Today's Cultural Warfare Update

[solarbird]

Attention Closeted, Self-Hating Evangelical Gay Men: STOP TAKING YOUR WRETCHED SELF-HATRED OUT ON THE REST OF US, YOU FUCKING BASTARDS.

Rev. Ted Haggard - and yes, he does matter, even if he's not as famous as Dobson or the better-known theocons - accused of paying for sex with men; URL courtesy firni;

More Focus on the Family GET OUT THERE AND VOTE GOP articles; this one's all about the judges again;

FotF looking for anti-marriage petition volunteers on election day in Florida;

FotF: Democrats don't care about character;

FotF: Americans United for Separation of Church and State should shut up and stop complaining about Focus on the Family's endorsement sheets "scorecards" being handed out at churches; note that 501(c)(3)s are permitted to endorse candidates, but FotF pretends these "scorecards" are different because, well, you know;

FotF complains about being "belittled" by Planned Parenthood; also repeats the very intentional "Plan B causes abortion" lie (it doesn't);

Latest fundamentalist-led attempt to amend Massachusetts's constitution to ban GBLT marriage comes up next week - anybody know whether this has any shot of happening? Let me know;

"Congressman Defends Life and Purity" - a Republican subcommittee generates a couple of theocon-pleasing documents we'll probably see quoted a lot soon, one on RU-486 and one on "abstinence-only education";

Religious-discrimination lawsuit against the Air Force Academy thrown out - the judge ruled that because the students were no longer students (the case has dragged on) that they no longer had standing to sue. I don't have details, but on the face of it, this is an amazing ruling - if you're looking for an excuse to get cases thrown out;

Concerned Women for America pushes South Dakota referendum to confirm the state's complete ban on abortion - including for the health of the mother;

CWA says, "Pay attention to us election night!" and offers talking-heads to anyone who will listen to them;

"How America Went Gay," an anti-gay psychologist's column hosted on "Leadership University," linked to by CWA; a moderate amount of red-meat in this column;

Traditional Values Coalition - "Elections Are Won By Who Gets Out The Vote!" - vote, vote, vote, vote, vote GOP;

TVC: Theocon-friendly judges at stake, vote vote vote vote GOP; Democrats in the Senate will be like "a Freddy Krueger movie;"

TVC: Vote, vote, vote GOP or "homosexual agenda accelerates" - there could be nondiscrimination law including GBLT people, and lesbian and gay people might be able to get married;

TVC: Vote, vote, vote GOP: "Key Races on November 7th";

TVC: Vote, vote, vote GOP, and in particular, the key issue is banning marriage rights for lesbian and gay people;

American Family Association reports on Focus on the Family's James Dobson endorsement of Ken Blackwell in Ohio; c.f. massive evidence of Ohio election fraud under his leadership in 2004, including precincts with more Republican votes than voters. Also, Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline intends to target abortion-providing doctors in his medical-records examinations.


----- 1 -----
Key Evangelical quits amid gay sex claim
By CATHERINE TSAI, Associated Press Writer Thu Nov 2, 6:40 PM ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061102/ap_on_re_us/haggard_sex_allegations

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The leader of the influential National Association of Evangelicals, a vocal opponent of the drive for same-sex marriage, resigned Thursday after being accused of paying for sex with a man.

The Rev. Ted Haggard also stepped aside as head of his 14,000-member New Life Church while a church panel investigates, saying he could "not continue to minister under the cloud created by the accusations."

The investigation came after a 49-year-old man told a Denver radio station that Haggard paid him to have sex.

[More at URL]


----- 2 -----
A Liberal Congress Could Spell Disaster for Conservative Judicial Nominees
What's at stake in the upcoming election? Plenty, if you want to see judges on the bench who respect the Constitution.
Focus on the Family
2 November 2006

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000002861.cfm

Conservative pundits and pro-family legal analysts say if liberals gain control of Congress on Tuesday, the fate of future conservative judicial nominees will hang in the balance.

With them, according to Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst of Focus on the Family Action, will hang the fates of pre-born babies, marriage and religious liberty.

"The success of the president's judicial appointments depends on conservative control of the Senate," he said. "If conservatives do not retain control, then ultraliberals like (Sens.) Patrick Leahy, (D-Vt.), Ted Kennedy, (D-Mass.), and Chuck Schumer, (D-N.Y.) will decide the type of judges the president can get confirmed."

[More at URL]


----- 3 -----
Florida Volunteers Needed to Collect Petitions at the Polls
Focus on the Family
11-2-2006

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLBriefs/A000002873.cfm

Florida4Marriage.org is organizing hundreds of volunteers to help collect petitions on Nov. 7 outside polling locations.

The petitions will assure the placement of the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment on the 2008 ballot. Of 600,000 petitions that were circulated, 40,000 still need to be collected.

Volunteers are needed between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on Election Day.

[More at URL]


----- 4 -----
Character Counts at the Ballot Box
Focus on the Family
11-2-2006

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLBriefs/A000002872.cfm

A poll conducted by Zogby International found the "values, morals and character" of a candidate were the most important things to consider when casting a vote.

[...]

Broken down by political affiliation, 63.2 percent of Republicans chose character, while 42 percent of Democrats said opposition to the war in Iraq was the most important consideration -- just 24 percent of Democrats chose character.

[More at URL]


----- 5 -----
Americans United Continues Using Scare Tactics Against Values Voters
Focus on the Family
11-2-2006

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLBriefs/A000002874.cfm

Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) -- headed by Barry Lynn -- falsely charged this week that a church can lose its tax-exempt status if it hands out a Vote Scorecard created by Focus on the Family Action and FRC Action.

"These guides are clearly partisan and deceptive," Lynn said. "Houses of worship should not be part of the Religious Right's unethical and legally problematic campaign to intervene in elections."

[...]

"I'd be surprised if (Lynn) even read the voter guides," McClusky said. "This is just an intimidation of Christians. Barry Lynn would probably be happiest if Christians just stayed home on election day.

"So my advice would be: 'Christians, show him up and show up on election day.' "

[More at URL]


----- 6 -----
Planned Parenthood Belittles Pro-Lifers in Video Game
Web-based strategy trumpets the morning-after pill.
from staff reports
Focus on the Family
11-2-2006

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLNews/A000002863.cfm

Planned Parenthood's Illinois affiliate has set up an online "video game" called "RX Zone" that belittles pro-life pharmacists who refuse to dispense the so-called morning-after pill.

Emergency contraception, sold under the name "Plan B," can sometimes cause an early abortion. [Ed. Note: as discussed many times here, this is a lie; an intentional ongoing meme to confuse birth control and abortion. The people who back this lie also say most other forms of birth control can cause abortions, including the normal birth control pill; also, Focus on the Family's head James Dobson has called for the overturning of Supreme Court cases overturning bans on birth control; troll through older CWUs for examples. None of this is coincidental.]

[More at URL]


----- 7 -----
Massachusetts Lawmakers to Reconsider Marriage
Petition drive leads to a Constitutional Convention.
from staff reports
Focus on the Family
11-2-2006

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLNews/A000002865.cfm

Massachusetts will convene a Constitutional Convention next week to discuss the possibility of ending same-sex marriage. Pro-family groups have gathered a record number of petition signatures to get the Legislature to reconsider its decision not to take up a constitutional amendment.

In August, the state Legislature adjourned without addressing the issue that would allow the people to vote on marriage. Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, said his group united with other pro-family organizations to force the hand of lawmakers.

“Seventy-five percent of all registered voters in Massachusetts have said they want to vote on this marriage amendment and Massachusetts to get an amendment on the ballot," Mineau told Family News in Focus.

Lawmakers who support same-sex marriages have threatened to walk out of the session, meaning the 101 members needed for a quorum to do business would not be met.

[More at URL]


----- 8 -----
Congressman Defends Life and Purity
Reports from Rep. Mark Souder cover RU-486 and abstinence education.
by Wendy Cloyd, assistant editor
Focus on the Family
11-2-2006

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLNews/A000002875.cfm

The Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, chaired by Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., has released two must-read reports -- one that details concerns about the abortion drug RU-486 and another that examines abstinence-until-marriage programs.

[More at URL]


----- 9 -----
Judge Dismisses Lawsuit against Air Force Academy
Allegations of widespread bias by Christians unproved and complainants lacked standing to bring suit.
Focus on the Family
31 October 2006

[Received in email; no URL]

Evangelical Christians and legal experts applaud a federal judge for tossing out a lawsuit against the U.S. Air Force Academy last week -- one which had accused the academy of creating an atmosphere which fostered religious discrimination.

U.S. District Judge James A. Parker in New Mexico ruled that Albuquerque-based lawyer Mikey Weinstein and the handful of other former cadets who brought the legal action had provided no proof to their "vague" allegations that the academy was biased in favor of evangelical Christians and improperly allowed Christian cadets to proselytize those of other faiths.

Alliance Defense Fund attorney Kevin Theriot said the judge wisely ruled that since the former cadets who filed the suit were no longer at the academy, the legal action served no purpose.

"He dismissed a completely baseless suit," Theriot told CitizenLink. "The plaintiffs were trying to get the court to prohibit, not only people at the academy, but anyone in the Air Force from sharing their faith with their fellow servicemen while they were on duty. And that would have been an incredibly intrusive restriction on religious speech and the ability of people of faith -- any faith -- to share their faith."

[More at URL]


----- 10 -----
South Dakota Referendum Could Make History on November 7
Pro-Life effort could lead to challenge of Roe v. Wade.
Concerned Women for America
11/2/2006
By Eva Arlia

http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11740/FIELD/life/index.htm

On November 7, South Dakotans face a momentous opportunity at the ballot box - to protect the unborn. A battle 33 years in the making will come to a culmination in a vote on Referred Law 6, which would outlaw abortions in the state. CWA of South Dakota State Director Linda Schauer is encouraged by the milestone this law represents in the pro-life movement. "South Dakota sees about 820 babies a year aborted … the equivalent of more than 30 kindergarten classes." According to Schauer, if Referred Law 6 is passed, "South Dakota will be the safest place for women and children."

This February, the South Dakota State Legislature passed H.B. 1215, a bill prohibiting the heinous practice of abortion in the state, the only exceptions being in the case of rape, incest or risk to the life of the mother. Section 2 of the bill also outlaws the sale, administration or prescription of "any medicine, drug or other substance with the specific intent of causing or abetting the termination of life of an unborn human being."

The sale of contraceptives, however, "if … administered prior to a time when pregnancy can be determined," is not affected by this bill. This denotes the vast difference between pregnancy prevention and pregnancy termination. [Ed. Note: however, CWA semi-regularly publishes the "truth" about how most forms of contraception actually cause abortions. As mentioned above, this is an intentional lie, and a meme intended to move the goalposts back against birth control.]

[...]

CWA of South Dakota remains on the forefront of the pro-life movement to assure passage of Referred Law 6. Schauer says, "This is a team effort like the Body of Christ. Even pastors are getting involved and preaching from the pulpit on the issue. It involves a lot of prayer, education, and mobilizing the electorate to take a stand."

[More at URL]


----- 11 -----
CWA Experts Available to Provide Commentary Throughout Election Night
Concerned Women for America
11/2/2006

http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11732/MEDIA/misc/index.htm

Washington, D.C. – On November 7-8, Concerned Women for America (CWA) experts will be readily available throughout the day and into the early hours of the morning to provide invaluable commentary and analysis on the congressional election. We will be here to provide you with news of key ballot initiatives and federal races all over America. CWA’s Web site (www.cwfa.org) will include articles, interviews and analysis – a key resource for media and concerned citizens who want to know what’s really happening during Election night.

“This election will be pivotal in determining the outcome on all the issues that are important to conservative Christians,” said Dr. Janice Crouse, Senior Fellow of CWA’s Beverly LaHaye Institute. “It is really all about whether a Judeo-Christian worldview will continue to drive American policies. How Values Voters behave at the polls will once again determine the future of America.”

CWA President Wendy Wright said, “More attention is focused on this mid-term election than perhaps any other in American history. Ballot measures on marriage, abortion, cloning and eminent domain will certainly drive people to the polls and influence who they elect as their representatives. While this election will steer the direction of America for the next two years, it may have its greatest impact on how it will impact Americans for the 2008 election.”

“Regardless of what happens on Election Day, pro-family Americans are going to want to know the role they will play in the next Congress,” said Mike Mears, CWALAC’s Director of State Legislative Relations. “You can be sure that Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee will be there to lead the charge and help conservatives navigate the way.”


Contact Stacey Holliday at 202.488.7000, extension 126, to set up an interview with a CWA expert.

For Information Contact:
Stacey Holliday
(202) 488-7000
media.cwfa.org


----- 12 -----
How America Went Gay
by Charles W. Socarides, M.D.

http://www.leaderu.com/jhs/socarides.html#

Charles W. Socarides, M.D., is clinical professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in New York. He is president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, and author of Homosexuality: A Freedom Too Far (Adam Margrave Books, Phoenix, Arizona).
For more than 20 years, I and a few of my colleagues in the field of psychoanalysis have felt like an embattled minority, because we have continued to insist, against today's conventional wisdom, that gays aren't born that way. We know that obligatory homosexuals are caught up in unconscious adaptations to early childhood abuse and neglect and that, with insight into their earliest beginnings, they can change. This "adaptation" I speak of is a polite term for men going through the motions of mating not with the opposite sex but with one another.

For most of this century, most of us in the helping professions considered this behavior aberrant. Not only was it "off the track"; the people caught up in it were suffering, which is why we called it a pathology. We had patients, early in their therapy, who would seek out one sex partner after another-total strangers-on a single night, then come limping into our offices the next day to tell us how they were hurting themselves. Since we were in the business of helping people learn how not to keep hurting themselves, many of us thought we were quietly doing God's work.

[...]

My wife, Clare, who has an unerring aptitude for getting to the heart of things, said one day recently in passing, "I think everybody's being brainwashed." That gave me a start. I know "brainwashing" is a term that has been used and overused. But my wife's casual observation only reminded me of a brilliant tract I had read several years ago and then forgotten. It was called After the Ball: How America Will Conquer its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 1990's, by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen.

[...]

Excuse me. Gay is not good. Gay is not decidedly free. How do I know this? For more than 40 years, I have been in solidarity with hundreds of homosexuals, my patients, and I have spent most of my professional life engaged in exercising a kind of "pastoral care" on their behalf. But I do not help them by telling them they are O.K. when they are not O.K. Nor do I endorse their "new claim to self-definition and self-respect." Tell me: Have we dumped the idea that a man's self-esteem comes from something inside himself (sometimes called character) and from having a good education, a good job and a good family-and replaced that notion with this, that he has an affinity to love (and have sex with) other men?

[...]

Giving God the credit for their gayness is a persistent refrain in much gay literature today, and I am saddened to see people of evident good will become unwitting parties to the blasphemy. Gays ascribe their condition to God, but he should not have to take that rap, any more than he should be blamed for the existence of other man-made maladies-like war, for instance, which has proven to be very unhealthy for humans and for all other living things. God does not make war. Men do.

[More at URL]


----- 13 -----
Elections Are Won By Who Gets Out The Vote!
Traditional Values Coalition

http://www.traditionalvalues.org/modules.php?sid=2918

November 2, 2006 – Traditional Values Coalition Chairman Rev. Louis P. Sheldon is urging all Christians and conservatives to vote on November 7th! “I already know who will win the election on November 7th,” said Rev. Sheldon. “It is the party that gets the most people out to the polls to vote that day! The significance of your vote can’t be underestimated. One vote per precinct can make the difference between victory or defeat for traditional values.

“In the 2000 election between President Bush and Senator Al Gore, the margin of victory for Bush was only 537 votes statewide in Florida! This gave Bush a total of 271 Electoral College votes giving him the victory.” said Rev. Sheldon. “Imagine how our nation would have responded to 9/11 if Al Gore and his liberal cronies had been in the White House?”

[More at URL]


----- 14 -----
Federal Court Reform Dies If Liberals Win Congress
Traditional Values Coalition

http://www.traditionalvalues.org/modules.php?sid=2914

November 2, 2006 -- Rev. Sheldon’s commentary for this week discusses the scary scenario of having Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT) heading up the important Senate Judiciary Committee should Democrats take the Senate on Nov. 7.

Rev. Sheldon notes that Leahy “will use his unethical parliamentary tactics to block every decent man and woman that President Bush nominates for the federal bench. He’s done this before, and we can expect him to do it again.”

The goal of reforming the federal judiciary will be defeated if liberals dominate this committee. “The goal of reforming the federal bench and placing judicial conservatives on the bench is one of the most important efforts conservatives have ever undertaken in the past 60 years,” said Sheldon. “If we fail, the horrors of judicial tyranny will multiply like bodies in a Freddy Krueger movie.”

[More at URL]


----- 15 -----
Homosexual Agenda Accelerates If Liberals Win Congress
Traditional Values Coalition

http://www.traditionalvalues.org/modules.php?sid=2915

November 2, 2006 -- The homosexual paper, New York Blade reported on October 30 that Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) had met with 40 homosexual and transgender activists earlier in the week to discuss pushing key legislative efforts if liberals take the Senate on November 7.

The Blade reports that Clinton said she would support overturning the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy; would support the legalization of same-sex relationships as “civil unions” and would push for more AIDS funding for New York under the Ryan White CARE Act.

Clinton said she would also push for inclusion of cross-dressers and transsexuals in any new version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which has been defeated for years under a Republican-controlled Congress. TVC has aggressively opposed and successfully opposed this legislation repeatedly and has a special report describing its dangers.

[More at URL]


----- 15 -----
Key Races On November 7th
Traditional Values Coalition

http://www.traditionalvalues.org/modules.php?sid=2916

November 2, 2006 – In a National Review symposium on the future if liberals take Congress, House Majority Leader John Boehner said this: “What’s most troubling about the prospect of a Democrat majority is the idea that so many old and backward ideas would be reintroduced as standard practice and imposed on the American public. Think about it: Charlie Rangel, John Dingell, Nancy Pelosi, John Conyers, Henry Waxman, George Miller…all of these Democrats were the ones in power when we threw them out of the majority back in 1994! Why was that? Because they were wrong then and they’re wrong now!


[More at URL]


----- 16 -----
Key Issues On November 7th
Traditional Values Coalition

http://www.traditionalvalues.org/modules.php?sid=2917

November 2, 2006 – Voters across the nation are facing numerous votes on issues that will impact families, taxes, and morality. Voters in Arizona, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin and Colorado will be voting on amendments to protect marriage as a one-man, one-woman union. The need for state amendments is more evident than ever in view of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision to force the state legislature to legalize homosexual marriage within 180 days.

The text of the eight amendments is available here: http://rpc.senate.gov/_files/May2306MarriageChartSD.pdf

Voters in Missouri will be asked to approve a stem cell/cloning bill that will legalize the harvesting of stem cells from human embryos. Amendment 2 will institutionalize the killing of unborn children for their stem cells. Missourians Against Human Cloning has detailed information on this dangerous, misleading legislation.

Parental involvement legislation in California will help parents know if their daughter is getting an abortion. Proposition 85 will do the following:

[More at URL]


----- 17 -----
Commentary & News Briefs
November 2, 2006
American Family Association/Agape Press
Compiled by Jenni Parker

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/22006h.asp

..A powerful Christian pro-family leader is throwing his support behind Ohio gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell. Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson has announced his personal endorsement of Blackwell, the Republican candidate who is running against Democrat Ted Strickland in the Ohio governor's race. Dobson is featured in a new radio ad in which he calls Blackwell "the champion of Ohio's marriage amendment and a lifelong pro-life leader." In the ad, the Focus on the Family chairman emphasizes that he is "speaking as a private individual and not on behalf of any organization" as he urges values voters to cast their ballots for the GOP candidate as Ohio's next governor. "Ken Blackwell has stood for our values," Dobson observes, "and it's our turn now to stand with him. Help elect a great leader who shares our values." Blackwell's campaign has accused Strickland of wanting to keep God out of public life by voting to let liberal judges prohibit prayer in school and remove Ten Commandments displays from public buildings. [Jim Brown]

...Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline says his office is reviewing patient records from abortion clinics in connection with alleged cases of child rape, failure to report child rape, and violations of the state's late-term abortion statute. Kline says the targets of his investigation are not the women and children but the doctors who perform the abortions and the rapists. Efforts to get the clinic records have taken months, mainly because of opposition from Wichita abortionist George Tiller and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. [Fred Jackson]

[More at URL]

Comments

[banner.livejournal.com]

What has me scratching my head is that he was paying for it. That just makes the whole thing sort of psycho. Then again, whenever I think of evangicals I have a tendency to remember Sam Kinnison (RIP), I've seen so many con men in that business. Even more than in the Cat business.

[solarbird]

What has me scratching my head is that he was paying for it.
Maybe he's just really, really bad in bed.

Okay, maybe not. ^_^ But if you want to have sex and don't want your partner going to the press when they find out who you are, maybe it's better that it be illegal (prostitution) - so them going to the press would get them in trouble, too. That's purely hypothetical on my part, of course, but it's the only thing I can think of.

[banner.livejournal.com]

Prostitutes always sell you out. I mean they're prostitutes! It's what they do!

A regular lover has a vested interest in you and is a lot more likely to keep their mouth shut. That's why it makes me think the guy is some kind of psycho.

[solarbird]

Mmm. Good point. I guess I just dunno!

[zedness.livejournal.com]

Doing it with a prostitute precludes the possibility of getting emotionally involved with your sex partner. Makes it easier to repent later on I think when you can tell yourself it was just a moment of weakness rather than an ongoing thing.