Change is not always a good thing

Thousands urge Obama to Uphold Traditional Marriage

By Katherine T. Phan, Christian Post

Thousands of traditional marriage supporters have contacted President Obama to voice opposition to his plan to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. Almost immediately after the inaugural ceremony, the new administration updated the Whitehouse.gov website with a full outline of Barack Obama's agenda, which included repealing DOMA.

Read full article here.

President Obama's agenda for the LGBT community:

• Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: In 2004, crimes against LGBT Americans constituted the third-highest category of hate crime reported and made up more than 15 percent of such crimes. President Obama cosponsored legislation that would expand federal jurisdiction to include violent hate crimes perpetrated because of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical disability. As a state senator, President Obama passed tough legislation that made hate crimes and conspiracy to commit them against the law.
• Fight Workplace Discrimination: President Obama supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and believes that our anti-discrimination employment laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. While an increasing number of employers have extended benefits to their employees' domestic partners, discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace occurs with no federal legal remedy. The President also sponsored legislation in the Illinois State Senate that would ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
• Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples: President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.
• Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage: President Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006 which would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.
• Repeal Don't Ask-Don't Tell: President Obama agrees with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military experts that we need to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve. Discrimination should be prohibited. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation. Additionally, more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy, including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. The President will work with military leaders to repeal the current policy and ensure it helps accomplish our national defense goals.
• Expand Adoption Rights: President Obama believes that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation. He thinks that a child will benefit from a healthy and loving home, whether the parents are gay or not.
• Promote AIDS Prevention: In the first year of his presidency, President Obama will develop and begin to implement a comprehensive national HIV/AIDS strategy that includes all federal agencies. The strategy will be designed to reduce HIV infections, increase access to care and reduce HIV-related health disparities. The President will support common sense approaches including age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception, combating infection within our prison population through education and contraception, and distributing contraceptives through our public health system. The President also supports lifting the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. President Obama has also been willing to confront the stigma -- too often tied to homophobia -- that continues to surround HIV/AIDS.
• Empower Women to Prevent HIV/AIDS: In the United States, the percentage of women diagnosed with AIDS has quadrupled over the last 20 years. Today, women account for more than one quarter of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses. President Obama introduced the Microbicide Development Act, which will accelerate the development of products that empower women in the battle against AIDS. Microbicides are a class of products currently under development that women apply topically to prevent transmission of HIV and other infections.

Make your voice heard in defense of marriage.

Google H8 Maps

Facilitating Dreams of Stormy Portent

by Beetle Babee

Martin Luther King had a dream…..but not all dreams aim as high as his did.  Some aim a little closer to home:

“I had a dream. In in I saw HATEFUL actions, but of course I would NEVER advocate any of them.

In my dream the LDS Temple, as well as Catholic and Christian Right churches were vandalized daily since gays decided they all have WAY TOO MUCH MONEY if they can purchase H8 and demonize gays; businesses who supported PROP 8 were also vandalized for the same reason.

White powder shows up in tithing envelopes.

People spray-painted HATE or H8 on the sidewalks outside with arrows pointing towards gay-hating church doors.

Death threats and bomb scares disrupted H8 church services every Sunday across the USA.

I am NOT advocating these measures…..but they would not surprise me either.”

******************

These are the words of one deranged and slightly off-kilter commenter who frequents this site and who obviously has some fairly intense emotional build-up over the passage of proposition 8.

Now, imagine this guy knew you, not personally, but imagine he knew you donated money to the p8 political campaign and decided you had deeply and personally offended him?  Imagine he decided to make it personal in return?  Imagine he knew where you lived, had your street address, including how to get there— and imagine all this information was freely provided on the internet for no other purpose than to harass you?

Welcome to www.EightMaps.com where we provide the h8 maps for you to vent your hate!  Welcome every crazy, loony whack-job and thrill seeker!  If you don’t like how the election turned out, take your frustration out on your good neighbors who voted for it!

Sounds pretty American doesn’t it?  Let’s ask Tom Hanks about that…..but while we’re waiting for a real man’s answer, who is going to stand up and stop this kind of harassment from happening?

Who is going to remind the slightly unhinged gay activists that the election is over, and that it’s time to begin promoting healing and unity?

Not the able Governor.  Not our illustrious Senators.  Not the powerful media watch dogs either, they’re all too busy watching…  All these have shamefully remained in stony silence throughout the ugly aftermath of the marriage campaign.

It is time to step forward and put an end to the ugly politics and personal destruction of people who have the right and freedom to vote their conscience, free from harassment and intimidation.

After all, this isn’t the mafia, Venezuela, or communist Russia, this is America.

—Beetle Blogger

 

Technorati Tags: prop 8,prop 8 maps,prop h8,google maps,violence,tom hanks

Indiana| Next Up For Marriage Amendment

 Next Up For Marriage: Indiana

by Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow

Indiana wants the people to decide on a constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriage.

The Indiana Family Institute is at the helm of the drive. Spokesman Curt Smith admits efforts in the past have not been successful.

"We've met with a lot of legislative roadblocks," he shares. "But not to be deterred, we submitted new legislation, working with several very courageous state legislators -- and [we] hope that the Indiana General Assembly will pass it this session and allow the voters in the future to decide that marriage should be given the full protection of Indiana's constitution."

Under Indiana law, the measure would have to pass in two separately elected legislative bodies to go to the voters, which means a minimum of four years before it would appear on a ballot.

"But we're not going back off, and we're not going back down," Smith promises.
He believes the residents of the Hoosier State want the chance to make the decision. "I believe if given a chance to vote on this, Indiana would overwhelmingly pass it -- as have about two-thirds of Americans in the states where they've had the privilege of voting on this."

Currently, 30 states have constitutional amendments protecting traditional marriage. Another 11 have statutes banning same-sex "marriage."

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Related Articles:

MSNBC: Some Want to Revive calls for gay Marriage Ban

Technorati Tags: Indiana,gay marriage,same gender marriage,marriage amendment,indian family institute,traditional marriage

Merry Christmas

Technorati Tags: christmas,angels,mary,joseph,jesus,mother,father,marriage,family

Angels rejoiced in his birth. Shepherds came. Wise men followed a new star.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. --Isaiah 9:6

The baby Jesus was raised on earth by married parents--Mary his mother and Joseph his adopted father.

All children born on Earth deserve this same blessed situation.

A married mom and dad who love them.

Merry Christmas.

Attack on Parental Rights

Picture from SurlyGirl

Attack on Parental Rights

from ParentalRights.Org

The right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children has been recognized and upheld for centuries. But there are dark clouds on the horizon.

Today parental rights are coming under assault from federal judges who deny or refuse to recognize these rights. Adding further danger to the child-parent relationship, international law seeking to undermine the parental role is advancing on the horizon. Together, these threats are converging to create a "perfect storm" that looms over the child-parent relationship.

In the early 1980s, a landmark parental rights case reached the Washington State Supreme Court. The case involved 13-year-old Sheila Marie Sumey, whose parents were alarmed when they found evidence of their daughter's participation in illegal drug activity and escalating sexual involvement. Their response was to act immediately to cut off the negative influences in their daughter's life by grounding her.
But when Sheila went to her school counselors complaining about her parent's actions, she was advised that she could be liberated from her parents because there was "conflict between parent and child." Listening to the advice she had received, Sheila notified Child Protective Services (CPS) about her situation. She was subsequently removed from her home and placed in foster care.
Her parents, desperate to get their daughter back, challenged the actions of the social workers in court. They lost. Even though the judge found that Sheila's parents had enforced reasonable rules in a proper manner, the state law nevertheless gave CPS the authority to split apart the Sumey family and take Sheila away.

DANGEROUS PRECEDENT

Parental rights are under attack in our nation, with the first threat originating from within the federal court system. As this story illustrates, a growing disregard for parental rights has been spreading within the courts of our nation.
Across the country, many judges are beginning to deny the vital role of parents in the lives of their children, instead inserting the government into a "parental" role in a child's life. This dangerous assertion is leading to the severance of the child-parent relationship in numerous instances across the nation—removals that cause unnecessary pain to both children and their parents.

A thirteen-year-old boy in Washington State was removed from his parents after he complained to school counselors that his parents took him to church too often. His school counselors had encouraged him to call Child Protective Services with his complaint, which led to his subsequent removal and placement in foster care. It was only after the parents agreed to a judge's requirement of less-frequent church attendance that they were able to recover their son.

HANGING BY A THREAD

Not all judges hold a low view of parental rights. Some, like Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, believe that parental rights are among the "inalienable rights" of Americans enumerated in the Declaration of Independence but they are finding it increasingly difficult to rule in favor of parental rights when it is not explicitly included in the language of the Constitution.

Read the entire article here

The website has a lot of good resources (articles, information, etc.).

Camel in the Tent: New Jersey Civil Union Findings

We found this post on Beetle Blogger.

We think people should know about it.

“What do we want?” “Equality!” “When do we want it?” Now!”

“All we want is to be equal!” “Stop Treating us like second-class citizens!

Oh…No Wait…Equal Isn’t Enough.
Let’s Call it Marriage!

Camel nose in the tent strategy rears it’s head in New Jersey.

A New Jersey commission on the legal equality of civil unions in that state has weighed in on the marriage debate. After talking to everyone under the sun and not being able to find a single case where the legal benefits of civil unions differed from the legal benefits of marriage, the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission has determined that their state should accept gay marriage because civil unions are “too hard to understand”. This is a new tact for same sex advocate groups who have previously stated that all they wanted was to be able to have the same rights as married couples. Now that civil unions are equal under NJ law, the commission says it’s still not good enough. They need to take it to the next level.

The New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission (NJ-CURC) was established by the New Jersey Legislature after the passage of the Civil Union Act in February of 2007. The Civil Union Act gave civil unions statewide, all of the legal benefits that were afforded married couples. The duty of the commission was to study all aspects of the Civil Union Act, which authorized civil unions. The Commission’s duties included evaluating the implementation, operation and effectiveness of the act.

There are two obvious problems with the credibility of this study. First, the commission was universally comprised of same sex marriage advocates who elevated anecdotal evidence over actual testimony, and second, they totally missed the boat on the purpose of their commission. They basically heard a bunch of private citizens and gay activist groups saying “it’s not the same… we want the word marriage”, and responded to that rather than just doing their job which was to make sure that there was no legal discrimination against civil unions.

They were supposed to come back with results like, “this law makes same sex unions and marriage equal under the law” or “same sex unions are unequal in the following areas.” What they did say was same sex unions are too complex for hospitals and others to understand so we should make Civil Unions into Marriages. This conclusion was based on, as far as I can tell, absolutely no firsthand testimony.
State Healthcare Facility Director, John Calabria who is responsible for responding to complaints from citizens of New Jersey about medical institutions testified directly to them that “We have received no complaints” regarding the compliance of medical facilities to the Civil Union Act. Although the agency receives 8000-9000 complaints per year, none of them was about being discriminated against in a medical institution.
New Jersey Director of the Division of Taxation, Maureen Adams was given the leading question, “If the state moved to marriage, how that might affect [the taxation of citizens with civil unions] that you’ve just testified to?” She responded, “There would be no fiscal impact, any filing impact, has all been realized with the Civil Union Law.” AKA you can’t give these people anything to make them more equal.

On the other hand, impassioned testimony from Peggy Sheahan-Knee who is the President of the New Jersey State Bar Association agrees with the commission. She claimed multiple people were discriminated against and denied access to their loved ones in medical institutions. The trouble is that she didn’t provide any specific examples in her testimony. Not only that but her integrity is somewhat in question since she also stated emphatically that, “The Civil Union Law fails to provide equal rights to same-sex couples” but was was unable to provide a single example of this. She provided several examples where the law was misunderstood by the public but none where the law failed to provide equal rights.

So what is the whole conclusion to this befuddled mess? “Since civil unions and marriages are the same, let’s give them the same name to reduce confusion.”

Here’s a newsflash for the Commission….reducing confusion was not on the menu, legal rights were. All this time we’ve been hearing ad nauseum about the gay community needing rights, wanting rights, demanding rights. Now they have them and they’re still not happy. Now we have to have the name, marriage, which is what the whole ordeal has been about from the beginning.

It’s not about rights.

The Associated Press release can be found here

These Are Only Words, So Don't Read Them

Another great editorial from Fitz over at The Opine Editorials.  This is a witty must-read.

From LifeSiteNews.com:

When protesters took to the streets in a nationwide rally against California's true marriage amendment, Proposition 8, students from Saint Louis University (SLU), a Jesuit-run school, joined about 1,400 others gathered on the steps of the St. Louis courthouse.

College Republicans president Amy Kaufman attended the rally, and despite holding a sign reading, "You can't legislate love, Republican against Prop. 8," she told the newspaper that she could not understand why the definition of marriage mattered at all.

"There are bigger problems in the world. This is absurd that people are fighting so hard over the definition of a word,"said Kaufman.

That's right, Ms. Kaufman. Words are such a bore and defining words is even worse. It's [don't insert word here]. And it's really absurd when some words mean more than one thing! Fly. Rock. Land. Play. Fire. MVP. Catholic. The list is endless; without words, it's much less.

You're right: "marriage" is just one more word that is not worth bothering with. (Be sure to mention this to your boyfriend.) And so, in the spirit of making the world a wordless place, I offer you some slogans to use, free of charge:

• "This is a word-free zone. Honor our unspoken wishes. Please ask if you have questions."

• "Words: Just another government conspiracy meant to deprive people of their God-given, undefined rights."

• "Words are for birds. Mostly parrots."

• "Wordless: A stateless of mind."

• "A word less each day keeps the dictionary at bay."

• "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. Because names are words and they don't mean anything."

• "I don't believe in marriage. Mostly because I can't define it."

Oh, and it goes without saying that you should ignore everything I've written here. As the great philosophical trio, the Bee-Gees, once sang: "You think that I don't even mean/A single word I say; it's only words..." Remember, you can't legislate words. Or define "legislate." Or define "define", for that matter. Word up!

From Carl Olson at Ignatius/Press Insight/Scoop Blog

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