From Legal Fictions, by Chuck Colson, published Feb 27, 2007, by Breakpoint:

Isabella Miller-Jenkins is only four years old, but she is at the center of one of the most important legal battles of our time. A judge will soon decide whether a woman with no biological or adoptive ties to Isabella can legally be declared her mother.

It sounds incredible, but it is the logical result of where our anything-goes society has been leading us all these years.

As the Washington Post reports, Isabella was conceived via artificial insemination while her mother, Lisa Miller, was in a same-sex civil union with Janet Jenkins. But later the civil union fell apart. Lisa took Isabella and left Vermont for Virginia. She also returned to the Christian faith of her childhood and became “determined to ‘leave the [lesbian] lifestyle’.” That meant that she no longer considered Janet to be Isabella’s parent.

But in our reckless pursuit of getting whatever we want at all costs, our nation has begun interpreting the law in a way that reinforces all the fictions that Lisa Miller no longer believes.

The subhead in the Post article says it all: “Janet Jenkins and Lisa Miller got hitched and had a baby together.” Together? Anybody who knows anything about biology knows that’s impossible. But that’s just how the courts are looking at it. As a judge in the case told Janet Jenkins’s lawyer, Janet (the lesbian partner) “without question is presumed to be the natural parent . . . by the basis of the civil union.” So in the court’s eyes, Isabella is the child of two women, something biologically impossible.

How is it possible that laws and court procedures could have become so dangerously fantasy-based? Actually, we should not be surprised. Many modern parents have unwittingly been collaborating with the process for years. The Washington Post tells us how Judge Cohen explained it: “Consider the situation of a heterosexual couple in which an infertile husband agrees for his wife to be artificially inseminated with donor sperm.” In such a case, the judge stated, the husband would be presumed to have parental rights even though someone else had actually fathered the child.

It all ties together. Heterosexual couples have tacitly approved this practice of including a silent third partner in a marriage to produce a child. And then it makes it very difficult to cry foul when homosexuals do the same thing.

Isabella’s plight shows us the tragic consequences of rejecting the biblical view of marriage, which provides for one man and one woman in the union to raise the child. Sure, there are extraordinary circumstances, and adoption is possible. But the norm is the norm, and the law has always recognized the natural moral order.

If Janet Jenkins wins her case—which may go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court — Isabella may be taken from her biological mother to live with a woman she barely remembers. And not only Isabella; many other children would also be threatened by this waving of the judicial magic wand to produce legal parents out of nowhere.

…We need to see how our attitude of “I can do anything I want, and it won’t hurt anybody” has led to a situation that could hurt families everywhere.

For additional resources, go to Breakpoint…

Words have meaning. To be a virgin is not just to abstain from sexual intercourse with a man, but to remain completely chaste and pure. It’s no more accurate to say that a sexually active lesbian is a virgin that it was for Bill Clinton to say “I did not have sex with that woman” — and furthermore, it’s terribly dangerous to mislead young people like this. When young people heard Bill Clinton equivocate and deny that oral sex was indeed sex, they felt liberty to try it themselves — and now society is reaping the consequences. Similarly, if Suze Orman identifies herself as a lesbian while calling herself a virgin, she sends a confusing and mixed message — and a deceitful one — to young women.

Homosexual sex may not carry the “risk” (or as we Christians like to think if it, the great blessing) of pregnancy, but homosexual sex practices (lesbian, “gay,” or “trans”) substantially increase the risk of physical, emotional, and spiritual damage to the human body and soul. If Suze Orman has been in a lesbian relationship for seven years, she is no virgin. If you “experiment with” or engage openly in homosexual sex (or are heterosexually intimate, even without intercourse), you cannot please God unless you repent (ie, change). — Sonja Dalton

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The following is excerpted from She’s So Money (an interview with financial guru Suze Orman), by Deborah Solomon, published Feb 25, 2007, by New York Times Magazine:

Q: Are you married?

A: I’m in a relationship with life. My life is just out there. I’m on the road every day. I love my life.

Q: Meaning what? Do you live with anyone?

A: K.T. is my life partner. K.T. stands for Kathy Travis. We’re going on seven years. I have never been with a man in my whole life. I’m still a 55-year-old virgin.

Q: Would you like to get married to K.T.?

A: Yes. Absolutely. Both of us have millions of dollars in our name. It’s killing me that upon my death, K.T. is going to lose 50 percent of everything I have to estate taxes. Or vice versa.

Continue reading at New York Times Magazine…

If you read only one article about the homosexual agenda this year, make this be the one. It describes homosexual activist and Quark founder Tim Gill‘s stealth strategy of targeting pro-family, Republican state legislators for defeat by funneling “gay” donors’ money to these candidates’ opponents. The plan worked and the result is that states like Iowa are now facing a burst of pro-“gay” legislation fueled in part by out-of-state checks — about which the average citizen knows nothing.

We don’t imagine that The Atlantic Monthly’s editors would be quite so upbeat about this story if it were about secret donations from evangelical moneymen targeting pro-homosexual state legislators. But now is not the time for sour grapes. Instead, we need concerted action to stop this sneaky plot from succeeding in the form of new “sexual orientation” laws.

One more thing: isn’t it telling that Patrick Guerriero, the former head of the national Log Cabin Republicans — a group dedicated to advancing homosexual interests in the GOP — took a job to help achieve Democratic takeovers of state capitols? More proof that the Log Cabin activists are homosexuals first, and Republicans second. After all, this is the same “Republican” group that refused to endorse President Bush for re-election because he supported a Federal Marriage Amendment (horrors!). And yet there are still plenty of “moderate” Republicans who insist that the key to the party’s success is tilting more toward the Log Cabins and away from the GOP’s conservative, religious base. — Peter LaBarbera

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The following is excerpted from They Won’t Know What Hit Them, by Joshua Green, published March 2007 in Atlantic Monthly:

The software mogul Tim Gill has a mission:
Stop the Rick Santorums of tomorrow before they get started.
How a network of gay political donors is stealthily
fighting sexual discrimination and reshaping American politics.

…Danny Carroll, the Republican speaker pro tempore of Iowa’s House of Representatives, …was among the dozens of targets of a group of rich gay philanthropists who quietly joined forces last year, under the leadership of a reclusive Colorado technology mogul, to counter the tide of antigay politics in America that has generated, among other things, a succession of state ballot initiatives banning gay marriage.

Like many other state legislatures last year, Iowa’s was narrowly divided. …If Democrats took control of the House and Senate, however narrowly, the initiative would die, and with it the likelihood of further legislation limiting civil rights for gays and lesbians…

Over the summer, Carroll’s opponent started receiving checks from across the country—significant sums for a statehouse race, though none so large as to arouse suspicion (the gifts topped out at $1,000). Because they came from individuals and not from organizations, nothing identified the money as being “gay,” or even coordinated. Only a very astute political operative would have spotted the unusual number of out-of-state donors and pondered their interest in an obscure midwestern race. And only someone truly versed in the world of gay causes would have noticed a $1,000 contribution from Denver, Colorado, and been aware that its source, Tim Gill, is the country’s biggest gay donor, and the nexus of an aggressive new force in national politics…

Tim Gill is best known as the founder of the publishing-software giant Quark Inc., and for a long time was one of the few openly gay members of the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans…In 2000, he sold his interest in Quark for a reported half-billion dollars in order to focus full-time on his philanthropy.

Gill’s principal interest is gay equality. His foundations have given about $115 million to charities. His serious involvement in politics is a more recent development, though geared toward the same goal. In 2000, he gave $300,000 in political donations, which grew to $800,000 in 2002, $5 million in 2004, and a staggering $15 million last year, almost all of it to state and local campaigns…

“My goal is to see that all Americans are treated equally regardless of sexuality,” he told me when we met.

…Gill decided to find out how he could become more effective and enlisted as his political counselor an acerbic lawyer and former tobacco lobbyist named Ted Trimpa, who is Colorado’s answer to Karl Rove. Trimpa believes that the gay-rights community directs too much of its money to thoroughly admirable national candidates who don’t need it, while neglecting less compelling races that would have a far greater impact on gay rights—a tendency he calls “glamour giving.” Trimpa cited the example of [a prominent, Democratic presidential candidate]: an attractive candidate, solid on gay rights, and viscerally exciting to donors. It feels good to write him a check. An analysis of [the candidate’s] 2004 Senate race, which he won by nearly fifty points, had determined that gays contributed more than $500,000. “The temptation is always to swoon for the popular candidate,” Trimpa told me, “but a fraction of that money, directed at the right state and local races, could have flipped a few chambers. ‘Just because he’s cute’ isn’t a strategy.”

Together, Gill and Trimpa decided to eschew national races in favor of state and local ones, which could be influenced in large batches and for much less money. Most antigay measures, they discovered, originate in state legislatures. Operating at that level gave them a chance to “punish the wicked,” as Gill puts it—to snuff out rising politicians who were building their careers on antigay policies, before they could achieve national influence. Their chief cautionary example of such a villain is Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who once compared homosexuality to “man on dog” sex (and was finally defeated last year, at a cost of more than $20 million)…

Gill’s idea was to identify vulnerable candidates like Danny Carroll and move quickly to eliminate them without the burden of first having to win the consent of some risk-averse large organization or board of directors. Another element of this strategy is stealth. Revealing targets only after an election makes it impossible for them to fight back…

In the 2006 elections, on a level where a few thousand dollars can decide a close race, Gill’s universe of donors injected more than $3 million, providing in some cases more than 20 percent of a candidate’s or organization’s budget. On Election Day, fifty of the seventy targeted candidates were defeated, Danny Carroll among them; and out of the thirteen states where Gill and his allies invested, four — Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Washington — saw control of at least one legislative chamber switch to the Democratic Party… Gill’s stealth campaign was both effective and precedent-setting. For the first time, in a broad and organized way, gays had taken the initiative in a sweeping multistate strategy and had mostly prevailed.

Dr. Albert Mohler addresses the recent ruling by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America regarding their reluctant expulsion of openly homosexual “pastor” Bradley Schmeling from St. John’s Lutheran Church in Atlanta. The congregation’s “Trial Update” page declares Schmeling’s homosexual relationship with Darin Easler, a former ELCU “pastor” now seeking ordination in the apostate United Church of Christ. Unfortunately, while recognizing that Schmeling is in violation of church policy, the committee also suggests that the policy should be changed to accommodate openly and practicing homosexual clergy.

Listen online as Dr. Mohler encourages “pitchfork rebellion” — the laity standing firmly for Truth:

Feb 9, 2007

Homosexuality in the Church: Is It Time for a New Reformation?

Also, Dr. Mohler recommends a book called Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor:

From ‘Rhode’ Rage: Ocean State Recognizes Mass. Gay Marriages, published Feb 23, 2007, by Family Research Council:

Based on the political preference of one man, Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch (pictured left), the state will now recognize same-sex unions performed in Massachusetts. In a letter this week, Lynch argued that because Rhode Island has not banned gay marriage, there is “no reason to deny recognition” of gay unions. Although his opinion is not binding, many of the state’s agencies are expected to follow his advice. Although he says his family situation had “zero impact” on the decision, many speculate that Lynch had personal reasons for his opinion. A week before he issued his report, Lynch attended the same-sex “wedding” of his own sister in the Bay State. This abuse of power should sound the alarm for Rhode Island’s pro-family voters and spark a movement to introduce a marriage protection amendment so that the state’s position on marriage is no longer in doubt.
Additional Resources: R.I. May Recognize Gay Unions From Mass.

By Peter LaBarbera

Homosexual Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) pushes counterfeit “marriage.”

Well, we’ve been warning you that the homosexual movement wants to make Illinois the “Massachusetts of the Midwest.” Now it’s official. The state’s only “openly gay” representative, Greg Harris (D-Chicago), has submitted a bill to legalize “same-sex marriage” in the Land of Lincoln. Harris sneakily calls his bill the “Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act” –– despite evidence from Massachusetts that legal “gay marriage” leads to stepped-up discrimination against religious institutions opposed to homosexuality.

TAKE ACTION: If you are an Illinois resident, call your state representative and state senator and politely urge them to:

• OPPOSE HB 1615, the radical redefinition of marriage proposed by new homosexual State Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago); click HERE to find your legislators (the page works best if you know your 9-digit zip), and click HERE to view the bill, which would strip out the common-sense prohibition in Illinois law against marriages “between two individuals of the same sex.” You can call the Illinois Capitol Switchboard at 217-782-2000.
• SUPPORT HJRCA 1, the pro-traditional-marriage constitutional amendment offered by State Rep. Dave Reis (R) –– which has languished in the IL General Assembly for years due to the Democrats’ subservience to the state’s powerful “gay” lobby. (In Illinois, a constitutional amendment requires a three-fifths vote by the legislature, followed by a three-fifths popular vote.)

Also, please consider making a financial gift to Protect Marriage Illinois (PMI). We don’t normally solicit funds for other organizations, but PMI urgently needs your help as it gears up for another petition drive to place a pro-traditional marriage advisory question on the 2008 Illinois ballot. PMI’s ballot measure would enable Illinois voters to call on the General Assembly to pass a constitutional Marriage Protection Amendment (like Reis’ amendment above). Make your check out to Protect Marriage Illinois and send it to: PMI, PO Box 419, Wheaton, IL 60189; or go to PMI’s website and click the “Make a Donation” button. (Gifts to PMI are not tax-deductible.)

Background
Homosexual activists, being mostly on the Left, know how politics works: they will strive to gradually build support for legalizing “gay marriage” in Illinois even if it takes decades. This is what they did before finally passing a pro-homosexual “sexual orientation” bill (which also covers the gender-confused) in Illinois in 2005.

Conservatives and people of faith, too, have to learn to think long-term. We must retain the goal of repealing all “sexual orientation” laws –– in Illinois and across the nation –– since they are incompatible with the basic American freedoms of religion, conscience and association. And we must act to protect marriage as between a man and a woman at the state and federal constitutional levels.

In his odd legislative biography, Rep. Harris –– who replaced another homosexual Chicago Democrat –– states, almost proudly, that he is the “only openly gay member of the Legislature and openly a person with AIDS.” (Please read this interesting first-hand testimonial about Harris’ sad life and pray for him if you are so moved.)

Indeed, behavior that runs contrary to nature carries a heavy physical price. When “gay” activists talk about “marriage equality,” we should answer: same-sex relationships do not deserve to be treated as “equal” to marriage because they are not — far from it. True marriage serves society and mankind by ordering the sexes and producing future generations and providing stable, mother-father homes for children.

Conversely, society has no stake in legalizing “gay marriage,” which would reward unhealthy and changeable behavior and have such ill side-effects as facilitating intentionally fatherless or motherless homosexual adoptions.

Giving immoral homosexual relationships all the rights and benefits of marriage also sends a terrible message to young people, and certainly will lead to Christians and religious people being punished for “anti-gay” discrimination. A homosexual “marriage” or “civil union” law would be a huge stepping stone toward forcing small businesses –– even religiously-owned ones such as day care centers –– to provide marital-type benefits to homosexual employees even if they oppose subsidizing that lifestyle.

And how long will it be before a church or pastor is sued for refusing to perform a marriage ceremony for a homosexual couple — HB 1615’s title notwithstanding?

We must do all we can to shore up real marriage by encouraging citizens to value it more and by making divorces tougher to get. Radically redefining marriage to include homosexuality would only erode this great institution further.

TAKE ACTION — First, contact IL State Rep Greg Harris
and express your opposition to this legislation.

Then contact your own representative and ask them to OPPOSE this bill.
You can find your legislator’s contact information HERE.

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Excerpted from Lawmaker: Legalize Gay Marriages, by Doug Finke, published Feb 22, 2007, by PJ Star:

State Rep. plans to introduce bill aiming to equalize rights

A Chicago Democrat wants Illinois to be the second state to legalize gay marriages.

State Rep. Greg Harris (pictured left) plans to introduce legislation today to permit same-sex couples to get married. Although four states recognize civil unions among gays, only Massachusetts provides for gay marriages.

“It would extend the same rights and obligations of marriage to same-sex couples in Illinois as are previously enjoyed, or not enjoyed, by heterosexual couples,” Harris said. “If you look at recent polls … people of Illinois very thoroughly understand that same-sex couples deserve the same rights and benefits” as heterosexual couples.

David Smith, executive director of the Illinois Family Institute, disagreed…

Harris, who is gay and represents a district with a large homosexual population, acknowledged that pushing for legalized gay marriages rather than civil unions will be controversial.

“It is undoubtedly true that the word marriage is a very emotionally charged term, so there may have to be some negotiations on that,” he said. “From my community, we believe we should have the full, equal rights as our heterosexual siblings to marry who we choose, and we should call it marriage. We should not call it civil union.”

Continue reading at PJ Star…

Mike Heath, Executive Director of the Christian Civic League of Maine since 1994, is a bona fide hero in the fight against “gay” activism and the normalization of homosexuality in the United States. Working with pro-family leaders, Heath fought back not not but two statewide “gay rights” laws in Maine. (In 2005, “sexual orientation” became law in the state, and now, as the thinking goes, the granting of one counterfeit “right” — same-sex “marriage” — must follow another.) Heath is serving Americans For Truth as an advisor. — Peter LaBarbera.

I’ve been doing this job too long. I can remember when leftist activists were screaming about how there was no agenda, and there was especially no effort underway to persuade society to accept sodomy-based “marriage.” Those lies started to become muted when Vermont used their “sexual orientation” law to force a new concept on civilized society called “civil unions.” That is another euphemism for sodomy-based “marriage.” Massachusetts, of course, followed soon after by discovering that the puritan Christian John Adams actually wrote sodomy-based “marriage” into the Commonwealth’s constitution. Imagine that. No … don’t.

Nobody is surprised now when “gays” use euphemisms. I think people stopped being surprised by anything these folks say years ago. They are master manipulators, bobbing and weaving with their words and phrases. It’s amazing to most of us that the Harvards and Yales have fallen for this tripe hook, line and sinker ….