Politicians come and go but good people will always be standing up for marriage:
Democratic Gov. John Lynch says he will not seek a fifth consecutive two-year term as New Hampshire's chief executive.
Lynch made the announcement Thursday, months ahead of the state's June filing period, putting at rest speculation about his intentions and opening up the field.
..Republicans have been attempting to portray him as anti-job and out of step with New Hampshire voters.
They point to his veto of legislation that barred unions from collecting a share of administrative and negotiating costs from non-union members. The GOP-controlled Legislature also overrode his veto of abortion limits on minors. -- AP
As we mentioned recently, efforts are underway to repeal New Hampshire's same-sex marriage legislation.
The White House weighs-in on the news that North Carolinians are voting to define marriage in their state constitution next May:
Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, issued the following statement in response to the Washington Blade’s inquiry as to whether President Obama opposes the North Carolina amendment banning same-sex marriage, which will come before state voters in May 2012:
“The President has long believed that gay and lesbian couples deserve the same rights and legal protections as straight couples,” Inouye said. “That’s why he has called for repeal of the so-called ‘Defense of Marriage Act’ and determined that his Administration would no longer defend the constitutionality of DOMA in the courts. He has also said that the states should determine for themselves how best to uphold the rights of their own citizens.
Inouye continued, “While the President does not weigh in on every single action taken by legislative bodies in our country, the record is clear that the President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same sex couples. The President believes strongly in stopping laws designed to take rights away.” -- Washington Blade
Democratic Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley is working to improve his state’s numbers on poverty, education, crime and employment, but he says Maryland can’t effectively reduce out-of-wedlock births or divorces.
“It makes little sense to claim you care about educational failure, violence and poverty, and then say you don’t care about people getting and staying married,” countered Maggie Gallagher, founder of the National Organization for Marriage. Lack of support for traditional marriage, she said, “is the source of a huge part of these problems in Maryland.”
... “It is sad the the only thing the governor wants to do for marriage is redefine it by cutting it off from its roots” in child-rearing, said Gallagher.
It’s difficult to understand why the governor won’t aid child-rearing marriage, she said, when he’s already using government to tell “people what to do and think on many programs.”
Gov. Terry Branstad’s appointment of a Democratic senator to the Iowa Utilities Board will give Iowa Republicans a shot to knock Democrats from their one-seat majority in the Senate before the next legislative session begins in January
The seat being vacated by Sen. Swati Dandekar of Marion is in a district that has more Republican registered voters than Democrats.
If Republicans win a special election set for November to fill the seat, the 50-member Senate will be evenly split between the two parties.
That would give the GOP a far better chance to push ahead on a handful of issues that have previously been blocked in the Senate...
Including, of course, allowing the people to vote on marriage, like North Carolina and Minnesota are doing.
The New York Times on NY-9 as prologue to future efforts to defeat pro-SSM legislators:
Opponents of same-sex marriage say they plan to use Mr. Weprin’s defeat as a springboard as they seek in next year’s legislative elections to defeat lawmakers who voted to allow gay men and lesbians to wed.
Although representatives of the candidates denied the issue had a large impact, Mr. [Brian] Brown [President of NOM] said in an interview on Friday that Mr. Weprin’s defeat was evidence that gay rights advocates were mistaken when they assured lawmakers who voted for same-sex marriage that they would not be hurt by their votes in future campaigns. “I don’t think a serious person can say that anymore,” Mr. Brown said. “I think David Weprin knows that he was sold a false bill of goods, and these other legislators are going to learn the same thing.”
By NOM Staff|Posted in New York, Same Sex Marriage|Comments Off on Brian Brown in NYTimes: Other Pro-SSM Legislators Are Going to Be Taught the Same Lesson as Weprin
New Hampshire's 300,000 Roman Catholics have a new leader.
The Vatican on Monday named the Rev. Peter Anthony Libasci (luh-BASH'-ee) to succeed Bishop John McCormack as bishop of the Diocese of Manchester.
The 59-year-old Libasci is New York City native ordained in 1978 who most recently served as auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Rockville Center in New York.
He is scheduled to be introduced at a news conference at St. Joseph Cathedral in Manchester on Monday and will be officially installed on Dec. 8.
Howie Beigelman, the director of state affairs at the Orthodox Union, points out in the New York Daily News that other candidates who did not vote to redefine marriage continue to receive Orthodox support:
Weprin lost Orthodox support not because he was a Democrat, but because Orthodox Jews were angry at him for his yes vote on same sex marriage - and, even worse, for a painfully contorted explanation of the vote that disparaged Orthodox rabbis.
In other words, [Orthodox Jews] voted policy and principle, not party. When the candidates - in Simanowitz and Goldfeder - had the right policies, they won Orthodox votes.
Orthodox Jews aren't lockstep with any one party. They are the most coveted electoral prize of all: engaged, interested and informed independent voters who care about issues. To earn their votes, both parties ought move the policy issues their voters care about. That's the enduring lesson of NY-9.
I read an interesting article this week in which Ben Smith concludes that the issue of Democratic state legislator David Weprin's vote in favor of same-sex marriage was a factor in his defeat in New York's heavily Democratic 9th Congressional District...
To the New York race. As this is written, with 92% of precincts counted, Republican Bob Turner leads Democrat David Weprin 53% to 47%. That doesn't look big but is. In 2008, Mr. Weiner won the district with 93%. In 2010, a bad year for Democrats, he beat Mr. Turner with 61%. In 2008 Barack Obama carried the district 55% to 44%. This week a Sienna College poll said voters there now had an unfavorable opinion of the president by 54% to 43%. It's a perfect reversal.
Orthodox Jews and Israel, gay marriage, the economy—all these things played a part...
In an era of growing intolerance to Christian beliefs and corporate skittishness to pressure from gay activists, the world’s largest global electronic payments service provider says its clients’ religious freedoms trump homosexual activists’ preferences.
AllOut.org — a gay activist petition site — recently targeted PayPal, taking umbrage at the fact that nearly a dozen ministries and charities that don’t endorse homosexuality use PayPal in their fundraising efforts. “We won’t stop speaking up until they drop [the] 10 sites and ban all anti-LGBT extremist groups,” All.Out.org writes in its petition. The accounts in question are predominately U.S.-based nonprofits.
The petition states that it’s “PayPal’s responsibility to make sure this technology doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
A PayPal spokeswoman said the company prohibits the use of its services to promote acts of hate and violence. “However, we also take into account the rights of free speech and freedom of religion,” she said. “Balancing these conflicting rights is often difficult, and so we assess possible infringements objectively against our Acceptable Use Policy.”
Ontario’s Liberal government will not back down from imposing its homosexualist equity and inclusive education (EIE) strategy on Ontario’s schools, insists Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne, who oversaw the controversial policy’s development.
In an interview with Xtra last Wednesday, Wynne said the education system is the “single most important” means of tackling “homophobia” among today’s youth.
... public school boards such as Toronto andHamilton have moved to integrate their “sexual diversity” instruction throughout the curriculum while at the same time forbidding parents from removing their children from the classroom during controversial discussions. McGuinty’s government has failed to enforce a clear Ministry policy allowing exemptions from material deemed offensive by parents.
The government has also forcefully imposed its equity policy on Catholic schools. In July, McGuinty said implementing homosexual clubs is “not a matter of choice,” while the Ministry of Education has insisted such clubs cannot help students “reform their sexuality.”
Including we would add, although she seems blind to the implications of her words, gender difference. Viva la!
Discussing her gender-bending role in the new movie Albert Nobbs, American actress Glenn Close has said that gender “doesn’t matter” and all those too outdated to reject natural gender and gender roles will just have to “die off.”
... “Gender is irrelevant. It basically should be irrelevant,” Close told the National Post.
... Close married longtime boyfriend David Shaw in February 2006 after two previous marriages.
Partially paraphrasing Close, the Post concludes that “Some people will change their point of view, and those who are either too old, or too blinkered, to accept the beauty of difference will just have to ‘die off.’” --LifeSiteNews
The bishops of Scotland have pledged their “strenuous opposition” as the Scottish government considers a proposal to legalize same-sex marriage.
“At the heart of this debate however there is one perspective which seems to be completely lost or ignored, it is the point of view of the child,” the cardinal wrote.“Same-sex marriage means same-sex parenting, and same-sex parenting means that our society deliberately chooses to deprive a child of either a mother or a father.”
...On September 12, Bishop Philip Tartaglia of Paisley issued his formal response to the government consultation.
"A Government which favours and allows for same sex 'marriage' does wrong. It fails in its duty to society," he wrote. "It undermines the common good. It commits an act of cultural vandalism. Such a government does not deserve the trust which the nation, and including many in the Catholic community, has shown in it."
"Government should not be persuaded by voices which declare that any opposition to same sex 'marriage' is the result of homophobic bigotry," Bishop Tartaglia added. "This is not only false, but is itself an illiberal and undemocratic intolerance which only seeks to close down rational argument and to intimidate people into acquiescence."
