“It is also a chance
to wholly transform the definition of family
in American culture.

It is the final tool with which to dismantle all sodomy statutes,
get education about homosexuality and AIDS into public schools,
and, in short, usher in a sea change in how society views and treats us.”

— Michelangelo Signorile in I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do,
published May 1996 by OUT magazine (page 30)
(cited by Robert Knight at Talking Points on Marriage)

Excerpted from Democrats Shopped Foley Story to Newspapers, by Christina Bellantoni, published Dec 12, 2006, by The Washington Times:

Democratic campaign operatives pushed newspapers to write about then-Rep. Mark Foley’s e-mails to teenage pages in the hope that a scandal would emerge before the midterm elections, according to a House ethics report.

The findings were bolstered when an aide to Rep. Rahm Emanuel (pictured right), Illinois Democrat, said the congressman also knew about the e-mails, which were dubbed “inappropriate” by the ethics panel. Mr. Emanuel, who was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) when Mr. Foley’s sex scandal broke in late September, had denied knowledge of the Florida Republican’s e-mails.

…CNN first reported Saturday that Mr. Emanuel, the incoming chairman of the Democratic caucus, was “informed” but never saw the e-mails that Mr. Foley sent to a former page in the summer of 2005.

An Emanuel aide yesterday confirmed to The Washington Times that DCCC staffer Bill Burton told the congressman about the Foley e-mails in fall 2005. The aide said Mr. Emanuel took no action because the e-mails were mentioned in passing as a “rumor” about Mr. Foley.

On Oct. 8, Mr. Emanuel was put on the spot during his appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”

“Did you or your staff know anything about these e-mails or instant messages before they came out?” host George Stephanopoulos asked. Mr. Emanuel interrupted with “No.”

“George — Never saw ’em,” he said twice.

When Rep. Adam H. Putnam, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee and a guest on the show, started questioning Mr. Emanuel, the DCCC chairman blanched.

“What you guys want to do is take your dirty laundry and throw it over the fence and try to blame other people for the problems,” Mr. Emanuel told the Florida Republican.

Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, North Carolina Republican, called the news “stunning,” and accused Mr. Emanuel of letting a “predator roam free” for “cold, calculated political advantage.”

…The panel found “political considerations played a role in decisions that were made,” and theorized Republicans didn’t act for fear of exposing Mr. Foley’s homosexuality.

Continue reading in The Washington Times…

An excerpt from the transcript of the Dec 20, 2006, press conference:

The following are remarks by President Bush in a press conference this morning:

Indian Treaty Room
10 a.m. EST

Q [from “Ann”] Thank you, sir. Mary is having a baby. And you have said that you think Mary Cheney will be a loving soul to a child. Are there any changes in the law that you would support that would give same-sex couples greater access to things such as legal rights, hospital visits, insurance, that would make a difference, even though you’ve said it’s your preference — you believe that it’s preferable to have one man-one woman —

THE PRESIDENT: I’ve always said that we ought to review law to make sure that people are treated fairly. On Mary Cheney, this is a personal matter for the Vice President and his family. I strongly support their privacy on the issue, although there’s nothing private when you happen to be the President or the Vice President — I recognize that. And I know Mary, and I like her, and I know she’s going to be a fine, loving mother.

“I do not believe people in Wisconsin would have voted ‘no’ on civil unions,” Doyle said.

Governor Doyle may not want to believe it, but Wisconsin residents DID vote “no” to civil unions. State Rep. Mark Gundrum says it very well (see below).

———————————–

Excerpted from Doyle: Take New Look at Civil Unions, by David Callender and Judith Davidoff, published Dec 18, 2006, by Capital Times:

Gov. Jim Doyle (pictured right) said today that he believes the fight over legalizing same-sex civil unions in Wisconsin is not finished.

Despite the passage of a constitutional amendment last month banning same-sex marriages, Doyle said in an interview that he believes civil unions are “one of the things people should be looking at and discussing.”

Doyle said he believes it was unfair for opponents of gay marriage to include a provision in the amendment that would ban any relationships “substantially similar” to marriage.

The amendment, which passed with 59 percent of the vote, also defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

“I do not believe people in Wisconsin would have voted ‘no’ on civil unions,” Doyle said.

The governor said he believes a new constitutional amendment proposed by state Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, to ban discrimination could be a way to blunt the effects of the marriage ban.

…But Rep. Mark Gundrum, R-New Berlin (pictured left), does not believe civil unions would be permitted under Wisconsin’s recently passed ban on same-sex marriage.

Excerpted from Furor in Italy Over “Gay Nativity” in Parliament, by Philip Pullella, published Dec 20, 2006, by Reuters:

Two leftists in Italy’s ruling coalition on Wednesday outraged fellow lawmakers by placing four dolls representing homosexual couples near the baby Jesus in the official nativity scene in parliament.

The two parliamentarians from the small “Rose in the Fist” party said their gesture was to promote the legalization of gay marriage and granting legal recognition to unmarried couples.

Bruno Mellano and Donatella Poretti placed the Barbie and Ken-type dolls in the parliamentary nativity scene, each couple lying down embraced among the shepherds witnessing the birth of Jesus.

Each of the two doll couples, which parliamentary ushers removed after a few minutes, wore miniature placards with slogans in favor of gay rights.

“This is a vulgar and unacceptable double attack against both a (national) institution as well as a religious symbol,” a group of women parliamentarians of the opposition conservative Forza Italia party said in a statement.

Luca Volonte, a member of the small centrist opposition Union of Christian Democrats, called the gesture a “pure attack against the religion practiced by the majority of Italians”.

Continue reading at Reuters…

By Peter LaBarbera

President Bush has been put in an awful spot, thanks to Mary Cheney’s “gay parenting” activism. Ms. Cheney, a proud lesbian, is pregnant through artificial insemination and will raise her child with lesbian partner Heather Poe. The media are reporting Bush’s comment to People magazine: “I think Mary is going to be a loving soul to her child. And I’m happy for her.”

Seeking to downplay the hubbub, White House spokesman Tony Snow actually made it worse when he was asked at a press briefing if the President still believes “that children who are raised by gay and lesbian parents are at a disadvantage.” Snow said:

“He does not make comments on that, and nor will I.” Snow added that the President still believes in the ideal of traditional marriage as the best environment for raising children, but “he believes that Mary Cheney’s child will, in fact, have loving parents.”

Note the perfectly PC, “nonjudgmental” tenor of Snow’s dodge. Shouldn’t pro-family Americans who helped re-elect Mr. Bush expect a bit more than this on a matter that strikes at the core of what a family is?

President Bush has been too timid about using his Bully Pulpit to promote pro-family values, but occasionally he stumbles and uses it to advance the opposite. In this case, he could have declined comment altogether or, better, used this situation as a teaching moment to reaffirm the natural superiority of the God-ordained family.

Maybe the latter is asking too much of Mr. Bush given his relationship with the Cheneys, but I do wonder why a president who talks so openly about his Christian faith was unprepared or unwilling to apply it logically to this touchy situation. Assuming that as an evangelical Christian, Mr. Bush believes homosexual practice is sinful, are we to believe that this man who faced down Islamic radicalism and launched the War on Terror is afraid to say what he really believes about lesbians having children to be raised in homes that are fatherless by design?

And isn’t it ironic that the daughter of Second Lady Lynne Cheney -– an ardent intellectual foe of Political Correctness -– is now being used to advance the PC idea of homosexual parenting?

Relational ‘Gay’ Activism

The whole Mary Cheney-baby episode typifies how the “gay” agenda advances in our emotionally-driven culture. The personal becomes political, and “open and proud gays” use their relationships with family members, friends and co-workers to persuade them to embrace behaviors with which they once disagreed — or at least go silent about them. This is the goal of homosexual activists’ “coming out” strategy, which is brilliant in its manipulation of human nature.

“I’m gay, so you can’t be anti-gay,” is the basic approach, and then parents are brought in through groups like PFLAG (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) to expand the “gay”-positive network. Christians talk about “friendship evangelism,” but it’s the homosexuals and their families and friends who have proved themselves adept at changing society — and undermining Biblical morality and tradition — through personal relationships.

“Coming out” as a tactic is most cynical when encouraged among young people: homosexual school clubs called GSA’s (”Gay/Straight Alliances”) are merely the application of this approach to radically change a generation’s attitudes toward homosexuality and gender confusion (”transgenderism”). And it’s working: just ask the many Christian parents whose high school children have scolded them about being “homophobes.”

Bush Drops the Ball

By uttering platitudes rather than principles about Mary Cheney, the President of the United States missed a golden opportunity to instruct a nation about the gold standard of traditional marriage as the optimal environment for raising children. He blinked when put in the awkward position of either telling the truth or pretending that Ms. Cheney’s is not unlike any other (wonderful) pregnancy. It is different, by a long shot. Not that she won’t have maternal love for her child; of course she will. But the child is being brought into a household where the most important person in his or her world will be modeling lesbian behavior, which is changeable and always wrong, and an affront to a holy and loving Creator.

Finding some role-modeling man in her circle of friends will never substitute for the pre-designed absence of a dad in Mary Cheney’s child’s life. And ethically speaking, we must not treat her situation any differently just because she is a well-connected, Republican celebrity.

Of course, the radical feminists (a not insignifcant number of whom are lesbian) are loving this. In the old days, when women embraced lesbianism with its inherent rejection of men, it was understood that they would be denied the joys of motherhood. (Many radical lesbian activists relished the assault on “patriarchal” family structures.) There was a certain divine and natural justice to that.

Excerpted from Gay Activists Ask Canada to Lower Age of Consent for Anal Sex, National Post Agrees, by John-Henry Westen, published Feb 14, 2006, by LifeSite News:

…Canada’s most prominent homosexual activist group has now demanded the lowering the age of consent for anal sex to 16 from 18. Surprisingly, Canada’s National Post, regarded by some as a ‘conservative’ paper has come out in favour of the proposal.

Reacting to the Conservative Government’s plan to raise the age of consent for normal sex from 14 to 16, EGALE (Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere) has commenced a campaign to have the age of consent for anal sex lowered to 16 from 18. Laurie Arron, the director of advocacy for EGALE remarked to the Ottawa Citizen, “There’s no reason to treat anal sex differently than other sexual acts except to stigmatize gay and bisexual men.”

However, that statement is categorically false, speaking strictly from a medical standpoint. Even those who support homosexual sex acts warn nonetheless that anal sex is a dangerous activity, regardless of genders involved. The sex info site of the University of California at Santa Barbara, which can in no way be described as opposed to homosexual activity, nonetheless points out that anal sex is a dangerous practice.

• …Anal sex is the most dangerous behaviour for transmission of HIV/AIDS and all other STDs since the anus is not designed for sexual activity…
• …The practice also leads to fecal incontinence – loss of normal control of the sphincter muscles which leads to stool leaking from the rectum at unexpected times… See the website http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/sexinfo/?article=faq&refid=125. WARNING: graphic sketches used to illustrate.

Nevertheless, the National Post backed the EGALE request in an unsigned editorial Saturday February 11. The editorial titled, “Equalize the age of consent” said

“Section 159 of the Criminal Code specifically bans anal intercourse between unmarried people under 18. This is plainly discriminatory, a prohibition intended to stigmatize homosexual or bisexual teenagers, suggesting that the nature of their sexual relationship requires special added protection. This is nonsense.” (Click HERE to read the editorial; paid subscription required.)

Continue reading at LifeSite News…

From Stop Blaming Theology For Your Apathy, by Chuck Baldwin, published Dec 15, 2006, by Chuck Baldwin Live:

It is more than interesting to observe how professing Christians will use their own understanding of doctrine to either justify themselves or blame others. However, the truth is, regardless of one’s personal view of eschatology, there is absolutely no room for fatalism or apathy. Whether one has a dispensational, covenant, or reform ideology, our responsibility as Christians is the same. We are commanded by our Lord to be “faithful unto death.”

I know dispensationalists who will excuse their apathy by saying, “It’s the last days, and there is nothing we can do about it.” Or, “This is just prophecy being fulfilled; we can’t stop it.”

On the other hand, I hear reformers excuse their apathy by saying, “Everything is pre-determined. We have no say in the matter.” Or, “What will be, will be; we can change nothing.”

Therefore, does it really matter from what theological perspective one comes, if apathy, indifference, and inactivity is the result? Regardless of one’s personal view of theology, if the result of one’s belief system produces apathy and fatalism, what good is it?

As Christians, we are plainly instructed to be “light” and “salt” amidst a crooked and sinful world. We are clearly commanded to remain “steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.” Regardless of worldly circumstances or theological nuances, we are told to be diligent, active, fruitful, and aggressive in both our promotion of right and our opposition to wrong.

Beyond that, as Americans, there is another important lesson we need to heed. That is the warning by Christ, who said, “To whom much is given, of him much shall be required.”

We Americans have been given much. We were bequeathed a free and independent nation, a nation founded on Biblical principles, a nation founded on the Christian faith. This legacy did not come without price. Our forebears suffered long and hard to give us-their posterity-this free land.

Are we now going to sit down in apathy and indifference and allow this country to be overtaken by the forces of secularism, socialism, and globalism? Are we not willing to fight for right? Are we so weak and cowardly that we would surrender our freedoms and liberties without a struggle?