In the latest Minnesota Marriage Minute, Kalley Yanta answers the question posted by gay marriage activists: "If marriage is really about procreation, then why do we allow infertile couples, senior citizens and others who cannot conceive enter into marriage, but not same-sex couples?
She answers, in part: "Procreation can only occur through the complete bodily union of a man and a woman... the aspect of the sex-union that makes the couple's relationship suitable to marriage is it's potential for procreation. It does not matter then if spouses do not intend to have children or even if factors such as infertility might prevent conception from occurring. Of course plenty of children have been born to couples who thought they were infertile."
She continues: "Promoting a vibrant and flourishing marriage culture is clearly in the [interest of] the common good. Marriage between men and women is a distinctive and irreplaceable way that humanity can flourish. Because of that, the strength (or weakness) of marriage as a social institution profoundly affects the well-being of everyone in society."
A self-proclaimed ‘lesbian’ whose two children attend a Catholic school near Peterborough is demanding that the Peterborough Catholic school board remove a Catechism quote dealing with homosexuality from a school pamphlet. Ann Michelle Tesluk has started an online petition to pressure the board to action and describes her activities as gearing to make the Catholic Church into an “openly gay friendly church.”
The pamphlet in question, however, is controversial from more than one perspective. While quoting the Catechism that the homosexual inclination is “objectively disordered”, the pamphlet also misrepresents Catholic teaching in numerous ways. The pamphlet calls on schools to highlight homosexual role models and familiarize students with terms like “LGBTQQ” and “two-spirited.” It indicates that Canada legalized same-sex “marriage” in 2005 without mentioning that the Church opposes such unions.
NOM co-founder Maggie Gallagher in National Review's The Corner blog:
I was at the annual board meeting of the Church of Starbucks in Seattle on Wednesday.
Honestly that’s what it felt like. It opened with a self-congratulatory pitch by Howard Schultz on how terrible life in America is, and how much he is helping, then it melded smoothly into a “our values are the barrier to entry for other coffeecompanies” bottom line.
I was there with the National Organization for Marriage, to ask Howard Schultz if it’s really true that gay marriage is “core” to Starbucks’s brand and its values.
The protest against the inclusion of the Alberta Human Rights Act in Section 16 of the province’s proposed new Education Act (Bill 2) is escalating, with over 2000 attending a peaceful protest at the Alberta Legislature on Monday, March 19.
Paul Faris, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association, attended the protest and told LifeSiteNews that the rally was “a huge success.”
“With at least 2100 people attending, this rally was amongst the largest in Alberta history,” Faris said.
... Faris observed that “it wasn’t just homeschoolers there, but lots of private, Catholic and public schoolers, so it’s becoming a very broad-based movement of parents who are concerned that the government is taking away their freedom in education.”
The focal point of the protest is the possibility that home and private schools that teach the precepts of their faith could be prosecuted by human rights tribunals for “hate crimes” under the Alberta Human Rights Act (AHRA). The AHRA has been used in the past to prosecute conservatives and Christians, most notably pastor Steve Boissoin, who was found “guilty” by a tribunal of “hate speech” against homosexuals after he published a letter to the editor in a local newspaper. That conviction was subsequently overturned by the court system.
When civil partnerships were introduced in 2004, I cheered...
... But the gay marriage lobby does not think this enough. Fairness is all very well: what they seek, however, is equality, including in terms of access to marriage. And those who oppose this, on whatever grounds, are accused of anti-gay propaganda. It doesn’t matter that I’ve publicly urged the Catholic Church to recognise its debt to gays, or that I count Peter Tatchell as a hero and a friend: ever since I questioned the Coalition’s plans to legalise gay marriage, in an article for this paper, I’ve been attacked as an unjust, homophobic and irrational clone of Rick Santorum.
... Tories were once stalwart supporters of traditional marriage; but this Prime Minister talks of making gay marriage legal and straight marriage costly. (Tax benefits are an incentive for couples, even with children, to live apart.) The one minister who champions heterosexual marriage, Iain Duncan Smith, has yet to see his proposal for a marriage tax break come into effect.
This is a terrible shame. Marriage may be a force for the good, but for some gay people, it has become a fortress they must storm. They argue that, in its present state, marriage discriminates and excludes. The ancient and much-loved edifice must be broken into – or simply broken.
As the UK Telegraph introduces him, Lord Tebbit of Chingford is one of Britain's most outspoken conservative commentators and politicians. He was a senior cabinet minister in Margaret Thatcher's government and is a former Chairman of the Conservative Party:
"...Certainly, no one seems to have thought through the massive legislative ramifications of the Prime Minister’s latest attempt to distance himself from that toxic Thatcherite Tory Party which kept winning elections. If one says it quickly and doesn't think too much about it, moving on from civil partnership to “gay marriage” sound like a pretty straightforward bit of legislation.
However, as Charles Moore writing in The Spectator has said, after a little more thought it looks more complex. Was anyone asked to check in how many pieces of legislation the words “husband” or “wife” appear? Are they to be replaced by some suitable non-discriminatory new word or words? Then what about the grounds for divorce? How will adultery be redefined? Exactly what kind of sexual acts outside marriage will constitute grounds for divorce? What will amount to the consummation of a marriage?
What fun will be had amongst our legislators as they grapple with the question of the appropriate titles for the “partners” of those who receive the honour of knighthoods, or are made Dames, Barons or Baronesses. At present we live happily with the inequity of husbands receiving no title when their wives are honoured, but surely that cannot continues under the politically correct new order.
Within the can of worms that Mr Cameron is determined to open there are several nests of snakes. Why should a marriage be confined to just
two persons? What is the barrier to the marriage of sisters, brothers or even parents and children?
Mr Cameron's justification for all this is that he believes in it “because he is a Conservative” is absurd. Conservatives do not turn over long-standing (several thousands of years across widely different cultures all over the world, in this case) with so little thought. He did not mention it when he set out his stall in the Conservative Party leadership election not long ago. Did he believe it then?"
We're just about to hit 7,000 pledges over at DumpStarbucks.com. And my post at The Corner has generated more comments--121--than anything I've ever posted.
Stay tuned, we are in for a big ride with this thing!
I think the arrogance of Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is key. How can anyone think it's in Starbucks best interests to endorse gay marriage in the state of Washington--or ask courts to overturn DOMA??
If you haven't yet, go to DumpStarbucks.com--and send your friends. Thank-you!
NOM co-founder Maggie Gallagher's latest syndicated column is on our Dump Starbucks campaign. An excerpt:
I don't generally support boycotts, especially not the kind gay marriage advocates have launched that target whole business enterprises if any one major partner personally donates to a measure like California's Proposition 8. It's wrong because the basic norms of business are that people of differing moral views, even on deeply felt moral issues like gay marriage and abortion, need to work together to grow a company to serve their customers and shareholders.
But Starbucks has voluntarily decided -- as a corporation -- to associate its brand with a major political issue, the CEO just confirmed. I was in the room. I heard him.
Customers across the world have a right to know that contrary to the promises made by the corporation in the Middle East and elsewhere, Starbucks does subsidize political causes. Drinking a cup of Starbucks coffee, sadly, means supporting gay marriage.
... Speak out, and stop being invisible to powerful men like Schultz. The business of America may or may not be business, but the business of corporations is to make an honest profit by serving all their customers well, both those who favor and those who oppose gay marriage.
Republican rookie David Storobin is clinging to a 143-vote lead over Councilman Lew Fidler (D–Marine Park) in the hard-fought race to replace disgraced former state Sen. Carl Kruger, according to the results of a recount on Wednesday.
Storobin’s razor-thin lead grew by 23 votes after poll workers recounted machine ballots from Tuesday night’s too-close-to-call special election for the vacant Senate seat.
The Russian-born lawyer emerged with 10,505 votes, while Fidler wound up with 10,362.
Final results will be determined by more than 700 emergency and absentee ballots that will be counted next week. The city Board of Elections is expected to announce a winner by the first week in April, several sources said.
... Storobin’s camp scoffed at the claim [that Fidler would win after the absentees are counted].
“They had a huge voter registration advantage in the district and they lost,” said Storobin spokesman David Simpson. “Why would they have a magical come-from-behind victory with absentee ballots? It’s utter nonsense.”
The Family Research Council's Washington Update includes a prominent mention of our Dump Starbucks campaign today:
If Starbucks is a part of your daily grind, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is giving customers a reason to reconsider. A portion of every cup of coffee helps to fund the corporate assault on marriage, the group says. To bring greater awareness to the company's ultra-liberal ties, NOM is launching an international campaign called "Dump Starbucks," targeting global business partners in particular. "We are today announcing a sustained public campaign calling on Starbucks to stop waging war against marriage, and the views of more than half its worldwide customers. Starbucks should be in the business of offering all its diverse customers a great cup of coffee, not taking sides against the views of its customers, vendors, and employees around the world."
The irony, of course, is CEO Howard Schultz's recent pronouncement that Starbucks is a post-political, post-partisan company. Of course, that turned out to be a grande exaggeration, since the franchise directly and publicly endorsed a bill to redefine marriage for the entire state of Washington. Jonathan Baker, head of NOM's Corporate Fairness Project, flew to Seattle to confront Schultz and asked his board if homosexual "marriage" really is "core to the Starbucks brand," as his vice president put it in January. "Yes," Schultz said. Another shareholder spoke up and asked how it could be in the company's interest to wage a cultural war. Schultz abruptly cut off questions. If you'd like to learn about NOM's "Dump Starbucks" campaign or sign the pledge, click here.
In the first press release sent out by the Human Rights Campaign (helpfully re-posted by The Rainbow Times) they end their pitch with this:
HRC has launched a petition calling on consumers to support Starbucks and take a stand against NOM’s anti-equality campaign. To watch the video of the Senior Team of Starbucks in response to the anti-marriage equality question, visit: http://bit.ly/GEsuFm.
That bit.ly link points to NOM's video of the Starbucks meeting, complete with a www.dumpstarbucks.com link and a message that reads "Brought to you by the National Organization for Marriage, Protecting Marriage Between One Man & One Woman, Visit www.NationforMarriage.org Today!":
HRC has since removed that last line from the online version of their press release.
But thanks go out to the other gay websites who are continuing to promote our video. The more the merrier!
Obed Bazikian is an intern for the Family Research Council and writes on Dr. Pat Fagan's blog about some surprising statistics about divorce:
[Andrew] Mrozek [of the Institute for Marriage and Family] references some interesting findings from The Institute for American Values. One study states that of couples who have filed for divorce, 40% of one or both of them have a desire to be reconciled. Among Minnesota’s divorced population, 66 percent wished that they would have tried harder to reconcile with their former spouse. An astonishing final study states that “two out of three unhappily married adults who avoided divorce or separation were happily married five years later”.
If the partners would make every effort to work out their differences, as the last study references, over 60 percent of potential divorces could be reconciled successfully and result in a happy marriage. That is exciting news. Marriage is hard work and requires a new level of self-sacrifice that most are not used to prior to their “I do’s”. But, if you stick it out, there are benefits on so many levels. The Marriage and Religion Research Institute’s 162 Reasons to Marry provides a detailed window into these different areas a committed marriage can profit not only yourself, but society. So if divorce is on your mind, seek a counselor and get help! There is hope for you and your marriage!
More than 1,000 churches across Maryland are expected to offer a petition to their members so the issue can get on the ballot.
...On Sunday, churches across Maryland will offer the referendum petitions to its members.
Burns, also Pastor Burns, expects to collect at least 2,000 signatures at his church alone.
...“The churches participating believe in the biblical word and they are furious,” he said.
Opponents must collect 55,736 valid signatures by June 30 in order for the issue to get on the November ballot. But opponents plan to gather at least 100,000 signatures just in case.
Maryland's highest court is scheduled to hear a case that could set a statewide precedent for same-sex divorce even before a gay marriage law takes effect.
The Baltimore Sun reports Maryland's Court of Appeals will hear the case next month of Jessica Port and Virginia Anne Cowan. The women were married in a California courthouse in 2008 when gay marriage was legal and returned home to Washington.
Two years later, Port filed for divorce in Maryland where she bought a home. A Prince George's County judge denied the divorce petition saying the women's marriage wasn't valid.
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