Belforti was on a glide path to re-election when Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York lawmakers approved the same-sex marriage measure June 24. The bill was passed only with the last-minute support of four fence-sitting Republicans state Senators, and advocates on both sides of the issue are trying to influence their political fate in legislative elections next year.
... Belforti's position has drawn criticism from people who feel they are being asked to pay a deputy to do something the clerk should do. It rankled Easter enough to launch his write-in campaign.
... Belforti said she has endured nasty emails and charges that she is a bigot, which she emphatically disputes. There have been calls to boycott her cheese business, a tactic Easter disagrees with.
"This has never been about putting her out of business," he said, "it's about putting her out of office."
There is no polling for such a small-town race and it's unclear just how important the marriage debate will be to voters compared to the personal relationships that dominate small-town elections.
"I think she's wrong, but I'm voting for her anyway. I think she's just a splendid town clerk," said Bradley Mitchell as he left the local post office.
Monthly Archives: October 2011
AP Profiles NY Clerk Belforti, Up For Reelection Soon
The FOX Take on Two Dads in the Allen Gregory Show
If we said it, we'd be homophobes.
We have no clue how representative Richard and Jeremy are, but gee, does FOX think they could be?
Watch and let us know what you think:
British Hate Speech Laws Spawn "Heresy Hunters"
British government officials and employees have become the new witchfinders general, “obsessively” searching for the slightest deviation from the doctrines of political correctness, a legal expert has told LifeSiteNews.com.
“The obsession with hate crime and hate speech has created a new generation of publicly paid heresy-hunters,” said Neil Addison, an expert in religious discrimination law.
This week the British press is buzzing over a case that Addison called the “most extreme so far” of publicly paid employees enforcing the doctrines of political correctness and stifling civil liberties, especially of believing Christians.
Adrian Smith, a 54 year-old Christian property manager, was demoted and took a 40 percent pay cut, when he wrote on a private Facebook page that he disagreed with a proposed law to allow same-sex union ceremonies to be conducted in churches.
IL Catholic Adoption Agencies Given Just 45 Days to Transfer All Children
Lawyers for Catholic Charities affiliates in three dioceses in Illinois are protesting in court after the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) said it would transfer over 1,000 children from the church-run agencies by only a fraction of the original timeline.
... the accelerated transfer time frame means that all children will already be transferred from the three Catholic Charities agencies before a court ever has a chance to hear their appeal.
The accelerated time frame “inevitably will cause disruption, dislocation, and discontinuity to at least some, if not a good many, of those children,” argues the October 19 affidavit.
... The news of the expedited transfer to the state adoption agency, comes at the same time as Illinois’ executive inspector general accused DCFS director Erwin McEwen’s “personal friend and mentor,” George E. Smith, of administering psychotropic drugs to children. In addition, Smith is accused of “‘large-scale fraud’ involving millions of dollars in taxpayer money.”
Smith “forged signatures” and “used fake employees and turned in suspicious expense reports,” according to the Chicago Tribune.Investigators have found that there was little oversight or accountability by the DCFS.
How is this process in the best interest of the children currently in Illinois Catholic foster care?
Sign the Petition to Support Viki Knox!
Dear Marriage Supporter,
"Fire her!!"
The voice from the crowd of protestors in New Jersey rang loud, clear, and angry: They want Viki Knox, a Christian schoolteacher, terminated.
What is her crime? Posting comments in defense of Biblical views of sex and marriage on her own Facebook page.
We can't let Viki Knox face this alone.
If you read NOM's newsletter, you already know the story: Viki Knox, a New Jersey special ed teacher for more than 20 years and advisor to the school student Bible study group, objects—on her private Facebook page—to her school's celebration of "Lesbian Gay Bi Transgender History Month." The Human Rights Campaign mobilizes its national network and delivers 75,000 petitions (almost none from her school district, of course) demanding the school board take immediate action. Activists flooding a school board meeting demand she be fired. And the school district has launched an "investigation."
Even New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is calling for an investigation rather than standing up to the PC crowd on Viki's behalf.
I have never felt more urgently the need to come together—in love—on behalf of our right to speak the truth as I do watching the angry mob calling for her to be turned out of her job. We cannot let Viki suffer these attacks alone!
NOM's camera crew was at the Union Township school board meeting last week. Go and watch how angry the crowd is, how much they feel it's okay to take away the job of a woman for expressing her private and personal Biblical views outside the classroom. Then please, go sign the petition to make your voice heard: in America, it's unacceptable to fire a good, decent, loving, law-abiding teacher because she believes the Bible's teachings on sex and marriage are true!
Click here to watch the video and then sign the petition supporter Viki's right to speak!
So what did Viki Knox say to create such an uproar from gay marriage advocates?
"Homosexuality is a perverted spirit that has existed from the beginning of creation. The word of God refers to it often. That's if you believe the Word to be truly God's intended blueprint for his people. I have friends and loved ones who are practicing/living as homosexuals. Yes I love can care about them. We hug and exchange gifts. We have family dinners. But how they live and their actions, behaviors—CHOICES are against the nature and character of God! Do I tell me so? Yes, of course. Do I treat them bad? If course not! Jesus never did that to ANYONE he meant. He spoke to them of their situation and offered them life eternal. He didn't say it was okay but we've all sinned and come short if God's will for us daily. That's why we Christians true followers pray, repent, and spend time with Christ daily."
"God cannot abide, tolerate, accept, go along with SIN. That's why Jesus came and gave his life as an offering for our souls; so we could once again be right-standing...Everything God has created, Satan has perverted, EVERYTHING! Sin is sin. Wrong is wrong."
She didn't call for hate. She didn't call names. She didn't even violate any school district policies. But she did call to "love and speak and do what's right!"
This effort is the latest in a new extremist agenda for the Human Rights Campaign and other gay marriage advocates. Even the ACLU agrees Viki has the right to speak out for what she believes, but gay marriage advocates want to silence anyone who disagrees with them. If they succeed in silencing Viki Knox, it will set a dangerous precedent that will spread across the nation.
Here's what I need you to do:
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Sign the petition today! Your petition will not only help make sure the Union Township school board hears from those who support Viki's right to speak—your message will also assure Viki that thousands of Americans are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her in defense of marriage and liberty.
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Then tell your friends! Share this message on Facebook and Twitter. It's time for all of us, together, to stand with Viki as we "love and speak and do what's right."
Faithfully,
Brian S. Brown
Executive Director
NOM Education Fund
P.S. Please forward this email to three friends right now so they can see the truth and get involved. Isolated and alone, we can be intimidated. Together we are too many to be treated as second-class citizens.
Reader Poll Has NH Marriage Repeal in the Lead 56%-43%
Gay activists typically swamp these online polls once they are discovered but right now "Should New Hampshire Repeal Same-Sex Marriage?" is winning 56%-43%:
Daily Caller: NOM Urges Herman Cain to Sign Marriage Pledge
Matt Lewis at The Daily Caller:
Add the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) to the growing list of socially conservative organizations pressuring Herman Cain to clarify his support for their issue by signing a pledge.
In a blog post, NOM’s president praised Cain, saying his “position on marriage is moving in the right direction.” But he also noted that Cain’s “piecemeal and evolving positions on marriage do not serve his campaign well.”
Groups like NOM believe that campaign rhetoric is important, but that “actions speak louder than words.” Their theory is that getting candidates to go on the record by signing a pledge might lessen the likelihood that, once elected, candidates will backslide on their issue.
NJ Paper Readers Support 2-1 Viki Knox Keeping Her Job
Online polls are never scientific but the New Jersey Star-Ledger asked its readers "Should the Union teacher who made anti-gay remarks on Facebook be fired?"
Here's how they answered:
Sen. Alesi Whines: I Was Against Gay Marriage Before I Was For Gay Marriage
Anatomy of a politically driven flip-flop -- Sen. Jim Alesi tries to explain his NO vote on same-sex marriage in 2009:
"So it’s kind of shameful to admit, but in the world we live in, politics decides a lot of how you act. And knowing that the bill wasn’t going to pass because the other side didn’t have enough votes meant that you don’t put yourself out there politically for a bill that is going to fail, when your conservatives and your right-wings will work against you in the next election."
... I said in my conference, “I’m going to vote ‘no’ for the sake of this conference, but if anybody in this conference votes ‘yes’ then I will leave, I will quit the Senate.”
... It was very, very hard for me.
Some people say it was theatrical. If that was theatrical I’m in New York so I’m going to get my SAG card. It was very hard.
I did promise myself I would never vote “no” again, no matter what the circumstances were." -- New York Times
RCP: Will Rick Santorum's Time in Iowa Pay Off?
Rick Santorum doesn't do gimmicks.
He doesn't have a catchy slogan that rings in voters' heads like a commercial jingle, he's not trying to sell a new book or movie while ostensibly campaigning, and he doesn't travel on a bus with a giant picture of his face painted on the exterior.
On the day when Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich square off against one another in a “modified Lincoln-Douglas debate” in Houston next month, Santorum likely will be hundreds of miles away, somewhere in Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina.
In a campaign that has seen underdog Republican contenders try to carve unorthodox paths to the White House, Santorum has gone about his campaign the traditional way.
He has spent the better part of the last year doing the unglamorous work of slowly but surely trying to earn the support of the early-state Republicans who often defy national narratives.
According to the Des Moines Register, Santorum has held 164 events in Iowa -- 74 more than Michele Bachmann, his closest competitor in that regard.
Maggie Gallagher: A Modest Proposal to Reduce Unnecessary Divorce
NOM Co-Founder Maggie Gallagher in The Public Discourse:
A new proposal for reducing unnecessary divorce gets to the heart of the problem: the current system seeks to meet a divorcing couple’s every need—except for time and education on reconciliation.
Former Georgia Chief Justice Leah Sears (on the short list for Obama appointments to the Supreme Court) and family relations scholar Professor William Doherty have teamed up to produce with what they call, without irony, a modest proposal to reduce “unnecessary divorce”: the Second Chances Act.
The Second Chances Act is a brilliant piece of work by two of the nation’s leading pro-marriage liberals. (Full disclosure: The authors kindly give me far more credit than I am due by including me in a list of people to be thanked for “contributions,” which in my case consisted of attending one meeting in which an early draft of the report and the legislation was presented.)
The Second Chances Act proposes new model legislation that includes a one-year waiting period for divorce, along with a requirement that parents of minor children considering divorce take a short online divorced parenting education course, which would include information on reconciliation. Spouses could trigger the one-year waiting period without actually filing for divorce by sending their mates a formal letter of notice. These requirements would be waived in cases of domestic violence.
MN for Marriage: Lawsuit to Impose Gay Marriage Exposes Need for Marriage Amendment
From the Minnesota for Marriage coalition, the lead group working to pass the marriage amendment next November:
A lawsuit seeking to redefine marriage so as to impose same-sex marriage on all Minnesotans with no vote of the people was heard today in the Minnesota Court of Appeals.
“This lawsuit is exactly why we need a Marriage Protection Amendment in Minnesota,” said John Helmberger, chairman of Minnesota for Marriage. “Marriage is the union of one man and one woman and has served as the foundation of society throughout Minnesota’s history – and indeed virtually every nation since the dawn of time. The definition of marriage should only be decided by society as a whole, speaking through the electorate, not activist judges.”
The legal claims in the Minnesota lawsuit are similar to claims that have been made in other states, including states whose courts imposed same-sex marriage, such as Iowa, California and Massachusetts.
“This is what happened just across the border in Iowa where activist judges redefined marriage with no vote of the people,” continued Helmberger. “Even though voters subsequently removed three of the Iowa Supreme Court judges because of their decision, they still have not been able to vote on the marriage issue.”
Dem-Leaning Polling Firm: Over 60% in NC Support Marriage Amendment
PPP's first look at the proposed marriage amendment in North Carolina since the legislature placed it on the ballot finds it leading 61-34. Republicans are overwhelmingly in favor of it (80/17) and independents (52/43) and Democrats (49/44) support it as well, although by more narrow margins.
Among African Americans, 70% support the amendment with only 25% opposed.
Tami Fitzgerald of Raleigh, meanwhile, explains how a recent poll released by Elon University is deeply misleading.
At Iowa Senate 18 Forum, People Demand to Know Which Candidate Will Let the People Vote!
East Iowa Government reports on the candidate forum held between the two people running in Iowa's special election for Senate Seat 18:
From the outset, candidates running in a special election in a Linn County Senate district agreed to disagree and strayed from that game plan rarely in the first of two public forums.
“There are differences,” Democrat Liz Mathis of Cedar Rapids said in her opening remarks [...]“Cindy advocates limited government. I think she feels that Iowa future is one of limited opportunities and short resources.”
Republican Cindy Golding agreed there are differences, but said her goal is to “get government out of the way of Iowans … to let the true genius of Iowans show … let Iowans grow and prosper.”
... The hour-long forum that featured a 20-minute discussion between the candidates without questions or refereeing by moderators didn’t satisfy everyone. As the forum ended, one man shouted out that he wanted to know where the candidates stood on same-sex marriage and whether the candidates would support a House-passed resolution to put a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on the ballot.
In other venues, Golding has indicated she would support letting Iowans vote on the constitutional amendment. Mathis has said she supports the Iowa Supreme Court decision striking down a state ban on same-sex marriages.
EMERGENCY ALERT! DOMA Repeal Hearing Next Week – Sign the Petition Today!
Dear Marriage Supporter,
If you're reading this email, I need your help today. Everyone.
San Francisco liberals like Diane Feinstein can't stand the fact that the American people have voted to protect marriage in 31 consecutive state votes. So they are pushing a bill in Congress that would do an end run on voters, repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), jeopardizing every state constitutional marriage amendment and opening the door for courts to force same-sex marriage on the entire nation.
Senate Democrats have just scheduled a hearing on Senator Feinstein's DOMA Repeal bill. Next Thursday, November 3rd, the Judiciary Committee will debate whether to recognize same-sex marriages under federal law, at the same time eliminating protections for states that do not recognize same-sex marriages.
All ten Democrats on the 18-member Judiciary Committee have already co-sponsored Sen. Feinstein's bill. With your help, we can let them know just how out-of-touch with reality they are. Use this link to send an email to the entire Judiciary Committee, urging them to oppose the DOMA Repeal bill.
Thanks to last November's election, and Speaker Boehner's stalwart defense of marriage, the DOMA Repeal bill is likely dead on arrival in the House. But it's critical that we block it in the Senate, and not allow marriage opponents to build momentum for repeal.
TAKE TWO SIMPLE ACTIONS TODAY!
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Send Congress a message! Click here to send an email to the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, with a copy also going to Congressional GOP leadership, urging them to oppose Sen. Feinstein's DOMA Repeal bill. In 5 minutes or less, you can have a tremendous impact in the fight to protect marriage in all 50 states.
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Tell your friends! Through e-mail, online social networking, and word-of-mouth conversations, we have an opportunity to reach millions of Americans in a short period of time. Will you do your part today? Click the button below to “like” this alert on Facebook, Tweet it, or forward it to your friends by email:
Together, we can protect DOMA and block Senator Feinstein from imposing her San Francisco values on the entire nation, but only if we all do our part today.
Proud to be standing with you,
Brian S. Brown
President
National Organization for Marriage
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