Same-Sex Marriage Unmasked: Predicted Consequences of Redefining Marriage Are Becoming a Reality

By Ken Connelly
June 4, 2015

 As the nation waits for the U.S. Supreme Court’s highly anticipated marriage decision in Obergefell v. Hodges this month, one thing is clearly true: The proverbial cat has officially been let out of the bag in terms of what some people have in mind if the high court does not allow states to affirm the definitions of marriage they have always had.

Supporters of marriage have for years predicted that redefining the institution to encompass same-sex relationships would permanently alter its child-centered purpose and imperil religious liberty. Though born of historical knowledge, experience, and logic, these predictions have been met with derisive mockery by the purveyors of same-sex marriage. But after the recent oral arguments at the high court, we can finally put to rest the pretense that their project will have no harmful consequences in the real world.

Chief Justice John Roberts, very early on in the argument, noted that same-sex marriage advocates are not seeking merely to join an existing institution but rather to change its core definition. In response, an attorney representing petitioners in the case waxed eloquent about the 14th Amendment and its “enduring guarantees,” which are irrelevant to the question. The only honest answer would have been a simple “Yes, that is true. We are intentionally seeking to transform marriage forever, most notably its purpose and its effects. And it is our contention that the Constitution requires this.”

That such a frank admission was not forthcoming is understandable—it would have been politically unpalatable. But counsel’s silence on the matter still spoke volumes. Truth may make for poor press on the grandest litigation stage, but that does not mean that those with eyes to see and ears to hear cannot discover it.

Take for instance E.J. Graff, senior fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University, who said that once “same-sex marriage becomes legal, that venerable institution will stand for sexual choice, for cutting the link between sex and diapers.” Or author and radio host Michelangelo Signorile, who suggested that same-sex couples should “demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society’s moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution” (“Bridal Wave,” OUT magazine, Dec.-Jan. 1994, p. 161). Or LGBT activist Masha Gessen, who admitted that “fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there—because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change.” Or Boston College Professor of Law Kent Greenfield, who has written that supporters of marriage are right when they “argue[] that [redefining marriage] will lead to marriages among more than two people and between adults who are related.”

Same-sex marriage advocates do mean to change marriage—in fact, it is the movement’s very reason for being. But perhaps even more ominous than the confirmation of this long-obvious fact was the revelation that an invented constitutional right to same-sex marriage almost certainly would endanger the religious liberty of those who refuse to compromise their belief that marriage is exclusively the union of one man and one woman.

Justice Samuel Alito asked U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli whether a university or college that opposed same-sex marriage stood to lose its tax-exempt status as a result, and the federal government’s chief litigation officer quite candidly, perhaps even unwittingly, admitted that “it’s certainly going to be an issue.” The government’s confirmation that those who fail to celebrate same-sex marriage will be punished for their religious convictions might have been the biggest news of the day.

But to anyone who has been paying attention, this shouldn’t have been news at all. Alliance Defending Freedom, for example, has been predicting for more than a decade that the government would use tax exemptions as a sword to compel believers to compromise their faith on the issue of marriage. In fact, ADF argued that this development was not merely a possibility, but rather a logical necessity of the project to redefine marriage. And that is because this is a movement that seeks to challenge, marginalize, and ultimately punish traditional religious belief and its expression in the public square.

Take for instance Frank Bruni, op-ed columnist for The New York Times, who recently characterized Christian beliefs regarding homosexual behavior and marriage as “prejudices that they needn’t cling to and can indeed jettison … [by] … rightly bowing to the enlightenments of modernity.” Apparently, so long as we can “shake[] … beliefs ossified over centuries,” it appears Bruni is content to grant us a warm welcome back into polite society. Others, however, do not appear eager to permit even that degree of rapprochement. Signorile recently declared that the “debate is over,” called on the media to stop “show[ing] ‘both sides’ of the gay issue,” and encouraged “confrontation[]” rather than magnanimity. To the question as to when the “fight will be over,” he pointedly stated that “I’m not sure it’s ever truly over … .”

Signorile’s admission confirms the suspicion that there really is no logical end to the same-sex marriage project, which has at its heart an essentially totalitarian impulse demanding complete obeisance and affirmative celebration. It is a project that has shown itself to be insatiable and ever-expanding. A look at its historical arc proves this.

Not too long ago, we were told that laws passed to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity were merely designed to ensure equality, inclusion, and tolerance—they were emphatically not surreptitious attempts to seek official government sanction for same-sex relationships. “We just want to be left alone!” was the mantra. Then we were told that the state must officially recognize same-sex couples in some manner, but only for the purpose of garnering the same rights and benefits as married couples. “Why would we want marriage?” was the query. Then we were surprised to learn that by withholding the official title of marriage, the state inflicted not only an epic dignitary harm to same-sex couples, but also an unconstitutional deprivation that demands an immediate judicial remedy.

Additionally, constitutional amendments that merely reaffirmed an understanding of marriage that had been universally accepted for millennia, long before sexual orientation was even a concept, have now been tagged as products of bigotry and animus against same-sex couples. “Excluding gay and lesbian couples from marriage demeans the dignity of those couples,” Verrilli intoned at oral argument.

Throughout this deliberate progression, activists reassuringly promised us that no Americans would be forced to compromise their faith. Any such concerns were dismissed as completely unfounded—mere scare tactics floated by recalcitrant religious cranks. But now the mask has been removed. Now we know the truth. “It’s certainly going to be an issue.”

Any failure to accept this new vision of marriage—any failure to publicly bend the knee to this new orthodoxy—will result in very public and very damaging punishments, namely the loss of tax-exempt status for non-profit institutions. Can anyone claim with a straight face that once the government tries to strip schools of this status, attacks on churches and other religious ministries will not soon follow?

Of course, this is not so much a development as it is the official government announcement of what we have known for years—that the proponents of same-sex marriage are not really interested in compromise or peaceful co-existence. In fact, casualties are par for the course.

For example, after courts rewrote the marriage laws in the District of Columbia and Massachusetts, Catholic Charities, one of the world’s most effective and reliable adoption and foster-care placement agencies, was forced to stop doing what it does best simply because its religious precepts prevent it from placing children with same-sex couples. Driving Catholic Charities from this vital work deprives vulnerable children of a great resource for finding a permanent home with a mom and a dad. Apparently, same-sex marriage advocates trot out the “for the dignity of the children” rationale only when it suits their purposes.

When 70-year-old floral artist and grandmother Barronelle Stutzman politely declined to create floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding based on her religious conviction that marriage is exclusively the union of one man and one woman, the state of Washington came calling. The state attorney general and the ACLU targeted her business, her home, and her retirement assets for destruction and repossession. Of course, it made no difference that she had openly served all customers, regardless of their sexual orientation, for almost four decades. No amount of good faith is sufficient to justify one’s failure to fully embrace same-sex marriage and all it demands.

When Aaron and Melissa Klein, a couple running a successful and popular bake shop, had the temerity to politely decline a request to bake a same-sex wedding cake based on their religious convictions about marriage, they too were targeted for their stubborn faith. For their trouble they suffered boycotts, vandalism, and death threats directed at their children and themselves, and they eventually lost their business. Now they have been saddled with a $135,000 fine for refusing to compromise their beliefs.

Perhaps most notable from this affair, however, was the fact that the crowdfunding account set up to help pay for, or at least defray, this massive penalty was suspended by GoFundMe, which determined after receiving complaints from LGBT activists that the Kleins’ religious decision amounted to a “heinous crime” in violation of the company’s Terms of Service. GoFundMe suspended an account developed for Barronelle Stutzman as well. These developments reveal once again that the imperative of same-sex marriage knows no limit. It is not enough to merely stifle dissent—even the attempt to survive unjust persecution must also be thwarted.

Before his recent death, Francis Cardinal George predicted the future in a world in which the state “go[es] bad, claiming an absolute power, deciding questions and making ‘laws’ beyond its competence.”  He said, “I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”

Nine judges should not determine the future of marriage in our nation. Nevertheless, it appears possible that the Supreme Court might attempt to redefine marriage for all of us. Although such a result would be disappointing, we can at least be thankful for the illumination that the recent oral arguments brought us.

No one can credibly doubt that the purveyors of same-sex marriage mean to redefine the institution once and for all. Nor can one doubt that such a change will gravely imperil religious liberty. Solicitor General Verrilli did us a great favor by telling the truth.

Another important truth is this: those who would redefine marriage seem willing to fight without end to achieve their vision. Religious believers and others who know marriage to be the foundation of a stable and healthy culture must now decide if they, like Cardinal George’s successors, are committed to resisting such a campaign with all the courage such a battle requires.

Ken Connelly is legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the marriage cases at the U.S. Supreme Court.

CNS

This Lesbian's Daughter Has Had Enough

October 20, 2014
By Rivka Edelman

My name is Rivka Edelman, and I am the product of same-sex parenting.

Recently I published an essay on Public Discourse about the ruthless misogyny that pervades LBGT culture.  I pointed out it that it can and will victimize women and children with impunity and then, in America’s narcissistic fugue, get hailed as brave and heroic.

Since my essay was published, there have been hundreds, maybe thousands, of posts calling me a liar or trying to shame, discredit, intimidate, and threaten me.  Read this for details.  People I do not know have gone directly after my family and my job.  They have posted information, mis-information, accusations, and threats against me.  A vicious abusive “activist” well-known for his unhinged misogynistic cyber-stalking and violent threats, Scott Rose, sent blast e-mails to the university where I teach, describing himself as a “human right activist and an investigative journalist.”

Scott Rose has made threats of violence against Ryan T. Anderson, the editor who published my piece on October 2, 2014:

"The only good anti-LGBT bigot is a dead anti-LGBT bigot."

And menacing threats against me:

As with other adults who have come forward to criticize their childhood with gay parents, I am framed as a bigot or a liar or in some other way “unreliable.”  In this flip-flop, a children’s rights activist and feminist is called “anti-gay” and a “bigot.”

Jeremy Hooper, Mr. Rose, and a gang of the allies who congregate and exchange information on Hooper’s blog, “Good As You,” are concerned about an amicus curiae brief I wrote in the Texas case regarding same-sex marriage (Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals).  Along with three other adults who were raised by same-sex couples, I came forward to push back against the assertion that children have no disadvantages when raised by same-sex couples. 

 Our arguments are not so easy to dismiss.

On Jeremy Hooper’s blog, activists have dug through all my past to make it public.  They have also discussed contacting my ex-husband to get him to lie about me for them.

The Texas case is still pending.  To date, the voices of adult children of the LBGT community have been stifled, but by some miracle four briefs were accepted in Texas against the objections of the pro-gay lobby side, which invoked procedural technicalities to try to get the four briefs thrown out.  Three of the four amici curiae have published commentary on same-sex parenting here.

Once “activists” connected my Public Discourse piece of October 2, to the Texas brief, they went full throttle. 

 Jeremy Hooper, the blogger at Good as You, uses his blog as a platform to harass, bully, and silence with impunity.  Hooper published comments from his readers and thereby shared our home address and my daughter’s private information.  They contacted other family members looking for information.  They are not picky; true or made up assertions work for them equally.

To my ex husband, Rose wrote:

We can conclude with reasonable certainty that significant details of her young life were left out of her brief[.]

Mr. Rose wants my ex-husband to fill in the blanks.  He was told never to contact my ex again.  He has harassed me with the e-mail version of drunken dialing.  And as the outrage against Mr. Hooper grows wider, he says he has no control over the comments.  He says he never even met Rose.  He cites law for polish.  Hooper is careful and deliberate to say that sometimes he does not agree with Rose’s tactics.

I do not believe Mr. Hooper.  He indeed allows commenters to leave violent threats against me.  Under Hooper’s editorial review, my work information, along with my child’s name and people’s addresses, circulated freely.

Here Mr. Rose, human rights activist (is that a day job?), threatened my career with much bravado:

She thought she was going to get away with demonizing gay people behind pseudonyms “Ryvka Edelman” … et cetera, but my message to the gay-bashing bigot is YOU’LL NEVER EAT LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN.

She can forget that one.

And now that editors and English Department Chairs know that [Rivka Edelman] is a vicious anti-LGBT bigot, they have more information for their publishing and hiring decisions.

P.S. to Rivka – Rots a Ruck getting your work published in any non-religious, non-bigot publication, now that the world knows that [Rivka] is a malicious, lying, anti-LGBT bigot.

The police have his name now.

Perhaps they see us, the adult children of gay homes, as a threat, so we are attacked and our families threatened.  

They posted on Craigslist looking for information about me.

Good God.  Maybe I’m on Grindr, too.

Next they deploy “activist” “Straight Grandmother.”  She is the one who floats the idea of contacting my ex in the first place.

She states in an e-mail to my ex-husband:

 ... Her Amicus Brief to our Federal Court Judges in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ... The only thing they have going is their personal narrative, which makes it very difficult to discredit ... how much if their personal narrative is made up just to further their Hate Agenda. The only way we have to discern the truth is to delve into their personal narrative.

They savage, bully, and threaten adults who grew up with gay parents in order to force a false narrative of happiness on them.  More Orwellian logic.
Straight Grandmother goes on explaining the ins and outs:

It invades people's personal privacy. But then on the other hand, they are the ones themselves who are offering up their personal lives as reasons to deny gays Civil Rights. See how this puts gay rights advocates between a rock and a hard place? They kind of force us to do something distasteful, but if we don't then their lies stand.

They admit a pattern to invade people’s privacy – the new McCarthyism.
SGM says: 

This is why I am contacting you and what I would like to know about XXXX, well specifically XXXX's mother ... if you are able to get an actual affirmation or rejection from the brother[.]

Here they are looking for more family.  I can’t help but feel that whatever organization pays these men should be investigated.

The writer continues:

I don't know if you will provide the true answer to my question or not. I hope you will. And actually you don't even have to respond to me. You can respond to Jeremy Hooper (contact@GoodAsYou.org) with the truth. Jeremy WILL protect you, but if you are brave you could have the fact attributed to yourself.

That promise to “protect” seems to confirm that Mr. Hooper knows this commenter and that they have planned to contact my ex-husband to get information.

This e-mail ends:

Remember Federal Judges are reading the Life Story of XXXX as told by her. Her story as written by her, may influence a Judges ruling.

To cover himself Mr. Hooper says that some activists':

Now that I have established the ins and outs of Jeremy Hooper’s blog, I can say I recognize these abusive behaviors as part of the culture I grew up in.  Notice the lack of accountability, the deflections. 

We the adult children are currently in the process of getting our stories ready for publication.  And as gay marriage becomes the law of the land, we have expectations moving forward.  We demand that the HRC publically honor and acknowledge our experience and issue apologies in print and online for all the attacks against all of us.  And rectify immediately all that we have suffered by activists connected to the HRC or GLAAD.

This cautionary tale should travel far and wide: a family threatened, people’s privacy invaded, harassment, threats, bullying, unwanted contact, abusive mischaracterization, incurred financial hardship.

These men may have revealed much more about themselves and the movement than they realize and damaged their credibility.  I would not want to be Mr. Hooper or Rose when they realize that nobody will ever trust them again – no, not really, and not ever.  They are like the writer who gets caught plagiarizing or a researcher who fakes results. 

 There will always be “that” question in the back of people’s minds.

Let’s make a name for these guys – the one they have earned.  Send this on to others.

American Thinker

Happy New Year to All You Decadent, Dictatorial Americans

by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin

 

 

 Happy New Year to all you decadent and dictatorial Americans.   Yes, I mean you, the people of the United States, where an elite of  non-democratic dictators trickles its immorality—and incompetence—down upon the masses. 

What do I mean?  Aren’t you Americans supposed to be free?  Sure, you are free: You are free to obey the ukase—that’s an old czarist word for a decree that must be obeyed, or else—of a judge acting on an ideological agenda.  So the judge is free to do as he pleases, and then you are free to do what you’re told to do.  Americans, how do you like that kind of “freedom”?  

For example, let’s look at the way the debate over homosexual marriage has played out over the past few years in the USA.  The American people were confronted with the issue of homosexual marriage, debated it, and then voted against it in the tens of millions; dozens of US states passed specific laws to ban homosexual marriage.  

So then what happened?  I’ll tell you what happened: Unelected judges simply overrode the will of the people—and legalized such marriage in much of the country, including the largest state, California.  In other words, the judges acted as dictators to overturn not only the laws of America, but also the law of God; these are spelled out clearly in both the Bible and in the Christian tradition.  

So now we see the key difference between Russia and America: In Holy Mother Russia, the Bible and Christianity are celebrated in the public square.  But not in America.  

To sum up: America has a dictatorship that imposes anti-Biblical immorality.   That’s your idea of freedom—and you can have it.  Here in Russia, we prefer real freedom: our right to choose the true path.  Our right to choose virtue.  

But of course, you Americans are genuinely free in one way: You have the perfect freedom to be bamboozled by your party-line media and so to elect and re-elect bumbling leaders.  In my recent musings, I have taken note of America’s staggering geopolitical incompetence, and mocked the messianic pretensions of your media-anointed President Obama.   And I chuckle when I think about how long it took for Americans to notice his obvious ineptitude.  

I have, indeed, enjoyed great success in 2013, even as America has failed greatly.  It was a wonderful year for me, starting with Syria, Iran, and Ukraine.  

In Syria, Hafez al-Assad is still in power.  Yet as recently as September, the Americans were poised to intervene to overthrow Assad; I turned the tide by jumping in to start negotiations over his chemical weapons.  In the months since, those chemical-weapons negotiations have turned into a larger “peace process.”   

I should say that I have never had any great affection for Assad; my main concern was about stopping the advance of Sunni Islamic jihadi terrorist takeover anywhere, whether in Syria, in my own territory of Chechnya, or elsewhere in the world.  

In the wake of 9-11, I had hoped that the Americans would share that larger anti-terror   objective, but alas, I was wrong.   The Americans have been fighting the Sunni Jihadis in Afghanistan for a dozen years, but at the same time, they have sought to help the same sorts of Sunni jihadis in Egypt, Libya, and Syria—go figure! 

Indeed, all these years, the Americans have been lecturing us Russians about “human rights” in Chechnya.  So it served them right when two Chechyans killed and wounded all those people in Boston; we had tried to warn them about the Tsarnaevs, but of course, the Americans thought they knew best.   Here’s what’s best:  America and Israel ought to join with Russia to squelch these Islamists, wherever they are.  It’s obvious!  But it seems that if you work in the American State Department, you have to leave your common sense outside of the building.   

Finally, late in 2013, my message started to get through to the anti-Assad coalition: The West woke up and realized that they, too, would be worse off with Assad gone and the Bin Ladenites running Damascus.  I see that The Jerusalem Post recently quoted a top Israeli diplomat as saying of a recent high-level meeting, “Our Western friends made it clear in London that Assad cannot be allowed to go now because they think chaos and an Islamist militant takeover would ensue.”   No kidding!  Finally!  Score one for common sense—and for me.  

Oh, and by the way, you Americans might be interested to know that Christians are much better off in pro-Russia Syria than in post-American Iraq.  That’s right: In Syria, Christians are part of the governing coalition; they are safe as long as Assad stays in power.  By contrast, in Iraq, after the Americans came and went, having wrecked the place in between, the Christians are abandoned and vulnerable.  Today, the US doesn’t seem to know or care that Christians are being targeted in Iraq—37 Christians killed on Christmas Day.   Gee, I wonder why Barack Hussein Obama is so disinterested.  Actually, I don't wonder at all.  

Next, Iran.  The no-nukes “agreement” spearheaded by John Kerry—I have never seen anyone so eager to win a Nobel Peace Prize!— might be a sham, but that’s not my problem.  I don’t want Iran to be a nuclear power; after all, any Iranian nuke would be a lot closer to Moscow than to Washington, DC.  Yet at the same time, I don’t want America to win.   

Instead, what I want is a balance of power.  And balance of power means just that—balance.  Uneasy balance, balance of terror, call it what you will.  Just so long as both sides realize that they need Russia’s help.  I want Russia to be the balance-wheel in the region.  

As for Israel, I am not a fan of Bibi Netanyahu, but I do feel a certain fondness for the million or so Israelis who come from Russia. Yes, they fled the Soviet regime in the 70s and 80s, so in that sense, they are traitors, but at the same time, they retain many of their Slavic loyalties and prejudices.  So when I talk to, for example, Soviet-born Avigdor Lieberman, the former Israeli foreign minister—and still a powerful political player in that country—we converse easily in our common Russian tongue.  In fact, we get along great, because we hate the same people.  

Moreover, I fully realize that the Israelis have assets that Russia needs.  In particular, if Russia is to create, near Moscow, a Silicon Valley for Russia, we will need some high-tech brains.   As my  sidekick Dmitry Medvedev has convinced me, the real resource for the future is not oil, nor natural gas, nor even gold.  Instead, it’s IQ, adrenaline, and caffeine—the stuff of high tech.   So that’s why I let Mikhail Khodorkovsky go free after a decade in prison—he’s a Jew; releasing him removes a sticking point to better relations with the Jews.  And that’s fine, so long as they are outside of Russia.  Khodorkovsky’s not coming back, that’s for sure; the $15 billion fortune he once had inside Russia has long ago been divvied up among my friends.   

Meanwhile, right next to Russia, I have won yet another victory: Despite the pro-European Union protests in Kiev, Ukraine will remain gripped in the Russian bear hug.  Needless to say, I have never been a fan of “people power”; we know what sort of trouble it can lead to if left unchecked.  Critics say we did something nasty in Ukraine; I say, we bought President Viktor Yanukovych fair and square.  And he had the honor—and, heh heh, the survival instinct—to stay bought.  

So that’s my geopolitical score for 2013: By my count, it’s three points for Russia, zero points for other countries.  

Yet there’s a deeper point that I wish to make, concerning the fate of nations, and of civilizations.   And that point is: You need conservatism, including religion and patriotism, in order to govern.   This point is not optional; it’s a necessity.  

I think that the average person gets this basic truth about the practical value of conservative governance—including the average American.  But as we have seen, the average American is not really involved in shaping politics; in the USA, control is shared by the radicalizing forces of the judiciary, the media, the Federal Reserve, and other elite institutions at the commanding heights.  Meanwhile, here in Russia, I have been governing as a conservative, and the average Russian loves me.  

Yet Americans, befogged by their own propaganda, have been slow to realize that I am the conservative, defending—indeed, championing!—the essentials of Christendom.

One who has figured this out is Patrick Buchanan, a leading figure in conservative politics and punditry for nearly half-a-century.  He recently wrote a column asking,  “Is Putin One of Us?”  

And Buchanan’s answer was a carefully argued “yes.”  As he noted, not only am I on the right, but also I see the overall civilizational issue more clearly than the West:

“While much of American and Western media dismiss him as an authoritarian and reactionary, a throwback, Putin may be seeing the future with more clarity than Americans still caught up in a Cold War paradigm.

As the decisive struggle in the second half of the 20th century was vertical, East vs. West, the 21st century struggle may be horizontal, with conservatives and traditionalists in every country arrayed against the militant secularism of a multicultural and transnational elite.

And though America’s elite may be found at the epicenter of anti-conservatism and anti-traditionalism, the American people have never been more alienated or more divided culturally, socially and morally.”

I agree with Pat—I guess I can call him Pat.  In America, the split is between a liberal elite and a conservative population.  I would only add that here in Russia, the elite is on the same side as the populace.  How ‘bout that: a government that actually reflects the values of the majority!  

Yes, I am a Russian conservative, and I govern as a Russian conservative.  Admittedly, I have had to make detours along the way: The Sochi Winter Olympics are coming up in February, and so I released those horrible “Pussy Riot” protestors.  In addition, I turned loose some Greenpeace idiots.   

Yet as always, I am amused by the greedy corporate hypocrisy of the West.   Even though Russia has passed tough anti-homosexual laws, all those allegedly “gay-friendly” companies are still eagerly doing business in Russia.   And they will spend even more money on the Olympics.  So now we see their true convictions; they worship money, not “LGBT” rights.   Do I expect some protestors in Sochi?  Sure.  And we’ll have to tolerate them when the cameras of the world are watching.  But we’ll be taking the names of those involved: The foreigners won’t be allowed back, and as for any Russians, well, we’ll deal with them in due time.  

Over the long haul, I am fully committed to a socially conservative Russia, built on the Holy Russian Orthodox Church.  Am I really a sincere Christian?  That’s hard to say.   Am I sincere social conservative?  Do I believe in order and structure?  Do I believe in Western Christian civilization?  That’s easy to say—absolutely yes.   

Why? Because I know that all through history, faith-based conservatism wins.  To put it another way, piety defeats hedonism.   When a culture gets too rich and lazy, it not only causes a backlash, it also becomes too weak to withstand that backlash.   How do I know this?  I study the past.  In the 19th century, the industrializing world was richer than ever, and yet the capitalists, who had claimed most of the wealth, had little legitimacy.  They weren’t longstanding royalty, well known to the nation; instead, they were nouveau riche, typically locked into conflict with the proletariat.  Factory owners must learn: Treat factory workers nicely, or they will strike—and even rebel.  

So in a sense, both Bolshevism and Fascism in the 20th century were reactions against the excesses and conspicuous consumption of those newbie capitalist plutocrats.   Say what you want about Lenin and Stalin—or Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao, among many others—they were personally austere.    They didn’t wear crowns and robes, they wore dark suits and uniforms.  Working people liked that, at least at first.  

And as income inequality is on the rise once again, and as big capitalists turn into greed-is-good Wolf of Wall Street-type parodies of themselves, please don’t think that the cycle of revolution can’t happen again, maybe even in America.  The American conservative Peggy Noonan, writing recently in The Wall Street Journal, quoted an anonymous but nervous billionaire: “Every time I hear the stock market went up I know the guillotines are coming closer.” 

But in Russia, such bloody revolution won’t happen again, because we are handling the social question.  We are working to maintain a balance between capital and labor.  That was one reason why I threw Khodorkovsky in jail, to send a signal to the other oligarchs: Behave yourself.   

So of course, I am perfectly willing to use repressive methods, if I need to.   Yet at the same time, I don’t think I will need to, because I am deeply respectful of Russian tradition; I am with the people, and their values, not against them.   And those values include a deep-grained belief that the body politic needs to stay together with some decent respect for the feelings and sentiments of the workers and peasants—and that’s a lesson of statecraft that the Americans have forgotten.   You can’t build a united country on the basis of dog-eat-dog Social Darwinism.  You need the warmth of an enveloping heritage.   Political hierarchy is fine, but there still must be limits, however notional, on social and economic inequality.  

So in Russia, I have been pleased to lead the revival of the Russian Orthodox Church, which proclaims its central dogma: All believers are equal before God.  To add some emphasis, we even have our shock troops, The Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers.  They can be a little extreme, but we like their slogans:  “Holy Russia, the Orthodox faith and the Russian people!” That’s a good one.  Another is: “Glory to Russia!”   And for sheer intensity, it’s hard to top “Orthodoxy or death!” 

Meanwhile, in many parts of the world, especially in the West, it might seem as though the homosexuals and the drug-legalizers are winning—but I believe that’s temporary.  As I have said, all through history, we see a pattern: The rich have grown rich to the point that they stop believing in anything and thus are not able to fight for anything, not even their own survival.   So inevitably, they are replaced by strong men, whose lives are a proclamation of stern faith.  

We might consider the Muslims: Ask yourself, who is going to emerge as the winner in Afghanistan after Karzai goes?   A liberal?  Someone who hews to Western ways?  No, of course not: The victor will be the toughest guy, the one who was able to inspire the most martyrs, even as he rides in on a white horse.  

I realize that liberals—in America, they are called libertarians—are horrified by the prospect of warrior leaders, but I know my history.  Russia has had to recover from the invasion of the Magyars, the Mongols, Napoleon, and Hitler.  And yes, we have also had to survive the excesses and weaknesses of Comrades Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev.  And most of all, Russia must recover from the damage done by that liberal twit Gorbachev—the man who let the USSR break apart—and his helper, that drunken buffoon Yeltsin.   

When Russia recovers to its former glory—my personal goal is the full recovery of the Russian borders of 1914—it will because we are strong in our proud conservatism, not weak in our wilting liberalism.  

Oh, and one last point: If the governing authority of the future is not based on religion and tradition, the result will be vastly worse.   That is, if the Western powers can’t set up a guiding conservatism based on shared history and familiar hierarchy, the new order will be much worse.  If revered conservatism fails, it won’t be succeeded by freedom, it will be succeeded by the iron rule of capitalists and technologists.

What do I mean by this?   We might consider the stark words of Google’s Eric Schmidt when he said, “If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.”   Now that’s a quote to warm the heart of Comrade Stalin.   

I find myself in agreement with my new friend Edward Snowden, who declared recently, in a broadcast from Moscow, that new technology offered power to central authority that tyrants of the past could never have imagined: 

“George Orwell warned us of the danger…The types of collection in the book [Orwell’s novel, 1984], microphones and video cameras, TVs that watch us, are nothing compared to what we have available today…Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person.  A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They’ll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought. And that’s a problem because privacy matters; privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be.” 

Yes, Snowden has a point.  Compared to the total surveillance you Americans are going through, good old Russian-style authoritarianism looks pretty sweet.  Yes, of course, Russia will spy on its domestic enemies.  But we have no need to spy on everyone in Russia, because we know that the vast majority of Russians support their government.  

We govern by received tradition, including our faith.  By contrast, you govern by technological tyranny—plus the radical non-faith of your elites.   That’s the big difference between the USA and Russia, and it’s a big difference indeed.

Big Government

We Can Have Gay Rights or Freedom of Speech

 By Daniel Greenfield

What do a reality show star, a cake maker and a photographer have in common? They're all victims of a political system in which the mandate to not merely recognize gay marriage, but to celebrate it, has completely displaced freedom of speech.

The issues at stake in all three cases did not involve the Orwellian absurdity of "Marriage Equality". The cases of a Christian cake maker and a Christian photographer whom state courts have ruled must participate in gay weddings or face fines and jail time were blatant violations of both Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion in the name of outlawing any dissent from gay marriage.

That is why Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty was suspended. Robertson, unlike Bashir, didn't take to the air to make violent threats against an individual. He expressed in plain language that he believes homosexuality is wrong. And that is something that you aren't allowed to do anymore.

The left sneers that A&E isn't subject to Freedom of Speech because it's a private company. And they're right. But then they insist that a cakemaker and a photographer aren't protected by Freedom of Speech or Religion because they're private businesses.

In their constitutional universe, companies have the right to punish speech in the name of gay rights, but not to engage in protected speech in dissent from gay rights. And that's exactly the problem. It's not just gays who have been made into a protected class, but homosexuality itself. To dissent from it is bigotry that you can be fired for, fined for and even jailed for.

Gay rights were not settled by legalizing gay marriage. We are facing an ugly choice between freedom of speech and gay rights.

In these three cases, gay rights activists have made it clear that we can have one or the other. But we can't have a country where we have both gay weddings and people who disagree with them.

And that's unfortunate because even the most generous interpretation of the benefits of two men marrying each other would struggle to prove that it is more beneficial to a society than the ability to speak your own mind and to practice your own religion without being compelled to violate it.

If we have to choose between gay rights and the First Amendment, the moral arc of the universe that liberals like to invoke so often will not swing toward the bullies who insist on dealing with their self-esteem problems by forcing everyone to consent and approve of their lifestyle.

Gay marriage was sold to Americans by cunningly crafted "gay families" on popular sitcoms. Now Americans are discovering that real gay activists aren't friendly people who just want to make jokes between commercial breaks, but are neurotic and insecure bullies who attack others from behind the safety of the politicians that they bribed with the massive disposable incomes that comes from not having families or long-term relationships.

Most Americans still believe that homosexuality, adultery and a range of other deviant sexual behaviors are sins. They also, like Phil Robertson, believe that disapproving of a behavior does not mean rejecting the person. That's where they part company with gay activists who are unable to tolerate Phil Robertson as a person if they are also unable to tolerate his opinion of their sexual habits.

The American tolerance for things like homosexuality comes from a mindset that is a lot closer to Phil Robertson than it is to Barack Obama. It's that very Phil Robertson attitude which allows Americans to disapprove of homosexuality, while accepting that homosexuals should have spaces for expressing their need for political identity ceremonies. That tolerance led to civil unions and then gay marriage. And that tolerance has been woefully abused.

Americans are far more tolerant of sexual misbehavior than they are of people trying to take away their civil rights. And that is something that gay rights activists need to consider carefully.

American tolerance for homosexuality is not a blank check. It's not the "progressive" endgame that the left believes it is in which tolerance for a thing is mistaken for the Stalinist willingness to punish dissent from that very thing.

When ordinary Americans talk about tolerance, they mean tolerance. When the left talks about tolerance, it means intolerance.

Now the gay rights movement, which is just another pimple on the bony arm of the left, is showing its true colors. It is showing that its calls for tolerance are really mandates for intolerance.

It isn't looking for public spaces in which to be gay, but the elimination of public and even private spaces that reject homosexuality. It's not gay rights that we are talking about, but gay mandates.

If Americans are forced to choose between Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion and gay rights; the Pajama Boys of America may not like which way they will vote.

Sultan Knish

Duck, Duck, Noose

By Tad Cronn
 Dec 20, 2013

A&E’s suspension of Phil Robertson from the hit show “Duck Dynasty” has generated a lot of talk about the First Amendment.

While technically it’s not a First Amendment issue because the government was not involved, the punishing of Robertson for expressing his well-known beliefs in an interview with GQ goes to the larger issue of free speech and tolerance for differing views.

A&E has a right to fire anyone it chooses, however, this was not just a case of someone shooting his mouth off and embarrassing his employer, as it was in the recent case of MSNBC’s Martin Bashir.

This was a situation that was created by A&E, and then A&E made a calculated decision to respond the way it did.

Robertson’s views on the Bible and homosexuality were well-known before A&E even hired him and the rest of the Robertson family, and his sermons are recorded on video.

If that wasn’t clear enough, just watching “Duck Dynasty” should have underscored the family’s Christian beliefs, so there’s no way A&E executives were unaware. Because of the nature of show business, it’s also safe to assume that A&E signed off on the interview with GQ, whose interest in all things sex is also well-known. That a GQ reporter would ask Robertson about homosexuality is practically a given.

And yet, here’s A&E acting all shocked and bothered because Robertson said he doesn’t see the appeal to a man of another man’s butt. (Robertson was more anatomically specific, but you get the idea.)

So because Robertson said out loud what millions of Americans think whenever the subject of homosexuality comes up, A&E got a call from GLAAD, which you can imagine must have included threats of boycotts and retaliation, the full Chick-fil-A treatment.

TMZ Editor Harvey Levin, who is gay, blasted A&E on his show and on Twitter for their treatment of Robertson. “A&E is being so dishonest,” Levin tweeted.

Levin further went on to defend Robertson, saying that while he didn’t agree with the “Duck Dynasty” patriarch, Robertson’s comments were religious, not “hate-based.”

Author Camille Paglia, who is a lesbian and atheist, was even more irate about A&E’s decision when she spoke to Laura Ingraham:

“To express yourself in a magazine in an interview — this is the level of punitive PC, utterly fascist, utterly Stalinist, OK, that my liberal colleagues in the Democratic Party and on college campuses have supported and promoted over the last several decades. This is the whole legacy of free speech 1960s that have been lost by my own party. …

“I think that this intolerance by gay activists toward the full spectrum of human beliefs is a sign of immaturity, juvenility. This is not the mark of a true intellectual life. This is why there is no cultural life now in the U.S.

Why nothing is of interest coming from the major media in terms of cultural criticism. Why the graduates of the Ivy League with their A, A, A+ grades are complete cultural illiterates, etc. is because they are not being educated in any way to give respect to opposing view points.”

Ultimately, A&E’s decision to appease what it perceives as a powerful homosexual lobby may backfire. A Facebook page calling for the boycott of A&E until Robertson is rehired got more than 1 million likes in one day.

The history of homosexual boycotts has been that they usually achieve the opposite of the intended effect. The boycott of Chick-fil-A resulted in booming business for the restaurant. The boycott of a cake maker in Colorado for refusing to bake a cake for a homosexual “wedding” likewise has garnered the baker more business.

If A&E was smart, it would stand by Robertson and welcome a GLAAD boycott. Instead, they insult and denigrate their Christian fan base.

But that seems to be the way of things these days. The Left continuously shows its intolerance of others while demanding tolerance of its own views.

The Left should watch an episode of “Duck Dynasty” and take note that as nice as the Robertsons are, they (and many of their fans) are armed. The PC crowd might want to keep that in mind the next time they feel the urge to punish the Christians.

Political Outcast

The Great Reversal

May 2, 2013
Jay Haug

 
 The President of the United States comes out in favor of gay marriage. An NBA journeyman player announces that he is gay. The media hails this as a triumphal event. The President of the United States calls the player to congratulate him on his "courage." Some even call this a "Jackie Robinson" moment. What is this all about? Warning: It is about a lot more than people being free to be themselves and it is going to impact every single one of us.

The whole "gay marriage," and "gay athlete" progression is entirely about turning the tables on traditional values and especially Christian belief. This movement, which claims historic prejudice against homosexuality, is now all about prejudice against those who disagree, visited upon people who uphold the traditional view of marriage and sexuality. Those who formerly and even now claim persecution and their allies in government and media have become the persecutors. Privately, people of traditional faith will still be able to hold to their convictions, but what the purveyors of public morality are after is a total ban on all public dissent from the gay agenda.

It took precisely one day for this to occur after NBA player Jason Collins came out as gay. Chris Broussard, who covers the NBA for ESPN, speaking on ESPN's Outside the Lines, said "I don't agree with homosexuality." Broussard also said people engaging in "premarital sex or adultery" were "walking in open rebellion to God and Jesus Christ. I think it's a sin, as I think all sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is," Broussard said. ESPN later expressed regret about Broussard's comments calling them a "distraction."   Distraction from what?  A distraction from the one-sided narrative that proclaims any pro-gay revelation as the essence of progress and enlightenment. You see the trend here. Gay person comes out. Media and presidents praise. Any alternative view doesn't fit the culturally imposed proper conclusion. 

 Make no mistake. Free speech is in for a rough ride.

But pay attention as this trend emerges. The promise of "progressive views" is not just the disingenuous claim about "freedom to love."  It is also the license to suppress and dominate institutions, individuals and the very common language we share. Before long, every public institution in America will enforce one view on these matters. No other view will be tolerated. The irony is that they will claim "diversity" as their motive. But when the traditional view slips out, it will be lambasted back into the bushes where they believe it belongs.

American Thinker

Leftist Nazis, the Gaystapo, and Islamofascists

By Jim ONeill

 “One of the ways you control what people think is by creating the illusion that there’s a debate going on, but making sure that that debate stays within very narrow margins. ...you have to make sure that both sides in the debate accept certain assumptions….”—Noam Chomsky

“[Nazism] is simply collectivism freed from all traces of an individualist tradition which might hamper its realization.” —F.A. Hayek (1899-1992) “The Socialist Roots of Naziism"from “The Road to Serfdom”                                   
“All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”—Benito Mussolini, Fascist dictator (1883-1945)

Recently I came across several references to “the far right Nazis,“and “the far right Fascists.“Although this is a subject I have covered before, it will continue to be a topic of great importance for as long as the Left continues to lie about it, and people swallow their lies.

Fascism always has been, and always will be a left-wing ideology—period. That means that the Nazis, being a subset of Fascism, are left-wing as well. I cannot stress enough the importance of understanding this truth.                   
The oft repeated lie that Fascism and the Nazis are right-wing has effectively served three important purposes:

• It has enabled the political left to deny any culpability for the atrocities committed by Hitler.
• It has unfairly and incorrectly shifted the blame for the Holocaust, Nazi eugenics, and other Nazi programs onto the right-wing, i.e. conservatives.
• It has served to muddy the waters to such an extent that true conservative values are tainted by “guilt through association” right from the starting gate.

I am not claiming that Communism and Fascism are the same thing—they are not. They are, however, variations on the same theme—the theme of collectivism. That is, they both promote Big Government at the expense of individual freedom. As such, they both belong on the left side of the political spectrum.

The media has long promulgated the myth of a political spectrum that looks something like this:  

Far-Left (Communists)—————-Moderates—————Far-Right (Fascists).

What is wrong with that picture? What is wrong with it is that the true political spectrum looks like this: At the far left of the political spectrum we have collectivist ideologies such as Communism and Fascism, then moving to the right we find Socialism, then the Moderates. On the right side of the spectrum we move from the Moderates to Conservatives (who favor a Constitutional, or limited, form of government), and finally at the far right we find the true anarchists, who favor no government at all (not to be confused with faux-anarchists, who wish to tear down existing governments so that they can replace them with other forms of government).

In short, the political spectrum moves from Big Government on the far left, to no government on the far right, with the size and influence of government decreasing as one moves to the right, and vice versa. Fascism belongs squarely on the left side of the spectrum.             

Benito Mussolini (who was raised on Marxist philosophy) essentially brought Fascism onto the world stage—so perhaps if I rephrase Mussolini’s quote from above it will make how Fascism views the role of government clearer:

“Everything within the federal government, nothing outside the federal government, nothing against the federal government.”

One notable Fascist element within the left-wing is the “Gaystapo,“or homo-Fascists. Scott Lively, co-author of “The Pink Swastika,“describes the movement thusly:   

Homo-Fascism is a form of extreme left-wing radicalism which attempts to establish rigid totalitarian controls over public discussions and policies addressing sexual morality, and to punish or suppress all disapproval of homosexuality and related sexual behaviors. ... Where pro-family speech and other activities are not yet constrained by law, homo-fascists employ bullying and other intimidation tactics to silence opponents and manipulate policy makers, all while posing as victims.”—Dr. Scott Lively

Although leftists will, as a matter of course, reject whatever Scott Lively may say, they will have a harder time dismissing what self-described “gay left-wing man,“Johann Hari has written regarding homo-Fascists:

“The twisted truth is that gay men have been at the heart of every major fascist movement that ever was—including the gay-gassing, homicidal Third Reich. [Almost] all the most high-profile fascists in Europe in the past 30 years have been gay. It’s time to admit something. Fascism isn’t something that happens out there, a nasty habit acquired by the straight boys. It is—in part, at least—a gay thing, and it’s time for non-fascist gay people to wake up and face the marching music.”—Johann Hari “The Strange, Strange Story of the Gay Fascists”

Let me hasten to add that I am not saying that the entire homosexual community is homo-Fascist. They are nothing of the sort, and I do not wish to imply such—but there most certainly is a militant minority, a sub-set, of homo-Fascists whose presence can be traced back prior to the rise of Hitler, then permeating the Nazi hierarchy, and continuing up to the present day. These über-masculine homosexuals are anything but effeminate.

Further weighing down the left side of the political spectrum are the Islamofascists who are, of course, not right-wing in any way, shape, or form—why do you think the Far-Left finds it so easy to climb into bed with them? This “Odd Couple” marriage-of-convenience between the atheistic Left and the religious collectivism of Islam is bound to end badly for one side or the other (possibly both), but for now it suits both of their anti-freedom agendas to a “T.”                       

I bring all the above to our attention because, as Chomsky implies in the quote at the top of this article, we can argue and debate all day within certain parameters and be doing nothing but spinning our wheels. The debate that “we the people” have been handed to wrangle over, amounts to which form of leftist collectivism we prefer—Socialism, Fascism, or Communism? That is—Left, or more to the Left. “We the people"must refuse to buy into that trap, and resolutely and unabashedly stand up for America; for freedom, for God, and our Constitutional rights.

Death camps, the Gulag, mass-starvation tactics, “killing fields” et al. can all be laid at the feet of left-wing collectivist ideologies—millions upon millions of corpses. Who is left to stand against this tide of Machiavellian duplicity, arrogance, and greed; this tsunami of brutality, barbarism, and death? 

To paraphrase Hillel the Elder: If not us, then who? If not now, then when?

Comments

Born June 4, 1951 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Served in the U.S. Navy from 1970-1974 in both UDT-21 (Underwater Demolition Team) and SEAL Team Two.  Worked as a commercial diver in the waters off of Scotland, India, and the United States.  While attending the University of South Florida as a journalism student in 1998 was presented with the “Carol Burnett/University of Hawaii AEJMC Research in Journalism Ethics Award,” 1st place undergraduate division.  (The annual contest was set up by Carol Burnett with money she won from successfully suing a national newspaper for libel).  Awarded US Army, US Navy, South African, and Russian jump wings.  Graduate of NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School, 1970).  Member of Mensa, and lifetime member of the UDT/SEAL Association.

Jim can be reached at: lausdeo.jim@gmail.com

Canada Free Press

The Bizzaro World of Liberal 'Science'

January 26, 2013
By Tom Trinko

 
 Generally speaking, liberals in America espouse the belief that science is great and that it endorses liberalism. 

They also attempt to cast conservatives as ignorant savages whose beliefs are similar to Cro-Magnon pagans.

The reality is that when it comes to science it is liberals who live in a bizarro world.

Let's look at a few examples.

Science has conclusively demonstrated that at conception a new human being with uniquely human DNA is formed. At conception, the entire biological identity of a person is established -- their gender, their hair color, their skin tone, etc.

Yet liberals constantly refer to the unborn as "blobs of tissue" or "a part of the woman's body". The latter statement is also directly refuted by science.

Modern medical science has discovered that one of the key reasons for the umbilical cord is to ensure that the mother's immune system can't get to her unborn daughter. At the most fundamental biological level the mother's immune system, which decides what is self and what is not self, recognizes a woman's daughter as not self.

But liberals ignore the clear scientific data that human life begins at conception in order to continue to advocate the legalized killing of some humans who are declared, in direct contradiction to the clear scientific evidence, to be not human solely because of their age.

Then there's so called global warming, now renamed to climate change. Irrespective of who is right or wrong about global warming -- the alarmists or the sane people, no bias here -- the way liberals treat the debate shows their complete lack of understanding about how science works.

Science is science because of experiments. If you can't define a repeatable experiment that can either prove or falsify a theory all you have is a theory; and theories are just smart men thinking and we all know how off course smart men can go. As such it doesn't matter how many, or few, scientists believe something is true. All that matters is what does the experimental data show.

We've seen cases where the entire scientific community, except for one dissenter, was wrong. Back in 1912 Alfred Wegener presented his theory of continental drift to the scientific community. Everyone said he was wrong. Fast forward to the 1960s when new data showed he was right. Even though he was one scientist out of thousands from 1912 to the 1960s he was right and they were wrong.

Yet liberals are always declaring that global warming must be real because the "majority" of scientists support it. This is symptomatic of a typical liberal problem; contrary to their belief truth is not defined by a vote, or by who is in power.

Then there's the whole homosexuality thing. To date no study has shown that being gay is genetic; to do that it would be necessary to show that twins separated at birth both tended to turn out homosexual but the tiny fraction of homosexuals in the population makes it impossible to find a statistically viable sample of separated homosexual twins.

On the other hand, studies do show a good correlation between a missing or weak father figure early in a boys life and eventual homosexual behavior. The success of reparative therapy on many homosexuals also indicates that being gay is not like being black; ignoring the fact that one's race is not a moral issue since all races are morally equal -- it is how one behaves that defines one's quality as a person.

Yet in spite of this evidence liberals insist on declaring that God made homosexuals gay. Irrespective of one's moral beliefs (is active homosexuality right or is it wrong), ignoring science and saying that homosexuals are trapped by their biology does a disservice to both gays and public discourse.

Liberals seem to ignore the fact that morality of something is independent of its genetic component. If it were to be found that some gene is common in men who rape women, it would not make rape an okay thing. Hence even if homosexuality is genetic, it can still be morally wrong; after all, genetically speaking, most men have a tendency to be promiscuous but that doesn't mean cheating on your wife is okay.

On a related note remember when liberals were telling us that science predicted a heterosexual AIDS epidemic was just around the corner? Of course, over 30 years later there is no heterosexual AIDS epidemic in America.

Doctors originally called AIDS GRIDS, Gay Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome, because only gays contracted it. Liberal outcries forced the change to the more neutral name. Ignoring the medical data, liberals told Americans that we must spend a fortune to cure AIDS because everyone might soon die of it. Another example of a common liberal meme; pseudoscience reveals a problem so you must spend tons of taxpayer money to fix it.

Liberals also told us that science says that condoms would protect us from AIDS, and pretty much all other STDs. Anyone who took a sex-ed class in pre-AIDS America would be shocked by that, since they were taught that condoms were a joke because they failed so often. Science has shown that condoms will reduce the chance of catching AIDS for each time someone has sex with an infected partner -- assuming they don't fail. But if as a result of falsely believing that condoms are failsafe an individual has sex with an infected partner multiple times he will get AIDS; condoms can only delay the inevitable. Liberals ignore this bit of scientific data because they want consequence-free sex. Sadly, many people have either died or now need lifelong medical treatment because they've contracted AIDS after listening to this bit of liberal pseudoscience.

There are also examples from the "soft sciences" such as sociology. Generally speaking, unlike physics, chemistry, and the other hard sciences, the soft sciences are those in which controlled experiments are either hard or impossible to construct. For example, sociologists can compare drug users to non-drug users and see what factors -- such as parental drug use -- seem correlated with using drugs. But they can't take a drug user back to his childhood and raise him up again with different circumstances in order to see if their theory is right. As such, truth is always less clear in the soft sciences; but that doesn't mean that it is absent.

On the issue of gun control, studies have shown that there is good reason to believe that armed crimes are reduced when the potential victims are armed. This appears rational when one considers that occupied houses are rarely broken into in America, where a reasonable fraction of homeowners have guns, but occupied houses are often burgled in England where the criminals know that the homeowners will be unarmed. Yet liberals continue to insist, in direct contradiction to sociological studies, that guns, not people, are the problem.

Decades of scientific studies have shown that women and men are different. Yet liberals insist on ignoring those results and declaring that women can be just as good as fireman or infantry soldiers as men. Now there are some women who would be better firemen than a lot of out-of-shape guys. The problem arises when liberals insist on defining different job fitness criteria for woman than for men even though those same liberals say women can do the exact same job as men.

Keep this in mind when you hear some liberal invoking science with more fervor than a revivalist minister invoking Jesus. Unlike the minister, who has probably at least studied the Bible, liberals will invoke science they don't understand and declare fiction to be fact so long as it seems to support their political position.

You can find more of tom's rants at his blog.

American Thinker

What Would Che Think of Same-Sex Marriage?

August 6, 2012
By Jack Cashill

About thirty years ago, trying to scratch out a living as a free-lance photo-journalist, I took an assignment from the Kansas City Star Magazine to write about the city's gay church, the Metropolitan Community Church by name.  In the course of my research, I covered a gay wedding, equal parts traditional and transgressive, to wit, a flower girl and a female best man.  (Yes, Virginia, gays had weddings back then and did not even have to pay the IRS a marriage penalty.)

Although I tried to be as objective as possible, the Star spiked my submission for being "too positive."   The reader rightly infers that our friends in the progressive media had yet to discover how much self-love could be culled from supporting so seemingly bourgeois a cause as gay marriage, gay anything for that matter.

Indeed, in 1969, the New York Daily News headlined its coverage of the watershed Stonewall rebellion, "Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees Are Stinging Mad."  Even the usually insurrection-friendly Village Voice dismissed Stonewall as the "Great Faggot Rebellion."V

These responses represented something of a progressive norm.  As testament to the same, Cuban leaders were then attempting to purge their country of homosexuality, which they believed to be as much a by-product of capitalism as homelessness or hedge funds.  Poster boy Che Guevara was particularly keen on "reeducating" gay and effeminate men and dispatched thousands, without charge or trial, to concentration camps.

Cuba's proud persecution of gays notwithstanding, many of the same people who are today hectoring imaginary homophobes were then sneaking off to Cuba -- Poster girl Bernardine Dohrn comes to mind -- and singing the praises of this brutally gay-bashing revolution. 

At some point, however, progressive activists took up the cause of gay rights as part of the larger switch from revolution to "anti-racism." (The how and when of this will make an interesting history.) Given their continuing embrace of Castro's Cuba and their current alliance with radical Islam, these activists would seem to have little long-term interest in the welfare of their new gay friends.  No, what excites them is the opportunity to use gay issues to divide America against itself.

Wittingly or otherwise, the liberal media have rallied to the cause.  As seen on films and on TV and especially on Broadway, gay men -- and it is almost always men -- come across as loving and lovable as puppies. Not surprisingly, their cause attracts the young and the good hearted.  The message that accompanies the imagery, however, has a bite to it, namely that only homophobes could possibly resist gay pleas for "equality." And so one hears today even the nicest of people throwing words like "hate" and "bigot" around blithely unaware such words sound as harsh and insulting as "homo" and "faggot."

For the not so nice, the same sex marriage debate presents the ripest opportunity for empty self-righteousness since the Surge stabilized Iraq.  No one has captured this spirit more convincingly than the now famous (and unemployed) Adam Smith, director and star of the YouTube sensation, "Grown Man Insults Gracious Teen at Tucson Chick-Fil-A."

Smith: You know why I'm getting my free water, right?

Teen:  No.

Smith: Because Chick-Fil-A is a hateful corporation.

Teen: I disagree. We don't treat any of our customers differently . . .

Smith: I don't know how you live with yourself and work here. I don't understand it. This is a horrible corporation with horrible values. You deserve better.

Teen: I hope you have a really nice day, and . . .

Smith: I will. I just did something really good. I feel purposeful. Thank you so much.

Teen: Have a good day. 

Smith:  I'm a nice guy by the way, and I'm totally heterosexual, not a gay [unintelligible] in me, I just can't stand the hate, you know? It's gotta stop, guys. Stand up.

Adolph Eichmann protested that he was a nice guy, too.  Fascists never acknowledge their own fascism.  When the mayors of Boston and Chicago threatened to deny business licenses to Chick-Fil-A, I am sure they thought they were being as "good" and "purposeful" as Adam Smith was when he abused the defenseless girl in the drive-thru window. 

Forgive me for playing the fascism card, but mere weeks after Hitler took power in Germany, he went after Jewish-owned businesses.  Although stopping short of a kiss-in, his SA henchmen blocked the doors to department stores, painted the Star of David on shop windows, and posted signs saying, "Don't Buy From Jews."  The impulse among our own progressive activists, alas, is pretty much the same.

The outcome, however, will be decidedly different.  As seen in the good-spirited Chick-Fil-A counter-protest on August 1, scores of millions of sensible, tax-paying, gun-owning Americans are not prepared to yield on this issue.  They cannot.  Christianity is too central to their identity, and marriage is too central to the idea of Christianity.  No amount of bullying will budge them.

When people like "anti-bullying" activist Dan Savage mockingly compare the Bible's cautions about homosexuality to those about menstruation, masturbation, and eating shellfish, they reveal not only their urge to defame but also their ignorance of the subject.

It was not some Old Testament outlier who defined marriage for Christians, but Jesus himself, and he did so in a loving fashion.  In Mark 10: 7-12, he cites Genesis and introduces an essential new understanding of God's plan for man:

But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.  For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;  And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

Chick-fil-A honcho Dan Cathy captured the spirit of this understanding in his now famous response to a question from the Baptist Press.  "We are very much supportive of the family - the biblical definition of the family unit," said Cathy.  "We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives."  Yes, the "asunder" part matters.

Procreation obviously matters too, but it is not the essence of marriage.  That, according to Jesus, is the spiritual reunification of the two complementary human life forces, male and female.  Gay unions can never do that. Two men or two women can never be "one flesh."  To call their union "marriage" does not expand the meaning of the word.  It erodes that meaning.

Hard core activists know this. They know that serious Bible-believing Christians and Orthodox Jews cannot compromise on marriage.  They know that most Christian churches will never accept gay weddings.  That is exactly why they force the issue.  They want conflict.  They want chaos.  They want to undermine this, the last great bulwark against socialism.

And they don't care what happens to gays in the process.

They never have.

American Thinker