Despite an attack on its Facebook page and a cold rain, an estimated 15,000 people showed up for Chile’s first “March for Values” on July 30 in the capital of Santiago, expressing their support for the institution of the family in the face of a [gay] campaign to create civil unions and homosexual “marriage” in the country.
Marchers included a mix of Catholics and Protestants, cooperating in an “exemplary” way according to organizer Salvador Salazar.
Monthly Archives: August 2011
15,000 Catholics & Protestants Rally in Defense of Family in Chile
August 15, 2011 – 8:00 am
San Diego Attorney Pleads Guilty to Baby Selling
August 14, 2011 – 9:00 am
In the San Diego Examiner:
Poway based attorney Theresa Erickson, a nationally recognized surrogacy attorney (in part from her east coast based public relations firm), was just snared in a black market baby selling practice. Babies born overseas fetched up to $100,000.00 per child.
Parents had no idea the infants were purchased.
... Erickson admitted to falsifying court documents in which San Diego Court judges were told the unborn children were the products of legitimate surrogacy arrangements. After the documents were court-approved, Erickson simply added the names of the parents who had been duped into a purchase.
Authorities also said Erickson submitted claims to the State of California's Access for Infants and Mothers program to pay for the children's delivery.
... In anticipation, Erickson pulled down her website which also featured law in areas including [Surrogacy Law and Egg Donation Law].
... Erickson did not act alone. Carla Chambers and Maryland attorney Hilary Neiman, were co-conspirators and plead guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges earlier.
NOM: Iowa Voters Prove Again That Marriage Is A Winning Issue
August 14, 2011 – 5:06 am
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 13, 2011
CONTACT: Elizabeth Ray ([email protected]) or
Mary Beth Hutchins ([email protected])
WASHINGTON, DC — Today Iowa voters endorsed National Organization for Marriage (NOM
"Today, Iowans showed the country that judges do not speak for the people and that Iowans, like the majority of the country, support marriage as the union of one man and one woman," said Brian Brown, president of NOM.
In the days before the straw poll, NOM, joined by the Susan B. Anthony List and Family Research Council, visited 22 cities across Iowa urging Iowans to go to Ames and vote for a pro-marriage candidate. Iowans responded by supporting Bachmann, Pawlenty and Santorum, all of whom signed the marriage pledge.
View Bachmann's marriage pledge here: http://www.nomblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Bachmann-Signed-Pledge.pdf
To schedule an interview with Brian Brown, president of NOM, or Maggie Gallagher, chairman of NOM, contact Elizabeth Ray (x. 130) or Mary Beth Hutchins (x.105) at 703-683-5004.
###
Miss the debate on Thursday? See what the candidates had to say about marriage
August 13, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Dear Marriage Supporter,
At the Fox News presidential debate in Ames, Iowa on Thursday, Byron York of the Washington Examiner asked five of the candidates (including three of the four signers of NOM's marriage pledge!) about their views on same-sex marriage, civil unions and a federal marriage amendment.
In case you missed the debate, we've put together a short 5-minute montage of each of the candidate responses. Click here to watch.
Later today, Iowa voters will vote for their favorite candidate at the Ames Straw Poll, the first real test of the candidates' momentum and organizational support in this young 2012 presidential campaign. As our Values Voter Bus pulled into Ames last evening, we wrapped up a 5-day, 23-city tour of the State of Iowa with FRC Action and the Susan B. Anthony List, energizing social conservatives and reminding all of us to get involved in support of pro-marriage candidates.
One of the key purposes of the bus tour has been to focus attention on marriage and life issues early in this presidential campaign. Iowa voters—and especially Iowa Republicans—are overwhelmingly committed to defending marriage and life, even to the point last fall of firing three justices who forced same-sex marriage on the state. Who better to test the Republican presidential candidates on marriage?
We'll see later today who passes this first test of the 2012 campaign!
Faithfully,
Brian S. Brown
President
National Organization for Marriage
Study Finds Marked Rise in Intensely Sexualized Images of Women, not Men
August 13, 2011 – 10:00 am
A study by University at Buffalo sociologists has found that the portrayal of women in the popular media over the last several decades has become increasingly sexualized, even "pornified." The same is not true of the portrayal of men.
These findings may be cause for concern, the researchers say, because previous research has found sexualized images of women to have far-reaching negative consequences for both men and women.
... The study will be published in the September issue of the journal Sexuality & Culture and is available online here.
Bert & Ernie: NOT Brought to You by the Letters L, G, B & T...
August 13, 2011 – 9:30 am
Reuters reports via The LA Times that the Sesame Workshop has closed the closet door on the recent push for long-time characters Bert & Ernie to enter into a same-sex marriage:
"The educational workshop behind the 40 year-old TV series dismissed the idea of a made-for-TV, same-sex puppet wedding in response to an online campaign and petition to have the two "Sesame Street" characters get married as a way to beat homophobia and encourage tolerance of gay people.
"...Sesame Workshop noted on Thursday that as puppets, Bert and Ernie don't have sexual preferences.
"'Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves.'
"In recent days, almost 9,000 people have signed a petition encouraging the wedding at http://www.change.org and/or become friends of a special "Bert and Ernie Get Married" Facebook page, sparking a lively debate on Twitter and other social media."
The petition makes the absurd assertion: "'We are not asking that 'Sesame Street' do anything crude or disrespectful by allowing Bert & Ernie to marry. It can be done in a tasteful way.'"
The petitioners apparently fail to realize that pushing the SSM agenda on an educational show geared to pre-schoolers is of itself tasteless.
You can read the whole story here.
Robert Patterson: Why Do Economists Calculate Divorce as a Gain?
August 13, 2011 – 9:00 am
Robert Patterson asks the question in Family in America:
...the fatal flaw is that the GDP [Gross Domestic Product] leaves out the most important sector of society that makes the private and public sectors able to function: the social sector.
... Further skewing the books, every time an intact family breaks up—which represents a huge loss to parents and especially to children—the GDP calculators, deeming that significant, suddenly turn on and count all the derivative activities of divorce as positive indicators of economic growth.
Believe it or not, every divorce, because it generates activity in the private and public sectors, boosts the GDP. That activity includes greater workloads for divorce lawyers as well as the divorce-court and child-support systems, heightened demand for second households, therapy for the children, as well as new or increased employment commitments for the mother outside the home. In fact, as a divorcing mother is often forced into the full-time labor force, she may spend relatively more money on clothes, commuting, daycare, and dining out. Even when eating at home, she may opt more for costlier prepared foods than cooking at home.
At the same time, the divorced father will increase both energy and water consumption in setting up a second household. He may eat even less at home and frequent bars more often.
The GDP rises in response to all these inputs, but the net effect is reduced happiness, the handicapping of the next generation, and a less promising economy down the road. So in the GDP universe, the destruction of a little civilization through divorce—which splits a strong joint home economy into two weaker ones—is considered good for the larger economy. But in this same distorted GDP universe, the success of married couples in maintaining a lasting union harms the economy at large.
New Essay: Families We Choose? Visions of a World Without Blood Ties
August 13, 2011 – 8:00 am
The abstract of a new article by George W. Dent, Jr. at Case Western Reserve University School of Law:
The traditional family comprising a married woman and man and their biological children has been so common across the globe and throughout history that it can reasonably be called the “natural family.” The privileged legal and social status of the natural family is under attack by a movement that favors “families we choose.” The family would be defined as any group of people that at the moment chooses to be treated as a family. Under the mandate of “equality,” government would be neutral about family structure. Blood ties would be irrelevant.
Since no society has ever adopted this program, we cannot determine empirically what it would look like. However, there are many works in literature in which the natural family is dethroned or eliminated, including Plato’s Republic, Heather Has Two Mommies, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. These works still leave gaps in our picture of a world without blood ties, so I offer several stories to fill out the portrait. The article ends with a discussion of the ramifications of “families we choose” as informed by this literature.
Iowa Press: No Clear Front-Runner Emerges for Straw Poll
August 13, 2011 – 8:00 am
Local WCFCourier on today's presidential straw poll in Ames, Iowa:
With only days to go before the Republican Party of Iowa's Straw Poll, analysts say perhaps 10 percent to 20 percent of the people who plan to go to Ames haven't made up their minds whom they're going to support.
... Social and evangelical conservatives within Iowa's Republican Party have not anointed a clear standard-bearer heading into Saturday's poll, clouding the picture even more.
... Bob Vander Plaats, who played a lead role in Mike Huckabee's 2007 Iowa campaign, said this year's straw poll is shaping up to be a contest between Minnesotans Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty with U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas also threatening a finish among the top two.
However, he said former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum "is really catching fire of late" by campaigning in less-traveled areas.
Iowa Press: Social Issues Still Front and Center
August 13, 2011 – 7:00 am
The Daily Nonpareil (of Council Bluffs, Iowa):
Americans may be focused on the economy at the moment, but conservative social issues will play a role in the Iowa GOP straw poll Saturday and beyond, according to state and national supporters of those issues.
“These issues haven’t gone away,” said former Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave. “They will have an impact on the straw poll.”
“(Traditional) marriage is a winning issue,” added Christopher Plante, Rhode Island director of the National Organization for Marriage. “The majority of Americans believe in that.”
Musgrave and Plante were part of a statewide bus tour promoting these and other conservative issues that stopped at Council Bluffs’ Bayliss Park Thursday afternoon. The bus tour will end Saturday in Ames, the site of the Iowa Republican Party’s straw poll that’s gaining in national attention as nearly all of the major GOP presidential candidates plan to attend.
“Iowa has an opportunity to send a message to the nation,” Musgrave said.
... But, it wasn’t just the Saturday straw poll these conservative were talking about. There’s a state election next year in which one man in particular must be defeated, they said.
“It’s important that (Council Bluffs) Sen. Mike Gronstal is removed,” said Jenifer Bowen, Iowa Right to Life director, who criticized Gronstal, the Senate majority leader, for not allowing a Senate vote to ban late-term abortions.
Gronstal has refused to take action to start the process of giving Iowans a say on whether they support gay marriages, Plante said.
“Let the people vote,” he said.
Rick Santorum to GOP: Embrace Lincoln, Not Douglas, on Marriage
August 12, 2011 – 6:00 pm
Rick Santorum proves himself one of our most principled and intellectually interesting political figures today:
From its inception the Republican Party has been the party of the family and great moral causes.
This is only one of many reasons why it is so disturbing that some prominent Republicans have seemingly washed their hands of the value and importance of marriage.
...By taking refuge behind “states’ rights” as it relates to moral wrongs, the definition of marriage then becomes subject to fifty different interpretations and versions. What’s even worse is for one to say you fundamentally disagree with homosexual marriage but then claim you don’t have the right or will to fight it.
... These positions are deeply troubling for the Republican Party and the country. Consigning these moral issues strictly to local decision-making runs contrary to the positioning of our party’s founding and to Abraham Lincoln’s philosophy that there is no moral right to enact a major social and moral wrong.
Once the definition of marriage is discarded, there will be no rational or legitimate legal or moral argument left to prevent the acceptance of any other kind of definition of marriage, including other moral wrongs like polygamous marriages. Would those same candidates say that New York State has the right to allow for polygamous marriage — and then leave it at that?
In Lincoln’s time the political debate was over the foundationally immoral institution of slavery. Lincoln rightly criticized Stephen Douglas’ “don’t care” attitude about that great moral issue this way: “When Judge Douglas says that whoever or whatever community wants slaves, they have a right to have them, he is perfectly logical, if there is nothing wrong in the institution; but if you admit that it is wrong, he cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do wrong.”
Using Douglas’ rationale today, we subject the definition of marriage to 50 different versions and that leads to settling of the conflict by the U.S. Supreme Court. This is precisely the same road that led to the downgrading of human life with abortion laws...
We simply cannot allow this to happen to marriage too. --RickSantorum.com
Photos: Tim Pawlenty and Rick Santorum Join the Values Bus Tour
August 12, 2011 – 4:23 pm
Tim Pawlenty speaks at one of the early stops of the NOM Values Bus Tour:
Rick Santorum speaks at one of the more recent stops this week:
There's still a chance to see the Values Bus at the Straw Poll in Ames, Iowa tomorrow!
Sticky: Bachmann, Pawlenty, Romney & Santorum Sign NOM Marriage Pledge
August 12, 2011 – 3:56 pm
We're continuing to draw attention to the four announced GOP presidential candidates who have signed our NOM Marriage Pledge:
Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum in the first wave, and Tim Pawlenty soon after.
We will extend an invitation to Gov. Rick Perry to sign the NOM Marriage Pledge when he enters the race.
Cayuga County Clerk Refuses to Sign NY Gay Marriage Licenses
August 12, 2011 – 3:00 pm
AuburnPub.com reports:
A town clerk in Cayuga County has informed her town board that because of her religious beliefs, she does not believe she can sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples, according to a member of the board.
Ledyard Town Clerk Rose Marie Belforti submitted a letter to the Ledyard Town Board saying that her religious beliefs prevented her from signing marriage licenses for same-sex couples and the board discussed Belforti’s letter at Monday’s meeting, according to John Binns, a member of the town board.
... Belforti’s decision was criticized by supporters of same-sex marriage.
Cathy Marino-Thomas, board president of Marriage Equality New York, said Belforti isn’t practicing “good leadership” by trying to pass the responsibilities off to a deputy clerk.
“The law says that everyone has a right to marry in New York state,” she said by phone. “If [Belforti] doesn’t want to obey the law, she needs to get another job.
On the other hand:
New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, a group opposing same-sex marriage, launched the “Courage Fund” as a way to help clerks who feel their religious beliefs prevent them from signing same-sex marriage licenses.
On the NYFCF website, there is a memo from the Alliance Defense Fund outlining how clerks can request an exemption to accommodate their religious beliefs.
The memo cites a state law which requires employers to “accommodate an employee’s religious observance or practice.”
For clerks, according to the ADF memo, this should allow them to delegate the signing of marriage licenses to a deputy clerk.
Rev. Jason McGuire, executive director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, said about a dozen clerks have reached out to him to see what their options are now that same-sex marriage is legal.
Maggie Gallagher Scores the Iowa Debate on Social Issues
August 12, 2011 – 2:52 pm
First published as part of a National Review Online symposium this morning, reacting to last night's GOP Presidential debate in Iowa:
Others are going to focus on the core economic issues (Newt Gingrich did have a great night). Here’s the Maggie awards from a socially conservative perspective. Note: All quotes below are approximations.
... Co-winners of the Marriage Debate: Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum.
Mitt Romney looked as he always looks — polished, confident, and intelligent — in explaining why he is not fine with gay marriage in New York.
“I believe the issue of marriage should be resolved at the federal level. Why? People move from state to state . . . marriage is a status [not just something that takes place within a state] . . . I support a federal marriage amendment as a man and a woman because the ideal place to raise a child is in a home with a mom and dad.”
Weirdest answer came from Governor Huntsman. Asked why he is right and voters are wrong on civil unions, he incoherently declined to explain. “Everyone can come to this with their personal beliefs,” he said. “We haven’t done enough for equality, that’s just my personal belief, I’m personally in favor of civil unions.”
Rick Santorum went into this debate with nothing to lose, and on the social issues, he distinguished himself from the pack. He can explain why marriage, as a status, being different in all 50 states really won’t work, and how the “pick off a state” strategy on marriage will lead, as it did on abortion, to an engraved invitation to the courts to impose gay marriage — as the court did in Iowa.
Rick Santorum also scored big points when he said he was the only candidate on the stage last night who came to Iowa and helped un-elect those activist judges who imposed gay marriage on Iowans.
On marriage in this debate, Bachmann was far weaker — not only weaker than Santorum but weaker than Romney as well. She stated her position clearly but did not make an argument for it: “I support the federal marriage amendment; as president, I will not nominate activist judges who legislate from the bench. In Minnesota, I was the chief author of the constitutional amendment. I have an unblemished record when it comes to this issue of man-woman marriage.”
Unblemished, maybe, but also unexplained. [Continue reading...]
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