BMAT Moral Action Committee Watchman Report #79 04/14/2006
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1. Must Read: Oil: Al-Qaeda's Next Terror Target?
2. Do you think lawmakers should protect Big Tobacco or Texas' kids?
3. The real Terror Risk with an Amnesty deal
4. Hispanic Christians Speak Out As Congress Debates Immigration Reform
5. US Senate Votes against Border Security!
6. Bush is out of touch with GOP regarding illegal immigration
7. Failing to Act on Illegal Immigration could mean our very survival as a nation and culture
8. A Call to Defeat the McCain-Kennedy-spector Illegal Immigrant Amnesty Bill
9. Liberal Sellout hoping to swell the ranks of their voters
10. Hawaii First State in US to Enshrine Abortion “Rights” in Law
11. Broadcast Decency Bill Needs Your Help
12. Another Victory for our First Liberty – Religious Freedom
13. Family Advocate Fears Pro-Homosexual Education Bill Will Pass California Senate
14. Congressional Bill S.2593/H.R.5151 Would Legalize Unlimited Abortion, Overturn Pro-Life Laws
15. Legislative Attempt to Seriously Hamper Grass Roots Activism Has Passed US Senate
16. Radical Homosexual Agenda Reeling in Charlotte after Christians make a stand for Christ
17. National Geographic shares its latest farce: The Gospel of Judas?
18. Follow up: National Geographic Society Publishes 2nd Century ‘Gospel of Judas’
19. Virginia Governor Kaine Refuses to Sign Amendment Banning Same-Sex Marriage
20. University of Texas Professor Hopes for Pandemic, says humans no more important than bacteria
21. Homosexual Activists Vow to Spoil Children’s Easter Egg Hunt at Whitehouse
22. Christian Ministry Leader Urges Prayer as Dalai Lama Visits Mayo Clinic
23. Judge's Transcendental Meditation Sentence Crossed the Line, Attorney Says
24. Theocon? A Concervative who believes in God
25. Fact: Union Dues Support Dems, Pay $1.5 Million For Golf Plus A Caddy!
26. Threats to Religious Freedom--In India
27. Some 250 Ukrainian nuclear warheads never made it to Russia and thought sent to Iran
Must Read: Oil: Al-Qaeda's Next Terror Target?
April 12 2006 David Brody Capitol Hill Correspondent CBN
W
ASHINGTON - A new poll shows that three out of four Americans believe that terrorists will at some point attempt a major attack on an oil installation somewhere in the world within the next year.
This looks at how that scenario would throw America into an economic catastrophe.
9/11: A day no one will ever forget. The images are forever haunting. Al-Qaeda still plots, but their next major attack may not shed human blood. Instead they may go after this country's lifeblood: oil.
Dr. Gal Luft is the head of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. His company tracks the damage terrorists have done to the world's oil supply. Al-Qaeda has made its plans known.
"They realize that oil is the lifeblood of our economy," Luft said.
In 2004, Osama bin Laden said, "We ‘bled’ Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw from Afghanistan in defeat,"..."We are continuing in the same policy to make America bleed profusely to the point of bankruptcy."
And so, while the catastrophic explosion hasn't happened yet, small-scale attacks on oil facilities are far more commonplace than you realize.
"They happen almost every day. In Iraq, since the end of major hostilities in 2003, we've had more than 300 attacks on pipelines,” Luft said.
The way Luft and other oil terrorism experts see it, it's only a matter of time before al-Qaeda hits the jackpot. Imagine the scenario: hijacking a major airliner and crashing it into a huge oil field, wiping out a major chunk of the world's oil supply.
Saudi Arabia would be the prime target. That country has 25 percent of the world's oil reserves. They also have almost all of the world's spare production capacity. That means they have the capability to inject a million barrels of oil into the market whenever there is an emergency.
Most of the oil production is centered on three or four huge oil fields. All of them make for an inviting target, and the potential to shock the world."If you take one of those locations out of operation, you basically bring about an economic catastrophe…We're not talking about an economic recession here. We're talking about an economic depression. This is how bad things could be." Luft said.
And that means the price of oil per barrel would go sky high. Take, for example, the Saudi facility Abqaiq. About two-thirds of Saudi Arabia's crude oil is processed there.
Terrorists tried to attack it again just a few weeks ago. It would be scary to think what would happen if they pulled it off.
CBN News: What's the ceiling here? How far could we go? Are we talking over $100 a barrel at some point?
LUFT: : Look, if those terrorists who attacks Abqaiq a few weeks ago had succeeded in their mission, we'd be talking about $150 a barrel today. No doubt about that.
The problem is that here in America, we love our oil. We buy 11 million barrels of it every day. That is a cost to our economy of $800 million a day. Each American consumes about 25 barrels of oil per year. That is more than double the per capita consumption in the United Kingdom, Germany, and - and more than 15 times that of China.
We have less than five percent of the world's population, yet because we have the strongest economy on earth, we use 25 percent of its oil. President Bush has spoken bluntly about what could happen if that supply is interrupted:
"We are vulnerable to high prices of oil and we are vulnerable to sudden disruptions of oil - so what I am telling you is, our dependence upon oil is a national security problem and an economic security problem," Bush acknowledged.
It is the oil tankers that carry the oil from the Middle East to the rest of the world. The danger here is that those tankers are virtual sitting ducks because they sail through narrow corridors that are all operated and controlled by Muslim countries where terrorists are known to operate.
The three big ones are Bab-El-Mandeb--which is at the entrance to the Red Sea--the Straits of Malacca between Indonesia and Malaysia, and the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.
Neil Livingstone, the CEO of GlobalOptions Inc., has written nine books on terrorism and is regarded as one of the country's preeminent authorities on terrorism.
He says that taking out one tanker in the Straits of Hormuz would block the route for others and rock the entire global market.
"You don't even have to sink the tanker,” Livingstone said. “I think it's going to send jitters through the oil markets of the world if you just take a shot at one, much less if you sink one in the Straits of Hormuz."
A direct hit would cause a direct economic impact. "At some point you might get $150 a barrel of oil -- maybe $200 dollars a barrel of oil," Livingstone said.
But hitting those narrow corridors is only one potential target. The exposed oil pipelines are a big one too. Iraq has more than 5,000 of them. Saudi Arabia has double that.
Luft said, "There's no way that you can protect every inch of the pipe. Anybody with a camel and a few pounds of explosives can go and blow up a pipeline. It's a no-brainer."
But what about here in the U.S.? Most experts believe that al-Qaeda will stay overseas. But if they were going to come here, Houston, Texas may be destination number one. With all the oil refineries in the area, it's considered the financial center for the American energy industry.
Livingstone's group has done research on oil security infrastructure in the area. "Security is abominable and in some cases, non-existent…It's relatively easy to get into an oil refinery. My guys have done that on a number of occasions in testing security," he said.
Livingstone says employees are not screened properly. Facilities are unguarded with inadequate fencing. Some oil refineries have tanks with the dangerous hydrofluoric acid.
"If I punch a one inch hole in one of these tanks,” Livingstone explained, “I can have a kill zone 10 kilometers south of the prevailing winds."
To illustrate what he calls the lax security, Livingstone relates a story told by an area engineer.
"He said, ‘Give me a week and give me a troop of Boy Scouts, and I'll shut down one third of the oil capacity production and distribution in the United States,’" Livingstone said.
Within the U.S., each refinery is responsible for their [own] security. Security experts say that some are better than others, so while the Boy Scouts are no threat at all, al-Qaeda is. If they do hit big, an America that begins to run out of oil is not a pretty picture.
Luft said, "The good news is that you have oil at $100 a barrel,” “The bad news is you drive into a gas station and you see a sign that says "’Sorry, no gas.’"
"People are taking this for granted, but when oil runs out, ‘every child’ is left behind," he added.
And the concern is that not only has "economic jiha" begun, but that the big attack is just around the corner.
So is it just a matter of time? “I believe it's not a matter of if,” Luft said. “It's a matter of when.”
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Do you think lawmakers should protect Big Tobacco or Texas' kids?
April 11 2006 Carter Headrick Director, Grassroots Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
H
ave you ever wondered why Big Tobacco is opposing a proposed $1 per pack cigarette tax increase in Texas? It's because they know that cigarette taxes reduce smoking, especially among kids, and save lives. They also know that 90 percent of smokers start as teens, and they need to addict a new generation of customers to replace the smokers who quit or die every day.
Do you think lawmakers should protect Big Tobacco or Texas' kids? Make sure your lawmakers hear your voice - click here to write a letter to the editor of your local paper today!
Next Monday the legislature will begin a 30 day special session. The cigarette tax increase will be one of five key items on the agenda. That's why it's critical that you take action today to let your lawmakers and your community know why you support at least a $1 per pack cigarette tax increase for Texas' kids.
Letters to the editor only take a few minutes to write - we'll even give you talking points to use - and they can have an important impact on your lawmakers and your community. Politicians read this part of the paper first, and we need to show them that their constituents support raising Texas' cigarette tax by more than $1 per pack.
Unless we act now, thousands of Texas' kids will continue to become addicted to cigarettes every year. One in three of them will die prematurely from their addiction. Raising the state's cigarette tax by at least $1 per pack will save thousands of Texas kids from a lifetime of addiction and disease. Tell your legislators that it's time to stand up for Texas kids. Tell them to raise Texas' cigarette tax by $1 per pack.
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The real Terror Risk with an Amnesty deal
April 11, 2006 Gary Bauer American Values
Janice Kephart is the former counsel to the September 11 Commission, and she has been delivering a strong warning on Capitol Hill about how amnesty for illegal immigrants would increase our risks of terrorism.
She and other experts are pointing out that at least five terrorists used the 1986 amnesty law to stay in the U.S., and then went on to attack the U.S., including three of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, and Aimal Kasi, the jihadist who killed two CIA employees outside the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
Speaking of amnesty, Ms. Kephart says, “We are just asking for trouble, having a program like that at the moment.”
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Hispanic Christians Speak Out As Congress Debates Immigration Reform
April 10 2006 CWNews
T
here was another drama in Washington, D.C., this week. The U.S. Senate engaged in a contentious debate over immigration reform.
At issue are the 12-million plus Hispanic immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally. Legislators grappled with several proposals, ranging from deportation to allowing illegal immigrants to apply for citizenship. The citizenship path could require fines, background checks, learning English, and paying back taxes.
In all, there are some 40-million Hispanics living in the U.S., legally and illegally. Most are Catholic, but many are joining Evangelical and Pentecostal churches.
Samuel Rodriguez is President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. He says Hispanic Christians share America's concerns about illegal immigration.
He said, “The Hispanic evangelical church is equally concerned. We are in favor of border protection. We are in favor of doing whatever it takes to secure our borders. Matter of fact we're calling for a stop to all illegal immigration and we're not interested in calling for general amnesty either. What we are looking for is a solution that deals with the security of our borders with a Judeo-Christian presentation of how to deal with the 12 million currently here that are undocumented. I believe that we can offer something that deals with both issues: with border security and a comprehensive solution to the 12 million that are currently here undocumented within the Judeo-Christian value system of our founding fathers.”
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US Senate Votes against Border Security!
April 10 2006 Phyllis Schlafly Report
B
efore leaving Washington for a two week recess, the Senate failed to pass any immigration reform legislation, including a bill to secure our border.
Last week, the Senate debated the Kennedy-McCain amnesty bill, which passed the Judiciary committee on March 27 by a vote of 12-6, with four Republicans — Senators Brownback, DeWine, Graham, and Specter — supporting it. The Kennedy-McCain bill would grant amnesty to the estimated 12-20 million illegal aliens currently in the United States and create an additional guest-worker program to import more foreign workers to take American jobs.
As a few Republicans tried to amend the bill on the floor, Senate Democrats refused to allow any amendments, including one offered by Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and John Cornyn (R-TX) that would have made illegal alien felons ineligible for U.S. citizenship. Apparently, Democrats believe even illegal aliens who have committed violent crimes should be given amnesty.
Late in the week, Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Mel Martinez (R-FL) offered a "compromise" which would have granted amnesty for illegal aliens who had been in the U.S. for over five years and allowed those here for two to five years a chance to apply for amnesty at a border point of entry. This legislation would invite massive fraud in the same way the 1986 Amnesty did. Illegal aliens could simply manufacture documents proving they were here for over five years in order to qualify for the amnesty.
Senate Democrats continued to block amendments, even to the compromise bill, causing the Senate to defeat all procedural motions to consider each of the three immigration bills on the floor — the Kennedy-McCain bill, the Hagel-Martinez compromise, and the Frist border security bill. The Senate adjourned Friday without passing any immigration legislation.
Because of Eagle Forum members, some Senate Republicans were encouraged to stand up for border security first! Those Senators knew they had your support and it made all the difference! Keep up the calls and emails!
Our work is not finished! Senators have returned to their state offices for two weeks. Please call or visit your Senators' local office and let them know you expect them to reject all guest-worker/amnesty plans!
Capitol Switchboard: (202)-224-3121
Ask your Senator's office to connect you to a district office in your area!
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Bush is out of touch with GOP regarding illegal immigration
April 10 2006 Phyllis Schlafly Eagle Forum
L
ike many teenagers, President George W. Bush dashed off to Cancun for spring break. Protected by a long and impenetrable fence and plenty of security guards, he met privately with the Mexican president and wealthy chief executive officers from both countries.
Bush should have gone to the Arizona border where U.S. citizens really need a fence to protect themselves, their children, their animals and their property from the hundreds of illegal immigrants who tramp across their land every night.
Bush thus gave the back of his hand to the 88 percent of Republican House Members who voted to secure our borders against the invasion of criminals, smugglers of illegal drugs with their armed escorts, smugglers of thirsty humans in crowded vans, and Other Than Mexicans who obviously aren't coming here to pick strawberries.
While Bush was closeted in a plush foreign resort hotel, the people who support his plan rather than the bill passed by the House demonstrated in the streets and the schools, flying the U.S. flag upside down subordinate to the Mexican flag, and carrying placards asserting that Mexico owns the Southwest United States. Are those the people Bush is now allying himself with instead of the people who elected him?
At a closed meeting of conservatives last week in Washington, D.C., a Bush representative tried to deny that the president is advocating amnesty, but a participant retorted, "His dispute is not with us; it's with the dictionary." The comment "We don't believe the President anymore" elicited spontaneous applause.
In another semantic deception, Bush said in Cancun that he is committed to signing a "comprehensive immigration bill. And by 'comprehensive,' I mean not only a bill that has border security in it, but a bill that has a worker permit program in it. That's an important part of having a border that works."
That statement is a false non sequitur, very offensive to the intelligence and wishes of the American people. Our experience with the 1986 law proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that amnesty destroys border security and quadruples the number trying to enter the United States illegally.
Even the use of the word "comprehensive" is odious. For 20 years, those of us who have fought education issues know that "comprehensive" is the code word used to conceal from parents the fact that sex education includes teaching kids in coed classrooms how to use condoms.
Likewise, "comprehensive" border security means concealing from the public that it means immediately legalizing illegal immigrants who are already in the United States and giving worker permits to many more foreigners to come in, while giving us only pie-in-the-sky promises about closing our borders to illegal entry.
On the eve of the Cancun trip, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted for the Kennedy-McCain amnesty-guest-worker-no-border-security bill with the votes of all the Democrats and four Republicans. The bill would provide legal status to at least 11 million illegal immigrants (Bear Stearns estimates 20 million) now living in this country plus 1.5 million guest farm workers, plus guest-worker status for at least 400,000 new non-farm workers every year with their relatives, plus in-state-college-tuition status for illegal immigrant students.
Putting his name on a bill alongside that of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., should forfeit any chance Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., might have had to be the 2008 Republican presidential nominee. The Amnesty Four who voted for the Kennedy-McCain bill, Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Sam Brownback, Michael DeWine, and Lindsey Graham, also forfeit their Republican respectability.
Rep. Bob Beauprez, R-Colo., figured it out correctly. He said this would be "the biggest magnet ever, ... a dinner bell, 'come one, come all.'"
The Kennedy-McCain bill is directly contrary to what the American people want. A new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reports that 53 percent of Americans believe illegal immigrants should be required to return home, and only 40 percent said they should be granted some legal status to remain.
George W. Bush, who will never again run for office, is selfishly destroying the Republican Party. He is molding the Republican Party into the Party of Big Business and Big Government.
While employers benefit from the importation of millions of "willing workers" from poor countries, the taxpayers are stuck with having to pay for social benefits for low-paid workers: schooling, health care, food stamps, housing subsidies, Earned Income Tax Credit handouts, law enforcement.
What's more, if amnesty passes, 10-plus million people will be added to the already staggering number eligible for Medicaid.
Economics 101 teaches that an increase in low-paid labor supply inexorably depresses wages and increases the costs of social benefits. Who benefits from this? Corporate donors to President Bush and to the Republican Party.
Phyllis Schlafly is the President and Founder of the Eagle Forum.
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Failing to Act on Illegal Immigration could mean our very survival as a nation and culture
April 09 2006 Chip McLean The Conservative Voice
E
leven million – that’s the official number of illegal immigrants in the US. The real number could be much higher, and everyday brings more, with no end in sight. In the meantime, Nero is fiddling while Rome is burning.
For too many years, our elected leaders in Washington have chosen to ignore the immigration problem, or have actually encouraged it. Now finally, as millions of Americans have awakened from their pleasant slumber of barbeques and American Idol and discovered that the government has done nothing to stop this influx of illegals, DC congress critters are suddenly making a lot of noise on Capitol Hill.
The problem is, noise is about all that is being made. It reminds me of that scene in Blazing Saddles, where Mel Brooks in his role as Governor William J. LePetomaine, declares, “We’ve got to protect our phony-baloney jobs – we must do something immediately, immediately!”
As is often the case, when government attempts to “fix” something, they get it wrong. What the public wants and needs is enforcement, and what the Senate attempted to do this past week was to offer up a “compromise” bill that would have granted amnesty to all of those eleven million plus who have already demonstrated their willingness to break our laws. Those who would put amnesty first and securing the border second have not only missed the point, they are endangering our nation’s security. Not only that, but such an approach is a slap in the face to all of those who did what they were supposed to do by going through the proper legal channels to come here.
Fortunately, this so-called compromise bill, that would have fixed nothing, was torpedoed by a majority of the Senate. As Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) said, “Today is a good day for America. The Senate – in a rare moment of clarity – rejected its amnesty-now, enforcement-later approach to immigration.” Tancredo went on to add, “If the Senate is serious about sending real security legislation to the President’s desk this year, it must take a different approach.”
Tancredo is correct – the amnesty approach was attempted before, back in 1986 and some three million illegals were given permanent legal status. If granting amnesty to three million then, got us eleven million more this time, what will granting amnesty to those eleven million now, bring us in the future?
Tancredo of course, has been a very vocal spokesman for the movement to get tough on immigration since he was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1998. His tough stance on immigration has not exactly put him on the VIP list at the White House, as President Bush has been inexplicably enamored with those who cross our border illegally.
For Tancredo, and the many who see illegal immigration as not just a drain on our resources, our jobs and the welfare system, but also as a very real and grave danger to our national security, the attitude of the current administration is beyond frustrating. Ever since the 9/11 attacks on our shores, President Bush has made national security his number one priority. How then can one reconcile protecting us from terrorists with allowing our border to be overrun by millions of undocumented aliens? While Juan and Pedro are entering the country virtually unimpeded, so too can those with names like Muhammed and bin Laden.
It is this sort of disconnect that is affecting the President’s poll numbers, and not just over the immigration issue (think federal spending, among others), although this is the issue that he will find himself most at odds with the conservative base. But then again, not listening to the base has been a hallmark of this administration, and for many Republican members of congress as well. It is the key reason that the November midterm elections are looming ever more crucial as the GOP looks to hang on to its majorities in the House and the Senate. If the base stays home, the GOP will lose.
Tancredo and some others will doubtless be ready to press the issue when lawmakers return from a two-week vacation, but unless they can pass a bill that puts the emphasis on enforcement, it will do nothing to solve the problem of illegal immigration. Any meaningful legislation must involve building a fence along the entire border, increasing the border patrol in sufficient numbers to do the job effectively, deporting those who are found to be here illegally, and heavily fining those employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens.
The cost of failing to act could be our very survival as a nation and culture.
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A Call to Defeat the McCain-Kennedy-spector Illegal Immigrant Amnesty Bill
April 10 2006 American Conservative Union
Urgent: You MUST contact your Senators before they vote
F
or the safety and security of our great nation, please join with me to demand the United States Senate “DEFEAT the MCCAIN/KENNEDY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT AMNESTY” bill.
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Over 12 million immigrants already have broken the law and are living in this country illegally.
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Every single American, in every corner of the country, is at risk from our unsecured borders!
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Every minute we wait, an additional 2 illegal aliens cross our borders.
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Every day we wait, an additional 3,178 illegal aliens cross our borders.
Even the AFL-CIO is against the so called guest worker program. The day after the MCCAIN/KENNEDY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT AMNESTY billed cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said "Guest worker programs are a bad idea and harm all workers".
Every month we wait, an additional 98,518 illegal aliens cross our borders.
Most people now understand that illegal immigration affects the entire nation. Illegal immigrants are showing up all over the country. Local governments are being forced to deal with increased social welfare costs, as well as an increase in crime, including violent crime.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), called measures like the McCain/Kennedy bill a "pro illegal immigration bill," and said it's possible such a bill could pass because "Congress has insulated itself from the views of the American people on this issue for the last 10 years."
If you believe our borders need to be secured against the onslaught of foreign terrorists and millions of illegal immigrants streaming across our unguarded borders, and...
Make no mistake; if you and I wait for the U.S. Government to close our borders to illegal crossings... it will be too late. We must DEMAND that they do it NOW!
Every year we wait, an additional 1,159,970 illegal aliens cross our borders.
It is CRITICAL that we ACT TODAY!
If we can FLOOD the offices of the Senator leadership with TENS OF THOUSANDS of messages from their own constituents , demanding that they REJECT any "guest worker" amnesty bill, we CAN stop Specter and McCain/Kennedy's dangerous bill dead in its tracks.
These illegal immigrants cost each of us - you, me and every other citizen of the United States - billions of dollars every year. Your tax dollars are paying for welfare, healthcare, education, prison and other costs for illegal aliens. Do we need to wait until we experience another 9-11 for Congress to act?
Join me and take a stand and tell congress you will not look the other way while they turn 11 million lawbreakers into legal U.S. citizens.
Thank you,
David A. Keene
Chairman
American Conservative Union
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Liberal Sellout hoping to swell the ranks of their voters
April 11 2006 Rich Lowry National Review
Dems are in the grip of a grievance-based ethnic politics.
D
emocrats opposed the ratification of the Central America Free Trade Agreement last year for fear that it would undercut American workers made to compete with cheap Latin American labor. The problem the Democrats must have had with this effect on American workers was that it was too indirect. The party now favors importing lots of that same cheap Latin American labor directly into the United States.
Bizarrely, it is the Democrats who most strongly support a lax immigration system that acts as a subsidy to business interests eager to hire workers at the lowest wages possible and to upper-middle-class Americans who don’t want to pay too much to have someone mow their lawns. And this subsidy comes at the expense of American low-skill workers, many of them African-American and Hispanic, who are supposed to be the heart of the Democratic party.
The thesis of the Thomas Frank book, What’s the Matter with Kansas? has become gospel for Democrats — that working-class voters in the heartland are misled into voting against their economic interests by supporting Republicans. That argument needs an overhaul now that it is clear that Democrats think there’s nothing the matter with Kansas, or anywhere else, that can’t be solved by more wage-competition from a flood of foreign low-skill workers.
“This is the one issue,” said Rosemary Jenks of the pro-enforcement group Numbers USA, “where Democrats sell out all their principles.” The party and its allies in the unions, no doubt see potential new voters and members in the influx of Hispanic newcomers. They are also increasingly in the grip of a grievance-based ethnic politics that champions the rights of illegals and of a post-national “we are the world” ideology that has little use for nationhood and borders.
There is disagreement about how much the wages of native low-skill workers are depressed by cheap immigrant labor, but it is common sense that as the supply of cheap labor increases, its price declines. Some notable liberal writers — unconcerned with cynical electoral calculations — still view immigration through this prism. Paul Krugman, Nicholas Kristof, and Michael Lind have all noted on the New York Times op-ed page the economic senselessness of bringing more low-skill labor into the country. “The cold reality,” Kristof writes, “is that admitting poor immigrants often means hurting poor Americans.”
There was a time when liberals writing such things wouldn’t have stood out. The great labor leader Samuel Gompers supported a more restrictive immigration policy in the early 20th century to boost the wages of native workers. Liberal icon Cesar Chavez, the organizer of agricultural workers, excoriated illegal immigration. The end of the “bracero” guest-worker program in the mid-1960s led to a one-time increase in the wages of Chavez’s workers by 40 percent.
Democrats now figure that new immigrants can swell the ranks of their voters. Unions make the same kind of calculation, counting on signing up immigrants to make up for dwindling native membership. As Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies said, “American workers turned their backs on unions, and now unions have turned their backs on them.” Even if the AFL-CIO leadership welcomes a massive dose of immigrant labor, its rank and file still knows the economic score. When Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), defended his amnesty plan at a meeting of the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department, he was roundly booed.
This split between the Democratic elite and the working-class portion of its political base presents an opportunity for Republicans, assuming they can see past the parochial interests of their business supporters. Pro-enforcement House Republicans have done just that. Majority Whip Roy Blunt noted the opposition of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the GOP enforcement bill last year, and emphasized how comfortable he was being on the other side of the Chamber on an issue.
Once, that kind of attitude would have been endorsed by liberals — back before they were happy to let mass immigration trump the interests of American workers.
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Hawaii First State in US to Enshrine Abortion “Rights” in Law
April 12 2006 Terry Vanderheyden LifeSiteNews.com
Same bill waives mandatory 90-day residency requirement; allows abortion in-office
H
ONOLULU, Hawaii legislators have passed a law that would enshrine the “right” to abortion in the hopes that it will prevent a future challenge to legal abortion.
The addition of two new conservatives to the US Supreme Court, combined with South Dakota’s successful passage of an abortion ban has spurned lawmakers there to pass Bill 1242, which went to the governor for approval Tuesday. Adding the provision would make it more difficult for a court challenge in the island state – even if it were successfully challenged federally, lawmakers argued.
The same bill eliminates the mandatory 90-day residency requirement before abortion, and allows abortion as an in-office medical procedure. The proposal prompted one commentator to dub the island state as the “baby killing center of the Pacific.”
Republican Sen. Sam Slom added that the new law “would make Hawaii the abortion capital of the world. We are known for sewage in our ocean. What other negative thing could we be known for,” he said, according to thehawaiichannel.com.
The law also eliminates provisions that ban late-term abortion, according to Republican Sen. Paul Whalen. The law allows “abortions to occur in doctors’ offices and clinics all the way to birth; as late an abortion as you want,” he said. Planned Parenthood Hawaii spokesman Annelle Amaral denied that the law would expand the late-term prohibition, which she said would still be illegal.
Gov. Linda Lingle has 10 days to veto the law. Her past strong support for abortion has commentators suggesting she will not resist the measure.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Hawaii to Become “Baby Killing Center of Pacific”
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/mar/06030901.html
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Broadcast Decency Bill Needs Your Help
April 12, 2006 Pete Winn, associate editor Citizen Link
The head of the Senate Commerce Committee is holding up legislation to enhance penalties for TV and radio indecency. Urge your senators to make him stop.
U
.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, chairman of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, continues to use his position to stifle efforts to crack down on broadcast indecency.
Stevens, R-Alaska, has said that before Congress passes any new legislation on indecency, it needs to assess how well television's V-chip technology is working -- as well as considering the effectiveness of cable TV's grouping of family-friendly tiers. The V-chip enables parents to block programming based upon its violence, sex and language ratings; the tier concept bundles family-friendly programs and channels into packages.
Stevens told a group of communications industry executives at a convention in San Diego last week that taking a long look at that data "should show us that the existing law is really the best way to continue the protection of our families."
But family advocates say the senator's rationale for inaction is an attempt to justify his failure to move the Senate's version of broadcast decency-enforcement legislation out of his committee.
"He's neglected what we view as the most important first step that Congress can take against indecency," said Amanda Banks, federal issues analysts for Focus on the Family Action. "That is the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act."
The bill passed the House a year ago by an overwhelming majority -- 389-38. Moreover, the Senate passed a similar bill in 2004, on a 99-1 vote. The legislation was prompted by the outrage the public expressed to the Federal Communications Commission and Congress over the infamous "wardrobe malfunction" singer Janet Jackson had during the half-time show at the 2004 Super Bowl.
"It's frustrating for those of us who care about decency on the airwaves," Banks said. "The Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act would simply raise the fines that can be enforced against indecent broadcasting. Currently the fines are at a mere $32,500 per incident -- that's the maximum amount that a broadcaster can be fined for indecent broadcasting.
"That's a drop in the bucket for major broadcasters. It's not a deterrent. These fines need to be updated."
Daniel Weiss, senior analyst for media and sexuality at Focus on the Family Action, said Stevens seems to be congratulating himself for progress that hasn't been made. In CableFax, a publication of the cable industry, the senator praised "members of Congress, industry leaders, children's groups and family-friendly and faith-based organizations" for starting a "conversation on decency."
"While we still have a long way to go," Stevens wrote, "we have taken important steps toward resolving some of the issues involved in this debate."
But Weiss said the progress has been elusive.
"He's held endless hearings -- but he only invited two pro-family groups out of more than 30," he noted. "And after the first meeting, he didn't invite any."
On the other hand, Stevens has invited all the major broadcast networks and asked them how to clean up the airwaves.
"CBS informed the Senate committee that every episode of every program that's ever aired on CBS goes through its legal department," Weiss said. "And their lawyers say there is nothing wrong with CBS programming. But of course, the FCC just fined over a hundred CBS stations the maximum possible fine for airing an episode of Without a Trace."
The Without a Trace episode depicted sexual teen perversion. Weiss said Stevens is looking to the broadcast industry for help in solving indecency, but the industry itself is violating the law.
"It's precisely because they chose not to clean themselves up," he said, "that the public is so outraged."
So, why is Stevens dragging his feet?
"It's a question that everyone is asking," Weiss said. "Stevens likes to skirt around the entire issue of broadcast decency -- he likes family tiers, he likes to talk harshly to industry executives, but when it comes to passing simple indecency legislation, Stevens is nowhere to be found."
Dan Isett, director of corporate and governmental affairs for the Parents Television Council, said Stevens needs to take action on the broadcast decency bill -- or he needs to be bypassed.
"There are a couple of different things that could conceivably happen in terms of the legislative process here," he said. "You could have an amendment offered to any of a number of bills that are about to come before the committee. Secondarily, you would have a floor amendment that would amend whatever bill that comes out of the committee."
Or, he said, the Senate could simply pass the House version of the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act that passed a little over a year ago -- which has been parked ever since in the Senate.
"If they could simply pass that bill," Isett said, "then you wouldn't have to go to a conference committee, it would go straight to the president, who has already promised he would sign such a bill. That would be the path of least resistance here."
TAKE ACTION: Please contact your two U.S. senators and let them know that the Senate needs to pass the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act -- and they needs to do so right away.
To make your views known, please log into to our here: Action Center.
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Another Victory for our First Liberty – Religious Freedom
April 11 2006 Alliance Defense Fund
On a fall day in 1999, Kevin Deegan went to a pedestrian mall in Ithaca, New York, to politely but publicly proclaim God’s Word. He wasn’t expecting to be told that his voice had to be reduced to a virtual whisper.
When Kevin started to preach, a city police officer came over and told him to stop or face arrest. The officer warned Deegan that he must lower his voice so that it could not be heard from 25 feet away. Rather than be arrested, Deegan peacefully left the area. It is important to note that other public sounds and speech were NOT subject to police action.
ADF senior legal counsel Nate Kellum knew that this selective enforcement to stop the Gospel was a violation of our First Liberty and ultimately filed suit. He also knew that during America’s founding era that attempts to stop non-government approved/licensed preachers by the British appointed administrators had in part motivated the enactment of the First Amendment.
“To our knowledge, this law has only been applied once – to Mr. Deegan,” Nate says. “The Constitution knows nothing of unheard-of-restrictions such as the one placed upon our client by the city of Ithaca…Noisy free speech abounds here, yet Mr. Deegan was limited to a whisper.”
In fact, a noise expert, who testified in court on behalf of ADF attorneys, asserted that the 25-foot threshold would make many common forms of speech and everyday sounds – from the clicking of high heeled boots, a ringing cell phone, and typical conversations – criminal activity!
Last Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the city’s attempt to silence the Gospel in this case was unconstitutional! The full text of the opinion can be read at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/DeeganOpinion.pdf.
This is Nate’s 5th win at the federal Court of Appeals in less than three years. I want to offer special congratulations to Nate for his dedication and efforts to defend, protect, and affirm our First Liberty – religious freedom.
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Family Advocate Fears Pro-Homosexual Education Bill Will Pass California Senate
April 11, 2006 Jim Brown Agape Press
A California pro-family activist says a bill in the state Senate requiring public schools to teach homosexual, bisexual, and transgender history is an assault on the minds and bodies of school children.
A bill sponsored by lesbian Senator Sheila Kuehl, SB 1437, places new mandates on California public schools to approve a curriculum that promotes and celebrates the lives of transsexual, bisexual, and homosexual "role models." The legislation has already passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, despite pro-family opposition.
Randy Thomasson with the Campaign for Children and Families (CCF) testified against SB 1437 at a recent hearing. He is calling on California citizens to ask Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto the controversial measure.
Thomasson believes the pro-homosexual bill is aimed at encouraging children not just to tolerate but to emulate homosexual behavior. "This is really teaching children this is how [they] can be, too," he says.
"Under the proposed curriculum changes homosexuals, transsexuals, and bisexuals will be depicted as 'heroic,'" the pro-family activist contends, "and this is all part of their agenda -- to be role models for children, so more children will enter these sexual lifestyles, perhaps even get a sex change."
According to Thomasson, the California Department of Education will undoubtedly use SB 1437 to erase all traditional distinctions or gender standards. He says the bill is designed to penetrate the academic purpose of schools with sexual, social engineering targeting children as young as kindergarten by requiring every aspect of the public education system in California to accept, embrace, teach, and promote homosexuality and other harmful sexual lifestyles.
The CCF spokesman fears the bill is likely to pass the Senate. For that reason, he is urging Californians to contact their governor and ask him to pledge to veto SB 1437, as his response to the measure is not something conservative and pro-family citizens dare take for granted.
"We need to understand that Democrat politicians all across California and more so across the country are in favor of all of the transsexual, bisexual, and homosexual agenda," Thomasson asserts. "We also need to understand that liberal Republicans like Arnold Schwarzenegger are going to go back and forth on whether to sign or veto."
SB 1437 is "frightening for parents who want trustworthy schools," the pro-family advocate adds. He hopes those parents and other Californians will join him in calling on Governor Schwarzenegger to veto a bill that requires schools to teach students favorably regarding deviant and unhealthy sexual lifestyles.
Thomasson believes Christians in particular should be speaking out against SB 1437. He says the church is a problem when it is uninvolved and a solution when it is involved in fighting such proposals.
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Congressional Bill S.2593/H.R.5151
Would Legalize Unlimited Abortion, Overturn Pro-Life Laws
April 9 2006 Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor
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ashington, DC Abortion advocates in Congress have reintroduced a measure that would legalize unlimited abortion and overturn key pro-life laws like parental involvement and measures allowing women to have information about abortion's risks and alternatives.
While abortion is legal in the United States, it is allowed only because of a controversial 1973 Supreme Court decision -- not due to any federal law approved by Congress.
The pro-abortion Freedom of Choice Act would not only codify Roe v. Wade but would overturn key pro-life laws including limits on taxpayer funding of abortion and bans on partial-birth abortions.
In an email to their activists, NARAL said Friday that it wanted abortion advocates to contact Congress and support the bill.
"President Bush and other anti-choice leaders are working to reverse Roe v. Wade," NARAL said. "But we have a trump card and we're ready to use it."
Douglas Johnson, the legislative director of National Right to Life, told LifeNews.com that the bill goes much further than making Roe v. Wade the law of the land. It would nullify virtually every pro-life limit on abortion the pro-life community has fought so hard to enact in the 33 years since Roe.
"Any federal lawmaker who favors unrestricted abortion on demand for both adults and minors, and public funding of abortion on demand, should speedily cosponsor this bill," Johnson told LifeNews.com.
Because of how egregious the bill really is, the ACLU immediately endorsed it saying it was good because it would "prohibit the government from enacting measures" to reduce abortions.
The measure, which has been introduced numerous times before dating back to the early Clinton administration years, has never made much progress in Congress. The bill may not even receive a committee hearing in either the House or Senate, where pro-life lawmakers control the agenda.
Sen. Barbara Boxer of California and Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, both Democrats are the lead sponsors of the pro-abortion measures (S.2593/H.R.5151).
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Legislative Attempt to Seriously Hamper Grass Roots Activism Has Passed US Senate
April 10, 2006 John-Henry Westen LifeSiteNews.com
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ASHINGTON, A bill which has already been passed in the US Senate and which has companion bills being put forward in the House, is of great concern to pro-life and pro-family groups in the United States. The bill, the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2006 (S2349), is being referred to as a gag law for lobbyists and worse, as a damper to grass roots activism.
Douglas Johnson, legislative director of National Right to Life in Washington spoke to LifeSiteNews.com about the legislation. "Several different bills of this type are moving through Congress right now," said Johnson, noting also that one of them is expected to come to the House floor the week of April 24.
Johnson pointed out that S2349 which passed the Senate 90-8 on March 29, "would regulate for the first time grassroots activism." The bill defines 'grassroots lobbying' as "the voluntary efforts of members of the general public to communicate their own views on an issue to federal officials or to encourage other members of the general public to do the same."
"The bill does not start off by regulating all constituent contacts with members of Congress," said Johnson. "But it does adopt that premise that that is a type of lobbying."
The legislation will hamper the pro-life movement and other grassroots based movements since "it imposes a first wave of regulations on groups that encourage members of the public to communicate with their elected officials," said Johnson. "The encouragement by groups such as ours to inspire of motivate people to write to their congressmen about pending legislation, that's what they want to start out regulating," he said.
"We dispute the whole premise," said NRLC's legislative director, "in a democracy, when a constituent contacts his or her federal representative, that's not lobbying that's just democracy, it isn't something that should be subject to the regulation of politicians."
"The justification for the legislation," explained Johnson, "is to address well-heeled lobbyists taking legislators on junkets and giving them gifts." However, he added, "this is really an agenda that certain groups like Common Cause use to restrict grassroots democracy so certain privileged elites will have more influence on public policy."
Johnson noted that the language restricting encouragement of grassroots activism is not yet in the House bill, "but the Democrats are attempting to insert it."
He noted also that the House bill places new burdens on lobbyists as well. Were these restrictions to pass into law, said Johnson, "it would be much more difficult to convey the pro-life movement's position to members of the Congress."
The final bill will be written jointly in a House/Senate Congress committee later this Spring.
NRLC suggests that the public express, to House and Senate representatives, opposition to this type of democratic activity being regulated and burdened even more than it already is.
See S2349 online here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:2:./temp/~c109LdLEut::
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Radical Homosexual Agenda Reeling in Charlotte after Christians make a stand for Christ
April 11 2006 Christian Newswire
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HARLOTTE, NC, April 11 2006 Christian Newswire What is causing the homosexual community in the Charlotte area such consternation these days? Christians are not standing idly by while God’s Word is being trashed in the streets. They are coming out of the closet!
More than 700 gentle Christians converged on the Rowan-Salisbury School Board last night to stand for Christ and say, "No," to the radical homosexual agenda that is weaseling its way into our public schools. The preachers preached, the singers sang, the prayers prayed, and the theology of the church house became biography in the streets of Salisbury, North Carolina.
The Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education, after feeling the heat of the Christian community, began to see the light and reversed its decision to allow a homosexual club to form at the South Rowan High School. In a unanimous 8-0 decision the school board voted to dissolve the student club, "Gay-Straight Alliance."
"This is simply one more in a string of defeats for the radical homosexual agenda in the greater Charlotte area," said Rev. Flip Benham, National Director of Operation Save America. "The Church of Jesus Christ has come out of the closet and, and because it has, the homosexual community is steadily moving back into it."
Just last month, "Charlotte Pride," the annual homosexual lust fest that parades its sin in downtown Charlotte every spring, was pushed into its grave by the Gospel of Christ. How did it happen? Q-notes, the leading gay and lesbian news source in the Carolinas, said this: "The future of Charlotte’s annual Gay Pride celebration isn’t looking too bright these days . . . former Charlotte Pride co-chair Nathan Smith resigned in a virtual burnout and organizers are less than enthusiastic about Charlotte Pride 2006. Chris Conyers (one of the organizers) said, ‘It seems as though community support has gone down and the presence of Operation Save America, I think, has made it unpleasant for many people . . .’"
South Rowan High School is free from the bane of a homosexual club today. The City of Charlotte is free today from the public display of obscene homosexual acts in a public park. Why? because the Church of Jesus Christ is out of the closet. Christian moms and dads, pastors, and businessmen are taking the battle to the very gates of hell and winning.
"Our city and government officials continually tell us, ‘Our hands are tied.’ We continually remind them that the hands of the Church of Jesus Christ are not!" Rev. Benham said.
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National Geographic shares its latest farce: The Gospel of Judas?
April 10 2006 Tony Perkins Family Research Council
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he National Geographic is all agog over a newly discovered "Gospel of Judas." It totally changes our view of history's greatest traitor, or so goes the TV promotions. It's almost funny. When was the last time the Geographic crowd found scripture inerrant? This latest farce comes at the same time as the media hype for Dan Brown's beach blanket bestseller, The Da Vinci Code.
It's yet another production in the theater of the absurd. So, we are now supposed to believe that Judas betrayed Jesus on orders from Jesus? The "Gospel of Judas" text may be new, but its existence has been known for only about two millennia. It was condemned as a fraud by the early Church fathers. So were many other productions of the sect called the Gnostics. Gnosis is a Greek word meaning secret. There has always been an appeal for such secret news. Grassy knoll conspiracy theorists have been around since the Monday morning after that first Easter Sunday. G. K. Chesterton, the great English writer, explains the reason for all these Jesus-light productions. "Christianity," he said, "has not been tried and found wanting. It has been tried and found difficult."
One thing you might notice in all this hype: Those of us who believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ will not be burning down publishing houses, bookstores, or television studios even as we deplore these unceasing assaults on our faith. We won't be issuing any fatwas calling for the beheading of these infidels. Despite two thousand years of doubters and shouters, His Truth goes marching on.
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Follow up: National Geographic Society Publishes 2nd Century ‘Gospel of Judas’
April 10 2006 CWNews
The National Geographic Society has made public the English translation of a document it is calling the "Gospel of Judas."
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he text centers on Judas Iscariot - the man the Bible tells us betrayed Jesus. But, the account departs—drastically—from the commonly-held picture of the disgraced disciple.
It was the first public glimpse of what is known as the "Gospel of Judas.”
A document verified as being 1,700 years old.
The manuscript dates back to the third century and is sure to set off debate. Unlike the Gospels of the Bible, this account offers a very different picture of the relationship between Judas and Jesus. It even suggests that Judas betrayed Jesus only after Jesus asked him to do it.
It is not known who wrote this text. But in it, Jesus privately tells Judas 'you will exceed all of them, for you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.’
While it's being called a major archaeological find, early Christian leaders discounted its text, centuries ago.
It is not likely to change Christian belief today, either.
Rev Donald Senior is with the Catholic Theological Union. He said, “Does the ‘gospel of Judas' positive portrayal of Judas and his relationship with Jesus—so different from that from the canonical Gospel—have any claims to historical reliability to the Jesus of history? I doubt it.”
Once the final work is complete, the documents will return to Egypt - the country in which they were originally found.
One scholar, from Asbury Theological Seminary, tells the New York Times that the documents tell us nothing about the historical Jesus or the historical Judas. But, he said, they do tell us a lot about people who were labeled heretics even in their own day.
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Virginia Governor Kaine Refuses to Sign Amendment Banning Same-Sex Marriage
April 11 2006 Gudrun Schultz LifeSiteNews.com
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ICHMOND, Virginia, Governor Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia refused to sign a proposed constitutional amendment yesterday that would ban same-sex marriage in the state, and said he will vote against the bill when it comes before Virginians in November.
Although Gov. Kaine said he opposed same-sex marriage, he said the proposed bill could have consequences for all unmarried couples, heterosexual as well as homosexual, the Washington Post reported today.
The Virginia state constitution already identifies marriage as between a man and a woman, but supporters of the amendment say the law needs to be clarified to ensure Virginia is not compelled to recognize civil unions or gay couples “married” out of state.
Kaine said the wording in the amendment could be interpreted to include unmarried heterosexual couples, where it reads the Virginia Constitution should not recognize “another union, partnership, or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage.”
In a statement, Kaine said he was concerned about “the broad wording of the proposed constitutional amendment,” saying that it threatens “the constitutional rights of individuals to enter into private contracts, and also…the discretion of employers to extend certain benefits such as health care coverage, to unmarried couples.”
“For those reasons, I will vote against the marriage amendment in November, and I urge other Virginians to vote against it as well.”
He also said that he believes marriage is between one man and one woman.
At least six states will ask citizens to vote on constitutional amendments to protect traditional marriage this fall, and more are debating the issue.
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University of Texas Professor Hopes for Pandemic, says humans no more important than bacteria
April 10 2006 staff reports Citizen Link
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niversity of Texas zoologist says earth has 90 percent more people than it should.
According to Genesis, we're made in the image of God. According to Eric Pianka, a professor at the University of Texas, we're no more important than bacteria.
Pianka recently said that 6.5 billion people living on the planet is too many. He's calling for a 90 percent reduction and is just waiting for a good pandemic to take care of the problem.
"Every one of you who gets to survive has to bury nine," Pianka tells students as part of his "doomsday talk," which outlines humanity's failings and his predictions for how civilization will end.
Those ideas are getting some rave reviews in the halls of academia, but generating outrage just about everywhere else.
Joe D'Agostino, vice president of communications for the Population Research Institute, said the concept is nothing new. Thousands of years ago, it was also widely believed that human reproduction was harmful to the earth.
"And the same idea is here today and sometimes goes under the name 'radical environmentalism," he told Family News in Focus. "These radical environmentalists are anti-people; they're anti-human. It really goes to show the real hatred among scientists and others for the human race."
Christians, D'Agostino added, should fight back against the notions of radicals like Pianka.
"Instead they allow themselves to be intimidated," he said. "They accept the idea that religious freedom means freedom from religion, and they're worried about offending people."
Gary Alan Taylor with Focus on the Family's Truth Project said that's why the ministry is aiming to teach a Christian worldview through the video curriculum. The need is palpable, since according to a Barna Research poll, only 9 percent of born-again believers show evidence of having a Christian worldview.
"It does give you an understanding of God's design for all of life," Taylor said of The Truth Project, "and then it leads us into a very practical way in which we can engage culture."
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Homosexual Activists Vow to Spoil Children’s Easter Egg Hunt at Whitehouse
April 10 2006 Gudrun Schultz LifeSiteNews.com
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ASHINGTON, D.C., April 10 2006 Gudrun Schultz LifeSiteNews.com — A crowd of gay couples plan on crashing the White House Easter Egg Roll next Monday, to “help” President Bush’s appreciation for the needs of gay families.
The Family Pride Coalition has organized some 200 gay families to attend the event, who say they will wear rainbow leis to identify themselves. The group has insisted they are not staging a protest.
“We’re not protesting the president’s policies on gay families. We are, however, helping him understand that gay families exist in this country and deserve the rights and protections that all families need,” Jennifer Chrisler, the executive director of Family Pride, told the Herald Tribune.
Mark Tooley, who directs the United Methodist committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, disagrees.
“It’s facetious and not very persuasive for Family Pride to say they’re not making a political statement,” Tooley said in an interview with the Herald last week.
President Bush has spoken out in defence of traditional marriage, in 2004 supporting a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, and last year stating his belief that children are better served by growing up in with a father and mother, in an interview with the New York Times.
While “children can receive love from gay couples,” he said he believed “studies have shown that the ideal is where a child is raised in a married family with a man and a woman.”
At a news conference last month the president said that “society’s interest” is met by “defining marriage as between a man and a woman.”
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Christian Ministry Leader Urges Prayer as Dalai Lama Visits Mayo Clinic
April 7, 2006 Mary Rettig and Jenni Parker Agape Press
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live Tree Ministries founder and director Jan Markell says the patients and staff at the famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, need a prayer of protection on April 17. She believes a guest who will soon be visiting the hospital may pose a greater danger to the patients than the illnesses that brought them there.
Markell says she was informed by a supporter of her ministry that on that date in mid-April, the Tibetan spiritual icon, the Dalai Lama, will be visiting the clinic and speaking on "practices that encourage a peaceful mind and positive ways to live during difficult times."
Among Tibetan Buddhists, the Dalai Lama is revered as the supreme head of that religion, so much so that his title is sometimes prefaced with "His Holiness." The leaders of all four Buddhist schools consider him to be the highest spiritual leader and teacher or "lama" of the Tibetan traditions.
The Dalai Lama is revered by Buddhists in and beyond Tibet, as well as by many non-Buddhists around the world, most of them fascinated with the mythology and mystique surrounding the famous monk's life story. His history incorporates Buddhist beliefs about reincarnation and a divine lineage of great teachers supposedly going back to the 1300s with the realities of political intrigue and social change due to invasion, conquest, and cultural transformation.
For some star-struck Americans -- especially those dazzled by celebrity and the "novelty" of Eastern spiritual traditions -- the news of a visit by the Dalai Lama brings a certain excitement, as perhaps any somewhat famous person making a stop while "on tour" might. But Jan Markell anticipates the Tibetan guru's stop at the Mayo Clinic with a deep sense of foreboding.
False Religion Wrapped in Fashionable Fame & New Age Appeal?
From her own personal experience at the medical facility, the head of Olive Tree Ministries says she knows the Rochester clinic is a place where many people go as a last resort when they have exhausted all other hope for treatment of their diseases. Because of this, the Tibetan Buddhist leader's impending visit is "a disaster waiting to happen," she contends.
"You've got hundreds if not thousands of people like that, in that mental state," Markell observes, "and then along comes this false prophet, who probably is going to give them some kind of lie because he represents everything that has to do with the New Age movement."
The bottom line, the ministry leader says, is the need for people "to pray for this thing that's going to happen on April 17." At a time in the Church and in society when many people desire to experience God in a fresh new way, she contends, bringing the Dalai Lama before people who are already in a vulnerable state just paves the road for false doctrine and New Age spirituality to enter their lives.
But despite what Tibetan Buddhism teaches, Olive Tree Ministries' founder asserts, the Dalai Lama cannot offer anyone peace because there is no true peace apart from salvation in Jesus. "The intriguing thing," she says, "is the way people are flocking to want to hear this man. I guess I don't understand, other than that we're in such days of deception now, as the Bible predicted."
Markell suspects that the public's fascination with the Dalai Lama may be a mark of many people's desire to have a fresh encounter with God. "But this is a false god in a false religion, who has nothing to offer anybody," she emphasizes. "As a matter of fact, he's a Buddhist, and Buddhists don't even believe there's a God."
The people at the Mayo Clinic, particularly the patients that have come there seeking hope and healing, do not need to be exposed to false hope and false teaching, Markell insists. She urges Christians to be in prayer for the hospital's staff, its patients, and their families on April 17.
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Judge's Transcendental Meditation Sentence Crossed the Line, Attorney Says
April 11 2006 Allie Martin and Jenni Parker Agape Press
An attorney with the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy (AFA Law Center) says a circuit judge in St. Louis, Missouri, may have overstepped his authority when he sentenced a woman, who plead guilty to voter fraud and drug possession to take part in a transcendental meditation program.
When Michelle Robinson pleaded guilty to 13 violations of election law and possession of crack cocaine and a crack pipe, Judge David Mason sentenced her to four years of probation for all charges. He also ordered her to get training in the Hindu practice known as transcendental meditation.
AFA Law Center attorney Brian Fahling is troubled by the judge's sentence. "Even if you don't regard transcendental meditation as a religion within the constitutional sense," he explains, "what you have here is a judge ordering an individual to engage in a practice that does have a spiritual dimension to it, and it intrudes on the heart and the mind."
What that means, Fahling says, is "you've got a governmental actor who's ordering an individual to participate in something that perhaps may run contrary to their own particular beliefs and belief system." Still, the attorney says he is not really surprised by the judge's order because it is consistent with a larger trend toward secularization that is progressing in America.
Transcendental meditation, of which Judge Mason is an advocate, is traditionally associated with Hinduism; however, it is practiced by members of many world religions and has become popular with adherents of New Age spirituality as well. Those who engage in "TM" are encouraged to clear their minds and sit in silence, with eyes closed, mentally repeating a simple sound known as a mantra, their objective being what practitioners call "pure consciousness."
The question of whether or not transcendental meditation constitutes a religion is one that is still being debated, even though those who say it is a religion can point to a wealth of prima facie evidence. The abundant proofs include TM's references to and use of Hindu astrology, terms, scriptures, and even ceremonies, including one in which practitioners are asked to get on their knees and bow before a picture of Guru Dev, a revered Hindu "enlightened" master.
A federal court has even weighed in on this debate. In Malnak v. Yogi (1979), a U.S. District Court ruled that under the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, transcendental meditation is too religious to be taught in public schools. Nevertheless, the practice continues to be promoted by advocates under the rubric of health and wellness and stress-reduction programs, and other attempts have been made to incorporate TM techniques into public schools and other institutional settings.
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Theocon? A conservative who believes in God
April 10 2006 Tony Perkins Family Research Council
Author Kevin Phillips is out with a new book--In God's Country. He warns--in the direst of terms--about a "takeover" of the GOP by religious conservatives. Phillips has made a career of being an "ex" Republican adviser, emphasizing the ex. And the label "theocon" is being thrown around, mostly as a term of abuse for conservatives who believe in God.
What is so alarming about Americans who happen to be believers getting involved in the political process? What is so radical about opposing the heinous partial-birth abortion procedure? Or seeking legal protections for parents who don't want their minor daughters taken across state lines for secret abortions? We have tried to protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman. What's far out about that? We win in liberal as well as conservative states whenever the people are trusted to answer on that one. And we've opposed taking "Under God" out of the Pledge.
How many Americans want this to be an officially atheist country? Phillips may be upset that his previously Mainline Protestant GOP has had to get used to millions of Evangelicals and Catholics, but it became a majority party by doing so. As Ross Douthat points out in a piece that was highlighted in the Washington Times today, with the Republican White House and Republican Congress disappointing so many fiscal conservatives, the only possible hope they have for retaining their majorities rests upon the social conservatives.
The bad news is, as we reported before, polling data shows increasing disappointment with the GOP's failure to advance the "values" issues. The good news is Congress still has time to act on proven popular agenda items. Americans need to see that it makes a difference who runs Washington.
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Fact: Union Dues Support Dems, Pay $1.5 Million For Golf Plus A Caddy!
April 9 2006 Townhall.com
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ou already know that union bigwigs use their members’ mandatory dues to fund a radical political agenda and pay for lavish lifestyles. But this week the Center for Union Facts made available for the first time unprecedented information detailing how Big Labor spends its dues dollars.
This week we posted the first financial reports reflecting new Department of Labor requirements designed to give a more candid look at how major unions spend their members’ money. As of Friday, a majority of union headquarters filed their LM-2 financial disclosure forms with the government, and jaw-dropping expenditures are already easy to find.
With the new search function on UnionFacts.com, making sense of the mountains of un
