The mainstream media always give top billing to the sexual orientation of news makers, except when the news reflects poorly on sexually deviant minorities. A case in point is the fact that Amtrak's homosexual engineer Brandon Bostian, responsible for this week's train derailment in Philadelphia, is documented as a Gay Agenda activist.
For background, click headlines below to read previous articles:
The Midtown Gazette in Manhattan interviewed Bostonian in 2012 at a rally for equal rights in New York.
That article said,
Brandon Bostian, a recent transplant to New York, attended the event. Bostian was active in the [California] Proposition 8 fight, which defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman, in San Francisco. While he is still interested in working for marriage equality, Bostian admitted that he is less enthusiastic this time around. “It’s kind of insulting to have to beg people for my right to marry,” he said. “I feel like we shouldn’t even have to have this fight.”
Tasha Bartholomew, the spokesperson for Caltrain and Sam Trans confirmed that 32-year-old Brandon Bostian did operate Caltrain trains several years ago, as an Amtrak employee.
The Tennessee native used to live in Memphis, and graduated from University of Missouri-Columbia in 2006 with a degree in business management and administration.
During his studies he was a member of the Acacia fraternity, according to his Linkedin page, which allegedly has ties to Freemasonry.
He also worked as a cashier at Target between 2005 and 2006.
Bostian is a gay-rights activist who previously lived in San Francisco before moving to New York. In 2012, he was interviewed by the Midtown Gazette, which covers parts of Manhattan, during the campaign for marriage equality.
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Mutter responded to the National Transportation Safety Board briefing on Wednesday evening by saying that it proved 'reckless driving by the engineer' in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN.
When Michael Griffin told administrators of Holy Ghost Preparatory School near Philadelphia that he would be "marrying" another man, the leaders told him that such action would result in him being fired for breaching the employment contract requirement to live in conformance with Catholic teaching. After taking such action, and being fired, Griffin went before media cameras criticizing the school for holding him to his contract, thus advocating President Obama's insistence on passing new legislation (ENDA) to force Christian schools to hire anti-Christians.
Father James McCloskey, the school's headmaster, said in a statement that faculty at the school are required to follow church teachings, NBC Philadelphia reported.
He said in the statement that Griffin's decision "contradicts the terms of his teaching contract at our school, which requires all faculty and staff to follow the teachings of the Church as a condition of their employment. In discussion with Mr. Griffin, he acknowledged that he was aware of this provision, yet he said that he intended to go ahead with the ceremony."
Griffin, who graduated from the school and has taught French and Spanish there for 12 years, said that his relationship with his partner of 12 years wasn't a secret from the school and that his partner had even been to McCloskey's house.
Griffin lives in New Jersey, which became the 14th state to recognize same-sex marriage in October.
Michael Griffin says he emailed the principal of Holy Ghost Prep earlier in the week saying he may be late Friday, that he was applying for a marriage license. After an in-service day he says he was called into the office of School President Father James McCloskey, along with Principal Jeffrey Danilak.
Griffin explains, "He said, 'It's not really a secret here that you're gay.' I said, 'Correct.' He said, 'I assume this is a same sex marriage.' 'Yes.' He said if I go through with it, he had no choice but to terminate my position."
In tears, he left. His over a decade-long tenure at Holy Ghost was over.
Holy Ghost Preparatory is a 116-year-old all-boys private Catholic high school in Bensalem, Pa., about 15 miles northeast of Philadelphia. Griffin graduated from the school in 1996 and taught French and Spanish there for nearly 13 years before being fired on Friday, according to the school's website.
While Griffin's fate may sound outrageous, the U.S. still has a long way to go to protect homosexuals from workplace discrimination. Under federal law, Pennsylvania state law, and by law in 28 other states, it is still perfectly legal to fire someone because of their sexual orientation.
While President Obama was in Boston speaking of Americans choosing life over those “who would visit death upon innocents” and saying that “we come together to celebrate life,” witnesses testified at the murder trial of Kermit Gosnell of live babies in his abortion clinic toilet being killed. Although Barack Obama has often spoke in support of late-term abortionists like Gosnell, this week he said “Well, I’m familiar with it. I can’t comment on it because it’s an active trial.”
President Barack Obama reaffirmed his commitment to abortion rights as he stressed the importance of “medical ethics” in an exclusive interview with NBC’s “Today” show when he weighed in on the trial of Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell.
In the interview, he noted that he was “familiar” with the trial of Gosnell, which has sparked outrage from some on both sides of the political spectrum, as many on the right — and some on the left — have charged that the mainstream media has not sufficiently covered the case, which involves gruesome allegations including of murder. Obama said he couldn’t comment, however.
The president was speaking at in interfaith prayer service for those who killed or injured by the bombing at Monday’s Boston Marathon.
“You showed us Boston that in the face of evil, Americans will lift up what is good,” said Obama. “In the face of cruelty, we will choose compassion. In the face of those who would visit death upon innocents we will choose to save to comfort and to heal. We will choose friendship. We will choose love.”
“We build and we work and we love and we raise our kids to do the same,” Obama said. “And we come together to celebrate life and to walk our cities . . .
Prosecutors chose 28-year-old Kareema Cross as their final witness before resting their case against Dr. Kermit Gosnell. Cross said she saw more than 10 babies breathe, with their chests moving up and down.
"I thought they were breathing," Cross testified. "He would say they're not really breathing."
Cross also described seeing three babies move, one after being born in a toilet, and heard a fourth give a "soft whine." Gosnell explained the movements as a last reflex amid the death process, she said.
She said Gosnell and others snipped the backs of the babies' necks after they were born "to ensure fetal demise." And she described the clinic as filthy and the equipment as outdated.
Adrienne Moton, an employee at the clinic, then took the baby [from the toilet] and snipped the back of its neck while the mother was still in the room.
. . . [Another] baby was born alive, [while the mother, Shayquana] Abrams was sleeping. Cross said Dr. Gosnell took the baby boy, which she described as 12 to 18 inches long, and put him inside a plastic container the size of a shoebox.
“The baby was still breathing,” she said. “He didn’t cut the neck right there.”
The baby was too big for the plastic container, with his arms and legs hanging over the sides.
“The Doctor cut the back of the baby’s neck but didn’t do suction—normally Dr. Gosnell would do suction … to suck the brains out,” Cross said.
“I called people over to come see it [the baby] and we took pictures,” she said.
The baby boy had curled himself into the fetal position and laid on his side in the box. An image of the baby taken by Cross was shown to the court, showing him laying lifeless on his side.
If “a baby was about to come out, I would take the woman to the bathroom, they would sit on the toilet and basically the baby would fall out and it would be in the toilet and I would be rubbing her back and trying to calm her down for two, three, four hours until Dr. Gosnell comes,” [clinic worker Latosha] Lewis told the grand jury.
Gosnell preferred to have the babies expel “because it made his job easier,” reads the [grand jury] report, which adds, “If fetuses had not precipitated, Gosnell would often have his staff physically push them out of their mothers by pressing in the mother’s abdomens.”
The report continues: “James Johnson, who supposedly cleaned the clinic and bagged its infectious waste, confirmed Lewis’s account. He testified that sometimes patients ‘miscarried or whatever it was’ into the toilet and clogged it.”
“He described how he had to lift the toilet so that someone else – he said it was too disgusting for him – could get the fetuses out of the pipes,” reads the grand jury report.
"Baby cries out moments before doctor kills him" -- a likely headline of the evening news; if it bleeds, it leads.
However, it's NOT a leading news story if the killings occur at an abortion clinic. The trial of Kermit Gosnell for eight counts of murder at his Philadelphia clinic is NOT being reported by any national mainstream broadcast media, for obvious reasons: It exposes the gruesome details of abortion.
“I only do what I'm told to do. ... I never knew it was murder.” -- Lynda Williams, former staffer of Gosnell's Women's Medical Society clinic
Dr. Kermit Gosnell was an abortionist, meaning that any coverage of the trial risks painting the pro-choice movement in an unflattering light. In a statement issued last week, 20 conservative leaders called for an end to what they described as a “media blackout” and “censoring” of the trial for political reasons.
[The Media Research Center] reports that there has been no network coverage on ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, NPR or PBS, and just one brief mention on CNN.
Not every murder trial receives prominent national coverage, but the Gosnell case would seem to contain all the ingredients of must-see television: a formerly respected community leader accused of unspeakable acts; the death of a young immigrant woman; a parade of former employees offering graphic testimony on the gruesome deaths of more than 100 just-born infants; and even the implication by the doctor’s lawyers that the charges have been motivated by racism. Dr. Gosnell is black and his clinic was in a mostly minority neighborhood.
Conservative media watchdog groups are criticizing mainstream media networks and cable news channels for ignoring the murder trial of Kermit Gosnell, a late-term abortion provider who is accused of killing seven babies who were born alive and one patient who died from an overdose of Demerol that was administered by the clinic's unlicensed staff.
District Attorney R. Seth Williams laid out the case against Gosnell, his wife, Pearl, and eight other employees, including one 15-year-old, in a grand jury report last year, which reveals that Gosnell profited $10,000 to $15,000 a day at his late-term abortion clinic — not including the $200,000 he made from writing 2,300 illegal prescriptions for OxyContin and other addictive drugs.
The criminal case against Gosnell began on March 18 and is expected to continue for four to eight more weeks. If jurors convict Gosnell, he could face the death penalty . . .
The fourth week of testimony in Dr, Kermit Gosnell's "House of Horrors" trial began with another former employee testifying about what she saw and what she did while she worked at the Women's Medical Society.
[Sherry] West testified that once during an abortion procedure, she was very disturbed when a baby made a screeching noise. She said it was not fully-developed and "it sounded like a little alien. It really freaked me out," West told the courtroom.
West, who has pleaded guilty to 3rd degree murder and conspiracy, said tearfully that she is not guilty of her crimes and that she felt loyal to Gosnell.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, owner of the Women's Medical Society clinic in West Philadelphia, taught her how to flip a baby's body over and do the procedure, said Lynda Williams, 44, of Wilmington, Del. But one time when she followed his orders after a baby was delivered in a toilet at the clinic, she saw the newborn move.
"It jumped, the arm," she said, showing the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury by raising her arm.
Williams told investigators she only snipped a neck the one time "because it gave me the creeps."
Williams said she asked Gosnell about the movement. Gosnell told her it was an "involuntary response" and a "last breath" because the fetus was "already dead" from drugs that had been administered earlier.
Amidst this month’s arguments that cultural changes are “inevitable” and irresistible, the abortion industry’s constant setbacks — both in public opinion and in legislatures across the country — must frustrate and puzzle the sexual revolutionaries. As the saying goes, reality always gets a vote, and the reality of abortion is unspeakably brutal. The abortion industry thrives only by shielding the public from as much of that brutality as possible. Abortion advocates can scream “Todd Akin” all they want, but Todd Akin never killed a screaming, crying child. Kermit Gosnell did.
. . . The abortion industry, born in racism and eugenics, thrives through diversion and deception. By contrast, an effective short tactical mission statement for the pro-life community would be simply this: Tell the truth — as often as you can, to as many audiences as you can.
To read the entire opinion column above, CLICK HERE.
If a tree falls in the forest . . . or . . . If over ten thousand Christians pray on the streets of Philadelphia but there's zero media there, do they make a noise? America for Jesus, a coalition of ministries, has organized prayer assemblies across America calling for Christians to take seriously 2 Chronicles 7:14 and pray for revival and even for a Third Great Awakening.
"America is in a state of emergency evidenced by widespread moral depravity and economic meltdown. There is only one remedy; we need to renew our covenant with God. We are calling America back to God and proclaiming liberty and freedom over our nation." -- Anne Gimenez, National Chairperson, America for Jesus
“We have to be salt and light. We have to redirect this country back toward the light as people of God.” -- Governor Rick Perry (R-Texas)
“America’s ultimate hope doesn’t rest with the president but with God. Its ultimate problem isn’t political but spiritual. However, the political realm affects every other and holds a critical place. The Scriptures record that unrighteous and ungodly leaders can lead a nation away from God and to judgment, while righteous and godly leaders can lead a nation to restoration. America is at a critical juncture.” -- Rabbi Jonathan Cahn
Thousands of people packed a prayer rally at Philadelphia's Independence Mall Saturday where evangelist Pat Robertson declared "this nation belongs to Jesus."
"I don't care what the ACLU says or any atheist says, this nation belongs to Jesus," Robertson said.
The rally was part of a two-day event organized by a coalition of ministries called One Nation under God.
The group is calling for 40 days of prayer leading up to the presidential election.
[Family Research Council president Tony] Perkins asked the crowd to pray for elected officials including Obama.
Speakers throughout the day condemned abortion, gay marriage and population control as practiced by Planned Parenthood. Christian rock music filled the historic mall as speakers challenged the crowd to overcome the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and slothfulness.
The rally was held outside of Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed. Pennsylvania is also where evangelist George Whitefield preached during the first Great Awakening, the 18th-century religious revival that spread through the American colonies.
Organizers plan another prayer rally Oct. 20 in Washington, D.C., two weeks before President Barack Obama faces Republican Mitt Romney in the presidential election.
Christian conservatives who blame "moral depravity" for everything from the recession to terrorism are converging on Philadelphia for a rally they hope will spark a religious revival as Election Day nears.
John Blanchard, national coordinator for "America for Jesus 2012," said the two-day event starting Friday night is nonpartisan. It's modeled after the 1980 "Washington for Jesus" rally, considered a pivotal show of organizational strength by the then-fledgling Christian right. Bishop Anne Gimenez, whose late husband John helped lead the 1980 assembly, is a lead organizer of the Philadelphia gathering.
David Barton, a self-taught historian who emphasizes the Christian roots of the U.S., is another rally supporter. Barton wrote in a Feb. 29 article that Obama has shown "hostility toward Biblical people of faith" while giving "preferential treatment" to Muslims.
Today, the United States faces multiple crises — a potential economic collapse, moral disintegration, growing secular humanism, attacks on religious liberty, a spate of historic natural disasters, and a severe drought, according to “40 Days to Save America.”
These crises — together more daunting than those Americans faced in 1776, 1863, and 1941— are beyond the power of human beings to resolve without divine intervention — and “nothing short of a Third Great Awakening can save us,” according to the campaign.
. . . faith leaders are calling on pastors, priests, and rabbis to open their churches and synagogues for 40 days of prayer and fasting. They are also calling for “Christian and Jewish voters to make informed choices, voting not as Republicans or Democrats, but as followers of the living God.”
"I urge everybody listening to commit to these 40 days … to commit to spreading the word about this extraordinary event, commit to encouraging your fellow members of your congregation, or for that matter the people you work around daily, to join you in committing to taking the decisive action we need to spread God's grace throughout the United States," Perry said during the call as reported by the Statesman.com.
"Satan runs across the world with his doubt and his untruths and what have you, and one of the untruths out there (that) is driven is that people of faith should not be involved in the public arena," Perry said.
"And it falls on us. I mean we truly are Christian warriors, Christian soldiers, and it's for us as Americans to stand our ground and to firmly send a message to Washington that our nation is about more than some secular laws and activist courts," he added
Reversing a lower-court judgment, the United States 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Indian River [Delaware] School District’s policy allowing board members to open meetings with prayer unconstitutionally promoted Christianity over other religions and excessively entangled church and state.
While U.S. District Judge Joseph J. Farnan Jr. [previously] ruled the school board did not violate the law because it was more akin to an elected body than a school, the appeals court ruled the opposite was true and the prayers amounted to a state endorsement of one religion over others.
"In arriving at this outcome, we recognize, as the Supreme Court has, that 'religion has been closely identified with our history and government,' " wrote Circuit Court Judge Julio M. Fuentes in a 74-page opinion for the panel, which included Circuit Court Judge Jane Roth. "But we take to heart the observation ... that '(i)t is neither sacrilegious nor anti-religious to say that each separate government in this country should stay out of the business of writing or sanctioning official prayers and leave that purely religious function to the people themselves.' "
IR Superintendent Susan Bunting said the district's next step will be to meet with the lawyer to discuss the details to decide what's next.
The ruling can be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Prayers before school board meetings are commonplace in the United States, though certainly not everywhere.
The 3rd Circuit case involves the 8,400-student Indian River school district in Delaware, which has had prayers at its board meetings since its founding in 1969, court papers say. In 2004, the district formalized its board meeting prayer policy, which calls for board members to rotate in leading a prayer or moment of silence to "solemnify" formal meetings. The policy says prayers may be sectarian or non-sectarian, "in the name of a Supreme Being, Jehovah, Jesus Christ, Buddha, Allah," or any other entity.
Two families challenged the board prayers as a violation of the First Amendment's prohibition against government establishment of religion. A federal district court upheld the practice. But in its Aug. 5 decision in Doe v. Indian River School District, the 3rd Circuit court panel said the board's policy and practices cannot be squared with the establishment clause.
At each meeting, the Delaware school board would open with a prayer offered by one of the board members. The Court of Appeals had a concern about the prayers-- which were usually Christian in their orientation-- since students usually attended the meeting to receive awards or as part of their extra-curricular activities.
The panel stated that the meetings were comparable to graduation ceremonies. Although the meetings were not mandatory, the judges felt that the students were nevertheless coerced into participating in religious exercises. Therefore, the Court of Appeals decided that the primary effect of the school board’s prayer policy was to advance a specific religion and violated the U.S. Constitution.
The school board argued the prayers are legal citing a 1983 Supreme Court ruling recognizing a long tradition of using prayer to “solemnize” public gatherings. . . .
The Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit, however, said the Delaware school board’s meetings were more like a graduation ceremony than a session of Congress. While not technically mandatory, the court said the school board encouraged student participation with practices like awards ceremonies, color guards from school JROTC groups and inclusion of student-government representatives.
The U.S. Supreme Court first ruled against prayer in public schools in 1962, followed a year later by a ruling that forbade daily Bible reading. Since the 1980s courts have judged Establishment Clause cases based on three criteria: whether a government’s practice has a “secular purpose,” its primary purpose is to advance religion or it creates excessive entanglement between government and religion.
Using that standard, the court said the Indian River prayer policy “rises above the level of interaction between church and state that the Establishment Clause permits.”
Students paid $150 each to attend a business symposium at LaSalle University, billed in advance as including strippers. The professor "teaching" the class was caught in the act by the dean of the business school, and was subsequently suspended.
Rappaport was in the front of the classroom and three bikini-clad and miniskirted women were on top of him giving him a lap dance, according to Brad Bernardino, a sophomore at La Salle who attended the March 21 session. At various other times, Bernardino added, the strippers gave willing students lap dances, and a PowerPoint presentation related to business ethics ran in the background.
Officials at La Salle University, a Catholic university in Philadelphia, said they were "very concerned" about the allegations and have "launched a full-scale investigation into what took place and who was responsible."
The 57-year-old Rappaport's seminar reportedly cost each student $150 to attend and earned the students extra credit in Rappaport's business class.
. . . The Philadelphia City Paper interviewed students, who said three dancers, dressed in bikinis or miniskirts and high heels, had already arrived when approximately 30 students (two of whom were female) entered the classroom. Our CBS affiliate reports that about 45 minutes in, the lecture was broken up by Paul Brazina, dean of the business school. . . .
On a popular site where college students rank their professors, some comments show insight into other lectures Rappaport has held before. One comment says, "Extremely strange man. loves gambling, horse racing and strip joints. talks about all of the above all the time. doesn't like to teach. smart man about stats. easy A."
. . . The symposium's subject, the students say, was the application of Platonic and Hegelian ethics to business.
The mere presence of these women was not entirely surprising, apparently, to Rappaport's students, who say that he regularly reminded his classes that the strippers had been booked. But "I was surprised they actually gave lap dances," said the same student. "I thought they were just there for effect, like he always said."
"Every student that went knew what they were getting themselves into," said another student.
The Philadelphia Department of Health has launched a massive free condom giveaway to children from a website that includes explicit instructions on condom usage and more (see videos at bottom).
Philadelphia's new campaign to educate young teens on the dangers of sexual activity has sparked some hot debate around town.
The new Web site is called www.takecontrolphilly.org and it is run by the Philadelphia Department Of Health (and funded with taxpayer dollars).
The Web site asks people to acknowledge they are between 11 and 19 years of age before they submit a request for free condoms. Female condoms are also available but must be picked up in person at one or five local offices.
While it is important to educate, many people are asking how young is too young?
The program, offered by the city's Department of Health, features a website that includes facts on diseases like Chlamydia, gonorrhea and HIV/AIDS, as well as detailed -- and playful -- instructions for young girls on how to use female condoms.
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter unveiled the campaign on April 7 as he announced the winning design for the city's custom-labeled condom wrapper.
While giving away condoms to children as young as 11 might "seem a little young" to Kevin Burns, executive director of Action AIDS, a health clinic in Philadelphia listed on TakeControlPhilly.org, he said the free condom program is appropriate.
One parent in Philadelphia, however, told the Philadelphia Daily News that sending condoms to kids as young as 11 -- perhaps without their parents' knowledge -- isn't responsible.
The following are just two examples of the instructional videos on the Health Department website (specifically directed to children) -- WARNING, explicit and graphic sexual content:
U.S. District Judge Mary McLaughlin is siding with students in a free-speech test case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. McLaughlin issued a temporary injunction Tuesday that bars the Easton Area School District [in eastern Pennsylvania] from enforcing its ban on the $4 rubber bracelets.
McLaughlin heard testimony from Easton middle school students in December. She finds the bracelets are being worn to promote breast cancer awareness.
Easton school officials argue the slogan suggests a sexual double meaning and leads to in-school distractions. Easton is one of several school districts around the country to ban the bracelets.
Judge McLaughlin found that the school district had not proved that the bracelets were crude nor vulgar, nor had it shown the jewelery would disrupt the school's operations.
"The bracelets are intended to be and they can reasonably be viewed as speech designed to raise awareness of breast cancer and to reduce stigma associated with openly discussing breast health," McLaughlin wrote in a memorandum on the injunction.
The district's attorney, John E. Freund III, said he was disappointed by the ruling but had yet to confer with the school board about a possible appeal.
"It is inconceivable that the court did not recognize that the bracelets were meant to titillate," Freund said, noting that a porn actress had sought to associate herself with the bracelets and that truck stops were interested in selling them.
He added, "There's no group more distractible than 12- to 14-year-old middle school boys."
Brianna Hawk, 13, and Kayla Martinez, 12, had been wearing the bracelets since the beginning of the school year when school officials decided to ban them, asserting that the slogan was a lewd double entendre.
Delaware's medical regulators have suspended licenses of two abortionists associated with Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist who is charged with the murder of only seven of the thousands of babies he has killed, as well as one mother.
[Delaware] Attorney General Beau Biden requested on Friday the emergency suspension of Dr. Arturo Apolinario's license. Apolinario will not be allowed to practice medicine pending a hearing.
Earlier this month, state officials also suspended Dr. Albert Dworkin's license. Authorities contend the two physicians have worked with Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who is charged with eight counts of murder for the deaths of seven babies and one patient at the Women's Medical Society clinic in Philadelphia.
Delaware's most recent complaint against Apolinario detailed the case of a 17-year-old girl, whose aunt paid Atlantic [Women's Medical Services' clinic] $2,500 for an abortion in July 2008. An ultrasound showed the girl's pregnancy was 29 weeks along.
According to the complaint, Gosnell began the abortion process at Atlantic in Wilmington [Delaware], then instructed the girl to report to his Philadelphia facility the next day to complete the procedure. After 13 hours of labor, the girl gave birth to a baby boy who was 18 to 19 inches long, according to sworn testimony by an eyewitness. According to testimony, Gosnell slit the baby's neck with scissors and "put him in a box where he continued to move for some time until he died."
Delaware prosecutors are also seeking a cease-and-desist order against Panzy Myrie, Atlantic's owner, for improperly advertising herself as a doctor. They're also seeking fines against Atlantic. While the state's complaints could result in fines and suspensions, they are civil, so they will not result in any jail time.
Prosecutors in Philadelphia say they will seek the death penalty against a doctor charged with killing a patient and seven babies at his abortion clinic.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell is charged with running a filthy medical practice that allegedly served as a pill mill by day and an abortion mill by night.
City prosecutors cite as aggravating circumstances the multiple deaths and the tender age of the babies allegedly killed with scissors after being born alive.
A murder case involving a sordid Philadelphia abortion clinic is fueling debate about how clinics should be run, with several states considering stricter regulations. Abortion rights groups say that could force some clinics to close and make abortions more expensive.
Some abortion opponents in Pennsylvania and other states say the regulations, even if enforced, were not enough. Delaware, Maryland and Oklahoma are among the states looking into stricter regulations in the wake of the Gosnell incident. About a week ago, Virginia lawmakers passed a bill that requires most clinics to be regulated as ambulatory surgical centers.
"I don't think that this is going to stop 'cause I don't think the Gosnell situation is going to disappear for awhile," [Daniel McConchie, with Americans United for Life] says. "He is going to go to trial and frankly, the horrific nature of what went on at his clinic is something that people just don't easily forget."
Some anti-abortion activists in Philadelphia say they hope to raise money as a result of the Gosnell case — enough to buy his clinic and turn it into a crisis pregnancy center that would not offer abortion.
These parents of First Century Gospel Church in Philadelphia routinely prayed to God for their eight children, but when their 2-year-old son died of pneumonia, they were arrested for not recognizing the seriousness of his illness and for not placing their faith in "modern medicine."
A fundamentalist Christian couple who tried relying on prayer to cure their dying toddler must take their remaining children for medical check-ups as part of their sentence in the boy's death.
A Philadelphia judge also sentenced Herbert and Catherine Schaible to 10 years of probation Wednesday. They were convicted in December of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment in the pneumonia death of their 2-year-old son, Kent.
Prosecutors argued adults can choose to forgo medical care for themselves, but not for their children. Defense lawyers said the parents did not know how sick Kent was before his death in January 2009.
Time Magazine published two articles, each presenting an excuse for the infanticide by the abortionist now charged with multiple counts of murder: The reason for the horrific crimes, according to Time, is either 1) poverty or 2) the ever-increasing restrictions on abortions beyond the first trimester.
“As a rule, any law restricting abortion is almost automatically going to make abortion more dangerous for women.”
Depending on where people fall in the reproductive rights vs. fetal rights debate, their views on abortion doctors are different. To some, these doctors are heroic figures, helping needy women in the face of considerable public opprobrium, if not death threats. To others, they're taking away the lives of the yet-to-be-born. But if the grand-jury report released Wednesday by the Philadelphia district attorney is to be believed, abortion provider Dr. Kermit Gosnell would be hard for anyone to defend.
. . . the sad truth is that Gosnell's long-running practice probably has much more to do with poverty than with Roe v. Wade.
[Gosnell] is alleged to have performed illegal late-term abortions (in Pennsylvania, the law prohibits abortion later than 24 weeks). These procedures are difficult, so Gosnell's method, according to the charges, was to induce labor, deliver a live baby then kill it — or "ensure fetal demise," as Gosnell referred to it. He did this, the grand-jury report says, by "sticking scissors into the back of the baby's neck and cutting the spinal cord."
[Gosnell] was a health-care provider of last resort. Many of the women who came were too young, or too far along in their pregnancies to be treated by the mainstream medical establishment. They came because they were out of options or, at least, they believed they were.
Many of Gosnell's clients might have been afraid to report him because it would have meant admitting an illegal act on their part.
. . . Pennsylvania, like most states, [restrict when abortions can be performed]; it bans them after 24 weeks.
For sure, late abortions have the potential to be more dangerous than first-trimester abortions. The fetus is larger, the uterus is larger, and there is a greater chance of serious complications. But early abortions can be deadly too [sic] if they're not done properly.
When abortion is restricted . . . only the well-off have access to the procedure.
The 281-page grand jury report (see full embedded document below) released Wednesday provides a bone-chilling account of how Gosnell’s “Women’s Medical Society” systematically preyed on poor, minority pregnant women and their live, viable babies. The report’s introduction lays out the criminal enterprise that claimed the lives of untold numbers of babies — and mothers:
“This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable, babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels – and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths. Over the years, many people came to know that something was going on here. But no one put a stop to it.”
Deadly indifference to protecting life isn’t tangential to the abortion industry’s existence – it’s at the core of it. The Philadelphia Horror is no anomaly. It’s the logical, blood-curdling consequence of an evil, eugenics-rooted enterprise wrapped in feminist clothing.
To read the entire opinion column above, CLICK HERE.
The Boy Scouts' First Amendment rights were violated, a federal jury decided, when the city tried to force an eviction of the BSA from their offices saying that the Scouts' moral convictions against homosexual behavior is discriminatory.
Unrelated to the Philadelphia case is the lawsuit reported below in this ABC News video; sexual abuse of scouts by homosexual leaders has been a problem for decades:
"We can't be kicked out of the building or evicted, and we don't have to pay any rent," scouts attorney William M. McSwain said after the unanimous verdict by a jury of six women and two men.
That's not necessarily the end of the dispute, however.
The jury's answers to the 11 questions on the verdict sheet were "inconsistent," City Solicitor Shelley Smith said, "and when verdict sheets have inconsistent answers, the potential exists that the verdict is flawed. We will be exploring our options."
Mayor Nutter said in a statement, "While the good work of the Boy Scouts cannot be disputed, the city remains steadfast in its commitment to prevent its facilities from being used to disadvantage certain groups."
In 2007, the scouts were ordered to vacate the 80-year-old headquarters they had occupied rent-free, or pay $200,000 a year to lease the building from the Fairmount Park Commission.
The scouts can now ask the court to order the city to pay legal fees of about $860,000.
A jury took only five hours to decide against the city and the firm of Schnader, Harrison, Segal and Lewis, which donated hundreds of otherwise billable hours to assist the city solicitor.
. . . In 2003, the council agreed to a compromise that would have allowed the city to continue to charge only nominal rent for the headquarters that the Scouts built in 1928 [with organization funds,] on city property at 22nd and Winter streets.
But that agreement quickly unraveled. The Boy Scouts of America cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that private organizations can't be forced to accept homosexuals. It threatened to decertify the local council if it compromised on this point.
The city still maintains that the terms of its original agreement allow it to evict the Scouts without citing a reason. One of the attorneys for the Scouts said as much in his closing argument.
. . . the city is likely to file post-trial motions and may look for a "more global" approach to the eviction that is not specific to the Scouts.
DEA and FBI agents raided the Pennsylvania abortion clinic after allegations of a mother's death, during abortion procedures, and reports of dozens of frozen fetuses within the clinic.
The [license] suspension, issued by the State Board of Medicine, came after a hours-long search of Kermit B. Gosnell's practice, Women's Medical Society, at 3801 Lancaster Ave. in Powelton Village.
The suspension order says the conditions of the clinic were "deplorable and unsanitary."
It states: "There was blood on the floor, and parts of aborted fetuses were displayed in jars."
The order calls Gosnell's continued practice of medicine "an immediate and clear danger to the public health and safety."
The suspension order also alleges that on or about Nov. 20, a patient died after being treated at the clinic by an unlicensed employee.
Few details about the investigation have been made public. Special Agent J.J. Klaver, an FBI spokesman, said he couldn't discuss why federal agents were at the clinic last week because of a sealed search warrant.
According to documents from the New York Department of Health, Gosnell had been authorized to practice medicine in that state in 1970. Those documents show that Gosnell was fined $1,000 in 1996 by the Pennsylvania Board of Medicine for employing an uncertified physician's assistant.
The 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia has upheld a school district's ban on Christmas carols such as "Silent Night," "Joy to the World," "Oh, Come All Ye Faithful" and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" – and approved "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman."
"Certainly, those of us who were educated in the public schools remember holiday celebrations replete with Christmas carols, and possibly even Hanukkah songs, to which no objection had been raised," the court said in its ruling.
"Since then, the governing principles have been examined and defined with more particularity. Many decisions about how to best create an inclusive environment in public schools, such as those at issue here, are left to the sound discretion of the school authorities."
In the Nov. 24 ruling the Third Circuit approved the school policy banning all religious Christmas music, including instrumentals, that had been part of the South Orange–Maplewood School District's Christmas program for years – until one parent complained.
Attorneys with the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Mich., argued to reverse a lower-court ruling affirming the policy. The firm argued the district's ban on religious music conveys a government-sponsored message of disapproval and hostility toward religion in violation of the Establishment Clause.
The complaint was filed on behalf of Michael Stratechuk and his children in the district. The ban deprived the Stratechuk children the right to receive information and ideas, the suit asserts, an inherent corollary of their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and academic freedom.
Thomas More Law Center attorney Robert Muise indicated the case is not over. Muise said he will ask the Third Circuit to rehear it on both substantive and procedural errors. If denied, the Law Center indicated it will most likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Marple Newtown School District in suburban Philadelphia told plaintiff Donna Kay Busch in October 2004 that she could not read the Bible passages during her son's "All About Me" program. The school did permit the boy to discuss a poster that included references to his church as well as his family, pet and best friend.
"Parents of public school kindergarten students may reasonably expect their children will not become captive audiences to an adult's reading of religious texts," Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in the split 2-1 opinion, which upheld a lower court decision.
Schools can more tightly control speech presented to younger students, who may not distinguish a parent from their teacher, the ruling said.
Busch argued that the class heard stories related to Passover, Christmas and other religious holidays, but the court concluded there was a "significant difference" between identifying such holidays and reading from Scripture.
Principal Thomas Cook of Culbertson Elementary School believed such a reading would "proselytize ... a specific religious point of view," the opinion stated.
Busch, who describes herself as an evangelical Christian, is contemplating an appeal, according to lawyer Jason Gosselin. He said he took the case pro bono after a request from The Rutherford Institute, which focuses on First Amendment and religious freedom issues. Busch had contacted the group.
Anti-homosexual activists arrested during Philadelphia's 2004 OutFest celebration had a First Amendment right to demonstrate but not to disrupt the coming-out festival, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday.
The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit came in a lawsuit brought by 11 protesters affiliated with Repent America, a Lansdowne group whose members preach that homosexuality is sinful.
. . . the Third Circuit said Philadelphia police "had ample justification" in directing the protesters to move when they "interfered" with event activities.
"The police action was not based on the content of [the activists'] message but on their conduct," wrote Judge Dolores K. Sloviter, who said a video showed the Repent America group had tried to "drown out" platform speakers and congregated in the middle of the walkway.
Philly Pride had a permit for the event, and contended that it had a right to exclude the antigay activists.
Ted Hoppe, a lawyer allied with the Alliance Defense Fund, had argued in the appeal that, "Speech cannot be silenced simply because another person or group does not agree with it. City officials must be held accountable for their decision to violate the First Amendment rights of Christians who wanted nothing more than to engage in peaceful assembly on a public street."
Members of the "Philadelphia 11" as the group is known, were arrested Oct. 10, 2004, after quoting the Bible and expressing their views against homosexual behavior on a public street during "OutFest," a publicly funded celebration of homosexual choices.
They were jailed overnight in the case, but a judge later dismissed any criminal counts as having no basis in fact. The individuals then filed the damage lawsuit against the city.
"It is without question that Judge Stengel's decision has set a precedent to eliminate the First Amendment rights of others by citing that a 'permitting scheme' can be used by police and event organizers to 'exclude persons expressing contrary messages' in public areas and at public events," Marcavage said earlier.
According to Repent America, the Christians on that day "were confronted by a militant mob of homosexuals known as the 'Pink Angels' who blew loud whistles and carried large pink signs in front of them to block their message and access to the event, while others screamed obscenities."
"The Philadelphia police, under the direction of Chief Inspector James Tiano, the city's 'police liaison to the gay and lesbian community,' refused to take any action as the Christians were continuously followed, obstructed, and harassed, even though they respectfully cooperated with police, obeying orders to move, short of being directed out of the event."
"We believe that a review of the video footage of the event clearly shows that the Philly 11 went out of their way to be cooperative and not be disruptive themselves. The only disruption that occurred, if any, was due to the crowd's reaction to the message that the Philly 11 was conveying," Hoppe said.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A Boy Scouts chapter engaged in a long fight over gay rights has sued the city of Philadelphia to try to avoid paying $200,000 a year in rent to stay in the city-owned space that has been its headquarters for 80 years.
The Cradle of Liberty Council currently pays $1 annually for the space, but the city has given it until Saturday to open their membership to gays or start being charged fair-market rent.
The federal suit filed Friday accuses the city of censorship for targeting the Scouts but maintaining free or nominal leases with other groups that limit membership, such as Baptist and Roman Catholic church groups and The Colonial Dames of America.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the Boy Scouts, as a private group, have a First Amendment right to bar gays. But the policy has had consequences, with municipalities, charities and donors withholding support.
The Cradle of Liberty Council oversees about 300 troops in Philadelphia and suburban Delaware and Montgomery counties. It serves about 70,000 children, including 50,000 in the city, the suit said.
The Scouts say the higher rent would force them to cut programs, and represents the cost of sending about 800 needy children to summer camp.
The city owns the Beaux Arts headquarters constructed by the Scouts in 1928 and the land beneath it. The Scouts have spent about $60,000 a year to maintain the building, and another $1.5 million for renovations in 1994, the suit said.
The Philadelphia council of the Boy Scouts of America will lose the lease on its historic premises for its refusal to bow to pressure from the homosexual lobby to accept homosexual members and leaders. The city has told the Scouts they will be evicted if they cannot come up with US $200,000 a year "market value" rent for the land on which their building sits. Until now, the Scouts had paid a nominal $1 per year lease fee although the youth organisation had originally owned the premises in 1929.
The famous Beaux Arts style building was built and paid for by the Scouts, and turned over to the city with the understanding that the Scouts would be allowed to remain in it rent-free "in perpetuity."
City solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. gave Philadelphia's "Cradle of Liberty Council" of the Scouts until Monday this week to renounce their policy. The Cradle of Liberty Council is the largest Scouts council in Pennsylvania and is the third largest in the entire Boy Scouts of America. The "City of Brotherly Love" has told the Scouts they have until June 1 to vacate their historic building.
..."This is an organization that has done more good for more children in this crime-ravaged city than most of the other so-called charitable groups in the City of Brotherly Love...At a time when this city is awash in blood, and we need as many safe havens for our children as possible, Philadelphia decides to go after an organization that is politically uncomfortable."
An editorial appearing in the online edition of Investor's Business Daily asked, "Isn't it hypocritical, though, to be intolerant in the name of tolerance, to say that it's wrong to disapprove of the lifestyles of others but OK to condemn the religious and moral beliefs of others?"
"How is it that an organization that has done immeasurable good for tens of millions of boys becomes one of America's most notorious and dangerous hate groups?"
The action by city officials means that 30 new Cub Scout packs won't be organized, and that 800 needy kids will not be going to the Council's summer camp...
A pro-family activist devoted to countering the homosexual agenda says the United States has clearly reached the depths of depravity when a major U.S. city can decide to financially punish the Boy Scouts of America because they refuse to allow homosexuals into their group.
The Cradle of Liberty Council of the Boy Scouts of America, which serves about 64,000 scouts in Philadelphia and its suburbs, has been paying $1 a year rent for its downtown office. But recently the city decided that the Scouts must pay the fair market rent of $200,000 a year to remain in that city-owned location because the group "discriminates" against homosexuals.
Please take the time to contact the mayor to express your disgust at the treatment of this fine organization for young men. John F. Street, Mayor City of Philadelphia Room 215 City Hall Philadelphia, PA 19107 215-686-2181
