unions

• George Zornick @ Think Progress: Allen West: Keith Ellison Represents ‘The Antithesis Of The Principles Upon Which This Country Was Established’.
• Sarah Posner @ Religion Dispatches: Rep. Smith Suggests A New Protected Class: "Immaturity".
• David Weigel @ Slate: Michael Bay Presents: "Pawlenty".
• Joe.My.God: Virginia Lawmaker: Feds Can't Stop Us From Banning Gays From National Guard.
• Pam Spaulding: Idaho pharmacist denies anti-bleeding med because woman MIGHT have had an abortion.
• Terry Krepel @ County Fair: Pat Robertson Sides With African Leader Who Won’t Leave Office.
• Showing Christ's Love: We Need a Christian Dictator.
• Igor Volsky @ Wonk Room: Iowa’s Anti-Marriage Crusader Compares Same-Sex Unions To Polygamy, Rails Against ‘Absolute Tolerance’.
• Media Matters: After Promoting Anti-Gay Rhetoric, Breitbart is Named to Gay Group's Board.

The battle over marriage equality in Iowa is heating up as Republicans in the State House are moving forward with plans to ban gay marriage and civil unions, an attempt to reverse a unanimous 2009 State Supreme Court decision in favor of marriage equality. To amend the constitution, “an amendment would require approval by state lawmakers during two legislative sessions, and then approval by voters at the ballot box.” Encouraged by major Republican gains in the midterm elections and the removal of three pro-equality Justices through retention votes, Iowa Republicans have emphasized restrictions on gay-rights and reproductive-rights in their legislative agenda, and Religious Right leader Bob Vander Plaats is pressing for the removal of the entire Supreme Court.

Vander Plaats’s new organization, The Family Leader, recently blasted pro-equality faith leaders in an alert message that questions their faith, stating: “167 ‘religious’ leaders signed a letter delivered to the Iowa Legislature saying that people of faith support homosexual ‘marriage.’ Don’t stay silent while others speak for you and misrepresnt [sic] God.” The group calls on pastors to sign an alternative petition which describes “homosexual behavior” as “immoral and sinful” and “harmful both to the individuals who choose to participate in it and the society that chooses to accept it.”

The mobilization of pastors by The Family Leader comes at a time when, according to the Des Moines Register, Republican leaders are trying to prohibit not only gay marriage but also other forms of legal rights for gay couples such as civil unions and domestic partnerships. The Register reports:

House Republicans will introduce legislation this week to begin the process to amend the Iowa Constitution to ban not only same-sex marriage but also civil unions and domestic partnerships.

That prospect raised alarm with civil rights advocates, who said it would legalize discrimination.

Republicans, who took control of the House in the Nov. 2 elections, had pledged to pass a measure this legislative session that would eventually allow Iowans a vote on same-sex marriage. But the resolution they've prepared is more sweeping than that, a move intended to help place finality on the issue of the legality of same-sex unions, said Rep. Dwayne Alons, R-Hull, who is the lead sponsor of House Joint Resolution 6.

"I think the biggest issue is that if that (a same-sex marriage ban) is carried forward, and then Iowa does civil unions and recognizes that as a substitute status, then, from what I've seen in other states," people would come to consider same-sex civil unions as equal to marriage, Alons said.

As of late Wednesday, no Democrats had signed on as co-sponsors of the bill. Fifty-six of the 60 House Republicans are listed as co-sponsors. The measure is expected to easily pass the House, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal has vowed to block consideration of a same-sex marriage amendment in that chamber.

The resolution says: "Marriage between one man and one woman shall be the only legal union valid or recognized in this state."

Des Moines attorney James Benzoni said such an amendment would run counter to the intent of Iowa laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

"The problem you're going to have is that it allows prejudice," Benzoni said. "It's going to open the door now for discrimination, for bullying, for treating people as second-class citizens."

The wording raised questions about whether private companies and governments in Iowa could still extend benefits to domestic partners. State government, for example, provides domestic partnership benefits to same-sex couples.

…

Those who agree with the Iowa Supreme Court ruling have noted that same-sex couples have in previous years been shut out from hospital visitation and inheritance rights. The U.S. Government Accountability Office has listed more than 1,100 benefits the government provides to married couples.

The Rev. Keith Ratliff Sr. of Des Moines, president of the NAACP State Conference for Iowa and Nebraska, has helped lead protests against same-sex marriage. He said Wednesday he agrees with the attempt to also keep domestic partnership or civil unions from gaining legal status.

Ratliff said he believes same-sex marriage further erodes the family, similar to the way that two-income families have eroded traditional nuclear families.

"I think there is an immediate consequence to gay marriage because people let their guard down in relation to what the word of God says," Ratliff said.

Wendy Wright, the president of Concerned Women For America, in the conservative publication The American Thinker ridicules the Obama Administration’s claims that bigotry and inequality still exist in the U.S., but goes on to claim that the Religious Right represents the actual victim of discrimination at the hands of “homosexual activists.” Such fatuous allegations are nothing new from Wright, who participated in the “Green Dragon” series that believes the environmental movement is surreptitiously trying to destroy Christianity and dismissed a study which showed that the children of same-sex parents are as “well adjusted” as their peers because it didn’t conform to her anti-gay prejudice.

In her article, “What Obama Thinks of America,” Wright is incensed that the Obama Administration still believes that discrimination survives in the U.S. and facetiously asks “Which American laws or institutions enshrine discrimination?” However, she then blasts the Obama Administration for not confronting the “homosexual activists” who are leading “a campaign of harassment, threats, vandalism, and attacks on employment against people who support traditional marriage, with particular venom toward religious people.” Essentially, Wright and the CWA strongly endorse discriminatory laws and bigoted views that target gay and lesbian Americans, but in her opinion proponents of anti-gay bigotry like herself are the real victims of intolerance:

Sometimes the best way to find out what a person thinks about you is to find out what he tells others.

That's why the report on America's human rights record filed by the Obama administration with the U.N. is particularly interesting.

…

What comes through is that President Obama's crew thinks America is congenitally discriminatory, and his administration is bravely soldiering into this morass against the unwashed masses to create an equal society.

As the report states, "[w]ork remains to meet our goal of ensuring equality before the law for all." Which American laws or institutions enshrine discrimination? Not mentioned. No matter -- when you're convinced that Americans are bigots, there is no need to provide proof.

The administration crows in the report about passing the incredibly divisive and unconstitutional health care act. It devotes a section to the bill, with glowing aspirations of how it will end the discrimination of a racist medical system. (Remember, these people see everything through the filter of race or identity politics -- even health care.)

Yet religious freedom (in which the U.S. excels in contrast to other countries) gets a few measly paragraphs with boilerplate generalities. Whereas the health care bill earned details like how many Asian-American men suffer from stomach cancer, the examples of a defense of religious freedom were a Native American primary school student's right to wear his hair in a braid and a Muslim girl's right to wear a hijab.

Maybe this administration is not keen on religious freedom. The issue is so old-school...yesterday's news...Christian. And it inconveniently conflicts with one of President Obama's priorities highlighted in the report, a priority that threatens religious freedom -- privileges for those who engage in homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender behavior.

Homosexual activists conducted a campaign of harassment, threats, vandalism, and attacks on employment against people who support traditional marriage -- with particular venom toward religious people. The vile assaults on Carrie Prejean for merely expressing her views pulled away the curtain that had been hiding how homosexual activists routinely treat decent people who dissent. It raised the question: Who is the aggressor, and who is victim?

Did you get that? "In each era of our history" -- that is, America is historically and inherently bigoted. Makes you wonder why they'd want to live here.

LGBT advocates (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) claim that sexual orientation is an inborn identity, like skin color or ethnicity, and they excoriate people who use the term "gay lifestyle" because it implies choices and actions. Yet the report's first boast of tackling discrimination against this group was the striking down of a law criminalizing sodomy. Apparently, particular actions do define homosexuality.

Wright goes on to argue that the Justice Department intentionally lost the Massachusetts cases challenging the constitutionality of the Defense Of Marriage Act, a charge which Focus on the Family thinks deserves a congressional investigation by Darrell Issa, and that any move towards equality for gays and lesbians actually represents prejudice:

Remember, since he ran for president, Obama has claimed that he does not upport same-sex "marriage." Yet he opposes the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the clearest federal statute that protects marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

Obama's Justice Department sabotaged its defense of DOMA in a legal challenge, making such weak arguments that it guaranteed a loss. And he opposed California's Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman. So Obama opposes federal and state measures that define and enforce traditional marriage.

That's where the report to the U.N. really gets interesting. It states, "Debate continues over equal rights to marriage for LGBT Americans at the federal and state levels, and several states have reformed their laws to provide for same-sex marriages, civil unions, or domestic partnerships."

…

President Obama is, as he said in his inaugural address, remaking America. Too bad his image of America -- and what he wants to turn us into -- is so prejudiced.

It appears as if Richard Land isn't giving up his blatantly hypocritical opposition to the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" ... nor his penchant for making absurdly bold predictions:

A scholar and Southern Baptist leader is convinced that the controversial "Ground Zero" mosque project will never fully develop.

...

Dr. Richard Land, president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention, opposes the renamed "Park51" project and is convinced it will never be built at the proposed location.

"I guarantee you that mosque will not be built two blocks from Ground Zero, and I'll tell you why -- the construction unions will refuse to build it," he suggests. "And if the construction unions don't build it, it won't get built. The hard hats will picket it, and the unions will not cross that picket line. They lost too many of their own on 9/11."

Just allow me to point out that Land does not have a particularly good track record of making predictions, as he recently declared that Hillary Clinton would resign as Secretary of State in order to challenge President Obama and that she'd do so "within 30 days" of the last election.

Well, guess what?  It has now been exactly thirty days since the election and Clinton is still serving as Secretary of State.  In fact, she recently announced that her days of running for office were completely over.

So I am going to make a bold prediction of my own: Land is not going to let the fact that his predictions routinely turn out to be utterly wrong stop him from continuing to make ill-informed predictions.

With the mid-term elections approaching, Focus on the Family's Tom Minnery has some simple advice on how to choose the correct candidate for whom to vote: vote for the Christian.

And how do you know which candidate is the true Christian? Well, it is the candidate that supports Focus on the Family's agenda, of course:

Does the candidate have a Christian world-view? Is he pro-life? A clue is whether he knows the embryonic stem-cell debate and opposes the process. Does she firmly support God’s definition of marriage, and does she oppose civil unions that give marriage benefits to same-sex couples? Does he believe that parents, rather than the state, have ultimate say over what a child learns in school? Is she hostile toward or silent on matters of faith? A candidate’s positions on all these issues are important indicators.

But beware that you can't just vote for the Christian - you have to make sure that you vote for the candidate from the right party because that determines who gets to set the agenda: 

Political Parties matter. You like the platform and values of a local candidate who’s running with the party you typically vote against. Should you cross party lines and vote for him? Don’t forget that whichever party is in the majority has control over which bills eventually reach the floor. You’re voting for more than individual candidates; you’re voting for which party sets the agenda.

Gee, since Focus on the Family is nonpartisan, I wonder what they could possibly mean by warning their activists not to "cross party lines"?

Republican Presidential hopefuls aren’t the only ones going to New Hampshire to take down Democratic governor John Lynch: the National Organization for Marriage is launching a $425,000 ad campaign to oppose the governor. In June of last year, Governor Lynch signed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, which put him in NOM’s crosshairs. NOM has also spent $235,000 attacking members of Iowa’s Supreme Court, which unanimously decided that same-sex couples have a right to marry under the state constitution, who are up for a retention vote. Moreover, the group spent tens of thousands of dollars in unsuccessful efforts to defeat members of the DC Council that voted in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage.

Hopefully, their ads in New Hampshire will be just as "memorable" as their Gathering Storm ad. NOM will surely utilize the same deceptive tactics and bigoted rhetoric present in their other ads, especially since they are working with the New Hampshire group Cornerstone Action, the political arm of the state’s foremost Religious Right organization. Cornerstone Action believes that adultery should be a criminal offense, and in 2007 their executive director claimed that same-sex couples are “unnatural” and worked to oppose civil unions as an “acceptance of a behavior that is jeopardizing the health of our children.” Without a doubt, the gubernatorial race in New Hampshire will be another test of NOM’s plans to defeat public officials who back LGBT equality.

I have written about South Dakota Eagle Forum president Kitty Werthmann and her DVD "Freedom to Dictatorship in 5 Years" a few times before:

From her own experience, Mrs. Kitty Werthmann will help you see we are walking the same path as the Nazi's. When she was 12 years old living in Austria there was order, prayer and pictures of Jesus. Hitler took over and all that was removed! Unemployment rose to 35%, bank loans rose to 25%, unions called strikes - all this with 98% of the people claiming to be Catholic! Soon there was massive welfare. Cries went out for equal rights for woman. Socialism took women out of the home, raising the children, and into the factories. They took the children away from the family and raised them by the state. The Health department offered training for the elderly but they were killed.

So of course, she is going to be on Glenn Beck this Friday:

Kitty Werthmann of Pierre will be a guest on Friday's edition of “The Glenn Beck Program” on the Fox News channel.

The show airs at 4 p.m. CDT. Werthmann, 84, will talk about growing up in Austria and living during the rule of Adolf Hitler.

Interestingly, we first wrote about Werthmann back in 2007 when, if I recall correctly, George W. Bush was still president - oddly, nobody took her seriously back then, but for some reasson she's suddenly found herself in high demand ever since Barack Obama was elected to the White House.

The latest installment of "Random Book Blogging" come from "Noah's Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery" by Stephen R. Haynes.

In this section, Haynes is explaining how pro-slavery advocates argued that the institution of slavery was absolutely necessary for the stability of society and attacked abolitionists as intent on destroying the family, Christianity, and government:

The proslavery compulsion to associate human subjugation and civic harmony is quite evident in the writings of Virginian George Fitzhugh, the most respected slavery apologist in the decades prior to the Civil War. In two books published during the 1850s - Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society (1854) and Cannibals All! or, Slaves Without Masters (1857) - Fitzhugh assailed the foundations of democratic society while establishing an intellectual basis for slavocracy. Fitzhugh regarded the preservation of societal order as among the chief benefits of human thralldom, declaring that "at the saveholding South all is peace, quiet, plenty and contentment. We have no mobs, no trade unions, no strikes for higher wages, no armed resistance to the law, but little jealousy of the rich by the poor. We have but few in our jails, and fewer in our poor houses." This was no coincidence: Because blacks so clearly required masters, racial slavery was "the most necessary of all human institutions," an "indispensable police institution."

In Fitzhugh's view, abolitionists sought nothing less than the reorganization of American society. They wished "to abolish ... or greatly modify the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, the institution of private property of all kinds, but especially separate ownership of lands, and the institution of Christian churches now existing in America." If they are successful, Fitzhugh warned, government, law, religion, and marriage would be among the causalities.

Gee, where I have heard that argument before?

Last week, Glenn Beck made news when he said that he didn't think issues like abortion or gay marriage were all that important and didn't pose a threat to the nation.

Needless to say, that is not sitting well with the Right and Beck is now coming under attack from people like David Kupelian, who are accusing him of abandoning core conservative values:

[S]peaking of our founding fathers, Glenn: The three founders you picture daily on your Fox TV show under the heading "Faith. Hope. Charity" – namely Sam Adams, George Washington and Ben Franklin – would have been horrified, appalled and aghast at the mere thought of men marrying men and women marrying women.

If you want to honor the founders, don't abandon their values.

America, you have a choice right now. Hold to what you know deep in your heart is right, even if both your enemies and your friends give you a hard time. Or, take the easy route and be comfortable, but lose your culture, your country, your children, and ultimately your self-respect.

And Joseph Farah is also going after Beck for not understanding the danger of "upsetting God's order":

Beck doesn't care about one of the most blatant and despicable examples of judicial tyranny in the history of our country. He doesn't care about the institution of marriage and its 5,000-year history. He doesn't care that the Bible says God created marriage way back in Genesis and that Jesus affirmed that. He doesn't care that the family is the building block of a society and that smarter men have explained how you simply can't have freedom and self-governance without it. He also doesn't seem to care about what might become of children adopted into such unions.

That, my friends, is the perfect illustration of what's wrong with the materialist worldview – whether it is held by a raving Marxist or a conservative entertainer.

And so is Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute, who accuses Beck of not caring about the impact it is having upon children:

True conservatives need to rethink their cowardly refusal to address the inherent immorality of homosexual practice and their deeply flawed strategy of calling for a moratorium on “social issues.” It’s astonishing that any thinking person could view as non-existential the radical redefinition of marriage and the implications it has for First Amendment speech and religious liberties as well as for parental rights and public education.

...

The sexual revolution with its severing of sex from marriage and marriage from procreation paved the way for severing marriage from gender. And now we have children being procreated with the deliberate intention of separating them from the biological parents who procreated them. Children are being deliberately denied their self-evident and inalienable right to be raised by the parents who produced them ... Homosexual activists in cahoots with legislators and judges are working feverishly — and successfully — to force public educators to present resources that affirm homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder as positive and normal to even elementary school children. And Glenn Beck proclaims that homosexual marriage doesn’t hurt America. Apparently, children aren’t part of America in Beck’s World.

Just yesterday Glenn Beck was telling David Barton and Rick Green about how his upcoming "Restoring Honor" rally was, quite literally, being overseen by God and would lead to the next Great Awakening in America. 

But will the Religious Right support his effort now that he appears to be dismissing the social issues that are central to their agenda?