Legislation

Last week, South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard signed legislation forcing any woman seeking an abortion to wait three days and undergo counseling at an anti-choice "crisis pregnancy center."

South Dakota activists Allen Unruh and his wife Leslee have long been involved in seeking out outlaw abortion and Alan Colmes recently brought Allen Unruh onto his radio program to explain the need for this law.

It did not go well. 

Unruh kept insisting that 60% of all women who get an abortion are "coerced" into doing so and whenever Colmes pointed out that that was a false statistic, Unruh was reduced to citing a woman who was reportedly forced at gunpoint to get an abortion.  Colmes kept trying to point out that coercing women to do anything at gunpoint was already illegal, so a mandatory three-day waiting period and counseling was just an attempt to further restrict a woman's right to choose. 

Eventually, Unruh started claiming that Planned Parenthood routinely "coerced" woman into getting abortions, that their facilities had no trained medical personnel on staff, and did not conduct any sort of exam of patients seeking abortions  ... but then a registered nurse who worked at Planned Parenthood called in and told Unruh that he had no idea what he was talking about:

As part of the House GOP’s efforts to thwart the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) of the House Arms Services personnel subcommittee is holding a hearing this morning on the implementation of the repeal policy. Wilson wants to see Don’t Ask Don’t Tell reinstated and at least twenty-five House Republicans have signed on to legislation that would effectively block the repeal from going forward. Moreover, likely GOP presidential candidates Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty and Haley Barbour have came out publically to support reinstatement.

Large majorities of Americans favored the discriminatory policy’s repeal, and a Gallup poll conducted just before Congress voted to repeal found that 67% of Americans believe gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military. But according to Wilson, since the repeal bill was passed during the “lame duck session,” the vote was “undemocratic” and an “insult.” Wilson, who shouted “you lie” during President Obama’s address to Congress, said in a statement:

“Today the Subcommittee has an opportunity to influence the future course of the implementation of a change in the law regarding the service of openly gay and lesbian service members.

“I was troubled by the process employed to repeal the law known as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell this past Fall. I feel the repeal was rushed through the Congress without adequate review and consideration of the full extent of the implications of repeal. I believe the lame duck session was undemocratic in that dozens of defeated Congressmembers adopted a law with significant consequence but it failed to even pass a budget. It was an insult to the principles of representative democracy. Elected officials should be reflective of the views of their constituents; the Congressmembers voting had been rejected for not reflecting views of constituents.

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“We must ensure that we do not make a mistake by allowing the repeal to move ahead when there is any possibility that it will put the combat readiness of our force at risk at a time our nation is in three wars with worldwide instability.”

Yesterday, RWW reported on the Religious Right’s virulent opposition to a California bill that would make sure lesbian and gay historical figures are represented in the curriculum. Now, Focus on the Family’s political arm CitizenLink is linking the curriculum bill to the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in its post “Indoctrination 101: From the Battlefield to the Ball Field.” Focus on the Family has consistently railed against “homosexual indoctrination” in schools and the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, demanding its reinstatement. CitizenLink looks to traditionally anti-gay groups such as the Center for Military Readiness and the Pacific Justice Institute, along with its affiliated California Family Council, to blast the purported “indoctrination”:

The California Senate Education Committee passed legislation Wednesday that would mandate public schools teach U.S. history, California history and social science with a deliberate emphasis on the roles and contributions of gay- and lesbian-identified individuals, as well as those of transsexuals and bisexuals.

“It seems a bit like a quota system,” said Ron Prentice, executive director of the California Family Council. “It’s based less on the level of contribution and more on one’s sexual orientation.”

Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, said: “Our Legislature just doesn’t get it — with thousands of teachers getting pink slips, this is not the time to place more expensive, politically correct mandates on our schools. This bill also undermines parental rights and is insensitive to those whose cultures and belief systems are at odds with the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) agenda.”

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Meanwhile, the military has been ordered to “re-educate” its members on similar issues. The U.S. House Armed Services Committee soon will hold hearings on the repeal of the law known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which prevented open homosexuality in the military.

In 1993, the House and Senate conducted 12 hearings and field trips before passing the policy. Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, said the committee needs to hold a similar number before any repeal is made permanent.

“Imposition of LGBT law and policies on our military would be enormously complicated and anything but simple,” she said. “Members of Congress must ask questions and insist on honest answers.”

Among the issues Donnelly wants addressed: sexual privacy violations; “zero tolerance” of dissent; impact of sexual misconduct on unit cohesion and trust in leadership; infringements on religious liberty for chaplains and people of faith; plans to accommodate same-sex couples in military family housing; LGBT “sensitivity” training in all Defense Department training programs, academies and schools; and personal dress and behavior.

An organization that backs private school vouchers is campaigning against the recall of the eight Republican Wisconsin senators who backed Governor Scott Walker’s anti-union legislation. The so-called American Federation for Children (AFC) is an ardent supporter of the voucher scheme in Milwaukee, the unsuccessful voucher program which Walker and his GOP allies want to export to other parts of the state as part of bolstering the Republicans’ attacks on public schools and teachers.

Listen to their robocall defending GOP Senator Sheila Harsdorf:

At the same time that Walker and the Republicans proposed a massive $834 million cut to public schools, endangering the state’s esteemed public education system, they seek to spend more taxpayer money on a wasteful voucher program that has been unable to improve the education of Milwaukee students. A comprehensive study in 2009 found “no overall statistically significant difference between [voucher school] and [public school] student achievement growth in either math or reading one year after they were carefully matched to each other,” and that fourth graders in the voucher program were actually performing worse than comparable public school students.

While the private school voucher scheme did nothing to improve education, it did funnel taxpayer dollars to religious schools: of the 120 schools receiving vouchers examined in the study, 95 were religious and 7 operate within a religious tradition.

Renowned education scholar Diane Ravitch, once a proponent of the so-called “school choice” movement, told OnMilwaukee.com that the voucher program “has not worked”:

Milwaukee is indeed the nation's laboratory for assessing the value of school choice. The advocates of school choice predicted that academic performance in choice schools would not only soar, but that the competitive pressure would cause achievement in the regular district schools to improve. None of this has happened. The latest studies show that students in voucher schools and in charter schools do not perform any differently from those in the regular public schools.

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"Reformers" in Milwaukee have been pursuing strategies that we now know are ineffective. The more time and resources devoted to ineffective strategies, the less attention there is to finding useful improvements. Choice got the support of foundations and business leaders, but it has not worked.

Even the state schools superintendent Tom Evers agreed that “choice schools have proven to be no more effective and in some cases less effective than Milwaukee Public Schools.”

But organizations like the AFC ignore and dismiss the clear findings that the Milwaukee voucher program is a wrongheaded and ill-designed effort to improve education, and instead want to expand the program to more school districts and tear down the public education system. Now, they want to make sure that Republican legislators keep their jobs and continue to support vouchers and bust unions representing public school teachers.

Only in the worldview of the Religious Right do marginalized Americans like gays and lesbians have excessive clout in government while conservatives have little to none. Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, one of the most influential right-wing lobbyist organizations, describes LGBT-rights organizations as “bullies” whose crime is raising too much money. She told the American Family Association’s news service OneNewsNow that opponents of the Defense of Marriage Act are “claiming rights that don’t exist” and are trying to “intimidate” public officials. In addition, Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel ranted against the “radical leftists” allied with “extremist, homosexual pressure groups.” Wright and Barber were responding to legislation, the Respect for Marriage Act, introduced by Rep. Jerrod Nadler (D-NY) that would repeal the dubiously-constitutional DOMA:

Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America tells OneNewsNow: "The congressmen who introduced this bill are claiming rights that don't exist. There is no right to same-sex 'marriage,' and they seek to confuse people by using language like that. Every time that marriage has come up for a vote in a state, that state has protected marriages between one man and one woman."

Matt Barber, vice president of Liberty Counsel Action, refers to the bill as the "Disrespecting Marriage Act." He says the good news is that it is really an exercise in futility -- and he believes Democrats know that.

"We have a faction of radical leftists in the House and in the Senate who are willing to side and align themselves with extremist, homosexual pressure groups in order to try to take a sledgehammer to the institution of marriage, which is fundamental to any healthy society," says Barber.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force applauds the move by Democrats, calling it "landmark legislation." Wright says homosexual lobbying groups often act like victims, but it is quite the contrary.

"So when you look at how they operate, they are in fact the bullies," says the CWA spokeswoman. "They're the ones who have massive amounts of money. When you look at the budgets of these groups, it's rather shocking the multimillions of dollars they have -- they bring in every year -- and with that, they're able to hire full-time lobbyists who then intimidate not only politicians but corporations."

Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission has traditionally dedicated most of his energies toward attacking the standard Religious Right tagets: gays, hate crimes legislation, society, and President Obama.

But now Cass has taken up a new issue: Glenn Beck and his Mormon faith.

As we noted last week, there are some Religious Right activists who are growing alarmed that Beck seems to be passing himself off as a Christian in an effort to promote distinctly Mormon doctrines ... and now Cass has joined in with them, releasing a video claiming Beck's work is a "theological train wreck" and an accompanying report accusing him of peddling "heresies and errors":

Mormons, and especially their missionaries, intentionally prey on ill-informed people by falsely identifying themselves as Christians, even though honest Mormons know they reject the essential doctrines of Christianity.

Mormons redefine Christian terms and use them in deceptive ways so that, if you weren’t very well informed, you wouldn’t know they were doing it. They even have a name for the practice; “Lying for the Lord.”

Mormons know if they told people the truth of what they believe up front they would not be able to persuade them to become Mormons. So they present a warm fuzzy, family facade and withhold their strange doctrines, practices and secret rituals until after they have created trust and an emotional bond.

Beck even laments regularly on his TV show that people don’t believe he’s a Christian. Sorry Glenn, but you can’t have it both ways. It’s either Jesus Christ of the Bible or Joseph Smith and the doctrines of Mormonism. If Beck ever renounces his Mormonism, then I will believe he’s become a Christian, in the meantime he sounds just like the rest of the Mormons I’ve known all my life.

I pray God will grant Beck the grace to humble himself and beg God to have mercy on him through Jesus Christ for arrogantly presuming that he is on his way to godhood. This is the absolute height of arrogance and exactly the lie of Satan in the garden: “You shall be as gods!” Mormons accept the demonic doctrine and glory in it.

While I support Mormon’s freedom to believe what they want, they aren’t free from being criticized for their false doctrines and deceitful practices. Beck’s illicit use of the Bible to lend authority to his Christ-denying, man-exalting, graceless, self-help “gospel” is breathtaking. Unfortunately, using his quick wit and self-effacing humor to disarm and deceive will only bring Beck more eternal condemnation.

As personhood legislation sprouts up in states like Mississippi, Georgia, Florida and Iowa, the radical anti-choice group Personhood USA also hopes to introduce their extreme (and unconstitutional) legislation in North Dakota. Personhood bills criminalize abortion and certain forms of birth control by granting legal rights to zygotes, declaring it a separate ‘person’ from the mother. Many doctors believe that such legislation would ban in vitro fertilization and prohibit doctors from giving medical assistance to women with serious pregnancy complications like ectopic pregnancies. The AP reports on North Dakota doctors speaking out against the radical legislation in their state:

Doctors told the North Dakota Senate's Judiciary Committee that it could affect couples using in vitro fertilization to try to have a baby as well as women who have complications in early pregnancy that will prevent an embryo from developing into a viable baby. Such complications include an ectopic pregnancy, which happens when a fertilized egg begins growing outside the uterus. The doctors who testified said they did not perform abortions.

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Although the measure exempts in vitro fertilization from criminal penalties, it includes language saying that "causing injury to a human being" is not justified.

Dr. Stephanie Dahl, a Fargo infertility specialist who works at North Dakota's only in vitro fertilization center, said the bill would make it illegal to do the procedure.

"The process of IVF may result in injury to an embryo," Dahl said. "It is unavoidable."

Dr. Shari Orser, a Bismarck obstetrician and gynecologist, told the committee that most eggs that are fertilized for in vitro fertilization never become viable embryos "and only a small percentage of embryos thought to be viable produce a child."

"To suggest that every embryo is a person is absurd," Orser said.

Orser said the law also would complicate the treatment of ectopic pregnancies. Without treatment, a tubal pregnancy can result in serious internal bleeding and death, she said.

Other conditions can result in a fetus developing without kidneys, lungs or a brain, Orser said.

"These diagnoses are often made in the first half of these pregnancies," Orser said. "Should a woman be forced to continue the pregnancy when she knows that her baby will die, or can she be spared the emotional distress and the risks of carrying a pregnancy to term?"

Earlier this year, there was a short right-wing freak-out when the State Department announced that the spaces for "mother's name" and "father's name" on passport applications will be replaced with "parent one" and "parent two."

The State Department quickly backtracked but that wasn't good enough for Rep. Randy Forbes who quickly introduced legislation to require the use of "mother" and "father" on all federal forms.

Today, Forbes showed up on "Wallbuilders Live" with David Barton and Rick Green to discuss the importance of stopping these sorts of changes at the source while Barton warned that is was an example of the unholy contaminating the holy:

Barton: And it really is important. A little bitty deal like changing the mother and father designation on a passport, those are not small deals.

Green: Even though it sounds small, isn't it a fundamental change? It's really at the heart of this question of is the family going to continue to be the major nucleus of our culture and is there a definition of family and marriage that we're going to stick with or are we going to go to anything counts?

Barton: Well, it becomes death by a thousand paper cuts, is what it amounts to. Nothing really enough to cut to the bone, but you just bleed to death a drop at a time. And that's what this is because you say "man, we're so busy with the President trying to get DOMA defended, we don't have time to mess around with what they're writing on passports." Well, when it comes at you from a hundred directions, you may repel ninety-eight of the attacks, but if two of them get through, that's two more than you had when you started this thing. And those are attacks that you have to push back on every single one of these fronts one hundred percent of the time. You cannot give ground.

The minor prophets talked about the fact that if you take something holy and put just a drop of unholy in there, does the holy make the unholy become holy? Or does the unholy make the holy become unholy? And the answer is: the unholy contaminates the holy.

Forbes: The other big thing that we're worried about is, as you know, the slippage of these kinds of things and how they work their way in and then ripple throughout all of government. If we let this stand, the next thing we know is there's going to be another agency that does it and then another agency and then before you know it they're going to come back and say "we've done this with the State Department and we did it with such and such. We ought to make it in all federal documents everywhere." And that's the way these things happen unless you try to put them out at the source.

And the other thing, imagine with children. You know, for how long have we said "who's your mothers?" and "who's your father?" and now we're going to say "well, who's your parent one and who's your parent two?"And these are the kinds of things that have huge ripple effects through the federal government if gone unchecked.

Last week, an effort to pass marriage equality legislation in Maryland failed and Bishop Harry Jackson was invited on to CBN News to explain what happened, where he declared that the Black Church had risen up and warned African American legislators they had better not listen to Democratic Party leaders who see them "as lemmings who are willing to just march off to your death" because there would be a price to pay when they returned to their communities.  Jackson went on to warn that they would now set about trying to remove legislators who support marriage equality from office and "stop gay marriage in its tracks":