The Texas school trustee was slated for a motivational speech to middle school students, but instead provided instructions on sex acts, as several teachers listened.
UPDATE 1/25/10: Girls who didn't know about oral sex, were clued in
-- From "Trustee's speech to kids turns into sex talk" by T.J. Aulds, Galveston County [Texas] Daily News 1/23/10
What was supposed to be a motivation speech to a collection of sixth- through eighth-grade girls at Crosby Middle School instead turned into an explicit sex talk, including descriptions on how to perform oral and anal sex, Hitchcock school officials said.
The motivational speaker turned out to be a Hitchcock school board member, Shirley Price.
[Hitchcock Superintendent Mike] Bergman said when Price was introduced, she asked that the school’s principal leave the room. Most of the teachers remained, but they did not step in when Price’s speech turned inappropriate, Bergman said.
Students apparently were told to keep the contents of the speech secret, Bergman said.
The district has been flooded with calls from outraged parents who were unaware of the presentation until a couple of parents spoke at Tuesday’s school board meeting.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
NY Times Exploits Children Pushing Same-sex Marriage
What about the children now being raised in families headed by gay men and lesbians? How does the lack of marriage benefits for their parents affect them?
-- From "Children Speak for Same-Sex Marriage" by Sarah Wildman, New York Times 1/20/10
Kasey is 10 years old. When the New Jersey State Senate voted against same-sex marriage on Jan. 7, he was devastated. “We tried to buoy him and say, ‘It’s another step in the process and it’s not over yet,’ ” said Karen Nicholson-McFadden, one of Kasey’s mothers.
For as long as Kasey can remember, Marcye and Karen Nicholson-McFadden have been petitioning the State of New Jersey for the right to marry. So while much of Kasey’s free time is spent on typical preteen activities — in-line skating, swim team and soccer practice — some of it is spent appearing in advertising campaigns and events organized by Garden State Equality. So many of that organization’s 64,000 members have children that the group provides day care and activities for teenagers during its events.
In recent years, an increasing number of these children — ranging in age from 10 to nearly 40 — have taken active roles in campaigns organized by Colage (formerly known as Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere), and civil rights groups like Lambda Legal and Glad (Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders). Their involvement is helping to change the narrative of same-sex marriage to a story about families from one about couples.
Many gay rights activists think that hearing articulate children of same-sex parents ask why their families should have fewer rights than their neighbors goes a long way toward turning the family values argument on its head.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
-- From "Children Speak for Same-Sex Marriage" by Sarah Wildman, New York Times 1/20/10
Kasey is 10 years old. When the New Jersey State Senate voted against same-sex marriage on Jan. 7, he was devastated. “We tried to buoy him and say, ‘It’s another step in the process and it’s not over yet,’ ” said Karen Nicholson-McFadden, one of Kasey’s mothers.
For as long as Kasey can remember, Marcye and Karen Nicholson-McFadden have been petitioning the State of New Jersey for the right to marry. So while much of Kasey’s free time is spent on typical preteen activities — in-line skating, swim team and soccer practice — some of it is spent appearing in advertising campaigns and events organized by Garden State Equality. So many of that organization’s 64,000 members have children that the group provides day care and activities for teenagers during its events.
In recent years, an increasing number of these children — ranging in age from 10 to nearly 40 — have taken active roles in campaigns organized by Colage (formerly known as Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere), and civil rights groups like Lambda Legal and Glad (Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders). Their involvement is helping to change the narrative of same-sex marriage to a story about families from one about couples.
Many gay rights activists think that hearing articulate children of same-sex parents ask why their families should have fewer rights than their neighbors goes a long way toward turning the family values argument on its head.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
Pregnancy is Slavery Says Obama Nominee
President Obama has doubled-down on nomination of NARAL abortion advocate, Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen, to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.
UPDATE 4/9/10: Johnsen withdraws (she was even too liberal for the Dems)
-- From "Obama Submits Renomination of Dawn Johnsen" posted at Ms. Magazine 1/22/10
Johnsen was first formally nominated in February 2009. Johnsen’s nomination has been held up for nearly a year because of Republican opposition in Congress.
Johnson is currently a professor of law at Indiana University and has been working with the Obama/Biden transition team for the Office of Legal Counsel. She will lead the Office of Legal Counsel in her new position if confirmed. She also served in the Clinton White House and was the legal director at NARAL Pro-Choice America for five years.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Specter now says he'll support Dawn Johnsen for Office of Legal Counsel" by Carrie Johnson, Washington Post Staff Writer 1/13/10
Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) announced Tuesday that he would support law professor Dawn Johnsen as the new leader of a critical Justice Department post. The move could potentially break a legislative logjam lasting nearly a year over her nomination.
But the Obama administration and the Senate leadership struggled to find 60 senators willing to support Johnsen. Moderate lawmakers have expressed concern over her legal work for an abortion rights group and her positions on certain national security issues.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Lawyer’s Lawyer, Radical’s Radical" by Andrew McCarthy, posted at National Review Online 3/9/09
Yale-educated and ACLU-trained, Johnsen['s] . . . bizarre equation of pregnancy and slavery was not an off-the-cuff remark. It was her considered position in a 1989 brief filed in the Supreme Court. At the time, she was legal director of NARAL (then the National Abortion Rights Action League, since renamed NARAL Pro-Choice America). The case, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, involved a Missouri law that did not ban abortion but restricted the use of state funds and resources for abortions. It’s an obvious distinction, but one without a difference — at least according to Johnsen. Any restriction that makes abortion less accessible is, in her view, tantamount to “involuntary servitude” because it “requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state’s asserted interest [in the life of the unborn].” In effect, a woman “is constantly aware for nine months that her body is not her own: the state has conscripted her body for its own ends.” Such “forced pregnancy,” she contends, violates the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibits slavery.
The Court rejected this farcical theory, just as it has rejected other instantiations of Johnsen’s extremism. On abortion and other issues dear to the Left, she is nothing short of a zealot. She insisted that, without government-provided abortion counseling, a large number of women would be left without “proper information about contraception.” This, she claimed, would mean they “cannot be said to have a meaningful opportunity to avoid pregnancy.” The usual rejoinder to such reasoning is that nobody is forcing these women to have sex. Johnsen sees it differently, writing that these “losers in the contraceptive lottery no more ‘consent’ to pregnancy than pedestrians ‘consent’ to being struck by drunk drivers.”
Johnsen’s attraction for Obama is obvious. The principal target of her Webster brief was the settled principle that the Constitution’s recognition of various fundamental rights (and the judicial invention of such “rights” as abortion) does not confer an entitlement to governmental aid to exercise those rights. For Johnsen, this is anathema, the denial of “economic justice” and thus of equal protection. “Economic justice,” a favorite Obama phrase, is the Left’s euphemism for the “redistributive change” Obama criticized the radical Warren Court for failing to embrace. Rather than the hoary construction of the Constitution as “a charter of negative liberties,” one that says only what government “can’t do to you,” Obama urges a new bill of rights defining what government “must do on your behalf.”
In Dawn Johnsen’s dizzying jurisprudence, government has no business invading individual privacy and regulating abortion but is obliged to coerce taxpayers into underwriting abortions as a first step in what she unapologetically calls “the progressive agenda” of “universal health care, public funding for childcare, paid family leave, and . . . the full range of economic justice issues, from the minimum wage to taxation policy to financial support for struggling families.”
If Johnsen is confirmed, OLC will be transformed from a source of non-ideological legal analysis to a culture-war agitator. And its value to the Department of Justice may be lost.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
UPDATE 4/9/10: Johnsen withdraws (she was even too liberal for the Dems)
-- From "Obama Submits Renomination of Dawn Johnsen" posted at Ms. Magazine 1/22/10
Johnsen was first formally nominated in February 2009. Johnsen’s nomination has been held up for nearly a year because of Republican opposition in Congress.
Johnson is currently a professor of law at Indiana University and has been working with the Obama/Biden transition team for the Office of Legal Counsel. She will lead the Office of Legal Counsel in her new position if confirmed. She also served in the Clinton White House and was the legal director at NARAL Pro-Choice America for five years.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Specter now says he'll support Dawn Johnsen for Office of Legal Counsel" by Carrie Johnson, Washington Post Staff Writer 1/13/10
Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) announced Tuesday that he would support law professor Dawn Johnsen as the new leader of a critical Justice Department post. The move could potentially break a legislative logjam lasting nearly a year over her nomination.
But the Obama administration and the Senate leadership struggled to find 60 senators willing to support Johnsen. Moderate lawmakers have expressed concern over her legal work for an abortion rights group and her positions on certain national security issues.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Lawyer’s Lawyer, Radical’s Radical" by Andrew McCarthy, posted at National Review Online 3/9/09
Yale-educated and ACLU-trained, Johnsen['s] . . . bizarre equation of pregnancy and slavery was not an off-the-cuff remark. It was her considered position in a 1989 brief filed in the Supreme Court. At the time, she was legal director of NARAL (then the National Abortion Rights Action League, since renamed NARAL Pro-Choice America). The case, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, involved a Missouri law that did not ban abortion but restricted the use of state funds and resources for abortions. It’s an obvious distinction, but one without a difference — at least according to Johnsen. Any restriction that makes abortion less accessible is, in her view, tantamount to “involuntary servitude” because it “requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state’s asserted interest [in the life of the unborn].” In effect, a woman “is constantly aware for nine months that her body is not her own: the state has conscripted her body for its own ends.” Such “forced pregnancy,” she contends, violates the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibits slavery.
The Court rejected this farcical theory, just as it has rejected other instantiations of Johnsen’s extremism. On abortion and other issues dear to the Left, she is nothing short of a zealot. She insisted that, without government-provided abortion counseling, a large number of women would be left without “proper information about contraception.” This, she claimed, would mean they “cannot be said to have a meaningful opportunity to avoid pregnancy.” The usual rejoinder to such reasoning is that nobody is forcing these women to have sex. Johnsen sees it differently, writing that these “losers in the contraceptive lottery no more ‘consent’ to pregnancy than pedestrians ‘consent’ to being struck by drunk drivers.”
Johnsen’s attraction for Obama is obvious. The principal target of her Webster brief was the settled principle that the Constitution’s recognition of various fundamental rights (and the judicial invention of such “rights” as abortion) does not confer an entitlement to governmental aid to exercise those rights. For Johnsen, this is anathema, the denial of “economic justice” and thus of equal protection. “Economic justice,” a favorite Obama phrase, is the Left’s euphemism for the “redistributive change” Obama criticized the radical Warren Court for failing to embrace. Rather than the hoary construction of the Constitution as “a charter of negative liberties,” one that says only what government “can’t do to you,” Obama urges a new bill of rights defining what government “must do on your behalf.”
In Dawn Johnsen’s dizzying jurisprudence, government has no business invading individual privacy and regulating abortion but is obliged to coerce taxpayers into underwriting abortions as a first step in what she unapologetically calls “the progressive agenda” of “universal health care, public funding for childcare, paid family leave, and . . . the full range of economic justice issues, from the minimum wage to taxation policy to financial support for struggling families.”
If Johnsen is confirmed, OLC will be transformed from a source of non-ideological legal analysis to a culture-war agitator. And its value to the Department of Justice may be lost.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Haiti: Planned Parenthood Appeals to Increase Death Toll
Days after the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake, the International Planned Parenthood Federation Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF/WHR) sent out a fundraising appeal to help rebuild two clinics that were destroyed in Port-au-Prince and Jacmel.
-- From "Haiti appeal from Planned Parenthood hit" by Valerie Richardson, Washington Times 1/22/10
The clinics are operated by PROFAMIL, a "member association" that provides "sexual and reproductive health services," including abortions. The fundraising post said that PROFAMIL is setting up a temporary stationary clinic and mobile-health units to provide "basic first aid, as well as obstetric care and family planning."
Outrage over the appeal quickly spread through the pro-life community and its related blogs. Rita Diller, national director of Stop Planned Parenthood, said on LifeSiteNews.com that the group was "using the disaster and the suffering in Haiti to raise money to perpetuate itself."
Defenders of Planned Parenthood insisted that critics were jumping to the wrong conclusions. Dawn Stacey, a former Planned Parenthood pregnancy-options counselor who now serves as About.com's contraception expert, said on her blog that the mobile units would "bring needed services to people who are totally isolated."
. . . Planned Parenthood has a history of using natural disasters to promote its agenda. After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, Planned Parenthood offered free emergency contraception, better known as "morning-after" pills, to terminate pregnancies.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, Planned Parenthood of New York City offered 12 days of free reproductive health services, including abortions, emergency contraception, HIV and STD testing, and counseling.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
-- From "Haiti appeal from Planned Parenthood hit" by Valerie Richardson, Washington Times 1/22/10
The clinics are operated by PROFAMIL, a "member association" that provides "sexual and reproductive health services," including abortions. The fundraising post said that PROFAMIL is setting up a temporary stationary clinic and mobile-health units to provide "basic first aid, as well as obstetric care and family planning."
Outrage over the appeal quickly spread through the pro-life community and its related blogs. Rita Diller, national director of Stop Planned Parenthood, said on LifeSiteNews.com that the group was "using the disaster and the suffering in Haiti to raise money to perpetuate itself."
Defenders of Planned Parenthood insisted that critics were jumping to the wrong conclusions. Dawn Stacey, a former Planned Parenthood pregnancy-options counselor who now serves as About.com's contraception expert, said on her blog that the mobile units would "bring needed services to people who are totally isolated."
. . . Planned Parenthood has a history of using natural disasters to promote its agenda. After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, Planned Parenthood offered free emergency contraception, better known as "morning-after" pills, to terminate pregnancies.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, Planned Parenthood of New York City offered 12 days of free reproductive health services, including abortions, emergency contraception, HIV and STD testing, and counseling.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
Deadly Results of Pluralistic Political Correctness
At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing [Sen. McCain], the ranking Republican chided the commission for insufficiently focusing on perpetrator Nidal Malik Hasan’s Islamic radicalism.
Video analysis by Lieutenant General William G. Boykin (retired), former United States Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.
-- From "McCain Calls Out Fort Hood Review For ‘Political Correctness’" by Spencer Ackerman, Washington Independent 1/21/10
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is less than satisfied with the report of a commission empaneled by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to investigate the deadly Fort Hood shootings in November.
“It was motives that led to the Fort Hood killings,” McCain said, “whatever the political correctness” implications of saying so. The report doesn’t specifically deal with that, and so it provides “insufficient information” to guide institutional changes to prevent the next Fort Hood.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "The Fort Hood Report: Why No Mention of Islam?" by Mark Thompson, Time Magazine 1/20/10
The U.S. military's just-released report into the Fort Hood shootings spends 86 pages detailing various slipups by Army officers but not once mentions Major Nidal Hasan by name or even discusses whether the killings may have had anything to do with the suspect's view of his Muslim faith.
John Lehman, a member of the 9/11 commission and Navy Secretary during the Reagan Administration, says a reluctance to cause offense by citing Hasan's view of his Muslim faith and the U.S. military's activities in Muslim countries as a possible trigger for his alleged rampage reflects a problem that has gotten worse in the 40 years that Lehman has spent in and around the U.S. military. The Pentagon report's silence on Islamic extremism "shows you how deeply entrenched the values of political correctness have become," he told TIME on Tuesday. "It's definitely getting worse, and is now so ingrained that people no longer smirk when it happens."
But without a motive, there would have been no murder. Hasan wore his radical Islamic faith and its jihadist tendencies in the same way he wore his Army uniform. He allegedly proselytized within the ranks, spoke out against the wars his Army was waging in Muslim countries and shouted "Allahu akbar" (God is great) as he gunned down his fellow soldiers. Those who served alongside Hasan find the Pentagon review wanting. "The report demonstrates that we are unwilling to identify and confront the real enemy of political Islam," says a former military colleague of Hasan, speaking privately because he was ordered not to talk about the case. "Political correctness has brainwashed us to the point that we no longer understand our heritage and cannot admit who, or what, the enemy stands for."
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
Video analysis by Lieutenant General William G. Boykin (retired), former United States Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.
-- From "McCain Calls Out Fort Hood Review For ‘Political Correctness’" by Spencer Ackerman, Washington Independent 1/21/10
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is less than satisfied with the report of a commission empaneled by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to investigate the deadly Fort Hood shootings in November.
“It was motives that led to the Fort Hood killings,” McCain said, “whatever the political correctness” implications of saying so. The report doesn’t specifically deal with that, and so it provides “insufficient information” to guide institutional changes to prevent the next Fort Hood.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "The Fort Hood Report: Why No Mention of Islam?" by Mark Thompson, Time Magazine 1/20/10
The U.S. military's just-released report into the Fort Hood shootings spends 86 pages detailing various slipups by Army officers but not once mentions Major Nidal Hasan by name or even discusses whether the killings may have had anything to do with the suspect's view of his Muslim faith.
John Lehman, a member of the 9/11 commission and Navy Secretary during the Reagan Administration, says a reluctance to cause offense by citing Hasan's view of his Muslim faith and the U.S. military's activities in Muslim countries as a possible trigger for his alleged rampage reflects a problem that has gotten worse in the 40 years that Lehman has spent in and around the U.S. military. The Pentagon report's silence on Islamic extremism "shows you how deeply entrenched the values of political correctness have become," he told TIME on Tuesday. "It's definitely getting worse, and is now so ingrained that people no longer smirk when it happens."
But without a motive, there would have been no murder. Hasan wore his radical Islamic faith and its jihadist tendencies in the same way he wore his Army uniform. He allegedly proselytized within the ranks, spoke out against the wars his Army was waging in Muslim countries and shouted "Allahu akbar" (God is great) as he gunned down his fellow soldiers. Those who served alongside Hasan find the Pentagon review wanting. "The report demonstrates that we are unwilling to identify and confront the real enemy of political Islam," says a former military colleague of Hasan, speaking privately because he was ordered not to talk about the case. "Political correctness has brainwashed us to the point that we no longer understand our heritage and cannot admit who, or what, the enemy stands for."
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Grassroots D.C. Life March: America Opposing ObamaCare
Chanting, yelling and singing their way down Constitution Avenue, tens of thousands of abortion opponents marched through the cold Friday in the annual March for Life, marking the 37th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.
UPDATE 1/23/10: Record large pro-life march in San Francisco (see video)
-- From "Abortion opponents rally on the Mall on Roe v. Wade anniversary" by William Wan, Washington Post Staff Writer 1/22/10
. . . the message this year centered on fighting the now stalled healthcare reform package and ensuring any future healthcare plans prohibit the use of federal funding for abortions.
Many at the rally cited the election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts as sign of a shifting momentum to conservative causes like their own.
"Any people from Massachusetts here today?" asked U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), one of several members of congress who spoke a the rally on the Mall. "Thank you Massachusetts. Thank you for helping us kill the anti-life bill," he said referring to the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority in the Senate that will be broken once Brown is sworn in.
During his eight years in office, former President George W. Bush often greeted marchers with a message from Camp David or other locations where he was traveling, expressing support for their cause. Bush appointed two Supreme Court justices who have voted to uphold federal restrictions on some abortion procedures.
Last year, as the march took place during his first few weeks in office, President Barack Obama issued a statement reaffirming his support for a woman's right to choose to end her pregnancy.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
UPDATE 1/23/10: Record large pro-life march in San Francisco (see video)
-- From "Abortion opponents rally on the Mall on Roe v. Wade anniversary" by William Wan, Washington Post Staff Writer 1/22/10
. . . the message this year centered on fighting the now stalled healthcare reform package and ensuring any future healthcare plans prohibit the use of federal funding for abortions.
Many at the rally cited the election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts as sign of a shifting momentum to conservative causes like their own.
"Any people from Massachusetts here today?" asked U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), one of several members of congress who spoke a the rally on the Mall. "Thank you Massachusetts. Thank you for helping us kill the anti-life bill," he said referring to the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority in the Senate that will be broken once Brown is sworn in.
During his eight years in office, former President George W. Bush often greeted marchers with a message from Camp David or other locations where he was traveling, expressing support for their cause. Bush appointed two Supreme Court justices who have voted to uphold federal restrictions on some abortion procedures.
Last year, as the march took place during his first few weeks in office, President Barack Obama issued a statement reaffirming his support for a woman's right to choose to end her pregnancy.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
Gay Agenda: IL School Redefines Family
Suburban public school near Chicago attempts to neutralize citizen backlash to introduction of formal program to enable teachers to indoctrinate the youngest children to normalization of homosexuality
UPDATE 2/7/10: Chicago Tribune advocates normalization of homosexuality
-- From "Gay-awareness lectures at Oak Park school ripped" Sun-Times Media 1/22/10
Recent lectures on gay awareness to parents and faculty at an Oak Park elementary school have drawn criticism from a conservative group's Web site. [See excerpts below.]
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Oak Park school responds to critics of gay awareness talk" by Chuck Fieldman, Pioneer Press Sun-Times Media 1/21/10
Beye School Principal Jonathan Ellwanger said a notice to parents last week was an attempt to "clear up ... a known point of misinformation" about diversity lectures for faculty and parents at the school.
The Jan. 15 e-mail was sent in reaction to critics following the Illinois Family Institute that protested the school's choice in a speaker and her topic, which included gay awareness.
Shannon Sullivan, executive director of the Illinois Safe Schools Network, spoke to faculty in August and in November during a staff development session. She also spoke to about 85 parents at a Jan. 19 PTO meeting. [See video below.]
"Shannon Sullivan came in and talked about all kinds of different family structures, from gay and lesbian parents to divorced parents," [Ellwanger said.]
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Homosexual Activists Exploit Oak Park's Beye Elementary School" by Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute 1/14/10
During her biased presentation, Sullivan showed the film That's a Family . . .
That's a Family implicitly espouses the offensive claim that families led by homosexuals are morally equivalent to those led by guardians, disabled parents, racial minorities, or heterosexuals. Some teachers at Beye are planning on showing this piece of political propaganda to their elementary students, citing the presence of families led by homosexuals in the Oak Park community as justification. But simply because a particular family structure exists does not require public educators either to discuss it or affirm it. Watch an excerpt from the film here.
Also, spend a few minutes wandering around the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance website to see how very busy Shannon Sullivan is in her efforts to use public schools as well as Illinois colleges and universities that train future teachers to promote her socio-political vision. Here's just one of her efforts:
Elementary schools should not in any context introduce homosexuality or Gender Identity Disorder to children. I would argue that schools that affirm either implicitly or explicitly the following ideas are engaging in irresponsible, unethical, presumptuous, and perhaps unconstitutional moral indoctrination:
• The theory that homosexuality is ontologically equivalent to skin-color or race
• The theory that homosexuality is morally equivalent to heterosexuality
• The theory that families led by homosexuals are morally equivalent to families led by heterosexuals
• The idea that moral disapproval of homosexuality constitutes ignorance, bias, prejudice, hatred, bullying, or harassment
• The idea that expressions of moral disapproval of homosexuality should be prohibited
Since many who affirm homosexuality attend churches that embrace "gay theology," I would argue that the charge so often leveled at conservative people of faith should be extended to liberal people of faith, which is that schools that affirm homosexuality violate the separation of church and state by imposing the religious views of some on all children.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
UPDATE 2/7/10: Chicago Tribune advocates normalization of homosexuality
-- From "Gay-awareness lectures at Oak Park school ripped" Sun-Times Media 1/22/10
Recent lectures on gay awareness to parents and faculty at an Oak Park elementary school have drawn criticism from a conservative group's Web site. [See excerpts below.]
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Oak Park school responds to critics of gay awareness talk" by Chuck Fieldman, Pioneer Press Sun-Times Media 1/21/10
Beye School Principal Jonathan Ellwanger said a notice to parents last week was an attempt to "clear up ... a known point of misinformation" about diversity lectures for faculty and parents at the school.
The Jan. 15 e-mail was sent in reaction to critics following the Illinois Family Institute that protested the school's choice in a speaker and her topic, which included gay awareness.
Shannon Sullivan, executive director of the Illinois Safe Schools Network, spoke to faculty in August and in November during a staff development session. She also spoke to about 85 parents at a Jan. 19 PTO meeting. [See video below.]
"Shannon Sullivan came in and talked about all kinds of different family structures, from gay and lesbian parents to divorced parents," [Ellwanger said.]
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Homosexual Activists Exploit Oak Park's Beye Elementary School" by Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute 1/14/10
During her biased presentation, Sullivan showed the film That's a Family . . .
That's a Family implicitly espouses the offensive claim that families led by homosexuals are morally equivalent to those led by guardians, disabled parents, racial minorities, or heterosexuals. Some teachers at Beye are planning on showing this piece of political propaganda to their elementary students, citing the presence of families led by homosexuals in the Oak Park community as justification. But simply because a particular family structure exists does not require public educators either to discuss it or affirm it. Watch an excerpt from the film here.
Also, spend a few minutes wandering around the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance website to see how very busy Shannon Sullivan is in her efforts to use public schools as well as Illinois colleges and universities that train future teachers to promote her socio-political vision. Here's just one of her efforts:
The P Project is a partnership between the Alliance and an advisory board of representatives from Illinois colleges and universities involved in pre-professional preparation of teachers, counselors and social workers. Gathering data on the status of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (GLBTQ) issues in pre-professional education, The P Project aims to support Illinois colleges and universities in further inclusion of diversity issues into their curricula in more meaningful ways. For more information, or to join The P Project, please contact Shannon Sullivan."Family Diversity" is a term that obscures the politically incorrect truth that not all family structures are worthy of appreciation or respect. Some differences are good, some differences are bad, and some are neutral. The forms of diversity of which Ms. Sullivan is enamored are, in the view of many people, profoundly wrong; and public schools have no right to use school hours, school resources, and public money to affirm Ms. Sullivan's unproven, divisive theories to children. The administration has no right to impose these unproven, divisive, and often religious beliefs, on teachers through Institute Day presentations or any other professional development workshops that focus on "anti-bullying" or "diversity." And administrators have no right to expect or compel teachers to share Sullivan's subversive ideas with young children, many of whose parents have political, philosophical, moral, or religious beliefs that conflict with them.
Elementary schools should not in any context introduce homosexuality or Gender Identity Disorder to children. I would argue that schools that affirm either implicitly or explicitly the following ideas are engaging in irresponsible, unethical, presumptuous, and perhaps unconstitutional moral indoctrination:
• The theory that homosexuality is ontologically equivalent to skin-color or race
• The theory that homosexuality is morally equivalent to heterosexuality
• The theory that families led by homosexuals are morally equivalent to families led by heterosexuals
• The idea that moral disapproval of homosexuality constitutes ignorance, bias, prejudice, hatred, bullying, or harassment
• The idea that expressions of moral disapproval of homosexuality should be prohibited
Since many who affirm homosexuality attend churches that embrace "gay theology," I would argue that the charge so often leveled at conservative people of faith should be extended to liberal people of faith, which is that schools that affirm homosexuality violate the separation of church and state by imposing the religious views of some on all children.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Obama Inaction re: Christian Persecution Worldwide
“President Obama has not yet named an ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom,” a State Department press officer confirmed by phone late Wednesday.
-- From "Buzz rising over international religious freedom ambassador spot" by Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post 1/21/10
Among the most passionate faith-oriented groups in Washington are advocates for international religious freedom. I don't mean so much people who focus on domestic church-state law (though there is overlap among interested parties), but people who fight overseas against things like codified religious discrimination, limits on the construction of churches (and other houses of worship), etc.
People in this albeit small community have been buzzing in recent weeks with news that President Obama had finally picked someone to fill the job of ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. This spot was created in 1998 and is tasked with promoting religious freedom as a core objective of U.S. foreign policy. The office is supposed to monitor religious persecution around the world, recommend and implement policies and advise the State Department and the president.
Missing, say religious freedom advocates, is any work related to religious freedom or foreign policy.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "One Year Later, Obama Administration’s Top Religious Freedom Post Still Vacant" by Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews.com International Editor 1/21/10
“By not having an ambassador-at-large for the past 12 months, the U.S. has failed to demonstrate the importance of religious freedom,” said [Christian advocacy organization, Open Doors USA] director Lindsay Vessey.
“And considering the many religious conflicts around the world and the many Christians and people of other faiths who are persecuted for their beliefs, it is disappointing that President Obama has failed to fill this position,” she added.
Religious freedom campaigners have noted a surge in incidents of violence against Christians in particular over the past two months.
Barnabas Fund, a charity helping Christians in Islamic societies, drew attention to attacks – including fatal shootings, bombings, assaults, arson attacks, threats and arrests – in Iraq, Iran, Indonesia, Pakistan, Algeria, Egypt, Malaysia and, most recently, Nigeria, where clashes between Muslims and Christians this week have reportedly cost several hundred lives.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
-- From "Buzz rising over international religious freedom ambassador spot" by Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post 1/21/10
Among the most passionate faith-oriented groups in Washington are advocates for international religious freedom. I don't mean so much people who focus on domestic church-state law (though there is overlap among interested parties), but people who fight overseas against things like codified religious discrimination, limits on the construction of churches (and other houses of worship), etc.
People in this albeit small community have been buzzing in recent weeks with news that President Obama had finally picked someone to fill the job of ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. This spot was created in 1998 and is tasked with promoting religious freedom as a core objective of U.S. foreign policy. The office is supposed to monitor religious persecution around the world, recommend and implement policies and advise the State Department and the president.
Missing, say religious freedom advocates, is any work related to religious freedom or foreign policy.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "One Year Later, Obama Administration’s Top Religious Freedom Post Still Vacant" by Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews.com International Editor 1/21/10
“By not having an ambassador-at-large for the past 12 months, the U.S. has failed to demonstrate the importance of religious freedom,” said [Christian advocacy organization, Open Doors USA] director Lindsay Vessey.
“And considering the many religious conflicts around the world and the many Christians and people of other faiths who are persecuted for their beliefs, it is disappointing that President Obama has failed to fill this position,” she added.
Religious freedom campaigners have noted a surge in incidents of violence against Christians in particular over the past two months.
Barnabas Fund, a charity helping Christians in Islamic societies, drew attention to attacks – including fatal shootings, bombings, assaults, arson attacks, threats and arrests – in Iraq, Iran, Indonesia, Pakistan, Algeria, Egypt, Malaysia and, most recently, Nigeria, where clashes between Muslims and Christians this week have reportedly cost several hundred lives.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
More Sex on TV - Mainstream Media Elated
If sex sells, TV programmers are adding inventory to an already humongous sale.
Viewers are about to see full-frontal male nudity, heterosexual, homosexual and group sex, and graphic scenes rarely — if ever — seen on mainstream TV.
-- From "Sex on TV: It's increasingly uncut — and unavoidable" by Gary Strauss, USA TODAY 1/21/10
MTV plans a June launch of The Hard Times of RJ Berger, a scripted comedy about a nerdy 15-year-old whose cool quotient heats up when his anatomical gift is accidentally exposed. And basic-cable network Spike's just-launched raunchy college-sports comedy Blue Mountain State (Tuesdays, 10 ET/PT) showed a masturbating school mascot on the Jan. 12 premiere, while last night's episode featured a scene suggesting oral sex between a coed and jock before the opening credits.
ABC's Cougar Town — which had a memorable scene that implied Courteney Cox's character administering oral sex to her date — premiered last fall. Also new in the past year: HBO's Hung, a dramedy about a well-endowed teacher moonlighting as a prostitute; National Geographic TV's adult-themed documentary series, Taboo; and VH1's titillating Sex Rehab With Dr. Drew.
Critics such as the Parents Television Council decry the mushrooming sexual content. "It's become downright ubiquitous," says council president Tim Winter. "Families are under siege, teenage girls are under siege. You don't know what the cultural impact will be down the road."
. . . Spartacus: Blood and Sand oozes explicit content.
[Spartacus star Lucy] Lawless portrays a conniving social climber who is nude in some scenes, commits adultery in others and uses sex to manipulate frenemies and family. One episode shows Lawless' character and her gladiator-camp-owner husband (John Hannah) manually stimulated by slaves before having sex. Upcoming episodes feature orgies and a gladiator whose large endowment ultimately leads to his downfall.
Noting the potentially off-putting content, the former Xena: Warrior Princess star concedes Spartacus isn't for everyone: "Pretty quickly, the audience has to realize they aren't in Kansas anymore. There will be (viewers) who are truly horrified and switch this off."
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
Viewers are about to see full-frontal male nudity, heterosexual, homosexual and group sex, and graphic scenes rarely — if ever — seen on mainstream TV.
-- From "Sex on TV: It's increasingly uncut — and unavoidable" by Gary Strauss, USA TODAY 1/21/10
MTV plans a June launch of The Hard Times of RJ Berger, a scripted comedy about a nerdy 15-year-old whose cool quotient heats up when his anatomical gift is accidentally exposed. And basic-cable network Spike's just-launched raunchy college-sports comedy Blue Mountain State (Tuesdays, 10 ET/PT) showed a masturbating school mascot on the Jan. 12 premiere, while last night's episode featured a scene suggesting oral sex between a coed and jock before the opening credits.
ABC's Cougar Town — which had a memorable scene that implied Courteney Cox's character administering oral sex to her date — premiered last fall. Also new in the past year: HBO's Hung, a dramedy about a well-endowed teacher moonlighting as a prostitute; National Geographic TV's adult-themed documentary series, Taboo; and VH1's titillating Sex Rehab With Dr. Drew.
Critics such as the Parents Television Council decry the mushrooming sexual content. "It's become downright ubiquitous," says council president Tim Winter. "Families are under siege, teenage girls are under siege. You don't know what the cultural impact will be down the road."
. . . Spartacus: Blood and Sand oozes explicit content.
[Spartacus star Lucy] Lawless portrays a conniving social climber who is nude in some scenes, commits adultery in others and uses sex to manipulate frenemies and family. One episode shows Lawless' character and her gladiator-camp-owner husband (John Hannah) manually stimulated by slaves before having sex. Upcoming episodes feature orgies and a gladiator whose large endowment ultimately leads to his downfall.
Noting the potentially off-putting content, the former Xena: Warrior Princess star concedes Spartacus isn't for everyone: "Pretty quickly, the audience has to realize they aren't in Kansas anymore. There will be (viewers) who are truly horrified and switch this off."
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
Christian Weapons Contractor Under Fire
Manufacturer, Trijicon, includes abbreviations to Bible citations within serial number of rifle sights
"As long as we have men and women in danger, we will continue to do everything we can to provide them with both state-of-the-art technology and the never-ending support and prayers of a grateful nation."
UPDATE 1/22/10: Manufacturer gives in to political-correct pressure
-- From "Muslims Angry Over U.S. Military 'Jesus' Rifles" FOX News 1/21/10
Combat rifle sights used by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan carry secret [sic] references to Bible verses.
Army officials have said they will investigate whether a Michigan defense contractor violated federal procurement rules by stamping references to Bible verses on the gun sights used by American forces to kill enemy fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR] on Wednesday said the continued use of the sights with the religious references would send a negative message to the Muslim world.
The Marine Corps, another major customer of the telescoping sights that allow troops to pinpoint targets day or night, says service acquisition officials plan to meet with Trijicon to discuss future purchases of the company's gear.
The codes were used as "part of our faith and our belief in service to our country," Trijicon said.
Trijicon said it has been longstanding company practice to put the Scripture citations on the equipment. Tom Munson, Trijicon's director of sales and marketing, said the company has never received any complaints until now.
Munson . . . said the practice of putting Bible references on the sites began nearly 30 years ago by Trijicon's founder, Glyn Bindon, who was killed in a plane crash in 2003. His son Stephen, Trijicon's president, has continued the practice.
The inscriptions are subtle and appear in raised lettering at the end of the stock number. Trijicon's rifle sights use tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, to create light and help shooters hit what they're aiming for.
Markings on the Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight, which is standard issue to U.S. special operations forces, include "JN8:12," a reference to John 8:12: "Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, 'I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life,'" according to the King James version of the Bible.
The Trijicon Reflex sight is stamped with 2COR4:6, a reference to part of the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," the King James version reads.
A spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which manages military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the sights don't violate the ban on proselytizing because there's no effort to distribute the equipment beyond the U.S. troops who use them.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
"As long as we have men and women in danger, we will continue to do everything we can to provide them with both state-of-the-art technology and the never-ending support and prayers of a grateful nation."
UPDATE 1/22/10: Manufacturer gives in to political-correct pressure
-- From "Muslims Angry Over U.S. Military 'Jesus' Rifles" FOX News 1/21/10
Combat rifle sights used by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan carry secret [sic] references to Bible verses.
Army officials have said they will investigate whether a Michigan defense contractor violated federal procurement rules by stamping references to Bible verses on the gun sights used by American forces to kill enemy fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR] on Wednesday said the continued use of the sights with the religious references would send a negative message to the Muslim world.
The Marine Corps, another major customer of the telescoping sights that allow troops to pinpoint targets day or night, says service acquisition officials plan to meet with Trijicon to discuss future purchases of the company's gear.
The codes were used as "part of our faith and our belief in service to our country," Trijicon said.
Trijicon said it has been longstanding company practice to put the Scripture citations on the equipment. Tom Munson, Trijicon's director of sales and marketing, said the company has never received any complaints until now.
Munson . . . said the practice of putting Bible references on the sites began nearly 30 years ago by Trijicon's founder, Glyn Bindon, who was killed in a plane crash in 2003. His son Stephen, Trijicon's president, has continued the practice.
The inscriptions are subtle and appear in raised lettering at the end of the stock number. Trijicon's rifle sights use tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, to create light and help shooters hit what they're aiming for.
Markings on the Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight, which is standard issue to U.S. special operations forces, include "JN8:12," a reference to John 8:12: "Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, 'I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life,'" according to the King James version of the Bible.
The Trijicon Reflex sight is stamped with 2COR4:6, a reference to part of the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," the King James version reads.
A spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which manages military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the sights don't violate the ban on proselytizing because there's no effort to distribute the equipment beyond the U.S. troops who use them.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Tea Party Nationwide Campaign Against IL Mark Kirk
Liberal GOP candidate for Obama's former U.S. Senate seat, Mark Kirk, has long been targeted by Illinois tea parties, but now is also being targeted by Tea Party Nation, sponsor of next month's convention headlined by Sarah Palin.
-- From "Tea Party Uses (Republican) Scott Brown's Victory To Target (Republican) Mark Kirk" by Christina Bellantoni, TPM Media 1/20/10
Tea Party Nation members spent less than an hour celebrating Republican Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts before they got to work to end another Republican's Senate candidacy.
. . . the "next battle" is in Illinois to make sure Rep. Mark Kirk does not win the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate.
The primary is Feb. 2 and the Tea Party Nation warns that if Kirk (R-IL) wins, "this fall Illinois will have a choice between two liberals for the Illinois Senate seat." They call Kirk a "RINO," which stands for Republican In Name Only, with a "consistently liberal" record compared to Pat Hughes, who they called a "solid Conservative."
[From] the Tea Party Nation email . . .
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
-- From "Tea Party Uses (Republican) Scott Brown's Victory To Target (Republican) Mark Kirk" by Christina Bellantoni, TPM Media 1/20/10
Tea Party Nation members spent less than an hour celebrating Republican Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts before they got to work to end another Republican's Senate candidacy.
. . . the "next battle" is in Illinois to make sure Rep. Mark Kirk does not win the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate.
The primary is Feb. 2 and the Tea Party Nation warns that if Kirk (R-IL) wins, "this fall Illinois will have a choice between two liberals for the Illinois Senate seat." They call Kirk a "RINO," which stands for Republican In Name Only, with a "consistently liberal" record compared to Pat Hughes, who they called a "solid Conservative."
[From] the Tea Party Nation email . . .
Mark Kirk is one of 8 Republican Congressmen who voted for Cap & Trade. His voting record is consistently liberal. Illinois voters do have a choice on February 2.
Pat Hughes is a solid Conservative who is running for the Republican Nomination.
Now that Scott Brown has won, consider donating your time and money to support Pat Hughes' campaign.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
N.H. Grassroots Move to Undo New Same-sex 'Marriage'
[Gay marriage] opponents began a grass-roots effort to challenge the law indirectly by suggesting that New Hampshire’s 400 House members and 24 senators are not representative of the people’s wishes.
UPDATE 2/9/10: Democrats in legislature buck grassroots
-- From "Opponents of gay marriage hope for repeal in N.H." by Norma Love, Associated Press (posted at Boston Globe) 1/20/10
Opponents know their chances of success are slim at this point, but they are looking to the November election, hoping that Republicans will regain control of the State House and succeed in repealing the law.
Right now, Democrats are firmly in charge and appear eager to dispose of gay marriage and other controversial measures early in the session to avoid lingering debate in an election year.
[Traditional marriage supporters] plan to raise the issue at town meetings this spring in hope of passing nonbinding resolutions that will pressure lawmakers to present them with an amendment that defines marriage. They also hope their effort will help in November to elect candidates opposed to same-sex marriage.
State Representative David Bates, a Republican from Windham, is organizing the petition effort to put gay marriage before town voters. He said yesterday that petitions have been certified in 108 towns. He expects petitions to be completed by a Feb. 2 deadline in about 150 of New Hampshire’s more than 200 towns that hold meetings each spring.
New Hampshire’s law legalizing gay marriage took effect Jan. 1. New Hampshire joined Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, and Vermont in allowing the unions.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
UPDATE 2/9/10: Democrats in legislature buck grassroots
-- From "Opponents of gay marriage hope for repeal in N.H." by Norma Love, Associated Press (posted at Boston Globe) 1/20/10
Opponents know their chances of success are slim at this point, but they are looking to the November election, hoping that Republicans will regain control of the State House and succeed in repealing the law.
Right now, Democrats are firmly in charge and appear eager to dispose of gay marriage and other controversial measures early in the session to avoid lingering debate in an election year.
[Traditional marriage supporters] plan to raise the issue at town meetings this spring in hope of passing nonbinding resolutions that will pressure lawmakers to present them with an amendment that defines marriage. They also hope their effort will help in November to elect candidates opposed to same-sex marriage.
State Representative David Bates, a Republican from Windham, is organizing the petition effort to put gay marriage before town voters. He said yesterday that petitions have been certified in 108 towns. He expects petitions to be completed by a Feb. 2 deadline in about 150 of New Hampshire’s more than 200 towns that hold meetings each spring.
New Hampshire’s law legalizing gay marriage took effect Jan. 1. New Hampshire joined Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, and Vermont in allowing the unions.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Christian School Construction Opposed, Favoring Animals
Area residents successfully oppose sale of 100 acres of land to Colorado Christian University.
-- From "Opposition to Christian campus in Highlands Ranch 'overwhelming'" by Mike McPhee, The Denver Post 1/13/10
The Colorado Christian University, which sits on a 30-acre campus in Lakewood, attempted to buy a prime spot in the hills south of Highlands Ranch where it wanted to build a residential campus for up to 2,700 students, along with staff and faculty. The site is southwest of the Skyridge Medical Center near Lincoln Avenue and Interstate 25
The plan was presented publicly for the first time on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving by the Highlands Ranch Community Association and Shea Properties, which developed parts of the subdivision. Fierce opposition grew quickly, to the point that nearly 500 opponents jammed a public hearing on Jan. 6.
On Monday, the school withdrew its offer to purchase the land and said it would look elsewhere.
The land is considered open space but is zoned for limited use for schools, recreation such as golf courses or cultural events, said Gordon Von Stroh, a DU business school professor and member of the HRCA's development review committee.
Residents said the property is a prime wildlife viewing area and a well used wildlife corridor.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Colorado Christian withdraws bid" by Chris Michlewicz, Highlands Ranch Herald 1/18/10
Colorado Christian University had requested to purchase 100 acres of open space on Monarch Boulevard near Rocky Heights Middle School, but withdrew its bid in the face of widespread community opposition.
The university’s president, Bill Armstrong, issued a statement on the decision, saying “the management and board of HRCA listened courteously to our idea, but it quickly became obvious that there is little chance the board will decide to sell. So, we are now taking our proposal off the table and moving on.”
CCU proposed the expanded Highlands Ranch campus as a center of academic excellence, as well as musical, cultural, and athletic events and facilities to benefit the local community.
Charles Newton, a Highlands Ranch resident, supported the university and said it could bring an increase in sales tax revenue because students and faculty would visit local businesses. He said the university would have provided “a big boost to the cultural and fiscal aspects of Highlands Ranch.”
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
-- From "Opposition to Christian campus in Highlands Ranch 'overwhelming'" by Mike McPhee, The Denver Post 1/13/10
The Colorado Christian University, which sits on a 30-acre campus in Lakewood, attempted to buy a prime spot in the hills south of Highlands Ranch where it wanted to build a residential campus for up to 2,700 students, along with staff and faculty. The site is southwest of the Skyridge Medical Center near Lincoln Avenue and Interstate 25
The plan was presented publicly for the first time on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving by the Highlands Ranch Community Association and Shea Properties, which developed parts of the subdivision. Fierce opposition grew quickly, to the point that nearly 500 opponents jammed a public hearing on Jan. 6.
On Monday, the school withdrew its offer to purchase the land and said it would look elsewhere.
The land is considered open space but is zoned for limited use for schools, recreation such as golf courses or cultural events, said Gordon Von Stroh, a DU business school professor and member of the HRCA's development review committee.
Residents said the property is a prime wildlife viewing area and a well used wildlife corridor.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Colorado Christian withdraws bid" by Chris Michlewicz, Highlands Ranch Herald 1/18/10
Colorado Christian University had requested to purchase 100 acres of open space on Monarch Boulevard near Rocky Heights Middle School, but withdrew its bid in the face of widespread community opposition.
The university’s president, Bill Armstrong, issued a statement on the decision, saying “the management and board of HRCA listened courteously to our idea, but it quickly became obvious that there is little chance the board will decide to sell. So, we are now taking our proposal off the table and moving on.”
CCU proposed the expanded Highlands Ranch campus as a center of academic excellence, as well as musical, cultural, and athletic events and facilities to benefit the local community.
Charles Newton, a Highlands Ranch resident, supported the university and said it could bring an increase in sales tax revenue because students and faculty would visit local businesses. He said the university would have provided “a big boost to the cultural and fiscal aspects of Highlands Ranch.”
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
It Takes a Village to Admit Failure
Head Start, the federal government’s largest preschool program for low-income children, was found to yield no lasting results, according to a report released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services at the beginning of this year.
Dah! Children are best raised by parents, not the Nanny State.
-- From "Do Head Start Benefits Fade by First Grade?" by Paul Nyhan, posted at Seattle Post Globe - Birth to Thrive 1/14/10
The federal government ignited a fresh debate over whether benefits of quality early education fade over time by releasing a report this week that found few measurable cognitive or social-emotional benefits among a group of Head Start students once they reached first grade.
In a four-year study that is the talk of the early learning world, researchers found by first grade Head Start students and those in a “control group…were at the same level on many of the measures studied.” The study, however, found Head Start helped prepare kids for school.
Overall, the report raises more questions than it answers.
This latest report will surely become fodder for sound bites that often pass for debate on Capitol Hill. But, its findings are a big step, but only a step, toward finding out what works and what doesn’t work in early learning.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "HHS Study Says $150 Billion Head Start Program for Low-Income Pre-Schoolers is Largely a Failurer" by Karen Schuberg, CNSNews 1/19/10
The 27-page report, titled “Head Start Impact Study Final Report,” states bleak findings.
“In sum, this report finds that providing access to Head Start has benefits for both 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds in the cognitive, health, and parenting domains, and for 3-year-olds in the social-emotional domain. However, the benefits of access to Head Start at age four are largely absent by first grade for the program population as a whole.”
Dan Lips, education policy analyst at Heritage Foundation, said it is “unclear” at this point why Head Start bequeaths no lasting effects for children.
He added: “The program spends about $7,000 per student. I think those funds could be put to much better use.”
Lips said the HHS study is long past-due -- though taxpayers have spent approximately $150 billion on the government-run program since the ‘60s, until now “very little” was known about whether Head Start was actually helping children.”
Lips said he is not aware of any studies which compare pre-school children participating in Head Start with children spending those same years with a stay-at-home parent.
Lips said there was an intentional delay on the part of HHS in reporting the grim findings of the effectiveness of Head Start.
“The first grade evaluation was completed in 2006,” Lips began. “It shouldn’t have taken four years to analyze the results.”
Lips continued, “I was told by former HHS officials that the report was done in the fall of 2008. But they held onto it for more than year.”
Last March, President Obama told the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce: “For every dollar we invest in these programs, we get nearly $10 back in reduced welfare rolls, fewer health care costs, and less crime.”
Obama added: “That's why the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act [the $787 billion "stimulus" package] that I signed into law invests $5 billion in growing Early Head Start and Head Start, expanding access to quality child care for 150,000 more children from working families, and doing more for children with special needs. And that's why we are going to offer 55,000 first-time parents regular visits from trained nurses to help make sure their children are healthy and prepare them for school and for life,” Obama said.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
Dah! Children are best raised by parents, not the Nanny State.
-- From "Do Head Start Benefits Fade by First Grade?" by Paul Nyhan, posted at Seattle Post Globe - Birth to Thrive 1/14/10
The federal government ignited a fresh debate over whether benefits of quality early education fade over time by releasing a report this week that found few measurable cognitive or social-emotional benefits among a group of Head Start students once they reached first grade.
In a four-year study that is the talk of the early learning world, researchers found by first grade Head Start students and those in a “control group…were at the same level on many of the measures studied.” The study, however, found Head Start helped prepare kids for school.
Overall, the report raises more questions than it answers.
This latest report will surely become fodder for sound bites that often pass for debate on Capitol Hill. But, its findings are a big step, but only a step, toward finding out what works and what doesn’t work in early learning.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "HHS Study Says $150 Billion Head Start Program for Low-Income Pre-Schoolers is Largely a Failurer" by Karen Schuberg, CNSNews 1/19/10
The 27-page report, titled “Head Start Impact Study Final Report,” states bleak findings.
“In sum, this report finds that providing access to Head Start has benefits for both 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds in the cognitive, health, and parenting domains, and for 3-year-olds in the social-emotional domain. However, the benefits of access to Head Start at age four are largely absent by first grade for the program population as a whole.”
Dan Lips, education policy analyst at Heritage Foundation, said it is “unclear” at this point why Head Start bequeaths no lasting effects for children.
He added: “The program spends about $7,000 per student. I think those funds could be put to much better use.”
Lips said the HHS study is long past-due -- though taxpayers have spent approximately $150 billion on the government-run program since the ‘60s, until now “very little” was known about whether Head Start was actually helping children.”
Lips said he is not aware of any studies which compare pre-school children participating in Head Start with children spending those same years with a stay-at-home parent.
Lips said there was an intentional delay on the part of HHS in reporting the grim findings of the effectiveness of Head Start.
“The first grade evaluation was completed in 2006,” Lips began. “It shouldn’t have taken four years to analyze the results.”
Lips continued, “I was told by former HHS officials that the report was done in the fall of 2008. But they held onto it for more than year.”
Last March, President Obama told the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce: “For every dollar we invest in these programs, we get nearly $10 back in reduced welfare rolls, fewer health care costs, and less crime.”
Obama added: “That's why the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act [the $787 billion "stimulus" package] that I signed into law invests $5 billion in growing Early Head Start and Head Start, expanding access to quality child care for 150,000 more children from working families, and doing more for children with special needs. And that's why we are going to offer 55,000 first-time parents regular visits from trained nurses to help make sure their children are healthy and prepare them for school and for life,” Obama said.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Next Same-sex Battleground is Hawaii
Thousands of people filled the state Capitol yesterday with prayer and song, a celebration of traditional values laced with an explicit warning to state lawmakers to preserve marriage as between a man and a woman.
-- From "Civil unions may get quick vote at Hawaii Capitol" by Herbert A. Sample, Associated Press 1/16/10
When Hawaii legislators reconvene on Wednesday, all eyes will be focused not on teacher furloughs that resulted in the nation's shortest school year or the state's $1 billion budget deficit, but legislation that would allow same-sex couples to form civil unions [HB 444].
Last year, the proposal easily won preliminary passage in the Legislature, but stalled in May after opponents lobbied and held a state Capitol rally attended by several thousand protesters.
No independent polls or surveys have been conducted on the issue, so it's difficult to measure public sentiment. The last time voters directly weighed in on a related issue was in 1998 when 70 percent approved a constitutional amendment allowing the Legislature to reserve marriage for opposite sex couples.
In Hawaii, the measure would expand the state's existing reciprocal beneficiaries law by granting to unmarried same- and opposite-gender couples all of the rights and benefits the state provides to married couples. It is similar to broad civil union or domestic partnership laws in California, the District of Columbia, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and New Jersey.
Supporters voice guarded confidence that the bill, pending in the Senate since May, still enjoys majority support in both chambers.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Thousands rally in Hawaii against same-sex civil unions bill" by Derrick DePledge, Honolulu Advertiser, Government Writer 1/18/10
The rally, sponsored by the Hawaii Family Forum, was intended to energize religious conservatives to vote and influence the September primary and November general election. But it was also a demonstration of the potential backlash lawmakers face if they move forward with civil unions.
Many at the rally yesterday made no distinction between civil unions and marriage, even though the bill does not redefine marriage, which under state law is between a man and a woman.
Father Marc Alexander, of the Diocese of Honolulu, said the rally showed that people of different faiths and racial and ethnic backgrounds are united.
At St. Clement's Episcopal Church, meanwhile, more than 100 people representing 13 different religious groups came together in support of equal rights for people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
-- From "Civil unions may get quick vote at Hawaii Capitol" by Herbert A. Sample, Associated Press 1/16/10
When Hawaii legislators reconvene on Wednesday, all eyes will be focused not on teacher furloughs that resulted in the nation's shortest school year or the state's $1 billion budget deficit, but legislation that would allow same-sex couples to form civil unions [HB 444].
Last year, the proposal easily won preliminary passage in the Legislature, but stalled in May after opponents lobbied and held a state Capitol rally attended by several thousand protesters.
No independent polls or surveys have been conducted on the issue, so it's difficult to measure public sentiment. The last time voters directly weighed in on a related issue was in 1998 when 70 percent approved a constitutional amendment allowing the Legislature to reserve marriage for opposite sex couples.
In Hawaii, the measure would expand the state's existing reciprocal beneficiaries law by granting to unmarried same- and opposite-gender couples all of the rights and benefits the state provides to married couples. It is similar to broad civil union or domestic partnership laws in California, the District of Columbia, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and New Jersey.
Supporters voice guarded confidence that the bill, pending in the Senate since May, still enjoys majority support in both chambers.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Thousands rally in Hawaii against same-sex civil unions bill" by Derrick DePledge, Honolulu Advertiser, Government Writer 1/18/10
The rally, sponsored by the Hawaii Family Forum, was intended to energize religious conservatives to vote and influence the September primary and November general election. But it was also a demonstration of the potential backlash lawmakers face if they move forward with civil unions.
Many at the rally yesterday made no distinction between civil unions and marriage, even though the bill does not redefine marriage, which under state law is between a man and a woman.
Father Marc Alexander, of the Diocese of Honolulu, said the rally showed that people of different faiths and racial and ethnic backgrounds are united.
At St. Clement's Episcopal Church, meanwhile, more than 100 people representing 13 different religious groups came together in support of equal rights for people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
Houston Site of Fetal Slaughterhouse - Protest of Planned Parenthood
Thousands of pro-lifers rally at Planned Parenthood's newest and largest abortion clinic. The 78,000 square foot, six-story behemoth, dwarfs PP's clinics in Denver (50,000 sf) and Aurora, IL (22,000 sf).
-- From "Anti-abortion march targets Planned Parenthood" by Cindy Horswell, Houston Chronicle 1/18/10
The protesters are gathering for a prayer march targeting the facility which they describe as an "abortion supercenter" . . . which is set to open this spring.
Participants were listening to speeches, concerts and waving anti-abortion signs and flags. Organizers of the rally say they are holding the event on Martin Luther King Day because they believe Planned Parenthood is targeting minority groups since the building stands in the center of predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
Today’s protestors also are trying to highlight what they say are Planned Parenthood’s plans to carry out late-term abortions at the new location.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
-- From "Anti-abortion march targets Planned Parenthood" by Cindy Horswell, Houston Chronicle 1/18/10
The protesters are gathering for a prayer march targeting the facility which they describe as an "abortion supercenter" . . . which is set to open this spring.
Participants were listening to speeches, concerts and waving anti-abortion signs and flags. Organizers of the rally say they are holding the event on Martin Luther King Day because they believe Planned Parenthood is targeting minority groups since the building stands in the center of predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
Today’s protestors also are trying to highlight what they say are Planned Parenthood’s plans to carry out late-term abortions at the new location.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
'Hate Crimes' Law Regulates God (LOL)
Americans concerned with the Obama 'hate crimes' law observe Canadian government outlawing belief that homosexual behavior opposes God's Word
Remember the British Christian grandmother questioned by police? Click for that story (video interview included).
-- From "Québec policy against homophobia" © Gouvernement du Québec
On December 11, 2009, the Minister of Justice, Attorney General of Québec and minister responsible for the fight against homophobia, Kathleen Weil, released the first-ever Québec policy against homophobia. “The policy released this morning shows, once again, that Québec society is a leader in the field of sexual minority rights,” stated the Minister.
The main objective of the policy Рoverview of the policy Рis to improve the situation of sexual minorities in Qu̩bec and allow them to attain social equality.
To read the entire government post above, CLICK HERE.
From "Government policy now targeting 'homophobia'" by Drew Zahn © 2010 WorldNetDaily 1/17/10
The policy, released last month by Quebec's Minister of Justice and Attorney General Kathleen Weil, assigns the government the task of eliminating all forms of "homophobia" and "heterosexism" – including the belief that homosexuality is immoral – from society as a whole.
The text and specifics of the policy are steeped in vague bureaucratic language about "coordination" and "synergy," but the goal is spelled out clearly: to enlist the government to normalize homosexuality in society and to quell common criticisms levied against "sexual minorities," a term the policy uses to inclusively describe "lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals and transgenders."
"An inclusive society such as ours must take the necessary steps to combat homophobic attitudes and behavior patterns and move towards full acceptance of sexual diversity," states the Premier of Quebec Jean Charest in a letter that serves as the policy's introduction. "The policy sets out the government's goal of removing all the obstacles to full recognition of the social equality of the sexual minorities, at all levels of society."
The policy further defines the heterosexism that must be stomped out as "affirmation of heterosexuality as a social norm or the highest form of sexual orientation."
Furthermore, the policy laments, "It is still possible to hear people say that homosexuality is an illness, morally wrong or a form of deviant behavior, and that people choose their sexual orientation. These beliefs, often instilled in the past, tend to marginalize sexual minority groups and prevent full recognition of their social equality."
Such "prejudice," the policy affirms, must be combated.
And while the word "church" is never explicitly mentioned in the policy, it does declare it important to publicize the most "insidious" forms of homophobia with a plan to "target the various locations in which homophobic attitudes and behavior patterns, as well as heterosexist stereotypes, are found."
The policy also warns, "It will be necessary to deal with the heterosexist values on which some institutional practices are founded."
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
Remember the British Christian grandmother questioned by police? Click for that story (video interview included).
-- From "Québec policy against homophobia" © Gouvernement du Québec
On December 11, 2009, the Minister of Justice, Attorney General of Québec and minister responsible for the fight against homophobia, Kathleen Weil, released the first-ever Québec policy against homophobia. “The policy released this morning shows, once again, that Québec society is a leader in the field of sexual minority rights,” stated the Minister.
The main objective of the policy Рoverview of the policy Рis to improve the situation of sexual minorities in Qu̩bec and allow them to attain social equality.
To read the entire government post above, CLICK HERE.
From "Government policy now targeting 'homophobia'" by Drew Zahn © 2010 WorldNetDaily 1/17/10
The policy, released last month by Quebec's Minister of Justice and Attorney General Kathleen Weil, assigns the government the task of eliminating all forms of "homophobia" and "heterosexism" – including the belief that homosexuality is immoral – from society as a whole.
The text and specifics of the policy are steeped in vague bureaucratic language about "coordination" and "synergy," but the goal is spelled out clearly: to enlist the government to normalize homosexuality in society and to quell common criticisms levied against "sexual minorities," a term the policy uses to inclusively describe "lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals and transgenders."
"An inclusive society such as ours must take the necessary steps to combat homophobic attitudes and behavior patterns and move towards full acceptance of sexual diversity," states the Premier of Quebec Jean Charest in a letter that serves as the policy's introduction. "The policy sets out the government's goal of removing all the obstacles to full recognition of the social equality of the sexual minorities, at all levels of society."
The policy further defines the heterosexism that must be stomped out as "affirmation of heterosexuality as a social norm or the highest form of sexual orientation."
Furthermore, the policy laments, "It is still possible to hear people say that homosexuality is an illness, morally wrong or a form of deviant behavior, and that people choose their sexual orientation. These beliefs, often instilled in the past, tend to marginalize sexual minority groups and prevent full recognition of their social equality."
Such "prejudice," the policy affirms, must be combated.
And while the word "church" is never explicitly mentioned in the policy, it does declare it important to publicize the most "insidious" forms of homophobia with a plan to "target the various locations in which homophobic attitudes and behavior patterns, as well as heterosexist stereotypes, are found."
The policy also warns, "It will be necessary to deal with the heterosexist values on which some institutional practices are founded."
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Supreme Court Favors Defenders of Marriage
Supremes concerned for bullying of traditionalists, not homosexualists
The U.S. Supreme Court cast its first vote last week on the legal challenge to California's voter initiative barring same-sex marriage, and some experts said it was a bad omen for those who hope gays and lesbians will win a constitutional right to such unions.
-- From "Gay marriage supporters fear Supreme Court's ruling was an omen" by David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times 1/17/10
The 5-4 decision, with conservatives in the majority, intervened in the San Francisco district court trial on behalf of the defenders of Proposition 8.
The high court rebuked U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker for seeking to give the public a chance to view the proceedings on the Internet. In its opinion, the majority saw the dispute through the same lens as the opponents of gay marriage and decided that they -- not homosexuals -- faced a hostile public climate of harassment and intimidation.
In their opinion, they worried that opponents of gay marriage and their paid witnesses would face "harassment as a result of public disclosure of their support" for the ban. They concluded that the Prop. 8 defenders "have shown that irreparable harm will likely result" if video coverage of the proceedings were made public.
. . . the [Supreme] court's conservatives do not trust Walker to set fair rules for proceedings. Their opinion described how he had given shifting explanations of his plans. This suggests Walker's ruling on Proposition 8 may be viewed with some skepticism.
Some gay-rights advocates, wary of bringing a court challenge too soon, were not enthused when Theodore Olson and David Boies (who fought on opposite sides in the Bush vs. Gore case) announced they would fight California's ban on gay marriage.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
The U.S. Supreme Court cast its first vote last week on the legal challenge to California's voter initiative barring same-sex marriage, and some experts said it was a bad omen for those who hope gays and lesbians will win a constitutional right to such unions.
-- From "Gay marriage supporters fear Supreme Court's ruling was an omen" by David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times 1/17/10
The 5-4 decision, with conservatives in the majority, intervened in the San Francisco district court trial on behalf of the defenders of Proposition 8.
The high court rebuked U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker for seeking to give the public a chance to view the proceedings on the Internet. In its opinion, the majority saw the dispute through the same lens as the opponents of gay marriage and decided that they -- not homosexuals -- faced a hostile public climate of harassment and intimidation.
In their opinion, they worried that opponents of gay marriage and their paid witnesses would face "harassment as a result of public disclosure of their support" for the ban. They concluded that the Prop. 8 defenders "have shown that irreparable harm will likely result" if video coverage of the proceedings were made public.
. . . the [Supreme] court's conservatives do not trust Walker to set fair rules for proceedings. Their opinion described how he had given shifting explanations of his plans. This suggests Walker's ruling on Proposition 8 may be viewed with some skepticism.
Some gay-rights advocates, wary of bringing a court challenge too soon, were not enthused when Theodore Olson and David Boies (who fought on opposite sides in the Bush vs. Gore case) announced they would fight California's ban on gay marriage.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Tea Parties = GOP Takeover
Across the country, they are signing up to be Republican precinct leaders . . . which comes with the ability to vote for the party executives who endorse candidates, approve platforms and decide where the party spends money.
-- From "In Power Push, Movement Sees Base in G.O.P." by Kate Zernike, New York Times 1/14/10
A new group called the National Precinct Alliance says it has a coordinator in nearly every state to recruit Tea Party activists to fill the positions and has already swelled the number of like-minded members in Republican Party committees in Arizona and Nevada. Its mantra is this: take the precinct, take the state, take the party — and force it to nominate conservatives rather than people they see as liberals in Republican clothing.
The Tea Party movement, named after the original tax revolt in 1773, might be better described as a diverse, rambunctious and Internet-connected network of groups, powered by grass-roots anxiety about the economy, bailouts and increasing government involvement in health care. At one extreme are militia members who have shown up at meetings wearing guns and suggesting that institutions like the Federal Reserve be eliminated. At the other are those like Ms. Przybylski, who describes herself as “just a stay-at-home mom” who became agitated about the federal stimulus package.
And if the Democrats are big-government socialists, the Republicans, in the Tea Party mind, are enablers.
. . . a growing number of activists argue that the best way to translate anger into influence is to infiltrate the Republican establishment (Democrats being, for the average Tea Partier, beyond redemption).
The defining experience for many Tea Party groups was the special election in the 23rd Congressional District of New York in November, where party leaders chose a candidate whom conservatives viewed as a Republican in name only — she supported same-sex marriage, abortion rights and the federal stimulus package. After activists flooded the district to support a conservative third-party candidate, the Republican dropped out and endorsed the Democrat, who won.
Conservatives took the Republican retreat as a victory, but also saw the power of the party structure in deciding who the candidates will be. The rallying cry for more local involvement has been “No more NY-23’s.”
The precinct strategy, like the Tea Party movement itself, has spread via the Internet, on sites like Resistnet.com. A National Tea Party Convention in Nashville next month will feature seminars on how to take over starting at the precinct level.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
-- From "In Power Push, Movement Sees Base in G.O.P." by Kate Zernike, New York Times 1/14/10
A new group called the National Precinct Alliance says it has a coordinator in nearly every state to recruit Tea Party activists to fill the positions and has already swelled the number of like-minded members in Republican Party committees in Arizona and Nevada. Its mantra is this: take the precinct, take the state, take the party — and force it to nominate conservatives rather than people they see as liberals in Republican clothing.
The Tea Party movement, named after the original tax revolt in 1773, might be better described as a diverse, rambunctious and Internet-connected network of groups, powered by grass-roots anxiety about the economy, bailouts and increasing government involvement in health care. At one extreme are militia members who have shown up at meetings wearing guns and suggesting that institutions like the Federal Reserve be eliminated. At the other are those like Ms. Przybylski, who describes herself as “just a stay-at-home mom” who became agitated about the federal stimulus package.
And if the Democrats are big-government socialists, the Republicans, in the Tea Party mind, are enablers.
. . . a growing number of activists argue that the best way to translate anger into influence is to infiltrate the Republican establishment (Democrats being, for the average Tea Partier, beyond redemption).
The defining experience for many Tea Party groups was the special election in the 23rd Congressional District of New York in November, where party leaders chose a candidate whom conservatives viewed as a Republican in name only — she supported same-sex marriage, abortion rights and the federal stimulus package. After activists flooded the district to support a conservative third-party candidate, the Republican dropped out and endorsed the Democrat, who won.
Conservatives took the Republican retreat as a victory, but also saw the power of the party structure in deciding who the candidates will be. The rallying cry for more local involvement has been “No more NY-23’s.”
The precinct strategy, like the Tea Party movement itself, has spread via the Internet, on sites like Resistnet.com. A National Tea Party Convention in Nashville next month will feature seminars on how to take over starting at the precinct level.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
Ten Commandments Returns to Courthouse after Appeal Win
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a ruling in the case brought by the ACLU that reversed a lower court's opinion that said the Ten Commandments were impermissible.
-- From "Appeals court reverses Grayson Ten Commandments decision" by Bill Estep, Lexington Herald Leader 1/15/10
Posting a copy of the Ten Commandments in the Grayson County Courthouse did not violate the U.S. Constitution, federal appeals judges ruled Thursday.
The decision clears the way for the county to return a copy of the commandments to the courthouse wall, where it once hung in a display with other documents such as the Declaration of Independence and a picture of Lady Justice.
A federal judge in Louisville had previously ordered county officials to remove the Ten Commandments from the display.
The majority opinion by Judge David W. McKeague said the county's display did not have the primary purpose of endorsing or promoting religion and was, therefore, acceptable.
William E. Sharp, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, said those who sued the county are reviewing whether to appeal Thursday's decision.
Grayson County Judge-Executive Gary Logsdon said the county will continue the fight to post the Ten Commandments even if it goes to the U.S. Supreme Court.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Lawyer: Ten Commandments on winning streak" by Bob Unruh © 2010 WorldNetDaily 1/16/10
The head of Liberty Counsel, a firm that litigates on civil and religious rights issues, says a decision from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has extended a winning streak for the Ten Commandments that dates back to 2005.
The organization successfully argued on behalf of the legality of a display in a public building in Kentucky that included the Ten Commandments among other historical references.
In this case, the ACLU had complained about the historic display on the second floor of the Grayson County courthouse. The display is titled "Foundations of American Law and Government." Besides the Ten Commandments, it includes the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, Star-Spangled Banner, National Motto and a picture of Lady Justice.
Documentation with the display explains the significance of the items. The purpose of the display is educational and is intended to reflect a sampling of documents that played a significant role in the development of the legal and governmental system of the United States, Liberty Counsel said.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
-- From "Appeals court reverses Grayson Ten Commandments decision" by Bill Estep, Lexington Herald Leader 1/15/10
Posting a copy of the Ten Commandments in the Grayson County Courthouse did not violate the U.S. Constitution, federal appeals judges ruled Thursday.
The decision clears the way for the county to return a copy of the commandments to the courthouse wall, where it once hung in a display with other documents such as the Declaration of Independence and a picture of Lady Justice.
A federal judge in Louisville had previously ordered county officials to remove the Ten Commandments from the display.
The majority opinion by Judge David W. McKeague said the county's display did not have the primary purpose of endorsing or promoting religion and was, therefore, acceptable.
William E. Sharp, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, said those who sued the county are reviewing whether to appeal Thursday's decision.
Grayson County Judge-Executive Gary Logsdon said the county will continue the fight to post the Ten Commandments even if it goes to the U.S. Supreme Court.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Lawyer: Ten Commandments on winning streak" by Bob Unruh © 2010 WorldNetDaily 1/16/10
The head of Liberty Counsel, a firm that litigates on civil and religious rights issues, says a decision from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has extended a winning streak for the Ten Commandments that dates back to 2005.
The organization successfully argued on behalf of the legality of a display in a public building in Kentucky that included the Ten Commandments among other historical references.
In this case, the ACLU had complained about the historic display on the second floor of the Grayson County courthouse. The display is titled "Foundations of American Law and Government." Besides the Ten Commandments, it includes the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, Star-Spangled Banner, National Motto and a picture of Lady Justice.
Documentation with the display explains the significance of the items. The purpose of the display is educational and is intended to reflect a sampling of documents that played a significant role in the development of the legal and governmental system of the United States, Liberty Counsel said.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
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