President Says Tornadoes May Be a ‘Blessing in Disguise’

By John Semmens: Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent News

While commiserating with those who lost loved ones in the recent tornadoes that ravaged much ofAlabama, President Obama urged that “we not overlook the positives of this tragic event. Every structure that was damaged needs repairs—that means jobs. Every piece of personal property that was destroyed will need replacing—that means jobs. Every injury that needs tending, every body that needs burying—means jobs. So, in a way, these storms may be a blessing in disguise for the region’s economy.”

“On top of this, there will be ripple effects that will be felt throughout the nation as the spending on repairs and purchases of materials and supplies trickles into the stream of commerce,” the President added and likened the event to “the economic stimulus of World War that brought America out of the Great Depression.”

Austan Goolsbee, the chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers seconded Obama’s remarks and blamed the anemic 1.8% economic growth for the most recent quarter on “insufficient government spending. It is essential that individuals’ and businesses’ caution in the face of economic uncertainty be offset by government’s boldness. Concerns about cost and return-on-investment that intimidate the private sector can be brushed aside by government. If disaster and destruction are what it takes to get Congress to loosen the purse strings then, indeed, these tornadoes are a gift from heaven.”

Birth Certificate “the Last Document” the President Will Be Sharing with the Public

Senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett said that President Obama’s recently unveiled birth certificate “is the last document he will be sharing with the public. It’s bad enough that the ruler of the free world has been mercilessly harassed and humiliated into revealing the most private details of his birth. Demands that he open up other records relating to his academic career will not be honored.”

Claiming victory from his efforts to induce President Obama to disclose his birth certificate, real estate tycoon and potential GOP presidential candidate, Donald Trump has turned his attention to Obama’s college records. “I’ve heard that he was a bad student,” Trump contended. “How does a bad student get into Ivy League schools likeColumbiaand Harvard? Who sponsored him?”

Jarret called Trump’s accusations “nonsense. It is widely acknowledged that Barack Obama is the most brilliant person to have served as aUSPresident. What other world leader has received a Nobel Prize so quickly upon taking office? This alone evidences the esteem in which his intelligence is held around the world. The notion that any college transcripts could plausibly contradict this lofty assessment is ludicrous.”

“Besides, voters don’t care about such ancient history,” Jarret insisted. “If they had wanted to see these college records they would’ve demanded them before they elected him President. That ‘window of opportunity’ is now closed. Voters should be evaluating him on his performance as President. Surely that’s got to be a more relevant consideration at this point in time.”

President Campaigns against a “Shrunken America”

President Obama highlighted what is likely to be one of the major themes of his bid for another term as the nation’s chief executive.

“Republicans are the Party for a ‘shrunkenAmerica,’” the President claimed. “They want to shrink the size of government. They demand that we shrink the amount government is investing in our future. They envision a shrunken federal labor force. They place fiscal restraint ahead of my program of hope and change.”

The President predicted that “voters will see through Republican contentions that there are limits to what can be achieved by an aggressive public sector. We have shown that with the backing of the Federal Reserve there need be no cap on what the government can spend to promote the general welfare. There is no need to hold back out of an irrational fear that there won’t be enough money. We can create as much as we need.”

Swelling the size of government won’t be an isolated goal. Obama also pledged that he will work to “bring down those parasites who are gorging themselves on the nation’s wealth. Too many people are taking more than they deserve from the common pool. Redistributing wealth from those who have more than they need to those who have less than they deserve is a key task for a second term. Government must be big enough and powerful enough to overcome all resistance to achieving this social justice.”

California GOP to Be Put to Test

Steadfast refusal to cooperate with the Democratic majority in their bid to cover the state’s deficit by raising taxes may cost Republican lawmakers their share of the take. California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) is working on a plan that would focus budget cuts on districts represented by legislators who oppose his Party’s tax hike scheme.

The plan to differentiate between districts is the brainchild of State Treasurer Bill Lockyer (D). “Look, if they’re not going to help us extract more money from taxpayers why should they get an equal share of what we do raise?” Lockyer argued. “It’s simple fairness to reward those who participate and penalize those who don’t.”

Senate GOP leader Bob Dutton conceded that “there’s a certain ‘thieves logic’ to the Democrats’ position. Gang members who don’t aid in the heist don’t get a cut of the loot.” Dutton hastened to add that “we’re not entirely against raising taxes. If some spending restraint is thrown into the deal we could go along.”

Dutton admitted he was unsure how fellow Republicans would respond to the threat of facing bigger cuts in their districts. “It’s blatantly political, but the Democrats have the votes to carry it out,” Dutton observed. “Voters complain about taxes, but they also like being on the government’s teat. Riding the train over the cliff into bankruptcy may be the only politically viable option we have.”

Administration Defends Executive Order Implementing Failed Legislation

The White House defended using the President’s authority to issue an Executive Order implementing the so called DISCLOSE Act. The Order would require companies doing business with the federal government to report on any political contributions to independent groups. Congress rejected the DISCLOSE Act last year.

Presidential Press Secretary Jay Carney asserted that “it’s essential that the President know who his enemies are so he can ensure that they are not rewarded with government contracts. He cannot allow his hands to be tied by Congress. Congress harbors many who oppose the President’s agenda and who wish him ill. To let them determine whether his enemies shall be enriched via government work would be political suicide.”

The President’s Executive Order will exempt public employee unions and federal grant recipients because “these groups typically donate to Democrats,” Carney said. “There’s no need to bog down your friends with extra paperwork that saps energy that could go into helping you politically.”

“The possibility that such a reporting requirement could be used to favor government contractors who take a particular stance on a political issue was the reason why Congress refused to pass this legislation,” argued Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky). “It’s revival as an Executive Order is an outrageous abuse of Presidential authority.”  

Kansas Voter ID Law Decried

In an effort to ensure the integrity of elections in the state,Kansasrecently enacted legislation requiring registered voters to show a photo ID at the polls. The law also requires those seeking to register to vote to prove citizenship by providing a birth certificate or another official document that can establish citizenship.

The American Civil Liberties Union denounced the law calling it “a giant leap backward.” “This law will narrow the franchise and reduce voter turnout,” complained ACLU spokesman Bertram Petty. “What masquerades as an even-handed across-the-board requirement has a disproportionate impact on historically marginalized groups. As we have seen from the difficulties encountered by the President himself in securing a copy of his birth certificate, many people will have trouble obtaining a copy of theirs. What if they can’t afford the fee? What if they were born in a place that doesn’t issue birth certificates?”

Petty also declared the requirement for a photo ID “an invasion of privacy. Voters are entitled to a secret ballot. Requiring a photo ID interferes with this right. What if a person doesn’t have a photo ID? What if a person doesn’t wish to be identified? Should this person lose the right to vote because of this?”

“This law will limit voting to those who can easily prove who they are and who don’t mind doing so,” Petty observed. “It’s racist and anti-democratic.”

Arizona Governor Vetoes Health Care Freedom Bill

Governor Jan Brewer vetoed legislation that would have opened Arizonato interstate competition in the provision of health insurance. “This legislation would have exposed Arizonans to a plethora of choices that most are unqualified to assess,” Brewer argued. “Decisions about what coverage to buy and what price to pay would have been left to ill-prepared individuals. Rather than a ‘knee-jerk’ response in favor of ‘freedom’ I determined that it is best that such decisions be handled by experts in the Department of Insurance.”

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The Truth about Church & State

The phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the United States Constitution.
 
Anytime religion is mentioned within the confines of government today people cry, “Separation of Church and State”. Many people think this statement appears in the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution and therefore must be strictly enforced. However, the words “separation”, “church”, and “state” do not even appear in the First Amendment, which reads…
 
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” 
 
The statement about a wall of separation between church and state was made in a letter on January 1, 1802, by Thomas Jefferson to a church (the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut). The congregation heard a widespread rumor that the Congregationalists, another denomination, were to become the national religion. This was very alarming to people who knew about religious persecution in England by the state established church. Jefferson made it clear in his letter to the Danbury Congregation that the separation was to be that government would not establish a national religion or dictate to men how to worship God.Jefferson’s letter from which the phrase “separation of church and state” was written to affirm first amendment rights. Jefferson wrote:
I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.
 
The reason Jefferson chose the expression “separation of church and state” was because he was addressing a Baptist congregation; a denomination of which he was not a member. Jefferson wanted to remove all fears that the state would make dictates to the church. He was establishing common ground with the Baptists by borrowing the words of Roger Williams, one of the Baptist’s own prominent preachers. Williams had said:
 
When they have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the Church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the candlestick, and made his garden a wilderness, as at this day. And that therefore if He will eer please to restore His garden and paradise again, it must of necessity be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world…
The “wall” was understood as one-directional; its purpose was to protect the church from the state. The world was not to corrupt the church, yet the church was free to teach the people Biblical values.
 
The American people knew what would happen if the State established the Church like in England. Even though it was not recent history to them, they knew that England went so far as forbidding worship in private homes and sponsoring all church activities and keeping people under strict dictates. They were forced to go to the state established church and do things that were contrary to their conscience. No other churches were allowed, and mandatory attendance of the established church was compelled under the Conventicle Act of 1665. Failure to comply would result in imprisonment and torture.
 
The people did not want freedom FROM religion, but freedom OF religion.
 
The only real reason to separate the church from the state would be to instill a new morality and establish a new system of beliefs. Our founding fathers were God-fearing men who understood that for a country to stand it must have a solid foundation; the Bible was the source of this foundation. They believed that God’s ways were much higher than Man’s ways and held firmly that the Bible was the absolute standard of truth and used the Bible as a source to form our government.
 
Government was never meant to be our master as in a ruthless monarchy or dictatorship. Instead, it was to be our servant. The founding fathers believed that the people have full power to govern themselves and that people chose to give up some of their rights for the general good and the protection of rights. Each person should be self-governed and this is why virtue is so important. Government was meant to serve the people by protecting their liberty and rights, not serve by an enormous amount of social programs. The authors of the Constitution wanted the government to have as little power as possible so that if authority was misused it would not cause as much damage. Yet they wanted government to have enough authority to protect the rights of the people. The worldview at the time of the founding of our government was a view held by the Bible: that Man’s heart is corrupt and if the opportunity to advance oneself at the expense of another arose, more often than not, we would choose to do so. They firmly believed this and that’s why an enormous effort to set up checks and balances took place. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. They wanted to make certain that no man could take away rights given by God. They also did not set up the government as a true democracy, because they believed, as mentioned earlier, Man tends towards wickedness. Just because the majority wants something does not mean that it should be granted, because the majority could easily err. Government was not to be run by whatever the majority wanted but instead by principle, specifically the principles of the Bible.
 
Our U.S. Constitution was founded on Biblical principles and it was the intention of the authors for this to be a Christian nation. The Constitution had 55 people work upon it, of which 52 were evangelical Christians. We can go back in history and look at what the founding fathers wrote to know where they were getting their ideas. This is exactly what two university professors did.Donald Lutz and Charles Hyneman reviewed an estimated 15,000 items with explicit political content printed between 1760 and 1805 and from these items they identified 3,154 references to other sources. The source they most often quoted was the Bible, accounting for 34% of all citations. Sixty percent of all quotes came from men who used the Bible to form their conclusions.That means that 94% of all quotes by the founding fathers were based on the Bible. The founding fathers took ideas from the Bible and incorporated them into our government.

If it was their intention to separate the state and church they would never have taken principles from the Bible and put them into our government. An example of an idea taken from the Bible and then incorporated into our government is found in Isaiah 33:22 which says, “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king…” The founding fathers took this scripture and made three major branches in our government: judicial, legislative, and executive. As mentioned earlier, the founding fathers strongly believed that Man was by nature corrupt and therefore it was necessary to separate the powers of the government. For instance, the President has the power to execute laws but not make them, and Congress has the power to make laws but not to judge the people. The simple principle of checks and balances came from the Bible to protect people from tyranny. The President of the United States is free to influence Congress, although he can not exercise authority over it because they are separated. Since this is true, why should the church not be allowed to influence the state?
 
People have read too much into the phrase “separation of church and state”, which is to be a separation of civil authority from ecclesiastical authority, not moral values. Congress has passed laws that it is illegal to murder and steal, which is the legislation of morality. These standards of morality are found in the Bible. Should we remove them from law because the church should be separated from the state?
 
America’s founding fathers who formed the government also formed the educational system of the day. John Witherspoon did not attend the Constitutional Convention although he was President of New Jersey College in 1768 (known as Princeton since 1896) and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. His influence on the Constitution was far ranging in that he taught nine of fifty-five original delegates. He fought firmly for religious freedom and said…
God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty may be inseparable and that unjust attempts to destroy the one may in the issue tend to the support and establishment of both.
In the 1947 Everson case, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black cited no precedent while running with an ACLU amicus brief to declare “separation of church and state.” He completely misconstrued the meaning of the phrase, which does not appear in law or Constitution. By his own personal bias, Black parroted the atheist line promoted by the ACLU. Since then, media, the courts and educators have incorrectly propagated this myth — at the expense of history, intellectual honesty and freedom.In October 1961 the Supreme Court of the United States removed prayer from schools in a case called Engel v. Vitale. The case said that because the U.S. Constitution prohibits any law respecting an establishment of religion officials of public schools may not compose public prayer even if the prayer is denominationally neutral, and that pupils may choose to remain silent or be excused while the prayer is being recited.
 
For 185 years prayer was allowed in public and the Constitutional Convention itself was opened with prayer. If the founding fathers didn’t want prayer in government why did they pray publicly in official meetings? It is sometimes said that it is permissible to pray in school as long as it is silent. Although, In Omaha, Nebraska, 10-year old James Gierke was prohibited from reading his Bible silently during free time… the boy was forbidden by his teacher to open his Bible at school and was told doing so was against the law.The U.S. Supreme Court with no precedent in any court history said prayer will be removed from school. Yet the Supreme Court in January, 1844 in a case named Vidal v. Girard’s Executors, a school was to be built in which no ecclesiastic, missionary, or minister of any sect whatsoever was to be allowed to even step on the property of the school. They argued over whether a layman could teach or not, but they agreed that, “…there is an obligation to teach what the Bible alone can teach, viz. a pure system of morality.” This has been the precedent throughout 185 years. Although this case is from 1844, it illustrates the point. The prayer in question was not even lengthy or denominationally geared. It was this: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country.”
 
What price have we paid by removing this simple acknowledgment of God’s protecting hand in our lives? Birth rates for unwed girls from 15-19; sexually transmitted diseases among 10-14 year olds; pre-marital sex increased; violent crime; adolescent homicide have all risen considerably since 1961 — even after taking into account population growth. The Bible, before 1961, was used extensively in curriculum. After the Bible was removed, scholastic aptitude test scores dropped considerably.

Radical Environmentalism & The Green Religion

What happened at the 2010 Copenhagen Climate Summit? Practically nothing. Copenhagen had long been hyped as the conference where a new set of stringent, binding, verifiable, and internationally enforceable greenhouse gas emissions targets were to be agreed upon for the decades ahead. The targets in the existing 1997 Kyoto Protocol–generally a 5 percent reduction below 1990 emissions levels for developed countries–are scheduled to expire in 2012. And in any event, global warming activists considered the Kyoto Protocol too weak to save the planet.
Ben Lieberman, “The Copenhagen Conference: A Setback for Bad Climate Policy in 2010,” Special Report, The Heritage Foundation, Jan. 2010.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was forced to disavow its claim that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035 and acknowledge that it had no scientific basis.
Brett Schaeffer and Baker Spring, “National Security Goes Green,” National Review, Feb. 11, 2010.

The Times Online reported that Prof. Chris Field, the new lead author of the IPCC’s climate-impacts team, could find nothing in the IPCC report to support its claim that ”global warming could cut rain-fed north African crop production by up to 50% by 2020, a remarkably short time for such a dramatic change.” The QDR followed the IPCC on this error, too, claiming that climate change will impact food security.
Brett Schaeffer and Baker Spring, “National Security Goes Green,” National Review, Feb. 11, 2010.

More than 31,000 scientists signed a petition rejecting the theory of human-caused global warming. Numerous experts now claim the Earth is cooling.

Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere. To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data. In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.
“No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds,” Science Daily, Dec. 31, 2009; The research is published in Geophysical Research Letters

QUOTES

“One of the elephants in the room here in Copenhagen has been Climategate – the release of emails and other documents evidencing gross misconduct amongst some of the key scientists involved in the main United Nations scientific report that was to be relied upon here. The fact that temperatures have been flat for over a decade only adds to the justifiably growing public skepticism whether global warming really is a crisis.”
“Live at Copenhagen: Try Again in 2010 – The Final Slogan from Copenhagen?” The Heritage Foundation, Dec. 18, 2009

“It is hard to do any more wrong by the American people than cap and trade. Whether done by domestic legislation or international treaty, significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions (like the 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050 in the House Waxman Markey bill which the Obama administration had hoped to match at Copenhagen or get done at a subsequent UN global warming treaty conference) would raise gasoline prices by 58 percent by 2035, electric rates by 90 percent, impose nearly $3,000 in total annual costs on a household of 4, and destroy over one million jobs.”
Steven Groves and Ben Lieberman, “How to Make a Bad Climate Deal Worse,” The Heritage Foundation, Dec. 17, 2009

“But Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is certainly trying to make a bad deal worse by pledging America’s support for a massive foreign aid package in the name of helping developing nations address global warming. … By making such pledges in Denmark, the Obama administration is making the same mistake Bill Clinton and Al Gore did in 1997 – promising abroad what it can’t deliver at home. Gore signed the Kyoto Protocol, the existing global warming treaty whose expiring provisions were supposed to be extended at Copenhagen, knowing full well that the Senate would never ratify it. Now, this administration is making foreign aid promises in Copenhagen that it can’t deliver in Washington. It is hard to imagine the Congress signing off on such a massive aid package, especially given the still lingering recession and growing public doubts about global warming.”
Steven Groves and Ben Lieberman, “How to Make a Bad Climate Deal Worse,” The Heritage Foundation, Dec. 17, 2009

“Unscientific.”
Professor Richard Lindzen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, speaking of claims of “global warming”

“The assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade in a millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year in a millennium cannot be supported. The paucity of data in the more remote past makes the hottest-in-a-millennium claims essentially unverifiable.”
Dr. Edward Wegman, professor at the center for Computational Statistics, George Mason University, and chair of the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Applied Theoretical Statistics

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is not a scientific institution: it’s a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It’s neither a forum of neutral nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and one-sided argument.”
Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, and economist, commenting on the IPCC’s biases toward “global warming”

“After carefully digging into the evidence, I realized that things are far more complicated than the story told to us by many climate scientists or the stories regurgitated by the media. Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th century global warming.”
Dr. Nit Shariv, astrophysicist and associate professor at Hebrew University

“All four agencies that track the Earth’s temperature — the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc. in California — report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930.”
Phil Chapman, geophysicist, astronautical engineer, and NASA astronaut

“Since 2003, however, when the statistical methods used to create the ‘hockey stick’ were first exposed as fundamentally flawed by an expert Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre, an increasingly heated battle has been raging between Mann’s supporters, calling themselves ‘the Hockey Team,’ and McIntyre and his own allies, as they have ever more devastatingly called into question the entire statistical basis on which the IPCC and CRU construct their case.”
Christopher Booker, “Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation,” London Telegraph, Nov. 28, 2009.

“There are three threads in particular in the leaked documents which have sent a shock wave through informed observers across the world. Perhaps the most obvious, as lucidly put together by Willis Eschenbach (see McIntyre’s blog Climate Audit and Anthony Watt’s blog Watts Up With That), is the highly disturbing series of emails which show how Dr Jones and his colleagues have for years been discussing the devious tactics whereby they could avoid releasing their data to outsiders under freedom of information laws. They have come up with every possible excuse for concealing the background data on which their findings and temperature records were based. This in itself has become a major scandal, not least Dr Jones’s refusal to release the basic data from which the CRU derives its hugely influential temperature record, which culminated last summer in his startling claim that much of the data from all over the world had simply got “lost”. Most incriminating of all are the emails in which scientists are advised to delete large chunks of data, which, when this is done after receipt of a freedom of information request, is a criminal offence.”
Christopher Booker, “Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation,” London Telegraph, Nov. 28, 2009.

“They have come up with every possible excuse for concealing the background data on which their findings and temperature records were based. This in itself has become a major scandal, not least Dr Jones’s refusal to release the basic data from which the CRU derives its hugely influential temperature record, which culminated last summer in his startling claim that much of the data from all over the world had simply got “lost”. Most incriminating of all are the emails in which scientists are advised to delete large chunks of data, which, when this is done after receipt of a freedom of information request, is a criminal offence. But the question which inevitably arises from this systematic refusal to release their data is – what is it that these scientists seem so anxious to hide? The second and most shocking revelation of the leaked documents is how they show the scientists trying to manipulate data through their tortuous computer programmes, always to point in only the one desired direction – to lower past temperatures and to “adjust” recent temperatures upwards, in order to convey the impression of an accelerated warming. This comes up so often (not least in the documents relating to computer data in the Harry Read Me file) that it becomes the most disturbing single element of the entire story. This is what Mr McIntyre caught Dr Hansen doing with his GISS temperature record last year (after which Hansen was forced to revise his record), and two further shocking examples have now come to light from Australia and New Zealand.”
Christopher Booker, “Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation,” London Telegraph, Nov. 28, 2009.

“The third shocking revelation of these documents is the ruthless way in which these academics have been determined to silence any expert questioning of the findings they have arrived at by such dubious methods – not just by refusing to disclose their basic data but by discrediting and freezing out any scientific journal which dares to publish their critics’ work. It seems they are prepared to stop at nothing to stifle scientific debate in this way, not least by ensuring that no dissenting research should find its way into the pages of IPCC reports.”
Christopher Booker, “Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation,” London Telegraph, Nov. 28, 2009.

“A group called GenderCC (Women for Climate Justice) rejects using distractions like “numbers” and “target dates” to track and fight climate change, and doesn’t appear very interested in the environment itself. Instead, it hopes to implement “gender-mainstreaming” and ensure that the U.N. guarantees the fullest participation of “feminist scientists” at every level.”
Joseph Abrams, “Copenhagen ‘Cicus’ Turning into Feel-Good Jamboree, Critics Say,” Fox News, Dec. 8, 2009.

Progressivism: The Threat to American Liberty

“Recently in Port Chester, N.Y., a federal judge made a mockery of the concept of one man, one vote. Apparently the magistrate felt that Hispanics in Port Chester needed help to elect someone with whom they can identify along racial lines. So, to ensure the election of an Hispanic to the village Board of Trustees, the judge created a system of cumulative voting. Each voter was given six votes, and the explicit hope was that Hispanics would give all their votes to Hispanic candidates, voting on the basis of race rather than policy. Now we hear this may well become a precedent that the federal government will use to ensure diversity elsewhere.”
Victor Davis Hanson, “The Law? How Quaint,” National Review Online, June 25, 2010.

“Federal officials determine a supposed good and then find the necessary way to achieve it. The law be damned. ‘Diversity,’ unions, environmentalism — any of these anointed causes trumps the staid idea of simply following the letter of the law.”
Victor Davis Hanson, “The Law? How Quaint,” National Review Online, June 25, 2010.

“We must demand that the individual shall be willing to lose the sense of personal achievement and shall be content to realize his activity only in connection to the activity of the many.”
President Woodrow Wilson.

“It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance to success, too. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s comment to Joe the plumber, 2008.
“We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably attained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.”
President Theodore Roosevelt speech, “The New Nationalism.”

Personal property is “subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.”
President Theodore Roosevelt speech, “The New Nationalism.”

‘For it is very clear that in fundamental theory socialism and democracy are almost if not quite one and the same. They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of the community to determine its own destiny and that of its members. Men as communities are supreme over men as individuals. … Democracy is bound by no principle of its own nature to say itself nay as to the exercise of any power. … The difference between democracy and socialism is not an essential difference, but only a practical difference–is a difference of organization and policy, not a difference of primary motive.”
President Woodrow Wilson.
“It has become entirely clear that we must have government supervision of the capitalization, not only of public-service corporations, including, particularly, railways, but of all corporations doing an interstate business.”
President Theodore Roosevelt speech, “The New Nationalism.”

FACTS
Progressives view the U.S. Constitution as a “living, breathing document” that changes with time and circumstances. Thus you see the Roe v. Wade decision and other examples of judicial activism in which judges write law from the bench, as well as the “empathy” approach of President Barack Obama and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Progressives prefer international law, also called transnational law, as manifested in the United Nations and anti-family/anti-life/anti-marriage treaties such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Harold Koh, legal advisor for Obama’s State Department, is a staunch advocate of this threat to American sovereignty.
One of the hallmarks of progressivism is the redistribution of wealth. Your money and your property are not yours if the state determines there is a better use for it.
President Theodore Roosevelt endorsed a progressive income tax.
President Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to call for national health insurance.
Government control of the public schools is an example of progressive government knowing better than parents the “needs” of children. The principles of freedom and liberty and the Founding Fathers’ ideals have been whitewashed from public school curriculum.
In the 1970s, Progressives bemoaned “global cooling.” Today it’s “global warming.”
City officials in New Orleans confiscated guns from citizens — who had legally purchased firearms — prior to the arrival of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After the hurricane, these citizens had to apply for the return of their guns. The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives Americans the right to bear arms.

READING:

Dr. Fred Schwartz and Dr. David Noebel, “You Can Still Trust Communists to be Communists”

Jonah Goldberg, “Liberal Fascism”

‘Social Justice’

The term “social justice” is a favorite of leftists and left-leaning churches. Many do not understand the threat it poses to America’s history and heritage of free enterprise and liberty.

QUOTE

“The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: abolition of private property.”
Karl Marx

DEFINED

The concept of “social justice” is the direct opposite of capitalism and it’s the abolition of privacy. It’s a repudiation of property rights.

Karl Marx and his latter day saints – the ACLU among them – preach that the “haves” do not deserve what they have and that the “have nots” are an underprivileged class which has been denied its just due by an unjust society. This means total domination by the state. Everything is socialized … and what is socialized is controlled by the state. This is totalitarianism – whose end result is actually social injustice.

The only practical solution is to police the thought and action of every individual. So then, does what is described below sound anything like what is happening in the opening months of 2009, when the president is nationalizing banks and industry, dictating public debate on religion, reigning in right of conscience for health care workers, releasing terrorists from prison, advocating for government control of the radio airwaves, plowing U.S. sovereignty asunder?

“[T]he People’s State of Marx … will not content itself with administering and governing the masses politically, as all governments do today. It will also administer the masses economically, concentrating in the hands of the State the production and division of wealth, the cultivation of land, the establishment and development of factories, the organization and direction of commerce, and finally the application of capital to production by the only banker — the State.

This statement should resonate with what we’re seeing now. But this was written way back in 1872 by Michael Bakunin.

Socialism, Marx said, advocates the abolition of private property to bring about the return of man himself as a social, or authentic human being. The private status of property stands in opposition to the social nature of man. If anything that’s private denies man’s social nature, then so does everything private. The negating of all that is private, whether work, worship or family, is the social affirmation of the socialist state.

In the American economy, “social justice” is inherent in such policies as progressive taxation and income redistribution; affirmative action, governmentcontrol of what information is allowed by political candidates (a surefire advantage for incumbents), and the reparations movement. Economic equality is manufactured as a constitutional right. These policies emanate from the thought that it is society bearing the brunt of responsibility – rather than the individual who breaks the law. So the question thus becomes how best to hold society accountable for its detestable “actions”?

“Hate crimes” laws, taking control of the media, the movement to make political prisoners of the past administration, criminalizing thought, gun control, demonizing political opponents, breaking down the natural family, curtailing parental rights, and more.

State coercion is a means to no end but its own. Far from expanding equality from the political to the economic realm, the pursuit of “social justice” serves only to contract it within both. There will never be any kind of equality — or real justice — as long as a socialist elite stands behind the trigger while the rest of us kneel before the barrel.

As history threatens to replay an old tragedy in a new theater, an oligarchy of not-to-be-equalized equalizers invoke the phrase “social justice” to bring about a tyranny by the minority and totalitarianism. The apologists can never explain away the inevitable authoritarian brutality of “social justice” that resulted in mass murder in communist nations. Our shores still bear the footprints of those tired, huddled masses that fled those evil regimes and sought the safe harbor of liberty in America.

The Truth about Homosexuality

QUOTABLE

“Over two decades of direct exposure to these stressful experiences caused me insecurity, depression, suicidal thoughts, dread, anxiousness, low self-esteem, sleeplessness and sexuality confusion. My conscience and innocence were seriously damaged. I witnessed that every other family member suffered severely as well.”
Dawn Stefanowicz, daughter of a father who engaged in homosexual behavior and died of AIDS


New Information

Approximately one in five (19 percent) men who have sex with men (MSM) in a study of 21 major U.S. cities is infected with HIV, and nearly half (44 percent) of those men are unaware of their infection, according to a new analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  In the study, young MSM and MSM of color were least likely to know their HIV status.  The findings were published in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
“1 in 5 men who have sex with men in 21 U.S. cities has HIV; nearly half unaware,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Press Release, Sept. 23, 2010.

Genetics & Homosexuality

Masters and Johnson reported that homosexuality is entirely a learned phenomenon without any physiological basis. They propose that persons are born with no particular predisposition toward either homosexuality or heterosexuality but simply with an undirected sexual potential, which then becomes channeled by various learning experiences in either a homosexual or a heterosexual direction.
William Masters and Virginia Johnson, “Homosexuality in Perspective,” (Little, Brown and Co.: Boston, 1979); Cited by: A. P. Bell, M. S. Weinberg, and S. K. Hammersmith, Sexual Preference (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981).

The Human Genome Project identified all the genes in human DNA and found no homosexual gene. Evan Balaban, a neurobiologist at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, noted that the search for the biological underpinnings of complex human traits has a sorry history. In recent years, researchers and the media have proclaimed the “discovery” of genes linked to alcoholism and mental illness as well as to homosexuality. None of the claims has been confirmed (as quoted in Horgan, 1995). It is not scientifically accurate to refer to a “gay gene” as the causative agent in homosexuality.
 
Dr. Brad Harrub, Dr. Bert Thompson and Dr. Dave Miller, “A Scientific Examination of Homosexuality and the ‘Gay Gene,'” The True Origin Archive, (2003).

Dr. Simon LeVay’s research (1991) centered on finding the difference between homosexual and heterosexual brains. The brains studied were from 41 cadavers; 26 of these men who had died from AIDS related diseases (19 homosexual men, six heterosexual men and one bisexual man). LeVay acknowledged that his results could be considered speculative and that sexual orientation may not be related to the difference in the size of the anterior hypothalamus of the cadavers.
Simon LeVay, “A Difference in Hypothalamic Structure Between Heterosexual and Homosexual Men,” Science 253 (1991): 1,034-1036. LeVay said: “My study doesn’t actually even address whether one is ’born that way.’ I didn’t look at these people’s brains before they were born.” He also admitted that he co-founded the Gay and Lesbian Education organization in order to bring about change. Karen Oslund interview with Simon LeVay, “Of Brain Structures and Sexual Politics,”Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, (1997, Winter), p. 21.

Dr. Bill Byne, a neuroanatomist and psychiatrist on the faculty at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, was unable to verify LeVay’s research. LeVay said he was disappointed at the lack of a resounding confirmation of a “gay gene.”

Keay Davidson, “No Easy Link Between Genes, Behavior DNA Studies Dash Quest for Easy Answers Genome’s link to behavior hard to prove,” San Francisco Chronicle, (2001, 13 February).

Dr. Simon LeVay said: “It’s important to stress what I didn’t find. I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn’t show that gay men are born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate
a gay center in the brain.” Furthermore, Hamer said, “Homosexuality is not purely genetic … environmental factors play a role. There is not a single master gene that makes people gay.”
Dean Byrd, Shirley Cox and Jeffrey Robinson, “Homosexuality: The Innate-Immutability Argument Finds No Basis in Science,” The Salt LakeTribune, (2001, 27 May). Dr. Brad Harrub, Dr. Bert Thompson and Dr. Dave Miller, A Scientific Examination of Homosexuality and the “Gay Gene,” The True Origin Archive, (2003).

No single gene determines a particular behavior.
Joseph McInerney and Mark Rothstein, “What is Behavioral Genetics?”, Human Genome Project Information.

Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse said: “The frequent claim by ‘gay’ activists that it is impossible for homosexuals to change their orientation is categorically untrue.” The sad reality is that such claims only diminish the desire of persons to seek help in leaving homosexual behavior. Scientific data simply does not support the innate immutability claim.”

James V. Heidinger II, “Thinking Clearly About Homosexuality,” Good News.

In 1993, Dr. Dean Hamer reported, “We have now produced evidence that one form of male homosexuality is preferentially transmitted through the maternal side and is genetically linked to chromosomal region Xq28. “…it appears that Xq28 contains a gene that contributes to homosexual orientation in males,” Hamer concluded from his study. He said his results were highly significant statistically.
Dean H. Hamer et al., “A Linkage Between DNA Markers on the X Chromosome and Male Sexual Orientation,” Science 261 (1993): 325. George Rice and his colleagues from Canada examined Hamer’s “gene Xq28” and observed in the journal Science: “These results do not support an X-linked gene underlying male homosexuality.” Other researchers refuted Hamer as well. Wickelgren, Ingrid (1999), “Discovery of ‘Gay Gene’ Questioned,” Science, 284:571, April 23. Rice, George, Carol Anderson, Neil Risch, and George Ebers (1999), “Male Homosexuality: Absence of Linkage to Microsatellite Markers at Xq28,” Science, 284:665-667, April 23. Byrd, A. Dean, Shirley E. Cox, and Jeffrey W. Robinson (2001), “Homosexuality: The Innate-Immutability Argument Finds No Basis in Science,” The Salt Lake Tribune, (2001, 27 May).

Homosexuality is probably caused by multiple factors. Genetic and pre-natal hormonal influences may predispose or place people at greater risk for developing homosexual attractions. However, current research indicates that post-natal environmental influences must also be present in order for the homosexual attractions to be manifested. Some environmental and psychological factors that may play a causal role in the development of homosexuality include: (1) cross-gender, effeminate behavior in childhood, (2) gender-identity deficits, (3) hostile, detached, or absent fathers (which leads to “defensive detachment” from the father and other males), and (4) overly close, controlling or dominating mothers.
P. Scott Richards, “The Treatment of Homosexuality: Some Historical, Contemporary, and Personal Perspectives,” AMCAP Journal 19, 1 (1993): 36.

“The removal of homosexuality from the DSM 2 (American Psychiatric Association) was all the more remarkable when one considers that it involved the out-of-hand and peremptory disregard and dismissal not only of hundreds of psychiatric and psychoanalytic research papers and reports but also of a number of other serious studies by groups
of psychologists, psychiatrists, and educators over the past 70 years. It was a disheartening attack upon psychiatric research and a blow to many homosexuals who looked to psychiatry for more help, not less.”
P. Scott Richards, “The Treatment of Homosexuality: Some Historical, Contemporary, and Personal Perspectives,” Association of Mormon Counselors And Pyschotherapists Journal 19, 1 (1993).

When the claims of a “gay gene” were refuted scientifically, mainstream publications buried the story. The New York Times ran the story on page 19: “Underscoring the difficulty scientists face in finding genes that underlie complex human behaviors, a team of researchers are reporting Friday that they have been unable to confirm a widely publicized study linking male homosexuality to a small region of one chromosome.”

Ericka Goode, “Study Questions Gene Influence on Male Homosexuality,” The New York Times (1999, 23 April).

Immediately after Dean Hamer’s research was published, however, a media explosion ensued. USA Today’s Kim Painter was the first to report on the newly published data, in 1993: “A predisposition for homosexuality appears to be written into the very genes of some men. And they get the key genes from their mothers. … The possibility of obtaining our findings by chance is extremely unlikely’ — below 1 percent, says lead author Dean Hamer.” The article never mentions the problems Hamer raised about the study. Other newspapers followed suit and, it seems, the conclusions made on just this one experiment were regarded as scientific fact. An article in Time magazine soon followed, reporting that the studies of family trees and DNA make the case for genetics as the cause of male homosexuality.

W.A.Henry, “The Gay Gene: Assertions, Retractions, and Controversy,” TIME, (1993).

Homosexual Behavior

A U.S. Justice Department study found an epidemic of violence between homosexuals: an annual average of 13,740 male victims of violence by homosexual partners and 16,900 victims by lesbian partners. Callie Maire Rennison, “Intimate Partner violence and Age of Victim, 1993-99,” Bureau of Justice Statistics: Special Report, (2001, October). By contrast, the 2005 statistics for hate crimes based on sexual orientation totaled 1,213 victims.
“Hate Crime Statistics 2005, Incidents, Offenses, Victims, and Known Offenders by Bias Motivation,” Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Lesbian relationships were significantly more violent than male homosexual relationships. Lie and Gentlewarrior (1991) surveyed 1,099 lesbians and found that 52 percent said they had used violence against their female partner and 30 percent said they had used violence against a nonviolent female partner. Lie, Schilit, Bush, Montague and Reyes (1991) documented rates of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse that were significantly higher in their prior lesbian relationships than in their prior heterosexual relationships: 56.8 percent had been sexually victimized by a female, 45 percent had experienced physical aggression and 64.5 percent experienced physical/emotional aggression. Reports of violence victimization by men were all lower than reports of violence victimization in prior relationships with women (41.9 percent).
Donald G. Dutton, “Patriarchy and Wife Assault: The Ecological Fallacy,” Violence and Victims 9(2) (1994): 174.

During the heyday of the 1970s, 15,000 men visited the baths every weekend in San Francisco, and probably more frequently in New York. The men in these core groups could easily have had sex with several partners per visit, making it possible to have had more than a thousand sex partners in a year. It was among this core that AIDS first appeared.

G. Rotello, “Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men,” (New York: Dutton, 1997); 62.

Studies on the size of homosexual populations vary, but the numbers are generally low, as low as 1 to 3 percent of populations around the world.

Milton Diamond, “Homosexuality and Bisexuality in Different Populations,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 22 (1993): 300. J. Gordon Muir, “Homosexuals and the Ten percent Fallacy,” Wall Street Journal, (1994, 31 March), A14.

A coalition of 31 leading pro-homosexual activist groups submitted a friend of the court brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the Lawrence v. Texas case in 2003, claiming that 2.8 percent of men and 1.4 percent of women are homosexual.

“Homosexual Groups Back Off From “10 Percent” Myth, but Still Exaggerate Numbers,” Culture Facts, (2003, 4 April).

In a sample of 350 lesbians, 78.2 percent had been in a prior relationship with a man.

Donald G. Dutton, “Patriarchy and Wife Assault: The Ecological Fallacy,” Violence and Victims 9, 2 (1994): 174.

A national survey of lesbians published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology found that 75 percent of the nearly 2,000 respondents had pursued psychological counseling of some kind—many for treatment of long-term depression or sadness.

Dr. Tim Dailey, “Dark Obsession: The Tragedy and Threat of the Homosexual Lifestyle,” (Broadman & Holman: Nashville, Tennessee): 92.

According to a study in the Netherlands where homosexuality has been accepted and mainstreamed for years, homosexual men scored significantly lower on five out of eight dimensions, indicating a lower level quality of life. Compared to heterosexual men, homosexual men evaluated their general level of health and their mental health as less positive, reported that emotional problems more often interfered with work or other daily activities, that physical health or emotional problems interfered with normal social activities, and felt less energetic.
Theo G.M. Sandforte et al., “Same-Sex Sexual Behavior and Psychiatric Disorders: Findings from the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence,” Archives of General Psychiatry 58(10 (2001): 85-91.

Psychological health problems including multiple drug use, partner violence, history of childhood sexual abuse, and depression interface to sharply increase high-risk sexual behavior and HIV infection rates among homosexualand bisexual men in the U.S.

L. Linley, R. Stall, and G. Mansergh, “New CDC Studies Shed Light on Facts Underlying High HIV Infection Rates Among Gay and Bisexual Men,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (2002, 9 July).

Homosexuals & Hate Crimes

The 2000 FBI Hate Crimes Report lists 8,063 “bias motivated” incidents. Of these, 1,299 were crimes based on sexual orientation. Most of these offenses were low-level – about a third of these incidents fell into the nondescript category of “intimidation.” In 2005, there were 7,163 “bias motivated hate crimes” and 1,017 (13.8 percent) were attributed to sexual orientation (28 percent qualified as “intimidation”; 30 percent occurred in the victims’ homes).
“Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Hate Crimes Statistics 2000, Hate Crimes Statistics 2005,” Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In 2004, one murder in the United States resulted from a bias against homosexuals – out of an estimated 16,692 murders.

“Hate Crime Statistics – 2004, Section I”, Department of Justice: Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Health Risks

Centers for Disease Control epidemiologist Laurie Linley and colleagues found the rate of new HIV infections for male homosexuals to be nine times higher than for women and heterosexual men.
L. Linley, R. Stall, and G. Mansergh, “New CDC Studies Shed Light on Facts Underlying High HIV Infection Rates Among Gay and Bisexual Men,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (2002, 9 July).

Homosexual sex is associated with deadly diseases such as HIV, AIDS, anal cancer, other sexually transmitted diseases, increased mental
illness and a reduced life span of eight to 20 years.
“Do Domestic Partner Benefits Make Good Business Sense?” Corporate Resource Council, (2002).

Epidemiologists estimate that 30 percent of all homosexual males will
be HIV-positive or dead of AIDS by the time they are 30. The likelihood of a heterosexual man or woman being infected with AIDS is 7 in 10,000. The incidence of AIDS among 20-30-year-old men is roughly 430 times greater than among the heterosexual population at large.
Jeffery Satinover, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth,(Grand Rapids: Baker Books,1996): 57.

HIV/AIDS is rampant in the homosexual community. Epidemiologists estimate that 30 percent of homosexually-active men will be HIV positive or dead of AIDS by the time they are 30.
E. Goldman, “Psychological Factors Generate HIV Resurgence in Young Gay Men,” Clinical Psychiatry News, (1994, October). Cited by: Joseph Nicolosi, Am I Gay, or Am I Straight? The Massachusetts News.

A report from the Centers for Disease Control showed that more than three-quarters of the homosexual men studied were unaware they were carrying HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Ninety percent of homosexual black men who have the virus did not know they had the virus until researchers told them. Through its National HIV Behavioral Surveillance system, CDC found that 25 percent of the MSM surveyed were infected with HIV and 48 percent of those infected were unaware of their infections.

HIV/AIDS among Men Who Have Sex with Men, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, July 2006.

During fiscal year 2000, the United States spent $10.8 billion on HIV/AIDS patient care. That’s $1,359 per month per HIV/AIDS patient.
“Summary Fact Sheet on HIV/AIDS; The HIV/AIDS Epidemic: 20 years in the U.S.,” The White House.

The median age of death for those who regularly engage in homosexual behavior leaned in the direction of less than 50. The data suggest a 20- to 30-year decrease in lifespan among homosexuals.
Paul Cameron, Kirk Cameron, and William L. Playfair, “Does Homosexual Activity Shorten Life?” Psychological Reports 83 (1998): 847-866.

Dr. Joel Palefsky, a leading expert on anal cancer, reports the incidence of anal cancer among homosexuals is 35 times greater than that of the general population. This rate doubles for those who are HIV positive.

Dr. Tim Dailey, “Dark Obsession: The Tragedy and Threat of the Homosexual Lifestyle,” (Broadman & Holman: Nashville, Tennessee): 88.

Risky Behavior

Clinicians estimated an incidence rate of substance abuse among homosexuals to range from 28-35 percent. This estimate contrasts with an incidence of 10-12 percent in the general population.
J. H. Lowinson et al., “Substance Abuse: A Comprehensive Textbook,” (Baltimore, MD: Williams & Wilkins, 1997).

Research confirms that homosexuals molest children at rates vastly higher than heterosexuals.
W. Erickson et al., “Behavior Patterns of Child Molesters,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 17 (1988): 83

Pedophilia and homosexuality tend to occur in the same men because these individuals are generally less resistant to factors that divert psychosexual development from the species-typical outcome of sexual interest in receptive, physically mature females.

R. Blanchard et al., “Fraternal Order and Sexual Orientation in Pedophiles,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 29 (2000): 464. K. Freund and R. Watson, “The Proportions of Heterosexual and Homosexual Pedophiles Among Sex Offenders Against Children: An Exploratory Study,” 18 Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy 34 (1992): 34-43.

A study of 229 convicted child molesters found that “86 percent of offenders against males described themselves as homosexual or bisexual.”
W. Erickson, “Behavior Patterns of Child Molesters,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 17 (1988): 83.

A study found that 46 percent of homosexual men and 22 percent of homosexual women reported having been molested by a person of the same gender. This contrasts to only seven percent of heterosexual men and one percent of heterosexual women reporting having been molested by a person of the same gender.”

Marie, E. Tomeo et al., “Comparative Data of Childhood and Adolescence Molestation in Heterosexual and Homosexual Persons,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 30 (2001): 539.

“Individuals from 1 percent to 3 percent of the population that are sexually attracted to the same sex are committing up to one-third of the sex crimes against children.”

Timothy Dailey, “Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse,” Family Research Council.

Homosexual Parenting & Homosexual Adoption

The largest comprehensive comparative study was based upon teacher-reports as well as interviews with the students and their parents. 58 elementary school children being raised by homosexual couples were closely matched (by age, sex, grade in school, and social class) with 58 children of cohabiting heterosexual parents, and 58 children of married parents. Children with married parents did best at math and language skills, second-best in social studies, were most active in sports, experienced the highest levels of parental involvement at school and at home (their parents also most closely monitored them at home), and had parents with the highest expectations for them. Children of cohabiting heterosexuals were in-between, while children of homosexuals scored somewhat higher in social studies, lowest in math and language skills, were least popular (often socially isolated), most restrained and formal, experienced the lowest levels of parental involvement both at school and at home, did more household tasks, and were more frequently tutored. Their parents less frequently expressed high educational and career aspirations for them. In fact, teachers said children of homosexuals were ‘more confused’ about their gender.
S.Sarantakos, “Children in three contexts: family, education and social development,” Children Australia 21 (1996): 23-31.

Children mentioned one or more problems/concerns in 48 (92 percent) of 52 families. Of the 213 scored problems, 201 (94 percent) were attributed to homosexual parent(s). Older daughters in at least 8 (27 percent) of 30 families and older sons in at least 2 (20 percent) of 10 families described themselves as homosexual or bisexual. These findings are inconsistent with propositions that children of homosexuals do not differ appreciably from those who live with married parents or that children of homosexuals are not more apt to engage in homosexuality.
Paul Cameron and Kirk Cameron, “Children of Homosexual Parents Report Childhood Difficulties,” Psychological Reports 90, 1 (2002): 71-82.


Compared with children from traditional families, children from nontraditional families showed more psychological problems as rated by their parents and more internalizing behavior as rated by their teachers. Boys from nontraditional families were especially at a disadvantage; they showed lower self-concept, more externalizing, poorer classroom behavior, and lower grade-point averages. Girls from such families were less popular with peers.
Phyllis Bronstein, JoAnn Clauson, Miriam Frankel Stoll and Craig Adams, “Parenting Behavior and Children’s Social, Psychological and Academic Adjustment in Diverse Family Structure,” Family Relations 42 (1993): 273.

“Twenty-nine percent of the adult children of homosexual parents had been specifically subjected to sexual molestation by that homosexual parent, compared to only 0.6 percent of adult children of heterosexual parents. Having a homosexual parent(s) appears to increase the risk of incest with a parent by a factor of about 50.”

Paul Cameron and Kirk Cameron, “Homosexual Parents,” Adolescence 31 (1996): 771-772.

The video “Other Families” indicated that the reactions of the young adults who were raised by lesbians ranged from blasé acceptance to anger at being burdened by their mothers’ choices.

Paul Cameron and Kirk Cameron, “Homosexual Parents,” Adolescence 31 (1996): 772.

A survey taken in 1999 showed that 86 percent of people worldwide agreed that “All things being equal, it is better for children to be raised in a household that has a married mother and father.”
Wirthlin Worldwide poll for The Howard Center, World Family Policy Council, and World Congress of Families II, November, (1999).

Homosexual relationships are characteristically unstable and fundamentally incapable of providing children the security they need.

Timothy Dailey, “Homosexual Parenting: Placing Children at Risk,” Family Research Council.

“Homosexuals … model a poor view of marriage to children by teaching that marital relationships are transitory and mostly sexual in nature, sexual relationships are primarily for pleasure rather than
procreation, and monogamy in marriage is not the norm [and] should be discouraged if one wants a good ’marital’ relationship.”
Bradley Hayton, “To Marry or Not: The Legalization of Marriage and Adoption of Homosexual Couples,” (Newport Beach: The Pacific Policy Institute, 1993): 9. Cited in: C. Gwendolyn Landolt, “Same-Sex Unions Are Not Marriages,” CBC News Viewpoint, REAL Women of Canada, (2004, 18-28 May). Cited in: Mark Regan, “The Case Against Counterfeiting Marriage,” Families First Foundation.

Twelve percent of the children of lesbians became active lesbians themselves, a rate that is at least four times the base rate of lesbianism in the adult female population.
Fiona Tasker and Susan Golombok, “Adults Raised as Children in Lesbian Families,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 65(2) (1995): 213. Sixty-four percent of young adults raised by lesbian mothers reported considering having same-sex relationships. Only 17 percent of young adults in heterosexual families reported the same thing.
Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz, “(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?” American Sociological Review 66 (2001): 170.

There are no homosexual parenting studies that a) take a nationally representative sample of babies born to or adopted by gay parents and married mothers and fathers and b) follow them longitudinally while c) controlling for
standard demographic variables (race, education, etc.) and d) include a broad range of outcome variables. The studies that currently exist simply compare lesbian single moms to heterosexual single moms. Social science research has already shown the negative outcomes visited upon children who do not live with two married parents.
Maggie Gallagher, Marriagedebate.com, Institute for Marriage and Public Policy.

Marriage

An Arizona Appeals Court ruled that the State of Arizona’s ban on same-sex “marriage” is constitutional and that the concept of marriage remains between a man and a woman. “Recognizing a right to marry someone of the same sex would not expand the established right to marry, but would redefine the legal meaning of ’marriage,’” stated the court.
Judy Nichols, “Court Upholds Ban on Gay Marriage,” Arizona Republic, (2003, 9 October).

A pattern of “high fidelity” was documented among married Americans. “The vast majority reported having only one sexual partner during the previous 30 days (98.8 percent), 12 months (96.3 percent) and five years (93.6 percent). Consequently, “most people were not placing themselves or their partners at high risk for exposure” to AIDS.
Barbara Leigh, “The Sexual Behavior of U.S. Adults: Results from a National Survey,” American Journal of Public Health 83 (1993): 1,400-1,406.

Because of “the therapeutic benefit of marriage,” rates for alcoholism, suicide, schizophrenia and other psychiatric problems run lower among married men and women than among their unmarried peers. Married people enjoyed “continuous companionship with a spouse who provides interpersonal closeness, emotional gratification and support in dealing with daily stress.”

Robert Coombs, “Marital Status and Personal Well-Being: A Literature Review,” Family Relations 40 (1991): 97-102.

A review of more than 130 empirical studies from the 1930s to 1990 indicated that married people generally lived longer, were more emotionally and physically healthy, happier and more likely to recover from cancer than unmarried people.

Robert Coombs, “Marital Status and Personal Well-Being: A Literature Review,” Family Relations 40 (1991): 97-102.

A wide body of social science literature characterized marriage as a powerful protector of public health. Children raised by their own two married parents lived longer, had fewer illnesses and accidents and enjoyed better health than children raised outside of intact marriages. Both men and women who stay married enjoyed powerful health advantages: longer lives, better health, better-managed chronic illness, less likely to require extensive (and expensive) hospitalization and nursing home care and became disabled less often than single or divorced people.

Maggie Gallagher. “The Case for Marriage,” Institute for American Values, (2001, March).

Married fathers can exercise an abiding, important and positive influence on their children and are especially likely to do so in a happy marriage.

Paul Amato, “More Than Money? Men’s Contributions to Their Children’s Lives,” In Alan Booth and A.C. Crouter (eds.), “Men in Families: When Do They Get Involved? What Difference Does it Make?” (Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1998).

Homosexual Activism

Homosexual acts are unhealthy. There are numerous reasons to oppose sexual orientation codes in schools. Sexual orientation codes: A) lead to escalating homosexual activism in schools; B) are used to discriminate and propagandize against students and groups that oppose homosexuality; C) may open schools up to lawsuits from parents whose children are misled into dangerous behavior; D) draw more homosexual teachers to the school and encourage homosexual teachers to be activists in the classroom; E) can lead to the adoption of pro-homosexual curricula; F) are used to justify the pro-homosexual indoctrination of young children; G) encourage school children to embrace homosexual, bisexual and transgender identities and then proudly share them with other students.
Peter J. LaBarbera, “Good Reasons to Oppose Sexual Orientation/Homosexuality Codes in Schools,” Culture and Family Institute, Concerned Women for America, (2002, 19 June).

Leif Mitchell, community educator/trainer for Planned Parenthood of  Connecticut and a GLSEN national board member, said in his presentation to Massachusetts teachers and students, “Strategies for Combating the ’Religious Wrong’ in your community”: “Focus on Violence Prevention. Always go back to the issues of safety to explain why Gay/Straight Alliances need to be formed. Violence helps us! It is very important to tie the Religious Right to hatred.”
GLSEN Teach Out! Conference at Tufts University, Boston, (2000, April).

In March 1995, GLSEN’s Executive Director Kevin Jennings, in his speech, “Winning the Culture War,” spoke about how he was able to delude the Massachusetts legislature into adopting the pro-homosexual agenda for the schools in their state. “In Massachusetts the effective reframing of this issue was the key to the success of the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. We immediately seized upon the opponent’s calling card – safety – and explained how homophobia represents a threat to students’ safety by creating a climate where violence, name-calling, health problems, and suicide are common. Titling our report ’Making Schools Safe for Gay and Lesbian Youth,’ we automatically threw our opponents onto the defensive and stole their best line of attack. This framing short-circuited their arguments and left them back-pedaling from day one.”
Kevin Jennings, “Governor’s Commission for Gay Youth Retreats to ’Safety’ and ’Suicide,’” The Massachusetts News, (2000, December).

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educational Network (GLSEN) presents itself as a civil rights organization seeking “tolerance” and “understanding” for a victim group. But it is, in fact, a radical organization that has clearly embraced the queer-theory worldview. It seeks to transform the culture and instruction of every public school, so that children will learn to equate “heterosexism” — the favoring of heterosexuality as normal — with other evils like racism and sexism and will grow up pondering their sexual orientation and the fluidity of their sexual identity.
One of the major goals of GLSEN and similar groups is “to reform public school curricula and teaching so that Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender—or LGBT—themes are always central and always presented in the approved light.” The GLSEN teachers’ manual that says that middle-schoolers “should have the freedom to explore [their] sexual orientation and find [their] own unique expression of lesbian, bisexual, gay, straight, or any combination of these.”
Marjorie King, “Queering the Schools,” City Journal 13(2) (2003, Spring).

In the year 2005, the FBI Uniform Crime Report listed a total of 123 incidents of hate crimes based on sexual orientation within U.S. schools and colleges. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 70 million students were enrolled in schools and colleges. The incidence rate of 123 crimes relative to 70 million students is 0.0000017 percent.
Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Federal Bureau of Investigation. School “Enrollment, 2005 American Community Survey,” United States Census Bureau.

The North American Man-Boy Love Association’s goal is “to end the extreme oppression of men and boys in mutually consensual relationships by: building understanding and support for such relationships; educating the general public on the benevolent nature of man/boy love; cooperating with lesbian, gay, feminist, and other liberation movements; supporting the liberation of persons of all ages from sexual prejudice and oppression.”… “We support the rights of youth as well as adults to choose the partners with whom they wish to share and enjoy their bodies.” … “NAMBLA is strongly opposed to age-of-consent laws and all other restrictions which deny men and boys the full enjoyment of their bodies and control over their own lives.” … “We call for fundamental reform of the laws regarding relations between youths and adults.”
“Who We Are,” North American Man-Boy Love Association.

In 1953, W. Cleon Skousen wrote “The Naked Communist,” a book which revealed the 45 goals of communism. Goal No. 26 is to “Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as ‘normal, natural, healthy.’” Goal No. 39 is to “Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.” Goal No. 40 is to “Discredit the family as an institution.”
“Lest We Forget,” The Schwarz Report, (2003, September).

In an interview, Dr. Charles Socarides spoke of the impact on removing homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual: “In some ways, the gay community in this country are like a bunch of confused kids. They knew they had these mysterious sexual compulsions. They knew they weren’t happy. And then the nation’s psychiatrists said, in effect, ‘Hey, you’re okay. Go out and have fun. … The APA decision led to a number of decisions by policymakers all over the country. They decriminalized sodomy in half of the country. That led to the rise gay bathhouse culture. And that fueled the century’s most horrific plague, the plague of AIDS.”
Herb Kutchins and Stuart Kirk, “Making Us Crazy,” (New York: The Free Press, 1997): 77.

Dr. Charles Socarides explained how those sympathetic to homosexuals acquired power in the American Psychiatric Association: “At the national level a group of politically active psychiatrists—some of them gay—was forming. They called themselves the Committee for a Concerned Psychiatry (CFCP). Over the next few years their lobbying and their electioneering led to a seizure of the presidency and the chairs of the APA. They gave strong support to Alfred Freedman in his election as president of the APA, and it really made a difference: in an election where more than 10,000 voted, Dr. Freedman won by two votes. Then the CFCP helped to set up John Spiegel and Judd Marmor in the chairs, ready to move up into the presidency—which with the support of the CFCP, they did. Then each of them—Freedman, Spiegel and Marmor—later delivered what the CFCP wanted; they each played important roles in the move to delete homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.”

Herb Kutchins and Stuart Kirk, “Making Us Crazy,” (New York: The Free Press, 1997): 74.

In a four-year period from 1970-73, homosexual activists protested at the annual conventions of the American Psychiatric Association. The disturbances began with angry homosexual activists denouncing presenters and threatening violent disruptions. These confrontations were directed by militant outside consumer groups with no stake in maintaining the stature of organized psychiatry. Demonstrators confronted Irving Bieber and other psychiatrists, hurling accusations and profanities at them. Agitators took over a meeting and denounced aversive treatment techniques. Homosexuals seized a microphone and demanded to be heard, greatly enraging psychiatrists. Despite psychiatrist Kent Robinson’s ability to persuade the APA to include homosexual speakers, the 1971 national conference in Washington was again disrupted by well-organized activists. The intruders intimidated an exhibitor into withdrawing from the site. The pandemonium created in these years led some psychiatrists to seek airfare refunds.
Herb Kutchins and Stuart Kirk, “Making Us Crazy,” (New York: The Free Press, 1997): 66.

The 1972 APA convention in Dallas was indicative of the change forced by hostile activists. There were no presentations that were antithetical to the views of homosexual activists, but there was a session arranged to present the homosexual activists’ point of view. A cloaked, hooded speaker identified as “Dr. Anonymous” claimed that he and 200 fellow psychiatrists were homosexual and that some of them were members of a Gay Psychiatric Association, which met secretly during APA meetings. Homosexual demonstrators also began a routine of maintaining their own booth in the exhibit area. When it was revealed that some prominent psychiatrists were homosexuals, it became much harder to argue that homosexuality was a disability and that being homosexual was dysfunctional.

Herb Kutchins and Stuart Kirk, “Making Us Crazy,” (New York: The Free Press, 1997): 66.

The angry demonstrations of the early 1970s gave way to presentations by homosexuals and their supporters which were designed to serve as alternatives to psychoanalysts speaking about curing homosexuality. A subsequent convention included a carefully moderated session featuring a debate by homosexual professionals and psychoanalysts. Pro-homosexual psychiatrists soon became more influential in the APA than those believing homosexuality was a pathological condition.

Herb Kutchins and Stuart Kirk, “Making Us Crazy,” (New York: The Free Press, 1997): 66.

On December 15, 1973, the board of trustees of the American Psychiatric Association capitulated to the demands of homosexual demonstrators. The homosexuals labeled unyielding psychiatrists as “war criminals.” Under the duress of harassment, trustees declared that homosexuality was no longer an “illness.” A resulting referendum on the issue, demanded by outraged members of the association, was conducted by mail and was partially controlled by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The homosexual advocates won the vote and the new official definition of homosexuality as a disorder was changed to include only those who were “unhappy with their sexual orientation.” Historian Enrique Rueda wrote that the vote “was not the result of scientific analysis after years of painstaking research. Neither was it a purely objective choice following the accumulation of incontrovertible data. The very fact that the vote was taken reveals the nature of the process involved, since the existence of an orthodoxy in itself contradicts the essence of science.”

Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, The Pink Swastika, 313.

“There is no question that one of the top priorities of the homosexual movement is to force a ‘redefinition’ of the American family away from the traditional husband-wife-children model to a more ‘functional’ definition based on the notion of economic unit or any other basis that does not require heterosexuality as its foundation.
The notion that a family must involve persons of both sexes is profoundly inimical to the homosexual movement … As early as 1970, elements within the homosexual movement had identified the family as inimical to its interests. At a convention in Philadelphia, the ‘Male Homosexual’ workshop included the following as one of its demands: ‘The abolition of the nuclear family because it perpetuates the false categories of homosexuality and heterosexuality.'”
Enrique T. Rueda, “The Homosexual Network: Private Lives and Public Policy,” (Old Greenwich, Connecticut: Devin Adair Company, 1982): 221. David A. Noebel and Chuck Edwards, “Communism Is With Us, Party Is Not,” The Schwarz Report 45(2) (2005, February).

Communist Party leader Henry Hay, founder of the Mattachine Society in 1950, became known as the “Father of the Modern Gay Movement.” The Mattachine Society’s purpose was to undermine the Judeo-Christian moral consensus in respect to homosexual relations.
Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, The Pink Swastika, 301. Hay is regarded as the man who first organized homosexuals as a political minority. He was an advocate of pedophile rights and the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). Hay advocated homosexual separatism, and he strongly opposed those who preferred to deny NAMBLA permission to participate in homosexual pride parades. When Hay died in 2002, mainstream media obituaries ignored his ties to NAMBLA.
Peter LaBarbera, “Harry Hay, Communism and Homosexuality,” The Schwarz Report, (2003, January).

The Stonewall riot of 1969 by homosexuals who counter-attacked a police raid in a New York City bar became the new symbol of the “gay rights” movement. In its wake, Gay Liberation Fronts sprang up across the United States, using methods of intimidation and coercion to achieve political gains. They targeted the medical community, whose increasing effectiveness in treating homosexual disorders threatened the logical premise of the movement. Gay Liberation Fronts stormed San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago conventions of psychiatry,
medicine and behavior modification, shouting down speakers and terrorizing audience members. 
Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, The Pink Swastika, 313.

The American Civil Liberties Union Lesbian & Gay Rights Project states: “The groups represented here are parts of a large civil rights orchestra. We play different instruments – lobbying, electoral politics, impact litigation, grassroots organizing, public education, media advocacy and more – and we are dedicated to playing them well. While our organizations vary in focus and strategies, we share a number of common priorities that will help shape and unite our work in the months and years to come.”
 
“Civil Rights. Community Movement,” The American Civil Liberties Union Lesbian & Gay Rights Project, (2005, 13 January).

“The first homosexual rights organization in the United States was an American chapter of the German-based Society for Human Rights (SHR). The German SHR was founded in 1919 by Hans Kahnert and was a militant organization led by ‘Butch’ homosexuals. Many of the early Nazis were also SHR members. The American SHR was started December 10, 1924 in Chicago, by a German-American named Henry Gerber.”
Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, 276.

The ACLU has offered material support to those who openly preach pedophilia and arguably encourage kidnapping, rape and murder.

Deroy Murdock, ” No Boy Scouts: The ACLU defends NAMBLA,” National Review Online, (2004, 27 February).

A NAMBLA publication, “The Survival Manual: The Man’s Guide to Staying Alive in Man-Boy Sexual Relationships,” is also referred to as “The Rape and Escape Manual.” Its chapters explain how to build relationships with children, how to gain the confidence of children’s
parents, where to go to have sex with children and not getting caught. The manual provides advice for those who get caught, on when to leave America and how to rip off credit card companies to get cash to finance their flights.
Deroy Murdock, February 27, 2004, No Boy Scouts: The ACLU defends NAMBLA. National Review Online.

According to homosexual writer and activist Michelangelo Signorile, the goal of homosexuals is: “[You need] To fight for same-sex marriage and its
benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, to 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. . . . The most subversive action lesbian and gay men can undertake . . . is to transform the notion of ’family’ entirely.”
Michelangelo Signorile, “Bridal Wave,” Out, (1994, December). Cited in: “Another Twist in the Battle For Marriage…,” Alliance Defense Fund, (2004, 4 February).

In 1987, homosexual activists Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen wrote a manifesto called, “The Overhauling of Straight America” that described how the homosexual movement was to swing public perception. They outlined the following steps: capture the media and desensitize the public to homosexuality, portray the opposition as evil and homosexuals as victims, silence the opposition through name calling. They furthered the idea that if homosexuals can be cast as victims in need of protection then straights will be inclined by reflex to assume the role of protector.

Rob Tong, “Real Gay History: Find Out In 15 Minutes or Less,” (2004, 24 June).

Paula Ettelbrick, former legal director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, has stated, “Being queer is more than setting up house, sleeping with a person of the same gender, and seeking state
approval for doing so… Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and in the process transforming the very fabric of society.”
Paula Ettelbrick, “Since When Is Marriage a Path to Liberation?” Cited in: William Rubenstein, (ed.), Lesbians, Gay Men and the Law (New York: The New Press, 1993): 401-405

Homosexuals are one of the most affluent groups in America. Their average household income is $55,430 compared to the national average of $32,286. Nearly 60 percent are college graduates compared to the national average of 18 percent. Forty-nine percent are in professional and management positions comparedto the national average of 16 percent. Almost 66 percent go on vacations overseas compared to the national average of 14 percent. Joe Di Sabato, president of Rivendell Marketing Company, said, “you’re talking about two people with good jobs, lots of money and no dependents. This is a dream market.” MasterCard and the Dallas Gay Alliance Credit Union began offering homosexual-oriented credit cards, and many businesses began advertising in homosexual publications in the 1990s.
Joan Rigdon, “Overcoming a Deep-Rooted Reluctance, More Firms Advertise to Gay Community,” Wall Street Journal, (1991, 18 July): B1, B2.

Eric Pollard founded the homosexual activist organization ACT-UP’s Washington, D.C, chapter. In an interview in the Washington Blade, he said that he and other group members learned to apply “subversive
tactics, drawn largely from the voluminous Mein Kampf, which some of us studied as a working model.”
Eric Pollard, “Time to Give up Fascist Tactics,” Washington Blade, (1992, 31 January): 39. Cited in: Satinover, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1996): 38.

Civil & Legal Rights Claims

When the issue of homosexuals routinely being denied the right to visit their partners in hospitals was raised during debate over the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, the Family Research Council did an informal survey of nine hospitals in four states and the District of Columbia. None of the administrators surveyed could recall a single case in which a visitor was barred because of their homosexuality, and they were incredulous that this would even be considered an issue.
Peter Sprigg, “What’s Wrong with Letting Same-Sex Couples Marry?” Family Research Council, In Focus: Issue No. 256.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force cut in half its coverage of health insurance premiums for domestic partners of its employees, calling the premiums “prohibitively expensive.”
Marc Morano, “Homosexual Group Cuts Back Domestic Partner Benefits,” CNSnews.com.

The Value of Marriage to Society

Promiscuity and Infidelity

Journal of Marriage and Family: In 2005, the dissolution rate of homosexual couples was more than three times that of heterosexual married couples, and the dissolution rate of lesbian couples was more than four-fold that of heterosexual married couples.1
Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity among Men and Women: Researchers found that 43% percent of white male homosexuals had sex with 500 or more partners, and 28% had 1,000 or more partners.2
The Social Organization of Sexuality: Only 4.5% of homosexual males said they were faithful to their current partner, compared to 85% of married women and 75.5% of married men.3
Sex Roles: “Forty percent of homosexual men in civil unions and 49% of homosexual men not in civil unions had ‘discussed and decided it is okay… to have sex outside of the relationship.'” Only 3.5% of heterosexual married men and their wives agreed that sex outside of the relationship was acceptable.4
Substance Abuse
The Gay and Lesbian Medical Association: “Gay men use substances at a higher rate than the general population. Also, “gay men have higher rates of alcohol dependence and abuse than straight men.”5
The Gay and Lesbian Medical Association: “Illicit drugs may be used more often among lesbians than heterosexual women,” and alcohol “use and abuse may be higher among lesbians.”6
Domestic Violence
National Institute of Justice: “Same-sex cohabitants reported significantly more intimate partner violence than did opposite-sex cohabitants–39% of lesbian cohabitants reported being raped, physically assaulted, and/or stalked by a cohabitating partner at some time in their lifetimes, compared to 21% of heterosexual women. Among men, the comparable figures are 23.1% and 7.4%.”7
Child Sexual Abuse
Journal of Sex Research: Although heterosexuals outnumber homosexuals by a ratio of at least 20 to 1, about one-third of the total number of child sex offenses are homosexual in nature.8
Archives of Sexual Behavior: Eighty-six percent of offenders against males described themselves as homosexual or bisexual.9
Psychological Instability
Journal of Human Sexuality: “No other group of comparable size in society experiences such intense and widespread pathology.”10
Citations
1. Lawrence Kurdek, “Are Gay and Lesbian Cohabiting Couples Really Different from Heterosexual Married Couples?” Journal of Marriage and Family 66 (November 2004): 893.
2. A. P. Bell and M. S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), pp. 308, 309; See also A. P. Bell, M. S. Weinberg, and S. K. Hammersmith, Sexual Preference (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981).
3. Laumann, The Social Organization of Sexuality, 216; McWhirter and Mattison, The Male Couple: How Relationships Develop (1984): 252-253; Wiederman, “Extramarital Sex,” 170.
4. Sondra E. Solomon, Esther D. Rothblum, and Kimberly F. Balsam, “Money, Housework, Sex, and Conflict: Same-Sex Couples in Civil Unions, Those Not in Civil Unions, and Heterosexual Married Siblings,” Sex Roles 52 (May 2005): 569.
5. Victor M. B. Silenzio, “Top 10 Things Gay Men Should Discuss with their Healthcare Provider” (San Francisco : Gay & Lesbian Medical Association); accessed April 1, 2010; online here.
6. Katherine A. O’Hanlan, “Top 10 Things Lesbians Should Discuss with their Healthcare Provider” (San Francisco : Gay & Lesbian Medical Association); accessed April 1, 2010; online here.
7. “Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence,” U.S. Department of Justice: Office of Justice Programs (July, 2000): 30.
8. Kurt Freund, Robin Watson, and Douglas Rienzo, “Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, and Erotic Age Preference,” The Journal of Sex Research 26, No. 1 (February, 1989): 107.
9. W. D. Erickson, “Behavior Patterns of Child Mo??lesters,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 17 (1988): 83.
10. James E. Phelan, Neil Whitehead, Philip M. Sut??ton, “What Research Shows: NARTH’s Response to the APA Claims on Homosexuality,” Journal of Human Sexuality Vol. 1, p. 93 (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, 2009).
Questions & Answers Surrounding Marriage and Homosexuality
Q — Is same-sex “marriage’ a civil right, akin to inter-racial marriage?
A — No. Civil rights are not based on behaviors. The inter-racial marriage ban, fortunately lifted, was strictly about race, not gender. The issue was not whether homosexuals could marry each other.
Q — Is homosexuality deserving of a “protected class” of citizens, in the eyes of the law?
A — No. The Maryland Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, declared: “We find that sexual orientation is neither a suspect or quasi-suspect class.” The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth District also said homosexual persons do not constitute a “suspect” classification.
Q — Does the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provide a right to same-sex “marriage”?
A — Only by the widest stretches of the imagination. The Framers of the Amendment never believed their language would be so abused as it is in the rationalization of same-sex “marriage” or abortion. To presume that the 14th does make such allowances, then one can apply situational ethics to attempt to justify anything that is currently illegal. This would make it virtually impossible to have a civil and stable society.
Q — Is marriage defined as one man and one woman a matter of forcing religion into law?
A — No. Laws and constitutions reflect the will of the people. Their support for one man/one woman marriage is far broader than religion. In fact, it transcends political, social, racial, religious and demographic categories of Americans.
Q — Do pressure groups, such as Equality Arizona, have the best interests in mind for homosexuals by advocating for radical changes in law?
A — No. It would be far better for such groups to educate their members on the risks they are assuming, rather than encouraging people to politicize homosexuality.
Q — Is opposition to the homosexual agenda an example of “hate” or “homophobia”?

A — No. It’s based on wanting what is truly best for society and for homosexuals. It is also a matter of opposing pressure groups pushing for radical overhaul of the social order, including the very re-definition of marriage into something it is not intended to be.

Q — Are homosexual couples just like other people?

A — No, and preferring a life of libertine sex and open relationships, many do not want to be viewed as such. This is clearly evident from the outrageous behavior and indecent public exposure evident in homosexual pride parades. There is no way that two persons of the same gender can provide the full range of developmental needs to boys and girls. Nor can they provide the stability and longevity in their relationships that are conducive to child raising, or suitable for adoption.

Q — Can people switch from homosexuality to heterosexuality?

A — Yes. It’s happening with thousands of people in virtually every state. To suggest otherwise is to defy reality … or accepting the spin of the pressure groups.

Q — What percentage of the population is homosexual?

A — Approximately 1-3 percent. However, the sexual behavior of some of these people is not fluid, but rather inconsistent. A large percentage of people who claim to be homosexual have had heterosexual relationships during their lifetimes. Without a shred of statistical data to back it up, some organizations and leftist media outlets falsely claim that 10 percent of the population is homosexual. It’s never been close to that figure.

Q — Is homosexuality genetic?

A — No. The Human Genome Project proved it is not. No research has determined any genetic cause.

Q — Does the state have a compelling interest in marriage as the union of one man and one woman?

A — Yes, according to current law in several states. As well as common sense. Married heterosexual men and women engage in far fewer risky behaviors than do homosexual adults — such as domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse. Heterosexual adults live longer and more stable lives and make better and more dependable employees and citizens.

The Sanctity of Human Life

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
 
According to a Harvard University study, the number of Planned Parenthood affiliates fell from 163 in 1994 to 91 in late 2009. More affiliates are expected to consolidate in the future. In 2007, Planned Parenthood affiliates killed 305,310 pre-born children, charging $400 for each and generating $122 million. Mauricio Roman, “Harvard Study: Planned Parenthood is an Abortion Business and Business is Bad,” Life News, November 30, 2009.
The following stages of human development have been scientifically documented:
Day 1: fertilization unites all chromosomes and a unique human life begins.
Day 6: embryo begins implantation in the uterus; the heart begins to beat with the child’s own blood.
Week 3: the child’s backbone, spinal column and nervous system are forming; the liver, kidneys and intestines begin to take shape.
Week 5: eyes, legs and hands begin to develop.
Week 6: brain waves are detectable; mouth and lips are present; fingernails are forming.
Week 7: eyelids and toes form, nose is distinct; the baby is kicking and swimming.
Week 8: every organ is in place, bones begin to replace cartilage, fingerprints begin to form, the baby can hear sounds.
Weeks 9-10: teeth and fingernails are forming, the baby can turn his/her head, frown and hiccup.
Week 11: the baby can “breathe” amniotic fluid, urinate, grasp objects placed in its hand, all organ systems are functioning; the baby has a skeletal structure, nerves and operating circulation system.
Week 12: the baby can feel pain, has nerves, spinal cord and thalamus, vocal cords are complete; the baby can suck its thumb.
Month 4: bone Marrow is forming; the baby is 8-10 inches in length and half of its birth weight.
Week 17: the baby can dream.
Week 20: the baby recognizes its mother’s voice.
G. Flanagan, Beginning Life: The Marvelous Journey from Conception to Birth (New York: DK Publishing Inc., 1996). Janet Hopson, “Fetal Psychology,” Psychology Today 31(5) (September/October 1998
 
Dr. Dianne Irving, a biomedical researcher and bioethicist, said: “When the 23 chromosomes of the sperm and the 23 chromosomes of the ovum are combined, a new, unique living individual with 46 chromosomes (the number and quantity specific for the human species) is formed. The chromosomal (genetic) make-up of the human embryo and fetus is different from the genetic identity of the mother or the father. Thus the human embryo or fetus is not only a human being, it is clearly not, scientifically, just a ‘blob’ of the mother’s tissues.”
The Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, Report to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, First Session, 1981.

Human development is a continuous process that begins when an oocyte (ovum) from a female is fertilized by a spermatozoon (sperm) and ends at death. It is a process of growth and differentiation which transforms the zygote, a single cell, into a multi-cellular adult human being.
K. Moore and T. Persaud, “The Developing Human;  Clinically Oriented Embryology,” W.B. Saunders Company; 6th edition (January 15, 1998), p. 1 
Dr. Hymie Gordon, co-founder and co-chair of the Program in Human Rights and Medicine at the University of Minnesota and founder and director of the Mayo Clinic’s world renowned program in medical genetics, said: “By all criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”
The Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, Report to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, First Session, 1981.
Dr. Landrum Shettles, who discovered male and female-producing sperm, said: “… I accept what is biologically manifest – that human life commences at the time of conception …”
L. Shettles, “Rites of Life: The Scientific Evidence for Life Before Birth,” (Zondervan: 1983), p. 103.
The United States Congress was told by Harvard University Medical School’s Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, “In biology and in medicine, it is an accepted fact that the life of any individual organism reproducing by sexual reproduction begins at conception….” She supported her evidence with references from more than 20 embryology and other medical textbooks that human life began at conception.
The Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, Report to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, First Session, 1981.
Human embryo defined: “An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus.”
I. Dox, et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 146.
Dr. Hanna Söderberg, the lead author of a study, conducted interviews with women one year after their abortions. Her research team found that approximately 60 percent of the women in their sample of 854 women had experienced emotional distress after their abortions. This distress was classified as “severe,” warranting professional psychiatric attention, among 16 percent of the women. The research team noted that over 70 percent of the women stated that they would never consider an abortion again if they faced an unwanted pregnancy.
H. Söderberg, C. Andersson, L. Janzon and N. Sjöberg. Selection bias in a study on how women experienced induced abortion. European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology andReproductive Biology 77 (1998): 67-70. H. Söderberg, L. Janzon N. Sjöberg. (1998). Emotional distress following induced abortion: A study of its incidence and determinants among abortees in Malmo, Sweden. European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology (1998): 173-178.
A 17-year study of women’s mortality in Finland determined that post-abortive women suffered significantly higher rates of death, accidents, suicides and homicides.
M. Gissler, R.Kauppila, J.Merilainen, H.Toukomaa, E.Hemminki, “Pregnancy-associated deaths in Finland 1987-1994 — definition problems and benefits of record linkage,” Acta Obsetricia Gynecologica Scandinavica 76 (1997): 651-657.
 
Doctors have treated or reviewed records from the following complications resulting from abortions: retained products (parts of human fetus) with infection resulting in hysterectomy (surgical removal of female organs), retained products requiring D&C and antibiotic therapy (due to infection), late second trimester or early third trimester rupture of membranes due to instrumentation at an abortion center resulting in intrauterine fetal demise secondary to infection, hepatitis contracted after abortion, ectopic pregnancy after abortion resulting in adolescent’s death, retained products of conception resulting in passage of fetus several days after the attempted abortion procedure (i.e. the mother had to deliver her aborted child at home), uterine perforation (tearing) resulting in bowel injury requiring major surgery, bowel resection and long term gastro-intestinal debility in the patient, an RH negative patient who failed to be given rhogam prophylaxis after the abortion procedure due to error in their blood typing. (Subsequent children, if RH +, would be in serious danger), post-abortion infection resulting from the patient being put out on the street without transportation who was sexually assaulted the day of her abortion procedure, amputation of fetal limb with survival and delivery of fetus at term (this case was presented at the Armed Forces division of the American College of OB/GYN in 1973).
List of Abortion Complications Seen Personally by an OB-GYN, Physicians for Life.
The leading causes of abortion-related maternal deaths within a week of the surgery are hemorrhage, infection, embolism, anesthesia and undiagnosed ectopic pregnancies.
A. Kaunitz, “Causes of Maternal Mortality in the United States,” Obstetrics and Gynecology 65(5) (May 1985).
A significant elevation of risk of breast cancer was associated with a history of induced abortion.
H.L. Howe, et al., “Early Abortion and Breast Cancer Risk Among Women Under Age 40,” International Journal of Epidemiology 18(2) (1989): 302.
Women with one abortion face a 2.3 relative risk of cervical cancer, compared to non-aborted women, and women with two or more abortions face a 4.92 relative risk. Similar elevated risks of ovarian and liver cancer have also been linked to single and multiple abortions. These increased cancer rates for post-aborted women are apparently linked to the unnatural disruption of the hormonal changes which accompany pregnancy and untreated cervical damage. “
Abortion Facts and Your Concerns,” AAA Pregnancy Options.
Young teenagers undergoing abortions appeared to be more susceptible than older women to cervical injury.
W. Cates, “The Risks Associated with Teenage Abortion,” New England Journal of Medicine 309(11) (1983): 612-624.
A study showed the occurrence of low birth rate was 1.4 times higher among the women whose first pregnancy had ended in abortion than among those who had delivered their first pregnancy. The rate of low birth rate weight was 1.6 times higher in the abortion group than among the women whose first pregnancy had ended in a live birth and who were seeking to carry their second pregnancy to term. Women whose first pregnancy had been terminated were 3.4 times more likely than were those whose first pregnancy had resulted in a live birth to have a mid-trimester spontaneous abortion during their second pregnancy.
C. Hogue, W. Cates and C. Tietze, “Impact of Vacuum Aspiration Abortion on Future Childbearing: A Review,” Family Planning Perspectives 15(3) (May-June 1983).
Approximately 10 percent of women undergoing elective abortion will suffer immediate complications, of which approximately one-fifth are considered life threatening. The nine most common major complications which can occur at the time of an abortion are: infection, excessive bleeding, embolism, ripping or perforation of the uterus, anesthesia complications, convulsions, hemorrhage, cervical injury, and endo-toxic shock. The most common “minor” complications include: infection, bleeding, fever, second degree burns, chronic abdominal pain, vomiting, gastrointestinal disturbances and Rh sensitization.
P.Frank, et al., “Induced Abortion Operations and Their Early Sequelae,” Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners (April 1985),35(73):175-180; Grimes and Cates, “Abortion: Methods and Complications”, Human Reproduction, 2nd ed., 796-813; M. A. Freedman, “Comparison of complication rates in first trimester abortions performed by physician assistants and physicians,” American Journal of Public Health, 76(5):550-554 (1986).
Among the sanitation hazards found in California abortion clinics were: instruments that were not sterilized, untrained people assisting in operations, a refusal to employ registered nurses or trained assistants, improper disposal of dead baby parts.
P. Warrick, “Watching a watchdog,” Los Angeles Times, 31 January 31, 1993, pp. E1, E2.
Actress Jennifer O’Neill said: “Millions of men and women regret abortion. … Abortion hurts women and it hurts families. … They still say abortion is as simple as a trip to the dentist’s office. That’s when I say it’s my experience over their theory. … There is a good risk of depression, cancer, drug abuse, relational difficulties; abortion is not safe. Each year, there are 140,000 immediate medical needs after abortions. … Women have been pitted against their own babies. We’ve been sold a bill of goods that choice is an inalienable right.”
D. Durband, (2005, April 10), Actress/Model Jennifer O’Neill’s Message to Arizona Women: Making Abortion Unthinkable, The Arizona Conservative. Get “In the Know”: Questions About Pregnancy, Contraception and Abortion.  Alan Guttmacher Institute.
Prior to her conversion to the pro-life position, Norma “Jane Roe” McCorvey worked at abortion clinics. She described the typical clinic as having plaster and light fixtures falling from the ceiling, rat droppings in the sinks, backed up sinks and blood splattered on the walls. Worst of all were the dead baby parts room where dismembered fetuses were stacked up for a week at a time, and the rooms were never cleaned up. Sanitary conditions were so bad that one abortionist worked shirtless and shoeless. Neither the procedures nor the risks were ever explained to the women. She said, “Veterinary clinics I have seen are cleaner and more regulated than the abortion clinics I worked in.”
Affidavit of Norma McCorvey to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, June 17, 2003. The Smoking Gun. S. Ertelt, McCorvey Asks Court to Overturn Roe Case, Life
Carol Everett, former owner of an abortion clinic, said: “I’ve never been able to come up with the words to describe the abortion procedure. There are no words to describe how bad it really is. It kills the baby. I’ve seen sonograms with the baby pulling away from the instruments that are introduced into the vagina. And I’ve seen D&Es through 32 weeks done without the mother being put to sleep. Yes, they are very painful to the baby. But, yes they are very, very painful to the woman. I’ve seen six people hold a woman on the table while they did the abortion.”
C. Everett, Former Abortion Provider and Clinic Owner.  Vanderbilt University Students for Life.
A 39-year-old woman in Phoenix, Arizona was hospitalized with complications from an abortion and had an emergency hysterectomy at St. Luke’s Medical Center.
Actual Cases of Physical Damage from Legal Abortion. Physicians for Life. Christina Leonard and Jodie Snyder, “Another Botched abortion victim in Arizona,” Arizona Republic, 6 February 2001.
At a 2001 pro-life rally in Arizona, a post-abortive woman explained the circumstances of her abortion: “I had my abortion in 1974. When I went, I don’t remember anyone counseling me or asking me about my decision. I don’t remember anyone explaining to me what was about to happen. My recovery was very bad; I had a lot of pain and bleeding. I was hallucinating; regret was immediate. I wanted to die, and in a way I had. I exercised my right to choose, and I chose a dead baby. Now I get to live with that secret. I ended up in an abusive marriage. I tried drinking and drugs to numb the pain. I cried a lot, I was angry. My life had no value, no worth. Silence and secrecy kept me bound in shame for 25 years. Abortion hurts.”
D. Durband, (2004), Arizona’s Women Deserve Better than Abortion. The Arizona Conservative.
An abortionist was convicted of manslaughter for botching the legal abortion of a 33-yearold who died in 1998 at the A-Z Women’s Center in Phoenix, Arizona. The woman hemorrhaged to death, becoming the second woman in three years to die at this doctor’s hands. The doctor had previously been censured for the first death. The clinic administrator refused to call 911 for four hours while the woman lie bleeding to death in the clinic. The owner/abortionist of the Women’s A to Z Center had previously been investigated for the deaths of two women, one only 15-years-old.
(2000, October 22). Actual Cases of Physical Damage from Legal Abortion. Physicians for Life.
In the year 2000, 11 American women died as a result of complications from known legal induced abortion. No deaths were associated with known illegal abortion.
L. Strauss, J. Herndon, J. Chang, W. Parker, S. Bowens, S. Zane, and C. Berg, “Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2001,” Division of Reproductive Health National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
A Florida woman had both her legs amputated to stop gangrene related to her botched abortion. She died soon after.
Actual Cases of Physical Damage from Legal Abortion.  Physicians for Life.
An Alabama mother of five was killed by an abortionist who knew before the legal abortion that she was at risk because of low hemoglobin levels.
T. Wagner, (2001), Biskind trial shows abortion endangers women. Miami Herald, 7 February 2001
LIBERALS’ EVALUATION OF ROE V. WADE
Kermit Roosevelt, of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, said: “[I]t is time to admit in public that, as an example of the practice of constitutional opinion writing, Roe
“Shaky Basis for a Constitutional ‘Right’,” Washington Post, 22 January 2003
is a serious disappointment. You will be hard-pressed to find a constitutional law professor, even among those who support the idea of constitutional protection for the right to choose, who will embrace the opinion itself rather than the result. This is not surprising. As constitutional argument, Roe is barely coherent. The court pulled its fundamental right to choose more or less from the constitutional ether. It supported that right via a lengthy, but purposeless, cross-cultural historical review of abortion restrictions and a tidy but irrelevant refutation of the straw-man argument that a fetus is a constitutional ‘person’ entitled to the protection of the 14th Amendment.  
 
Jeffrey Rosen, legal affairs editor of The New Republic“Worst Choice,” The New Republic, 24 February 2003., said:“Thirty years after Roe, the finest constitutional minds in the country still have not been able to produce a constitutional justification for striking down restrictions on early-term abortions that is substantially more convincing than Justice Harry Blackmun’s famously artless opinion itself.”
Laurence Tribe, a Harvard Law School professor, said, “One of the most curious things about Roeis that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.”
“The Supreme Court, 1972 Term — Foreword: Toward a Model of Roles in the Due Process of Life and Law,” Harvard Law Review 87 (1973): 1, 7.
 
Edward Lazarus was a law clerk to Harry Blackmun, the Supreme Court justice who wrote the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. Lazarus said: “As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe“The Lingering Problems with Roe v. Wade, and Why the Recent Senate Hearings on Michael McConnell’s Nomination Only Underlined  Them,” FindLaw Legal Commentary, 3 October 2002. borders on the indefensible. I say this as someone utterly committed to the right to choose, as someone who believes such a right has grounding elsewhere in the Constitution instead of where Roeplaced it, and as someone who loved Roe’s author like a grandfather.” 

In 1985, eventual U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said: “Roe, I believe, would have been more acceptable as a judicial decision if it had not gone beyond a ruling on the extreme statute before the court. … Heavy-handed judicial intervention was difficult to justify and appears to have provoked, not resolved, conflict.”
Ginsberg, Ruth Bader. 1985. “Some thoughts on autonomy and equality in relations to Roe v. Wade North Carolina Law Review 63:375.

Ten Conservative Principles

By Russell Kirk

Being neither a religion nor an ideology, the body of opinion termed conservatism possesses no Holy Writ and no Das Kapital to provide dogmata. So far as it is possible to determine what conservatives believe, the first principles of the conservative persuasion are derived from what leading conservative writers and public men have professed during the past two centuries. After some introductory remarks on this general theme, I will proceed to list ten such conservative principles.
 
Perhaps it would be well, most of the time, to use this word “conservative” as an adjective chiefly. For there exists no Model Conservative, and conservatism is the negation of ideology: it is a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order.
 
The attitude we call conservatism is sustained by a body of sentiments, rather than by a system of ideological dogmata. It is almost true that a conservative may be defined as a person who thinks himself such. The conservative movement or body of opinion can accommodate a considerable diversity of views on a good many subjects, there being no Test Act or Thirty-Nine Articles of the conservative creed.
 
In essence, the conservative person is simply one who finds the permanent things more pleasing than Chaos and Old Night. (Yet conservatives know, with Burke, that healthy “change is the means of our preservation.”) A people’s historic continuity of experience, says the conservative, offers a guide to policy far better than the abstract designs of coffee-house philosophers. But of course there is more to the conservative persuasion than this general attitude.
 
It is not possible to draw up a neat catalogue of conservatives’ convictions; nevertheless, I offer you, summarily, ten general principles; it seems safe to say that most conservatives would subscribe to most of these maxims. In various editions of my book The Conservative Mind I have listed certain canons of conservative thought—the list differing somewhat from edition to edition; in my anthology The Portable Conservative Reader I offer variations upon this theme.Now I present to you a summary of conservative assumptions differing somewhat from my canons in those two books of mine. In fine, the diversity of ways in which conservative views may find expression is itself proof that conservatism is no fixed ideology. What particular principles conservatives emphasize during any given time will vary with the circumstances and necessities of that era. The following ten articles of belief reflect the emphases of conservatives in America nowadays.
 
First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.
 
This word order signifies harmony. There are two aspects or types of order: the inner order of the soul, and the outer order of the commonwealth. Twenty-five centuries ago, Plato taught this doctrine, but even the educated nowadays find it difficult to understand. The problem of order has been a principal concern of conservatives ever since conservative became a term of politics.
 
Our twentieth-century world has experienced the hideous consequences of the collapse of belief in a moral order. Like the atrocities and disasters of Greece in the fifth century before Christ, the ruin of great nations in our century shows us the pit into which fall societies that mistake clever self-interest, or ingenious social controls, for pleasing alternatives to an oldfangled moral order.
 
It has been said by liberal intellectuals that the conservative believes all social questions, at heart, to be questions of private morality. Properly understood, this statement is quite true. A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize; while a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society—no matter how many people vote and no matter how liberal its formal constitution may be.
 
Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity. It is old custom that enables people to live together peaceably; the destroyers of custom demolish more than they know or desire. It is through convention—a word much abused in our time—that we contrive to avoid perpetual disputes about rights and duties: law at base is a body of conventions.Continuity is the means of linking generation to generation; it matters as much for society as it does for the individual; without it, life is meaningless. When successful revolutionaries have effaced old customs, derided old conventions, and broken the continuity of social institutions—why, presently they discover the necessity of establishing fresh customs, conventions, and continuity; but that process is painful and slow; and the new social order that eventually emerges may be much inferior to the old order that radicals overthrew in their zeal for the Earthly Paradise.
 
Conservatives are champions of custom, convention, and continuity because they prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t know. Order and justice and freedom, they believe, are the artificial products of a long social experience, the result of centuries of trial and reflection and sacrifice. Thus the body social is a kind of spiritual corporation, comparable to the church; it may even be called a community of souls. Human society is no machine, to be treated mechanically. The continuity, the life-blood, of a society must not be interrupted.Burke’s reminder of the necessity for prudent change is in the mind of the conservative. But necessary change, conservatives argue, ought to he gradual and discriminatory, never unfixing old interests at once.
 
Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time. Therefore conservatives very often emphasize the importance of prescription—that is, of things established by immemorial usage, so that the mind of man runneth not to the contrary. There exist rights of which the chief sanction is their antiquity—including rights to property, often. Similarly, our morals are prescriptive in great part.
Conservatives argue that we are unlikely, we moderns, to make any brave new discoveries in morals or politics or taste. It is perilous to weigh every passing issue on the basis of private judgment and private rationality.The individual is foolish, but the species is wise, Burke declared. In politics we do well to abide by precedent and precept and even prejudice, for the great mysterious incorporation of the human race has acquired a prescriptive wisdom far greater than any man’s petty private rationality.
 
Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity. Liberals and radicals, the conservative says, are imprudent: for they dash at their objectives without giving much heed to the risk of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to sweep away. As John Randolph of Roanoke put it, Providence moves slowly, but the devil always hurries. Human society being complex, remedies cannot be simple if they are to be efficacious.The conservative declares that he acts only after sufficient reflection, having weighed the consequences. Sudden and slashing reforms are as perilous as sudden and slashing surgery.
 
Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems. For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at levelling must lead, at best, to social stagnation. Society requires honest and able leadership; and if natural and institutional differences are destroyed, presently some tyrant or host of squalid oligarchs will create new forms of inequality.
 
Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability. Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults, the conservatives know. Man being imperfect, no perfect social order ever can be created. Because of human restlessness, mankind would grow rebellious under any utopian domination, and would break out once more in violent discontent—or else expire of boredom. To seek for utopia is to end in disaster, the conservative says: we are not made for perfect things. All that we reasonably can expect is a tolerably ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering will continue to lurk. By proper attention to prudent reform, we may preserve and improve this tolerable order. But if the old institutional and moral safeguards of a nation are neglected, then the anarchic impulse in humankind breaks loose: “the ceremony of innocence is drowned.” The ideologues who promise the perfection of man and society have converted a great part of the twentieth-century world into a terrestrial hell.
 
Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. Upon the foundation of private property, great civilizations are built. The more widespread is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth. Economic levelling, conservatives maintain, is not economic progress.Getting and spending are not the chief aims of human existence; but a sound economic basis for the person, the family, and the commonwealth is much to be desired.
 
Sir Henry Maine, in his Village Communities, puts strongly the case for private property, as distinguished from communal property:“Nobody is at liberty to attack several property and to say at the same time that he values civilization. The history of the two cannot be disentangled.”For the institution of several property—that is, private property—has been a powerful instrument for teaching men and women responsibility, for providing motives to integrity, for supporting general culture, for raising mankind above the level of mere drudgery, for affording leisure to think and freedom to act. To be able to retain the fruits of one’s labor; to be able to see one’s work made permanent; to be able to bequeath one’s property to one’s posterity; to be able to rise from the natural condition of grinding poverty to the security of enduring accomplishment; to have something that is really one’s own—these are advantages difficult to deny. The conservative acknowledges that the possession of property fixes certain duties upon the possessor; he accepts those moral and legal obligations cheerfully.

Eighth, conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. Although Americans have been attached strongly to privacy and private rights, they also have been a people conspicuous for a successful spirit of community. In a genuine community, the decisions most directly affecting the lives of citizens are made locally and voluntarily. Some of these functions are carried out by local political bodies, others by private associations: so long as they are kept local, and are marked by the general agreement of those affected, they constitute healthy community.But when these functions pass by default or usurpation to centralized authority, then community is in serious danger. Whatever is beneficent and prudent in modern democracy is made possible through cooperative volition. If, then, in the name of an abstract Democracy, the functions of community are transferred to distant political direction—why, real government by the consent of the governed gives way to a standardizing process hostile to freedom and human dignity.
 
For a nation is no stronger than the numerous little communities of which it is composed. A central administration, or a corps of select managers and civil servants, however well intentioned and well trained, cannot confer justice and prosperity and tranquility upon a mass of men and women deprived of their old responsibilities. That experiment has been made before; and it has been disastrous. It is the performance of our duties in community that teaches us prudence and efficiency and charity.
 
Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions. Politically speaking, power is the ability to do as one likes, regardless of the wills of one’s fellows. A state in which an individual or a small group are able to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is a despotism, whether it is called monarchical or aristocratic or democratic. When every person claims to be a power unto himself, then society falls into anarchy. Anarchy never lasts long, being intolerable for everyone, and contrary to the ineluctable fact that some persons are more strong and more clever than their neighbors. To anarchy there succeeds tyranny or oligarchy, in which power is monopolized by a very few.
 
The conservative endeavors to so limit and balance political power that anarchy or tyranny may not arise. In every age, nevertheless, men and women are tempted to overthrow the limitations upon power, for the sake of some fancied temporary advantage. It is characteristic of the radical that he thinks of power as a force for good—so long as the power falls into his hands. In the name of liberty, the French and Russian revolutionaries abolished the old restraints upon power; but power cannot be abolished; it always finds its way into someone’s hands. That power which the revolutionaries had thought oppressive in the hands of the old regime became many times as tyrannical in the hands of the radical new masters of the state.
 
Knowing human nature for a mixture of good and evil, the conservative does not put his trust in mere benevolence. Constitutional restrictions, political checks and balances, adequate enforcement of the laws, the old intricate web of restraints upon will and appetite—these the conservative approves as instruments of freedom and order. A just government maintains a healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of liberty.
 
Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society. The conservative is not opposed to social improvement, although he doubts whether there is any such force as a mystical Progress, with a Roman P, at work in the world. When a society is progressing in some respects, usually it is declining in other respects. The conservative knows that any healthy society is influenced by two forces, which Samuel Taylor Coleridge called its Permanence and its Progression. The Permanence of a society is formed by those enduring interests and convictions that gives us stability and continuity; without that Permanence, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, society slipping into anarchy. The Progression in a society is that spirit and that body of talents which urge us on to prudent reform and improvement; without that Progression, a people stagnate.
 
Therefore the intelligent conservative endeavors to reconcile the claims of Permanence and the claims of Progression. He thinks that the liberal and the radical, blind to the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage bequeathed to us, in an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious Terrestrial Paradise. The conservative, in short, favors reasoned and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old.
 
Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body. A body that has ceased to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.
 
Such, then, are ten principles that have loomed large during the two centuries of modern conservative thought. Other principles of equal importance might have been discussed here: the conservative understanding of justice, for one, or the conservative view of education. But such subjects, time running on, I must leave to your private investigation.
 
The great line of demarcation in modern politics, Eric Voegelin used to point out, is not a division between liberals on one side and totalitarians on the other. No, on one side of that line are all those men and women who fancy that the temporal order is the only order, and that material needs are their only needs, and that they may do as they like with the human patrimony. On the other side of that line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal. 
 

NLRB Assumes Control over Business Location Decisions

By John Semmens: Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent News

The Democratic majority on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) boldly asserted a new authority to control where businesses may locate their production facilities. The power grab was inspired by the Boeing Corporation’s attempt to establish a new airplane factory inSouth Carolina.

“The notion that a business is free to do whatever it wants without regard to the President’s plan forAmericais what we’re fighting against here,” said NLRB legal counsel Lafe Solomon. “Moving production to a ‘right-to-work’ state is contrary to President Obama’s vision for this country. Boeing’s argument that it is seeking to lower its costs by this maneuver is precisely the kind of self-serving greed that we are trying to stamp out.”

Solomon was adamant that “unless Boeing can show cause as to why the NLRB should permit the move it will be blocked. Generations of union employees inWashingtonhave come to rely upon these good paying jobs. They cannot be dispossessed of this right merely for the sake of increased profits for Boeing’s shareholders.”

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) was incensed by what he termed “a lunge toward tyranny. The President is not the ‘Fuhrer’ ofAmerica. His minions have no authority to dictate where a business may locate its facilities in pursuit of lower costs and higher profits. This usurpation negates the efficiency benefits of our free market system and replaces it with the worst sort of crony capitalism.”

In preparation for the move, Boeing has already hired 2500 employees for theSouth Carolinaplant. These jobs will be lost if the NLRB prevails in blocking the company’s decision.

America Is Not “Broke” Says Credit Suisse

While Standard & Poor’s reclassification of theUSFederal Government’s debt situation from “stable” to “negative” shook financial markets around the globe, Credit Suisse offered a contrary perspective.

“If you confine your analysis to the resources currently available to the US Government things do, indeed, look perilous,” observed Credit Suisse spokesman Pierre Petit. “Default seems inevitable. However, there is more than sufficient wealth in private hands to cover the outstanding obligations.”

Petit laid out the “math.” “Outstanding debt is in the $14 trillion range,” he pointed out. “There is no way this can be serviced, much less paid off under existing tax rates. But who says tax rates cannot be changed? Right now, there is an estimated $57 trillion worth of assets in private hands in theUnited States. A 25% capital levy on these assets would net the Government about $14 trillion—enough to wipe out all of the current debt.”

The Credit Suisse input was warmly welcomed by President Obama. “It supports what I’ve been saying and polls have been confirming, the rich aren’t paying their fair share,” the Present asserted. “A one-time levy of 25% on everyone’s net worth would wipe out the debt and give us a fresh start.”

The President touted the fairness of such a levy. “Folks who don’t own any assets or who owe more than they’re worth wouldn’t have to pay,” he explained. “Only those lucky enough to have a positive net worth—home owners with real equity, people with stock or mutual fund portfolios, IRAs, 401ks, business owners and the like—would have to chip in. What could be fairer than that?”

President Campaigns for Higher Taxes

Encouraged by polls showing voters opposed to cutting entitlement spending and warm toward the idea of increasing taxes on “the rich,” President Obama confidently promised he would bring the deficit under control by “making the rich pay their fair share.”

The President disdained to debate the specifics of defining “a fair share” other than to say that it would need to be “more than what they’re paying now.” “The American people know who I’m talking about,” Obama insisted. “It’s that family down the street in the house with the three-car garage. It’s the guy who drives his gas-guzzling SUV to work instead of taking the bus. We see them in the seats at the stadium of the game we’re watching on TV. These are the kind of people I’m talking about. They’re people who can afford ostentatious personal spending because they have more money than they need.”

Under current tax rates the top 1% of earners account for 20% of the nation’s income, but pay nearly 40% of the income taxes collected. The bottom 50% of earners account for 12% of the income and pay 3% of the taxes.

In related news, Hollywood A-list movie stars including Jamie Foxx, Tom Hanks, and Will Ferrell paid $35,000 apiece to dine with President Obama at the Tavern Restaurant. Obama asked for their continued support to help him get reelected “so we can achieve the kind of redistribution of income we all know this nation needs.”

Arizona Governor Vetoes Two Bills

Conservatives were stunned when Governor Jan Brewer (R) vetoed two bills this last week. One would’ve required candidates for public office to provide documentary evidence of their eligibility to hold the office they seek. The other would’ve allowed persons with a concealed carry permit to bring guns onto college campuses.

“Inasmuch as the currently sitting President of the United States might become ensnared by a requirement that he show documents that he might prefer not to show, I felt compelled to veto this bill lest it become a source of embarrassment and destabilize the government of this country,” Brewer explained. “Whether a person is eligible for office is a matter for voters to decide. If they are willing to elect a person without seeing documentation it would be undemocratic of us to insist on such a requirement.”

As for the veto of the bill allowing weapons on campus, Brewer asserted that “it would’ve unduly complicated the situation by placing a presumptive individual right to bear arms into conflict with school administrative authority to control what goes on within their jurisdiction.”

Brewer denied that individual rights were being unduly suppressed. “Going to college is voluntary,” she said. “One of the costs is submitting to the rules imposed by those running the institution. We already allow college authorities to suppress freedom of speech. It’s only logical that we allow them authority to prohibit guns.”

President Vows to Investigate High Gas Prices

While contending that “high gas prices are, on balance, good forAmerica,” President Obama vowed he would have his people “look into the matter to ensure that any wrongdoing is punished.”

“If having to pay more to fill up the SUV encourages a driver to switch to public transit, that’s a good thing,” the President argued. “The fewer cars there are on the road, the cleaner our air is going to be. Who could be against cleaner air?”

“But trying to profit from higher prices, well, that’s something entirely different,” Obama added. “Profit comes from charging prices in excess of costs. It expropriates value that, by right, ought to belong to all of the people. It is this type of expropriation that will not be tolerated by my Administration.”

In line with the President’s directive on this issue, Attorney General Eric Holder has formed the Financial Fraud Enforcement Working Group and has promised “to haul profiteers and speculators in to explain themselves with regard to the prices they’re charging for fuel.”

President Urged to “Get Tough” with Tax Protestors

In addition to being the traditional date for filing your income tax forms, April 15 has become a day of tax protests across the nation. The persistence of such protests has sparked a call from the left for the President to “crack down on the enemies of social justice.”

At anArkansasan anti-Tea Party rally,former Democratic state representative and 2010 Green Party Gubernatorial nominee Jim Lendall suggested that opponents of social justice be threatened with beheading. Citing what he called “the effective use of terror on behalf of the people’s rights during the French Revolution of 1789, Lendall called for “parking a guillotine in front of every chamber of commerce, corporate office, bank, investment house, and Republican Party headquarters to remind them that opposition to the will of the people is not without risk.”

This threat was deemed not to be outside the bounds of accepted standards of civil political discourse according to Attorney General Eric Holder because “it doesn’t contemplate the targeting of recognized officers of the government by anarchic individuals. Using a guillotine on enemies of the state would only be undertaken by legitimately designated government personnel.”

Success of Atlas Shrugged Movie Surprises Critics

Panned by mainstream critics, the long-awaited movie version of Ayn Rand’s best-selling novel Atlas Shrugged saw strong returns in its opening week.

“I did my best to discourage movie-goers from seeing this film,” said renowned movie critic Roger Ebert. “It’s not the kind of movieAmericaneeds right now. It praises individualism at a time when President Obama is trying to mold a new social consciousness. We must hope that the message in the movie is too intellectual to resonate with the vast majority of Americans.”

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