Newt Says What We Wish More Conservative Politicians Would
In the New Hampshire Primary Debate Saturday night, the moderators were looking to ruffle some feathers by pressing the dual issue of gay marriage and gay adoption. Newt Gingrich - regardless your personal feelings about the man - delivered a brief but exhilarating response. I'll let the former Speaker of the House take it from here:
Context and perspective are things that modern liberals seem to care very little for. Why? Because they are cumbersome. They slow down the emotional excitement one feels about a social issue they care about. But the gay marriage and gay adoption debates are serious matters with serious implications for our society. They should not be taken lightly and it does no good to pretend as if there isn't a discussion to be had. What Newt said was a breath of fresh air breathed into an argument that has grown stale.
I doubt the Speaker will be our nominee in 2012, but I thank him for the being an articulate advocate for an entirely reasonable (and I believe correct) position.
These aren't the only topics that matter this year, but they do, in fact, matter.
Hillary Clinton Is Wrong About “Gay Rights”
Here is a video of Madame Secretary Clinton saying some very silly things about "gay rights":
Every sin is an affront to God, even the "small" ones I've committed today (i.e. cursing under my breath at the Old Bag driving slow in front of me on the way home from church). But some sins are unique. Some sins enable and facilitate other sins. Christ had something to say about that (see: Matthew 18:6, for example).
My "religious objection" is not against gay people choosing to live a certain way. It is against progressive politicians and activists who seek to normalize it and put it on the same level as traditional marriage (also known as "the building block of human society since the dawn of time" and "the only relationship that can produce human life").
Gay Marriage Debate: It’s Not Going Away
The cultural battle over the definition of marriage is not going away, so socially conservative people everywhere need to mentally prepare for a long ideological and legal war. Those who believe that marriage should be re-defined are not content to simply make their case to the public and work to win ballot initiatives. Now of course individuals on both sides of this issue can be rightly charged with inappropriate rhetoric, but the pro-gay marriage cartel is one of the most vicious and un-apologetically offensive social movements in our country's history.
The latest example of their extremism comes from the once-useful Southern Poverty Law Center, a notorious liberal activist group that could easily be identified as "ACLU-Montgomery."
I am a conservative, and some things are worth conserving. Marriage is one of them.
Prager Rocks Out On Larry King
Dennis Prager joined three other guests Tuesday night on Larry King Live to discuss and debate the on-going brouhaha over gay marriage in California. It was vintage Prager as he deftly handled his business and did so in a respectful manner. Note the liberal woman running for Attorney General of California (Kamala Harris) who seems incapable of responding to any of the points made with anything but "Our Founders wanted everyone to be equal." She seemed to have been handed a note card by one of her staffers as she went to air that read "Say lots of fluffy stuff about the Founders 'cause Americans, for some reason, are all about those dudes right now again."
I won't say anything else about the debate and let the words of the participants speak for themselves.
Part 1:
Part 2:
I'd love to hear thoughts on these clips. Feel free to weigh in below by clicking "Comments."
Mohler’s Take On CA Decision
Dr. Albert Mohler (president of Southern Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY) wrote a very interesting column on the decision by a federal judge in CA to overturn Prop 8. It's worth a read, no matter what side of this issue you may fall upon.
An excerpt:
In a breathtaking and brief sentence, Judge Walker asserted: “Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage; marriage under law is a union of equals.”
Until this verdict, such language had never appeared in a decision of a Federal court. If gender is no longer “an essential part of marriage,” then marriage has been essentially redefined right before our eyes.
The religious liberty dimensions of the decision are momentous and deeply troubling. While Judge Walker declared that the religious freedoms of citizens and religious bodies were not violated because no such body is required to recognize or perform same-sex marriage, the very structure of his argument condemned religious and theological objections to homosexuality and same-sex marriage as both harmful and irrational.
Beyond this, Judge Walker claimed to read the minds of California’s voters, arguing that the majority voted for Proposition 8 based on religious opposition to homosexuality, which he then rejected as an illegitimate state interest. In essence, this establishes secularism as the only acceptable basis for moral judgment on the part of voters. The judge’s statements condemning religious opposition to homosexuality speak for themselves in terms of animus.
Read the full article here.
This judge has decided he knows better than the voters, but more than that, he believes he knows better than thousands of years of historical, cultural, and religious tradition (and teaching). Marriage has never been defined as Judge Walker would have it be defined. All men and women are created equally, but not all of their actions deserve to be recognized as being equal in their form, function, or merit.
California’s Same-Sex Marriage Debacle
In the on-going struggle between the tax-paying voters of California and the liberal elites sitting on judicial benches across the state, this week's ruling against the Proposition 8 ballot initiative that passed in November of 2008 is anything but "surprising." For more on legislative and legal events surrounding Prop 8, click here.
Basically, this all started in 2000 when the people of California voted to add specific language to the law that stipulated "marriage" was, by definition, the legal union of a man and a woman. 
In May of 2008 the Supreme Court of California, in a 4-3 decision, decreed that the state's 2000 legal definition of marriage (one man-one woman) was no longer legal. In November of 2008, after months of contentious public discourse on the matter, Proposition 8 (which stated that marriage would return to its original, traditional definition) passed. This was a message, sent from the voters to the judiciary, that clearly stated: "Stop forcing your progressive perspective on the rest of us." In March 2009, the Supreme Court of California upheld Proposition 8 as legal and binding.
Fast-forward to 2010 and another legal challenge, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, was brought against Prop 8. The judge in this case, Vaughn R. Walker, is one of only two openly gay federal judges in the nation. In a case like this, Walker is the judge, jury, and executioner. He made it clear from the beginning that marriage itself was on trial. He said he would not be swayed or affected by the views of the majority of California voters (or "the wisdom of the millennia").
"Shockingly" Judge Walker ruled against Prop 8 and the people of California have had their voices silenced and ignored yet again. Dana Mack, writing in today's Wall Street Journal, explains what underlies this obsession the secular-Left in this country have with seeing marriage re-defined.
In the Proposition 8 case, the counsel for the plaintiffs, David Boies, argued that marriage is no longer an institution but, rather, a private contract. And as if affirming Mr. Boies's statements, Judge Walker challenged defense attorney Charles Cooper with searching questions during closing arguments: "Do people get married for the benefit of the community? Why couldn't the state start saying marriage is entirely a matter of private conduct?"
Such inquiries beg the underlying question as to why same-sex couples would want to take part in such a deconstructed, even quaint social arrangement as marriage. If marriage today is little more than a declaration of emotional commitment with tax and inheritance benefits, why not settle for the alternative of civil union—which ideally would grant the same legal and economic privileges to domestic partnerships as marriage does, and without the messy burden of history?
Fact is, the gay-marriage movement derives less of its animus from the material benefits society at large accords marriage than from the social and cultural dignities granted it by its long history. In lobbying for marriage, gay men and women clearly care much less about legal advantages than they do about weddings, rings, and the spiritual trappings of married life.
They care about marriage precisely because in a culture searching for meaningful symbols, marriage is the veritable symbol of culture. Jonathan Rauch, a leader in the gay-marriage movement, puts it succinctly enough: Gay people want to marry because "marriage is the foundation of civilization."
For those same-sex couples in California and elsewhere who are striving for deeper affirmation of their sexual partnerships, Judge Walker's decision —while hardly the final judicial word on the subject—is balm. Gay couples have moved closer to sewing lives in patterns borrowed from their own birth families' cultural histories and traditions. The question, however, is whether giving them license to piece together remnants of so decayed an institution as marriage will not aggravate all the more the fraying of its fabric.
This issue matters, and I'm interested to hear what the rest of you think about this week's controversial ruling.
University of Illinois Shoots The Messenger
URBANA, Ill. -- The University of Illinois has fired an adjunct professor who taught courses on Catholicism after a student accused the instructor of engaging in hate speech by saying he agrees with the church's teaching that homosexual sex is immoral.
The professor, Ken Howell of Champaign, said his firing violates his academic freedom. He also lost his job at an on-campus Catholic center.
Howell, who taught Introduction to Catholicism and Modern Catholic Thought, says he was fired at the end of the spring semester after sending an e-mail explaining some Catholic beliefs to his students preparing for an exam.
This story from my home state is disappointing, but by no means surprising. I hope that the skeptical conservatives among us, specifically the religious ones, will see in a news report like this the true nature of the Left. They are disinterested in the unity and they raise young people to think that their emotional reaction to something they disagree with is not only the most appropriate reaction, but the "true" one.
An unidentified student sent an e-mail to religion department head Robert McKim on May 13, calling Howell's e-mail "hate speech." The student claimed to be a friend of the offended student. The writer said in the e-mail that his friend wanted to remain anonymous.
"Teaching a student about the tenets of a religion is one thing," the student wrote. "Declaring that homosexual acts violate the natural laws of man is another."
Howell said he was teaching his students about the Catholic understanding of natural moral law.
An "unidentified" college kid, a "friend" of the student who was actually in the class no less, certainly wanted his views heard and for the professor to be punished...but wasn't courageous enough to put his John Hancock to his own words. Perfect. Maybe he is the person who always leaves provocative comments on conservative websites under the name "Anonymous"?
Now I've been led to believe that the liberal-dominated university (i.e. every public institution of higher learning in the United States) is a magical land of academic inquiry and investigation. So it would make sense that the University of Illinois wanted a class that teaches what it is that Catholics believe. They hired a man, one Ken Howell, to teach what Catholics believe. As soon as he taught what Catholics believe, he was fired for hate speech.
I could be wrong, but I'm fairly certain that the Catholic church has been crystal clear regarding its position on gay marriage and abortion. For those who get their updates on traditional and current Catholic doctrine from Nancy Pelosi, let me catch you up a couple of thousand years: the Christian bible teaches that marriage is a one man-one woman institution, and protecting innocent life that is being snuffed out for the personal convenience of someone else is a non-negotiable in the bible's eyes.
University Leftists are caught between The Rock of Ages and a hard place when they attempt to interact with orthodox religious teachings. On one hand, they want to keep up the well-intentioned image of being pro-tolerance, pro-multiculturalism and politically correct. One the other, however, when they run up against people who believe in objective, eternal, supernatural Truth, such as bible-believing Protestants and Catholics, they are certain that such people are not intolerable and "haters."
G.K. Chesterton once wrote: "There is a thought that stops thought, and that is the only thought that ought to be stopped." He was speaking of the militant secularism that typified early 20th century England, and certainly applies to our modern purveyors of secular-progressive ideology in the media, academia, and politics. Christians raising their kids in America today are subjected to propaganda supporting moral and ethical issues that are in direct conflict with their own convictions from all corners of the entertainment world and education system. We are told to shut up and sit down. We are told to accept everything we hear, and dare not voice any opposition, or risk being called a bigot, homophobe, or racist.
Yet when one Catholic professor, teaching a class called "Modern Catholic Thought", simply states the bible's position on gay marriage, he is fired for unforgivably breaking the secular commandment "Thou shalt not offend anyone on the Left."
Wake up, religious Americans (especially those of you who are parents). The fight isn't simply over gay marriage or abortion or gun control. It isn't all about Obama's pastor and Sarah Palin's accent. The truth of our faith is at stake. The ability to freely communicate that truth to those who so desperately need to hear it is at stake. We have a part to play in defending the truth, in promoting liberty, and in looking after the least among us.
The hearts and minds of millions of Americans are on the line.
What are we doing about it?
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