Saturday, March 31, 2007

If Civil Unions are Legalized in Illinois What Can We Expect?

If civil unions are legalized in Illinois what can we expect?

Since civil unions are marriage in all but name, we need look no further than Massachusetts, Canada, Norway and Great Britain to examine what has already happened in places where same-sex marriage has been legalized…


Will we stand silently by while blind guides forfeit both our children and our freedom in order to make 3% of the population feel better about practicing an immoral and dangerous behavior?

We MUST contact our Illinois legislators and tell them to vote no on HB1826.


"This needs to be the calling card of conservatives, and we need to get the message out (more) that the left is willing to sacrifice freedom for the cause of forced equality in every arena." -- Unknown

Friday, March 30, 2007

New Hampshire High School Student Newspaper Publishes Sex Edition

Included a photograph of two women kissing under the headline, "Why men love women who love women," a quiz question about anal sex, and an interview with an unnamed custodian who said he had found a vibrator in the girls' shower.

From "Parents Protest New Hampshire High School's 'Sex' Newspaper" by Associated Press, posted 3/30/07 at FOXNews.com

Those articles offended me personally as a parent," said Venus Merrill, a school board member. "It's not something you want to read with your 10-year-old and it's not something that should be going home."

Principal Randy Zito said the Winnachronicle had crossed the line of responsible reporting and that he had dealt with the problem privately. He also said he had pulled copies of the paper that normally would have been sent to middle schools in the cooperative school district.

The newspaper's faculty adviser defended the editors' decisions and said the February edition of the paper was intended to inform students, not shock people — although they knew it would stir controversy.

"The kids wrote the articles and came up with the topic," said adviser Carol Downer. "They didn't go out to cause controversy, but the Winnachronicle is also not a P.R. piece for the high school. This is a place for students to express their view and talk about issues that are troubling the student body."

...They also got a lot of feedback about the article on lesbians, she said.

"We thought it was an important topic to address," McCay said. "Being in a high school, it's something I've seen and something other kids have seen in the hallways."

I wonder where students would get such ideas????

In an editorial, McManus (newspaper managing editor) wrote that the students were aware they were dealing with a taboo.

"These stories have been edited and re-edited for content and delivery, keeping in mind that the job here is to inform, not shock," the editorial said. "It's about sex. Deal with it. ...

Read the whole article.

Bobby Schindler’s Letter to Florida Bishop: When Bishops Don’t Do Their Job – Innocent People Die

Says Bishop’s silence makes him “complicit in my sister’s murder.”

From "Bobby Schindler’s Letter to Florida Bishop: When Bishops Don’t Do Their Job – Innocent People Die" by Meg Jalsevac, posted 3/28/07 at Lifesite.net

Bobby Schindler, brother of Terri Schiavo, has written an open letter to Bishop Robert Lynch, bishop of St. Petersburg, Florida chastising the bishop for his inaction at the time of Terri’s death and asserting that the bishop’s lack of action “brought scandal to the Universal Church and to the faithful, particularly here in Florida.”

March 31, 2007 will be the second anniversary of the death of Terri Schiavo, a cognitively disabled woman who was starved to death according to the wishes of her husband and the order of a Florida court. The Schindler family, backed by countless disability groups and individuals around the world – including several direct pleas from the Vatican to spare Terri’s life - fought for years to save Terri from death at the hand of her husband.

...In Schindler’s letter, he admitted that what motivated him to write was Bishop Lynch’s own published commentary on the ‘homeless’ in the city of St. Petersburg. Schindler quoted Lynch’s commentary which read, “I am convinced that both on Judgment Day and in history, we will most likely be judged not by the things which we might have considered personally important to ourselves in life but how we took care of others less fortunate.”

Schindler continued to quote the Bishop’s commentary, “The faces which may haunt each of us on Judgment Day may well be those of people who have approached us for assistance and were turned away.”

Schindler questioned how the bishop could look at the homeless as “less fortunate” and demand action in their name but could remain tacit in the face of the death of an innocent and totally helpless woman despite pleadings from her family for intervention. “The bottom line is, when apostolic grace and responsibility are abdicated, innocent people die.”

Read the whole article.

Christian Physician Addresses Healthcare's 'Universal' Concerns

From "Christian physician addresses healthcare's 'universal' concerns" by Ed Thomas, posted 3/29/07 at OneNewsNow.com

Christian Medical Association CEO Dr. David Stevens, M.D., agreed with statements from Senator Hillary Clinton this week that more Americans are open to the idea of "universal health care" because the nation's current health care system has deteriorated. However, the physician warns, there are still important principles Christians need to consider in thinking about a "universal health care" approach.

In Iowa this week, Senator Clinton told ABC's Good Morning America there was "no doubt about it" -- that the United States will have universal health care if she is elected president in 2008. Clinton said the American people will make universal health care an issue because of the failures of current health care coverage in America, which she sees as a whole different atmosphere than when she tried a universal coverage plan with husband and former President Bill Clinton in the early 90s.

Dr. Stevens of the Christian Medical Association (CMA) does agree that America's health care system is definitely broken. "It is costing us two and a half times more per person on health care in this country than other western countries, and in some instances our care is not as good," he points out.

Also, some of the same concerns physicians had about universal health care during Bill Clinton's administration are still valid now, the CMA spokesman adds. "Physicians were more concerned, especially in the early 90s, about increasing government control of health care and the bureaucracy that would result," the doctor says -- bureaucracy, he emphasizes, that may add up to 30 to 50 percent of health care costs and that makes decisions instead of giving patients choices in their health care coverage.

Read the rest of this article.

Why Parents Should Pull Their Kids From School on April 18th (Day of Silence)

Illinois homosexual activist Rick Garcia equates advocates for concerned parents with Nazis.

From "Why Parents (or are they Nazis?) Should Pull Their Kids From School on April 18th (Day of Silence)" by Peter LaBarbera, posted at americansfortruth.com

Americans for Truth
has joined the pro-family coalition NotOurKids.com — calling on parents across the nation to pull their kids from school if the school endorses or encourages the pro-homosexual “Day of Silence.” The annual event is the brainchild of the radical group GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network), of Massachusetts “Fistgate” notoriety.

Day of Silence is a propaganda exercise for schools designed to engender sympathy toward GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) lifestyles. Many schools now officially back this disruptive, pro-homosexual event — so we’re calling on parents to pull their children out of school that day (Wed., April 18 this year). How did we get to the point in our society where schools would be used to promote acceptance of immoral homosexual behaviors and gender confusion (transgenderism)?

Many schools — especially in metropolitan areas — have become PC propaganda centers, and it’s way past time for parents to take a stand. Promoting unhealthy, changeable and immoral behaviors like homosexuality and bisexuality — especially to vulnerable teens (even middle schoolers!) –– lacks compassion. Click HERE for a list of schools likely to be (or potentially) participating in the “Day of Silence.”

Beware: it can be tricky to nail down a school’s policy on DOS because administrators will often claim that they are NOT endorsing the pro-homosexual event, yet then they will still allow students to remain silent that day — an obvious acquiescence to politicized behavior that disrupts the educational process.

For an idea of how GLSEN-friendly teachers use the classroom to promote the “victimhood” of homosexuals as a minority, click HERE to view a GLSEN document, “Lesson Plan: The Silencing Effect of Anti-LGBT Name-Calling.” From the “Lesson Plan”:

“Instruct students to freewrite about one or both of the following topics: 1) How it feels to silence oneself and be silenced by others; and/or 2) What the Day of Silence means to them, and why they do or don’t think the Day of Silence is necessary in their school.”

Folks, this isn’t education, it’s ‘Gay’ Advocacy Training 101!

Read the rest of this article.

Culture Campaign is also endorsing the boycott. If your child's school is participating, don't just pull your child out. Send a respectful but firm letter to each teacher, principal, and school board member explaining why. Here is a sample letter that you can use or edit to fit your situation:

Dear ___________,

Due to the administration’s decision to allow the politicization of the learning environment through the National Day of Silence, we feel compelled to call our child/children out of school on that day.

The administration errs when it allows the learning environment to be disrupted and politicized by granting students permission to remain silent throughout an entire day. The protesters have a captive audience, many of whom disagree with and are made uncomfortable by the politicization of their classroom. How many political protests will the school allow, and who decides which political issue will be allowed to disrupt the educational process?

Day of Silence participants have a First Amendment right to wear t-shirts, put up posters, and set up tables on which they provide informative materials.The Day of Silence participants go further, however, by usurping the classroom of every student in every class for an entire day in the service of their philosophical and political purposes. Their silence, and in some cases, the silence or their teachers, transforms the activities of the day.

Administrations must allow for appropriate ways for students to express their views while protecting the classroom from intrusive, political exploitation.

Thank you for your consideration.

Respectfully,

Your Name


Alleged Beating of Elderly Homosexual Man Proven false

Death used to promote hate crimes. Religious conservatives blamed...

From "Alleged beating of elderly homosexual man proven false" by Allie Martin and Jody Brown, posted 3/29/07, at OneNewsNow.com

Authorities in Michigan say a case last month involving the alleged fatal beating of an elderly homosexual man, which was used to promote the need for "hate crimes" legislation, was not a crime after all. A medical examiner's report confirms that the man died of natural causes.

Detroit police were told that 72-year-old Andrew Anthos had been assaulted because of his same-sex preference. According to family members, Anthos said he was riding a city bus home on February 13 when a young man asked him if he was homosexual. The man reportedly followed him off the bus and struck him in the back of the head with a pipe. Anthos died in a Detroit hospital on February 23.

Anthos' death generated numerous stories labeling the reported attack as a "hate crime" -- with headlines such as "Detroit patriot clings to life after hate attack" (Advocate.com, 2/23/07), "Police seek man in hate crime death" (Detroit News, 2/24/07), and "Detroiter in hate-crime beating dies" (Detroit Free Press, 2/25/07). And in early March, the case was cited by U.S. Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan) as evidence of the need to extend so-called "hate crimes" legislation to homosexuals. The Free Press also notes that the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Matt Foreman, "implicated religious conservatives" after Anthos' death.

But authorities have been unable to identify any witnesses to the alleged beating. And Wednesday, the Wayne County medical examiner concluded that Anthos death was the result of a degenerative natural condition called "spinal stenosis," which typically develops and worsens over a period of years, rather than a criminal assault.

Read the rest of this article.

Will 'Hoosier Values' Drive People Away?

Eli Lilly says marriage amendment would brand Indiana as "intolerant."

From "
Will 'Hoosier Values' Drive People Away?" by Jennifer Mesko, posted 3/29/07, at Citizenlink.org

"Hoosier values" are under fire in Indiana, and Eli Lilly is the latest combatant.

On Wednesday, the pharmaceutical giant became the state's fourth major company to oppose the proposed marriage amendment, which would define marriage as between one man and one woman.

In a letter to Gov. Mitch Daniels, Lilly claimed the amendment would brand the state as intolerant and could jeopardize domestic-partner benefits.

"I can't believe a company with the stature of Lilly and their enormous legal resources would take a corporate position like this without any specific legal reasoning to back it up," Republican Sen. Brandt Hershman, the amendment's author, told The Indianapolis Star.

Carla Cox, a spokeswoman for Eli Lilly and Co., said the amendment would have a negative impact on the firm.

"It would mainly be around recruiting and retention of employees," she said. "We have employees who are telling us they would leave the company."

Read the rest of the article.

I Feel I Saw the Face of Evil Last Night

It has become quite clear that the advancement of gay 'rights' means that homosexuals and cross-dressers will be designing public and PRIVATE school curriculum. One only has to look to Canada, Great Britain and now Massachusetts to see our children's future and it is appalling...

Consider the following:

From "I feel I saw the face of evil last night" posted at massresistance.org

“I feel I saw the face of evil last night. I went to the meeting in Boston of the new independent Mass. government-mandated Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. What an experience! There were 30 commissioners around a table. At one end was a man trying to be a woman. And at the other end was a woman trying to be a man. In between were a variety of characters, some looking quite normal, others less so. These are the people who are planning the 'health' and 'safety' curricula for schools in Massachusetts. And now they have decided that 'youth' includes grades K-12. It’s as though the inmates are running the asylum.”
-- Parent who attended the meeting, in email to friends the following morning.

On Monday evening, March 19, the new “Massachusetts Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth” had their second public meeting. (The first, which we attended in February, was mostly organizational.) This time they got down to business, and was frightening and discouraging.

Created as a state “budget item” last spring to avoid a public hearing, the Commission is independent of the executive branch of government and lavishly funded with over $1 million of taxpayer money. It’s an apparent payback by the Legislative leadership to the powerful homosexual lobby. Its broad charge is to push homosexual programs in schools across the state and even other government agencies.

...There were about 30 people around a long table, mostly representatives of various homosexual groups. It’s one thing to read about them and their various gay-activist organizations, but it’s a bit of a shock to actually see them. They range in age from elderly to 20-somethings, with an average age of about 40. Some are men dressed as women, with dresses and lipstick and makeup. Others are women attempting to be men. Some had gay-like mannerisms and affectations; some were of ambiguous sex. On one end of the table was Grace Sterling Stowell, a man dressed as a woman who runs Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth (BAGLY), which is heavily involved with transgender and cross-dressing activities. Stowell is the new vice-chairman of the Commission. At the other end was Gunner Scott, head of a bizarre group called “GenderCrash.” Gunner is a woman dressed as a man, who now sports a small beard and sideburns (apparently a result of lots of hormones). She looks like she has had breast removal surgery. She was quite vocal throughout the meeting.

The Commission conducted business in a chillingly calm, professional way, discussing their activities with in a sterile manner, as if they were talking about taxes or highways, etc, without emotion. But underneath that veneer, you can definitely detect anger and hostility.

...They also talked about reaching out to “traditionally underserved LGBT youth across the Commonwealth”. One of example of this is middle schools. They discussed having gay clubs (“GSAs”) in high schools “mentoring” middle school students!

This led to a discussion of what age range was included by the term “youth”, since it’s not defined in the statute creating the Commission. They didn’t want to be “constrained”, they said, so they decided that “youth” can mean children as young as Kindergarten. “We need to concern ourselves with younger kids, even if they haven’t developed a sense of gender identity,” someone said. And besides, “homophobic name-calling” can also happen that young, they rationalized. And they also want to deal with “different kinds of families” at the younger ages.

Also, they said, “Don’t focus on just on youth who self-identify as GLBT, but allow ourselves to be a little broader.” (That is, younger kids who aren’t thinking in those terms yet.)

They mentioned that this past year, in addition to their activism in schools, 50 public schools had applied for funding of their own homosexual programs. Of these, 49 spent all their money. They want to expand this considerably.

Most people don’t know that there are two full-time consultants at the DOE that do 100% homosexual activism in schools across the state. They want to make them actual state employees, so they can get state benefits.

They also want to fund non-DOE agencies to do gay training for teachers. Apparently, a meeting at Hudson High School was held to get that started. In addition, there was discussion of bringing homosexual college students into the public schools “for insight.”

Finally, one of their goals is to force their way into charter schools. They also discussed how to get into private schools, but it was brought up that private schools are not subject to the same pro-gay education regulations, so that could be difficult. But they want to get into religious schools at some point in the future, they said.

There was also some talk about affecting high school teacher standards and teacher certification requirements – presumably adding homosexual diversity training to their requirements and ongoing training. And they also want to affect curriculum frameworks.

One observation from an audience member was that for a government commission talking about children, there was a lot of talk about sexual diseases usually affecting adults. AIDS and other diseases seemed to come up a lot in the conversations. They also mentioned that they had a close relationship with the AIDS organizations.

Read the whole article.

Are we simply going to allow this to happen?

Dr. Martin Luther King's words echo with new urgency...


"Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Par from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are."

"But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century."
-- Excerpt Letter from Birmingham Jail

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Pop Quiz Time...

What condition do you think the following list describes?

1. They "... typically experience an intense desire or overwhelming compulsion to change their bodies to match their idealized images of themselves_______."

2. "They usually describe their feelings as developing early in life, often before puberty."

3. "... Most emphasize that they are primarily seeking a sense of wholeness or completeness or are offering to correct a mismatch between their bodies and their identities."

4. They "... experience sexual arousal or pleasure from pretending to be _______."*


The correct answer is "apotemnophilia," or as it is more commonly called now, body integrity identity disorder (BIID). The two blanks above should be filled in with the words "as amputees" and "an amputee," respectively. Here's another group who could share their stories with freshmen high school students...

This condition was documented as early as 1785, and in the late 1990's, a Scottish surgeon
amputated the healthy limbs of two people who suffered from BIID.

Amputating healthy arms and legs is controversial, but amputating healthy penises and breasts is not. I think I'm Alice, and I've fallen through the rabbit hole.

-Clive


*(Lawrence, A. A. (2006). "Clinical and Theoretical Parallels Between Desire For Limb Amputation and Gender Identity Disorder." Archives of Sexual Behavior , 35, 263-278.)

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Born Gay? It's Not That Simple...

Despite the fact that there is to date no credible scientific evidence that human beings are 'born gay,' I am challenged numerous times per week by people telling me it's a fact and that I shouldn't worry about the effects of teaching ALL kids that homosexuality is perfectly normal acceptable behavior. The argument goes like this, "We must teach ALL kids that 'gay is good' because it will have no effect on the sexual behavior of 'heterosexual kids' and only help 'gay kids.'

I remain unconvinced -- and this article about students at a NY high school only serves to confirm my worst fears about the consequences of schools purposely teaching kids that homosexuality is normal and natural...

From "The Cuddle Puddle of Stuyvesant High School" by Alex Morris, posted at NYmag.co

Alair is headed for the section of the second-floor hallway where her friends gather every day during their free tenth period for the “cuddle puddle,” as she calls it. There are girls petting girls and girls petting guys and guys petting guys. She dives into the undulating heap of backpacks and blue jeans and emerges between her two best friends, Jane and Elle, whose names have been changed at their request. They are all 16, juniors at Stuyvesant. Alair slips into Jane’s lap, and Elle reclines next to them, watching, cat-eyed. All three have hooked up with each other. All three have hooked up with boys—sometimes the same boys. But it’s not that they’re gay or bisexual, not exactly. Not always.

Their friend Nathan, a senior with John Lennon hair and glasses, is there with his guitar, strumming softly under the conversation. “So many of the girls here are lesbian or have experimented or are confused,” he says.

Ilia, another senior boy, frowns at Nathan’s use of labels. “It’s not lesbian or bisexual. It’s just, whatever . . . ”

Since the school day is winding down, things in the hallway are starting to get rowdy. Jane disappears for a while and comes back carrying a pint-size girl over her shoulder. “Now I take her off and we have gay sex!” she says gleefully, as she parades back and forth in front of the cuddle puddle. “And it’s awesome!” The hijacked girl hangs limply, a smile creeping to her lips. Ilia has stuffed papers up the front of his shirt and prances around on tiptoe, batting his eyes and sticking out his chest. Elle is watching, enthralled, as two boys lock lips across the hall. “Oh, my,” she murmurs. “Homoerotica. There’s nothing more exciting than watching two men make out.” And everyone is talking to another girl in the puddle who just “came out,” meaning she announced that she’s now open to sexual overtures from both boys and girls, which makes her a minor celebrity, for a little while.

When asked how many of her female friends have had same-sex experiences, Alair answers, “All of them.” Then she stops to think about it. “All right, maybe 80 percent. At least 80 percent of them have experimented. And they still are. It’s either to please a man, or to try it out, or just to be fun, or ’cause you’re bored, or just ’cause you like it . . . whatever.”

With teenagers there is always a fair amount of posturing when it comes to sex, a tendency to exaggerate or trivialize, innocence mixed with swagger. It’s also true that the “puddle” is just one clique at Stuyvesant, and that Stuyvesant can hardly be considered a typical high school. It attracts the brightest public-school students in New York, and that may be an environment conducive to fewer sexual inhibitions. “In our school,” Elle says, “people are getting a better education, so they’re more open-minded.”

That said, the Stuyvesant cuddle puddle is emblematic of the changing landscape of high-school sexuality across the country. This past September, when the National Center for Health Statistics released its first survey in which teens were questioned about their sexual behavior, 11 percent of American girls polled in the 15-to-19 demographic claimed to have had same-sex encounters—the same percentage of all women ages 15 to 44 who reported same-sex experiences, even though the teenagers have much shorter sexual histories. It doesn’t take a Stuyvesant education to see what this means: More girls are experimenting with each other, and they’re starting younger.
Read the whole article.

I'll say it again. Societal approval has a profound influence on human sexual behavior. Between the sexual revolution and gay activism this little experiment has been a disaster for our kids...

They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. -- Hosea 8:7

Prominent Evangelical Backs Out of Pro-Israel Event Over Proselytizing Disclaimer

From "Prominent evangelical backs out of pro-Israel event over proselytizing disclaimer" by Jim Brown, posted 3/28/07 at OneNewsNow.com

Christian radio talk-show host Janet Parshall, a high-profile American evangelical known for her strong support of Israel, has dropped out of a Jerusalem conference sponsored by a Christian caucus of the Israeli Parliament. Parshall says she decided not to speak at the conference after she learned that the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus "condemns" and does not associate with groups that share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Hear This Report.

Parshall says she is also troubled that the strict religious political party Shas has yet again introduced legislation in the Knesset that would give up to a one-year prison sentence for people who share the gospel in Israel. "I thought, wait a minute: we can't just blindly support Israel," she observes. "We have to be able to tell them, as a friend, [that] you can't do that. You can't silence us."

The Christian radio commentator says Israel understands by now who evangelical Christians are and that their very nomenclature as evangelical Christians "means that we share the love of Jesus Christ." Individual Israelis may not accept Jesus as the Messiah, she notes, but they "cannot silence us from sharing [the gospel] with whomever might be interested in that message."

Also, Parshall points out, there is the added problem of censoring Christian evangelism, i.e., that "as Israel begins to move deeper and deeper in that direction, they start to replicate their Islamic neighbors." The talk-radio host says the Apostle Paul was given the exact same message in Jerusalem, told to "stop talking about the empty grave." But Paul did not follow that dictate, the American evangelical asserts, and neither will she.

Read the rest of this article.

May God bless Ms. Parshall for her integrity and faithfulness.

"Race for the Cure" Breast Cancer Foundation Donates Money to Abortion Provider

From "Pro-lifer challenges 'Race for Cure' connection to Planned Parenthood" by Rusty Pugh, posted 3/28/07, at OneNewsNow.com

A Texas pro-life group wants people to know that the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation donates money to Planned Parenthood, the world's largest abortion provider. And the group wants people to know why that doesn't make any sense at all.

According to Komen.org, the Foundation's mission is "to save lives and end breast cancer forever by empowering people, ensuring quality care for all, and energizing science to find the cures." But John Pischiotta of Pro-Life Waco says people who participate in the Komen "Race for the Cure" should know that the Foundation donates large sums of money to Planned Parenthood -- and numerous studies have found a link between breast cancer and abortion, he says.

Read the rest of this article.

Irony abounds...

If We Love Freedom We Must Oppose Gay 'Rights'

Scott Lively, attorney and president of Defend the Family International has written an incredibly succinct message to warning the Lithuanian people about the dangers of embracing gay 'rights.' I can only pray that more Americans will come to understand the truth of what Mr. Lively has written here and demand that our leglislators, employers, schools, and churches value our precious freedom and reject the gay agenda...

Here are some excerpts, but please read the whole piece.

I came to Lithuania to warn the Lithuanian people about the threat posed to your society by the global homosexual political movement, which has begun to organize in your nation. At the outset, let me say that I advocate a high tolerance for the people who define themselves by their choice of a homosexual lifestyle, even while I promote a low tolerance for homosexual conduct.

Homosexual activists would have you believe that tolerance for them requires total acceptance and approval of their lifestyle, but that is not obligatory, nor prudent. In fact, discrimination against homosexual behavior is necessary to protect your society from the consequences of “gay” culture, which always pushes for greater and greater liberalism in sexual attitudes, especially among young people. To see the danger of this we need look no further than Holland, where sexual liberalism promoted by the homosexual movement has led to the creation of a pedophile political party, whose right hold seats in parliament, to advocate for the legalization of adult/child sexual relationships, has been approved by the Dutch courts.

…The chief danger of the homosexual movement is that it always seeks to take away the freedom of speech from anyone who disapproves of homosexuality. In Canada, where homosexual activism has enjoyed considerable success, there are now so-called Human Rights Tribunals which have the power to punish anyone who publicly opposes homosexuality by making the offender pay a monetary fine. The money is then given to the homosexual who filed the complaint. The most recent incident involved a Catholic member of the City Council of Kamloops, British Columbia. His offence was to call homosexuality “unnatural.” One wonders if Pope Benedict himself would face arrest in Canada since he has repeatedly affirmed that homosexuality is “intrinsically disordered.”

Religious opinions are also silenced wherever homosexuals gain the power to do so. We can recall a case from Sweden. On June 29, 2004, Pastor Ake Green was sentenced to one month in jail for showing “disrespect” against homosexuals in the sermon he delivered in his pulpit in Borgholm. The title of his sermon was “Are people born with homosexual orientation or is it the result of influence by evil powers?” Pastor Green was eventually exonerated by the Swedish Supreme Court, but only over the vigorous objection of the “gay” activists in that nation (would the result have been the same if the judges were “gay“?).

Just this week In Britain, the House of Lords approved a bill to prohibit private Christian schools from teaching their students that homosexuality is wrong.

Could such anti-family fascism ever occur in Lithuania? It already has. On Thursday, March 21st I gave a lecture at the Kaunas Police Academy. I taught about the importance of preserving family values in society and contrasted the effects of marriage-centered sexual morality with the effects of sexual “freedom” that is promoted by the homosexual movement. During my talk a homosexual instructor from another university stood up and in a loud and angry voice accused me of inciting hatred against homosexuals and tried to stop my lecture. Then at the end of the lecture, when I called for questions from the audience, he came forward and began to speak out against me to the students, calling me a criminal and promising to have me arrested at the airport on my way out of the country. He then went out and filed a false police report against me, claming that I had discriminated against him. (Fortunately, my lecture had been filmed and so the police could see the truth for themselves.)

…You will also see that homosexual activists are not truly victims but aggressors. They demand tolerance but will not give it. They insist on freedom of speech but deny it to others. And they invent words like homophobia that appear scientific but have no purpose except the psychological manipulation of the public.

The answer to the homosexual challenge is not to censor homosexuals the way they want to silence you, it is to have an open and honest public discussion about family values vs. “gay” culture and the real meaning of words like tolerance. In the mean time, Lithuanians should remind themselves what it means to be a marriage-centered society with healthy sexual morality. If they are successful in this process, perhaps that can set an example for the rest of Europe -- instead of falling prey to the destructive homosexual plan.

Read the whole article.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Protect Your Children: Keep them Home on the Day of Silence

Culture Campaign has joined a national pro-family coalition, www.NotOurKids.com, calling on parents to keep their children home on the Day of Silence, April 18th -- to avoid GLSEN's homosexual "Day of Silence," in which students and some supportive faculty intentionally remain silent throughout the school day to protest alleged oppression of homosexuals.

"Day of Silence" (DOS) is an annual event promoted by GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, and is scheduled for Wednesday, April 18 this year. (Some schools observe DOS a few days earlier or later than the official date.) In 2006, over 4,000 junior highs, high schools, and colleges participated in DOS, according to GLSEN.

Many school district superintendents, principals, and faculty members also endorse, promote or allow DOS -- subjecting traditional students to pro-"gay" activism that violates their religious beliefs and right to a non-politicized education. To find out what schools are likely participating in this year's DOS, please visit Mission America's online list of participating schools. If your school is listed in error, or not listed and it should be, please let us know by emailing feedback@culturecampaign.com.

According to GLSEN, on last year's Day of Silence, over 500,000 students nationwide were confronted with mute homosexual peers and "allies" wearing stickers and passing out cards, which stated (in part):

"... My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by harassment, prejudice, and discrimination. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward fighting these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today. What are you going to do to end the silence?"

www.NotOurKids.com is a coalition of pro-family groups who object to the disruptive political hijacking of America's classrooms by pro-homosexual advocates. www.NotOurKids.com educates parents, teachers and America about the deceptive agenda behind GLSEN's Day of Silence. The coalition seeks to protect America's youth from being pressured to approve of homosexual, bisexual, or "transgender" behavior.
"Teenagers deserve an opportunity to study English, history, math, and science -- without being subjected to pro-homosexual proselytizing sanctioned by school authorities. Students shouldn't be forced to self-censor or adopt beliefs contrary to those of their parents and places of worship," said Linda Harvey of Mission America, a coalition member. "Even the strongest of our junior high and high school children are not equipped to serve as frontline soldiers in this culture war.
Culture Campaign and NotOurKids.com recommends that you call your local school and ask:

(1) Does the school have a ‘gay’ club, or ‘Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA)?

(2) Will any students at all in the school be allowed to participate in the Day of Silence? If so, find out if the school is official endorsing the event, allowing it to take place during the school day, allowing homosexual or other speakers to be brought in to speak before the student body – and any other questions you may have.

If the school IS participating, we suggest you keep your child home – out of school on The Day of Silence. It is officially taking place April 18, 2007, yet some schools are observing it earlier or later.

(3) Send a letter to your principle, school board members, and each of your children's teachers explaining why you will be keeping your child home.

Here's a sample letter you can either use verbatim, or edit to suit your situation:

Dear ___________,

Due to the administration’s decision to allow the politicization of the learning environment through the National Day of Silence, we feel compelled to call our child/children out of school on that day.

The administration errs when it allows the learning environment to be disrupted and politicized by granting students permission to remain silent throughout an entire day. The protesters have a captive audience, many of whom disagree with and are made uncomfortable by the politicization of their classroom. How many political protests will the school allow, and who decides which political issue will be allowed to disrupt the educational process?

Day of Silence participants have a First Amendment right to wear t-shirts, put up posters, and set up tables on which they provide informative materials.The Day of Silence participants go further, however, by usurping the classroom of every student in every class for an entire day in the service of their philosophical and political purposes. Their silence, and in some cases, the silence or their teachers, transforms the activities of the day.

Administrations must allow for appropriate ways for students to express their views while protecting the classroom from intrusive, political exploitation.

Thank you for your consideration.

Respectfully,

Your Name

More Questions for District 214 Incumbents...

Someone should demand that the District 214 Board provide evidence for their insinuation that those who challenge the appropriateness of certain curricular materials are attempting to establish a state-endorsed religion, because that would be the only action that is constitutionally prohibited. Where does the board find in the words of Leslie Pinney anything to suggest that she or any others are trying to establish religion? For board members to bring in religion, smacks of a witch hunt and a violation of policies that prohibit discrimination based on religion.

Does anyone question the board members' positions, suggesting that perhaps they reflect or embody religiously derived views? I assume that some of them attend churches or temples also.

The board members who criticize Pinney et al. reveal a shamefully ignorant understanding of the relationship between religion and the state. People of faith, whether Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish are, indeed, permitted to have their faith shape their political decisions; they may not, however, legislate religious practices, which, to my knowledge, none have attempted to do.

Implying that challenging the appropriateness of books for inclusion in curricula represents a constitutional violation is wrong and ignorant. That which is political is inherently moral, and that which is moral is, for religious people, inherently religious. To suggest that all people whose politics are shaped my religious beliefs must exit public schools is an outrage. By logical extension of the argument, the only people who can shape policy are atheists, agnostics, scientific materialists, or humanists, all of whom represent faiths in that at their foundation, they rely on unproven and unprovable assumptions.

In public schools, faculty routinely decides which texts to include and which to exclude. They make those decisions based on a whole host of criteria, one of which is "appropriateness." You don't see many schools teaching Brett Easton Ellis' American Psycho because it is excessively vulgar and violent.

Are the District 214 Board members actually claiming that no public school teacher should ever take into account sexual explicitness or graphic violence when considering a text? So, they can take into account whether it is sufficiently politically correct in the way it addresses race, gender, class, and sexual orientation, but they can never address the graphic nature of sex and violence. Rejecting texts because they do not address race, gender, class, or sexual orientation in a politically correct fashion is legitimate decision-making, but rejecting a text because it addresses sex or violence in a problematic way is censorship. Funny how that works. And if that’s their claim, it portends nothin' good.

--Clive

Too Young, Too Soon, Too Bad

The American Psychological Association has issued a report about the dangers of sexualizing girls.

From "Too Young, Too Soon, Too Bad" by Bethany Noble, posted 3/27/07 at National Catholic Register

Products such as Bratz dolls clad in leather mini-skirts abound on the market for girls under age 10. Teen magazines and television shows promote underdressed celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears as role models. A porn actress writes a best-selling autobiography, and pre-teen girls show up at her book signings.

Parents have long expressed concern that their daughters are being “sexualized” by merchandise and mass media.

Sex sells, and it is increasingly being used to market clothing, toys and entertainment to young girls.

But is society selling these girls short? What are the long-term implications of teaching a child that she must look and behave like a sexual object to be fashionable or popular?

The American Psychological Association addressed the issue in a recent study. It formed a task force to define sexualization, examine its prevalence and provide examples in society and in cultural institutions. The task force also set out to evaluate the evidence suggesting that sexualization has negative consequences for girls and for society. It described positive alternatives to help counteract it.

The report, published Feb. 19, defined sexualization as something “occurring when a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics, and when a person is sexually objectified.” Results showed that every media form contributed to the sexualization of girls and young women by portraying them in a sexual manner more often than boys and men.

Read the rest of the article.

Looks like God is right again...

Moral Decline, The Media, and Natural Law

From "Moral Decline, the Media, and Natural Law" by Mike Shaw, posted at CatholicCity

The Culture and Media Institute has just released its National Cultural Values survey. 2,000 Americans aged 18 and older were asked a series of questions on moral issues.

Here are some key findings:

  • 74 percent, including majorities of every major demographic group, say they believe moral values in America are weaker than they were 20 years ago.
  • 48 percent say moral values are much weaker than they were 20 years ago.
  • 68 percent, including majorities of virtually every demographic group, say the media—entertainment and news alike—is having a detrimental effect on moral values in America.
  • 64 percent agree the news and entertainment media exercise powerful influence over American moral values. In fact, the substantial majority (74 percent) who believe moral values are weaker than twenty years ago consider the media to be the second greatest influence on moral values after parents and families.

Additional findings indicate that while most people give strong lip service to classical virtues, many don't actually walk the walk. Moreover, the authors of the study believe that there is a culture war in America, seem to agree that the media is largely at fault, and note that "Reversing America's moral decline will require a renewed acceptance of Orthodox values, which implies increased acceptance of God's authority."

What can we make of all this?

Read the rest of this article.

California "Elder Suicide Rates Sound Alarm"

From "California Elder Suicide Rates Sound Alarm" by Wesley J. Smith, posted 3/26/07 at Secondhand Smoke

Well, what do you know: Two reporters have connected a few dots about the assisted suicide issue. In this story, byline John Simerman and Cassandra Braun of the Contra Costa Times, note that while California is debating assisted suicide, we have a brewing elder suicide crisis on our hands. From the story:

Beneath a simmering debate on a proposal to legalize assisted suicide in California for some terminally ill patients lies a muffled truth: Seniors-- and particularly older white men--kill themselves at a higher rate than any other age group.

The theories vary, but not the phenomenon. It runs across the country and through Contra Costa County, where every three weeks another senior ends his or her life. Older men swing the balance. They make up 5 percent of the county population but 16 percent of confirmed suicides, county health data show.
Assisted suicide is more fuel for the flame, because when legalized the state is telling its citizens that suicide is an acceptable answer to the problems of human suffering and difficulty. (Oregon has also declared an elder suicide crisis.) And mark my words, once people accept the premise of assisted suicide, advocates will begin agitating for expanding the license to include the elderly and others--and using the same arguments we hear today for the terminally ill. It has already happened in the Netherlands where elderly are euthanized and a former Minister of Health advocated suicide pills for the elderly who are tired of life.

Read the whole blog post at Wes Smith's site.

Largest US Child Study Finds Early Child Care Linked to Aggression and Disobedience

Results proved true regardless of quality of center-based care they received

From "Largest US Child Study Finds Early Child Care Linked to Aggression and Disobedience" posted 3/26/07 at LifeSite.net

Analysis of the largest, longest running, and most comprehensive study of child care in the United States has found that the more time children spent in center-based care before kindergarten, the more likely their teachers were to report such problem behaviors as "gets in many fights," "disobedient at school," and "argues a lot."

The study confirms research published last year which was undertaken in Canada which found that children in daycare were 17 times more hostile than children raised at home, and almost three times more anxious. The Canadian study also found negative effects on parents.

A 2005 study from England demonstrated that a mother's care was best for toddlers' development, with nursery care linked to "higher levels of aggression." An Australian study published in 2006 confirmed prior research finding that daycare seems to damage babies' brain chemistry and affect their "social and emotional development."

The current study, which appears in the March/April 2007 issue of Child Development, found that children with more experience in child care centers showed in early grades through sixth grade, a greater frequency of what the researchers termed teacher-reported externalizing problem behavior. Teachers reported more frequent problem behaviours such as: child demands a lot of attention; argues a lot; bragging and boasting; cruelty, bullying or meanness to others; destroys things belonging to others; disobedient at school; gets into many fights; lying or cheating; screams a lot.

Read the whole article.

British PM Blair Celebrates Passage of Sexual Orientation Regulations at Homosexual Activist Banquet

From "British PM Blair Celebrates Passage of Sexual Orientation Regulations at Homosexual Activist Banquet" by Gudrun Schultz, posted 03/26/07 at LifeSite.net

British Prime Minister Tony Blair celebrated the House of Lord's March 21 vote in favour of the controversial Sexual Orientation Regulations by attending an Equality fundraising dinner the following evening, put on by the UK's leading homosexual activist organization Stonewall.

The SOR passed by a 168-122 vote in the House, ensuring the implementation of new "anti-discrimination" policies beginning April 30.

In his speech at the Stonewall event, PM Blair said it was a "real honour" to be in attendance and thanked members of Stonewall, saying "we couldn't have done it without you."

PM Blair said of all the pro-homosexual legislation passed in recent years, the civil partnership law gave him more than just pride, "it actually brought real joy." The first same-sex civil union caused him to give "a little sort of skip," he said, it was "just so alive, and I was so struck by it."

...In particular, Christian schools will face policies forbidding any teaching against homosexuality, and the requirement that all schools institute policies against "homophobia".

The Joint Committee on Human Rights, composed of members of Parliament and the House of Lords, issued a report late in February recommending that Christian schools be forced to modify religious instruction under the new regulations, "so that homosexual pupils are not subjected to teaching, as part of the religious education or other curriculum, that their sexual orientation is sinful or morally wrong.

Read the rest of this article.

Related coverage:

British Govt. Votes to Destroy Religious Freedom -- Force Approval of Homosexuality

UK: Only 3 of 26 Anglican Bishops Turned out for Vote on Bill Which Severely Restricts Christianity


Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools...
--Romans 1:22

Gay Activists Shift Strategy on Marriage

From "Gay Activists Shift Strategy on Marriage" by Wendy Cloyd, for CitizenLink.org

Gay-rights advocates call a deluge of civil-union bills a shift in strategy, but marriage defenders say the institution is still under attack.

Sen. Edward Murray, an openly gay lawmaker in Washington state, told The Associated Press that for years activists focused solely on redefining marriage – but this year things have changed. Activists now claim same-sex couples simply want rights and benefits.

"It's very new," he said. "If I had suggested this strategy a year or two ago, I would have been run out of my district."

According to Carrie Evans, former director of the Human Rights Campaign, the focus is on incremental gains.

"I think with legislators, just like the public, people don't change their minds on marriage equality… overnight," she said.

Read the rest of this article.

Gay activists know that legalizing civil unions will quickly lead to the legal silencing of dissent, mandatory teaching in public schools that 'gay is good' and laws forcing approval of homosexuality. As Stanley Kurtz so succinctly argues in his article "Beyond Gay Marriage", most homosexuals do not actually want to get married. Gay activists believe marriage is an old, tired, obsolete institution that has run its course. What they really want is to destroy marriage as the societal ideal.

ACLU Claims Abstinence Education is Unconstitutional

From "ACLU Claims Abstinence Education is Unconstitutional" posted at Citizenlink.org

After the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sent a letter to North Carolina school districts claiming that abstinence-only education violates the state constitution, the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) countered with a letter of its own.

"It is outrageous when a group such as the ACLU attempts to discourage children from safeguarding their emotional and physical well-being by remaining chaste," said ADF Chief Counsel Benjamin Bull. "The scientific fact is that the only way for students to completely avoid the possibility of STDs and teen pregnancy is to remain abstinent until marriage."

The ACLU North Carolina’s letter, dated Feb. 2, stated that abstinence-only programs “undermine the equal opportunities for all public school students that are required by state law.”

Read the rest of this article.

Equal opportunity for what? Children to have sex?
The logical conclusion of an insane ideology...

Monday, March 26, 2007

District 214 School Board Says Parents Desiring Traditional Moral Values Should Go Somewhere Else...

Excerpts from “Is Dist 214 race centered on ideology or “scare tactic?" by Erin Holmes, posted 3/26/07 at dailyherald.com.

An article in the Daily Herald today revealed an interesting glimpse of the worldview driving the majority of members of the District 214 school board. Here's an excerpt:

As a months-long curriculum debate collides with an election in Northwest Suburban High School District 214, three incumbents are waging a pricey campaign on the premise that it could — adamant their defeat may pave the way for a conservative school board takeover.

“If it (the vote) goes the other way, it could literally change the very culture of what people have come to respect and cherish in this school district,” predicts Elizabeth Ennis, a recently retired 214 superintendent and incumbent supporter.
Does Ms. Ennis really believe that people (especially parents) have come to respect and cherish pornographic reading material for their children? The article goes on:

The incumbents, though, say their tactics are logical in the wake of board member Leslie Pinney’s 2005 upstart board victory. She’d pledged to bring her Christian beliefs to board decision…

…District 214’s now-legendary curriculum debate was sparked by one of Pinney’s first proposals: to pull nine books from required reading lists because of content she said was sexually graphic, vulgar and violent.

ARE the books, graphic, vulgar, and disgusting? You decide.

The ensuing saga drew hundreds to a six-hour board session, spurred ongoing dialogue about the appropriateness of class materials and prompted dueling Web sites on the issues. The board later voted 6-1, with Pinney dissenting, to keep the books on reading lists.

Today, they (the incumbents) insist they’re not out to ban varied views, but fear an influx of board members who would let their religious beliefs shape the schools.
Let me get one thing straight. Our schools ARE shaped by the beliefs and moral values of school board members – whether they be liberal or conservative, Christian or atheist. District 214 is currently a reflection of the values of the majority of its current board members, and administrators.

Since incumbent board members seem to believe that Christian moral values are inappropriate for 'shaping schools,' I am wondering which value system IS appropriate? Socialism? Secular humanism? Existentialism? Buddhism? Hinduism? Islam? I would like to ask the incumbents, which value system do YOU use? And why should we consider your moral value system (whatever it is) to be superior to Christian values?”

More from another supporter of the incumbents…

Ultimately, Friends of District 214 chairman Arlen Gould worries, that could lead to things like…censoring student newspapers or even questioning teacher applicants about their political views.

Censoring student newspapers? We could only wish that someone at Buffalo Grove had used better judgment before allowing students to publish an article in the student newspaper declaring “Oral Sex the New Romantic Norm.” Does Ms. Gould imagine that most parents want their kids told that oral sex is now the dating norm?

Does she not see that high school students openly writing about oral sex, in a student newspaper, is an indication that something is terribly wrong? Oh, I forgot. There can't be anything wrong. This is an award winning school district...

More from Ms. Gould:

…“If you have personal religious beliefs, that’s wonderful,” Gould said, “but if you want them involved in the schooling of your children, go to a private school or do home-schooling.”

Let me paraphrase. “Public schools are no place for traditional moral values. If that’s what you want you had better go somewhere else.”

They may not want our input but they certainly want our tax dollars…

Incumbent school board member Alva Kreutzer weighed in with this:

“I believe parents and people in the community should be able to ask questions. That’s fine,” Kreutzer said. “I just don’t want a total takeover of the board where someone says, ‘It’s going to be this way.”

Total takeover? It is now 6 liberals v. 1 conservative.

Adds Dussling (current board president): “Is it going to be something like Kansas? I have no idea. But I do know this: There are those who want to control our curriculum, and that’s what I’m concerned about. Public education.”

Does public education require exposing teens to graphic depictions of rape, sodomy, bestiality, oral sex, sex with a hotdog, and a real dog?

Those who want to ‘control’ the curriculum? Mr. Dussling, YOU and your fellow liberals now control the curriculum and you have neglected to use that power to protect whatever is left of our children’s innocence…

The article closed with an interesting quote by Melissa Deckman, author of “School Board Battles: The Christian Right in Local Politics.”
“It’s good in a community to have different viewpoints expressed. I think that’s healthy,” Deckman said. “But I think when any group that’s out of the mainstream tries to hijack that for their own causes, the parents ultimately will say, ‘We need to focus on the kids.”

Are people with conservative moral values really ‘out of the mainstream?’

Are we trying to hijack the school board for our own causes?

It seems to me, people with left wing values already have…

Read the whole article.

AN INTERESTING NOTE: Culture Campaign usually gets several hits a day on the webpage where we have posted the book excerpts -- from perverts looking for bestiality. That ought to tell us something...

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Philanthropic Donations Come From Your Heart, but Where Do They End Up?

From "Philanthropic Donations Come From Your Heart, but Where Do They End Up?" by Glenn Ruppel and John Stossel, posted 3/23/07 at ABC News 20/20.

Christian ministries and charities promise to do all kinds of good things with your money, and that makes donors feel great about sending in their checks. The problem is, they can't always find out exactly how their donation is being spent.

A Life of Charity … and Luxury

The givers are very confident that they will. One parishioner told ABC News that "when I give to this church, I know that my money's being put to excellent use. Without one question." While her pastor, Fred Price of Ever Increasing Faith Ministries, does support inner city programs with donors' money, she's apparently not bothered when he also boasts that "I live in a 25-room mansion, I have my own $6 million yacht, I have my own private jet and I have my own helicopter and I have seven luxury automobiles."

At least he tells his parishioners about all this wealth, but many preachers don't advertise how well they live.

The popular Kenneth Copeland of Kenneth Copeland Ministries lives in a large mansion in Texas. He recently asked his audience to help him spread the gospel by giving him $20 million to buy a new jet. Copeland promised that the plane "will never, ever be used as long as it is in our care, for anything other than what is becoming to you, Lord Jesus."

Our ABC affiliate in Dallas, WFAA, took a closer look. Reporter Brett Shipp obtained flight records that revealed that the Copeland jet, on its way to an evangelical seminar in Australia last October, made a two-day layover in Maui. Then it was on to the Fiji islands for another stop.

After seven days in Australia, the Copelands headed to Honolulu for another three days of what they called "eating and rest."

Last December, amid other evangelical stops, the jet made the first of two trips to a Colorado airport, just a few miles away from Steamboat Springs Ski Resort.

And, finally, there was a flight to southwest Texas to a hunting ranch where the Copelands have bagged exotic game over the years. (Click here for the full WFAA story on Copeland.)

Read the rest of this article.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

We Need to Stop Pornography Now

From "We need to stop pornography now" posted week of 03/21/07, at Denver Catholic Register

Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput "identified the multi-billion dollar pornography industry as laying at the heart of the modern crisis in sexuality, calling it the 'biggest single environmental crisis we face,' one that 'pours garbage into our homes every day through the Web and other media.'

'Pornography is never 'innocent entertainment,' no matter how private it might seem. It turns human beings into objects. It coarsens our appetites. It darkens our ability to see real human beauty. It creates impossible expectations about sexual intimacy. It kills enduring romance and friendship between the sexes. And ultimately it's a lie and a cheat. Pornography is a cheap, quick, empty copy of the real thing - the real joy of sexual intimacy shared by a man and woman who have joined their lives in a loving marriage. . . .'

'We can't do a lot about the sexual confusion at the top of our society, beyond writing to our elected officials and demanding candidates who will advance our convictions when the time comes to vote . . . But we can do a lot about the poison in our homes and local communities. Pornography is poison. It should be controlled like any other toxic waste. And don't be fooled. This isn't 'censorship.' It's a matter of public health and common sense.'

Read the rest of this article.

Friday, March 23, 2007

UK: Only 3 of 26 Anglican Bishops Turned out for Vote on Bill Which Severely Restricts Christianity

From "3 of 26 Anglican Bishops Turned out for Vote on Bill Which Severely Restricts Christianity" by Hilary White, 3/23/07, at LifeSite.net

23 of the 26 Anglican bishop members of the House of Lords absented themselves from Wednesday's vote on the Sexual Orientation Regulations, a result that has earned them the wrath of the Christian laity of the Church of England. The bishops of Southwell and Nottingham, Winchester and of York attended.

Early this week, Anthony Archer, a Synod member of the Crown Nominations Committee, addressed a letter to the bishops saying that their relevance as members of government was at stake in the vote.

Yesterday Archer told a Church of England newspaper that the bishops by their absence had done nothing to help justify their continued presence in the House of Lords.

Since the establishment of the protestant Church of England as Britain's official state religion, bishops of that church have enjoyed the privilege of holding seats in the Upper Chamber. But as Britain becomes increasingly secularized and anti-Christian trends are rising, many are re-examining the relevance of their presence as bishops in a body of government.

Read the rest of this article.

British Govt. Votes to Destroy Religious Freedom -- Force Approval of Homosexuality

British PM Blair Celebrates Passage of Sexual Orientation Regulations at Homosexual Activist Banquet


These men have betrayed their brothers and sisters and Christ himself..
.

Vermont House Rejects Assisted Suicide - "Incredible Victory" Says Anti-Euthanasia Leader

From "Vermont House Rejects Assisted Suicide - "Incredible Victory" Says Anti-Euthanasia Leader" by Gudrun Schultz, posted 3/22/07, at LifeSite.net

The Vermont House of Representatives voted against a proposal yesterday that would have made the state the second in the country to permit physician-assisted suicide, following Oregon.

House members voted 82-63 against the measure euphemistically entitled "Patient Choice and Control at End of Life," after a week of impassioned debate on the issue, the Associated Press reported. The legislation would have made it legal for a doctor to assist a patient with a terminal illness to commit suicide by prescribe lethal medication.

"In my view, (the bill) goes too far in enforcing one group's preferences on the traditional values of others," said Rep. Harvey Otterman.

Read the rest of this article.

All laws force SOMEONE'S 'preferences' on others...

Chicago Cardinal's Remarks on Communion For Pro-Abort Politicians Disappoint Pro-Life Catholics

From "Chicago Cardinal's Remarks on Communion For Pro-Abort Politicians Disappoint Pro-Life Catholics" by Hilary White, posted 3/21/07, at Lifesite.Net.

Answering questions about priests who do not sufficiently support the Church’s doctrine on the right to life, Chicago’s archbishop, Francis Cardinal George, called the attitude of some pro-life advocates “judgemental.”

Speaking at a crowded pro-life conference sponsored by the Archdiocese, Cardinal George said on the issue of pro-abortion politicians receiving Communion, “Maybe you should talk to Pope Benedict XVI, who gives communion to the pro-choice Prime Minister of Italy. You have to look at a lot of things. It's not all that simple.”

The diocesan newspaper, Catholic New World, quotes the Cardinal saying, “You may win your battle but you'll lose the war when it appears to be just another sectarian movement that punishes anyone who doesn't agree with them.”

Read the rest of this article.

Cardinal George might want to take another look at I Corinthians chapter 5.

German Court Places Custody of Yet Another 5 Homeschooling Children with Government's Youth Office

From "German Court Places Custody of Yet Another 5 Homeschooling Children with Government's Youth Office" by Peter J. Smith, posted 3/22/07, at LifeSite.net

ZITTAU, Germany, March 22, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A German court in the eastern province of Saxony has revoked custody of five children from their homeschooling parents, placing the fate of the children into the hands of the Jugendamt, the local youth welfare office.

The Christian Broadcasting Network reports the court ordered the Jugendamt, an organization created by National Socialist chancellor Adolf Hitler in 1939, to retain custody of Rosine, Jotham, Kurt-Simon, Lovis and Ernst, the children of Bert and Kathrin Brause of Zittau, until they are returned to public school.

Although the children still remain with their parents, the Jugendamt may seize them forcibly at any time, as was the case with 15 year-old Melissa Busekros in Bavaria. Busekros was snatched by 15 police officers over 6 weeks ago to a psychiatric clinic in Nuremburg for "school phobia," and continues to remain separated from her family in an undisclosed location.

According to court documents translated by the International Human Rights Group (IHRG), the judge gave her order on the basis that the Brauses' refusal to send their children to the public school violated Germany's mandatory school attendance law.

While the judge admitted that the Brause children were well-educated under the direction of the Philadelphia school, a German homeschooling umbrella organization, she accused the parents - both having college degrees - of abusing their children by denying them the benefits of the public school.

The judge complained the Brause children answered her with the same opinions of her father, concluding they lacked independent personalities. In the Busekros case, the Erlangen Jugendamt told the Bavarian court she was influenced too much by her father and thus had an underdeveloped personality...

Read the rest of this article.

British Govt. Votes to Destroy Religious Freedom -- Force Approval of Homosexuality

The United Kingdom makes an astonishing trade-off: religious freedom for sexual chaos...

From "UK Regulations Barring Religious Schools from Teaching Against Homosexuality Approved" by Hilary White, posted 3/22/07, at LifeSite.net

LONDON, March 22, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The UK's Sexual Orientation Regulations, that will make it illegal for Christian schools, services and businesses to operate according to their religious principles, passed its last hurdle last night in a vote in the House of Lords.

A last minute attempt to defeat the legislation failed. A motion by Baroness O'Caithain that would have scrapped the Regulations on the grounds of anti-religious discrimination was voted down 168 votes to 122. The regulations will be implemented at the end of April.

During the brief debate, Baroness Detta O'Caithain said the SORs are seriously flawed and drew attention to the now notorious breaches of proper democratic procedure by the government who, she said, did not allow proper parliamentary scrutiny. The Peers were not allowed to change the wording of the law but only to vote yes or no.

With the passage of the SOR's, she said, the state had decided that "a citizen's right to manifest sexual orientation is absolute, but the right to manifest religious belief is not."

Hundreds of Christians and others concerned for democratic freedom of religious expression attended a prayer rally outside the Houses of Parliament while the debate took place in the House of Lords.

While they were given little time in Parliament or the Upper House, the SOR's have been the subject of months of debate in the media since the beginning of January when the Catholic Church, the Church of England, Evangelical, Muslim and Jewish groups warned they would spell the effective end of freedom of religious expression in Britain.

In early January, Cormac Cardinal Murphy O'Connor, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, made international headlines when he said that attempting to force Catholic adoption agencies to adopt children to homosexual couples would leave the Church no choice but to close the agencies.

Others said that there was more at stake than only one group or social service, but that the democratic principle of freedom of religious expression was under direct threat. Since the January decision by Prime Minister Tony Blair, a government document was released indicating that the school curriculum would be included and faith-based schools would not be allowed to teach traditional social mores "as if they were objectively true."

While Cardinal Murphy O'Connor indicated that he still held out hopes that some form of accommodation could be found in the twenty-one month "adjustment period" granted churches, others were less sanguine about the government's good will.

LifeSiteNews.com spoke to Fr. Timothy Finigan, a priest of the Archdiocese of Southwark and the founder of the Association of Priests for the Gospel of Life who said, "I don't think it will be productive to negotiate with the government over this. Clearly the regulations are as they are and they have shown that they are not prepared to negotiate or make concessions. The offer of the adjustment period shows that."

While the exemption requested by the Church for the adoption agencies was turned down by Tony Blair, what they got with the government's offer of a delaying period, said Fr. Finigan, "was a kind of stay of execution. But there's nothing there for them. In the meantime, they still have to refer children to be adopted to homosexual couples."

Militant gay activists, he said, will almost certainly now move on to the next phase of test legal cases against smaller Christian or Muslim institutions such as schools or boarding houses.

"The one thing the government doesn't want to see right now is priests and ministers in prison. That means they are going to start with schools or businesses. They've been pushing hard in education for years," Fr. Finigan said.

Since 1944, Catholic schools in Britain have been partially subsidized by the government. Lord Pilkington of Oxenford said that inasmuch as the SOR's assert that individual "human rights" trumped the rights of voluntary societies, they challenge the democratic foundation of the state.

"It is absolutely wrong for a democratic state to assert that the churches and their voluntary societies cannot follow their doctrine merely because the state pays the money. In this, as I say, they break 200 years of tradition." Lord Pilkington said.

Read related coverage:

British PM Blair Celebrates Passage of Sexual Orientation Regulations at Homosexual Activist Banquet

UK: Only 3 of 26 Anglican Bishops Turned out for Vote on Bill Which Severely Restricts Christianity

May God have mercy...

Federal Judge Strikes Down Law Protecting Children from Porn as Violating Free Speech

From "Federal Judge Strikes Down Law Protecting Children from Porn as Violating Free Speech" by Peter J. Smith, posted 3/22/07, at LifeSite.net

PHILADELPHIA, March 22, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A US district court judge stuck down a 1998 law passed by Congress against Internet pornography that made it a crime for commercial website operators to let children under 18 view pornographic materials.

Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr., who presided over the four-week trial last fall, ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union that the 1998 Child Online Protection Act (COPA) violated a constitutional right to free speech.

The judge ruled that while the law intends to protect children from commercial pornography, parents can protect their children through software filters and other less restrictive means that do not impinge upon the rights of others to unrestricted access to pornography.

Read the rest at LifeSite.org

What a relief -- our porn is protected! In the meantime, true free speech is being destroyed.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Pace Critics Seem to Believe No One in Public Life Should Dare to Criticize Sodomy

From "Keeping Pace" by Joseph Farah, posted 3/14/07, at WorldNetDaily.com

Am I to understand that no one in public life or authority today is permitted to subscribe to moral codes that have served the Judeo-Christian world for the last 5,000 years?

So, it seems to me there is an effort here to isolate and marginalize one specific moral code from public utterances and public policy. And that would be the Judeo-Christian moral code.

I don't know about you, but I take offense at that kind of witch-hunting.

...Listen to the nonsense being spewed by Sharon Alexander, the deputy policy director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a homosexual activist group: "When you are in a position of authority like chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, there's no such thing as an off-the-record comment or a statement of your personal opinion. When General Pace speaks, by virtue of who he is and the position he holds, he is speaking for the military. And for him to use his position to express a personal belief about the immorality of homosexuality is irresponsible, at best."

...Of course she doesn't believe what she is saying. What she actually means to say is that no one in public life should dare be free to criticize sodomy, not long ago a crime in all 50 states and now considered by the John Warners of the world enlightened, civilized leisure activity.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi chimed in, of course. She said she was "disappointed in the moral judgment" voiced by Pace. "We need patriotic Americans who exist across the board in our population. We don't need a moral judgment from the chairman of Joint Chiefs."

She doesn't mean it, either. What she means is: "We shouldn't permit moral judgments that differ from mine. We shouldn't allow anyone in public life to rely on the Bible as their personal source of morality."

Had Gen. Pace said he thinks it is time for the military's ban on open homosexual activity to go, that it is immoral to keep it in place, I dare suggest Warner and Pelosi and the rest of the thought police would not have been condemning him for speaking from his own moral convictions. In fact, they would have praised him and used what he had to say as evidence for legislation to do just that.

What we have here, then, is clearly an effort to purge from authority anyone who dares represent the most basic tenets of a Judeo-Christian moral code. It's commendable to preach a new morality. It's forbidden even to admit to believing in the old one.

Read the whole commentary.

I'll go Joseph Farah one further. Not only do liberals and gay activists expect us to abandon Biblical values, they expect us to adopt a value system they are 'making up as they go along..."

Why Are So Many Mid-Life Gay Men Getting HIV?

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From "Why Are So Many Mid-Life Gay Men Getting HIV?" by Spencer Cox and Bruce Kellerhouse, PH.D, posted 3/15/07, at GayCityNews.com

New data released by the city's department of health show that the highest rates of new HIV infections are among gay men 35 to 49 years old. These findings are alarming and, to some, perplexing.

Why are so many mid-life gay men who were able to avoid HIV infection for so long now taking risks that are exposing them to the disease?

We believe that one common thread runs through most of these men's life histories - they came out and/or lived during the death-saturated culture of the 1980s and early to mid-1990s.

However, almost no effort has been made to study the long-term impact of the AIDS epidemic on mid-life gay men, or to determine whether current elevated levels of risk-taking behaviors in gay men are related to the trauma of surviving one of the worst epidemics in our history. That lack of attention may now have come home to roost - in rising rates of risky behavior that are secondary to the effects of unprocessed traumatic responses to decades-old losses that haunt our daily conscious and unconscious lives as mid-life gay men.

...Conversely, many health problems that are now common among gay men are made worse by loneliness and lack of social opportunities.

Furthermore, gay men have high levels of depression and anxiety disorders, another characteristic of people who have survived trauma. Studies estimate that gay men have about twice the levels of depression than are found in Americans generally. .

...In some ways, gay men in mid-life are at the center of a "perfect storm," in which multiple problems converge to create a very high-risk environment. Dr. Ron Stall, one of the leaders in studying gay men's health, has shown that different kinds of psychosocial problems, such as depression, drug use, and partner violence, interact to create higher levels of risk for HIV - in other words, the more psychosocial problems that a person experiences, the higher their risk of getting infected.

If we are to lower HIV infection rates for this population, we need a renewed focus on HIV prevention for gay men. Many of our AIDS organizations are missing in action when it comes to gay men. They've assumed that, because we know how to have safer sex, their job is done. But these data show that the problem isn't lack of information.

Handing a 45-year-old man another safer sex brochure just isn't going to do the job. We urgently need to create programs that directly address the real reasons that gay men engage in high-risk behavior.

Read the whole article.

Although it is very sad, it is also helpful to hear homosexual honestly admit that there are terrible costs associated with gay behavior. The solution is not "more programs." The problem is the behavior itself. It cannot be engaged in 'safely.' It destroys both body, mind, and soul.

Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body… For you have been bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.
—I Corinthians 6:13-20

The homosexual person is and individual that Jesus Christ deeply loves, one He is ready and willing to completely forgive, save and set free.

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."--Jesus Christ, Jn 8:32