marriage

Today on Washington Watch Weekly with Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) claimed that marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples is “a threat to the nation’s survival.” Franks appeared on Perkins’ radio show to discuss his recent House hearing on “The State of Religious Liberty in the United States,” in which his fellow Republican congressman Steve King of Iowa attacked marriage equality as “an active effort to desecrate a sacrament of the church” that is like the desecration of the Eucharist.

Franks, a zealously anti-gay congressman who even threatened to impeach President Obama over his refusal to defend the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act, told Perkins that marriage should remain a “special right” reserved for opposite-sex couples and that marriage equality “not only is a complete undermining of the principles of family and marriage and the hope of future generations but it completely begins to see our society break down.”

Listen:

Franks: We understand that when we’re granting the rights of marriage, that that’s a special right Tony, that’s something we have suggested is clearly the best possible way to see children raised through the best possible environment to launch the next generation, we believe that with all of our hearts as a society, I think most people understand that. So we’ve set aside this special area of the law that says we’re going to respect traditional marriage of a man and a woman because that is the launching pad of the next generation. Let’s face it; we have made a special exception in the law that gives special consideration and recognition to that.

And when people would come along and blur that distinction and say ‘well that should apply in every way’ it not only is a complete undermining of the principles of family and marriage and the hope of future generations but it completely begins to see our society break down to the extent that that foundational unit of the family that is the hope of survival of this country is diminished to the extent that it literally is a threat to the nation’s survival in the long run.

Less than a month after his speech to the Values Voter Summit, in which he claimed that marriage equality was an “assault” by the left to destroy America’s foundations, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) equated legalizing marriage for same-sex couples to desecrating the Eucharist. Speaking with Bishop William Lori at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on “The State of Religious Liberty in the United States,” King said that marriage equality, like the desecration of the Eucharist, was a “direct affront to the Church” and “an active effort to desecrate a sacrament of the church.”

Watch:

Bill Bennett appeared on The 700 Club today to promote his new book The Book of Man. He and Pat Robertson used the time to lament the rise of women in American society and the supposed decimation of manhood. Bennett claimed that “feminism” and “gay culture” confused and blurred gender lines, and seemed to mourn the fact that women are now taking positions of authority in society once reserved only for men. Robertson cited the promotion of Virginia Rometty, who is succeeding Sam Palmisano to be CEO of IBM, and warned of a pending “matriarchy.”

Watch:

Bennett: What feminism did I think, Pat, was confuse the debate to some extent by saying those expectations we have of boys, the kinds of responsibilities that they will need to take up as men, we’re not sure we need them anymore because we’re not sure we need men any more, well we do need men.

Robertson: Well you know it’s interesting in the news today was the changing of the guard at IBM where Palmisano is changing off and a woman’s taking his position as head of this great corporation, IBM.

Bennett: That’s right and there’s just a ton of that…fine all power to the women and the girls, as long as we don’t confuse roles and the differences in genders. Boys have to wake up! We got to wake them up!

Robertson: What’s this going to do to society, if men don’t take their places as men and suddenly there’s a gap and women and we have a matriarchy. What will this do ultimately to society?

Bennett: I think it can hurt society, maybe grievously. Interestingly the feminists are not celebrating this Pat, they want men too. They might want to rail against this and they may want to talk about stereotypes of man and male domination and so on, but women want men. They want men for that strong arm, they want men for that protection, they want men for a partner in marriage and so it’s something that has got very blurred and what I try to do in this book is remind people of things that are true. And to the boys, as you very well said, the array of things offered on TV and elsewhere is very confusing, from macho stuff to gay culture to all sorts of things. What I got here is a point of view that is time tested, based in tradition that will get boys to manhood.

• Andrew Duffelmeyer @ Iowa Independent: GOP hopefuls fight for social conservative support in Iowa.

 

• Igor Volsky @ Think Progress LGBT: Herman Cain Flops Back To Supporting A Constitutional Amendment Against Same-Sex Marriage.

 

• Alan Colmes: Herman Cain Shows No Understanding Of The Constitution In Pro-Life Amendment Statement.

 

• Warren Throckmorton: NARTH is not primarily composed of mental health professionals.

 

• Jillian Rayfield @ TPM: Twelve Pretty Racist Or Just Crazy Quotes From Pat Buchanan’s New Book.

 

• Eric Hananoki @ County Fair: Pat Buchanan Appears On "Pro-White" Radio Show.

 

• Andy Birkey @ Minnesota Independent: Anti-abortion activist campaigns against Ellison to exploit legal loophole.

 

• Steve Benen: How Far Is Perry Willing To Go?

Randy Thomasson of Save California joined Janet Mefferd on Friday to discuss the Queer Studies minor at Cal State Fullerton, and the anti-gay activist called the program an “oxymoron.” According to Thomasson, a sincere academic discussion of the LGBT community would show that no one is born gay and that people can simply change their sexual orientation and become ex-gays, “but they are dishonest so they are indoctrinating college students to think that homosexuality, bisexuality and transexuality is good and natural, maybe even for them.” He went on to warn that the minor could spread like an “infection” through academia and will be “training up an army to become intolerant activists” who will work to undermine and extinguish “free speech” and “religious freedom.”

Listen:

Mefferd: So we discovered recently Cal State Fullerton recently became the fourth Cal State to create a Queer Studies minor. It’s an interdisciplinary concentration that pulls courses from a variety of fields. Program coordinators say the minor focuses on norms and how they’ve changed over time and throughout different cultures, but they do acknowledge also that non-normative sexualities are a large part of the curriculum. Here with us for some reaction is Randy Thomasson, he’s president of SaveCalifornia.com. I didn’t know we had to study norms Randy, I thought norms were just something we all understood, I guess I’m just behind the times here.

Thomasson: No you’re not, they say they can call themselves queer but you and I can’t; it’s amazing.

Mefferd: What do you think about this new program? Obviously it’s not the first college to do this and I know there are lots of lgbt programs all over the place. Queer Studies, what do you make of that?

Thomasson: It’s an oxymoron, it should be called the promotion of homosexuality, bisexuality, transexuality. They’re not studying it, if they studied whether it was normal or not they’d have to hold a news conference or tell all the students, you know what, ‘there’s no “gay gene,” we’ve never found it, nobody has found it, Hamer didn’t find it, LeVay didn’t find it, we have noted there are thousands and thousands of former homosexuals and they’ve got families to prove it, they’ve got testimonies to prove it, we’ve seen that a huge amount of those of us in this lifestyle were sexually molested or had very bad relationships with our fathers or our mothers, and we see that this is something that can be changed, certainly with bisexuality. We acknowledge that transexuality, cross-dressing is not normal, cutting off healthy body parts is not natural, it takes a scalpel, and we have no evidence at all that this is a natural thing that people are born homosexual actually and it is a behavior. So we have to announce that as the findings of our study.’

If they were honest, that’s what they would do, but they are dishonest so they are indoctrinating college students to think that homosexuality, bisexuality and transexuality is good and natural, maybe even for them, but more so because the students that are interested in this are already relativistic because of the government school mentality they’ve been in through kindergarten through twelfth grade, probably. They are sitting ducks to become activists. So this is training up an army to become intolerant activists who want to trample parental rights, religious freedom, marriage, the Boy Scouts, property rights, business rights, medical doctorate rights, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, free speech, religious freedom. This is very dangerous, it is on several campuses in California, and yes I do believe that this is a wave. Because what do we have on most college campuses? Liberal administrators who allow this, so this is a fertile bed for an infection of Queer Studies that will not be studying anything that’s true but will be promoting a lie.

Herman Cain has said this week that he is pro-life and that abortion should be made illegal, but also that the government shouldn’t have any role in it and the decision should be left up to the woman and her family. As Kyle notes, it seems that Cain’s position is that abortion should be outlawed but “in situations where a family was deciding whether or not to break the law, it is none of the government’s business to tell them what to do.” Cain seems to be the only person who understands this view, and the Religious Right is not happy, to say the least.

Rick Perry’s campaign suggested that Cain, along with Mitt Romney, has “flip flopped” on the issue and Rick Santorum went so far as to call him “pro-choice.” Concerned Women for America CEO Penny Young Nance said that Cain “needs to decide whether or not he is a social conservative”:

Last week Herman Cain said he didn’t support a federal marriage amendment, this week he has backed away from his earlier position on the sanctity of human life. Herman Cain needs to decide whether or not he is a social conservative. The issue of life is like the issue of slavery, it is an inalienable right. The life issue is a dividing line proving whether or not a leader’s moral compass is intact. This is not a point on which social conservative women will negotiate. Cain needs to figure out what he believes.

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association argued that Cain’s remarks “could have come right out of the Planned Parenthood playbook” and wrote a column taking Cain to task:

Herman seems to be saying that he is pro-life with no exceptions for rape and incest — unless the family wants an exception, and then it’s none of his business.

Ouch.

In other words, Herman’s position on conceived-in-rape is virtually indistinguishable from the typical liberal position: personally pro-life, politically pro-abortion.

Although the rape and incest issue is obviously controversial, and a subset of the larger pro-life debate, this will create real problems for Herman in the campaign. It will be difficult for him to walk this one back.

Christian talk show host Janet Mefferd, like everyone it seems besides Cain, was utterly befuddled, saying that “his answer sounds awfully pro-choice,” charging, “that’s how the pro-abortion side talks!”

Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber later called into Mefferd’s show and urged Cain to clarify:

Guy Benson of Townhall also writes that after watching Cain’s interviews with Piers Morgan and with John Stossel, where Cain said that “abortion should not be legal” but an abortion “is her choice, that is not government’s choice,” it seems that Cain’s position, on the face of it, is pro-choice:

I'm a bit mystified that I'm even asking this question, frankly, because I simply assumed Cain was rock solid on the life issue -- but after a puzzling interview with CNN's Piers Morgan, I'm not sure what to think any more.

…

He starts out by saying he believes that life begins at conception, and that he supports "abortion under no circumstances." When Morgan presses him on the government's role in enforcing that belief -- an exchange that at least begins with a hypothetical question about a rape exception -- Cain begins to sound a lot like a "personally opposed to abortion, but still pro-choice" candidate. If you didn't know the following quote came out of Herman Cain's mouth, I wouldn't blame you for presuming its source was a Democrat.

John Stemberger earlier this week appeared on a conference call for Champion the Vote and warned that the future of the country relies on the Religious Right. Stemberger, the head of the Florida Family Policy Council and the past chairman of the campaign to have a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality in Florida, was promoting the One Nation Under God event with Newt Gingrich, David Barton, James Dobson, Sam Rodriguez and Lila Rose which focuses on boosting right-wing activism and learning about “God’s fingerprint all over the founding of our country”:

While Champion the Vote is technically nonpartisan, Stemberger warned that America is being “fundamentally transformed into a different type of culture, a different country” and that “we will lose this beautiful thing we call America.” According to Stemberger, only Christians are capable of creating a free society. “As only the Christian presuppositions of theology created this country,” Stemberger said, “only Christians can save it and unless the church rises up, we’re done.” He went on to say that without the resurgence of the church, “our country’s going to slip away into something we don’t even recognize”:

Stemberger went on to say that Christian conservatives are facing extreme “hostility” in American society and warned that their opponents want their anti-gay views “expunged from the marketplace”:

• Peter LaBarbera says the vandalism of the site hosting his conference qualifies as a hate crime.

 

• And, of course, Bryan Fischer seconds that view.

 

• The Associated Press takes a look at The New Apostolic Reformation.

 

• Robert Jeffress will be a featured speaker at the 2nd Annual Reclaiming Texas for Christ Conference.

 

• Finally, Al Mohler says Christians cannot attend gay weddings: "[A]ny Christian who knows that same-sex marriage violates God’s Law and purpose for marriage knows — and cannot act as if he or she does not know — that a same-sex couple should not be joined in holy matrimony. To remain silent at that point is to abdicate theological and biblical responsibility. Even if the question is not formally asked in the ceremony, the issue remains. We cannot celebrate what we know to be wrong."

Janet Mefferd yesterday railed against what she sees as an emerging “pagan” movement that is leading to abortion, feminism, homosexuality, and the eventual destruction of marriage. Mefferd, who previously declared that pagans are using homosexuality to “wipe out Christianity,” repeated the claim of her previous guest Tony Perkins that homosexuality is “shaking a fist in the face of God.”

Listen:

Mefferd: But this is the mindset, it’s more of a pagan mindset, I go back all the time to the movement of ancient paganism because it is on the rise. Whether people call themselves pagan or not that’s what is at root here: people challenge the traditional authority of God. And when you challenge the authority of God, what happens next? It’s like a sea of dominoes, one goes over it hits the next one, it hits the next one, it hits the next one. If there is no God, if I don’t go to church, if I reject Christianity, if I reject the Bible, all bets are off; I can do whatever I want. I can go down to the Occupy Wall Street protests and scream about the bankers; I can go out in the woods and beat a drum and worship an owl if I want to; I can have sex with whomever I want as often as I want with no consequences and if I do become pregnant I can just go get an abortion and then I can march in the streets and talk about women’s rights and reproductive health; and eventually, I can talk about how wonderful homosexuality is and how it’s just another alternative lifestyle and it’s all about love.

…

Marriage may be done for this culture in certain sectors, in certain pockets, but marriage most certainly is certainly not done because it is the God-ordained institution that mirrors the analogy of Christ and His church, it is the human institution that most closely reflects the heart of God the Father in Christ Jesus our Lord. That’s why they’re attacking it, they don’t know that that’s why they’re attacking it, they’re attacking it because they’re looking at all the advances in medical technology. I can have a baby without a man, so why do I need a man? I can earn more than a man, so why do I need a man? You can have a baby by adoption, and you can do it with a same-sex partner, so why do you need marriage? This is exactly what the pagans did, way back when, this is exactly what they did: destroy marriage. It’s shaking a fist in the face of God.