playing games. And having sex without any thoughts of pregnancy, commitment and all that serious stuff. Wouldn't that be great? Besides, he was physically aroused looking at "gay" porn sites. Doesn't that prove he must be a homosexual?
What he's considering now is visiting a local "gay" youth support group that meets weekly in a nearby community center. He learned about it in his school newspaper. He called the number and was told it's open to kids age 12 and older, and they won't tell your parents.2 He wonders what it would be like to meet someone who's already "gay." After visiting those Web sites, Josh is eager to date, even - maybe - to have a sexual experience. It would be all right, the Web sites said, if he was "ready" for it, and he has decided he is. Also, it would be okay if he was in love, like in the novel he read. He probably ought to use a condom, but maybe the other person would be older and know more about that than he does.
Inappropriate Access: The Corruption of the Innocent
Josh is not a real person, but a composite of different teens I have learned about over the 10 years I've been researching this issue. The tale is tragically similar; only the names change. The turbulence of many American families coupled with the usual challenges of childhood and adolescence present the opportunity for depravity to take hold in the young mind and spirit. Children are being deliberately exploited at a time when they are extremely vulnerable, and virtually no one, it seems, is paying attention. Opportunities exist for them to get involved in life-changing behaviors like homosexuality before their parents have any idea.
[...]
When people have views supporting homosexuality, they should not be involved with youth in any way, period. [Ed. Note: Emphasis is in original.] Because they:
* will provide inaccurate, misleading information to kids;
* may limit a student's opportunity to hear warnings about the behavior;
* may advocate or model inappropriate behavior;
* may be directly involved in the molestation of kids themselves; or
* may be in a position to allow others to do so.
[...]
What Happens to Josh?
So what becomes of all the Joshes out there? They seldom hear another viewpoint; they are seldom approached by Christian peers who will show them a different way. It's not that our Christian kids don't want to; they don't have enough information and are too intimidated to challenge the easily provoked pro-"gay" advocates.
So, Josh will probably go ahead and attend a local "gay" community group; then in high school, join the high school "GSA" ("gay"-straight alliance, the name of many homosexual clubs). He probably will pair up with an older homosexual and begin homosexual sex. His parents, anxious to be politically correct, won't object and will eventually come to accept his "lifestyle."
Josh's future probably holds a revolving door of sexual contacts, with his first visit to a clinic to be treated for a sexually transmitted disease at around age 17. Then, if he's typical, he'll be treated annually for an STD of some type. Oh, and all those middle school insecurities over appearance have been dispelled. He's turned into a drop-dead gorgeous young man, but he has no interest in the appreciative glances of young women. He's too much in demand at the "gay" bars and bathhouses.
He is already drinking heavily, smoking and doing recreational drugs. Somewhere along the line, he'll have several longer-term boyfriends, and may even move in with one or two of them. Their break-ups will happen after six months or a year, and be spectacular events punctuated with drama, screaming fights and threats of self-harm, contributing to the high rates of domestic violence cited for "gay" males.
He will go to a counselor for treatment of depression, anxiety or an eating disorder. Seeking some peace and stability, he'll join a "gay"-friendly denomination like the Metropolitan Community Church. Along the way, he may well become HIV-positive. In his 30s, he will start to have relationships with boys who are 16 and 17, just as someone did when he was a teen. He may even transmit the HIV virus to one or more of them.
Josh is likely to die early, probably before 55 and very likely in his 40s. His grandmother will cry at his funeral, knowing he would have made a great father and even grandfather. But it won't happen for him.
This was happiness? This is freedom? Why can't Josh be told the rest of the story before it's too late?
Linda Harvey is president and founder of Mission: America, an Ohio-based Christian organization dedicated to exposing the pansexual agenda in schools and youth culture. Another version of this article ran in her quarterly newsletter Choice4Truth.
[More at URL]
----- 17 -----
Senate To Vote On Homosexual Marriage Ban In Early March
Action Needed Today! Help Send U.S. Senate One Million Letters Supporting Marriage Protection Amendment
American Family Association
LEGISLATIVE ALERT
February 2006
http://www3.capwiz.com/afanet/issues/alert/?alertid=8457061&type=CO
The U.S. Senate will vote on the Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA) in early March. This constitutional amendment will make marriage between one man and one woman the only legal marriage.
Your help is needed in sending one million emails to the Senate in support of the MPA.
Senators who vote against the MPA, or support a filibuster to avoid a vote on the MPA, are supporting homosexual marriage.
ACTION NEEDED TODAY!
Please enter your zip code above or below and click “GO” to send your two Senators an email, then forward this to your friends and family urging them to do the same. The “Tell A Friend” link found below is an easy way to pass this important message to your friends and family. Those favoring homosexual marriage are already contacting their Senators urging defeat of the MPA.
[More at URL]
----- 18 -----
Require Accuracy in Textbooks -- and Evolution Will Crumble, Says Creationist
By Jim Brown
February 13, 2006
American Family Association/Agape Press
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/2/afa/132006c.asp
(AgapePress) - A Christian evangelist who travels and speaks around the world on creation, evolution, and dinosaurs will be holding a seminar at a Pennsylvania high school that was recently ordered by a federal judge not to mention "intelligent design" (ID) in biology class.
Dr. Kent Hovind takes the position that the Bible is literally true and scientifically accurate, the earth is not billions of years old, and dinosaurs lived with man all through history. Hovind, who heads Pensacola, Florida-based "Creation Science Evangelism," will bring his message to the Dover Area High School on March 17-18. The two-day seminar is sponsored by Philadelphia-based Repent America.
Referring to the recent highly publicized ID court case involving the Dover school district -- a case that resulted ultimately in the election of a new school board -- Hovind believes the previous board should not have tried to force intelligent design into schools. He says no matter how noble such efforts are, those who are pushing for ID or critical analysis of evolution in public schools are all "barking up the wrong tree."
According to the Creation Science Evangelism founder, the overall objective should be accuracy in textbooks. "To me the much better approach is don't mention creation, don't mention evolution, don't mention intelligent design," Hovind suggests. "That's not the goal."
The goal, he says, is to get textbooks to be accurate. "Because if all the lies are taken out of the textbooks, there will be nothing left to support the evolution theory." And that, he says, is evolutionists' problem. "They shouldn't have picked a dumb theory to begin with."
[More at URL]
----- 19 -----
Activist Says Scenic Alberta Not Likely to Favor Brokeback Mountain at Box Office
By Chad Groening
February 13, 2006
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/2/afa/132006f.asp
(AgapePress) - A Canadian pro-family activist doesn't believe people in his home province of Alberta like the idea that Hollywood producers chose their province to film the pro-homosexual movie Brokeback Mountain.
The controversial movie has received the obvious endorsement of Hollywood insiders, as evidenced by its being nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. But Christian groups have strongly panned the film, labeling it homosexual "propaganda" and another attempt by Tinsel Town to desensitize the American movie-going public to a sinful and unhealthy lifestyle.
According to IMDB.com, the majority of the movie was filmed in the Canadian province of Alberta -- which happens to be the home province of Brian Rushfeldt, co-founder and executive director of the Canada Family Action Coalition. Rushfeldt says when the controversial film was shot in Alberta, locals were not aware of the its theme. He says there was "very little publicity" when filming was being conducted in the summer of 2004.
"There were many, many people [in Alberta] who had no idea what it was about in the first place," the pro-family activist asserts, "and the whole content and the message of the film is something that a lot of Albertans do not embrace at all."
[More at URL]
----- 20 -----
Pro-Life Search
You Search. We Donate(tm)
The Web's First Pro-Life Search Engine
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If you haven't registered yet, please take a few seconds to do so (see left column)
So far, we have donated $9,017 to pro-life organizations.
- About PLS - PLS Blog - Read Deus Caritas Est
[More at URL]
----- 21 -----
FRC: Americans Will See Which Senators Support Marriage This June
February 10, 2006 - Friday
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 10, 2006 CONTACT: J.P. Duffy, (202) 679-6800
A vote on the Marriage Protection Amendment has been scheduled in the U.S. Senate for the week of June 5
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=PR06B08
WASHINGTON, D.C. - In response to today's official announcement by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) that the U.S. Senate will hold a cloture vote on the Marriage Protection Amendment the week of June 5, Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins released the following statement:
" The U.S. Senate has stood by for two years watching the unrelenting judicial assault on marriage. However, the American people in overwhelming numbers have risen to the defense of marriage by enacting 19 state marriage amendments. Despite these valiant efforts on the state level, activist courts in several states including Nebraska have undermined the democratic process by throwing out laws which protect marriage.
"This June, the American people will be watching to see if their senators will step up to the plate and take a stand in defense of marriage. The Marriage Protection Amendment is the only tool the American people have to ensure that the definition of marriage remains one man and one woman.
"The Marriage Protection Amendment will not only protect marriage but also rein in an activist judiciary that is trashing the democratic process. This is a growing national problem, and it requires a national solution - an amendment to the U.S. Constitution protecting marriage."
For more information about FRC's efforts to protect marriage and pass the Marriage Protection Amendment , go to www.frc.org.
----- 22 -----
Sodomy is Sodomy is Sodomy
Canada Family Action Coalition
February 13, 2006
http://www.familyaction.org/Articles/issues/sexuality/legal-age.htm
Government has not redefined the term sodomy YET. Even IF the laws in Canada use the term anal intercourse it does not negate many dictionary definitions.
Dictionary.com :Any of various forms of sexual intercourse held to be unnatural or abnormal, especially anal intercourse or bestiality. Middle English sodomie, from Old French, from Sodome Sodom, from Latin Sodoma, from Greek, from Hebrew sdm.]
Merriam-Webster - 1 : copulation with a member of the same sex or with an animal 2 : noncoital and especially anal or oral copulation with a member of the opposite sex.
Tories urged to harmonize legal age for gay, straight sex
The Ottawa Citizen - Feb. 10, 2006
By Katie Lewis
As the age of consent issue heats up across the country, gay rights groups have a message for the federal government: Equalize the age of consent for all Canadians, regardless of sexual orientation. Gay men are not allowed to have sexual intercourse with other men until they are 18. For any other sexual act, the age is 14. Justice Minister Vic Toews announced this week his government plans to raise the age of consent for heterosexual sex from 14 to 16. "There's no reason to treat anal sex differently than other sexual acts except to stigmatize gay and bisexual men," said Laurie Arron, director of advocacy for Egale Canada.
A spokesman from the Department of Justice would not provide details about whether Mr. Toews plans to examine the issue. Lesbians who practise female-to-female sex do not fall into the same category as gay males. That's because Section 159 of the Criminal Code refers specifically to "anal intercourse."
Provincial courts in Ontario and Quebec have declared the law - which treats homosexual acts differently than heterosexual acts - as unconstitutional.
[More at URL]
----- 23 -----
INSTITUTE OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY CANADA GRAND OPENING
Press Release
February 13, 2006
http://www.imfcanada.org/mediaroom/pressrelease/060213.html
(Ottawa) The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada is pleased to announce its official opening effective Thursday, February 16, 2006. The IMFC, located close to Parliament Hill, is an initiative of Focus on the Family (Canada). The purpose of the IMFC is to be a think tank and research resource for Canada’s decision makers.
Executive Director, Dave Quist stated, “Today is the first step in adding a new dimension of research and background to the important policy issues that involve marriage and family. Family is the foundation upon our society. Without a strong family, society will weaken.”
The IMFC will initially have five staff, concentrating on creating and collecting research from both within Canada as well as around the world and bringing it into a Canadian context. “I am very excited by the opportunity to bring new insights and research forward to the people that shape Canada’s social and family policy,” continued Quist.
The Grand Opening will occur on February 16, 2006 at 7:00 pm at the Lord Elgin Hotel, 100 Elgin, in the Ontario Room. Special guest speakers will include John Robson (columnist and media host) and Elizabeth Marquardt (researcher and author).
- 30 -
For further information please contact: Dave Quist, Executive Director (613) 565-3832
[Editor's Note: They've got a bunch of publications already up, such as "Deconstructing Marriage," which says that marriage equality will destroy marriage, reduce "both freedom and equality," and states "the state can not be fiscally impartial among family forms." "How do we Measure Up" and "Research Obscured by Politicized Debate" both attack the concept of day-care; and so on.]
----- 24 -----
Book Review
The Evolution of Evil
Citizen Magazine
Focus on the Family
How could the atrocities of Nazi Germany ever have happened? Darwinism helped set the stage.
by Matt Kaufman
http://www.family.org/cforum/citizenmag/departments/a0039378.cfm
Sixty years after World War II ended, there seems to be no end to the American public’s fascination with Nazi Germany. It’s no wonder: It’s hard to look at the horrors that state committed without wondering how anyone could be so cruel. Yet appalling as such evils are, they’re also comfortingly remote: We can deplore them without imagining that they have any relationship to our own culture.
But should we be so sure? Maybe not. Not when well over a million children each year fall victims to abortionists, a.k.a. “doctors.” Not when most of us, though we have at least some idea what’s going on behind the doors of the local “women’s center,” make a point of looking the other way.
Much as we’d like to think we’re light years away from the Germans of several generations ago, we have disturbing parallels. And one reason may be that we have some of the same ideas circulating among the same social classes—including intellectuals in general and the members of the medical profession in particular.
A pair of recently published books offer insight. The first is From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics and Racism in Germany (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 312 pages) by Richard Weikart, a historian at California State University-Stanislaus. Weikart, a careful scholar, doesn’t say Darwinism led inevitably to the Third Reich. But he sees lots of evidence that it played a role—a big role—in producing a Germany where such crimes could be committed.
The trouble started with the main ideas of evolution. Darwin and most Darwinists denied the existence of an immortal soul—“a central tenet,” Weikart notes, “of the Judeo-Christian worldview that undergirded the sanctity of human life.” They thought morality varied with time and circumstances, existing solely to promote the survival of the race. They stressed the inequality of different species, which led them to stress racial inequalities among people as well. And they saw death as not just normal but, in a real way, good. In their view, “the death of multitudes of ‘less fit’ organisms is beneficial and fosters progress,” Weikart says. “Darwin’s theory was thus not just about biological change; it was a matter of life and death.”
[More at URL]
In other news, Focus on the Family has revived the "Hitler was Darwin's fault" rhetoric, fundamentalists are still trying to pretend Dover didn't happen, and there are a couple of new American-sponsoured/American-aided Canadian fundamentalist sites out there.
But for now, here's today's news.
United Arab Emirates bans Brokeback Mountain, calling it intrinsically offensive to all Muslims;
Small pro-science Christian movements appear to be starting up, in much-belated reaction to the 30-year fundamentalist campaign against it;
World of Warcraft blocked a gay gamer guild; protests caused higher-ups to reverse the lower-level decision and they've apologised;
BBC News: marriage is good for the health of lesbians and gay men - but they still use scare-quotes around "marriage";
Report from a pair of French protesters counter-protesting an Islamist march in Paris;
ravyngyngvar translates documents from the 1933 Blasphemy issue in Norway, posts in his journal;Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM against marriage rights - they're pushing the Federal amendment again, with a goal of a March vote;
FotF story about a California lawsuit against the Boy Scouts using California land despite being in continual violation of California anti-discrimination law (religion, sexual orientation); since when is Robert Bork their spokesman?!;
Wisconsin to "shut out Intelligent Design" by limiting science teaching to testable scientific theories; that's good, because Creationism is fucking stupid, but the fundamentalists are upset;
Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM to support anti-marriage amendment in Idaho;
FotF attacks religious groups discussed in the NYT article as trying to "silence" creationists by expressing support for, well, science;
Senator Jim Talent (R-Missouri) withdraws support for anti-"cloning" bill that would severely restrict genetic research in this country;
Concerned Women for America article by Lee Duigon - yes, that's another man writing for cWa - saying that homophobia isn't a problem, queers are a problem; also, he's with the Chalcedon Institute, an explicit Christian Reconstructionist group, the movement founded by Rushdooney that wants to implement old testament religious law as universal law;
Here's an article currently on the front page of the Chalcedon Institute web site that CWA links to, explicitly calling for the rejection of rationalism and (re-)establishment of theological rule;
Concerned Women for America's Robert Knight pushes Virginia state constitutional amendment banning marriage and civil unions for queers in all forms; vote will be in November;
CNS News: opposition to abortion and the rights of GBLT people will continue to push the Conservative agenda for the next few years; doesn't use use scare quotes around marriage, also prefixes with "counterfeit";
*** CWA's Linda Harvey spins the newest version of the "Corruption of the Innocent" - homosexual monsters trying to destroy YOUR CHILDREN; calls for an outright ban on any contact with children by any GBLT person OR any person who supports the rights of GBLT people, accuses supports of GBLT rights (GBLT or straight) of supporting child molestation; includes an extended version of the "disturbed, diseased fags" rant;
American Family Association ACTION ITEM to support the anti-marriage-rights MPA mentioned above;
Creationist Kent Hovind pushes new approach against evolutionary theory; it's just another repackaging, but it seems to the point of dropping species origin entirely from science classes;
Canadian fundamentalist Brian Rushfeldt joins the American fundamentalist chorus saying "nobody in the heartland will see Brokeback Mountain"; this hasn't been coming true, despite furious attempts to make it so;
"Pro-Life Search" licenses Google technology, calls itself "The Web's First Pro-Life Search Engine"; fees paid by users go in small part to anti-abortion-rights organisations;
Family Research Council pushes Federal anti-marriage amendment;
Canada Family Action Coalition: "Sodomy is sodomy is sodomy"; opposes equalisation of age-of-consent laws in Canada;
American fundamentalist political group Focus on the Family's "Institute of Marriage and Family Canada" opens;
Focus on the Family's Citizen magazine: Hitler and the Nazi party were the fault of Darwin and evolutionary theory.
----- 1 -----
UAE bans Brokeback Mountain
By Afkar Abdullah
9 February 2006
Long URL elided
SHARJAH — The Ministry of Culture and Information will not allow the screening of the Hollywood film Brokeback Mountain in the UAE because of scenes involving homosexuals.
"Brokeback Mountain is a film which has nothing positive about it. The portrayal of the sexual behaviour of its main character is offensive to eastern societies, particularly Muslims and the Arabs since Islam forbids abnormal behaviors like homosexuality," said Dr Abdullah Al Amiri, Chairman of the Committee of Financial, Economical and Industrial Affairs of Sharjah Consultative Council yesterday.
“The film will upset the people of this culture and tradition,” he said, explaining that there were scenes showing two men romantically inclined to each other.
[More at URL]
----- 2 -----
At Churches Nationwide, Good Words for Evolution
By NEELA BANERJEE and ANNE BERRYMAN
Published: February 13, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/13/national/13evolution.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
On the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin, ministers at several hundred churches around the country preached yesterday against recent efforts to undermine the theory of evolution, asserting that the opposition many Christians say exists between science and faith is false.
At St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, a small contemporary structure among the pricey homes of north Atlanta, the Rev. Patricia Templeton told the 85 worshipers gathered yesterday, "A faith that requires you to close your mind in order to believe is not much of a faith at all."
In the basement of an apartment building in Evanston, Ill., the Rev. Mitchell Brown said to the 21 people who came to services at the Evanston Mennonite Church that Darwin's theories in fact had compelled people to have faith rather than look for "special effects" to confirm the existence of God.
"He forced religion to grow up, to become, really, faith for the first time," Mr. Brown said. "The life of community, that is where we know God today."
The event, called Evolution Sunday, is an outgrowth of the Clergy Letter Project, started by academics and ministers in Wisconsin in early 2005 as a response to efforts, most notably in Dover, Pa., to discredit the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools.
[More at URL]
----- 3 -----
Gay rights win in Warcraft world
By Mark Ward
Technology correspondent, BBC News website
Monday, 13 February 2006, 08:42 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4700754.stm
The maker of the hugely popular online game, World of Warcraft, has changed its policy on gay teams following an outcry from many players.
Blizzard was accused of being heavy-handed by threatening to expel a player for advertising a gay-friendly team or guild.
Blizzard has officially apologised to the guild recruiter, saying the warning should never have been issued.
[More at URL]
----- 4 -----
Gay marriage 'is good for health'
BBC News
Tuesday, 14 February 2006, 00:20 GMT
Gay "marriage" could boost the mental and physical health of homosexuals, doctors believe.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4708710.stm
Rates of depression, drug abuse and cancer are higher in the gay community than among heterosexual people.
The report said civil partnerships, which were introduced in England and Wales in December, were likely to reduce prejudice and social exclusion.
The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health article was based on previous studies in other countries.
[More at URL]
----- 5 -----
Islamic Protestors in Paris Come Face to Face with an Unexpected Counter-Protest
Sunday, February 12, 2006
posted by Erik @ 12:49 PM
http://no-pasaran.blogspot.com/2006/02/islamic-protestors-in-paris-come-face.html
"An eye for an eye! A tooth for a tooth!" Echoing protests around the world and wearing all kinds of costumes from the Middle East and the Muslim world, 4,000 Islamic demonstrators march through Paris denouncing the cartoons and the alleged (and convenient) lack of respect towards Islam.
When they arrive at La Nation, they are met with two figures wearing slightly different costumes and slightly different signs.
One, in red and white, is (silently) wearing a sign with the Danish flag saying "Support Denmark, Support free speech". Besides (silently) wearing a sign reading "Free Cartoonist" on it, the other, the founder of the BAF protest warrior-type organisation, is holding a (fake) severed hand, a pen among its fingers.
[More at URL]
----- 6 -----
Blasphemy, Arnulf Øverland and "Christianity, the tenth plague."
Ravyng Yngvar
February 12, 2006
http://ravyngyngvar.livejournal.com/1199.html
When (Livejournal) Solarbird wrote about the controversy surrounding the Mohammed caricatures that were originally published in Jyllands-Posten, and later reprinted in the Norwegian Christian weekly Magazinet, the Norwegian blasphemy paragraph (§142) came up.
Those who in words or deeds publicly mock or in an offensive or hurtful manner show disregard for a faith whose practicing in the kingdom is permitted or the faiths or worships of any legal religious society, or who contribute to this, are punished with fines or prison for up to 6 months.I notice that according to the footnote it has been altered in 1934, and later in 1973, but regardless, it has not been used since writer Arnulf Øverland was charged in 1933, and acquitted.
Prosecution will only take place when required by public concerns.
[More at URL]
----- 7 -----
D-DAY FOR MARRIAGE PROTECTION SCHEDULED IN SENATE
The battle is on to amend the U.S. Constitution.
Focus on the Family
Family News in Focus
February 13, 2006
by Pete Winn, associate editor
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0039519.cfm
The U.S. Senate is slated to take up the Marriage
Protection Amendment (MPA) on June 5, and pro-family
leaders say it's time for prayer and action.
The amendment would constitutionally define marriage as
the union of one man and one woman.
Until last Friday, when Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist,
R-Tenn., announced he had scheduled a vote, there had been
almost nothing but silence on the subject since 2004 --
the last time it came up for Senate action.
Now the MPA is back on the front burner.
[...]
"Last time, the cloture vote was all we had," she said.
"We actually didn’t have an up-or-down vote in the Senate
because we did not reach that 60-vote threshold -- the
vote was 48-50, with two senators not voting."
Banks said she believes there are at least five more votes
in favor of cloture, bringing the number of supporters to
at least 53. That change is due to the 2004 election --
when the Senate saw a net gain of five conservative seats.
"We still need seven more votes," she said. "It's
important for everyone to contact their senators -- no
matter how they may have voted last time -- to let them
where the people they represent stand."
[...]
TAKE ACTION: Please consider taking this issue before the
Lord in prayer. Then, as He directs, also consider taking
action.
As you do, keep in mind that pro-family lobbyists think
it's important to contact your state's two U.S. senators
right away to let them know how you feel about the
Marriage Protection Amendment.
Before you write them, however, please visit CitizenLink's
Marriage Protection Action Center.
http://www.family.org/cforum/extras/a0031537.cfm
[More at URL]
----- 8 -----
WISCONSIN SEEKS TO SHUT OUT INTELLIGENT DESIGN THEORY
Legislation would limit scientific discussion in schools to evolution.
Focus on the Family
Family News in Focus
February 13, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0039516.cfm
If you can't beat them, keep them from showing up --
that's the tack Wisconsin evolutionists and liberal
lawmakers are taking to keep the study of intelligent
design out of the public schools.
Intelligent design explores the idea that some aspects of
biology are too complicated to be explained by evolution
and instead point to an unnamed designer.
The legislation under consideration would allow only
"testable" scientific theories and those given the OK by
the National Academy of Sciences to be taught. That's seen
as limiting the curriculum to evolution alone.
The bill would allow intelligent design to be discussed
only in a nonscientific context. For example, it could be
raised in a science class, but only if the teacher
explains why it is not a science. Otherwise, intelligent
design would be relegated to religion, social studies and
philosophy courses.
[More at URL]
----- 9 -----
IDAHO SENATE ABOUT TO KILL MARRIAGE AMENDMENT A THIRD TIME
If you live in Idaho, express your support for the Marriage Amendment today.
Focus on the Family
Family News in Focus
by Mona Passignano, state issues analyst
February 13, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/statenews/a0039517.cfm
The Idaho Senate is poised to reject a state marriage
amendment for the third time. The state House has already
approved it, but it must also clear the Senate to be
placed on the ballot for the people to decide.
Idaho does have a Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that
defines marriage as between one man and one woman, but
that law is only one activist judge away from being
overturned. The laws have always been vulnerable to
judicial activism.
In December 2005, Iowa’s DOMA was challenged as
unconstitutional by six homosexual couples. Then in
January, a judge in Maryland struck down a 1973 state law
that defined marriage as one man and one woman only.
Probably the most infamous example happened in 2003, when
the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts struck down
the state's laws on traditional marriage. In the year
following that decision, more than 6,000 same-sex couples
were legally married in that state.
[...]
TAKE ACTION: Contact your state senator and urge him or
her to support the constitutional amendment to protect
marriage – HJR 2. To get contact information for your
senator, visit the Cornerstone Institute of Idaho Web site
and follow the instructions there.
http://www.cornerstoneofidaho.org/
[More at URL]
----- 10 -----
Churches Express Support for Evolution
Focus on the Family
Newsbriefs
February 13, 2006
[Received in email; no URL]
Hundreds of churches nationwide celebrated the birth of
Charles Darwin on Sunday by discussing his contributions
to science and their relationship to religion, The New
York Times reported.
In 2005, a group of academics and ministers in Wisconsin
began the Clergy Letter Project as a way to influence
public schools to shy away from offering science
curriculum that challenged the theory of evolution. The
Clergy Letter Project is behind Evolution Sunday.
Michael Zimmerman, dean of the College of Letters and
Sciences at the University of Wisconsin and a member of
the Clergy Letter Project, wants those who discredit
evolution silenced.
"There was a growing need to demonstrate that the loud,
shrill voices of fundamentalists claiming that Christians
had to choose between modern science and religion were
presenting a false dichotomy," he said. To reject
evolution "is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance
and transmit such ignorance to our children."
But Robert Crowther, director of communications for the
Discovery Institute, said a poll in Ohio revealed the
majority of people want their children to have more
information, not less.
"Ohioans want Darwin’s theory of evolution fully and
completely presented, including the theory's strengths and
weaknesses," he said. "Seventy-five percent favor teaching
intelligent design alongside of Darwinian evolution. Even
after all the attacks on intelligent design by the
dogmatic Darwin-only lobby, the public clearly wants to
know more about the theory and make up their own minds."
----- 11 -----
Missouri Senator Changes Stance on Cloning
Focus on the Family
Newsbriefs
February 13, 2006
[Received in email; no URL]
An otherwise solidly pro-life, pro-family member of the
U.S. Senate took to the floor last Friday and told his
colleagues he was withdrawing his support for a ban on
human cloning.
Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., spoke for a half-hour trying to
justify why he was ending his four years of support for S.
658, legislation sponsored by Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.,
and Mary Landrieu, D-La., that would specifically ban the
cloning and destruction of human embryos for research.
Talent said he now supports a proposed form of stem-cell
research that utilizes cells which he said have been
"ethically harvested."
Carrie Gordon Earll, senior analyst for bioethics at Focus
on the Family Action, said Talent's change of mind was
disappointing. But it was all the more troubling because
the research he's pinning his hopes on would be unaffected
by the legislation -- while the cloning and killing of
human embryos would still be legal unless the ban is
enacted.
"The reason his gives for this action is questionable in
our view," she said, "as it is based on a
misrepresentation of what the legislation would prohibit.
Senator Talent could have maintained support for the
Brownback bill while also supporting other research
options."
Earll said, according Talent's Senate speech, she expects
the senator to still oppose a pro-cloning ballot
initiative in his home state of Missouri.
----- 12 -----
'Homophobia' Is Not the Problem
Concerned Women for America
2/13/2006
By Lee Duigon
The wages of sin remain whether anyone thinks it’s a sin or not.
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/10128/CFI/family/index.htm
Wouldn't it be nice if all of society supported and affirmed homosexual behavior?
If all the problems faced by homosexuals arise from “homophobia,” fueled by us bigots in the conservative Christian camp, then to eliminate “homophobia” would be to eliminate the problems.
So runs the prevailing orthodoxy in the “‘gay’ community,” very succinctly expressed by phrases like “the high cost of homophobia,” etc.--and trotted out, opportunistically, at every opportunity.
Witness the words of Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, trying to attach a rider to the death of Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: "From the beginning, Mrs. King understood that homophobia is hate, and hate has no place in the Beloved Community that she and Dr. King envisioned for our nation and our world." Neither Dr. nor Mrs. King is in a position to object to Foreman's crass opportunism.
But this orthodoxy is dead wrong. If the Christian Right and all vestiges of “homophobia” were to disappear by magic, homosexual behavior still would be problematic.
It would still be a sin, and the homosexually inclined person's spiritual problems would persist, no matter what society said. The behavior is a sin not because we say it is, but because the Bible says so. Whatever the damage done by “homophobia,” the damage done to society by the homosexual movement is considerable. Among other things, it has accelerated Western civilization's falling away from faith in God, as timeless truths are reduced to cultural relativism.
[...]
Lee Duigon is a Christian free-lance writer who periodically writes for Concerned Women for America’s Web site. His work can be seen featured regularly at www.chalcedon.edu.
[More at URL]
[Editor's note: see below. The next article is on the front page of www.chalcedon.edu as I collect this. This is what CWA is linking to.]
----- 13 -----
What Went Wrong with the Christian Right
Dr. Gary North
January/February 2006
http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/article.php?ArticleID=239
The answer is simple: the Christian Right has refused to break with the worst assumptions of the pre-Christian Right.
Before discussing what is wrong, we should discuss what is right. What is right is Biblical covenant theology.
Biblical Covenant Theology
Covenant theology has five points. First, God is absolutely sovereign. That is, He has predestinated everything. He is different from the creation, yet He has entered into the creation, above all through the Second Person of the Trinity’s incarnation as Jesus Christ.
Second, God rules in history covenantally, meaning hierarchically and judicially, primarily through mankind. After the Fall of man, God has dealt with redeemed men in a special way, which includes granting to them the lawful authority to impose judgments in history, including civil judgments.
Third, God has revealed His law for mankind in the Bible, though also in nature. Both man and nature are fallen, which places the Bible, God’s Word, as the central source for wisdom and ethics. It alone is trustworthy.
Fourth, as the providential sustainer of the universe, God judicially imputes meaning and then brings salvation (healing, deliverance) to individuals, societies, and nature, based on the comprehensive judgment brought against Jesus Christ at Calvary. We are therefore to think God’s thoughts after Him, subordinating our thoughts to the Bible.
Fifth, the new heavens and new earth, announced by Isaiah, will progressively replace Satan’s kingdom in history before Jesus comes in final judgment. To put these points in one sentence, the Bible teaches predestination, theocracy, theonomy, presuppositionalism, and postmillennialism.
Covenant theology is an inescapable concept. It is never a question of covenant theology vs. no covenant theology. It is a question of which covenant theology.
Having summarized the Bible’s doctrine of the covenant, I will now summarize the covenant theology of the pre-Christian Right.
American Covenant Theology
First, God is not absolutely sovereign. Man’s free will acts as a retarding factor on God’s decree. God’s decree is not comprehensive. God may or may not know the future perfectly, but men are surely sovereign in accepting or rejecting the gospel, and therefore sovereign over less important matters as well.
Second, God rules hierarchically through mankind, but He no longer has selected redeemed men to exercise special authority in civil affairs.
Third, God’s revealed law is confined to the Old Testament, which is no longer binding. Mankind is to be ruled by means of natural law, which is common to all men. Man and nature are fallen, but this has not seriously impaired the operation of natural law, as discovered by fallen man.
Fourth, God imputes meaning to all things and then salvation to individuals, but He does not save societies. Salvation is souls-only. So, in order to maintain society apart from specific redemption, truth must be available to all men on a common-access basis.
Fifth, because God saves souls only, and because the souls saved will remain a minority throughout history, society will remain unredeemed until Jesus comes again.
To put these points in one sentence, the Bible teaches free will, democracy, natural law theory, common-sense rationalism, and pessimillennialism (premillennialism or amillennialism).
We now turn to the area of applied theology. Each of these rival covenant theologies has undergirded a specific way of looking at the world. Each has produced a rival social outlook: in education, economics, politics, psychology, and popular culture. Each has produced a rival program of reconstruction.
Christian Reconstruction
Christian Reconstruction (capital R) can be said to have appeared as a developed theological system with the publication of Rousas John Rushdoony’s book, The Institutes of Biblical Law in 1973. That marked the resurrection of a lost Protestant tradition: a 300-year hiatus since the publication of Richard Baxter’s A Christian Directory, published in 1673. Baxter’s book was a work of Protestant casuistry: the application of Christian principles to society.
Rushdoony’s first book was on Cornelius Van Til’s philosophy: By What Standard? (1959). Van Til was a strict presuppositionalist philosopher — unique in church history. He was a true radical. Rushdoony explained and affirmed Van Til’s approach: a rejection of natural law theory and all common-ground systems of rationalism. This offered Rushdoony a strategy of reconstruction: education.
[...]
The Christian Right wants a halfway house between democracy and theocracy. It also wants a halfway house between theonomy and autonomy, revelation and rationalism, creationism and evolutionism. It wants equal time for Jesus, which means equal time for Satan.
Their allies, the humanists, want no time for Jesus. They want the votes and donations of the faithful, but nothing more. They generally get what they want.
[More at URL]
[Editor's note: I just wanted to make it absolutely clear what Concerned Women for America and anybody linking to Christian Reconstructionism websites are linking to: THEOCRATIC RULE LIKE IN IRAN, ONLY CHRISTIAN-FLAVOURED. Execution for non-Christians is specifically mentioned in this article. Theocracy is specifically supported in this article. Christian Reconstructionism _does not_ support democratic principles. Period. Concerned Women for America gets invited to all the big White House events, and they are supporting and supported by pure, unadulterated theocrats. That's where we are today.]
----- 14 -----
Virginia Likely to Vote on Marriage Amendment in November
Robert H. Knight
Concerned Women for America
January 27, 2006
http://www.cwalac.org/article_298.shtml
Virginia’s voters should expect to see a constitutional marriage amendment on the ballot this November. The Virginia Senate voted 28 to 11 on Wednesday to pass a bill authorizing a ballot vote. On January 16, the House of Delegates passed a marriage amendment bill by 76-20 after defeating several measures that would have eliminated language barring civil unions.
Two recently elected new delegates, David Poisson (D-Loudoun County) and Chuck Caputo (D-Fairfax County) voted against the marriage protection amendment. Poisson had defeated Richard Black (R), one of the most conservative members of the Assembly and a former sponsor of the marriage amendment.
The two houses must vote once more on each other’s bill, even though they have identical language. “Now that everybody’s on record, it’s clear that passage is inevitable,” said Michael Bowman, Director of State Legislative Relations for Concerned Women for America. “We’re pleased and confident that Virginia is moving to protect marriage. Now we’re looking toward the Wisconsin Legislature to place their marriage amendment on the ballot in November.”
Patricia Phillips, CWA’s Virginia State Director, gave credit for this week’s Senate victory to pro-family activists, including CWA volunteers. CWA of Virginia has made a five-minute video to educate churches about marriage, Phillips said. To get a copy of the video, call (703) 444 1740 or view it at http://va.cwfa.org/.
“Now the statewide campaign begins!,” Phillips said. “We need grassroots support to write letters to the editor, call local radio shows, and help detect the misinformation we expect the media to repeat.”
[More at URL]
----- 15 -----
Abortion and 'Gay Rights' Still High on Conservative Agenda
By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
February 13, 2006
Long URL elided
(CNSNews.com) - The contentious social issues of abortion and homosexual "rights" will continue to feed public debate and drive American politics, according to experts on those issues who addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C., Friday.
While they believe conservatives are gaining ground on those issues, the speakers agreed there is still much work to be done to protect both unborn children and the traditional definition of marriage.
Alan Chambers -- president of Exodus International, a ministry to those seeking to leave the homosexual lifestyle -- told CPAC attendees that Americans have come "to depend on counterfeits." He compared the country's obsession with sex to its growing consumption of fast food.
"Fast food is a counterfeit. And it may fill you up, but a long-term diet of it will kill you," Chambers argued. "Parallel this with our over-sexed culture. More men today find pleasure from a computer screen, from magazines or movies, through fantasies and through pre and extra-marital relationships than they do lifelong, loving and committed marriage relationships with a member of the opposite sex."
[...]
"Marriage has become a counterfeit means of validation to the small percentage of 'gay' men and women who are fighting to co-opt it," Chambers argued. "Marriage rights mean forced acceptance and forced validation of their broken lives and broken hearts."
He concluded that homosexual "marriage," if legalized, "will not only result in altering marriage from its created purpose, to bring forth healthy children and a healthy society, but rather it will destroy those children and the world that we leave them."
[More at URL]
----- 16 -----
Fairy Tales Don't Come True
Concerned Women for America
2/13/2006
By Linda Harvey
Impressionable children get caught in the lies about the [sic]
[Editor's note: the subheading is cut off in the original]
A Culture & Family Institute Special Report
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/10130/CFI/resources/index.htm
Josh is 13 and, like many kids his age, he's often unhappy. Everything about his life is uncertain. He's only 5 feet 4 inches tall, and many of the girls in his middle-school class are taller. He has no idea how his body will end up. Will he be tall, short, plain, handsome? He's slightly overweight and hasn't found a sport he excels in. He only has two or three close friends. Sometimes his voice changes an entire octave, up or down, at a moment's notice. He's an average student, and he sometimes dreads going to school because it doesn't interest him much.
On top of all this, Josh has troubles at home. His parents don't get along. His father works long hours, and his mother yells a lot. She's stressed out over unpaid bills, problems with his older sister, who sometimes uses drugs, and her own ongoing treatment for depression. They don't have family dinners except around holidays, and they haven't been on a family vacation in two years. Josh can't remember the last time he had a conversation with either parent involving more than two sentences.
In other words, Josh is a lot like many American adolescents. His family has only casual ties to a church, and his parents consider themselves moderate politically, when they have time or interest to think about it.
Josh's standards are being formed largely not by parents of high character, but by the American culture, including television, his public school and the Internet. That's where he developed a keen curiosity about sex, and it's also where he gets his information and values. And his values right now are leaning toward believing he might be a homosexual.
He has absorbed information at school that most homosexuals are victims of terrible discrimination, even sometimes violence, so "good" people are those who accept homosexuality, bisexuality and gender changes. Most of his teachers believe that homosexuality isn't a choice and that students with same-sex attractions should just accept them. At least three separate school offerings left him with these ideas: a book on different types of families his teacher read aloud in third grade; a sixth grade anti-bias and "tolerance" unit; and an assignment in his literature class where he read a novel about teen boys exploring homosexuality.1
After reading that book, he got on the Internet, found some Web sites (including several "gay" porn sites) and decided he was homosexual. He wanted to talk to someone but his parents were too busy, and they probably wouldn't really object much anyway. The church they sometimes attend had a sermon last year about the hatefulness of those "other" churches that disapprove of homosexuality. His dad said he thought the minister was probably "gay," and his mom just nodded. Josh has no significant barriers to exploring homosexuality, because he has never heard or read an opposing viewpoint. Not at school, not on any TV sitcoms, not on the Internet (because relatively few sites exist), and not at his church.
If he's a homosexual, he thinks, this would explain why he craves being close to other boys. Sometimes he thinks it's just because he never sees his dad, but he's not sure. Also, girls aren't interested in him. Girls seem like a lot of trouble. It would be so much more fun to be physical with someone who likes the same things he does - Playstation, movies and role-playing games. And having sex without any thoughts of pregnancy, commitment and all that serious stuff. Wouldn't that be great? Besides, he was physically aroused looking at "gay" porn sites. Doesn't that prove he must be a homosexual?
What he's considering now is visiting a local "gay" youth support group that meets weekly in a nearby community center. He learned about it in his school newspaper. He called the number and was told it's open to kids age 12 and older, and they won't tell your parents.2 He wonders what it would be like to meet someone who's already "gay." After visiting those Web sites, Josh is eager to date, even - maybe - to have a sexual experience. It would be all right, the Web sites said, if he was "ready" for it, and he has decided he is. Also, it would be okay if he was in love, like in the novel he read. He probably ought to use a condom, but maybe the other person would be older and know more about that than he does.
Inappropriate Access: The Corruption of the Innocent
Josh is not a real person, but a composite of different teens I have learned about over the 10 years I've been researching this issue. The tale is tragically similar; only the names change. The turbulence of many American families coupled with the usual challenges of childhood and adolescence present the opportunity for depravity to take hold in the young mind and spirit. Children are being deliberately exploited at a time when they are extremely vulnerable, and virtually no one, it seems, is paying attention. Opportunities exist for them to get involved in life-changing behaviors like homosexuality before their parents have any idea.
[...]
When people have views supporting homosexuality, they should not be involved with youth in any way, period. [Ed. Note: Emphasis is in original.] Because they:
* will provide inaccurate, misleading information to kids;
* may limit a student's opportunity to hear warnings about the behavior;
* may advocate or model inappropriate behavior;
* may be directly involved in the molestation of kids themselves; or
* may be in a position to allow others to do so.
[...]
What Happens to Josh?
So what becomes of all the Joshes out there? They seldom hear another viewpoint; they are seldom approached by Christian peers who will show them a different way. It's not that our Christian kids don't want to; they don't have enough information and are too intimidated to challenge the easily provoked pro-"gay" advocates.
So, Josh will probably go ahead and attend a local "gay" community group; then in high school, join the high school "GSA" ("gay"-straight alliance, the name of many homosexual clubs). He probably will pair up with an older homosexual and begin homosexual sex. His parents, anxious to be politically correct, won't object and will eventually come to accept his "lifestyle."
Josh's future probably holds a revolving door of sexual contacts, with his first visit to a clinic to be treated for a sexually transmitted disease at around age 17. Then, if he's typical, he'll be treated annually for an STD of some type. Oh, and all those middle school insecurities over appearance have been dispelled. He's turned into a drop-dead gorgeous young man, but he has no interest in the appreciative glances of young women. He's too much in demand at the "gay" bars and bathhouses.
He is already drinking heavily, smoking and doing recreational drugs. Somewhere along the line, he'll have several longer-term boyfriends, and may even move in with one or two of them. Their break-ups will happen after six months or a year, and be spectacular events punctuated with drama, screaming fights and threats of self-harm, contributing to the high rates of domestic violence cited for "gay" males.
He will go to a counselor for treatment of depression, anxiety or an eating disorder. Seeking some peace and stability, he'll join a "gay"-friendly denomination like the Metropolitan Community Church. Along the way, he may well become HIV-positive. In his 30s, he will start to have relationships with boys who are 16 and 17, just as someone did when he was a teen. He may even transmit the HIV virus to one or more of them.
Josh is likely to die early, probably before 55 and very likely in his 40s. His grandmother will cry at his funeral, knowing he would have made a great father and even grandfather. But it won't happen for him.
This was happiness? This is freedom? Why can't Josh be told the rest of the story before it's too late?
Linda Harvey is president and founder of Mission: America, an Ohio-based Christian organization dedicated to exposing the pansexual agenda in schools and youth culture. Another version of this article ran in her quarterly newsletter Choice4Truth.
[More at URL]
----- 17 -----
Senate To Vote On Homosexual Marriage Ban In Early March
Action Needed Today! Help Send U.S. Senate One Million Letters Supporting Marriage Protection Amendment
American Family Association
LEGISLATIVE ALERT
February 2006
http://www3.capwiz.com/afanet/issues/alert/?alertid=8457061&type=CO
The U.S. Senate will vote on the Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA) in early March. This constitutional amendment will make marriage between one man and one woman the only legal marriage.
Your help is needed in sending one million emails to the Senate in support of the MPA.
Senators who vote against the MPA, or support a filibuster to avoid a vote on the MPA, are supporting homosexual marriage.
ACTION NEEDED TODAY!
Please enter your zip code above or below and click “GO” to send your two Senators an email, then forward this to your friends and family urging them to do the same. The “Tell A Friend” link found below is an easy way to pass this important message to your friends and family. Those favoring homosexual marriage are already contacting their Senators urging defeat of the MPA.
[More at URL]
----- 18 -----
Require Accuracy in Textbooks -- and Evolution Will Crumble, Says Creationist
By Jim Brown
February 13, 2006
American Family Association/Agape Press
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/2/afa/132006c.asp
(AgapePress) - A Christian evangelist who travels and speaks around the world on creation, evolution, and dinosaurs will be holding a seminar at a Pennsylvania high school that was recently ordered by a federal judge not to mention "intelligent design" (ID) in biology class.
Dr. Kent Hovind takes the position that the Bible is literally true and scientifically accurate, the earth is not billions of years old, and dinosaurs lived with man all through history. Hovind, who heads Pensacola, Florida-based "Creation Science Evangelism," will bring his message to the Dover Area High School on March 17-18. The two-day seminar is sponsored by Philadelphia-based Repent America.
Referring to the recent highly publicized ID court case involving the Dover school district -- a case that resulted ultimately in the election of a new school board -- Hovind believes the previous board should not have tried to force intelligent design into schools. He says no matter how noble such efforts are, those who are pushing for ID or critical analysis of evolution in public schools are all "barking up the wrong tree."
According to the Creation Science Evangelism founder, the overall objective should be accuracy in textbooks. "To me the much better approach is don't mention creation, don't mention evolution, don't mention intelligent design," Hovind suggests. "That's not the goal."
The goal, he says, is to get textbooks to be accurate. "Because if all the lies are taken out of the textbooks, there will be nothing left to support the evolution theory." And that, he says, is evolutionists' problem. "They shouldn't have picked a dumb theory to begin with."
[More at URL]
----- 19 -----
Activist Says Scenic Alberta Not Likely to Favor Brokeback Mountain at Box Office
By Chad Groening
February 13, 2006
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/2/afa/132006f.asp
(AgapePress) - A Canadian pro-family activist doesn't believe people in his home province of Alberta like the idea that Hollywood producers chose their province to film the pro-homosexual movie Brokeback Mountain.
The controversial movie has received the obvious endorsement of Hollywood insiders, as evidenced by its being nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. But Christian groups have strongly panned the film, labeling it homosexual "propaganda" and another attempt by Tinsel Town to desensitize the American movie-going public to a sinful and unhealthy lifestyle.
According to IMDB.com, the majority of the movie was filmed in the Canadian province of Alberta -- which happens to be the home province of Brian Rushfeldt, co-founder and executive director of the Canada Family Action Coalition. Rushfeldt says when the controversial film was shot in Alberta, locals were not aware of the its theme. He says there was "very little publicity" when filming was being conducted in the summer of 2004.
"There were many, many people [in Alberta] who had no idea what it was about in the first place," the pro-family activist asserts, "and the whole content and the message of the film is something that a lot of Albertans do not embrace at all."
[More at URL]
----- 20 -----
Pro-Life Search
You Search. We Donate(tm)
The Web's First Pro-Life Search Engine
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If you haven't registered yet, please take a few seconds to do so (see left column)
So far, we have donated $9,017 to pro-life organizations.
- About PLS - PLS Blog - Read Deus Caritas Est
[More at URL]
----- 21 -----
FRC: Americans Will See Which Senators Support Marriage This June
February 10, 2006 - Friday
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 10, 2006 CONTACT: J.P. Duffy, (202) 679-6800
A vote on the Marriage Protection Amendment has been scheduled in the U.S. Senate for the week of June 5
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=PR06B08
WASHINGTON, D.C. - In response to today's official announcement by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) that the U.S. Senate will hold a cloture vote on the Marriage Protection Amendment the week of June 5, Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins released the following statement:
" The U.S. Senate has stood by for two years watching the unrelenting judicial assault on marriage. However, the American people in overwhelming numbers have risen to the defense of marriage by enacting 19 state marriage amendments. Despite these valiant efforts on the state level, activist courts in several states including Nebraska have undermined the democratic process by throwing out laws which protect marriage.
"This June, the American people will be watching to see if their senators will step up to the plate and take a stand in defense of marriage. The Marriage Protection Amendment is the only tool the American people have to ensure that the definition of marriage remains one man and one woman.
"The Marriage Protection Amendment will not only protect marriage but also rein in an activist judiciary that is trashing the democratic process. This is a growing national problem, and it requires a national solution - an amendment to the U.S. Constitution protecting marriage."
For more information about FRC's efforts to protect marriage and pass the Marriage Protection Amendment , go to www.frc.org.
----- 22 -----
Sodomy is Sodomy is Sodomy
Canada Family Action Coalition
February 13, 2006
http://www.familyaction.org/Articles/issues/sexuality/legal-age.htm
Government has not redefined the term sodomy YET. Even IF the laws in Canada use the term anal intercourse it does not negate many dictionary definitions.
Dictionary.com :Any of various forms of sexual intercourse held to be unnatural or abnormal, especially anal intercourse or bestiality. Middle English sodomie, from Old French, from Sodome Sodom, from Latin Sodoma, from Greek, from Hebrew sdm.]
Merriam-Webster - 1 : copulation with a member of the same sex or with an animal 2 : noncoital and especially anal or oral copulation with a member of the opposite sex.
Tories urged to harmonize legal age for gay, straight sex
The Ottawa Citizen - Feb. 10, 2006
By Katie Lewis
As the age of consent issue heats up across the country, gay rights groups have a message for the federal government: Equalize the age of consent for all Canadians, regardless of sexual orientation. Gay men are not allowed to have sexual intercourse with other men until they are 18. For any other sexual act, the age is 14. Justice Minister Vic Toews announced this week his government plans to raise the age of consent for heterosexual sex from 14 to 16. "There's no reason to treat anal sex differently than other sexual acts except to stigmatize gay and bisexual men," said Laurie Arron, director of advocacy for Egale Canada.
A spokesman from the Department of Justice would not provide details about whether Mr. Toews plans to examine the issue. Lesbians who practise female-to-female sex do not fall into the same category as gay males. That's because Section 159 of the Criminal Code refers specifically to "anal intercourse."
Provincial courts in Ontario and Quebec have declared the law - which treats homosexual acts differently than heterosexual acts - as unconstitutional.
[More at URL]
----- 23 -----
INSTITUTE OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY CANADA GRAND OPENING
Press Release
February 13, 2006
http://www.imfcanada.org/mediaroom/pressrelease/060213.html
(Ottawa) The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada is pleased to announce its official opening effective Thursday, February 16, 2006. The IMFC, located close to Parliament Hill, is an initiative of Focus on the Family (Canada). The purpose of the IMFC is to be a think tank and research resource for Canada’s decision makers.
Executive Director, Dave Quist stated, “Today is the first step in adding a new dimension of research and background to the important policy issues that involve marriage and family. Family is the foundation upon our society. Without a strong family, society will weaken.”
The IMFC will initially have five staff, concentrating on creating and collecting research from both within Canada as well as around the world and bringing it into a Canadian context. “I am very excited by the opportunity to bring new insights and research forward to the people that shape Canada’s social and family policy,” continued Quist.
The Grand Opening will occur on February 16, 2006 at 7:00 pm at the Lord Elgin Hotel, 100 Elgin, in the Ontario Room. Special guest speakers will include John Robson (columnist and media host) and Elizabeth Marquardt (researcher and author).
- 30 -
For further information please contact: Dave Quist, Executive Director (613) 565-3832
[Editor's Note: They've got a bunch of publications already up, such as "Deconstructing Marriage," which says that marriage equality will destroy marriage, reduce "both freedom and equality," and states "the state can not be fiscally impartial among family forms." "How do we Measure Up" and "Research Obscured by Politicized Debate" both attack the concept of day-care; and so on.]
----- 24 -----
Book Review
The Evolution of Evil
Citizen Magazine
Focus on the Family
How could the atrocities of Nazi Germany ever have happened? Darwinism helped set the stage.
by Matt Kaufman
http://www.family.org/cforum/citizenmag/departments/a0039378.cfm
Sixty years after World War II ended, there seems to be no end to the American public’s fascination with Nazi Germany. It’s no wonder: It’s hard to look at the horrors that state committed without wondering how anyone could be so cruel. Yet appalling as such evils are, they’re also comfortingly remote: We can deplore them without imagining that they have any relationship to our own culture.
But should we be so sure? Maybe not. Not when well over a million children each year fall victims to abortionists, a.k.a. “doctors.” Not when most of us, though we have at least some idea what’s going on behind the doors of the local “women’s center,” make a point of looking the other way.
Much as we’d like to think we’re light years away from the Germans of several generations ago, we have disturbing parallels. And one reason may be that we have some of the same ideas circulating among the same social classes—including intellectuals in general and the members of the medical profession in particular.
A pair of recently published books offer insight. The first is From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics and Racism in Germany (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 312 pages) by Richard Weikart, a historian at California State University-Stanislaus. Weikart, a careful scholar, doesn’t say Darwinism led inevitably to the Third Reich. But he sees lots of evidence that it played a role—a big role—in producing a Germany where such crimes could be committed.
The trouble started with the main ideas of evolution. Darwin and most Darwinists denied the existence of an immortal soul—“a central tenet,” Weikart notes, “of the Judeo-Christian worldview that undergirded the sanctity of human life.” They thought morality varied with time and circumstances, existing solely to promote the survival of the race. They stressed the inequality of different species, which led them to stress racial inequalities among people as well. And they saw death as not just normal but, in a real way, good. In their view, “the death of multitudes of ‘less fit’ organisms is beneficial and fosters progress,” Weikart says. “Darwin’s theory was thus not just about biological change; it was a matter of life and death.”
[More at URL]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 03:37 pm (UTC)there are NO WORDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 04:33 pm (UTC)They'd gotten away from that for a while. They're going back to it now.
OT: Icon
Date: 2006-02-14 04:06 pm (UTC)Re: OT: Icon
Date: 2006-02-14 04:31 pm (UTC)Re: OT: Icon
Date: 2006-02-14 04:38 pm (UTC)Just to be fair, here's a picture of me. :)
Re: OT: Icon
Date: 2006-02-14 04:47 pm (UTC)Oddly, they were both taken within a week of each other. They're like two and a half years old. I've grown my bangs out since then.
Re: OT: Icon
Date: 2006-02-14 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 04:48 pm (UTC)I do, by the way, support homosexual rights. So apparently in the view of these freaks, that means my wife and I should not be allowed to have any contact with our daughter.
And people wonder why I want western Washington to secede from the U.S.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 04:52 pm (UTC)Cathy
no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-15 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-15 10:19 am (UTC)Why do they keep putting "gay" in inverted commas when they write it?
no subject
Date: 2006-02-15 04:11 pm (UTC)No, really. That's why. It's only recently that they've been willing to use it at all. Their preferred term is "homosexual" because that has syllable "sex" in it, which is, of course, dirty and icky, and through repetition helps drive home their message that it's really all about uncontrolled, self-indulgent, animal lust. This is because part of their standard lie package is the assertion that GBLT people are emotionally dysfunctional perverts who are incapable of forming "real" emotional relationships with anyone.