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Monthly Archives: December 2011

UK Prime Minister Begs Archbishop: Stand Up for Christian Moral Code

December 20, 2011 – 12:00 pm

David Cameron, who is also pushing gay marriage, tells the Archbishop of Canterbury to be more Christian, as the UK Daily Mail reports:

David Cameron last night called on the Archbishop of Canterbury to lead a return to the ‘moral code’ of the Bible.

In a highly personal speech about faith, the Prime Minister accused Dr Rowan Williams of failing to speak ‘to the whole nation’ when he criticised Government austerity policies and expressed sympathy with the summer rioters.

Mr Cameron declared Britain ‘a Christian country’ and said politicians and churchmen should not be afraid to say so.

He warned that a failure to ‘stand up and defend’ the values and morals taught by the Bible helped spark the riots and fuelled terrorism.

At Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, where Dr Williams used to teach, Mr Cameron said the time has come for public figures to teach ‘right from wrong’, and questioned whether the Church of England has done enough to defend those values in the face of the ‘moral neutrality’ that pervades modern life.

... ‘Put simply, for too long we have been unwilling to distinguish right from wrong. “Live and let live” has too often become “do what you please”.

‘Bad choices have too often been defended as just different lifestyles. To be confident in saying something is wrong is not a sign of weakness, it’s a strength.’

Mr Cameron’s demands for a ‘moral code’ were directed at human rights apologists and Left-wing politicians who recoil from promoting Britain’s Christian heritage.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Culture, Marriage, Religious Liberty, Same Sex Marriage, United Kingdom | Comments (3)

UK Telegraph Editors: Nick Clegg Fails to Understand Why Marriage Really Matters

December 20, 2011 – 11:00 am

The editors of the UK Telegraph on England's Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, failing to understand why conservatives believe in defending marriage and family:

It is very easy to interpret Mr Clegg’s speech as an attack on one of the institutions that his Coalition partners most treasure: the traditional, nuclear family. He suggests that people “can be enslaved… by conformity”, and that those who think it is better for children to be raised in a traditional family are trying to take “a particular form of the family from the Fifties” and “preserve it in aspic”. He then attacks the notion of encouraging marriage via the tax system.

Yet Mr Clegg is wrong about the traditional, two-parent family, just as he is wrong about the motives of those who wish to preserve it. Proponents of marriage are not harking back to an outdated model of “suit-wearing, bread-winning dad and apron-ed, homemaking mother”, and it is condescending to caricature their views in that way. They simply believe that marriage is best for children, and for society – and the evidence supports them.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Marriage, Same Sex Marriage, United Kingdom | Comments (13)

American Spectator: Critiques of Romney on Marriage Overblown

December 20, 2011 – 10:30 am

W. James Antle, III of American Spectator comes to Mitt Romney's defense on his record of defending marriage:

Even during his most socially liberal campaign, the 1994 run against Ted Kennedy, Romney never openly supported same-sex marriage (at the time, this would not have even been a mainstream position among Democrats). He opposed both same-sex marriage and civil unions while running for governor in 2002, by that time a fairly conservative position by Massachusetts standards. After the Goodridge decision, Romney unsuccessfully requested a stay. He twice cobbled together the votes necessary to advance measures that could have reached the statewide ballot under the commonwealth's byzantine amendment process and possibly overturned the pro-same-sex marriage ruling. He also endorsed a federal marriage amendment.

... Romney probably could have done more to call the legislature into account for dubiously recessing the constitutional convention that was the last, best shot to overturn Goodridge. I think he can also be fairly criticized for abandoning the state in 2006 to run for president, knowing that this would make Goodridge's reversal even less likley. But Romney probably could have spent his entire governorship on the issue and had no more to show for it than he does now.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Election Watch 2012, Iowa, Marriage, Marriage Election Watch, Massachusetts, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (8)

You won't believe this incredible blessing

December 20, 2011 – 10:30 am

Email Header Image

Dear Marriage Supporter,

In this season of giving, I could not be more excited about this incredible news:

One of our most generous donors has offered to MATCH—dollar for dollar—every single gift we receive between now and New Year's Day, all the way up to one million dollars!

Friend, I don't need to tell you how much of a blessing this is to us. The National Organization for Marriage has never been able to match our opponents' financial resources. After all, we don't get huge checks from Hollywood celebrities or enormous left-wing foundations.

But we have won victory after victory in defense of one-man one-woman marriage with support from thousands of caring Americans like you who offer small donations and contact your elected officials.

If we can take full advantage of this Year-End Million Dollar Match, we will enter 2012 ready to go toe-to-toe with the anti-marriage radicals all over America...we'll be ready to fight them in the courts, over the airwaves, in the halls of power, at the ballot box, and WIN.

Friend, will you please consider making a generous year-end donation today?

Donate Now

You are one of NOM's hundreds of thousands of loyal supporters and we are counting on gifts from ordinary, generous Americans like you to make sure we receive every penny of this $1 million matching gift offer.

So please make an urgent year-end gift to the National Organization for Marriage right now, and please be as generous as you possibly can.

As soon as your donation is processed, we will immediately match it with funds from our anonymous donor and DOUBLE the size of your contribution.

With so much at stake in 2012 (marriage under fire in more than a dozen of states, the legal case to uphold Prop 8 in California, a bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act moving through the Senate, and the Presidential election), we MUST close out 2011 on strong financial footing.

That's exactly what we'll do with this Million Dollar Matching Gift offer, but only if you make an urgent, generous gift right away.

Thank you in advance.

Sincerely,

Brian Brown

Brian S Brown

Brian S. Brown
President
National Organization for Marriage

P.S. Marriage Supporter, in case you were waiting until we were fully in to the 2012 Election Year to make another gift to the National Organization for Marriage, please do not wait one more day! Your gift right now will be instantly matched by an equal amount from an anonymous donor.

So every dollar you send today to fund our pro-marriage 2012 campaign will pay for twice the amount of hard-hitting mail pieces, twice the number of radio and TV ads, and twice the number of Get-Out-The-Vote phone calls—all designed to produce a landslide of voters to SAVE marriage from being destroyed.

So please do not delay. When thinking about how much you can afford to stop same-sex marriage from being imposed on your state in 2012, consider that your gift will be immediately matched for maximum impact.

So please be as generous as you possibly can right now. Thank you so much, and God bless you!

Donate Now

By Brian Brown | Posted in Same Sex Marriage | Comments Off on You won't believe this incredible blessing

Mom: Son Kicked Out of Class Over Views on Gays

December 20, 2011 – 10:00 am

Gannett News Service:

A woman has filed a federal lawsuit against her school district and a high school teacher for kicking her son out of class because her son’s religious beliefs prevent him from accepting homosexuality.

The Thomas More Law Center filed the lawsuit last week on behalf of Sandra Glowacki, a Catholic, who accused Howell Public School District and teacher Johnson McDowell of violating her son’s constitutional rights.

There was no immediate comment from the district or McDowell.

... When Daniel Glowacki asked McDowell why it was permissible to display the rainbow flag, which represents gay pride, McDowell asked him if he supported gays, the suit said. When Glowacki said his Catholic religion prohibited him from doing so, McDowell told Glowacki and another student who shared Glowacki’s views to leave class, the suit said.

The district suspended McDowell for one day without pay for violating district policy but eventually rescinded the penalty to settle a grievance he filed.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Education, Free Speech, Michigan, Religious Liberty | Comments (6)

WaPo Op-Ed: "The Marriage Gap Presents a Real Cost"

December 20, 2011 – 9:00 am

Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post:

If current trends hold, within a few years, less than half the U.S. adult population will be married. This precipitous decline isn’t just a social problem. It’s also an economic problem.

Specifically, it’s an income-inequality and economic-mobility problem. The steadily dropping marriage rate both contributes to income inequality and further entrenches it.

... Of even more concern is the generational impact of this increased inequality. Being raised in a stable, two-parent household is a strong determinant of educational achievement. In turn, educational achievement is a strong — and growing stronger — determinant of lifetime income. As a result, the marriage gap becomes a grimly self-perpetuating process.

... A different arm of Pew, its Economic Mobility Project, found that among children who started in the bottom third of income, only one-fourth of those with divorced parents moved up to the middle or top third as adults. By comparison, half of children with continuously married parents — and, somewhat surprisingly, 42 percent of those born to unmarried mothers — moved up the income ladder as adults.

Is marriage a magic-bullet solution to the broader problem of income inequality and lack of economic mobility? No, but fewer marriages will mean more inequality. Neither development is healthy.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Economics, Marriage | Comments (5)

CitizenLink: On DOMA, Justice Department Fighting Against the Law

December 20, 2011 – 8:00 am

Karla Dial at CitizenLink:

The case of a federal employee whose lesbian partner was denied spousal benefits under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was heard in a federal court today — and in an unprecedented twist, the U.S. Department of Justice was fighting against the law of the land

... “Taxpayers should take special note of this case,” said CitizenLink Judicial Analyst Bruce Hausknecht. “After the administration and the DOJ abandoned the defense of DOMA in all pending cases, and the House of Representatives hired Paul Clement to defend the law, the DOJ then filed a brief in this case arguing against Clement’s position — effectively putting the force of the federal government and the tax dollars that fund it — on opposite sides in the same case. What an egregious waste of taxpayer dollars!

“What’s worse, the administration and DOJ took the position that DOMA was unconstitutional after several federal courts had already held it constitutional. That undermines any possibility that the administration and DOJ were operating in good faith by declaring they didn’t feel they could defend the constitutionality of DOMA.”

By NOM Staff | Posted in DOMA, Marriage, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (8)

Village Voice: NOM is "Major Power Broker in Republican Primaries Across the Nation"

December 19, 2011 – 4:30 pm

Steve Thrasher of The Village Voice (a gay news site in NYC) acknowledges the effectiveness of NOM and our supporters (and the importance of marriage to GOP voters).

Of course he thinks what we're doing to protect marriage is "bigotry" but we and our supporters are used to hearing this attack by now:

NOM has proven themselves as a major power broker in Republican primaries across the nation. They have gotten every major and a few minor Republican candidates -- Romney, Santorum, Bachmann, Perry, Gingrich, basically everyone except for Ron Paul -- to sign their pledge. They have successfully brought their brand of bigotry out from the fringe in state battles front and center to the heart of the Republican party.

Second, it's interesting how mainstream the demonization of same-sex marriage is being played in Iowa of all places, one of the handful of states where it's been legal for a few years now. The bigotry isn't being soft peddled or hidden. Rick Perry is advertising his bigotry as a sign that he's "strong." Bachmann is telling gays they do have the right to marry...people of the opposite sex. [...] Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts who once curried support from gay constituents, doesn't seem the slightest bit embarrassed to have signed NOM's pledge.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Election Watch 2012, Marriage, Marriage Election Watch, New York, News, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (9)

Politico: Obama Preps 2012 Pitch to Gay Voters

December 19, 2011 – 3:00 pm

Politico on President Obama trying to have it both ways when it comes to gay issues:

It seemed at first a major violation of message discipline: Shaun Donovan, President Barack Obama’s secretary of housing and urban development, “absolutely” endorsed same-sex marriage in an interview last month, a position in contrast with his boss, who famously declared that his own views on the issue are “evolving.”

Perhaps more remarkable than Donovan’s statement is what happened in its aftermath: Nothing.

The White House merely said the cabinet secretary had spoken only for himself. And while he hasn’t elaborated on his statement since then, Donovan wasn’t compelled to walk it back, either — remarkable for an administration in which staying on message is sacrosanct.

Donovan’s statement came in the midst of a series of high-profile gay rights initiatives. Taken as a whole, the moves fit well into the sales pitch Obama’s 2012 campaign is ready to make to the gay and lesbian community: We’ve done more for gay rights in our first three years than most administrations do in eight — and we’re not done yet.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Election Watch 2012, Marriage, Marriage Election Watch, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (16)

An Email that Proves Emmer is Telling the Truth?

December 19, 2011 – 2:30 pm

There are still many questions to be answered in the Tom Emmer v. Hamline U. dispute, but Alex Friedrich of Minnesota Public Radio posts one email from the university to Emmer which seems to corroborate Emmer's version of what happened:

Craig: I am the new Department Chair under which Business law falls. For the spring we are offering a session during the day and Tom Emmer is going to teach it. This is Tom’s first time teaching the course. I have given him a copy of your syllabus but am hoping you would be able to let him know exactly what text you are using and anything else that might be helpful for him.  I have copied him on this email so you can reply to all. I understand you have been teaching this course in the evenings and I intend to continue that practice. We don’t currently have an evening section for spring but if there is sufficient enrollment, we may add one. Otherwise, it will be back on the books for fall.

thanks

Kris

Kristen Norman-Major

Associate Professor and Chair
Director of Public Admininstration Programs
Managing Editor, JPAE
Department of Organizational Leadership and Public Policy
Hamline University School of Business

By NOM Staff | Posted in Education, Free Speech, Minnesota | Comments (2)

Video: The Marriage Debate Between Santorum and Romney

December 19, 2011 – 2:00 pm

At this weekend's GOP debate, Mitt Romney interrupts Chris Wallace to make clear he has always supported marriage as one man and one woman and fought hard for a marriage amendment in Massachusetts. Rick Santorum claims, not hard enough:

By NOM Staff | Posted in Election Watch 2012, Iowa, Marriage, Marriage Election Watch, Massachusetts, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (1)

Santorum Tweets: "Here is One Effect of Changing (the) Definition of Marriage"

December 19, 2011 – 1:30 pm

From his official twitter account:

By NOM Staff | Posted in Election Watch 2012, Marriage, Marriage Election Watch, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (4)

Group Receives Approval for Prop 8 Repeal Signature Gathering

December 19, 2011 – 1:00 pm

In October, Equality California chose to abandon an attempt to repeal Prop 8 at the ballot because they believed they would lose.

Another group however still intends to give it a shot:

A gay rights group that wants to repeal the state constitutional amendment that stripped same-sex couples in California of the right to get married received clearance Friday to start gathering signatures for a measure that would rescind the gay marriage ban known as Proposition 8.

Los Angeles-based Love Honor Cherish has until May 14 to collect the 807,615 voter signatures required to qualify its initiative for the November 2012 ballot, the secretary of state's office said.

... The repeal initiative submitted by Love Honor Cherish would strike Proposition 8 and state instead "that marriage is between only two persons and shall not be restricted on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or religion," according to a summary prepared by the California Attorney General's office. -- The Mercury News

By NOM Staff | Posted in California, Marriage, Prop 8, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (10)

Video: Ron Paul Attacks Bachmann and Santorum for Hating Muslims and Gays

December 19, 2011 – 12:30 pm

National Review's Katrino Trinko:

In an interview that aired last night, Ron Paul accused Michele Bachmann, with whom he sparred over Middle East foreign policy during Thursday night’s debate, of being motivated by a personal animus toward Muslims.

“She doesn’t like Muslims. She hates Muslims. She hates them. She wants to go get them,” Paul said on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno when asked what he thought of Bachmann.

... When Leno commented that Rick Santorum seemed to be constantly talking about gay people, Paul said, “Gay people and Muslims.”

By NOM Staff | Posted in Election Watch 2012, Marriage, Marriage Election Watch, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (11)

British Government Backs the Idea that Orientation Trumps Religious Liberty

December 19, 2011 – 12:00 pm


The UK Daily Mail:

Four individuals who have been disciplined at work or lost their jobs after refusing to remove crosses or to conform to gay rights laws are attempting to overturn the decisions of British courts and tribunal.

They had hoped for support from Ministers after a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, appealed to Prime Minister David Cameron on their behalf.

...But the Government told the European Court of Human Rights that it backed the British judges and does not accept that the Christians have suffered discrimination.

To the dismay of Lord Carey, the Government even said that wearing a cross or a crucifix was not a ‘generally recognised’ Christian practice – even though Church leaders say it is a hugely significant symbol.

...In landmark hearings, the court in Strasbourg is to consider the cases of Shirley Chaplin, a Devon nurse banned from working on the wards after she failed to hide a cross she had worn since the age of 16, and Nadia Eweida, a check-in clerk for British Airways who was told to remove her small crucifix at work.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Law, Religious Liberty, United Kingdom | Comments (9)
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