CNN will provide a live national broadcast of Sen. Jim DeMint’s presidential forum in Columbia Monday.
Also, Townhall.com will provide a live webcast of this event and a thirty minute post-forum discussion after the event concludes.
The forum, sponsored by The American Principles Project, Palmetto, and DeMint, will feature the top Republican candidates including Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, businessman Herman Cain, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Candidates will be on the stage one-at-a-time and will participate in a question and answer session with DeMint and two other panelists.
This forum will take place at 3 p.m. Monday at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center in Columbia. It is an invitation-only event.
In this interview with The Jewish Press Assemblyman David Weprin, who is running as a candidate for the upcoming special election in NY-9, seems to imply he's owed the support of the Orthodox Jewish community, even if he abandoned them on marriage:
[The Jewish Press:] You've taken some heat in the Orthodox community for your vote in favor of gay marriage.
[Weprin:] I know it became a highlight in some of the rhetoric that's been used against me. But [where is] the hakaras hatov for over 10 years of support? When I was finance chair [on the City Council] I got blasted by my colleagues for supporting so many Jewish organizations. I started the autism initiative, where 80 percent of the money went to Jewish organizations, mostly Orthodox organizations, and there was a lot of internal criticism. I did capital projects for Agudah. My record [is clear] on funding for Ohel, for Agudah, for United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, all the JCC's, COJO of Flatbush.
When I was finance chair, I basically saved their funding. When Gifford Miller came in [as Council Speaker] he knew nothing; to him they all sounded the same. I literally was the guy who saved all of these.
Ten years ago, I was against gay marriage but in favor of civil unions. But what has happened is that the whole gay marriage issue has evolved into being more of a civil rights issue. I feel very strongly against discrimination against anybody.
Sheila Liaugminas recently interviewed Bishop Salvatore Cordileone (who heads up the US Bishops' efforts to protect marriage) on her radio show and published her thoughts about the interview -- the bishop gave a nice shout-out to our Chairman Maggie Gallagher as well:
Several days ago, I had a conversation with the new head of the bishops’ Committee for the Defense of Marriage, Oakland Bishop Salvatore Cordileone. Another prominent and clarifying voice of the church in the public debate over not just marriage law, but the nature and definition of marriage.
He engaged some of the same points he made here, because they need to be repeated often...
Bishop Cordileone told me that the person he referred to as “wiser than I” in his social insights (above) was Maggie Gallagher. Her commentary is provocative in the way that thinking needs to be provoked, and falsehoods dispelled.
I don't know what he could have said but this is distasteful:
Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford was a guest on "Piers Morgan Tonight" this evening, and discussed the 2012 GOP candidates, the economy and what he's been up to since leaving office. But he also discussed the scandal when he was in office – an extramarital affair with Maria Belen Chapur. While Sanford is still with [Argentinian] Belen Chapur, he told Piers Morgan, "You don't want to disappoint anybody. You know that you've let a lot of people down."
Does he have any regrets? "There's got to be regret," he said. "There's something sacred about a family unit...anything that brings harm to your boys you have genuine regret about." --CNN
I don't see the slightest sign of any genuine regret here. He chose his lover over his boys and broke up his family and we're supposed to feel sorry for him because he's afraid to do interviews?
The Minnesota House of Representatives has a booth at this year’s state fair, which is featuring their annual State Fair Poll where people can vote yes on the Minnesota Marriage Amendment. By visiting the booth inside the fairgrounds, fair-goers will also receive the chance to weigh in on other high profile issues that will be on the November 2012 statewide ballot in Minnesota. The House of Representatives exhibit is located in the northeast corner of the Education Building on Cosgrove Street just north of Dan Patch Avenue. House members will also be available to answer questions and meet with the public.
Additional information about the poll is below, courtesy of the House of Representatives press release distributed on August 19th in advance of the fair’s opening. Hurry! We are already halfway through the fair, which ends on Labor Day, Sept. 5th. Make your voice heard and vote yes on the Minnesota Marriage Amendment!
Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on August 29, 2011, against the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) on behalf of the Family Research Council (FRC) for records related to the DOJ’s decision not to defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in any pending or future litigation.
FRC seeks documents from the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to determine the purported basis for the decision and the possible influence of homosexual activists on the decision. In a separate lawsuit, Judicial Watch attempts to obtain some of these same documents.
... “When Barack Obama became president, he took an oath to uphold our laws – and not just the ones with which he personally agrees. If he’ll undermine this law, which one is next? This isn’t just a threat to marriage. It’s a threat to the entire democratic process. If the Obama administration has nothing to hide, then why stonewall?” stated Family Research Council president Tony Perkins. “We have serious concerns that the Justice Department wants to hide evidence that it was doing the bidding of campaign donors and homosexual activists from whom Obama will need assistance for his reelection.”
“Once again the Obama administration is playing politics with the Freedom of Information Act to avoid telling the American people the truth about one of its indefensible positions,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The evidence suggests the nation’s highest law enforcement is refusing to enforce the law to appease another special interest group.”
For more than 20 years, social scientists have consistently found that children do better raised by their mothers and fathers united by marriage.
For most of that time policymakers have focused on the problem of "father absence," and it is a real problem. Very few boys and girls have involved, loving, supportive fathers if the man that made them is not married to their mama.
But a new crop of research is challenging the idea that the main or only problem with the decline of marriage is the absence of fathers. An equally big or even bigger problem may be the churning romantic lives of unmarried and divorced mothers.
In the PBS News Hour, David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values (and Elaine Tyler May at the University of Minnesota) comment on new US Census Data on marriage in America:
"...we are in the middle of a definable long-term shift away from the authority of the institution. The most fundamental sign of this, I think, in terms of social meaning is that, several generations ago, a majority of Americans said that, if you're having trouble in your marriage, you should stay together for the sake of the children.
And now a majority of Americans say that you shouldn't do that; that's a bad idea. So, another -- a related issue is the, really, breaking of the link between marriage and childbearing. It used to be that you would never -- you know, having a child outside of marriage was frowned on by society. You really wanted to avoid that.
Now it's perfectly acceptable among many Americans. So this shift away from the institutional authority of marriage is, I think, the profoundest consequences have to do with the living arrangements of children, but it has to do also with just a new way that we're thinking about what it means to be married."
There’s no connection at all between Iowa’s debate over gay marriage rights and the death of Waterloo teen Marcellus Andrews, the governor said today.
“I think it’s inappropriate to try to link these two,” Republican Gov. Terry Branstad said during his weekly press conference at the Capitol.
A reporter said the homicide could have been related to the sexual orientation of the victim, then asked Branstad what his role was as governor to control the tenor of the debate over gays rights, given the heat of the controversy over the marriage issue here.
... Waterloo police have stressed that they think the beating was prompted by a long-running dispute. Andrews happened to be sitting on the porch of a friend when the dispute broke out, they said.
... Gay marriage has been legal in Iowa since an Iowa Supreme Court ruling in 2009, but social conservatives continue to push the split-controlled Iowa Legislature for the right to vote to change the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
Catholic Charities plans to appeal a judge's decision allowing the state to stop working with the group on adoptions and foster-care placements, an attorney for the not-for-profit agency revealed Monday.
Peter Breen said the group will ask for a stay of Sangamon County, Ill., Circuit Judge John Schmidt's Aug. 18 ruling that sided with the state, which severed work with Catholic Charities after the agency refused to recognize Illinois' civil union law. Breen said the charity also will ask the judge to reconsider, then take the matter to a state appellate court if Schmidt declines.
A story relayed to me by one of the Prop 8 trial participants: After Judge Walker announced he would videotape the trial but only for his own personal use, one of the expert witnesses scheduled to testify dropped out. Why, given that the videotape would be sealed?
“I’ve been around the block enough times to know that if the tape exists, it will be used,” he said.
If news accounts are correct, he was right. Judge Walker looks likely to win his celebrity case.
With same-sex marriage legal in the state in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is reaping the political rewards: A source emails over an invitation to a $12,500 per person "intimate evening" fundraiser on Sept. 21 with Cuomo.
It will be hosted by medical-supply heir Jon Stryker, who is probably the biggest donor to gay causes in the country; and Jonathan Lewis, son of Democratic megadonor Peter Lewis.
"Having delivered on marriage equality in New York is going to get Andrew a lot of gay love, not to mention gay money. There is no one more passionate, and effective," my source emails.
Rep. Dale Folwell of Forsyth County is the Speaker of the North Carolina House, he writes in in the Winston-Salem Journal about imminent efforts to allow the people to vote on marriage:
Elected officials have lost the public's trust. Voters are fed up with business as usual in politics. Pushing the decision and power to constitutionally define marriage out of Raleigh and into the voters' hands will help restore confidence in our political system and our society.
The 120 members of the N.C. House of Representatives and 50 members of the N.C. Senate have two choices. They can either trust the state's 6 million voters to define marriage, or they can abdicate the decision to one activist judge. It will be a vote over who our elected officials think are more important, themselves or the voters of North Carolina.
For some, defining marriage has become a deeply emotional issue, and the fairest way to mediate such a controversial public policy issue is to trust the people and let them have the freedom to decide.
... North Carolina is not alone in debating whether to amend its constitution. Legislators in Minnesota have already approved putting this question before that state's voters in 2012. Indiana and Pennsylvania are also considering putting the question on their ballots.
Republican presidential candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry has signed a pledge from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) pledging to oppose same-sex marriage and advance a constitutional marriage amendment.
Perry joins front-runner and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) in signing the pledge promising to defend traditional marriage.
The pledge lists five commitments concerning the natural understanding and legal definition of marriage.
South Carolina's The State:
