Today's Cultural Warfare Update
Nov. 29th, 2006 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdA special, most important, nr. 0: ATTENTION CANADIANS: Focus on the Family Canada has sent out an ACTION ITEM to call all MPs and demand that they overturn marriage rights in a revote apparently coming "soon." This is a full action item to their membership, so I'm going ahead and sending it out; there's yet more to come, maybe tonight; I'm pretty far behind the curve on this lately. Sorry about that.
But now, today's news:
ATTENTION CANADIANS: Focus on the Family Canada has sent out an ACTION ITEM to call all MPs and demand that they overturn marriage rights in a revote apparently coming "soon." This is a full action item to their membership;
The American Family Association appears to have gotten Wal-Mart not to talk to GBLT business groups anymore; that's very unfortunate. Also, they're pushing to require that all members of Congress take their oaths of office on the Bible. Ha HA - overtly theocratic. I'd laugh, but it's not funny;
Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM to call and write MPs against marriage rights, seeking to throw out C-38 on a revote;
AFA: Wal-Mart will "not make corporate contributions" to "support or oppose controversial issues," calls off boycott; ACTION ITEM to thank Wal-Mart for stiffing t3h queer businesses (not their words, of course);
Wal-Mart's statement on the matter, linked to by the AFA; the statement is not as clear as the AFA would like it to be, I suspect, but they seem to have been satisfied;
AFA FAQ on the Wal-Mart situation; apparently some of their membership is worried that the AFA is not being hard enough on Wal-Mart for dealing with the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, and the questions are interesting in that Wal-Mart has (reportedly) not dropped its NGLCC membership this year. However, the AFA expects them to fail to renew next year, and will be monitoring for compliance;
AFA condemns Rick Warren's church allowing Senator Barak Obama to speak;
AFA Newsbrief on the Supreme Court religious-school voucher case non-ruling;
American Family Association ACTION ITEM to mandate that all Senators and Representatives take their oaths of office by swearing on the Bible;
AFA, Concerned Women for America's Robert Knight condemn ABC for having a transgendered character on All My Children, a daytime soap opera;
AFA story on fundamentalist parents pushing to remove a children's book about two male penguins adopting an egg;
American Family Association, Family Research Council, and Concerned Women for America applaud Mr. Bush's appointment of an anti-contraception activist to be head of family planning at Health and Human Services; see earlier Cultural Warfare Updates for details/quotes/presentations from this guy; he also claims that sex outside marriage causes brain damage; FRC and CWA expect Planned Parenthood clinics to lose non-abortion-related medical services funding as a result and are pleased;
This is a weird one; a group I've never heard of called the "Intercollegiate Studies Institute" says "high-cost colleges may not be worth the money," says students are losing education at college, not gaining it, and points students at places like Grove City College - which is home to one of Concerned Women for America's favourite anti-gay talking heads, Warren Throckmorton. I note that one of ISI's three posted "Outstanding Alumni" (from their Outstanding Alumni page) is president of the Heritage Foundation (which spends a lot of time being theoconservative towards GBLT people) and that their principles statement calls for "Judeo-Christian" "values, customs, conventions, and norms," which I don't imagine I have to translate for you in this context. I would guess with some confidence that what they describe as "losing knowledge about American history and politics" is actually forming opinions with which ISI disagree;
AFA article on the "wrongful death" lawsuit against a fertility clinic that accidentally discarded four embryos without permission; I should make it clear here that the clinic is clearly in the wrong, but suing for "wrongful death" puts this incident onto this list. One of the specific intents of this lawsuit is to have a court case wherein the embryos in storage are legally classified as having the same rights as human beings, and to back up the definition of pregnancy to conception, rather than the traditional medical definition of implantation. I have to wonder, who the fuck is pregnant here, the goddamn petri dish? - but, you know. Note a new term, the "pre-emplanted embryo," to indicate a fertilised egg cell which has not implanted anywhere. Research indicates taht round 70% of these never implant in nature, I note as an aside, muttering something to the effect that even were I a theocrat I'd say that a 70% failure to implant rate kind of indicates that Jesus doesn't give a rat's ass about these little cells. Anyway, they're probably doing this because their constituency is used to the term "embryo" and already considers it a full human being; using the correct word "zygote" would require another round of convincing that it's a human being;
AFA article on activities of anti-abortion Democrats, includes condemnation of Amnesty International considering adopting the position that women should have access to abortion services when raped; "Pro-Life Congressional Congress" urges AI not to adopt this "pro-abortion position";
Concerned Women for America starts up with their seasonal celebration - the annual "War on Christmas" bullshit. Last year, they were firmly in the "Merry Christmas and NOTHING ELSE" camp, assaulting (for example) Coldwater Creek for having both "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays" catalogues, saying Coldwater Creek was "trying to have it both ways." This year, they seem happy enough with Wal-Mart's multiple-slogan approach, a rare example of them getting something and being okay with it, rather than moving even more absolutist; Saving Christmas in Massachusetts, a group I've never heard of, urges a boycott of stores not using Merry Christmas, saying that "We're going to get 'tolerated' right into hell." AFA also points to a tracking website, http://www.mymerrychristmas.com/;
CWA picks up the "gay marriage means legalised bigamy" routine some more;
CWA applauds Bill O'Reilly's "year-long investigation" of Dr. George Tiller, a doctor who performs abortions in Kansas; they call Dr. Tiller "Tiller the Killer";
CWA has more War On Christmas bullshit; personally, I find the "War on Christmas" crock to be one of the most egregious things in the entire fundamentalist Culture War;
CWA runs a Mark Tooley column against Episcopalians, partly for being GBLT friendly, partly for having female leadership, mocking them for not being focused enough on breeding as much as possible; it's an... interesting column;
Another CWA "War on Christmas" column;
CWA column against Wal-Mart, updated to reflect that we're at war against Eurasia and have always been at war against Eurasia - well, okay, that's not quite fair; they aren't nearly as happy with Wal-Mart as the AFA is, saying (correctly!) that the press release by Wal-Mart isn't explicitly promising not to work with GBLT business groups anymore and says nothing about dropping GBLT-related books from their books section;
CWA column saying that a pedophile group in the Netherlands means we'll be seeing them here too, in organised political form; says that personal choice must be restricted by the "spiritual boundaries of our Judeo-Christian heritage";
The Hill thinks that "Culture-war veterans" will cast themselves now as more moderate and mainstream; I think they're high. Also, Human Rights Campaign plans to be a nice quiet little yessir and not pressure Democrats on GBLT rights;
CWA links to a CNN article: oh look, Mexico City has civil unions now;
CWA links to a long article by GBLT marriage rights opponent Stanley Kurtz two part article called "Confession," where he makes up a "confession" by marriage rights activists that says "your worst fears are justified"; this is Part I;
Part II of the article - it was published in two parts;
Bizarre New Jersey Star-Ledger column about controversy not driving sales of Plan B; I might suggest that emergency contraception is used in emergencies, and that birth control OMG usually works, but CWA attacks the emergency contraception on the basis of, um, it not selling out at the local NJ Stop-And-Shops; they also continue their new rhetoric of implying that EC doesn't actually work, attempting to spread 'EC is Fraud' as a meme;
LifeNews version of the "wrongful death" lawsuit against a fertility clinic; contains the 'this is Dred Scott' language again;
New Jersey Republican legislator to introduce GBLT marriage/civil unions ban in the state legislature.
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Important message on marriage
From Terence Rolston, President
Focus on the Family Canada
Today’s Family News
November 29, 2006
[Received in email; no URL]
The House of Commons will soon be voting on the issue of marriage in Canada. Your input is so important! Please contact your Member of Parliament as soon as possible and ask them to support the one-man, one-woman definition of marriage.
I know that many of you have contacted your MP before and some of you are frustrated that it doesn’t seem to make a difference. I certainly understand your frustration, but would urge you to contact your MP again. Whether the vote is favourable or not, may it not be said that God’s people were silent when such a critical issue was before our lawmakers. Please stand with us and voice your support for God’s truth about marriage. Our website provides resources on the issue and contact information for your MP. Visit Focusonthefamily.ca and click Protect Marriage 2006.
We know from the Scriptures that marriage between a man and a woman is clearly God’s plan: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24 NIV). Jesus later reaffirmed this plan and added a warning that still applies today: “Therefore what God has joined together let no one separate” (Mark 10:9). Whether it is history or the social and physical sciences, God’s creation clearly reveals that traditional marriage benefits the husband and wife, their children and the communities in which they live. If we know this to be true, we need to let those who represent us know that we want God’s best for our nation and our children.
We at Focus on the Family Canada are committed to strengthening marriages and families across Canada. Thank you for standing with us.
Terence Rolston
President
Focus on the Family Canada
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Wal-Mart Says It Will Not Make Corporate Contributions To Support Or Oppose Controversial Issues
Send Wal-Mart a "Thank You" for its statement.
American Family Association
http://www.afa.net/Petitions/Issuedetail.asp?id=223
You have made a difference! Wal-Mart has announced it "will no longer make corporate contributions to support or oppose controversial issues unless they directly relate to their ability to serve their customers." AFA is pleased with this announcement.
Wal-Mart made the announcement Tuesday afternoon.
In response to Wal-Mart's statement, AFA has decided to cancel its efforts of encouraging people to not shop at Wal-Mart or Sam's Club this Friday and Saturday.
We believe that Wal-Mart will remain neutral in cultural battles.
Click here to see the Wal-Mart announcement.
Please send Wal-Mart a "Thank You" for its statement.
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Respect for the Individual and Corporate Contributions
Last Updated: Tuesday, November 21, 2006
WalMartFacts.com
http://www.walmartfacts.com/articles/4617.aspx
Respect for the individual is one of the core values that have made us into the company we are today. We take pride in the fact that we treat every customer, every supplier and every member of our individual communities fairly and equally.
We are working hard to make our corporate contributions reflect the values of our customers, communities, and associates. As Sam Walton said, “Each Wal-Mart store should reflect the values of its customers and support the vision they hold for their community.
Wal-Mart will not make corporate contributions to support or oppose highly controversial issues unless they directly relate to our ability to serve our customers.
Wal-Mart does not have a position on same sex marriage and we do not give preference to gay or lesbian suppliers. Wal-Mart does have a strong commitment to diversity among our associates and against discrimination everywhere.
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Wal-Mart Says It Will Not Make Corporate Contributions To Support Or Oppose Controversial Issues
Latest Issues
American Family Association
Online as of 28 November 2006
http://www.afa.net/faq.asp
Statement by AFA President Tim Wildmon regarding Wal-Mart:
"American Family Association has heard from a number of supporters who question the sincerity of Wal-Mart to discontinue its financial support of homosexual activist organizations as of November 21, 2006. AFA is convinced that Wal-Mart understands the issue that our 3.4 million on-line supporters have brought to their attention and that Wal-Mart will honor its public commitment. Also, AFA will continue to follow the actions of Wal-Mart closely as we do other major corporations as well. AFA has 30 years of experience in dealing with companies on issues that affect the family.”
Here are answers to common questions:
1. Did Wal-Mart pull its membership from the NGLCC?
Earlier, Wal-Mart entered into a one-year contractual membership with a $25,000 donation to the NGLCC. Legally, Wal-Mart cannot expect a refund, even if they requested it.
2. Does a Wal-Mart executive serve on the NGLCC Corporate Advisory Council?
The Wal-Mart executive that served on the council is no longer employed by Wal-Mart and the position on the council has not been filled by another Wal-Mart representative.
3. Does Wal-Mart give 5% of all online sales to the Washington, DC GLBT organization?
NO. Contrary to bogus Internet rumors, only sales made through the DC organization's website as an affiliate are eligible for the 5% donation program. Over the past 4 years, the total donation to the gay group has been less than $5.
4. Why did AFA call off the 2-day boycott when other groups refused to back down?
Wal-Mart extended a good faith effort to AFA by stopping their financial support to homosexual groups. As a Christian organization, we feel it is our duty to extend that same good faith effort to Wal-Mart. While there are still other issues of concern, AFA is confident that Wal-Mart is now reviewing their support of homosexual organizations and agenda and will honor its promise to remain neutral in the culture war over homosexuality. As with any complex issue, results take time.
5. Is AFA encouraging people to shop at Wal-Mart?
NO. Each individual is encouraged to make their own decision regarding shopping at Wal-Mart.
6. Does the AFA trust Wal-Mart? Can I trust Wal-Mart?
Wal-Mart has made a public statement [See paragraph #3] to stop support of homosexual organizations. AFA believes Wal-Mart will keep their word. However, AFA will continue to monitor Wal-Mart's progress and if necessary, AFA will take further action.
[More at URL]
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Pro-Lifers: 'Improper' for Pro-Abortion Obama to Speak at Rick Warren's Church
By Jim Brown
American Family Association
November 28, 2006
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/282006d.asp
(AgapePress) - A coalition of pro-life groups is calling on Pastor Rick Warren to reconsider having an abortion-supporting senator speak at his Southern California church.
Several pro-life groups are upset that popular Christian author and megachurch pastor Rick Warren has invited Illinois Senator Barack Obama to speak Friday at his "Global Summit on AIDS and the Church." The summit is being held at Warren's Saddleback Church in Orange County. Pro-life and pro-family leaders such as Phyllis Schlafly, Judie Brown, Janet Folger, Tim Wildmon, and Peter LaBarbera are calling on Warren to rescind his invitation to the 2008 presidential hopeful, given Obama's stance on abortion.
Schlafly, the founder and president of Illinois-based Eagle Forum, says Obama campaigned in her state against the federal ban on partial-birth abortion. The ministry leader says that is "about as extreme as you can get."
"For Barack Obama to say that the ban is unconstitutional, I think is about the most extreme pro-abortion position that you could possibly have," says Schlafly. She feels the Democratic senator is "an unlikely and improper choice" to invite to speak to a pro-life audience. "Most of the people who go to [Warren's] church are pro-life, and they don't want to honor pro-abortion candidates. Honestly, if you look at the surveys, a big majority of the American people think this terrible crime of partial-birth abortion should be abolished."
[More at URL]
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Commentary & News Briefs
November 28, 2006
Compiled by Jody Brown
American Family Association/Agape Press
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/282006h.asp
...The Supreme Court is refusing to get involved in a school voucher dispute. The justices declined to hear a case out of Maine, where small school districts offer tuition to let students attend any public or private high school -- except for religious ones. The case was brought by eight families who would receive public tuition funds except for the fact that their children attend religious schools. The families' attorneys and supporters accused the state of unconstitutionally discriminating against religion. But Maine's highest court upheld the policy last April, and the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear the case lets that ruling stand. The Institute for Justice, which represented the families, says it will continue its battle to assure equal treatment for religious options in publicly funded programs. [AP]
[More at URL]
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What book will America base it’s values on, the Bible or the Koran?
Email your U.S. Congressional Leaders Today!
American Family Association
Online as of 28 November 2006
http://capwiz.com/afanet/issues/alert/?alertid=9184771&type=CO
Please take a moment to read the following TownHall.com column by Dennis Prager, who is a Jew. After reading the column, take the suggest action at the bottom of this email. After you have read it, please forward it to your friends and family.
America, Not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on
By Dennis Prager - Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran.
He should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.
[...]
TAKE ACTION
Enter your zip code and click “GO” to prepare and send the email asking your U.S. Congressional leaders to pass a law making the Bible the book used in the swearing-in ceremony of Representatives and Senators.
Click on the “Tell-A-Fiend” link below to forward this to your friends and family and ask they act on this matter.
Thanks for caring enough to get involved. If you feel our efforts are worthy, would you consider making a small donation to help us continue?
Sincerely,
Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman
American Family Association
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Media Analyst Calls Soap's Transgender Character Addition Exploitive Ploy
By Jim Brown and Fred Jackson
November 28, 2006
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/282006g.asp
(AgapePress) - A media analyst is accusing ABC-TV of exploiting transgender people for shock value in efforts to boost ratings -- and homosexual activists of doing the same in order to advance their own agenda.
The long-running ABC daytime soap opera All My Children is introducing a transgender character into the show this week. In a television first from the Disney-owned network, a male character on the show is going to be making the transition from being a man to becoming a woman.
[...]
Bob Knight, director of the Culture and Media Institute at the Media Research Center, says the bottom line in this instance is that ABC believes it needs to push the envelope for higher ratings. And at the same time, he asserts, "I think we're at a stage now where the homosexual movement has to continually shock. They've saturated the airwaves with pro-homosexual imagery, so now they have to go to the next step, which is transgenderism."
[...]
Pro-homosexual ABC and Hollywood think Judeo-Christian standards are "just a holdover from a bigoted, superstitious era," the culture and media analyst contends, and as self-described progressives, they need to attack those faith-based values. "They are dedicated to tear down every moral standard," he says, "and they're now using the transgender people to do it."
Meanwhile, Knight asserts, transgender individuals themselves are among the homosexual agenda's casualties. "I see these poor, sexually confused people as victims and pawns of a larger movement that wants to destroy Christianity and to turn America into a country we would no longer recognize," he says.
Knight believes homosexual activists and their supporters realize that the homosexual lifestyle is so empty and devoid of meaning that the best they can do is to continue shocking people. And, as one AP report notes, even the editor of Soap Opera Weekly admits that in deciding to add a transgendered character on All My Children, the shows producers were simply "throwing a whole lot of desperate stuff against the wall to see what sticks."
[More at URL]
[Editor's Note: the "Culture and Media Institute at the Media Research Center" is Bob Knight's office at Concerned Women for America, and always has been. But they've stopped using the CWA name for him in third-party articles. I guess it got too embarrassing or something.]
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Family Advocate Wants Children's Book on Same-Sex-Parent Penguins Put on Ice
By Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
American Family Association/Agape Press
November 27, 2006
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/272006c.asp
(AgapePress) - An Illinois pro-family group is protesting an elementary school's decision not to restrict students' access to a picture book in the school library, a story about two male penguins who "adopt" a baby penguin as their own.
Shiloh Elementary School in metro East St. Louis, Illinois, is embroiled in a controversy over the book titled And Tango Makes Three (Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing, 2005). The picture book is, according to School Library Journal, "based on a true story" and tells of two male penguins living in a zoo who share a nest and "want to become parents."
In the story, a sympathetic zookeeper decides the two male birds "must be in love" and gives them a fertilized egg to care for, which the two "fathers" nurture until it hatches into a female chick. It was when one Shiloh parent was reading the book to her five-year-old daughter and encountered the reference to the two male penguins being "in love" that the debate over the book's inclusion in the elementary school's library began.
That mother and other East St. Louis parents see And Tango Makes Three as an unwelcome effort to introduce school children to the idea of homosexual parenting. They have called for the book to be moved to a section of the library reserved for materials addressing mature issues. Also, the parents are asking that children to be required to obtain parental permission before checking out the controversial book.
[More at URL]
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Bush HHS Nomination Irks Abortion Advocates, Pleases Pro-Lifers
By Jim Brown
American Family Association/Agape Press
November 27, 2006
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/272006f.asp
WASHINGTON, DC (AgapePress) - Traditional values groups are applauding President Bush's decision to nominate an abstinence-until-marriage advocate to run the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Population Affairs.
The president has tapped Dr. Eric Keroack to oversee the Title X Program, the government's "family planning" funding. Pro-abortion groups have criticized the move because of the doctor's past work with "A Woman's Concern," a Christian crisis pregnancy center in Massachusetts that discourages contraception. David Christensen, director of congressional affairs at the Family Research Council, explains why the nomination is a blow to radical pro-abortion groups.
"Much of the Title X funding, about $283 million a year, does go to groups like Planned Parenthood because they can apply for grants under the auspices of 'family planning,'" says Christensen. And Planned Parenthood Federation of America has reacted to the nomination, requesting that Keroack's nomination be pulled from consideration.
[...]
But Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America says Keroack is well qualified. "Unfortunately it's a day late and a dollar short, but we'll take it anyway," she says. "We're very happy to have someone who is from a Christian pregnancy counseling center to be nominated for a position such as this.
"I think it's about time we had someone in that position who will be more fair in distributing the money for programs in high schools and in service agencies that work with women who have reproductive health problems," Crouse continues. "It's long past due that Planned Parenthood not get the kind of funding that they have had."
[More at URL]
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Research Finds Some High-Cost Colleges May Not Be Worth the Money
By Jeff Johnson
November 27, 2006
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/272006g.asp
(AgapePress) - One researcher says the phrase "you get what you pay for" may not necessarily be true when it comes to a college education.
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) surveyed more than 14,000 freshmen and seniors at 50 U.S. colleges and universities, including some of the most prestigious and expensive in America. And according to the Institute's Dr. Gary Scott, the parents who are writing the checks for many of those schools may not like the results.
"Often people associate elite education with expensive education," Scott observes, "and we have found that there is no relationship between expenditure and learning." He says research shows that many students at the most expensive U.S. colleges and universities are actually losing knowledge about American history and politics between their freshman and senior years.
Too many students at these high-cost and high-profile schools "are not learning the elementary principles to enter the American conversation at a mature, adult level," the ISI spokesman says. Meanwhile, he notes, "Some of our less expensive universities ... were ranked top as far as advancing students' knowledge of America's government, history, foreign affairs and market economy."
According to ISI's findings, Scott points out, among the less expensive but better performing institutions of higher learning are such schools as Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee; Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan; Grove City College in Pennsylvania, and Colorado State University. He says research has suggested specific methods that schools can use to ensure that students learn.
[More at URL]
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Pro-Life Groups File Briefs in Frozen Embryo Wrongful Death Case
By Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
November 27, 2006
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/272006a.asp
(AgapePress) - Several pro-life organizations based in Illinois and other U.S. states are backing a lawsuit brought by two Illinois parents over a Chicago in vitro clinic's killing of their frozen human embryos.
Last year, Cook County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Lawrence refused to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Alison Miller and Todd Parrish against the Center for Human Reproduction, which mistakenly destroyed the couple's embryos nearly seven years ago. Miller and Parish stored nine embryos at the Center in January 2000, and were told that one of these looked promising; however, six months later the couple learned that their embryos had been discarded.
[...]
On November 17, a coalition of nine Illinois and national pro-life organizations filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the case in support of the parents. Comprising the coalition are Illinois Citizens for Life, Concerned Women for America, the Illinois Right to Life Committee, Life Advocacy Resource Project, Illinois Federation for Right to Life, Concerned Christian Americans, the Illinois Family Institute, Lutherans for Life, Inc., and the Catholic Conference Center of Illinois. The case is now pending before the Illinois appellate court.
Paul Linton is special counsel for the Thomas More Society of Chicago, which is representing the pro-life coalition. He says the trial judge was correct in concluding that the embryos were human beings under the state's wrongful death statute and should be protected by the law in the event of their destruction.
"Of course," Linton points out, "we want to maintain the standard that human life begins at conception -- understood as fertilization -- and not at a later stage of development, for example, where there is implantation."
[...]
The Center for Human Reproduction and the American Civil Liberties Union claim the wrongful death statute does not apply in this case, and that there is, therefore, no cause of action. However, the trial judge declared in his ruling that "there is no doubt in the mind of the Illinois legislature when life begins. It begins at conception."
The location of this suit is significant, Linton notes. "There are a handful of states – maybe seven or eight states -- that do not have any type of gestational requirements for wrongful death suits involving unborn children," he explains. "Illinois, however, is the only state where, in their wrongful death statute, they not only eliminate any gestational requirements, but also any developmental requirements," the attorney observes.
Thomas Brejcha, president and chief counsel for the Thomas More Society, told LifeNews.com in a statement that this wrongful death case is "the modern equivalent to Dred Scott in a petri dish." His remark refers to the 1857 U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared black slaves and slave descendents to be non-citizens who, as such, had no rights or protection under the law.
The crucial question in the present-day case, Brejcha contends, is whether the pre-implanted embryo is to be considered a human being or personal property. He says the Thomas More Society is in "full agreement" with Judge Lawrence that human life begins at conception and should be protected, and that the plaintiffs have the same right to seek compensation as any other parents whose child has been killed.
[More at URL]
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Pro-Life Democrats Moving on Congressional and International Agenda
By Ed Thomas and Jenni Parker
November 28, 2006
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/282006a.asp
(AgapePress) - Pro-life Democrats plan to test the waters in the 110th Congress by bringing up a measure for a vote at the start of the new session. The move, part of their "95-10" initiative to reduce the abortion rate by 95 percent in ten years, suggests a new attitude that assumes the new Democratic Party leadership is willing to include pro-life priorities in the House agenda.
[...]
Amnesty International Cautioned Against Supporting Pro-Abortion Proposal
Meanwhile, pro-lifers in Congress are taking measures to address sanctity-of-life issues on an international scale by going on record as opposing a proposal to expand the mandate of Amnesty International, a worldwide human rights advocacy group, to include supporting access to abortion under certain circumstances, such as in cases involving sexual violence. Recently, 73 members of the Pro-Life Congressional Caucus sent a letter to the executive director of the organization, urging it not to adopt this pro-abortion position.
[More at URL]
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Naughty and Nice List Returns for Christmas 2006
CWA is making a list and checking it twice.
Concerned Women for America
11/28/2006
By Martha Kleder
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11904/CWA/family/index.htm
Many retailers learned the hard way last year that it just doesn't pay to mess with Christmas. Target, Wal-Mart, Macy's and Sears are among the stores that made a mid-season shift from the generic "Happy Holidays" to "Merry Christmas." Concerned Women for America's Naughty and Nice list kicks off the 2006 Christmas season with many stores - previously on the "Naughty list" or in the ambiguous middle - now squarely in the "Nice" category.
[...]
Last year, the retail giant's seasonal advertising lacked the mention of Christmas, and store employees were initially told not to say "Merry Christmas." This year, the chain is encouraging associates to greet shoppers with a collection of holiday recognitions including "Merry Christmas," "Happy Holidays," "Happy Hanukkah," "Feliz Navidad," and "Happy Kwanzaa."
[...]
Scrooged
For a bit of contrast, please take note of Best Buy which has outright refused to acknowledge Christmas despite complaints from customers and a petition drive by the American Family Association.
Dawn Bryant, Best Buy Spokesman told Chicagoist, "We're going to continue to use the term 'holiday' because there are several holidays throughout that time period, and we certainly need to be respectful of all of them."
It is a sign of progress in this battle, however, that Best Buy is alone in making a public declaration that it will not be saying "Merry Christmas" in its advertising. While other Scrooge merchants are bound to be out there, they are keeping a low profile, hoping to catch as many Christmas shoppers as possible before they are found out.
[...]
Shoppers React
The groundswell of public discontent with the secularization of Christmas is not letting up, however. In Massachusetts, Robert and Kevin Marley have launched the Saving Christmas in Massachusetts effort, complete with a Web site tracking retail stores.
"We're taking back Christmas," Robert Marley told The Boston Herald. The Lynnfield, Massachusetts brothers will be picketing in front of local malls and stores that refuse to display or say "Merry Christmas."
"This year, I will not shop in any store that does not display the words 'Merry Christmas,'" Marley said. "Someone has to take a stand. We're going to get 'tolerated' right into hell," he added.
[More at URL]
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Polyamory: Hot News for the Post, Archived News for CWA
CWA was years ahead of the times on this. Maybe one day the Post will catch up.
Concerned Women for America
11/27/2006
By Lindsay Randall
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11896/CWA/family/index.htm
Conservatives have, for years, warned that the road to "same-sex marriage" was nothing more than a slippery slope that would, among other things, embolden polygamists to pursue the same rights to marriage that homosexuals currently seek. Well, it looks like we've begun to slide already.
In a front page Washington Post article on Tuesday, an "…estimated 40,000 men, women and children in polygamous communities are part of a new movement to decriminalize bigamy."
While the Post treats this as hot news, it's old hat for the pro-family movement. As far back as 2001, CWA's Culture and Family Institute (CFI) was reporting on this movement. A CWA researcher attended the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's annual "Creating Change" conference in 2001 on behalf of CWA's Culture and Family Institute. She found that the "…'Sexual Politics' workshop was one of several dealing with the new frontiers of sexual and gender revolutionaries, including one panel on 'multiple-partner' relationships entitled 'Poly Wants More Than One Cracker: Polyamory in a Culture Dependent upon Coupledom.'"
[More at URL]
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CWA Applauds O’Reilly’s Investigation of Tiller the Killer
Concerned Women for America
11/28/2006
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11902/MEDIA/life/index.htm
Washington, D.C. –– Notorious late-term abortionist George Tiller is finally getting the national scrutiny and condemnation he deserves. Concerned Women for America (CWA) applauds Bill O’Reilly, host of FOX News’ O’Reilly Factor, for his year-long investigation of Dr. George Tiller, also known as “Tiller the Killer.”
[...]
CWA President Wendy Wright said, “We commend Bill O’Reilly for shining a spotlight on George Tiller. George Tiller has gotten away with mass murder, evaded state laws, possibly assisted rapists and built his own little Auschwitz in the heartland of America. It’s time for a thorough investigation of his records, clinic and staff.”
CWA State Director of Kansas Judy Smith said, “Dr. George Tiller has operated in the state of Kansas with impunity for years, safe from the scrutiny of the good people of Kansas because of the protection of some elected officials and the magnanimous indulgence of the Kansas press. The people of Kansas need to understand that Dr. Tiller brutally kills almost-born children for profit and that he is aided in this by certain unscrupulous lawmakers and the media. The time has come for the citizens of Kansas to demand an end to the blatant murder and sexual abuse of innocent children.”
[More at URL]
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CWA Asks, “Is There No Room for Jesus in Chicago?”
Concerned Women for America
11/28/2006
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11900/MEDIA/misc/index.htm
Washington, D.C. –– In a blatantly discriminatory attempt to remove “Christ” from Christmas, the city of Chicago has threatened to drop its support of the 11th German-American festival, Christkindlmarket, unless the New Line Cinema movie, “The Nativity Story” is removed as an official sponsor of the festival. “The Nativity Story” is a depiction of the historical and factual event which Christmas celebrates, the birth of Jesus Christ. The movie opens nationwide on December 1.
The city of Chicago claims that having this movie sponsor their festival would “be insensitive to the many people of different faiths who come to enjoy the market for its food and unique gifts.” Cindy Gatziolis, a spokeswoman for the Mayor's Office of Special Events acknowledged there is a nativity scene, but also said there will be representations of other faiths, including a Jewish menorah, all put up by private groups. She stressed that the city did not order organizers to drop the studio as a sponsor.
[More at URL]
----- 17 -----
Not Much Thanksgiving for Episcopalians
Concerned Women for America
11/23/2006
By Mark Tooley
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11888/CWA/misc/index.htm
Supposedly, it was Anglicans in Virginia who celebrated the First Thanksgiving rather than Puritan Congregationalists in Massachusetts.
Steadfast Virginians believe that the first celebratory autumn feast was held at Berkeley Plantation in 1619, where 38 men just arrived from England knelt on the banks of the James River. They declared: "Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God."
[...]
Undoubtedly, the 2003 election of the Episcopal Church's first openly homosexual bishop has accelerated that denomination's decline, with increasing numbers of conservative church members giving up and walking out. Perhaps those Episcopalians who become Catholic or Baptist will soon thereafter become more procreative.
But the remnant Episcopalians under the pastorship of Presiding Bishop Schori no doubt will hold fast to their noble environmental stewardship and maintain a steady, and eco-friendly, downward membership spiral. A good model for the Episcopalians might be the Shakers, the early American sect that foreswore all procreation. Like Episcopalians, the Shakers lived in tasteful and tidy villages, ate plain food, wore all natural fibers, and had nice furniture. The Shakers also had a female leader, "Mother" Ann Lee. Like Bishop Schori, Mother Lee took a dim view of heterosexual couples marrying and having children.
[...]
But eventually, the Shakers aversion to procreation caught up with them and they were dying out by the end of the 19th century. Today, most Shaker villages are museums or private homes, just as many venerable old Episcopal churches have become restaurants or condominiums for yuppies. A few eccentric Shakers still survive, making baskets and furniture, and keeping the old ways alive. Some day in future decades, if Bishop Schori is completely successful, the Episcopal Church similarly will have reduced to a dozen or so well-heeled adherents. They too will be objects of pleasant curiosity, attracting tourists to their tidy, ivy-covered tudor homes and well-stocked wine closets.
[More at URL]
----- 18 -----
It's Okay to Say Merry Christmas!
CWA joins fourth annual Christmas project.
Concerned Women for America
11/22/2006
By Jan LaRue, Chief Counsel
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11879/LEGAL/freedom/index.htm
Picture it. Snow is falling and the fireplace is aglow. You're warm and comfy in your favorite easy chair sipping a cup of hot cider. The chords of a timeless tune begin to warm your heart:
'm dreaming of a whatever
Just like the ones I've come to know
Where officials chicken and lawyers quicken
To file lawsuits for the dough
I'm dreaming of a whatever
With every fuzzy card I write
May your days be neutral and vague
And may all your whatevers be trite
[More at URL]
----- 19 -----
Pro-Family Group Says It's Time to Take a Stand as Wal-Mart Chooses Sides
Wal-Mart: Will low prices be joined by low moral standards?
Concerned Women for America
11/21/2006
By Colleen Raezler
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11882/CWA/family/index.htm
UPDATE: Concerned Women for America (CWA) applauds the American Family Association (AFA) for securing such a quick response from Wal-Mart regarding its promotion of homosexuality.
In response to AFA's planned boycott of Wal-Mart stores this weekend, the corporation announced Tuesday afternoon that it "will no longer make corporate contributions to support or oppose controversial issues unless they directly relate to their ability to serve their customers."
Viewing the Wal-Mart statement as a promise of neutrality, AFA has called off the boycott in which 400,000 families pledged to take part.
This is a step in the right direction for pro-family values. However, the bulleted items in the section below still hold true. Nothing in the Wal-Mart statement indicates otherwise. Therefore, clarification is needed. How does Wal-Mart serve its customers? By providing low prices or forcing "diversity" upon its employees?
The American Family Association (AFA) has asked Christmas shoppers to avoid Wal-Mart and Sam's Club this weekend. According to an e-mail sent to its members, 400,000 families have agreed to spend their Christmas dollars elsewhere.
Wal-Mart has shown time and time again who it values as customers, and it's not traditional families.
AFA reports that:
* Wal-Mart gave $60,000 to homosexual groups to support the homosexual agenda in the workplace.
* Wal-Mart made a generous donation to the Northwest Arkansas Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center.
* Wal-Mart willingly asked, and received, permission to join the Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.
* Wal-Mart hosted a homosexual ad agency at its headquarters for a two-day seminar to force employees to accept homosexuality in the work place.
* Last March, Wal-Mart prominently displayed Brokeback Mountain in its stores and offered advanced ordering for this movie. The family-friendly Chronicles of Narnia, which was released the very same day as Brokeback Mountain, was not promoted.
* Finally, Wal-Mart sells over 1700 items related to homosexuality, including books with titles such as What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage and Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America.
"Wal-Mart is playing both ends against the middle by promoting 'Christmas' while contributing millions to homosexual causes," said Jan LaRue, CWA's Chief Counsel. "It may seem smart to those on the top floor at Wal-Mart, but it won't play well with folks in the heartland who won't discount Christ."
[More at URL]
----- 20 -----
Why Worry about a Radical Group in the Netherlands?
Concerned Women for America
11/22/2006
By Janice Shaw Crouse
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11891/BLI/dotcommentary/index.htm
Fortunately, a radical group in the Netherlands was unable to gather enough signatures to run for a seat in the Dutch parliament. The fringe political party is called PNVD, a Dutch acronym that stands for “brotherly love, freedom and diversity.” What they really stand for is a wide range of morally-unacceptable behaviors –– pedophilia, bestiality, child pornography, child drug use, having adults teach a child how to have sex and lowering the age of sexual consent to age 12.
[...]
We have seen with the “pro-choice” arguments of those who favor abortion that the unthinking public responds very favorably to the idea that people ought to be able to do whatever they choose to do and that their personal choices have inherent validity and goodness. We must take every opportunity to repudiate such thinking and help people recognize that there are good outcomes and well-being for those who are willing to exercise the discipline and restraint required by the tried-and-true moral, ethical and spiritual boundaries of our Judeo-Christian heritage.
Such boundaries especially protect our children and ensure that they will be nurtured and blessed by moral and Biblical instruction, so that they will have an opportunity to choose for themselves whom they will serve –– whether God or mammon.
[More at URL]
----- 21 -----
Culture-war veterans hold fire, for now
The Hill
By Elana Schor
http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/112906/culture.html
After a long battle with conservatives on social issues and judicial nominations, Democratic-aligned interest groups are hailing the coming congressional changeover and weighing exactly how and when to exert their influence.
Republican control of the Capitol may have forced abortion-rights and civil-liberties advocates to play perpetual defense, but those wilderness years also gave the groups valuable practice at building coalitions across the aisle and branding themselves as more mainstream than their conservative counterparts.
[...]
On gay-rights issues, such as employment non-discrimination and expansion of the hate-crimes law, Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese took a respectful view of the long to-do list facing his Democratic allies.
“One of the most important things we can do is be sensitive to the fact that the new leadership in this Congress, [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi [D-Calif.] and Reid, have a huge responsibility to speak to the issues the American people couldn’t have been clearer about in putting them there: the war in Iraq and corruption in government,” Solmonese said.
Though the gay community might see its issues move lower on the priority list, Solmonese said, such pragmatism is a small price to pay to end the Republicans’ prolonged attacks on gay marriage. The page he plans to borrow from conservative groups’ playbook: “Be really smart and be really strategic.”
[More at URL]
----- 22 -----
Mexico: 'SI' to gay civil union
CNN International
POSTED: 0810 GMT (1610 HKT), November 10, 2006
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/11/10/mexico.gay.ap/
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexico City's assembly on Thursday passed legislation to legally recognize gay civil unions in the capital, the first such vote by a legislative body in the history of the conservative, predominantly Roman Catholic country.
Mexico City Mayor Alejandro Encinas has spoken in favor of the bill and was expected to sign it into law, while at least one conservative non-governmental group said it was considering seeking a court injunction against the measure.
The bill, which would not approve gay marriage, allows same-sex couples to register their union with civil authorities, granting them inheritance rights and other benefits typically given to spouses. Heterosexual couples who are not legally married can also be registered under the bill.
[...]
The bill has been severely criticized by the Catholic Church and conservative civil groups in the country, which is 90 percent Roman Catholic. The Mexican Council of Bishops has said the law is the first step toward legalizing gay marriage and adoption by gays, while the conservative National Parents Union has characterized it as "aberrant."
[More at URL]
----- 23 -----
The Confession
Have same-sex-marriage advocates said too much?
By Stanley Kurtz
Posted: Wednesday, November 1, 2006
ARTICLE
National Review Online
Publication Date: October 31, 2006
http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.2741/pub_detail.asp
Suppose a large group of same-sex-marriage activists came together and made the following confession to a group of same-sex-marriage skeptics:
"Look, we're going to level with you in a way that we haven't up to now. We all support same-sex marriage, but for many -- even most -- of us, gay marriage isn't an end in itself. It's a way-station on the path to a post-marriage society. We want a wide range of diverse families -- even 'polyamorous' groupings of three or more partners -- to have the same recognition, rights, and benefits as heterosexual married couples. In short, your worst fears are justified. The radical redefinition of marriage you've been worried about for so long is exactly what we want.
"Oh sure, some of us are more radical than others. But even the most committed and prominent mainstream advocates of same-sex marriage largely support a radical family agenda. A few advocates who back a 'conservative' interpretation of same-sex marriage may regularly engage you in debate, yet their views carry relatively little weight within the gay community. Some of these 'conservative' supporters of same-sex marriage have claimed that there is no significant political constituency for polygamy-polyamory, or for a general legal deconstruction of marriage. That's just wrong. As gay marriage gains acceptance, we're going to have a polygamy-polyamory debate in this country. And among those sponsoring that debate will be many of the very same people and groups who’ve already pushed for same-sex marriage.
"So why haven't we told you all this before? Simple. We've been censoring ourselves for fear of scaring away public support for same-sex marriage. You see, it's all about timing. Our plan is to establish same-sex marriage first, and then, as our next step, to demand that the rights and benefits of marriage be accorded to all types of families. After all, when the call for yet another radical redefinition of marriage comes from married same-sex couples, it's going to be that much more persuasive. Up to now, truth to tell, if any same-sex marriage backers pushed this radical agenda in public, we pressured them to keep silent. But now we're telling you the truth.
[More at URL]
----- 24 -----
The Confession II
"Conservative" proponents of same-sex marriage are about to overtaken by radicals.
By Stanley Kurtz
Posted: Wednesday, November 1, 2006
ARTICLE
National Review Online
Publication Date: November 1, 2006
http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.2742/pub_detail.asp
In his well-received 1997 book on the AIDS crisis, Sexual Ecology, journalist Gabriel Rotello said:
The anti-marriage sentiment in the gay and lesbian political world has abated in recent years, and the legalization of same-sex marriage is now an accepted focus of gay liberation. Yet it is rarely posed as a major issue of AIDS prevention. Prevention activists generally don't include marriage as a goal because they generally don't include monogamy as a goal....such advocates are generally careful not to make the case for marriage, but simply for the right to marriage....This is undoubtedly good practical politics, since many if not most of the major gay and lesbian organizations who have signed on to the fight for same-sex marriage would instantly sign off at any suggestion that they were actually encouraging gay men and lesbians to marry. (pp. 256-257)
According to Rotello, then, many or most gay-marriage activists have a decidedly un-conservative view of marriage itself. But if gay-marriage advocates actually reject monogamous marriage as a family ideal, what sort of families do they favor instead?
[More at URL]
----- 25 -----
Sales slow for controversial morning-after pill, Plan B
Sunday, November 26, 2006
BY SUSAN TODD
Star-Ledger Staff
http://www.nj.com/business/ledger/index.ssf?/base/business-0/1164519562266570.xml&coll=1
When it comes to contracep tives, controversy may not drive sales.
Case in point: Plan B.
After years of debate about whether it should be sold without a prescription, the morning-after pill was hardly flying off the shelves during its first weeks on sale as an over-the-counter product.
Stop & Shop Supermarket said its 50 New Jersey pharmacies reported just three sales of the over- the-counter product the first week. "We expect that number to go up," company spokesman Robert Keane said. "Some people still don't know it's available."
While Plan B has been sold in the United States since 1998 to women with prescriptions from their doctors, it wasn't until August, after years of political wrang ling, that the Food and Drug Administration approved it for over- the-counter sales to women who are at least 18 years old. Younger women still need a prescription.
"I think this is what happens when something gets picked up as a policy issue," said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America in Washington, D.C. "It became much more of a political issue rather than a fundamental issue of whether there will be demand or whether it even works."
[More at URL]
----- 26 -----
Pro-Life Groups Support Illinois Parents' Wrongful Embryo Death Lawsuit
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 21, 2006
http://www.lifenews.com/bio1873.html
Chicago, IL (LifeNews.com) -- Several pro-life organizations have filed legal briefs in support of a lawsuit filed by Illinois parents in connection with an in vitro fertilization clinic's destruction of their human embryos. The lawsuit is one of the first of its kind in which a fertility clinic is under fire for destroying human embryos without the consent of the parents.
Alison Miller and Todd Parrish filed a lawsuit against the Center for Human Reproduction (CHR) in Chicago over the wrongful death of their frozen embryos.
[...]
"This case is the modern equivalent to Dred Scott in a petri dish. We are in full agreement with Judge Lawrence that human life begins at conception and should be protected," he added.
While the ACLU has filed briefs against the lawsuit claiming that Lawrence’s allowance for wrongful death is “not medically accurate," the pro-life legal brief says “The Illinois General Assembly’s definition of conception...is accurate according to traditional and contemporary medical usage."
Lawrence said in his decision that “a pre-embryo is a ‘human being’ ... whether or not it is implanted in its mother's womb."
[More at URL]
----- 27 -----
NJ Lawmaker Pushes For Traditional Marriage Definition
By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
November 29, 2006
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200611/NAT20061129a.html
(CNSNews.com) - A New Jersey state senator is pushing for a constitutional amendment that will limit marriage to a union between one man and one woman.
Republican Gerald Cardinale's move follows a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that gave the state's legislature six months to allow same-sex couples to "marry" or to enter into civil unions that hold the same legal benefits as marriage.
"The court does not have the authority - as I read the constitution - to order the legislature to pass a bill," Cardinale said. "They can do a lot of things, but they are not the whole government."
"We're dealing with a decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court, and the court has indicated that we need to do certain things within a certain period of time, so I thought this was a good thing to do in response to the court decision."
Cardinale told Cybercast News Service that the proposed amendment would "clearly set forth that marriage is a term, or a state, that can only be applied to a union of one man and one woman, and add that to our constitution so that it is not subject to the vagaries of the personal biases of a judge's decision in the future."
[More at URL]
But now, today's news:
ATTENTION CANADIANS: Focus on the Family Canada has sent out an ACTION ITEM to call all MPs and demand that they overturn marriage rights in a revote apparently coming "soon." This is a full action item to their membership;
The American Family Association appears to have gotten Wal-Mart not to talk to GBLT business groups anymore; that's very unfortunate. Also, they're pushing to require that all members of Congress take their oaths of office on the Bible. Ha HA - overtly theocratic. I'd laugh, but it's not funny;
Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM to call and write MPs against marriage rights, seeking to throw out C-38 on a revote;
AFA: Wal-Mart will "not make corporate contributions" to "support or oppose controversial issues," calls off boycott; ACTION ITEM to thank Wal-Mart for stiffing t3h queer businesses (not their words, of course);
Wal-Mart's statement on the matter, linked to by the AFA; the statement is not as clear as the AFA would like it to be, I suspect, but they seem to have been satisfied;
AFA FAQ on the Wal-Mart situation; apparently some of their membership is worried that the AFA is not being hard enough on Wal-Mart for dealing with the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, and the questions are interesting in that Wal-Mart has (reportedly) not dropped its NGLCC membership this year. However, the AFA expects them to fail to renew next year, and will be monitoring for compliance;
AFA condemns Rick Warren's church allowing Senator Barak Obama to speak;
AFA Newsbrief on the Supreme Court religious-school voucher case non-ruling;
American Family Association ACTION ITEM to mandate that all Senators and Representatives take their oaths of office by swearing on the Bible;
AFA, Concerned Women for America's Robert Knight condemn ABC for having a transgendered character on All My Children, a daytime soap opera;
AFA story on fundamentalist parents pushing to remove a children's book about two male penguins adopting an egg;
American Family Association, Family Research Council, and Concerned Women for America applaud Mr. Bush's appointment of an anti-contraception activist to be head of family planning at Health and Human Services; see earlier Cultural Warfare Updates for details/quotes/presentations from this guy; he also claims that sex outside marriage causes brain damage; FRC and CWA expect Planned Parenthood clinics to lose non-abortion-related medical services funding as a result and are pleased;
This is a weird one; a group I've never heard of called the "Intercollegiate Studies Institute" says "high-cost colleges may not be worth the money," says students are losing education at college, not gaining it, and points students at places like Grove City College - which is home to one of Concerned Women for America's favourite anti-gay talking heads, Warren Throckmorton. I note that one of ISI's three posted "Outstanding Alumni" (from their Outstanding Alumni page) is president of the Heritage Foundation (which spends a lot of time being theoconservative towards GBLT people) and that their principles statement calls for "Judeo-Christian" "values, customs, conventions, and norms," which I don't imagine I have to translate for you in this context. I would guess with some confidence that what they describe as "losing knowledge about American history and politics" is actually forming opinions with which ISI disagree;
AFA article on the "wrongful death" lawsuit against a fertility clinic that accidentally discarded four embryos without permission; I should make it clear here that the clinic is clearly in the wrong, but suing for "wrongful death" puts this incident onto this list. One of the specific intents of this lawsuit is to have a court case wherein the embryos in storage are legally classified as having the same rights as human beings, and to back up the definition of pregnancy to conception, rather than the traditional medical definition of implantation. I have to wonder, who the fuck is pregnant here, the goddamn petri dish? - but, you know. Note a new term, the "pre-emplanted embryo," to indicate a fertilised egg cell which has not implanted anywhere. Research indicates taht round 70% of these never implant in nature, I note as an aside, muttering something to the effect that even were I a theocrat I'd say that a 70% failure to implant rate kind of indicates that Jesus doesn't give a rat's ass about these little cells. Anyway, they're probably doing this because their constituency is used to the term "embryo" and already considers it a full human being; using the correct word "zygote" would require another round of convincing that it's a human being;
AFA article on activities of anti-abortion Democrats, includes condemnation of Amnesty International considering adopting the position that women should have access to abortion services when raped; "Pro-Life Congressional Congress" urges AI not to adopt this "pro-abortion position";
Concerned Women for America starts up with their seasonal celebration - the annual "War on Christmas" bullshit. Last year, they were firmly in the "Merry Christmas and NOTHING ELSE" camp, assaulting (for example) Coldwater Creek for having both "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays" catalogues, saying Coldwater Creek was "trying to have it both ways." This year, they seem happy enough with Wal-Mart's multiple-slogan approach, a rare example of them getting something and being okay with it, rather than moving even more absolutist; Saving Christmas in Massachusetts, a group I've never heard of, urges a boycott of stores not using Merry Christmas, saying that "We're going to get 'tolerated' right into hell." AFA also points to a tracking website, http://www.mymerrychristmas.com/;
CWA picks up the "gay marriage means legalised bigamy" routine some more;
CWA applauds Bill O'Reilly's "year-long investigation" of Dr. George Tiller, a doctor who performs abortions in Kansas; they call Dr. Tiller "Tiller the Killer";
CWA has more War On Christmas bullshit; personally, I find the "War on Christmas" crock to be one of the most egregious things in the entire fundamentalist Culture War;
CWA runs a Mark Tooley column against Episcopalians, partly for being GBLT friendly, partly for having female leadership, mocking them for not being focused enough on breeding as much as possible; it's an... interesting column;
Another CWA "War on Christmas" column;
CWA column against Wal-Mart, updated to reflect that we're at war against Eurasia and have always been at war against Eurasia - well, okay, that's not quite fair; they aren't nearly as happy with Wal-Mart as the AFA is, saying (correctly!) that the press release by Wal-Mart isn't explicitly promising not to work with GBLT business groups anymore and says nothing about dropping GBLT-related books from their books section;
CWA column saying that a pedophile group in the Netherlands means we'll be seeing them here too, in organised political form; says that personal choice must be restricted by the "spiritual boundaries of our Judeo-Christian heritage";
The Hill thinks that "Culture-war veterans" will cast themselves now as more moderate and mainstream; I think they're high. Also, Human Rights Campaign plans to be a nice quiet little yessir and not pressure Democrats on GBLT rights;
CWA links to a CNN article: oh look, Mexico City has civil unions now;
CWA links to a long article by GBLT marriage rights opponent Stanley Kurtz two part article called "Confession," where he makes up a "confession" by marriage rights activists that says "your worst fears are justified"; this is Part I;
Part II of the article - it was published in two parts;
Bizarre New Jersey Star-Ledger column about controversy not driving sales of Plan B; I might suggest that emergency contraception is used in emergencies, and that birth control OMG usually works, but CWA attacks the emergency contraception on the basis of, um, it not selling out at the local NJ Stop-And-Shops; they also continue their new rhetoric of implying that EC doesn't actually work, attempting to spread 'EC is Fraud' as a meme;
LifeNews version of the "wrongful death" lawsuit against a fertility clinic; contains the 'this is Dred Scott' language again;
New Jersey Republican legislator to introduce GBLT marriage/civil unions ban in the state legislature.
----- 0 -----
Important message on marriage
From Terence Rolston, President
Focus on the Family Canada
Today’s Family News
November 29, 2006
[Received in email; no URL]
The House of Commons will soon be voting on the issue of marriage in Canada. Your input is so important! Please contact your Member of Parliament as soon as possible and ask them to support the one-man, one-woman definition of marriage.
I know that many of you have contacted your MP before and some of you are frustrated that it doesn’t seem to make a difference. I certainly understand your frustration, but would urge you to contact your MP again. Whether the vote is favourable or not, may it not be said that God’s people were silent when such a critical issue was before our lawmakers. Please stand with us and voice your support for God’s truth about marriage. Our website provides resources on the issue and contact information for your MP. Visit Focusonthefamily.ca and click Protect Marriage 2006.
We know from the Scriptures that marriage between a man and a woman is clearly God’s plan: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24 NIV). Jesus later reaffirmed this plan and added a warning that still applies today: “Therefore what God has joined together let no one separate” (Mark 10:9). Whether it is history or the social and physical sciences, God’s creation clearly reveals that traditional marriage benefits the husband and wife, their children and the communities in which they live. If we know this to be true, we need to let those who represent us know that we want God’s best for our nation and our children.
We at Focus on the Family Canada are committed to strengthening marriages and families across Canada. Thank you for standing with us.
Terence Rolston
President
Focus on the Family Canada
----- 1 -----
Wal-Mart Says It Will Not Make Corporate Contributions To Support Or Oppose Controversial Issues
Send Wal-Mart a "Thank You" for its statement.
American Family Association
http://www.afa.net/Petitions/Issuedetail.asp?id=223
You have made a difference! Wal-Mart has announced it "will no longer make corporate contributions to support or oppose controversial issues unless they directly relate to their ability to serve their customers." AFA is pleased with this announcement.
Wal-Mart made the announcement Tuesday afternoon.
In response to Wal-Mart's statement, AFA has decided to cancel its efforts of encouraging people to not shop at Wal-Mart or Sam's Club this Friday and Saturday.
We believe that Wal-Mart will remain neutral in cultural battles.
Click here to see the Wal-Mart announcement.
Please send Wal-Mart a "Thank You" for its statement.
----- 2 -----
Respect for the Individual and Corporate Contributions
Last Updated: Tuesday, November 21, 2006
WalMartFacts.com
http://www.walmartfacts.com/articles/4617.aspx
Respect for the individual is one of the core values that have made us into the company we are today. We take pride in the fact that we treat every customer, every supplier and every member of our individual communities fairly and equally.
We are working hard to make our corporate contributions reflect the values of our customers, communities, and associates. As Sam Walton said, “Each Wal-Mart store should reflect the values of its customers and support the vision they hold for their community.
Wal-Mart will not make corporate contributions to support or oppose highly controversial issues unless they directly relate to our ability to serve our customers.
Wal-Mart does not have a position on same sex marriage and we do not give preference to gay or lesbian suppliers. Wal-Mart does have a strong commitment to diversity among our associates and against discrimination everywhere.
----- 3 -----
Wal-Mart Says It Will Not Make Corporate Contributions To Support Or Oppose Controversial Issues
Latest Issues
American Family Association
Online as of 28 November 2006
http://www.afa.net/faq.asp
Statement by AFA President Tim Wildmon regarding Wal-Mart:
"American Family Association has heard from a number of supporters who question the sincerity of Wal-Mart to discontinue its financial support of homosexual activist organizations as of November 21, 2006. AFA is convinced that Wal-Mart understands the issue that our 3.4 million on-line supporters have brought to their attention and that Wal-Mart will honor its public commitment. Also, AFA will continue to follow the actions of Wal-Mart closely as we do other major corporations as well. AFA has 30 years of experience in dealing with companies on issues that affect the family.”
Here are answers to common questions:
1. Did Wal-Mart pull its membership from the NGLCC?
Earlier, Wal-Mart entered into a one-year contractual membership with a $25,000 donation to the NGLCC. Legally, Wal-Mart cannot expect a refund, even if they requested it.
2. Does a Wal-Mart executive serve on the NGLCC Corporate Advisory Council?
The Wal-Mart executive that served on the council is no longer employed by Wal-Mart and the position on the council has not been filled by another Wal-Mart representative.
3. Does Wal-Mart give 5% of all online sales to the Washington, DC GLBT organization?
NO. Contrary to bogus Internet rumors, only sales made through the DC organization's website as an affiliate are eligible for the 5% donation program. Over the past 4 years, the total donation to the gay group has been less than $5.
4. Why did AFA call off the 2-day boycott when other groups refused to back down?
Wal-Mart extended a good faith effort to AFA by stopping their financial support to homosexual groups. As a Christian organization, we feel it is our duty to extend that same good faith effort to Wal-Mart. While there are still other issues of concern, AFA is confident that Wal-Mart is now reviewing their support of homosexual organizations and agenda and will honor its promise to remain neutral in the culture war over homosexuality. As with any complex issue, results take time.
5. Is AFA encouraging people to shop at Wal-Mart?
NO. Each individual is encouraged to make their own decision regarding shopping at Wal-Mart.
6. Does the AFA trust Wal-Mart? Can I trust Wal-Mart?
Wal-Mart has made a public statement [See paragraph #3] to stop support of homosexual organizations. AFA believes Wal-Mart will keep their word. However, AFA will continue to monitor Wal-Mart's progress and if necessary, AFA will take further action.
[More at URL]
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Pro-Lifers: 'Improper' for Pro-Abortion Obama to Speak at Rick Warren's Church
By Jim Brown
American Family Association
November 28, 2006
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/282006d.asp
(AgapePress) - A coalition of pro-life groups is calling on Pastor Rick Warren to reconsider having an abortion-supporting senator speak at his Southern California church.
Several pro-life groups are upset that popular Christian author and megachurch pastor Rick Warren has invited Illinois Senator Barack Obama to speak Friday at his "Global Summit on AIDS and the Church." The summit is being held at Warren's Saddleback Church in Orange County. Pro-life and pro-family leaders such as Phyllis Schlafly, Judie Brown, Janet Folger, Tim Wildmon, and Peter LaBarbera are calling on Warren to rescind his invitation to the 2008 presidential hopeful, given Obama's stance on abortion.
Schlafly, the founder and president of Illinois-based Eagle Forum, says Obama campaigned in her state against the federal ban on partial-birth abortion. The ministry leader says that is "about as extreme as you can get."
"For Barack Obama to say that the ban is unconstitutional, I think is about the most extreme pro-abortion position that you could possibly have," says Schlafly. She feels the Democratic senator is "an unlikely and improper choice" to invite to speak to a pro-life audience. "Most of the people who go to [Warren's] church are pro-life, and they don't want to honor pro-abortion candidates. Honestly, if you look at the surveys, a big majority of the American people think this terrible crime of partial-birth abortion should be abolished."
[More at URL]
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Commentary & News Briefs
November 28, 2006
Compiled by Jody Brown
American Family Association/Agape Press
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/282006h.asp
...The Supreme Court is refusing to get involved in a school voucher dispute. The justices declined to hear a case out of Maine, where small school districts offer tuition to let students attend any public or private high school -- except for religious ones. The case was brought by eight families who would receive public tuition funds except for the fact that their children attend religious schools. The families' attorneys and supporters accused the state of unconstitutionally discriminating against religion. But Maine's highest court upheld the policy last April, and the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear the case lets that ruling stand. The Institute for Justice, which represented the families, says it will continue its battle to assure equal treatment for religious options in publicly funded programs. [AP]
[More at URL]
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What book will America base it’s values on, the Bible or the Koran?
Email your U.S. Congressional Leaders Today!
American Family Association
Online as of 28 November 2006
http://capwiz.com/afanet/issues/alert/?alertid=9184771&type=CO
Please take a moment to read the following TownHall.com column by Dennis Prager, who is a Jew. After reading the column, take the suggest action at the bottom of this email. After you have read it, please forward it to your friends and family.
America, Not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on
By Dennis Prager - Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran.
He should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.
[...]
TAKE ACTION
Enter your zip code and click “GO” to prepare and send the email asking your U.S. Congressional leaders to pass a law making the Bible the book used in the swearing-in ceremony of Representatives and Senators.
Click on the “Tell-A-Fiend” link below to forward this to your friends and family and ask they act on this matter.
Thanks for caring enough to get involved. If you feel our efforts are worthy, would you consider making a small donation to help us continue?
Sincerely,
Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman
American Family Association
----- 7 -----
Media Analyst Calls Soap's Transgender Character Addition Exploitive Ploy
By Jim Brown and Fred Jackson
November 28, 2006
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/282006g.asp
(AgapePress) - A media analyst is accusing ABC-TV of exploiting transgender people for shock value in efforts to boost ratings -- and homosexual activists of doing the same in order to advance their own agenda.
The long-running ABC daytime soap opera All My Children is introducing a transgender character into the show this week. In a television first from the Disney-owned network, a male character on the show is going to be making the transition from being a man to becoming a woman.
[...]
Bob Knight, director of the Culture and Media Institute at the Media Research Center, says the bottom line in this instance is that ABC believes it needs to push the envelope for higher ratings. And at the same time, he asserts, "I think we're at a stage now where the homosexual movement has to continually shock. They've saturated the airwaves with pro-homosexual imagery, so now they have to go to the next step, which is transgenderism."
[...]
Pro-homosexual ABC and Hollywood think Judeo-Christian standards are "just a holdover from a bigoted, superstitious era," the culture and media analyst contends, and as self-described progressives, they need to attack those faith-based values. "They are dedicated to tear down every moral standard," he says, "and they're now using the transgender people to do it."
Meanwhile, Knight asserts, transgender individuals themselves are among the homosexual agenda's casualties. "I see these poor, sexually confused people as victims and pawns of a larger movement that wants to destroy Christianity and to turn America into a country we would no longer recognize," he says.
Knight believes homosexual activists and their supporters realize that the homosexual lifestyle is so empty and devoid of meaning that the best they can do is to continue shocking people. And, as one AP report notes, even the editor of Soap Opera Weekly admits that in deciding to add a transgendered character on All My Children, the shows producers were simply "throwing a whole lot of desperate stuff against the wall to see what sticks."
[More at URL]
[Editor's Note: the "Culture and Media Institute at the Media Research Center" is Bob Knight's office at Concerned Women for America, and always has been. But they've stopped using the CWA name for him in third-party articles. I guess it got too embarrassing or something.]
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Family Advocate Wants Children's Book on Same-Sex-Parent Penguins Put on Ice
By Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
American Family Association/Agape Press
November 27, 2006
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/272006c.asp
(AgapePress) - An Illinois pro-family group is protesting an elementary school's decision not to restrict students' access to a picture book in the school library, a story about two male penguins who "adopt" a baby penguin as their own.
Shiloh Elementary School in metro East St. Louis, Illinois, is embroiled in a controversy over the book titled And Tango Makes Three (Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing, 2005). The picture book is, according to School Library Journal, "based on a true story" and tells of two male penguins living in a zoo who share a nest and "want to become parents."
In the story, a sympathetic zookeeper decides the two male birds "must be in love" and gives them a fertilized egg to care for, which the two "fathers" nurture until it hatches into a female chick. It was when one Shiloh parent was reading the book to her five-year-old daughter and encountered the reference to the two male penguins being "in love" that the debate over the book's inclusion in the elementary school's library began.
That mother and other East St. Louis parents see And Tango Makes Three as an unwelcome effort to introduce school children to the idea of homosexual parenting. They have called for the book to be moved to a section of the library reserved for materials addressing mature issues. Also, the parents are asking that children to be required to obtain parental permission before checking out the controversial book.
[More at URL]
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Bush HHS Nomination Irks Abortion Advocates, Pleases Pro-Lifers
By Jim Brown
American Family Association/Agape Press
November 27, 2006
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/272006f.asp
WASHINGTON, DC (AgapePress) - Traditional values groups are applauding President Bush's decision to nominate an abstinence-until-marriage advocate to run the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Population Affairs.
The president has tapped Dr. Eric Keroack to oversee the Title X Program, the government's "family planning" funding. Pro-abortion groups have criticized the move because of the doctor's past work with "A Woman's Concern," a Christian crisis pregnancy center in Massachusetts that discourages contraception. David Christensen, director of congressional affairs at the Family Research Council, explains why the nomination is a blow to radical pro-abortion groups.
"Much of the Title X funding, about $283 million a year, does go to groups like Planned Parenthood because they can apply for grants under the auspices of 'family planning,'" says Christensen. And Planned Parenthood Federation of America has reacted to the nomination, requesting that Keroack's nomination be pulled from consideration.
[...]
But Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America says Keroack is well qualified. "Unfortunately it's a day late and a dollar short, but we'll take it anyway," she says. "We're very happy to have someone who is from a Christian pregnancy counseling center to be nominated for a position such as this.
"I think it's about time we had someone in that position who will be more fair in distributing the money for programs in high schools and in service agencies that work with women who have reproductive health problems," Crouse continues. "It's long past due that Planned Parenthood not get the kind of funding that they have had."
[More at URL]
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Research Finds Some High-Cost Colleges May Not Be Worth the Money
By Jeff Johnson
November 27, 2006
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/272006g.asp
(AgapePress) - One researcher says the phrase "you get what you pay for" may not necessarily be true when it comes to a college education.
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) surveyed more than 14,000 freshmen and seniors at 50 U.S. colleges and universities, including some of the most prestigious and expensive in America. And according to the Institute's Dr. Gary Scott, the parents who are writing the checks for many of those schools may not like the results.
"Often people associate elite education with expensive education," Scott observes, "and we have found that there is no relationship between expenditure and learning." He says research shows that many students at the most expensive U.S. colleges and universities are actually losing knowledge about American history and politics between their freshman and senior years.
Too many students at these high-cost and high-profile schools "are not learning the elementary principles to enter the American conversation at a mature, adult level," the ISI spokesman says. Meanwhile, he notes, "Some of our less expensive universities ... were ranked top as far as advancing students' knowledge of America's government, history, foreign affairs and market economy."
According to ISI's findings, Scott points out, among the less expensive but better performing institutions of higher learning are such schools as Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee; Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan; Grove City College in Pennsylvania, and Colorado State University. He says research has suggested specific methods that schools can use to ensure that students learn.
[More at URL]
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Pro-Life Groups File Briefs in Frozen Embryo Wrongful Death Case
By Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
November 27, 2006
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/272006a.asp
(AgapePress) - Several pro-life organizations based in Illinois and other U.S. states are backing a lawsuit brought by two Illinois parents over a Chicago in vitro clinic's killing of their frozen human embryos.
Last year, Cook County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Lawrence refused to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Alison Miller and Todd Parrish against the Center for Human Reproduction, which mistakenly destroyed the couple's embryos nearly seven years ago. Miller and Parish stored nine embryos at the Center in January 2000, and were told that one of these looked promising; however, six months later the couple learned that their embryos had been discarded.
[...]
On November 17, a coalition of nine Illinois and national pro-life organizations filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the case in support of the parents. Comprising the coalition are Illinois Citizens for Life, Concerned Women for America, the Illinois Right to Life Committee, Life Advocacy Resource Project, Illinois Federation for Right to Life, Concerned Christian Americans, the Illinois Family Institute, Lutherans for Life, Inc., and the Catholic Conference Center of Illinois. The case is now pending before the Illinois appellate court.
Paul Linton is special counsel for the Thomas More Society of Chicago, which is representing the pro-life coalition. He says the trial judge was correct in concluding that the embryos were human beings under the state's wrongful death statute and should be protected by the law in the event of their destruction.
"Of course," Linton points out, "we want to maintain the standard that human life begins at conception -- understood as fertilization -- and not at a later stage of development, for example, where there is implantation."
[...]
The Center for Human Reproduction and the American Civil Liberties Union claim the wrongful death statute does not apply in this case, and that there is, therefore, no cause of action. However, the trial judge declared in his ruling that "there is no doubt in the mind of the Illinois legislature when life begins. It begins at conception."
The location of this suit is significant, Linton notes. "There are a handful of states – maybe seven or eight states -- that do not have any type of gestational requirements for wrongful death suits involving unborn children," he explains. "Illinois, however, is the only state where, in their wrongful death statute, they not only eliminate any gestational requirements, but also any developmental requirements," the attorney observes.
Thomas Brejcha, president and chief counsel for the Thomas More Society, told LifeNews.com in a statement that this wrongful death case is "the modern equivalent to Dred Scott in a petri dish." His remark refers to the 1857 U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared black slaves and slave descendents to be non-citizens who, as such, had no rights or protection under the law.
The crucial question in the present-day case, Brejcha contends, is whether the pre-implanted embryo is to be considered a human being or personal property. He says the Thomas More Society is in "full agreement" with Judge Lawrence that human life begins at conception and should be protected, and that the plaintiffs have the same right to seek compensation as any other parents whose child has been killed.
[More at URL]
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Pro-Life Democrats Moving on Congressional and International Agenda
By Ed Thomas and Jenni Parker
November 28, 2006
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/11/afa/282006a.asp
(AgapePress) - Pro-life Democrats plan to test the waters in the 110th Congress by bringing up a measure for a vote at the start of the new session. The move, part of their "95-10" initiative to reduce the abortion rate by 95 percent in ten years, suggests a new attitude that assumes the new Democratic Party leadership is willing to include pro-life priorities in the House agenda.
[...]
Amnesty International Cautioned Against Supporting Pro-Abortion Proposal
Meanwhile, pro-lifers in Congress are taking measures to address sanctity-of-life issues on an international scale by going on record as opposing a proposal to expand the mandate of Amnesty International, a worldwide human rights advocacy group, to include supporting access to abortion under certain circumstances, such as in cases involving sexual violence. Recently, 73 members of the Pro-Life Congressional Caucus sent a letter to the executive director of the organization, urging it not to adopt this pro-abortion position.
[More at URL]
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Naughty and Nice List Returns for Christmas 2006
CWA is making a list and checking it twice.
Concerned Women for America
11/28/2006
By Martha Kleder
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11904/CWA/family/index.htm
Many retailers learned the hard way last year that it just doesn't pay to mess with Christmas. Target, Wal-Mart, Macy's and Sears are among the stores that made a mid-season shift from the generic "Happy Holidays" to "Merry Christmas." Concerned Women for America's Naughty and Nice list kicks off the 2006 Christmas season with many stores - previously on the "Naughty list" or in the ambiguous middle - now squarely in the "Nice" category.
[...]
Last year, the retail giant's seasonal advertising lacked the mention of Christmas, and store employees were initially told not to say "Merry Christmas." This year, the chain is encouraging associates to greet shoppers with a collection of holiday recognitions including "Merry Christmas," "Happy Holidays," "Happy Hanukkah," "Feliz Navidad," and "Happy Kwanzaa."
[...]
Scrooged
For a bit of contrast, please take note of Best Buy which has outright refused to acknowledge Christmas despite complaints from customers and a petition drive by the American Family Association.
Dawn Bryant, Best Buy Spokesman told Chicagoist, "We're going to continue to use the term 'holiday' because there are several holidays throughout that time period, and we certainly need to be respectful of all of them."
It is a sign of progress in this battle, however, that Best Buy is alone in making a public declaration that it will not be saying "Merry Christmas" in its advertising. While other Scrooge merchants are bound to be out there, they are keeping a low profile, hoping to catch as many Christmas shoppers as possible before they are found out.
[...]
Shoppers React
The groundswell of public discontent with the secularization of Christmas is not letting up, however. In Massachusetts, Robert and Kevin Marley have launched the Saving Christmas in Massachusetts effort, complete with a Web site tracking retail stores.
"We're taking back Christmas," Robert Marley told The Boston Herald. The Lynnfield, Massachusetts brothers will be picketing in front of local malls and stores that refuse to display or say "Merry Christmas."
"This year, I will not shop in any store that does not display the words 'Merry Christmas,'" Marley said. "Someone has to take a stand. We're going to get 'tolerated' right into hell," he added.
[More at URL]
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Polyamory: Hot News for the Post, Archived News for CWA
CWA was years ahead of the times on this. Maybe one day the Post will catch up.
Concerned Women for America
11/27/2006
By Lindsay Randall
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11896/CWA/family/index.htm
Conservatives have, for years, warned that the road to "same-sex marriage" was nothing more than a slippery slope that would, among other things, embolden polygamists to pursue the same rights to marriage that homosexuals currently seek. Well, it looks like we've begun to slide already.
In a front page Washington Post article on Tuesday, an "…estimated 40,000 men, women and children in polygamous communities are part of a new movement to decriminalize bigamy."
While the Post treats this as hot news, it's old hat for the pro-family movement. As far back as 2001, CWA's Culture and Family Institute (CFI) was reporting on this movement. A CWA researcher attended the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's annual "Creating Change" conference in 2001 on behalf of CWA's Culture and Family Institute. She found that the "…'Sexual Politics' workshop was one of several dealing with the new frontiers of sexual and gender revolutionaries, including one panel on 'multiple-partner' relationships entitled 'Poly Wants More Than One Cracker: Polyamory in a Culture Dependent upon Coupledom.'"
[More at URL]
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CWA Applauds O’Reilly’s Investigation of Tiller the Killer
Concerned Women for America
11/28/2006
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11902/MEDIA/life/index.htm
Washington, D.C. –– Notorious late-term abortionist George Tiller is finally getting the national scrutiny and condemnation he deserves. Concerned Women for America (CWA) applauds Bill O’Reilly, host of FOX News’ O’Reilly Factor, for his year-long investigation of Dr. George Tiller, also known as “Tiller the Killer.”
[...]
CWA President Wendy Wright said, “We commend Bill O’Reilly for shining a spotlight on George Tiller. George Tiller has gotten away with mass murder, evaded state laws, possibly assisted rapists and built his own little Auschwitz in the heartland of America. It’s time for a thorough investigation of his records, clinic and staff.”
CWA State Director of Kansas Judy Smith said, “Dr. George Tiller has operated in the state of Kansas with impunity for years, safe from the scrutiny of the good people of Kansas because of the protection of some elected officials and the magnanimous indulgence of the Kansas press. The people of Kansas need to understand that Dr. Tiller brutally kills almost-born children for profit and that he is aided in this by certain unscrupulous lawmakers and the media. The time has come for the citizens of Kansas to demand an end to the blatant murder and sexual abuse of innocent children.”
[More at URL]
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CWA Asks, “Is There No Room for Jesus in Chicago?”
Concerned Women for America
11/28/2006
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11900/MEDIA/misc/index.htm
Washington, D.C. –– In a blatantly discriminatory attempt to remove “Christ” from Christmas, the city of Chicago has threatened to drop its support of the 11th German-American festival, Christkindlmarket, unless the New Line Cinema movie, “The Nativity Story” is removed as an official sponsor of the festival. “The Nativity Story” is a depiction of the historical and factual event which Christmas celebrates, the birth of Jesus Christ. The movie opens nationwide on December 1.
The city of Chicago claims that having this movie sponsor their festival would “be insensitive to the many people of different faiths who come to enjoy the market for its food and unique gifts.” Cindy Gatziolis, a spokeswoman for the Mayor's Office of Special Events acknowledged there is a nativity scene, but also said there will be representations of other faiths, including a Jewish menorah, all put up by private groups. She stressed that the city did not order organizers to drop the studio as a sponsor.
[More at URL]
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Not Much Thanksgiving for Episcopalians
Concerned Women for America
11/23/2006
By Mark Tooley
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11888/CWA/misc/index.htm
Supposedly, it was Anglicans in Virginia who celebrated the First Thanksgiving rather than Puritan Congregationalists in Massachusetts.
Steadfast Virginians believe that the first celebratory autumn feast was held at Berkeley Plantation in 1619, where 38 men just arrived from England knelt on the banks of the James River. They declared: "Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God."
[...]
Undoubtedly, the 2003 election of the Episcopal Church's first openly homosexual bishop has accelerated that denomination's decline, with increasing numbers of conservative church members giving up and walking out. Perhaps those Episcopalians who become Catholic or Baptist will soon thereafter become more procreative.
But the remnant Episcopalians under the pastorship of Presiding Bishop Schori no doubt will hold fast to their noble environmental stewardship and maintain a steady, and eco-friendly, downward membership spiral. A good model for the Episcopalians might be the Shakers, the early American sect that foreswore all procreation. Like Episcopalians, the Shakers lived in tasteful and tidy villages, ate plain food, wore all natural fibers, and had nice furniture. The Shakers also had a female leader, "Mother" Ann Lee. Like Bishop Schori, Mother Lee took a dim view of heterosexual couples marrying and having children.
[...]
But eventually, the Shakers aversion to procreation caught up with them and they were dying out by the end of the 19th century. Today, most Shaker villages are museums or private homes, just as many venerable old Episcopal churches have become restaurants or condominiums for yuppies. A few eccentric Shakers still survive, making baskets and furniture, and keeping the old ways alive. Some day in future decades, if Bishop Schori is completely successful, the Episcopal Church similarly will have reduced to a dozen or so well-heeled adherents. They too will be objects of pleasant curiosity, attracting tourists to their tidy, ivy-covered tudor homes and well-stocked wine closets.
[More at URL]
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It's Okay to Say Merry Christmas!
CWA joins fourth annual Christmas project.
Concerned Women for America
11/22/2006
By Jan LaRue, Chief Counsel
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11879/LEGAL/freedom/index.htm
Picture it. Snow is falling and the fireplace is aglow. You're warm and comfy in your favorite easy chair sipping a cup of hot cider. The chords of a timeless tune begin to warm your heart:
'm dreaming of a whatever
Just like the ones I've come to know
Where officials chicken and lawyers quicken
To file lawsuits for the dough
I'm dreaming of a whatever
With every fuzzy card I write
May your days be neutral and vague
And may all your whatevers be trite
[More at URL]
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Pro-Family Group Says It's Time to Take a Stand as Wal-Mart Chooses Sides
Wal-Mart: Will low prices be joined by low moral standards?
Concerned Women for America
11/21/2006
By Colleen Raezler
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11882/CWA/family/index.htm
UPDATE: Concerned Women for America (CWA) applauds the American Family Association (AFA) for securing such a quick response from Wal-Mart regarding its promotion of homosexuality.
In response to AFA's planned boycott of Wal-Mart stores this weekend, the corporation announced Tuesday afternoon that it "will no longer make corporate contributions to support or oppose controversial issues unless they directly relate to their ability to serve their customers."
Viewing the Wal-Mart statement as a promise of neutrality, AFA has called off the boycott in which 400,000 families pledged to take part.
This is a step in the right direction for pro-family values. However, the bulleted items in the section below still hold true. Nothing in the Wal-Mart statement indicates otherwise. Therefore, clarification is needed. How does Wal-Mart serve its customers? By providing low prices or forcing "diversity" upon its employees?
The American Family Association (AFA) has asked Christmas shoppers to avoid Wal-Mart and Sam's Club this weekend. According to an e-mail sent to its members, 400,000 families have agreed to spend their Christmas dollars elsewhere.
Wal-Mart has shown time and time again who it values as customers, and it's not traditional families.
AFA reports that:
* Wal-Mart gave $60,000 to homosexual groups to support the homosexual agenda in the workplace.
* Wal-Mart made a generous donation to the Northwest Arkansas Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center.
* Wal-Mart willingly asked, and received, permission to join the Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.
* Wal-Mart hosted a homosexual ad agency at its headquarters for a two-day seminar to force employees to accept homosexuality in the work place.
* Last March, Wal-Mart prominently displayed Brokeback Mountain in its stores and offered advanced ordering for this movie. The family-friendly Chronicles of Narnia, which was released the very same day as Brokeback Mountain, was not promoted.
* Finally, Wal-Mart sells over 1700 items related to homosexuality, including books with titles such as What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage and Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America.
"Wal-Mart is playing both ends against the middle by promoting 'Christmas' while contributing millions to homosexual causes," said Jan LaRue, CWA's Chief Counsel. "It may seem smart to those on the top floor at Wal-Mart, but it won't play well with folks in the heartland who won't discount Christ."
[More at URL]
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Why Worry about a Radical Group in the Netherlands?
Concerned Women for America
11/22/2006
By Janice Shaw Crouse
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11891/BLI/dotcommentary/index.htm
Fortunately, a radical group in the Netherlands was unable to gather enough signatures to run for a seat in the Dutch parliament. The fringe political party is called PNVD, a Dutch acronym that stands for “brotherly love, freedom and diversity.” What they really stand for is a wide range of morally-unacceptable behaviors –– pedophilia, bestiality, child pornography, child drug use, having adults teach a child how to have sex and lowering the age of sexual consent to age 12.
[...]
We have seen with the “pro-choice” arguments of those who favor abortion that the unthinking public responds very favorably to the idea that people ought to be able to do whatever they choose to do and that their personal choices have inherent validity and goodness. We must take every opportunity to repudiate such thinking and help people recognize that there are good outcomes and well-being for those who are willing to exercise the discipline and restraint required by the tried-and-true moral, ethical and spiritual boundaries of our Judeo-Christian heritage.
Such boundaries especially protect our children and ensure that they will be nurtured and blessed by moral and Biblical instruction, so that they will have an opportunity to choose for themselves whom they will serve –– whether God or mammon.
[More at URL]
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Culture-war veterans hold fire, for now
The Hill
By Elana Schor
http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/112906/culture.html
After a long battle with conservatives on social issues and judicial nominations, Democratic-aligned interest groups are hailing the coming congressional changeover and weighing exactly how and when to exert their influence.
Republican control of the Capitol may have forced abortion-rights and civil-liberties advocates to play perpetual defense, but those wilderness years also gave the groups valuable practice at building coalitions across the aisle and branding themselves as more mainstream than their conservative counterparts.
[...]
On gay-rights issues, such as employment non-discrimination and expansion of the hate-crimes law, Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese took a respectful view of the long to-do list facing his Democratic allies.
“One of the most important things we can do is be sensitive to the fact that the new leadership in this Congress, [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi [D-Calif.] and Reid, have a huge responsibility to speak to the issues the American people couldn’t have been clearer about in putting them there: the war in Iraq and corruption in government,” Solmonese said.
Though the gay community might see its issues move lower on the priority list, Solmonese said, such pragmatism is a small price to pay to end the Republicans’ prolonged attacks on gay marriage. The page he plans to borrow from conservative groups’ playbook: “Be really smart and be really strategic.”
[More at URL]
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Mexico: 'SI' to gay civil union
CNN International
POSTED: 0810 GMT (1610 HKT), November 10, 2006
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/11/10/mexico.gay.ap/
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexico City's assembly on Thursday passed legislation to legally recognize gay civil unions in the capital, the first such vote by a legislative body in the history of the conservative, predominantly Roman Catholic country.
Mexico City Mayor Alejandro Encinas has spoken in favor of the bill and was expected to sign it into law, while at least one conservative non-governmental group said it was considering seeking a court injunction against the measure.
The bill, which would not approve gay marriage, allows same-sex couples to register their union with civil authorities, granting them inheritance rights and other benefits typically given to spouses. Heterosexual couples who are not legally married can also be registered under the bill.
[...]
The bill has been severely criticized by the Catholic Church and conservative civil groups in the country, which is 90 percent Roman Catholic. The Mexican Council of Bishops has said the law is the first step toward legalizing gay marriage and adoption by gays, while the conservative National Parents Union has characterized it as "aberrant."
[More at URL]
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The Confession
Have same-sex-marriage advocates said too much?
By Stanley Kurtz
Posted: Wednesday, November 1, 2006
ARTICLE
National Review Online
Publication Date: October 31, 2006
http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.2741/pub_detail.asp
Suppose a large group of same-sex-marriage activists came together and made the following confession to a group of same-sex-marriage skeptics:
"Look, we're going to level with you in a way that we haven't up to now. We all support same-sex marriage, but for many -- even most -- of us, gay marriage isn't an end in itself. It's a way-station on the path to a post-marriage society. We want a wide range of diverse families -- even 'polyamorous' groupings of three or more partners -- to have the same recognition, rights, and benefits as heterosexual married couples. In short, your worst fears are justified. The radical redefinition of marriage you've been worried about for so long is exactly what we want.
"Oh sure, some of us are more radical than others. But even the most committed and prominent mainstream advocates of same-sex marriage largely support a radical family agenda. A few advocates who back a 'conservative' interpretation of same-sex marriage may regularly engage you in debate, yet their views carry relatively little weight within the gay community. Some of these 'conservative' supporters of same-sex marriage have claimed that there is no significant political constituency for polygamy-polyamory, or for a general legal deconstruction of marriage. That's just wrong. As gay marriage gains acceptance, we're going to have a polygamy-polyamory debate in this country. And among those sponsoring that debate will be many of the very same people and groups who’ve already pushed for same-sex marriage.
"So why haven't we told you all this before? Simple. We've been censoring ourselves for fear of scaring away public support for same-sex marriage. You see, it's all about timing. Our plan is to establish same-sex marriage first, and then, as our next step, to demand that the rights and benefits of marriage be accorded to all types of families. After all, when the call for yet another radical redefinition of marriage comes from married same-sex couples, it's going to be that much more persuasive. Up to now, truth to tell, if any same-sex marriage backers pushed this radical agenda in public, we pressured them to keep silent. But now we're telling you the truth.
[More at URL]
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The Confession II
"Conservative" proponents of same-sex marriage are about to overtaken by radicals.
By Stanley Kurtz
Posted: Wednesday, November 1, 2006
ARTICLE
National Review Online
Publication Date: November 1, 2006
http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.2742/pub_detail.asp
In his well-received 1997 book on the AIDS crisis, Sexual Ecology, journalist Gabriel Rotello said:
The anti-marriage sentiment in the gay and lesbian political world has abated in recent years, and the legalization of same-sex marriage is now an accepted focus of gay liberation. Yet it is rarely posed as a major issue of AIDS prevention. Prevention activists generally don't include marriage as a goal because they generally don't include monogamy as a goal....such advocates are generally careful not to make the case for marriage, but simply for the right to marriage....This is undoubtedly good practical politics, since many if not most of the major gay and lesbian organizations who have signed on to the fight for same-sex marriage would instantly sign off at any suggestion that they were actually encouraging gay men and lesbians to marry. (pp. 256-257)
According to Rotello, then, many or most gay-marriage activists have a decidedly un-conservative view of marriage itself. But if gay-marriage advocates actually reject monogamous marriage as a family ideal, what sort of families do they favor instead?
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Sales slow for controversial morning-after pill, Plan B
Sunday, November 26, 2006
BY SUSAN TODD
Star-Ledger Staff
http://www.nj.com/business/ledger/index.ssf?/base/business-0/1164519562266570.xml&coll=1
When it comes to contracep tives, controversy may not drive sales.
Case in point: Plan B.
After years of debate about whether it should be sold without a prescription, the morning-after pill was hardly flying off the shelves during its first weeks on sale as an over-the-counter product.
Stop & Shop Supermarket said its 50 New Jersey pharmacies reported just three sales of the over- the-counter product the first week. "We expect that number to go up," company spokesman Robert Keane said. "Some people still don't know it's available."
While Plan B has been sold in the United States since 1998 to women with prescriptions from their doctors, it wasn't until August, after years of political wrang ling, that the Food and Drug Administration approved it for over- the-counter sales to women who are at least 18 years old. Younger women still need a prescription.
"I think this is what happens when something gets picked up as a policy issue," said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America in Washington, D.C. "It became much more of a political issue rather than a fundamental issue of whether there will be demand or whether it even works."
[More at URL]
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Pro-Life Groups Support Illinois Parents' Wrongful Embryo Death Lawsuit
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 21, 2006
http://www.lifenews.com/bio1873.html
Chicago, IL (LifeNews.com) -- Several pro-life organizations have filed legal briefs in support of a lawsuit filed by Illinois parents in connection with an in vitro fertilization clinic's destruction of their human embryos. The lawsuit is one of the first of its kind in which a fertility clinic is under fire for destroying human embryos without the consent of the parents.
Alison Miller and Todd Parrish filed a lawsuit against the Center for Human Reproduction (CHR) in Chicago over the wrongful death of their frozen embryos.
[...]
"This case is the modern equivalent to Dred Scott in a petri dish. We are in full agreement with Judge Lawrence that human life begins at conception and should be protected," he added.
While the ACLU has filed briefs against the lawsuit claiming that Lawrence’s allowance for wrongful death is “not medically accurate," the pro-life legal brief says “The Illinois General Assembly’s definition of conception...is accurate according to traditional and contemporary medical usage."
Lawrence said in his decision that “a pre-embryo is a ‘human being’ ... whether or not it is implanted in its mother's womb."
[More at URL]
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NJ Lawmaker Pushes For Traditional Marriage Definition
By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
November 29, 2006
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200611/NAT20061129a.html
(CNSNews.com) - A New Jersey state senator is pushing for a constitutional amendment that will limit marriage to a union between one man and one woman.
Republican Gerald Cardinale's move follows a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that gave the state's legislature six months to allow same-sex couples to "marry" or to enter into civil unions that hold the same legal benefits as marriage.
"The court does not have the authority - as I read the constitution - to order the legislature to pass a bill," Cardinale said. "They can do a lot of things, but they are not the whole government."
"We're dealing with a decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court, and the court has indicated that we need to do certain things within a certain period of time, so I thought this was a good thing to do in response to the court decision."
Cardinale told Cybercast News Service that the proposed amendment would "clearly set forth that marriage is a term, or a state, that can only be applied to a union of one man and one woman, and add that to our constitution so that it is not subject to the vagaries of the personal biases of a judge's decision in the future."
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-29 07:40 pm (UTC)This irritates me triply because it is not an embryo. It is a blastocyst, a morula, a zygote, depending on the fertility clinic, but it does not become an embryo until a week or so after implant.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-29 07:44 pm (UTC)This one's pretty awkward as a unit; it sounds like it had been implanted once already and come unstuck or something - c.f., "pre-owned vehicles" instead of "used cars." But the point's still the same.
for future reference
Date: 2006-11-29 11:44 pm (UTC)Re: for future reference
Date: 2006-11-30 12:22 am (UTC)