North Carolina is a key swing state and the Obama campaign hoped holding their convention in Charlotte would boost the President's chances. But his endorsement of gay marriage and the sour economy is causing him real, persistent troubles, as this new poll shows:
Mitt Romney has cleared the 50% mark again in the battleground state of North Carolina despite the presence of the Democratic National Convention there little over a week ago.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely North Carolina Voters shows Romney with 51% support to President Obama’s 45%. One percent (1%) likes some other candidate in the race, and three percent (3%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Senator Stephen M. Saland, a lawyer from Poughkeepsie, has served in the New York State Legislature for 32 years. In 2010, he won re-election by 19 percentage points. And since then, he has raised $788,000 for his campaign war chest — more than 40 times what his challenger in the Republican primary raised.
Yet a day after the primary, Mr. Saland clung to a 42-vote lead on Friday over a little-known opponent, Neil A. Di Carlo, and faced the prospect that he could lose his seat after absentee ballots are counted. Mr. Di Carlo waged a shoestring campaign focused in large part on one issue: Mr. Saland’s decision to break with his party last year to provide one of the pivotal votes to legalize same-sex marriage in the state.
As the absentee ballots continued to trickle in to county election offices on Friday, Mr. Saland remained unsure of his political future. So did Senator Roy J. McDonald of the capital region, a Republican who also voted for same-sex marriage and who ended primary night in a contest that was too close to call against Kathleen A. Marchione, the Saratoga County clerk.
... Brian S. Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, said, “I think it’s the clearest example of the fact that if you are a Republican and you vote for gay marriage, this is a career-ending move.”
Mitt Romney sent this video message to the Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC this weekend -- the largest gathering of social conservatives before November. In it he promises to "Defend marriage, not redefine it" and says America needs a President who will respect our traditional values:
A priest who helped found a gay ‘marriage’ advocacy group for Catholics has been suspended from distributing the sacraments or representing himself publicly as a cleric by his bishop.
The National Catholic Register reported Monday that Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles had spoken to Rev. Joseph Palacios, co-founder of “Catholics for Equality” (CFE), a small group created two years ago with strong connections to the Human Rights Campaign.
... Palacios told the National Catholic Register that he and his bishop “mutually agreed” that the priest would not minister publicly while promoting a redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples. “We agreed that I would stay on inactive status as long as I am politically active,” he said.
The priest, who is also on the Board of Governors of the Human Rights Campaign, appears as “Dr. Joseph Palacios” on the CFE website.
Tod Tamberg, director of media relations for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, told the Register that Palacios “is on inactive leave without faculties.”
“He should not be wearing a Roman collar, should not be celebrating Mass, nor may he present himself as a priest in public,” he said.
"...it is clear the National Organization for Marriage and other traditional-marriage groups drew some blood. One of the four Republicans, James Alesi, announced his retirement earlier this year rather than face a potential challenger. Senator Roy McDonald of Saratoga Springs has apparently lost, and Senator Stephen Saland of Poughkeepsie had a 42-vote lead with 600 absentee ballots left to be counted."
... The only clear survivor among the pro-gay marriage senators who were targeted is Buffalo Republican Mark Grisanti. But 40 percent of Republicans in his district voted against him, and he faces a Conservative party challenger who could drain enough votes from him to cost him the general election against a Democrat this fall.
The results in New York’s primaries are only a warm-up act for battles over gay marriage this November in four left-leaning states that voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Voters in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington will all decide ballot initiatives on the issue."
Five of the six Rhode Island Senate candidates who support same-sex marriage lost during the state’s Democratic primaries Wednesday, despite massive backing from special-interest groups.
“The Rhode Island Senate looks like it will again be safe for defending marriage as the union of one man and one woman,” National Organization for Marriage Northeast Director Chris Plante told CitizenLink.
Incumbent Sen. Mike McCaffrey, who supports marriage and the right to life, beat Laura Pisaturo, who supports same-sex marriage.
In addition to Pisaturo, the other same-sex marriage supporters challenging incumbents or vying for open seats who lost Wednesday are David Gorman, Gene Dyszlewski, Lewis Pryeor, and Robert DaSilva. Adam Satchell scored a victory over Sen. Michael Pinga, making him the only state Senate candidate supporting same-sex marriage to win Wednesday night.
...“The sanctity of marriage is on a knife’s edge in Rhode Island, quite honestly,” Plante said. “Speaker of the House Gordon Fox has announced that he will have a vote on redefining marriage in January, and we are looking to the Rhode Island Senate to defend marriage as one man and one woman.”
Politico's Maggie Haberman on the results of the NY primaries:
"...The two Senators, Roy McDonald and Stephen Saland, both representing more conservative areas north of New York City, were within a few hundred votes of their primary challengers. McDonald had been watched closely, but Saland's close race came as a surprise."... the other two races are now likely to come down to absentee ballots. And they're a reminder that the GOP base remains in a different place on same-sex marriage than some of the party's prominent fundraisers and former officials, even in a blue state like New York."
This is the address given by the president of the National Civic Council, Peter Westmore, to the Australian National Marriage Day Rally outside federal parliament last month:
"...We often hear media commentators say that the push for same-sex marriage is inevitable. If we listen only to the chattering classes, we could believe this to be true.
But in fact, it is not true. There were over 200 countries competing in the Olympic Games, but same-sex marriage is performed in only 11 countries, most of which are in Western Europe, and in a small minority of states of the USA.
In other words, same-sex marriages are not performed in over 190 countries, including Australia, which cover around 95 per cent of the world’s population. We are in the majority.
Nor is this a religious issue. There is not one country in Asia which has adopted same-sex marriage; yet in general, they are not Christian, and their cultures go back thousands of years. Moreover, they are also more technologically advanced than we are. There is not one country in the Islamic world, there is only one in the whole of the African continent and one in South America where same-sex marriages are performed and recognised." -- NewsWeekly
"Two New York state senators who were instrumental in legalizing same-sex marriage in the state were in electoral limbo Friday after Republicans turned out in force for their opponents in a close primary that could hinge on the counting of paper ballots.
... National groups opposing gay marriage had targeted the senators, vowing to unseat them in Thursday's primary. Gay-rights advocates, in turn, poured more than $1 million into the races as they sought to make inroads among the GOP and provide evidence that Republicans can vote for gay rights and not be punished at the polls.
Sen. Saland
...All three GOP incumbents had the backing of party leaders and outspent their opponents by lopsided margins. They were praised by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg raised money for them.
But Messrs. McDonald and Saland now face the possibility of becoming the first Republican senators in New York to be defeated in their party's primary since 1992, when George Pataki seized a state Senate nomination on his path to governor.
... Mr. Saland said it was a "one-issue" campaign. "My bigger disappointment is with the thousands who didn't come out despite my record of service to the community," he said Friday.
"If he hadn't cast that vote, I don't think anybody would have challenged him. People are not happy with that vote," said Kieran Michael Lalor, a tea-party-backed Republican running for state assembly from Mr. Saland's district.
... But for 81-year-old Janet Stedman, who backed Mr. Di Carlo, Mr. Saland's gay-marriage vote was the deciding factor. "That's what did it for me," she said.
Same-sex couples unions will be given full legal recognition, and civic officials will be obliged to preside at same-sex weddings, under a proposal to be introduced by the French government.
The law will also clear the way for adoption by same-sex couples. However the government does not plan any new initiatives to make assisted-reproduction techniques accessible to homosexual couples.
Justice minister Christiane Taubira told La Croix that no exceptions would be allowed for mayors who are personally opposed to same-sex marriage. “The mayors are public officials who represent the state when they celebrate marriage,” said Taubira. “We are a state of law, the civil code is going to be amended, it applies to everyone.”
Lawyers for the state of Minnesota and Hennepin County are quarreling in court over which should defend the state's ban on gay marriage.
At issue at a Hennepin County District Court hearing Friday was a lawsuit by three gay couples seeking to overturn the ban. The defendant is the Hennepin County official who issues marriage licenses, but the state and county each think the other should mount his defense and pay court costs.
A state lawyer says marriage licenses are a county function. An assistant Hennepin County attorney says it's a state law being enforced and thus the state's responsibility to enforce.
Judge Mary Dufresne has 90 days to decide. The lawsuit is moving ahead even as a statewide vote approaches to put the gay marriage ban in the constitution. -- AP
MOTHERHOOD begins as a tempestuously physical experience but quickly becomes a political one. Once a woman's pregnancy goes public, the storm moves outside. Don't pile on the pounds! Your child will be obese. Don't eat too little, or your baby will be born too small. For heaven's sake, don't drink alcohol. Oh, please: you can sip some wine now and again. And no matter how many contradictory things the experts say, don't panic. Stress hormones wreak havoc on a baby's budding nervous system.
All this advice rains down on expectant mothers for the obvious reason that mothers carry babies and create the environments in which they grow. What if it turned out, though, that expectant fathers molded babies, too, and not just by way of genes?
Biology is making it clearer by the day that a man's health and well-being have a measurable impact on his future children's health and happiness. This is not because a strong, resilient man has a greater likelihood of being a fabulous dad - or not only for that reason - or because he's probably got good genes. Whether a man's genes are good or bad (and whatever "good" and "bad" mean in this context), his children's bodies and minds will reflect lifestyle choices he has made over the years, even if he made those choices long before he ever imagined himself strapping on a Baby Bjorn.
Doctors have been telling men for years that smoking, drinking and recreational drugs can lower the quality of their sperm. What doctors should probably add is that the health of unborn children can be affected by what and how much men eat; the toxins they absorb; the traumas they endure; their poverty or powerlessness; and their age at the time of conception. In other words, what a man needs to know is that his life experience leaves biological traces on his children. Even more astonishingly, those children may pass those traces along to their children. -- The New York Times
Just two months ahead of the November presidential election, Pastor Rick Warren said Sunday that Christians should gain courage and not apologize for voting in accordance with their worldview.
"You don't need to apologize for voting for a Christian worldview which stands up for the sanctity of life, the sanctity of sex and the sanctity of marriage. You don't need to apologize for that because everybody votes what they believe," Warren told thousands of Saddleback Church attendees at the launch of a new sermon series.
The Southern California pastor said those three issues (life, sex, marriage) are non-negotiables for Christians. While they may disagree on the economy or health care, what believers must be firm on is protecting the unborn, viewing sex as holy, and protecting traditional marriage.
"If you call yourself a Christian, you need to line up with what God says is the original intent of all three of these things," he preached.
A petition that opposes the British government's plans to redefine marriage began to acquire names since February, and already has more the 600,000 signatures.
The petition was first started by the Coalition for Marriage (C4M) and was created back in February. Since that time it has expanded to become largest active campaign in the United Kingdom.
The petition urges the government officials to maintain the current definition of traditional marriage as the union between one man and one woman. There currently are plans within parliament to redefine traditional marriage as including same-sex marriage.
There has been wide public resistance to redefine marriage in the U.K. and a recent ComRes poll showed that nearly 70 percent of people were against redefining traditional marriage. -- The Christian Post
North Carolina is a key swing state and the Obama campaign hoped holding their convention in Charlotte would boost the President's chances. But his endorsement of gay marriage and the sour economy is causing him real, persistent troubles, as this new poll shows:
The National Catholic Register reported Monday that Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles had spoken to Rev. Joseph Palacios, co-founder of “Catholics for Equality” (CFE), a small group created two years ago with strong connections to the Human Rights Campaign.
Incumbent Sen. Mike McCaffrey, who supports marriage and the right to life, beat Laura Pisaturo, who supports same-sex marriage.
"...We often hear media commentators say that the push for same-sex marriage is inevitable. If we listen only to the chattering classes, we could believe this to be true.
Because biology matters:
All this advice rains down on expectant mothers for the obvious reason that mothers carry babies and create the environments in which they grow. What if it turned out, though, that expectant fathers molded babies, too, and not just by way of genes?
Just two months ahead of the November presidential election, Pastor Rick Warren said Sunday that Christians should gain courage and not apologize for voting in accordance with their worldview.
A petition that opposes the British government's plans to redefine marriage began to acquire names since February, and already has more the 600,000 signatures.
Parents would have no right to insist that their children are withdrawn from school lessons across the curriculum that approve of same-sex marriage.
