December 17, 2009 at 3:13 pm (democracy, freedom)
Tags: communism, copenhagen
Check out these flag-waving communists and socialists marching in Copenhagen to stop global warming. . .
This isn’t about saving the world, it’s about controlling it. Listen to the modern communists in Copenhagen today. They’re telling it how it is. Are we listening?
—Beetle Blogger
December 17, 2009 at 2:51 pm (freedom, parental rights, politics)
Tags: Copenhagen Treaty, family, global warming
On Thursday– This week on “Voice of the Nation” we’ll be talking with Mike Duff, President of United Families International about the Copenhagen Treaty, the politics of global warming, and other issues around the world affecting families. Join us and find out what’s going on with the current issues surrounding the family in the political arena.
The Family Values Blog Talk Radio show is a joint effort between United Families International, the Digital Network Army, and other Pro-Family organizations in highlighting current issues facing families in the Pro-Family Movement.
Call in to VOICE OF THE NATION every Thursday at 2pm PST. The call-in number is
December 11, 2009 at 1:01 pm (democracy, family, freedom, same sex marriage)
Tags: gay marriage, inevitable, Maggie Gallagher, same sex marriage
“I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.”–William Ernest Henley
One of the most common things I’ve heard in the marriage debates here and elsewhere is the thought that gay marriage is the future, it is inevitable, it is unavoidable and those who disagree are going to find themselves “on the wrong side of history”.
As we look back on the massive wins of Proposition 8 in California, Question 1 in Maine, and the ripple effect those wins had in New York and now in New Jersey, it’s quite obvious that “inevitability” is what we make of it.
I read today on Maggie Gallagher’s site:
Maggie’s Top Eight Reasons Why Gay Marriage Is Not Inevitable
1. Nothing is inevitable.
2. Young people are not as unanimous as most people think.
In California, the young-adults vote split 55 percent to 45 percent. Is it so hard to imagine 5 percent of those young people changing their minds as they move through the life cycle?
3. The argument from despair is bait and switch.
They are trying push the idea that gay marriage is inevitable, because they are losing the argument that gay marriage is a good idea.
4. Progressives are often wrong about the future.
Progressives told me abortion would be a dead issue by today, because young people in 1975 were so pro-choice. They told me there would be no more homemakers at all by the year 2000, because of the attitudes and values of young women in 1975. Some even told me the Soviet Union was the wave of the future. …
5. Demography could be destiny.
Traditionalists have more children. …Religous groups are increasingly focused on the problem of how to transmit a marriage culture to the next generation (see the USCCB’s recent initiatives).
6. Change is inevitable.
Generational arguments tend to work only for one generation: Right now, it’s “cool” to be pro-gay marriage. In ten years, it will be what the old folks think. Even gay people may decide, as they get used to living in a tolerant and free America, they don’t want to waste all that time and energy on a symbolic social issue, anyway. …Inevitability is a manufactured narrative, not a fundamental truth.
7. Newsflash: 18-year-olds can be wrong.
Should we really say “Hmm, whatever the 18-year-olds think, that must be inevitable,” and go do that? I mean, would we reason like that on any other issue?
8. New York’s highest court was right.
From Hernandez v. Robles:
“The dissenters assert confidently that ‘future generations’ will agree with their view of this case (dissenting op at 396). We do not predict what people will think generations from now, but we believe the present generation should have a chance to decide the issue through its elected representatives. …”
The first and the last on the list are my favorite. As Benjamin Franklin said, “He that waits upon fortune is never sure of a dinner.” Nothing is inevitable. Everyone gets the chance, and the responsibility to choose.
—Beetle Blogger
December 9, 2009 at 11:39 pm (Judicial Activism, proposition 8, same sex marriage)
Tags: boies, olson, walker
Photo: Judge Walker’s Brand of Justice?
The Prop 8 campaign is getting a break. Judge Vaughn Walker’s order that all private emails and campaign communications be turned over to the opposition for scrutiny by the tolerance police is being reversed. Law.com is reporting that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has stayed Judge Walker’s outrageous order saying that the campaign had made a “strong showing” that it would succeed on the merits of the discovery issue.
Ted Olson and David Boies, lawyers in the federal challenge to Proposition 8 , claim that Prop 8 violates the federal constitution, and want to find evidence that the Prop 8 backers were motivated by anti-gay animus.
They’ll of course find nothing, but that was never the point. The point is: they shouldn’t even be allowed to look. It is none of their business!
The intent of the judge’s order was to intimidate and harass those who support the campaign today and in future campaigns who dare support the natural family. That order was in direct conflict with the 8 Campaign’s First Amendment rights.
“Whether you like it or not” boys, that kind of roughshod intimidation doesn’t fly in a real court.
Judge Walker should be ashamed of himself for the petty nature of the order he put out in the first place. It’s no surprise he’s being reversed, and by Clinton appointees no less! Walker and his judicial activism had it coming.
No matter personal animus, Justice should always be blind.
—Beetle Blogger
December 9, 2009 at 8:12 pm (same sex marriage)
Tags: James Troia, National Organization for Marriage, Ron Bachar
The National Organization for Marriage facebook page and supporters were attacked with racial epithets by none other than the tolerance police of the left. After being thoroughly shamed, the offending posters actually removed their own posts, but before they could bury the evidence, I was able to get some illustrative screen shots:
This is James “Equality” Troia and sidekick Ron Bachar, representing the face of tolerance in the gay movement:
So there it is! Yep! They said it!
The interesting thing to me is that this came after four threads of trolls comparing NOM to the KKK…. from a group of activists that claim they are the face of the new civil rights movement!
Irony bites doesn’t it?
—Beetle Blogger
December 9, 2009 at 5:52 pm (democracy, education, family, indoctrination, teachers)
Tags: bisexual, gay, homosexual, indoctrination, same sex marriage, transsexual
In Alameda County, school districts are implementing plans for indoctrinating children in gay and lesbian themed lessons and forbidding parents from interfering. Here it comes! “Whether you like it or not!”
—Beetle Blogger
California school district tramples parents
From SaveCalifornia.com
Tuesday night, over the protests of parents, the Alameda Unified School Board voted to keep and recraft its “Lesson 9″ homosexuality-bisexuality-transsexuality curriculum.
The Dec. 8 vote was 4-1 to “retain Lesson 9 until a replacement that specifically addresses all six of the ‘protected classes’ is…adopted by the board.” Read the blow-by-blow account of the school board meeting.
This means the preying on children to indoctrinate them into the unnatural and unhealthy LGBTQ (“lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning”) lifestyles is even worse now, and will become a more salable model for school districts near you. This is because Alameda school board members voted to hide the curriculum under a more expansive ”anti-bullying” label that will continue to teach children that “LGBTQ” lifestyles are good, natural, and maybe even for them.
Alameda’s attack on children and families comes a week after a judge, despite the arguments of pro-family attorneys, ruled that California law trumps a claim to parental rights in this situation. The judge ruled that parents cannot “opt out” their children from Alameda’s pro-LGBTQ lifestyle curriculum. See the school district’s triumphant Dec. 2 news release.
GRASP WHAT THIS MEANS
1. Any government school district can push homosexuality-bisexuality-transsexuality curriculum on students. There is no California state law prohibiting this. All pro-family efforts to protect kid’s minds have been and will continue to be defeated in Democrat-controlled committees of the California Legislature. “LBGTQ-friendly” curriculum is already taught to kids in San Francisco and Oakland. Now, with Alameda on board, it can easily spread to other California school districts (most of which are controlled by liberals or uncourageous conservatives) under the cover of “anti-bullying” curriculum. (See actual video clips of homosexuality-bisexuality-transsexuality indoctrination in Massachusetts.)
2. California school districts are more likely than ever to trump parental rights with immoral education: In a 1995 speech, Barack Obama’s “Safe Schools” project leader, homosexual activist Kevin Jennings, explained how he successfully imposed homosexuality-bisexuality-transsexuality indoctrination by packaging it as “safety.” This deception has been crushing moral standards in California public schools for several years now. Despite many U.S. Supreme Court rulings upholding the inherent right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children, SaveCalifornia.com has witnessed, over the last decade, the California Legislature passing law after law that either limit or eliminate parental rights in public schools.
3. School districts are already permitting student clubs and campus activities promoting homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality to other children: Public schools can and do hold lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender “diversity day,” “week” and “month.” Public schools can and many do permit the pro-”LGBTQ” “Day of Silence” every April. Public school districts must permit “Gay-Straight Alliance” clubs on high school and junior high campuses. We often hear other horror stories too.
4. Don’t think this isn’t happening your community? There are now 5 statewide California laws promoting homosexual, bisexual and transsexual lifestyles to children: Read what AB 537, SB 71, SB 777, AB 394 and SB 572 push on children as young as kindergarten.
December 8, 2009 at 6:38 pm (family, freedom, marriage, same sex marriage)
Photo: Norman Rockwell 1943
Fed up with the accusations of “hate” leveled at marriage advocates throughout the campaign, Grard says he wrote an email from his personal email account to Thomas that read: “Who are the hateful, venom-spewing ones? Hint: Not the yes on 1 crowd. You hateful people have been spreading nothing but vitriol since this campaign began. Good riddance!” –Lifesite News
WOW. Now that’s hateful right? And they not only fired this guy for this personal email where he gave his personal opinions, they fired his wife too! Now that’s classy!
Some in the gay lobby are trying to distance themselves from this blatant effort to punish family supporters for their views on marriage. They say, “Oh you can’t blame gay activists for this! It’s the paper’s blunder!”
I say, the gay activists are exactly who are to blame for this. They’re the ones supporting policies that encourage treatment of any other opinion but their own as homophobia or bigoted bias. This is a clear example of what we fought against in California. I saw the same things coming up in Maine and now in DC. It’s the paper’s fault yes, they stepped in it, but the ideas behind what they did are being promoted in campaigns supported by the gay lobby.
This is exactly what freedom of speech is about. It’s about being free.
“Once you declare one group off-limits for critical examination, once you declare that these people — whoever they may be — must at all costs not be offended, then you have destroyed one of the essential elements of free speech and political debate. In a free society, people with differing opinions live together in harmony, agreeing not to force their neighbor to be silent if his opinions offend them. If offensive speech had been prohibited in the 1770s, there would be no United States of America..…wherever offensive speech is prohibited, the tyrant’s power is solidified.“ —Robert Spencer
A friend of mine posted this information:
I just left a message on the Editor’s voice mail. Will follow up with an email tomorrow. What do you say we make this a national story, folks? Let’s start by calling the newspaper and letting the editor know what we think of reporters being fired for expressing their private opinions in private emails!
To contact Maine Today Media:
Editor Bill Thompson: bthompson@mainetoday.com
Morning Sentinel main line: 207-873-3341…
We have to stand up and stick together to support our freedoms. This man and his wife are being wrongfully persecuted for his beliefs. He wasn’t rude, or improper in any way. He simply had a difference of opinion and that could not be tolerated.
This is the road we’re heading down if gay activists get their way. Fight it wherever you see it.
—Beetle Blogger
Read the entire story, get mad, and then do something about it:
Maine Reporter Fired for Personal E-mail Rebutting Criticisms of Traditional Marriage Supporters
Follow-up: Maine Reporter: I Was Fired Over Anti-Same-Sex Marriage E-mail
December 4, 2009 at 10:09 am (family, marriage)
Tags: marriage, New York, nom
Dear Marriage Supporter:
What a week! What a great victory for marriage in New York!
Rumors were rampant that gay marriage was going to pass in New York. The night before the vote I got an urgent alert call from an Albany insider reporting that gay marriage was a done deal in New York! News blogs said that Democrat State Sen. Ruben Diaz, the leader of the pro-marriage forces in New York, was visibly upset after the Democratic caucus; Sen. Diaz told reporters he was going into his office to pray. How the bloggers made fun of this great Christian man for that!–as if his prayer was somehow proof that gay marriage was inevitable in New York.
Let me tell you, we were all praying pretty hard at that point!
I didn’t see how the New York State Sen. Tom Duane or the Empire State Pride Agenda was going to pull this one off: by our vote counts, gay marriage advocates were at least 5 votes short. We were cautiously optimistic gay marriage would not pass. “Nervously optimistic” would be more accurate.
The senate debate was dominated by out-of-touch politicians who made astonishingly arrogant and tone-deaf statements. Politician after politician got up there and said that those of us who know that marriage is the union of husband and wife are somehow similar to racists who imposed slavery or voted for segregationist oppression. State Sen. Suzie Oppenheimer actually cited the Nazi persecution of her husband’s family as somehow a reason to vote for gay marriage. State Sen. Tom Duane, the lead sponsor, was weepily self-congratulatory, implying that his support for gay marriage made him akin to great heroes of history from Harriet Tubman to Nelson Mandela who risked their lives for moral truth. Senator after senator turned to Tom Duane and suggested that the great relationship he had with his partner was a good reason to publicly redefine marriage over the wishes of their own constituents.
Huh?
Do they have any idea how odd they sound? Not only to the majority of Americans who disagree with gay marriage, but even to a big chunk of their own supporters? Most Americans, regardless of their own views, do not think their friends, family members, and neighbors who support our marriage traditions are not anything like the bigots and racists who wanted to enslave Harriet Tubman, or throw Nelson Mandela in jail for twenty years. Grandma is not like George Wallace because she doesn’t see two guys in a union as a marriage.
Many black Americans in D.C. are making that clear: As Taylor Harris, a young black grad student, put it in a November 28 op-ed in the Washington Post (responding to a column by Julian Bond arguing that African-Americans should support gay marriage as a civil right), “I’m sorry, Julian. I wasn’t there with you in 1963 to fight, but I still can’t be your George Wallace today.”
As I listened to the debate drone on, I remember thinking to myself: Have we done everything we could? Thanks to you, NOM was able to put out an enormous effort. We spent more than $600,000 using sophisticated technology that allows us to reach out to voters across the state to make sure they knew what their politicians were up to. We had just come off a great victory in November, not only in Maine but in New York’s 23rd Congressional District where Dede Scozzafava, one of the few Republicans ever to vote for gay marriage, had just gone down to a very public defeat. NOM spent more than $100,000 making sure voters in her district understood that Dede had voted twice for gay marriage in the New York state assembly. (Fifty percent of Doug Hoffman’s voters told us on the eve of the election that Dede’s vote for gay marriage was a “significant factor” in their decision to abandon the GOP candidate and vote for a third party.) “The Dede Effect” surely helped persuade some squishy GOP state senators of a basic political truth: It is a bad idea for a Republican to vote for gay marriage.
And we know your help made a huge difference! When regular Americans learn their politicians are messing around with marriage, instead of focusing on the big important issues (like jobs, the budget, taxes, education), they rise to the occasion and make their voice and values heard! NOM’s voter outreach generated thousands of calls in every state senate district–in many cases from people who had never before picked up the phone to call their elected representatives.
How big a difference did this make? We know many others in New York were working hard and making a difference on both sides of the aisle. But listen to what one of the key swing senators, State Sen. Joseph Addabbo (Democrat, of Queens) told the New York Daily News about why he ended up voting “no”: “Addabbo said he was simply following what 74% of constituents who contacted him wanted.”
That’s right. In New York City, 74 percent of the constituents who wrote or called Sen. Addabbo said: “We want you to vote no to gay marriage.” Together we can make a difference.
Don’t believe everything you read in the media. After the D.C. city council voted for the first time to pass a gay-marriage bill, we issued a press release that said “We Have Not Yet Begun to Fight!” So what did Tim Craig of the Washington Post report? Somehow he decided that opponents of gay marriage were giving up.
Bishop Harry Jackson and others are not giving up, and we will be there to help fight for marriage every step of the way. Stay tuned.
But our immediate battle shifts across the mighty Hudson to New Jersey. Garden State Equality chief Steven Goldstein promised supporters he would pass a gay-marriage bill in the lame duck session. Archbishop Myers and the Catholic Conference, however, circulated petitions with more than 150,000 New Jerseyans who oppose gay marriage; the New Jersey Family Policy Council, Mayor Steve Lonegan, and many other are refusing to accept the allegedly inevitable. And NOM is fighting right alongside, using the same powerful technology and techniques to reach tens of thousands of voters quickly and get them in this fight too.
If we win this battle in the next four weeks, Gov.-elect Chris Christie has promised to veto any gay marriage bill that crosses his desk. The stakes are high, the battle urgent.
If you leave marriage to the politicians or the judges, the political insiders will cut themselves deals that leave your values on the outside. But we at NOM promise: We will not let that happen. We will never give up fighting for the truth, for common sense, for democracy, for civility, for the idea that we are made male and female, and meant to come together in love in marriage, for life.
God bless you! Until next week,
Brian S. Brown
Executive Director
National Organization for Marriage
20 Nassau Street, Suite 242
Princeton, NJ 08542
bbrown@nationformarriage.org
PS: NOM relies on your generosity and support to speak up for your values. Can you help us today with a donation of $10, $15, or, if God has given you the means, $100 or $150? Your donations make a difference!
NOM Featured Article
“N.Y. State Senate Votes Down Gay Marriage Bill By Wide Margin”
Washington Post
December 3, 2009
“I think you put it all together and it most likely spells the end of the idea that you can pass gay marriage democratically anywhere else in the United States,” said Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which spearheaded opposition in Albany. “I think the gay marriage lobby will have to go back to a court-based approach.”
NOM in the News
“New York State Lawmakers Vote Against Gay Marriage”
Reuters
December 2, 2009
“This is an enormous victory,” said Maggie Gallagher, the leader of the anti-gay marriage group, National Organization for Marriage. “What you saw was the will of the people. … The culture really hasn’t shifted on gay marriage.”
“Gay Marriage Momentum Stalls in NY, NJ”
Boston Globe
November 28, 2009
“If they are unable to pass gay marriage in New York and New Jersey, ombined with the loss in Maine, it will confirm that gay marriage is not the inevitable wave of the future,” said Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which mobilizes social conservatives to fight same-sex marriage.
“DC Votes to Allow Gay Marriage, But Issue Not Settled”
Christian Science Monitor
December 1, 2009
“Please take a moment right now to call your state senator, urging him to vote NO on the same-sex marriage bill. Then call three friends and ask them to do the same,” read an alert put out by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).
“Few Roadblocks Remain to Gay Marriage in DC”
Wall Street Journal
November 28, 2009
Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, said his group would apply pressure on Capitol Hill to scrap the bill. “It’s a difficult thing for Congress to actually overturn a law in the District,” Mr. Brown said.
“The National Organization for Marriage’s Bill for NY-23: $112736.75″
The Washington Independent
November 23, 2009
The National Organization for Marriage spent more than $100,000 on get-out-the-vote efforts for the failed (yes, really) campaign of Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate in NY-23. NOM’s work for Hoffman — it also paid for hand-outs distributed by the Susan B. Anthony List — was a minor blow to the organization on what was otherwise a good election night for it, given the voter repeal of gay marriage rights in Maine.
“Religious Leaders Unite Against Abortion and Same-Sex Unions”
New York Times
November 20, 2009
The document was written by Mr. Colson; Robert P. George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, who is Catholic; and the Rev. Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School, an evangelical interdenominational school on the campus of Samford University, in Birmingham, Ala.
December 3, 2009 at 12:26 pm (family, marriage, same sex marriage)
Tags: Maine, marriage, new jersey, New York, scott loveless
On Thursday– This week on “Voice of the Nation” We will be talking about the great success yesterday in New York and the ripple effect recent marriage victories had there. Join us as we talk with Scott Loveless about protecting marriage and family as we move forward from the big wins in Maine and New York to the coming fight in New Jersey.
Guest: Scott Loveless – Scott Loveless served eight years as the Executive Director of the World Family Policy Center at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University. He initially practiced law for 20 years with the U.S. Department of the Interior, focusing on issues affecting environmental concerns: water law, environmental law, public land law, and mining and mineral leasing law. However, he pursued a Ph.D. in Family Studies (BYU 2000) after having observed the adverse consequences of divorce within his circle of acquaintances while living in the Washington, D.C. area. His dissertation sought to understand the human-relational effects of personal philosophies of happiness on the marriage relationship. He has continued to write and publish on related themes, most recently in the 3-volume set, The Family in the New Millenium (Praeger), on which he served as lead editor. His current primary professional interests (and reason for joining UFI) are in the moral/philosophical origins of human rights law, current moral tensions in human rights law at the UN and elsewhere, and the consequences for societies and families of the different possible resolutions of those tensions. Scott and Cheri, his wife of 35 years, are the grateful parents of 3 sons and 5 daughters and have 8 grandchildren.
The Family Values Blog Talk Radio show is a joint effort between United Families International, the Digital Network Army, and other Pro-Family organizations in highlighting current issues facing families in the Pro-Family Movement.
Call in to VOICE OF THE NATION every Thursday at 2pm PST. The call-in number is
December 2, 2009 at 8:14 pm (marriage, proposition 8, same sex marriage)
Tags: California, gay marriage, prop 8
I have previously shared reports of a rift within the same-sex marriage movement about whether to press ahead to attempt to invalidate Prop 8 by initiative in 2010, or to push off the effort to 2012 or later. This week, the chasm between the two camps reached a noteworthy summit: one of California’s largest LGBT grassroots groups (they claim 700,000 supporters), the Courage Campaign, announced the withdrawal of its support for a 2010 fight.
After the Courage Campaign spent a reported $200,000 on voter research, its founder, Rick Jacobs, told the San Francisco Chronicle, “We do not see a path to victory.”
“We are taking the lessons learned from last year’s Prop. 8 campaign, the campaigns in Maine and other states to understand the fundamental work that must be done before moving forward in California. We also must come together as a community to create a broad coalition and governance structure, put in place a strong manager and secure the resources to win. Right now, the pieces are not all in place to do so confidently.”
While our opponent’s path to an electoral victory has been significantly – if not fatally – damaged by this week’s news, we continue our strategic work on the legal front. The federal lawsuit challenging the validity of Prop 8 is scheduled to go to trial in early January. And yesterday in Pasadena, a 3-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal heard our objections to recent orders to disclose internal campaign documents to opposing counsel.
We are literally working day and night to protect traditional marriage, and we appreciate your support to help us continue this critical fight.
Thank you for standing with us to protect the institution of marriage for this and future generations.
Sincerely,
Ron Prentice
Executive Director
You can donate to the Prop 8 defense fund at:
https://www.completecampaigns.com/FR/contribute.asp?campaignid=Prop8Legal
