Today's Cultural Warfare Update
Sep. 27th, 2006 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdOnly a partial again, sorry; I need to go to bed so I'm not dead in the water tomorrow morning for class. More tomorrow.
At Focus on the Family's "Values Voter Summit," Rev. Jerry Falwell compares Senator Hillary Clinton to Satan, says God will will preserve a Republican majority in Congress, attacks former NYC mayor Giuliani, saying he must not get the GOP nod in 2008;
I missed this at the time, and in balance to the Traditional Values Coalition's endorsement of President Bush's torture programme, here is Christianity Today condemning it back in February;
Andrew Sullivan gets a report from the Values Voters Summit; amoungst other things, John McCain should be tried for treason; a popular pamphlet was Reverend Wellington Boone's "The Rape of the Civil Rights Movement: How Sodomites Are Using Civil Rights Rhetoric To Advance Their Preference For Sexual Perversion" previously promoted by Pat Roberton's Christian Broadcasting Network, and so on;
Teen pregnancy continues to decline; Focus on the Family claims credit via "abstinence-only education" despite studies showing that's not really been very helpful;
Focus on the Family reports that Senator Brownback hopes to get an anti-abortion act through Congress before the rapidly-approaching adjournment;
FotF condemns Judge Stephen Reinhardt, particularly for his focus on individual rights; the neat bit is where they blame "secular Jews" for the ACLU and many other problems; also, they criticise Jewish families for teaching their children about the holocaust;
ATTENTION JACKASSES: STOP BEING JACKASSES. Somebody's harassing one particular anti-gay activist group at home; it's not okay and just lets them paint all of us as violent freaks, which of course they do;
Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM on PERA, the "Public Expression of Religion Act," which would amend civil rights law so that losers in state-endorsement-of-religious cases don't have to pay legal fees - and a main focus of the theoconservative movement in the last days of this Congress - has cleared the house and is now going to the Senate;
Focus on the Family upset again that the Judiciary Committee failed to get quorum and accordingly failed to move some of President Bush's judicial nominees forward; includes ACTION ITEM to demand confirmation now;
In "can dish it out but sure as hell can't take it" news, Focus on the Family complains that a clinic that includes abortion services is "posing as an 'Alternative' Center" - which is to say, doing what their "pregnancy clinics" have been doing for at least 20 years, just in the other direction;
Focus on the Family on its latest "ex-gay" rally, this one in California;
Focus on the Family's reporting on the "Values Voters Conference" is a lot tamer than what third-party observers are reporting;
There's a march to normalise homosexuality and nobody told me? Heck, I'd have signed up - Faith and Freedom Network sends out another round of anti-GBLT propaganda; it's interesting that the fundamentalist movement, as a whole, continues to fail to recognise bisexuality;
Faith and Freedom Network condemns the separation of church and state, again;
Andrew Sullivan posts a second-hand report from the Values Voters Summit, where they've picked up on Timothy LaHay's assertion that the antichrist will be a gay man and talk rather openly about it, referring to the LGBT rights movement as "from the pit of Hell itself";
Focus on the Family Canada condemns a gay man's involvement in curriculum review and his response to an editorial wherein The B.C. Catholic said that his participation would lead to "morally objectionable material"; FotFCa also links to a new group I'm not familiar with, "Concerned Parents BC."
----- 1 -----
Hillary Clinton could outdraw the devil, Falwell says
By Peter Wallsten
Los Angeles Times
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003272973_jerry24.html
WASHINGTON — Nothing will motivate conservative evangelical Christians to vote Republican in the 2008 presidential election more than a Democratic nominee named Hillary Clinton — not even a run by the devil himself.
[...]
Falwell's remarks about Clinton were part of a 40-minute address at a private breakfast that included assurances that God would preserve a Republican majority in Congress and that moderates such as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani cannot be allowed to win the GOP presidential nomination.
[...]
Nearly 2,000 activists attended the weekend summit sponsored by Focus on the Family at a hotel near downtown Washington. The meeting was devoted to revving up the GOP base for November and beyond, and included appearances from several prospective Republican presidential candidates: Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Sens. George Allen of Virginia and Sam Brownback of Kansas.
----- 2 -----
5 Reasons Torture Is Always Wrong
And why there should be no exceptions.
by David P. Gushee | posted 01/27/2006 09:45 a.m.
Christianity Today, February 2006
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/002/23.32.html
"Three Marines in Mahmudiya used an electric transformer, forcing a detainee to 'dance' as the electricity coursed through him."
International Committee of the Red Cross, February 2004
A former Iraqi general "died of asphyxiation after being stuffed head-first into a sleeping bag … at an American base in Al Asad."
The New York Times, October 23, 2005
"Al-Qatani was forced to perform dog tricks on a leash, was straddled by a female interrogator, forced to dance with a male interrogator, told that his mother and sister were whores, forced to wear a woman's bra and thong on his head during interrogation, and subjected to an unmuzzled dog to scare him."
Newsweek, November 21, 2005
The word "torture," tellingly, comes from the Latin torquere, to twist. Stine Amris and Julio G. Arenas, who have done extensive studies on the effects of torture, define it as "the infliction of severe pain (whether physical or psychological) by a perpetrator who acts purposefully and on behalf of the state" (italics in original).
[More at URL]
----- 3 -----
Christianism Watch
27 September 2006
Andrew Sullivan
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/09/christianism_wa_3.html
A reader writes:
It is much, much worse than we know. [Ed. Note: not all of us...]
The first woman I spoke to (from Erie, PA) railed on about how Chuck Hagel is a flaming liberal and John McCain should be tried for treason. I thought that maybe I'd run into an isolated crazy. Oh no - it only got worse from there. The level of contempt for anyone who diverges from the Holy Word of W is beyond description. I was sort of 'undercover' so I could just let people talk to me, not leading the conversation, not baiting, and it horrified me to hear how many were perfectly comfortable with any form of torture in the name of patriotism if the Commander In Chief gave it the ok.
[...]
Meanwhile, in the plenary I got to hear from George Allen on how he's been done wrong by the media and watched a ballroom of about 1,700 people seem to feel permission to let their hate for The Gays run wild every time a black minister hit the stage. (I have my own copy of the very popular brochure, "The Rape of the Civil Rights Movement: How Sodomites Are Using Civil Rights Rhetoric To Advance Their Preference For Sexual Perversion.")
[More at URL]
----- 4 -----
Teen Pregnancies Continue Downward Trend
Abstinence education credited for the success.
from staff reports
Focus on the Family
September 27, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0042109.cfm
Teen pregnancies dropped 36 percent from 1990 to 2002, according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.
Bill Albert, a spokesman for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, told Family News in Focus that it shows comprehensive sex education is working.
"The short answer," he said, "is both less sex — that is, more teenagers are delaying sexual activity — and more contraception — that is, more teens who are having sex are using contraception a bit more carefully."
But not everyone agrees with that theory. Linda Klepacki, analyst for sexual health at Focus on the Family Action, said there’s strong evidence that true abstinence education is the real reason.
[More at URL]
----- 5 -----
Brownback Says Child Custody Protection Act Has 'A Shot'
Focus on the Family
September 27, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/briefs/a0042114.cfm
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., one of the sponsors of the Child Custody Protection Act, said today he thinks there is "a chance" the Senate can pass the bill and get it to the president before Congress adjourns at the end of September.
Yesterday, members of the House of Representatives voted 264-153 to approve a Senate-offered substitute amending a bill that the House originally approved in 2005 — the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act. The Senate passed its own version, S. 403, in July.
The new joint House-Senate bill basically makes it a crime for anyone to take an underage pregnant girl across state lines for the purpose of getting around parental-notification laws in the girl's home state.
[More at URL]
----- 6 -----
Judge Gone Wild
Ruling against parental rights is just one way Judge Stephen Reinhardt is trying to overturn American values.
A Citizen Special Report
Focus on the Family
http://www.family.org/cforum/citizenmag/coverstory/a0039283.cfm
He’s the judge who says parental rights end at the schoolhouse door and that the Pledge of Allegiance in public school classrooms is unconstitutional.
[...]
He’s Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals—the most infamous member of the most radical court in America. He’s notorious because he’s caused real harm—to parental rights, public safety and the reputation of the federal courts. But one of his colleagues says he’s a “mastodon,” soon to be “extinct.” President Bush could hasten that day by appointing more conservatives to vacancies on the 9th Circuit, but Reinhardt and his political allies aren’t quite ready to surrender. They’re intent on transforming America, with Reinhardt the master architect.
[...]
His parents also taught Reinhardt about his Jewish heritage and Nazi persecution. His step-grandfather, Max Reinhardt, was one of several German artists who fled Hitler and immigrated to America. Once in the United States, Max gained renown for directing a stage production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” featuring James Cagney and Mickey Rooney.
Warner Bros. later turned that production into a major motion picture.
Divorced parents, Hollywood friendships and tales of horrific violence that lacked the redemptive power of Christ’s atonement—Reinhardt’s childhood was the perfect recipe for the making of a leftist judicial activist.
[...]
And in his current position as a 9th Circuit judge, he has openly discussed his view that “social justice” and “individual rights” should serve as a “guiding principle of the judicial branch.”
Reinhardt himself credited his liberalism to early exposure to the Holocaust and discrimination. “It would be hard not to feel very strongly about fairness and justice after all that,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 1986.
Problem is, those personal emotions seem to have skewed Reinhardt’s legal logic—especially on the court, where he has repeatedly exalted “individual rights” above other principles.
[...]
When Jews forget their religious heritage and focus entirely on secular, individual-rights thinking, they open the door to societal chaos, Lapin said.
[More at URL]
----- 7 -----
Gay Activist Starts Fire in Colorado Family's Front Yard
Police call it a hate crime
by Pete Winn, associate editor
Focus on the Family
September 27, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0042120.cfm
Christina Sewall woke up about 2:15 this morning in her Colorado Springs, Colo., home, with an uneasy feeling.
"It took me a little while to go back to sleep," she told CitizenLink. "I had no sooner dozed off when I heard a trash can or something being dragged across the sidewalk."
Sewall said she looked at the window and could see the glow of a fire.
[More at URL]
----- 8 -----
House Approves Public Expression of Religion Act
Bill now faces the notorious Senate gantlet.
by Pete Winn and Wendy Cloyd
Focus on the Family
September 26, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0042096.cfm
Legislation designed to protect municipalities -- when groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sue to have Ten Commandments displays or crosses removed from public property -- passed the House on a 242-173 vote this afternoon.
H.R. 2679 -- the Public Expression of Religion Act (PERA) -- moves on to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain. The bill would prohibit the plaintiff in a religious liberties case from being awarded attorneys' fees for attacking public expressions of faith.
[...]
TAKE ACTION:
Please contact your state's senators and ask them to support the Public Expression of Religion Act, H.R. 2679, and its Senate companion, S. 3696.
If you are a CitizenLink Daily Update subscriber, click on the blue "Take Action" button in the e-mail to be automatically logged in to our Action Center. Otherwise, click on this link.
----- 9 -----
Another Judiciary Committee Disappointment
Once again, the lack of a quorum stops votes on nominees.
by Pete Winn, associate editor
Focus on the Family
September 26, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/extras/a0042094.cfm
The Senate Judiciary Committee was supposed to meet today in executive session to take action on the president's nominations for federal appeals courts. The meeting notice had been sent out, the agenda was posted, the nominees' names were prominently displayed — and virtually everyone interested in judicial nominations was poised to hear what might happen.
But for a second time in as many weeks, there were no votes on the four "controversial" appeals court nominees — because there was no meeting.
Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action said once again there weren't enough committee members present to constitute a quorum —- and the executive session had to be canceled.
[...]
TAKE ACTION:
Please contact your senators and ask them to do everything they can to make sure the president's long-standing judicial nominees get out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and receive up-or-down votes by the full Senate.
If you are a CitizenLink Daily Update subscriber, click on the blue "Take Action" button in the e-mail to be automatically logged in to our Action Center. Otherwise, click on this link.
[More at URL]
----- 10 -----
Abortion Clinic Posing as an 'Alternative' Center Faces Suit
Focus on the Family
September 26, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/briefs/a0042093.cfm
An abortion clinic posing as a pro-life pregnancy-resource center now faces a lawsuit that alleges false advertising, LifeSite reported.
Expectant Mother Care (EMC) filed suit Wednesday against a New York abortion provider with sites in the Bronx and in downtown Brooklyn. "Dr. Emily" placed an advertisement in the New York City Yellow Pages under the "alternatives to abortion" section -- intended for pro-life organizations such as pregnancy-resource centers and adoption agencies.
"Abortion Alternatives: Businesses appearing at this heading provide assistance and/or information on abortion alternatives," reads the section heading. "They do not provide abortion services or information on obtaining an abortion."
Chris Slattery, founder and president of EMC, said abortion providers -- looking for ways to aggressively compete with pregnancy centers -- are resorting to deception.
[More at URL]
----- 11 -----
Love Won Out Draws Large Crowd in California
Protesters try to confuse the event's message.
from staff reports
Focus on the Family
September 26, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0042090.cfm
After weeks of controversy leading up to the event, nearly 1,400 people attended a Love Won Out conference in Palm Springs, Calif., on Saturday. It was the third-largest attendance in the eight-year history of the event.
The conferences, which are backed by Focus on the Family, share the message that change is possible for people who experience unwanted same-sex attraction.
[More at URL]
----- 12 -----
Values Voters Energized for November
More than 1,700 gather for the Washington Briefing.
Focus on the Family
http://www.family.org/cforum/extras/a0042081.cfm
WASHINGTON — Values voters from 48 states converged on the massive and historic Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., on Friday and Saturday to learn about pressing family issues and to seek energy and encouragement.
An impressive A-list of conservative leaders and public officials packed the schedule from early morning till late in the evening. They addressed a standing-room-only crowd of more than 1,700 in the Regency Ballroom.
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took issue with judicial activism that led to same-sex marriage.
"My state's Supreme Judicial Court, about a year ago, struck a blow against the family unit, in my view," he said. "It said that our constitution, written long ago by John Adams, required people of the same gender to marry. I think John Adams would be surprised to hear that was in his constitution."
Romney said the members of the court took a wrong turn when they viewed marriage as an institution that only concerns the rights of adults.
[More at URL]
----- 13 -----
March to Normalize Homosexuality Continues
Faith and Freedom Network
Monday, September 25, 2006
http://www.faithandfreedom.us/weblog/2006/09/march-to-normalize-homosexuality.html
In a continuing attempt to “normalize” homosexuality, we are now hearing a new twist on an old perversion.
Rosie O’Donnell, taking full advantage of her new position of influence provided by Barbara Walters and ABC, last week introduced a new version of “gay.”
After showing “The View” audience a clip of Oprah Winfrey and her friend, Gayle King, struggling to pump gas while driving cross-country this summer, a “Thelma and Louise” excursion they had recorded for the Oprah Show fall premier, Ms. O’Donnell said, “I think that’s very typical of gay relationships – not saying their gay.” Then Rosie, speaking to Oprah as though she was present, said, “You might be a little bit gay … you’re just not doing it.” (AOL News, ABC News).
A “little bit” gay? [Editor's note: the fundamentalists do not recognise bisexuality. The concept continues to appear foreign to them.]
[More at URL]
----- 14 -----
What About Separation of Church and State?
Faith and Freedom Network
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
http://www.faithandfreedom.us/weblog/2006/09/what-about-separation-of-church-and.html
Americans are sometimes surprised to learn that “separation of church and state” does not appear in the Constitution. In fact, the word “church” doesn’t appear in the Constitution.
No Constitutional restriction was ever placed on the church by either the Founding Fathers or the Constitution they crafted.
Rather all Constitutional limitations were imposed on the role of government.
[More at URL]
----- 15 -----
Christianism Watch III
Andrew Sullivan
27 Sep 2006 05:29 pm
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/09/christianism_wa_5.html
"The civil rights movement, [Rev. Dwight McKissic of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Texas] said, was grounded in moral authority, truth and righteousness, the impetus to freedom, constitutional authority, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In contrast, he said, the gay rights movement was inspired 'from the pit of hell itself,' and has a 'satanic anointment.' The gay rights movement was birthed and inspired by the anti-Christ. He suggested that the anti-Christ is himself gay, citing a verse from the book of Daniel saying the anti-Christ will have no desire for a woman.
[More at URL]
----- 16 -----
Parents protest gay curriculum review
Focus on the Family Canada
September 27, 2006
http://www.fotf.ca/tfn/education/stories/092706.html
One of two homosexuals under contract with the B.C. Ministry of Education to take the lead in developing new social justice public school curricula is unsuitable for the job due to his “anti-Catholic bigotry,” according to the Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL).
Peter Corren was reacting to an editorial in The B.C. Catholic by Vancouver Archbishop Raymond Roussin in which he warned that this agreement “could lead to the introduction of morally objectionable material in the school system.”
Corren told the Vancouver Sun that the Catholic Church “has victimized our society through history.” And he told The Province that Roussin’s response reflects the Church’s ongoing “homophobic diatribe against Canadian society.”
[...]
As well, a new group, Concerned Parents of B.C., has started meeting with local school boards to protest what it sees as the basic unfairness of giving a special interest group a say in the education of their children.
At Focus on the Family's "Values Voter Summit," Rev. Jerry Falwell compares Senator Hillary Clinton to Satan, says God will will preserve a Republican majority in Congress, attacks former NYC mayor Giuliani, saying he must not get the GOP nod in 2008;
I missed this at the time, and in balance to the Traditional Values Coalition's endorsement of President Bush's torture programme, here is Christianity Today condemning it back in February;
Andrew Sullivan gets a report from the Values Voters Summit; amoungst other things, John McCain should be tried for treason; a popular pamphlet was Reverend Wellington Boone's "The Rape of the Civil Rights Movement: How Sodomites Are Using Civil Rights Rhetoric To Advance Their Preference For Sexual Perversion" previously promoted by Pat Roberton's Christian Broadcasting Network, and so on;
Teen pregnancy continues to decline; Focus on the Family claims credit via "abstinence-only education" despite studies showing that's not really been very helpful;
Focus on the Family reports that Senator Brownback hopes to get an anti-abortion act through Congress before the rapidly-approaching adjournment;
FotF condemns Judge Stephen Reinhardt, particularly for his focus on individual rights; the neat bit is where they blame "secular Jews" for the ACLU and many other problems; also, they criticise Jewish families for teaching their children about the holocaust;
ATTENTION JACKASSES: STOP BEING JACKASSES. Somebody's harassing one particular anti-gay activist group at home; it's not okay and just lets them paint all of us as violent freaks, which of course they do;
Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM on PERA, the "Public Expression of Religion Act," which would amend civil rights law so that losers in state-endorsement-of-religious cases don't have to pay legal fees - and a main focus of the theoconservative movement in the last days of this Congress - has cleared the house and is now going to the Senate;
Focus on the Family upset again that the Judiciary Committee failed to get quorum and accordingly failed to move some of President Bush's judicial nominees forward; includes ACTION ITEM to demand confirmation now;
In "can dish it out but sure as hell can't take it" news, Focus on the Family complains that a clinic that includes abortion services is "posing as an 'Alternative' Center" - which is to say, doing what their "pregnancy clinics" have been doing for at least 20 years, just in the other direction;
Focus on the Family on its latest "ex-gay" rally, this one in California;
Focus on the Family's reporting on the "Values Voters Conference" is a lot tamer than what third-party observers are reporting;
There's a march to normalise homosexuality and nobody told me? Heck, I'd have signed up - Faith and Freedom Network sends out another round of anti-GBLT propaganda; it's interesting that the fundamentalist movement, as a whole, continues to fail to recognise bisexuality;
Faith and Freedom Network condemns the separation of church and state, again;
Andrew Sullivan posts a second-hand report from the Values Voters Summit, where they've picked up on Timothy LaHay's assertion that the antichrist will be a gay man and talk rather openly about it, referring to the LGBT rights movement as "from the pit of Hell itself";
Focus on the Family Canada condemns a gay man's involvement in curriculum review and his response to an editorial wherein The B.C. Catholic said that his participation would lead to "morally objectionable material"; FotFCa also links to a new group I'm not familiar with, "Concerned Parents BC."
----- 1 -----
Hillary Clinton could outdraw the devil, Falwell says
By Peter Wallsten
Los Angeles Times
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003272973_jerry24.html
WASHINGTON — Nothing will motivate conservative evangelical Christians to vote Republican in the 2008 presidential election more than a Democratic nominee named Hillary Clinton — not even a run by the devil himself.
[...]
Falwell's remarks about Clinton were part of a 40-minute address at a private breakfast that included assurances that God would preserve a Republican majority in Congress and that moderates such as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani cannot be allowed to win the GOP presidential nomination.
[...]
Nearly 2,000 activists attended the weekend summit sponsored by Focus on the Family at a hotel near downtown Washington. The meeting was devoted to revving up the GOP base for November and beyond, and included appearances from several prospective Republican presidential candidates: Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Sens. George Allen of Virginia and Sam Brownback of Kansas.
----- 2 -----
5 Reasons Torture Is Always Wrong
And why there should be no exceptions.
by David P. Gushee | posted 01/27/2006 09:45 a.m.
Christianity Today, February 2006
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/002/23.32.html
"Three Marines in Mahmudiya used an electric transformer, forcing a detainee to 'dance' as the electricity coursed through him."
International Committee of the Red Cross, February 2004
A former Iraqi general "died of asphyxiation after being stuffed head-first into a sleeping bag … at an American base in Al Asad."
The New York Times, October 23, 2005
"Al-Qatani was forced to perform dog tricks on a leash, was straddled by a female interrogator, forced to dance with a male interrogator, told that his mother and sister were whores, forced to wear a woman's bra and thong on his head during interrogation, and subjected to an unmuzzled dog to scare him."
Newsweek, November 21, 2005
The word "torture," tellingly, comes from the Latin torquere, to twist. Stine Amris and Julio G. Arenas, who have done extensive studies on the effects of torture, define it as "the infliction of severe pain (whether physical or psychological) by a perpetrator who acts purposefully and on behalf of the state" (italics in original).
[More at URL]
----- 3 -----
Christianism Watch
27 September 2006
Andrew Sullivan
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/09/christianism_wa_3.html
A reader writes:
It is much, much worse than we know. [Ed. Note: not all of us...]
The first woman I spoke to (from Erie, PA) railed on about how Chuck Hagel is a flaming liberal and John McCain should be tried for treason. I thought that maybe I'd run into an isolated crazy. Oh no - it only got worse from there. The level of contempt for anyone who diverges from the Holy Word of W is beyond description. I was sort of 'undercover' so I could just let people talk to me, not leading the conversation, not baiting, and it horrified me to hear how many were perfectly comfortable with any form of torture in the name of patriotism if the Commander In Chief gave it the ok.
[...]
Meanwhile, in the plenary I got to hear from George Allen on how he's been done wrong by the media and watched a ballroom of about 1,700 people seem to feel permission to let their hate for The Gays run wild every time a black minister hit the stage. (I have my own copy of the very popular brochure, "The Rape of the Civil Rights Movement: How Sodomites Are Using Civil Rights Rhetoric To Advance Their Preference For Sexual Perversion.")
[More at URL]
----- 4 -----
Teen Pregnancies Continue Downward Trend
Abstinence education credited for the success.
from staff reports
Focus on the Family
September 27, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0042109.cfm
Teen pregnancies dropped 36 percent from 1990 to 2002, according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.
Bill Albert, a spokesman for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, told Family News in Focus that it shows comprehensive sex education is working.
"The short answer," he said, "is both less sex — that is, more teenagers are delaying sexual activity — and more contraception — that is, more teens who are having sex are using contraception a bit more carefully."
But not everyone agrees with that theory. Linda Klepacki, analyst for sexual health at Focus on the Family Action, said there’s strong evidence that true abstinence education is the real reason.
[More at URL]
----- 5 -----
Brownback Says Child Custody Protection Act Has 'A Shot'
Focus on the Family
September 27, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/briefs/a0042114.cfm
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., one of the sponsors of the Child Custody Protection Act, said today he thinks there is "a chance" the Senate can pass the bill and get it to the president before Congress adjourns at the end of September.
Yesterday, members of the House of Representatives voted 264-153 to approve a Senate-offered substitute amending a bill that the House originally approved in 2005 — the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act. The Senate passed its own version, S. 403, in July.
The new joint House-Senate bill basically makes it a crime for anyone to take an underage pregnant girl across state lines for the purpose of getting around parental-notification laws in the girl's home state.
[More at URL]
----- 6 -----
Judge Gone Wild
Ruling against parental rights is just one way Judge Stephen Reinhardt is trying to overturn American values.
A Citizen Special Report
Focus on the Family
http://www.family.org/cforum/citizenmag/coverstory/a0039283.cfm
He’s the judge who says parental rights end at the schoolhouse door and that the Pledge of Allegiance in public school classrooms is unconstitutional.
[...]
He’s Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals—the most infamous member of the most radical court in America. He’s notorious because he’s caused real harm—to parental rights, public safety and the reputation of the federal courts. But one of his colleagues says he’s a “mastodon,” soon to be “extinct.” President Bush could hasten that day by appointing more conservatives to vacancies on the 9th Circuit, but Reinhardt and his political allies aren’t quite ready to surrender. They’re intent on transforming America, with Reinhardt the master architect.
[...]
His parents also taught Reinhardt about his Jewish heritage and Nazi persecution. His step-grandfather, Max Reinhardt, was one of several German artists who fled Hitler and immigrated to America. Once in the United States, Max gained renown for directing a stage production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” featuring James Cagney and Mickey Rooney.
Warner Bros. later turned that production into a major motion picture.
Divorced parents, Hollywood friendships and tales of horrific violence that lacked the redemptive power of Christ’s atonement—Reinhardt’s childhood was the perfect recipe for the making of a leftist judicial activist.
[...]
And in his current position as a 9th Circuit judge, he has openly discussed his view that “social justice” and “individual rights” should serve as a “guiding principle of the judicial branch.”
Reinhardt himself credited his liberalism to early exposure to the Holocaust and discrimination. “It would be hard not to feel very strongly about fairness and justice after all that,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 1986.
Problem is, those personal emotions seem to have skewed Reinhardt’s legal logic—especially on the court, where he has repeatedly exalted “individual rights” above other principles.
[...]
When Jews forget their religious heritage and focus entirely on secular, individual-rights thinking, they open the door to societal chaos, Lapin said.
[More at URL]
----- 7 -----
Gay Activist Starts Fire in Colorado Family's Front Yard
Police call it a hate crime
by Pete Winn, associate editor
Focus on the Family
September 27, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0042120.cfm
Christina Sewall woke up about 2:15 this morning in her Colorado Springs, Colo., home, with an uneasy feeling.
"It took me a little while to go back to sleep," she told CitizenLink. "I had no sooner dozed off when I heard a trash can or something being dragged across the sidewalk."
Sewall said she looked at the window and could see the glow of a fire.
[More at URL]
----- 8 -----
House Approves Public Expression of Religion Act
Bill now faces the notorious Senate gantlet.
by Pete Winn and Wendy Cloyd
Focus on the Family
September 26, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0042096.cfm
Legislation designed to protect municipalities -- when groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sue to have Ten Commandments displays or crosses removed from public property -- passed the House on a 242-173 vote this afternoon.
H.R. 2679 -- the Public Expression of Religion Act (PERA) -- moves on to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain. The bill would prohibit the plaintiff in a religious liberties case from being awarded attorneys' fees for attacking public expressions of faith.
[...]
TAKE ACTION:
Please contact your state's senators and ask them to support the Public Expression of Religion Act, H.R. 2679, and its Senate companion, S. 3696.
If you are a CitizenLink Daily Update subscriber, click on the blue "Take Action" button in the e-mail to be automatically logged in to our Action Center. Otherwise, click on this link.
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Another Judiciary Committee Disappointment
Once again, the lack of a quorum stops votes on nominees.
by Pete Winn, associate editor
Focus on the Family
September 26, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/extras/a0042094.cfm
The Senate Judiciary Committee was supposed to meet today in executive session to take action on the president's nominations for federal appeals courts. The meeting notice had been sent out, the agenda was posted, the nominees' names were prominently displayed — and virtually everyone interested in judicial nominations was poised to hear what might happen.
But for a second time in as many weeks, there were no votes on the four "controversial" appeals court nominees — because there was no meeting.
Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action said once again there weren't enough committee members present to constitute a quorum —- and the executive session had to be canceled.
[...]
TAKE ACTION:
Please contact your senators and ask them to do everything they can to make sure the president's long-standing judicial nominees get out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and receive up-or-down votes by the full Senate.
If you are a CitizenLink Daily Update subscriber, click on the blue "Take Action" button in the e-mail to be automatically logged in to our Action Center. Otherwise, click on this link.
[More at URL]
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Abortion Clinic Posing as an 'Alternative' Center Faces Suit
Focus on the Family
September 26, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/briefs/a0042093.cfm
An abortion clinic posing as a pro-life pregnancy-resource center now faces a lawsuit that alleges false advertising, LifeSite reported.
Expectant Mother Care (EMC) filed suit Wednesday against a New York abortion provider with sites in the Bronx and in downtown Brooklyn. "Dr. Emily" placed an advertisement in the New York City Yellow Pages under the "alternatives to abortion" section -- intended for pro-life organizations such as pregnancy-resource centers and adoption agencies.
"Abortion Alternatives: Businesses appearing at this heading provide assistance and/or information on abortion alternatives," reads the section heading. "They do not provide abortion services or information on obtaining an abortion."
Chris Slattery, founder and president of EMC, said abortion providers -- looking for ways to aggressively compete with pregnancy centers -- are resorting to deception.
[More at URL]
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Love Won Out Draws Large Crowd in California
Protesters try to confuse the event's message.
from staff reports
Focus on the Family
September 26, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0042090.cfm
After weeks of controversy leading up to the event, nearly 1,400 people attended a Love Won Out conference in Palm Springs, Calif., on Saturday. It was the third-largest attendance in the eight-year history of the event.
The conferences, which are backed by Focus on the Family, share the message that change is possible for people who experience unwanted same-sex attraction.
[More at URL]
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Values Voters Energized for November
More than 1,700 gather for the Washington Briefing.
Focus on the Family
http://www.family.org/cforum/extras/a0042081.cfm
WASHINGTON — Values voters from 48 states converged on the massive and historic Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., on Friday and Saturday to learn about pressing family issues and to seek energy and encouragement.
An impressive A-list of conservative leaders and public officials packed the schedule from early morning till late in the evening. They addressed a standing-room-only crowd of more than 1,700 in the Regency Ballroom.
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took issue with judicial activism that led to same-sex marriage.
"My state's Supreme Judicial Court, about a year ago, struck a blow against the family unit, in my view," he said. "It said that our constitution, written long ago by John Adams, required people of the same gender to marry. I think John Adams would be surprised to hear that was in his constitution."
Romney said the members of the court took a wrong turn when they viewed marriage as an institution that only concerns the rights of adults.
[More at URL]
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March to Normalize Homosexuality Continues
Faith and Freedom Network
Monday, September 25, 2006
http://www.faithandfreedom.us/weblog/2006/09/march-to-normalize-homosexuality.html
In a continuing attempt to “normalize” homosexuality, we are now hearing a new twist on an old perversion.
Rosie O’Donnell, taking full advantage of her new position of influence provided by Barbara Walters and ABC, last week introduced a new version of “gay.”
After showing “The View” audience a clip of Oprah Winfrey and her friend, Gayle King, struggling to pump gas while driving cross-country this summer, a “Thelma and Louise” excursion they had recorded for the Oprah Show fall premier, Ms. O’Donnell said, “I think that’s very typical of gay relationships – not saying their gay.” Then Rosie, speaking to Oprah as though she was present, said, “You might be a little bit gay … you’re just not doing it.” (AOL News, ABC News).
A “little bit” gay? [Editor's note: the fundamentalists do not recognise bisexuality. The concept continues to appear foreign to them.]
[More at URL]
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What About Separation of Church and State?
Faith and Freedom Network
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
http://www.faithandfreedom.us/weblog/2006/09/what-about-separation-of-church-and.html
Americans are sometimes surprised to learn that “separation of church and state” does not appear in the Constitution. In fact, the word “church” doesn’t appear in the Constitution.
No Constitutional restriction was ever placed on the church by either the Founding Fathers or the Constitution they crafted.
Rather all Constitutional limitations were imposed on the role of government.
[More at URL]
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Christianism Watch III
Andrew Sullivan
27 Sep 2006 05:29 pm
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/09/christianism_wa_5.html
"The civil rights movement, [Rev. Dwight McKissic of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Texas] said, was grounded in moral authority, truth and righteousness, the impetus to freedom, constitutional authority, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In contrast, he said, the gay rights movement was inspired 'from the pit of hell itself,' and has a 'satanic anointment.' The gay rights movement was birthed and inspired by the anti-Christ. He suggested that the anti-Christ is himself gay, citing a verse from the book of Daniel saying the anti-Christ will have no desire for a woman.
[More at URL]
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Parents protest gay curriculum review
Focus on the Family Canada
September 27, 2006
http://www.fotf.ca/tfn/education/stories/092706.html
One of two homosexuals under contract with the B.C. Ministry of Education to take the lead in developing new social justice public school curricula is unsuitable for the job due to his “anti-Catholic bigotry,” according to the Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL).
Peter Corren was reacting to an editorial in The B.C. Catholic by Vancouver Archbishop Raymond Roussin in which he warned that this agreement “could lead to the introduction of morally objectionable material in the school system.”
Corren told the Vancouver Sun that the Catholic Church “has victimized our society through history.” And he told The Province that Roussin’s response reflects the Church’s ongoing “homophobic diatribe against Canadian society.”
[...]
As well, a new group, Concerned Parents of B.C., has started meeting with local school boards to protest what it sees as the basic unfairness of giving a special interest group a say in the education of their children.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 12:18 pm (UTC)It's not all that weird. It's the old Southern tradition that a drop of black blood makes you all black. A little bit of homosexuality makes you all homosexual. There's no point in making distinctions, since they don't exist.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 05:07 pm (UTC)I suppose, really, I shouldn't give them any ideas.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 04:07 pm (UTC)Under PERA, the Jewish family would have no legal recourse. Although the school board is absolutely within the wrong, PERA would make it financially impossible for anyone to mount a legal objection.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 05:26 pm (UTC)http://www.jewsonfirst.org/06b/indianriver.html
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 10:00 pm (UTC)