Bob McCoskrie, national director of Family First NZ, in The Dominion Post:
"...polling commissioned by Family First of 1000 New Zealanders through independent research company Curia Market Research in March found 52 per cent of respondents support defining marriage as being between a man and a woman, with 42 per cent opposed and 6 per cent unsure or refusing to say."
At an Australian Senate hearing, ABC Australia's managing director Mark Scott was asked pointedly by Liberal Senator Eric Abetz about how ABC has presented the marriage debate:
Senator ABETZ: I turn to the ABC program Compass and, once again, the issue of balance. I think it was on 6 July 2011. 'Marriage right vs rite' was featured, with Ms Doogue, and there were six guests sitting around the dinner table discussing same-sex marriage. Out of the six dinner guests, only one was defending the dictionary definition of marriage; the other five were against it; and the host was seen at times laughing while the sole voice for the dictionary definition of marriage was trying to make his case. Is this another example of the ABC taking a completely balanced, unbiased approach to the issues of the day?
Mr Scott : The ABC does not have a point of view, and part of our—
Senator ABETZ: Yes, but why can't it reflect the points of view on an equal basis? We have got it in Israel. We have now got it here.
Mr Scott : I did not see the program and I cannot speak in any detail on it, but I would suggest that the critical test is: are the arguments coming through in that conversation? Did the other five have a uniform view or were there different arguments or nuances that they were making? Was the spectrum being reflected in the conversation? I cannot speak about in the abstract because I did not see it. I note your concern about it...
Senator ABETZ: Also on marriage, on 16 August, 1,000 people crammed into the Great Hall to celebrate and defend the traditional definition of marriage. Did the ABC cover that on TV that night?
Mr Scott : I will have to take that on notice.
Senator ABETZ: I know the answer, but take it on notice. On 13 August, just three days earlier, the ABC evening news had a story on a pro homosexual marriage demo, where there were 10 to 12 people. Once again, can you tell us how that is indicative of the ABC's balanced reporting?
In 2008, more than 60 percent of Florida voters approved a state marriage amendment, protecting marriage as the union of husband and wife. Are they all haters? Gary Stein a columnist at the Sun-Sentinel, apparently can't resist flinging the insult.
We work hard to stay on the civil side of civil discourse but mainstream pro-gay marriage columnists like Gary don't feel the same obligation, apparently.
We suspect that's one reason regular voters are dubious about gay marriage. Gary writes:
Despite what the hatemongers would have you believe, the nation hasn't vaporized in a ball of fire or been overcome by Satan, despite the trend toward equality for gays.
There are still haters out there, but most people realize that not only are gay rights a matter of basic fairness, but it's almost insulting to think we need something called a Defense of Marriage Act in 2011. The haters may think gays are a threat to marriage, but maybe they should think about the 50 percent of straight marriages that end in divorce. That's your real threat to marriage.
So yes, the world is quickly passing by the haters who can't handle change.
And you have to wonder, if the haters had been around in the mid-1800s, if we would still be trying to abolish slavery today.
My Dear Friends,
Is gay marriage inevitable? Someone forgot to tell New Hampshire, where Democrats railroaded a gay marriage bill through the legislature in 2009, before losing an election to GOP legislators who ran promising to restore marriage.
The New Hampshire House Judiciary Committee voted 11-6 THIS WEEK to send a bill restoring the definition of "marriage" as the union of one man and one woman to the full House after Christmas.
"I have no apologies for my current efforts to correct a bad policy decision," the bill's sponsor, Rep. David Bates, said. "I, and many people in New Hampshire, believe that those who pushed through this law in 2009 simply did not have the right to redefine marriage for our entire society."
As Citizen Link reports,
"Approximately 75 percent of the 400 legislators in the state's House of Representatives are Republicans—many of whom ran on platforms of restoring the definition of marriage. Given that, HB 437 has good prospects of eventually landing on Gov. John Lynch's desk next year."
You don't often hear about the many signs there are showing that the American people are not on board the "inevitability" train. But the people have reversed gay marriage before, in California and Maine.
And it's looking as though New Hampshire will likely be the next state to step back from gay marriage and restore our traditional understanding of marriage. (Online polls are notoriously unscientific, but if anyone wants to weigh in on one such poll, you can do so here. As of mid-day Thursday, 55% of respondents agreed that New Hampshire should repeal same-sex marriage—although that percentage was reversed in a couple of hours as hundreds of gay marriage supporters inundated the site Thursday evening.)
Advocates of gay marriage know they are not really winning the battle for hearts and minds, and so they are unleashing a new set of arguments.
Meanwhile, Democrats who control the U.S. Senate are meeting in committee to vote on repealing the federal Defense of Marriage Act, the one federal law which protects marriage as the union of husband and wife!
Our thanks go out to the hundreds of you who responded to our email alert asking you to let Senators know: You oppose repealing DOMA!
If you haven't yet sent an email, go here, right now, and speak up for marriage!
New meme alert!
A gay-marriage activist group has issued a "report" which, naturally, was carried by all the mainstream media.
It claims that gay marriage is necessary to protect children. Two million children, it claims, would benefit if we redefine marriage.
Redefine marriage for the children! I expect you will hear that claim a lot, especially in any states considering marriage definitions.
Meanwhile the Census Bureau says that there are just 112,000 same-sex couples raising children in the whole country. And 80 percent of those children, according to the leading gay demographer, the Williams Institute, are the product of previous heterosexual relationships.
There's no particular evidence that the so-called "legal benefits" of marriage protect children. (We know this because children with remarried parents do not do any better, on average, than children of solo mothers.)
Social science evidence tells us that marriage protects children to the extent that marriage makes it more likely children will be born to and raised by their mom and dad in the same family.
No same-sex marriage does that.
There's not even an iota of scientific evidence that civil same-sex marriage makes it more likely that a gay couple will stay together (compared to either domestic partnerships or private and personal commitment ceremonies).
Gay marriage is being advocated as a personal and individual "right" in the gay community, not an authoritative moral norm.
Is gay marriage a serious proposal to protect children? Let's go through the numbers.
Let's assume that half of 112,000 same-sex couples raising children would be interested in marriage (a random but generous guess). That's 56,000 same-sex couples. Let's assume that each of these couples is raising two kids (again probably a very generous assumption), or 112,000 children. Eighty percent of these children are the product of a previous heterosexual relationship, meaning if the child's gay parent married their lover, that would be a stepfamily with no known benefits to the child.
That leaves 20% of 112,000 children who might be in some sense the child of both members of the same-sex couple: about 22,400 children.
In 2010, the Census reported that there are about 75 million children under the age of 18 in this country.
So how many kids might potentially benefit, if it turned out to be true that gay marriage has any benefit at all for children (a proposition for which there is no scientific evidence)?
0.03 percent!
That amounts to three-one hundreds of one percent of all American children.
Gay marriage is about the desire of adults, not a serious proposal to address the needs of children.
That much is very clear!
Gay marriage results in the exclusion of people and religious institutions who believe most strongly that children need a mom and dad.
The longing of children for the love of their mom and dad gets subordinated to the desire of adults to have the equality of their sexual relationships affirmed by government.
That much too is very clear!
That's what keeps me, and you, and millions of other decent, loving, law-abiding Americans from hopping aboard the gay marriage train.
Too much of this movement is grounded in fantasy, in the idea that they can make up any message they want and transform it, with the imprimatur of the mainstream media, into "truthiness"—a secular Gospel.
You and I know that cannot happen.
The voices of reason, experience, and faith come together in the marriage movement: in the common-sense understanding that marriage is unique for a reason.
God bless you for your courage in standing up for God's truth.
At NOM we will keep fighting for your rights, and for the rights of children to know and be known by, to love and be loved by, their mom and their dad.
Faithfully,
Brian S. Brown
President
National Organization for Marriage
P.S. What can you do today to protect marriage? Whether you can give $20 or $200, or a monthly donation of just $5, you can make a difference in our world!
"Adrian Smith had his pay cut by 40% when he lost his managerial post at Trafford Housing Trust (THT) and was redeployed as an adviser. Mr Smith, 54, who stated that he was a THT manager on his Facebook page, wrote that "marriage is for men and women". The trust said he had been disciplined for breaching its code of conduct.
... The father-of two, from Bolton, wrote "an equality too far" on his page next to a BBC News Online story with the headline, "Gay church 'marriage' set to get the go-ahead".
... Mr Smith went on to comment on his Facebook page that, "The Bible is quite specific that marriage is for men and women".
"If the state wants to offer civil marriages to the same sex then that is up to the state; but the state shouldn't impose its rules on places of faith and conscience", he wrote.
His solicitor Tom Ellis, of Aughton Ainsworth law firm, said: "It is an extreme and massive overreaction by the trust that a man can lose his job over what I imagine most people would find are not extreme views.
"They weren't intended to be offensive and are an opinion over which he has suffered a huge pay cut."
Charlie Butts at OneNewsNow:
A Chicago-based homosexual activist group says it won't condemn a vandalism attack against a Christian academy and pro-family group.
On October 15, homosexual activists, who later took credit for the attack, threw concrete bricks through the door and windows of the Christian Liberty Academy in suburban Chicago (see earlier story). The site was chosen for the attack because it hosted a fundraising banquet for Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.
... LaBarbera argues that if the vandalism had been against a homosexual group there would have been immediate media and police attention. “There's a massive double-standard when it comes to these so-called 'hate crimes,'” he contends. “I don't really believe in the concept of hate crimes, but it seems that it's mainly a political tool to help certain victims and not other politically incorrect victims, i.e. Christians.”
... On behalf of the [Gay Liberation Network], Schwartz posted comments about the attack on a pro-homosexual website. The group claims that Lively and LaBarbera were responsible for the attack themselves, in an attempt to appear victimized. However, the post goes on to speak against the activities of AFTAH and the Academy and ends by approving of the attack against what it describes as a “hate-group.”
Schwartz concludes the post: “We urge that the attention be kept on the real haters and violence cheerleaders…and not those who commit petty vandalism.”
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.
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 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.
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?
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:
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.
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.
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%:
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.
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:
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
