The attacks on Bachmann keep multiplying. This one --"Stress-related condition ‘incapacitates’ Bachmann"-- is weird. The opening paragraphs suggest the reporter has intelligence that Michele Bachmann has a mental illness and pops mood-altering substances.
Turns out to be she suffers from migraines.
Apparently anti-Bachmann forces have begun to realize that attacking her for being pro-life and pro-marriage is not exactly hurting her in Iowa.
New York Senator Ruben Diaz comes out swinging:
Since when do district attorneys decide to pick and choose which "official misconduct" should be prosecuted as a criminal offense?
New York State can't even sustain a conviction against former Republican Senator Joseph Bruno for official misconduct when he was charged with taking huge financial favors to shape legislation and other matters for friends! How can district attorneys be allowed to selectively criminally prosecute middle level clerks and staffers for adhering to their core religious principles?
Does anyone actually believe that a clerk's failure to assist in gay marriage should be raised to the level of criminal activity?
If it does, then this new zeal in prosecuting official misconduct by government officials who fail to totally fulfill their governmental duties should amount to an open season for all five New York City District Attorneys to start prosecuting across the board any number of government officials employed under the tenure of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
... Let's keep our eyes open and see just how this new zeal for justice will be applied. It will either been done equally — or selectively to enforce social engineering."
NOM Chairman Maggie Gallagher in the Associated Press on the possibility of a 2012 marriage vote in Maine:
The National Organization for Marriage, which opposes gay marriage, isn't saying how much money would be needed to get out its message. But Maggie Gallagher, NOM's chairman and co-founder, said raising money for Maine wouldn't be a problem. The organization plans to raise $20 million this year in U.S.
"We've won 31 out of 31 times when this has been taken to the state. We'd be optimistic about winning again if they want to put Maine through another campaign," Gallagher said.
Maine voters in 2009 overturned a bill passed by the Legislature that would have legalized the practice. Thirty other states have passed amendments banning gay marriage.
Last month, gay marriage advocates announced that they'd be gathering signatures necessary to put the measure to a state vote again in Maine.
In this article adapted from remarks he recently gave before the Love & Fidelity Network, Prof. Franck talks about how we are failing to transmit healthy marital and sexual norms to the next generation (we focus on the marital norms):
In these dystopian societies [described by Plato and Huxley], everything about human sexuality, the complementarity of men and women, and the generation of offspring is broken to the yoke of the city, and made subservient to a single-minded politics of regimentation and control of human choice. And it all happens because a single political principle is pushed without limit until human nature itself is mowed down in its path.
Consider the messages that young people get today, from the colleges they attend, the media culture they swim about in, and even from the laws of the land and the words and deeds of high public officials. Here are fifteen such messages:
3. Everyone is entitled to marry the person he loves (at this particular moment). Coming soon—marriage to the multiple persons one loves!
4. There is no significant difference between men and women with respect to any sexual matter. “Gender” and “identity” are “social constructs,” which we can accept or reject at will.
5. The differentiation of male and female roles is a species of oppression. (Even if you choose the role? What happened to the freedom to choose your identity? Never mind, don’t ask such questions!)
9. Cohabitation before marriage is downright expected, and is a healthy trial run of a relationship.
10. Marriage is optional and certainly not permanent, nor need it be characterized by sexual exclusivity. “Until a loss of interest do us part.” Why should it be work?
11. Out-of-wedlock childbearing is normal and has no adverse consequences, anyway not for you.
13. “A family” is whatever we say one is. Who are you to say different?
14. Where children are wanted and nature does not supply, science can make up the deficit at no moral or social cost (albeit considerable financial expense) by sperm donation, egg donation, surrogacy, in vitro fertilization, etc.
15. Any child can have mommies and/or daddies in any number and combination, by blood, marriage, or adoption. There is no harm in any of these possibilities, for children are blank slates, fully adaptable to all adult choices.
Every one of these fifteen messages is a lie. No lie sustaining the preposterous political orders in Plato and Huxley is worse than any of these, and some are in fact exactly the same—about the sameness of the sexes, the dispensability of marriage, the malleability of children, and so on.
The New York Post points out that Sen. Shirley Huntley --who flipped on gay marriage this year-- is being investigated by NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (an outspoken proponent of SSM) over this:
State Sen. Shirley Huntley (D-Queens) founded The Parent Workshop, to which she steered $30,000. And between 1996 and 2008, she and Cook funneled another $400,000 to another nonprofit, The Parent Information Network, which is run by Huntley’s daughter.
This is why the Post is calling foul:
Member items, earmarks, discretionary funds — by whatever name they’re called, they’re the hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer cash that New York lawmakers steer to ostensible community projects but that serve as slush funds for the pols, their families and friends.
Here’s how it works: Legislative leaders dole out cash to their members in return for loyalty, support and votes. The members, in turn, toss the cash around in their districts to buy political backing. That’s corrupt enough.
But lawmakers increasingly steer the money to “nonprofit” groups that they, their relatives and/or their friends control. That makes the whole practice — both in Albany and at City Hall — just another way for pols to line their own pockets and those of friends and family.
From the Long Island Catholic (the official newspaper for the Catholic diocese of Rockville Center):
New York State Senator Mark Grisanti ran as a Catholic Republican opponent of same-sex “marriage” in 2010. In June 2011, he became a key vote ensuring its passage, telling a local newspaper: “If I take the Catholic out of me, which is hard to do, then absolutely they should have these rights.”
Richard E. Barnes, executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, told CNA Grisanti showed a lack of integrity as a Catholic by “ignoring” the “teachings he knows full well” on the subject of family life.
“I don’t think that a public official should ever ‘take the Catholic out’ of himself or herself, because Catholic positions are meshed perfectly with public policy positions,” said Barnes, who directs public policy advocacy efforts for the New York bishops.
“No person should say that they are a public official and need not live according to the tenets of their faith. And I find it disappointing that he felt he had to do that.”
Savage walked his comment back in a later blog post, but on national TV this is what he said:
Friday's "Real Time" on HBO contained some of the most vile political talk ever broadcast on national television.
In one panel segment, gay sex advice columnist Dan Savage said of Republicans, "I wish they were all f--king dead."
... Is this really the kind of discussion HBO condones? A guest saying he wants about 40 percent of the nation dead?
Exactly how does someone get away with saying something like that on national television?
The New York Law Journal reports:
Almost 60 judges in New York City have volunteered to help remove the last legal roadblock to the immediate weddings of gay and lesbian couples once they finally are recognized by the state on a Sunday in 10 days, court officials said yesterday.
...Same-sex marriage "has been a long time coming and many long time friends have waited for years," said Justice Rosalyn H. Richter, of the Appellate Division, First Department, who is one of an estimated 20 openly gay judges in the state. [...] Justice Richter plans to marry her partner, although she said that the date and other arrangements are private.
...couples who obtain a marriage licenses cannot be married for 24 hours. Those who want an on-the-spot wedding on July 24 will have to go before a Supreme Court justice or a County Court judge to obtain a waiver of the state-required waiting period. [...] So far, few communities upstate have announced plans to follow the city's example.
...Under §13-b of the Domestic Relations Law, a waiver can be granted when there is a danger of imminent death or there is some other emergency and the public interest would be promoted by an immediate wedding or in cases where a delay would cause "irreparable injury or great hardship" to the couple.
Court observers say that waivers are almost always granted when they are requested. One judge reported that he had recently waived the waiting period to accommodate a couple who wanted to make plane connections.
There are 1,250 judges in New York state.
Via LifeSiteNews:
When New York state Senator James Alesi announced to gay “marriage” supporters recently that his priest “embraced” him at mass after he cast his vote for gay “marriage,” he failed to mention one important point – his priest and his religious community have been excommunicated from the Catholic Church.
However, the New York Times reports that Alesi belongs to Spiritus Christi Church, which broke with Rome in the 1990s “in order to support gay men and lesbians,” as well as female clergy.
Michele Bachmann is rising quickly in the Iowa polls, and NOM Chairman Maggie Gallagher argues in Politico that efforts by HRC and other gay rights groups to demonize Bachmann are going to backfire among conservative caucus-goers in Iowa:
... The third-term Minnesota congresswoman and her husband, therapist Marcus Bachmann, have a history of battling gay rights groups in Minnesota long before she stepped onto the national stage.
“Michele Bachmann is the very definition of a target-rich environment, and given her husband’s positions and things she’s said in past she’s going to have a really hard time appearing as a reasonable mainstream candidate,” said Michael Cole-Schwartz, the communications director for the group Human Rights Campaign.
... Bachmann’s allies say attacks from gay rights groups will backfire.
“The more that they attack Michele Bachmann on these grounds, the better her chances of winning the Iowa caucuses are,” said Maggie Gallagher, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, who said she’d admired Bachmann since 2004. “The Iowa base is extremely upset about same-sex marriage and I don’t think they’re going to look kindly on these attacks.”
We've been actively tracking the New York clerks who have announced their intention to resign over SSM. If you know a New York clerk responsible for issuing marriage licenses, please help us bring this to their attention:
According to a recently released Alliance Defense Fund memorandum New York Law requires employers to accommodate sincerely held religious beliefs under Executive Law § 296(10)(a). This section of the law requires employers to accommodate an employee’s religious observance or practice, “unless, after engaging in a bona fide effort, the employer demonstrates that it is unable to reasonably accommodate the employee’s or prospective employee’s sincerely held religious observance or practice…without undue hardship.”
Furthermore, a specific provision of New York’s Domestic Relations Law § 15(3) allows all of the clerk’s duties in issuing marriage licenses to be delegated to a deputy clerk or other municipal employee. It would seem reasonable to conclude that a locality could appoint a deputy clerk or another civil servant, that does not have an objection to same-sex “marriages”, to issue these licenses.
Municipal clerks should review the Alliance Defense Fund Memo and if they desire free legal counsel, contact the Alliance Defense Fund. -- New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms
In the Times Herald-Record (covering the Hudson Valley):
Both of Deerpark's marriage officers are resigning their posts on the heels of the change in the state's marriage laws recognizing same-sex unions.
Town Clerk Flo Santini has resigned as a marriage officer. Supervisor Karl Brabenec says he's planning on turning in his letter of resignation as a marriage officer at Monday's Town Board meeting.
Brabenec, a Republican, said his resignation was in response to the law allowing same-sex marriages in New York, which clashes with his Roman Catholic faith. "I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman," he said.
As a civil official and a marriage officer, Brabanec would be required to perform any legal marriages, so he is giving up the post.
... Marriage officiant is an unpaid, volunteer position in the town and requires officials to be available on weekends. Brabenec said at this time, the town has no plans to replace the marriage officers.
If you need any more evidence that SSM advocates believe faith in Genesis is the same as racial bigotry--and intend to act on that aggressive and radical belief--here it is:
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the town is leaving itself open to legal action if it refused to provide anybody to perform civil marriages.
"It reminds me of a school district in the South (in the 1960s) that closed rather than integrate," she said. "The time for that type of bigotry has ended."
Minnesota Public Radio interviews Bishop Harry Jackson on the renewed efforts to push SSM in Maryland:
Gay rights activists in Md. announced this week they'd renew their campaign to have the state recognize same sex marriages. But many religious leaders are still vocalizing opposition to same sex marriage, and to learn where their efforts stand, host Michel Martin speaks with Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr., senior pastor of Hope Christian Church.
New technology is making it easier to meet Maryland's byzantine petition requirements. Power to the people!
The system is simple. Thousands of voters, egged on by a media blitz on talk radio and Web sites and through targeted e-mail, found their way tomdpetitions.com. They typed their names, birth dates, Zip codes and e-mail addresses into a basic form, just as if they were buying a sweater online. The software then tapped into voter-registration data to fill out the petition sheet in the precise format the law requires. The voters then printed out the form, signed it and mailed it to Parrott.
... “This petition drive really sets new ground rules,” he said of the use of the Web and software.
Parrott and some other Republicans are hopeful that the petition’s success could change how voters in the liberal-leaning state weigh in on the laws passed by their elected representatives. --WaPo
We've had the unfortunate duty before of having to inform you about how "F*K H8" tries to propagandize young kids to become activists for gay marriage. We can't underscore how offensive this video is (and this is the "censored" version).
But videos like these are being used right now to raise money to defeat marriage in Minnesota.
We also must ask again, when will other gay groups condemn the F*K H8 campaign tactics? If they can't condemn it, do they support this sort of thing?
To help our efforts to protect marriage and the next generation visit MinnesotaForMarriage.com today to sign up and donate!
Watch, if you choose to, having been warned:
