Jeremy highlights this absurd article from WorldNetDaily about "a lesbian [who] is demanding custody of a Christian woman's daughter in a case that could strong-arm Florida into recognizing out-of-state adoptions by same-sex couples" and does a good job of tearing it apart by noting that the women in question were registered as domestic partners in Washington and that the non-birth mother adopted the child and was listed her as a second parent.

The women eventually moved to Florida and split up, and the birth mother "left her homosexual lifestyle, became a Christian and is engaged to marry a man" and is therefore no longer willing to to grant her former partner visitation rights to their daughter.

The adoptive mother is understandably suing and, predictably, the Liberty Counsel is representing the other mother and claiming the "state of Washington cannot rewrite Florida adoption law and commandeer the state to enforce its contrary policy."

The Liberty Counsel seems to have become the organization of choice for mothers who find Christianity and then wish to deny their former partners access to their children.  LC represented Lisa Miller in her fight against Janet Jenkins and today announced that it was representing yet another mother in a similar situation:

N.B. is the biological mother of a nine-year-old girl. At the time of her daughter’s birth, she was in a same-sex relationship in California. Well after the relationship ended, the former partner sued, and a California court declared her a “de facto” parent, granting A.K. visitation rights.

In the meantime, N.B. moved to Alabama with the child and eventually married a man. She filed a parentage action at the Alabama trial court, which ruled that A.K. had no parental rights cognizable in Alabama. A.K. then challenged the jurisdiction of the court to hear the parentage action. The Alabama Court of Appeals agreed with A.K., concluding that Alabama lacked jurisdiction to entertain the parentage action and thus reinstating A.K.’s parental rights. The Court of Appeals denied a petition for rehearing. Liberty Counsel was then retained to represent N.B. and filed the petition for certiorari to the Alabama Supreme Court to reverse the appellate court’s ruling, which was just granted this week.

LC's Mat Staver declares that it is important to fight to deny gay parents right to see their children because those who are pressing the "same-sex marriage agenda are trying to use the back door to accomplish what they cannot through the front door. You cannot do an end run around a state’s marriage policy when that policy clearly affirms marriage between one man and one woman.”

But apparently, what you can do is find Christ and flee to a different state with your child in order to deny your former partner and said child's parent access and then contact the Liberty Counsel, which will come rushing to your defense in the name of protecting the sanctity of marriage and the well-being of families.

Disgraceful.

By now you have probably heard that Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders has filed suit on behalf a several legally married gay couples in Massachusetts who are challenging Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act which denies them a range of federal benefits that other married couples receive, such as pensions, health insurance, and the ability to file joint tax returns.

As GLAD explains it:

When people marry, as over 10,000 same-sex couples have now done in Massachusetts since 2004, and as couples have been doing in Connecticut since November 2008, they take on legal responsibilities for one another and their families.

The federal government does not license marriages – only states do – but many federal programs take state-granted marital status into account in determining eligibility and the extent of coverage. Due to this unprecedented law, the federal government denies rights, protections and responsibilities to married couples of the same sex in every federal program that takes account of marital status. There are at least 1,138 federal laws in which marital status is a factor according to government studies conducted in 1997 and 2004.

Strangely, despite the fact that this news has been circulating for several hours now, none of the right-wing political or legal groups has weighed in, with the exception of the Alliance Defense Fund which, predictably, decries this effort as an attempt to "redefine marriage for everyone":

A lawsuit filed by a handful of same-sex couples represented by a homosexual activist group is seeking to have a judge redefine marriage for the entire country, according to attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund. The lawsuit asks a federal judge to declare portions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman, unconstitutional.

“Public policy should be decided by the public, not by one judge and a very small number of radical activists,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Brian Raum. “America continues to overwhelmingly reaffirm that marriage is one man and one woman. Does the democratic process mean anything anymore?”

Of course, this is patently false, as GLAD clearly explained:

If a non-resident couple were married in Massachusetts or Connecticut and their home state did not recognize their marriage, then, as a general matter, a favorable result in this case will not allow them to seek federal legal protections ... This case is only about the relationship between the federal government and a class of people who are married by their states ... This lawsuit has no impact on any state’s marriage licensing or recognition laws – whether those laws allow same-sex couples to marry or not.

This is not a case seeking a federal constitutional right to marry that would override any state’s marriage law or amendment.

...

In short, if DOMA Section 3 is declared unconstitutional in GLAD’s lawsuit, no state would, as a result, be required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and no state would be required to recognize and respect a Massachusetts marriage of a same-sex couple.

Since the ADF's "gays are out to destroy marriage" claim is obviously without merit, it seems the only tactic they have left is to trot out the "won't somebody think of the children" lament which, of course, is exactly what they have done:

“They do not care about the negative social impact on children if federal judges redefine marriage. Courts should never impose a system which guarantees that more kids will be brought up in homes without a married mom and dad. How can we justify hurting millions of children for the possible emotional benefit of a very small number of adults?”

It's still early in the process, but I suspect that this will be the Right's preferred response to this suit: lying about what it seeks and hyperventilating that recognizing these legally valid marriages will cause incalculable harm to the nation's children.

Writing in The Daily Beast, Max Blumenthal takes a look at the work that Rick Warren is doing combating AIDS in Africa and finds some rather disturbing connections.  For instance:

Troubled by what he was witnessing in Africa, Rep. Tom Lantos led the new Democratic-controlled Congress to reform PEPFAR [the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief] during a reauthorization process in February 2008. Lantos insisted that Congress lift the abstinence-only earmark imposed by Republicans in 2002, and begin to fund family planning elements like free condom distribution. His maneuver infuriated Warren, who immediately boarded a plane for Washington to join Christian right leaders including born-again former Watergate felon Chuck Colson for an emergency press conference on the Capitol lawn. In his speech, Warren claimed that Lantos’ bill would spawn an increase in the sex trafficking of young women. The bill died and PEPFAR was reauthorized in its flawed form.

A release announcing this press conference shows that Warren wasn't only sharing the microphone with Colson, but rather a bevy with right-wing Congressmen and activists including Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, Rep. Joe Pitts, Rep. Mike Pence, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, Bishop Harry Jackson, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, and Day Gardner of the National Black Pro-Life Union.

Even more disturbing is Warren's close ties to Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa:

Warren’s man in Uganda is a charismatic pastor named Martin Ssempa. The head of the Makerere Community Church, a rapidly growing congregation, Ssempe enjoys close ties to his country’s First Lady, Janet Museveni, and is a favorite of the Bush White House. In the capitol of Kampala, Ssempa is known for his boisterous crusading. Ssempa’s stunts have included burning condoms in the name of Jesus and arranging the publication of names of homosexuals in cooperative local newspapers while lobbying for criminal penalties to imprison them.

...

In August 2007, Ssempa led hundreds of his followers through the streets of Kampala to demand that the government mete out harsh punishments against gays. “Arrest all homos,” read placards. And: “A man cannot marry a man.” Ssempa continued his crusade online, publishing the names of Ugandan gay rights activists on a website he created, along with photos and home addresses. “Homosexual promoters,” he called them, suggesting they intended to seduce Uganda’s children into their lifestyle. Soon afterwards, two of President Yoweri Museveni’s top officials demanded the arrest of the gay activists named by Ssempa. Terrified, the activists immediately into hiding.

I remember this incident because I actually wrote a post about it at the time that included a quote from Janice Crouse of the Beverly LaHaye Institute hailing the Ugandan protesters for standing up when “the Devil is attacking them”:

I thank the Lord that we have people in Uganda who are devoted Christians who are willing to go out there at the beginning, at the outset, to say “you’re not going to change our culture, you’re not going to have influence here. We stand up for what is right, what is legal, and what is part of the culture of Uganda.”

It also included this photo taken of one of Ssempa's protesters:

Is this the anti-AIDS work in Africa of which Warren is so proud?

Mike Huckabee has been on quite a roll lately.  While he’s out hawking his latest book, he’s also been weighing in on the issue of Prop. 8’s passage in California.  

Yesterday, he told “The View” that gays haven’t really been seeing their rights violated because they haven’t been getting the skulls cracked:

HUCKABEE: It’s a different set of rights. People who are homosexuals should have every right in terms of their civil rights, to be employed, to do anything they want. But that’s not really the issue. I know you talked about it and I think you got into it a little bit early on. But when we’re talking about a redefinition of an institution, that’s different than individual civil rights.

BEHAR: Well, segregation was an institution, too, in a way. It was right there on the books.

HUCKABEE: But here is the difference. Bull Connor was hosing people down in the streets of Alabama. John Lewis got his skull cracked on the Selma bridge.

And today he told Bill Bennett that Prop. 8 didn’t actually take away anyone’s rights at all:

HUCKABEE: The very people who voted for Barack Obama in California…also voted to sustain traditional marriage. I refuse to use the term, “ban same-sex marriage.” That’s not what those efforts did. They affirmed what is. They did not prohibit something. They simply affirmed something that which has and forever has existed.

Of course, as Think Progress pointed out, that is exactly what Prop. 8 did – it was right there in the description of the amendment: “Changes the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California.”

Biblical Family Advocates has issued a press release so that its president, Pastor Phil Magnan, can tell all the gays who want to get married that, even if they do get the right, it’s not going to change the fact that Jesus still hates them:

Regardless how people package it, Christ hates the lawlessness of homosexuality. Homosexual marriage is a lawless relationship whether it's legal or not. And I have news for the homosexual community and those who have joined their unholy alliance; God owns the sacred institution of marriage, not the State, so they should stop tampering with what God has joined. Government and the people have a responsibility to uphold what God has instituted.

Should I feel discriminated against because I cannot marry my brother or sister or a 12 year old girl? Should I feel discriminated against because society chooses to be godly or moral? Discrimination based on good moral judgment is a protection for the stability of society and upholds godly morals for future generations. A government that allows homosexuals to marry would be endorsing the unnatural.  Equal protection under the law should never mean the protection and promotion of what is immoral or harmful. Keeping same sex couples from marrying restrains them from corrupting the wholesome sanctity of marriage.

It is eternally reprehensible that the pro same sex marriage movement is working to codify their perversion of the marital union; which has an even broader agenda. This agenda will end up being forced into the religious institutions around us, as well as force children to accept immorality in every venue of education. Evidence for this is already painfully known in the forced homosexual indoctrination of kindergarteners' in California and Massachusetts. Acceptance of same sex unions will inevitably punish families who oppose it. As a Pastor and Minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the homosexual community must be warned that they are at odds with Jesus Christ Himself, who condemned those who cause children to stumble into sin.

For the last week or so, as the economy continues to dominate the news cycle and presidential election, the Right has been lamenting that their anti-abortion, anti-gay agenda has been relegated to the back burner and wishing that they could choose right-wing moderators to run the debates.  

But since they can’t do that, they’ve decided to do the next best thing and petition Bob Schieffer, the moderator of the final debate, to make sure their issues play prominent in tonight’s debate.  Earlier this week, Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, wrote an "open letter" to Schieffer decrying Tom Brokaw's failure to work their agenda into the last debate:

Mr. Brokaw’s choice of topics for the second debate robbed the American people of what was intended to be a look into the more personal and controversial aspects of the candidates. In that debate focusing on domestic policy, there was not a single question about the Supreme Court, gun control, abortion, gay marriage or immigration. It strains credulity to assert that of the more than 1,000 questions offered to Mr. Brokaw, he could not find any that spoke to these issues.

And now the FRC has followed suit. Declaring that “no issue our nation faces is more important than the protection of innocent unborn life,” the FRC has launched a petition to try and pressure Schieffer into asking questions designed to rally so-called “values voters” behind John McCain:

The American people face many crucial issues in this year's elections, including the state of the economy, immigration, health care, the environment, and foreign policy.  The first two presidential debates this year, however, have failed to include the most pressing social issues on the minds of values voters.  We the undersigned urge you to ask questions along the lines of those listed below, which discuss the future of marriage and the sanctity of human life.  These are questions that matter to all Americans, and you have the last remaining opportunity for the American people to compare the candidates' answers as they appear together for the final presidential debate of 2008.

* Do you believe that the U.S. Constitution contains a right for homosexuals to marry?
* Would you change the traditional definition of marriage contained in the federal Defense of Marriage Act?
* Do you support the Defense of Marriage Act's provision allowing states not to recognize same-sex marriages from other states?
* Have you ever opposed any ballot initiative seeking to define marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman?
* Do you agree or disagree with the Supreme Court's decision allowing the government to ban abortions that kill a partially born baby?
* Have you ever supported or opposed any law designed to protect the lives of babies that have survived an attempted abortion?

Moderating a debate is a great responsibility that rests on your shoulders.  We ask that you exercise that responsibility with great care to ensure that the American people have the chance to know where the candidates stand on every pressing issue. 

And just in case this effort doesn’t work out, FRC Action is doing its own part to support McCain by running anti-Obama ads in several battleground states:

Today, FRC Action PAC announced an initial $100,000 TV and radio ad campaign in key battleground states aimed at educating voters on Senator Barack Obama's promise to make the radical "Freedom of Choice Act" his top priority as President. The "Freedom of Choice Act" will overturn virtually all federal and state limitations on abortion. The ad campaign is a response to the Matthew 25 initiative, which sought to mislead voters and downplay Obama's extreme pro-abortion views. The initial TV and radio ad buy will run this week in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Michigan, with additional television commercials airing in the Washington, D.C. market. The radio ads will target Christian radio stations that earlier this year carried the Matthew 25 campaign.

When John McCain named Sarah Palin as his running mate, the Right could barely contain its glee and among those most ethused by the pick was Phyllis Schlafly who, even after Palin was a no-show at her convention reception, had nothing but praise for her and her priorities: 

Schlafly told WND McCain's choice of Palin was the best he could possibly have made.

"Sarah Palin has reinvigorated the entire Republican Party," she said. "And it's across the board. It's not just pro-lifers. She's a breath of fresh air. She's right on every issue."

Schlafly addressed criticism that Palin is hypocritical, because her demanding job as a political leader, while mothering five children, conflicts with the traditional values she espouses.

"We do stand up for the role of the full-time homemaker," Schlafly replied. "On the other hand, a lot of women work hard. I think people who don't have any children, or have one or two, don't understand what life is like with more children."

This reminded me of a post entitled "Don't Marry Phyllis Schlafly" that I wrote a few years back after Schlafly blasted Steve Forbes for apologizing for publishing a widely criticized piece by Michael Noer in his magazine entitled "Don't Marry Career Women."

In the original piece, Noer listed several reasons why "whatever you do, [no men should] marry a woman with a career."  When Forbes, the publisher, was forced to apologize for running the piece, Schlafly came to Noer's defense:

Eagle Forum's Phyllis Schlafly feels Forbes has no reason to apologize since the facts and statistics Noer cited were sound. In fact, she suggests, an article like this should have been written 20 years ago, and this one still hits the right note today because, contrary to the feminist myth, a woman really cannot "have it all" -- at least, not all at the same time.

To Schlafly, this is a simple question of practicality. "You can't have it all at the same time. There are not that many hours in the day," she asserts. "Now, with our lengthened lifespan, a woman can have it all; I think I've had it all," she says, "but you don't have it at the same time. A baby is extremely demanding -- even more demanding than a husband."

But the issue Noer's article raises is not really about women who have careers, the pro-family spokeswoman points out. What the author is really highlighting in the Forbes article, she contends, is the problem of wives who set the wrong priorities.

"A lot of the newspapers ... have published articles about how some of the most highly educated women -- women who graduated from the elite colleges and then got graduate degrees like MBAs or JDs -- have put their career ahead of husband and family," Schlafly notes. "In many of these cases, in the woman's scale of values, the husband is ranking third," she says.

The real issue is not women having careers, Schlafly says, but women making their careers their highest priority, above family. When that type of situation takes place, she observes, it is not likely that a husband will stick around.

Presumably, Schlfaly's enthusiastic support of Palin stems from the fact that Palin has her priorities straight and won't be putting her "career ahead of husband and family" because, after all, a "baby is extremely demanding -- even more demanding than a husband."

You may remember Wiley Drake as the pastor who issued a press release endorsing Mike Huckabee on church letterhead last year and then responded by calling for “imprecatory prayer” against Americans United when they reported him to the IRS.

Drake is now reportedly serving as Alan Keyes’ running mate in the gadfly’s long-shot presidential bid, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have time to rally his supporters to ask God do some of his dirty work.

And since Focus on the Family is ashamed of their infamous “Pray for Rain” video and doing everything they can to erase all trace of it from the web, Drake, who has no shame, has decided to take up the call:

I was sadden when Focus pulled the 'Rain' Video and I am asking "The Telephonic Prayer Meeting" to daily pray, at 6:00 am Denver time to ask God to bring on the rain.

I too am still against killing babies and allowing sodomites to marry. Anyone wishing to join those of us who believe in Imprecatory prayer are invited to join "The Telephonic Prayer Meeting" daily 5:00 am to 7:00 am, call 1-712-432-1690 put in access code 399430.

We keep the prayer conference call line open every day for at least 2 hours, 5:00 to 7:00 am PT

Stuart Shepard is invited to lead us in this prayer for rain any day. Other prayer warriors are welcome not only to pray for rain but repentance in America as well.

Will John McCain and Barack Obama’s joint appearance next month at Saddleback Church be a friendly forum or a firing line? “Purpose Driven” megachurch pastor Rick Warren is a superstar among evangelicals, but he still drew heavy criticism from some Religious Right activists when he invited Obama (along with right-wing stalwart Sen. Sam Brownback) to a global AIDS conference at his church back in 2006.

“Why would Warren marry the moral equivalency of his pulpit - a sacred place of honor in evangelical tradition - to the inhumane, sick, and sinister evil that Obama has worked for as a legislator?” wrote Kevin McCullough, a radio talker now affiliated with the Family Research Council. “Obama's policies represent the antithesis of biblical ethics and morality,” complained Rob Schenck of the National Clergy Council. “Having Senator Barack Obama speak on issues of social justice is like having a segregationist speak on civil rights,” said Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, who added that Warren “should realize the terrible signal he is sending by inviting a speaker who tramples on the historic teachings of Christianity and the Bible.”

But Saddleback Church defended that 2006 invitation, saying that the goal of the conference was “to put people together who normally won't even speak to each other” towards the goal of fighting AIDS. Although Warren retains positions against abortion and homosexuality, his emphasis on compassion and comity has been touted by some as a sign of a new evangelical politics.

As for the upcoming presidential forum, Warren seemed to suggest it will follow along the same lines. From the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow:

The author of The Purpose Driven Life says he does not believe the biblical gospel is compromised when he teams up with non-Christians in efforts to promote the "common good."

"Now, I don't happen to agree with Muslims and I don't happen to agree with Jewish people," states Warren, "and I don't even agree with all of the things Catholics believe. But I...can work with them on doing something like stopping AIDS because we all believe sex is for marriage only."

But what about issues where he doesn’t agree? Warren will be asking Obama and McCain questions about domestic policy, too, and the example he cited in OneNewsNow comes straight from right-wing talking points:

Warren says he plans to focus on issues that political reporters often ignore, including how the candidates view the Constitution. He suggests questions on that topic: "Is it a quote 'living document' that can be changed, that can be reinterpreted with each generation as things change? Or is it a truth written in granite that is a standard by which we evaluate everything else, and you don't change it unless we amend it?"