(Lifesite) An openly homosexual teenager, who was given a position as an “adviser” to Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton and honored by President Barack Obama at a White House “gay pride” dinner, has been indicted on more than a dozen counts of sexual misconduct with a minor under the age of 15.
Caleb Laieski, now 18, was 17 at the time of the alleged abuse. His alleged victim, a close friend he met on TrevorSpace (a social media site for children and young adults aged 13-24 who have an interest in homosexuality), was only 14 at the time. The younger boy said the sex was consensual, but that he felt “pressured” to participate. However, Arizona law says no one younger than 15 is capable of giving consent.
In an unusual twist, Laieski is also considered a victim in the case, since at least some of the charges stem from a three-way sexual encounter the boys had with 43-year-old Chris Wilson, an openly homosexual Phoenix police officer who was arrested more than a year ago and is now in jail awaiting trial for his role in the abuse of both children. Although Laieski was a minor at the time, his participation in sex acts with the younger boy violate state law, which says it is a crime for older minors to have sexual contact with children under the age of 15.
Laieski rose to national prominence after he and a 35-year-old friend, Casey Cameron, sent e-mails to 5,000 Arizona schools in 2011 demanding special protections for gay students and threatening legal action if they failed to bring their policies in line with his demands. …
Initially, investigators saw Laieski only as a victim in the case, but police records show that Laieski actively pressured his young friend not to tell anyone about the abuse in order to protect his rising star from being tarnished, even after the younger boy became suicidal.
Below is a video of Caleb talking about the bullying of children… something he effectively did in the above story, as well as an older man doing the same with them. Homosexuality almost always has a boy being abused by older men, I would be curious to know if the younger man had a family member or family friend that took advantage of him sexually prior to him being 14… something one gay writer challenged the gay community about:
….and now all manner of sexual perversion enjoys the protection and support of once what was a legitimate civil-rights effort for decent people. The real slippery slope has been the one leading into the Left’s moral vacuum. It is a singular attitude that prohibits any judgment about obvious moral decay because of the paranoid belief that judgment of any sort would destroy the gay lifestyle, whatever that is…. I believe this grab for children by the sexually confused adults of the Gay Elite represents the most serious problem facing our culture today…. Here come the elephant again: Almost without exception, the gay men I know (and that’s too many to count) have a story of some kind of sexual trauma or abuse in their childhood — molestation by a parent or an authority figure, or seduction as an adolescent at the hands of an adult. The gay community must face the truth and see sexual molestation of an adolescent for the abuse it is, instead of the ‘coming-of-age’ experience many [gays] regard it as being. Until then, the Gay Elite will continue to promote a culture of alcohol and drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, and suicide by AIDS.
Tammy Bruce, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values (Roseville: Prima, 2003), 90, 99.
This UPDATE comes via Gay Patriot, and I have been waiting for this to come down his typically late pipeline of stories (GP would be more current if he read my stuff):
[….]
An openly homosexual teenager, who was given a position as an “adviser” to Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton and honored by President Barack Obama at a White House “gay pride” dinner, has been indicted on more than a dozen counts of sexual misconduct with a minor under the age of 15.
So, this Caleb Laieski fellow was feted by Obama, and the gay activist community, of course. And at some point, decided to set up three-way with himself, a 14 year old boy, and a middle-aged Phoenix cop. And when the boy decided to report this to the authorities, Laieski’s primary concern was protecting his career as a rising star in the gay activist/Democrat party.
“Can you please come with me?” the boy begged Laieski via iMessage. “I don’t want to do this alone.”
Laieski refused. “I can not do that,” he said. “Reports are public record and I don’t need that press. Nor does our city.”
“Minors are not public record,” the younger boy protested.
“Umm, documents can be requested, absolutely,” Laieski replied. “I have a phone call with the Secretary of HHS about me working at the White House,” he added. “I am not going to allow this to get in my way. I don’t think you understand that reporting this [to the police] doesn’t only affect Chris [Wilson]. It defiantly [sic] would affect me as well.”
This may be judgmental of me to say, but Laeiski sounds like a real POS.
In this excerpt from a longer interview by Dennis Prager of ex-Victoria’s Secret model, Kylie Bisutti (http://tinyurl.com/l9dj7o7), the question is asked — by Prager — why anorexic women seem to be the norm in the modeling business. The answer may surprise you. Then again, it may not.
I just wish to point out that conservative gay men are not running the industry. It is, primarily, the left leaning gay culture that influences the industry. Often times these men have not dealt with the truths of a healthy, well balanced, outlook on culture, economics, and politics… as well as their relationships.
Their view of man’s nature and the unrestrained cultural approval of EVERYTHING gay, affects how they act in the society they find themselves in ~ upper Manhattan. (This is touched on a bit — mankind’s nature — as represented in a “fallen“ sense like in Thomas Sowell’s, Conflict of Visions.)
In other words, the Cultural Left (CL) seems to think any or every action by a fellow leftist gay man and alignment of thought is okay-by-them. This political viewpoint which does not incorporate “trade-offs” in life (economics, politics, one’s actions in business, relationships, etc) builds a very narcissistic self-view that “self-authenticates” any action (with the stamp of approval from the CL of course) and this exudes forth in the cultural left life of modeling… especially, if I may be so bold, the culturally gay left.
An afterthought. These conservative gay men and women may or may not realize it, but in accepting the economic models as put forward by Sowell, Friedman, and Smith, they are accepting the Judeo-Christian view of man’s nature.
For instance, one who recognizes the positive influence of Christianity is lesbian Tammy Bruce:
Even if one does not necessarily accept the institutional structure of “organized religion,” the “Judeo-Christian ethic and the personal standards it encourages do not impinge on the quality of life, but enhance it. They also give one a basic moral template that is not relative,” which is why the legal positivists of the Left are so threatened by the Natural Law aspect of the Judeo-Christian ethic.”
Tammy Bruce, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values (Roseville: Prima, 2003), 35.
“White religionists are not capable of perceiving the blackness of God, because their satanic whiteness is a denial of the very essence of divinity. That is why whites are finding and will continue to find the black experience a disturbing reality.”quoted from James Cone’s book, A Black Theology of Liberation, page 64.
A book that was/is sold in the church’s book store the entire 20-years Obama went to the church and that his pastor promoted on Hannity and Colmes.
The Daily Caller broke some video of a 2007 speech via Obama that the legacy media “sanitized” in order to make the Obama look good. The watered down video can be see here, but make no mistake… this is the real Obama… race batting, southern drawls, and the like. Stories related via the Daily Caller:
National Review has the portions that were taken out of the presentation to make him look good:
1. Hurricane Katrina “was a powerful metaphor for what’s gone on [in America] for generations.” 2. “It was also there — at Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side of Chicago — that I met Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., who took me on another journey and introduced me to a man named Jesus Christ. It was the best education I ever had.” 3. On his run for the Illinois State Senate: “And the second thing people would ask me gets back to the question about why we can’t seem to take the bullet out in this country and do the works and the deeds and unite this country.” 4. “[The poor] may need help with basic skills — how to show up to work on time, wear the right clothes, and act appropriately in an office. We have to help them get there. That’s why I have called for $50 million to begin innovative new job training and workforce development programs.” 5. “We need to give our young people some real choices out there so they move away from gangs and violence and connect them with growing job sectors. That is why I am also going to create a 5-E Youth Service Corps. The ‘E’s’ stand for energy efficiency, environmental education and employment. This program would directly engage disconnected and disadvantaged young people in energy efficiency and environmental service opportunities to strengthen their communities while also providing them with practical skills and experience in important and growing career field.”
Tammy Bruce posted the side-by-side comparisons of two speeches, the now known 2007 speech, with another one from 2008 (where he is not off script, i.e., on teleprompter). Here is some of her commentary:
Daily Caller came out today with a remarkable speech from Obama in June 2007, a short 9 months before Obama’s campaign race speech. Let’s just say the two a very different. Tonight Hannity presented a clip comparing a few elements of the two speeches. Obama’s hypocrisy is astounding. At the end of the clip you’ll hear Hannity and Carlsen wonder which Obama is the real Obama. I suggest neither one–both were theatre. I think it’s become quite obvious in the past 4 years that Obama’s agenda involves destroying everyone’s lives, and will morph into whatever the moment requires of him to accomplish that goal.
Here is the Tucker Carlson appearance on the Sean Hannity Show Tammy posted:
Here is the full video with the Daily Caller’s lead in, and take note that we all knew (know) who Obama IS, this is just another evidence that he is a two-bit race-hustler… like the cultural left:
In a video obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama tells an audience of black ministers, including the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, that the U.S. government shortchanged Hurricane Katrina victims because of racism.
“The people down in New Orleans they don’t care about as much!” Obama shouts in the video, which was shot in June of 2007 at Hampton University in Virginia. By contrast, survivors of Sept. 11 and Hurricane Andrew received generous amounts of aid, Obama explains. The reason? Unlike residents of majority-black New Orleans, the federal government considers those victims “part of the American family.”
The racially charged and at times angry speech undermines Obama’s carefully-crafted image as a leader eager to build bridges between ethnic groups. For nearly 40 minutes, using an accent he almost never adopts in public, Obama describes a racist, zero-sum society, in which the white majority profits by exploiting black America. The mostly black audience shouts in agreement. The effect is closer to an Al Sharpton rally than a conventional campaign event.
Gary Harrington, the Oregon man convicted of collecting rainwater and snow runoff on his rural property surrendered Wednesday morning to begin serving his 30-day, jail sentence in Medford, Ore. “I’m sacrificing my liberty so we can stand up as a country and stand for our liberty,” Harrington told a small crowd of people gathered outside of the Jackson County (Ore.) Jail.
Several people held signs that showed support for Harrington as he was taken inside the jail.
Harrington was found guilty two weeks ago of breaking a 1925 law for having, what state water managers called “three illegal reservoirs” on his property. He was convicted of nine misdemeanors, sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined over $1500 for collecting rainwater and snow runoff on his property…Harrington says he is not diverting the state’s water — merely collecting rainwater and snow melt that falls or flows on his own property.
Harrington has vowed to continue to fight the penalty, stating that the government has become “big bullies” and that “from here on in, I’m going to fight it.”
I think Rush did the right thing in apologizing. He said it best in saying by talking about them he became them. We need to hold ourselves to a much higher standard in this dialogue (often times a monologue). And point out times of the media and the left holding a double-standard. Kirsten Powers, a liberal I admire, because she is honest as well as being thorough, writes and speaks about the about the issue at hand:
Yes, it’s true. Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Matt Taibbi, and Ed Schultz have been waging it for years with their misogynist outbursts. There have been boycotts by people on the left who are outraged that these guys still have jobs. Oh, wait. Sorry, that never happened.
Boycotts are reserved for people on the right like Rush Limbaugh, who finally apologized Saturday for calling a 30-year-old Georgetown Law student, Sandra Fluke, a “slut” after she testified before congress about contraception. Limbaugh’s apology was likely extracted to stop the departure of any more advertisers, who were rightly under pressure from liberal groups outraged by the comments.
Let it be shouted from the rooftops that Rush Limbaugh should not have called Ms. Fluke a slut or, as he added later, a “prostitute” who should post her sex tapes. It’s unlikely that his apology will assuage the people on a warpath for his scalp, and after all, why should it? He spent days attacking a woman as a slut and prostitute and refused to relent. Now because he doesn’t want to lose advertisers, he apologizes. What’s in order is something more like groveling—and of course a phone call to Ms. Fluke—if you ask me.
But if Limbaugh’s actions demand a boycott—and they do—then what about the army of swine on the left?
During the 2008 election Ed Schultz said on his radio show that Sarah Palin set off a “bimbo alert.” He called Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut.” (He later apologized.) He once even took to his blog to call yours truly a “bimbo” for the offense of quoting him accurately in a New York Post column.
Keith Olbermann has said that conservative commentator S.E. Cupp should have been aborted by her parents, apparently because he finds her having opinions offensive. He called Michelle Malkin a “mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick.” He found it newsworthy to discuss Carrie Prejean’s breasts on his MSNBC show. His solution for dealing with Hillary Clinton, who he thought should drop out of the presidential race, was to find “somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out.” Olbermann now works for über-leftist and former Democratic vice president Al Gore at Current TV.
Left-wing darling Matt Taibbi wrote on his blog in 2009, “When I read [Malkin’s] stuff, I imagine her narrating her text, book-on-tape style, with a big, hairy set of balls in her mouth.” In a Rolling Stone article about Secretary of State Clinton, he referred to her “flabby arms.” When feminist writer Erica Jong criticized him for it, he responded by referring to Jong as an “800-year old sex novelist.” (Jong is almost 70, which apparently makes her an irrelevant human being.) In Taibbi’s profile of Congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann he labeled her “batshit crazy.” (Oh, those “crazy” women with their hormones and all.)
Chris Matthews’s sickening misogyny was made famous in 2008, when he obsessively tore down Hillary Clinton for standing between Barack Obama and the presidency, something that Matthews could not abide. Over the years he has referred to the former first lady, senator and presidential candidate and current secretary of state as a “she-devil,” “Nurse Ratched,” and “Madame Defarge.” Matthews has also called Clinton “witchy,” “anti-male,” and “uppity” and once claimed she won her Senate seat only because her “husband messed around.” He asked a guest if “being surrounded by women” makes “a case for commander in chief—or does it make a case against it?” At some point Matthews was shamed into sort of half apologizing to Clinton, but then just picked up again with his sexist ramblings.
Matthews has wondered aloud whether Sarah Palin is even “capable of thinking” and has called Bachmann a “balloon head” and said she was “lucky we still don’t have literacy tests out there.” Democratic strategist Jehmu Greene, who is the former president of the Women’s Media Center, told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly in 2011 that Matthews “is a bully, and his favorite target is women.” So why does he still have a show? What if his favorite target was Jews? Or African-Americans?
But the grand pooh-bah of media misogyny is without a doubt Bill Maher—who also happens to be a favorite of liberals—who has given $1 million to President Obama’s super PAC. Maher has called Palin a “dumb twat” and dropped the C-word in describing the former Alaska governor. He called Palin and Congresswoman Bachmann “boobs” and “two bimbos.” He said of the former vice-presidential candidate, “She is not a mean girl. She is a crazy girl with mean ideas.” He recently made a joke about Rick Santorum’s wife using a vibrator. Imagine now the same joke during the 2008 primary with Michelle Obama’s name in it, and tell me that he would still have a job. Maher said of a woman who was harassed while breast-feeding at an Applebee’s, “Don’t show me your tits!” as though a woman feeding her child is trying to flash Maher. (Here’s a way to solve his problem: don’t stare at a strangers’ breasts). Then, his coup de grâce: “And by the way, there is a place where breasts and food do go together. It’s called Hooters!”
Liberals—you know, the people who say they “fight for women”—comprise Maher’s audience, and a parade of high-profile liberals make up his guest list. Yet have any of them confronted him? Nope. That was left to Ann Coulter, who actually called Maher a misogynist to his face, an opportunity that feminist icon Gloria Steinem failed to take when she appeared on his show in 2011.
Laura Ingraham talks about her example of a double standard with persons like Barabra Walters giving a liberal women the time of day but merely “laughing off” her won mistreatment:
What this shows is a complete lack of concern for women via the left. It is proof that you must be a certain kind of woman in order to engender the National Organization of Women to come to your defense. Alternatively, you have to be a certain type of man in order to engender hatred from feminists and their organizations. Liberal and conservative, respectively.
A great example comes from Bill Clinton. You never heard a peep out of the left in regards to his behavior and all the WOMEN who complained about his behavior. Could you imagine if this were a conservative man, what vitriolic anger we would never hear the end of from the media:
Kathleen Willey
Former White House volunteer Kathleen Willey told CBS’s 60 Minutes that she was groped by the President when she went to ask advice about her financial difficulties. Ms Willey, 51, said he hugged her, touched her breasts, and put her hand on his aroused genitals.
Paula Jones
Mrs Jones is a former Arkansas state clerk who alleged that when Mr Clinton was governor of Arkansas in 1991, she was summoned to his room at the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock, by a state trooper. She has said he then dropped then his trousers and, alluding to his genitals, asked her to “kiss it.” She claims that she refused his offer and was then told to keep quiet about the incident. She said that she was later demoted at work as a result.
Monica Lewinsky
This 23-year-old former White House aide is the youngest of the President’s women to emerge. Paula Jones’s lawyers discovered her after they spoke to a number of his female aides, in the hope of establishing a pattern of sexual behavior. Ms Lewinsky was an unpaid intern when it is alleged that the President first took an interest in her. It is claimed the two had an affair which lasted a year and that they had sex in the White House.
Gennifer Flowers
Ms Flowers is a former nightclub singer who became the focus of attention during Mr Clinton’s 1992 election campaign. She alleged at the time that the she had an affair with Bill Clinton for 12 years while he was governor of Arkansas. She sold tapes of their telephone conversations and said that he offered her a job in local government in exchange for sexual favours. These accusations prompted Mr and Mrs Clinton to admit on national television that they had experienced problems in their marriage.
Elizabeth Ward Gracen
Elizabeth Ward Gracen, 37 a former Miss America, told the New York Daily News on March 31 1998 that she had had consensual sex with Mr Clinton in 1982. Her statement followed allegations that the President, then Governor of Arkansas, had forced her to have sex with him.
Sally Perdue
Sally Perdue, a former Miss Arkansas, who has alleged that she had a sexual relationship with Mr Clinton in 1983. She said that the Arkansas state troopers used to escort him to her house and then wait outside while the two were meeting.
Dolly Kyle Browning
Finally Dolly Kyle Browning, an old friend of Mr Clinton’s from Arkansas has also said she had an affair with him. She claims he tried to start up another relationship with her in 1994.
This doesn’t matter however. Another example from a recent conversation I was having. I posted on my FaceBook an RIP to Andrew Breitbart and mentioned that attacks were surely soon to follow by the Left. Almost immediately an acquaintance of mine posted that Andrew didn’t deserve the respect afforded to a person after his death because Andrew didn’t afford the same to Senator Ted Kennedy when he passed. To which I had two reactions — an initial response and then one later as an afterthought:
Unlike Ted, however, Breitbart didn’t contribute to the rape of one girl and the drowning of another while for years fighting against the Civil Rights Act that was largely supported by Republicans. One does not deserve a “legacy” (as Think Progress says), the other does — at least as the king of new media.
————–
An afterthought. Layla really is beholden to an ideology rather than care and concern for women. This is in fact the case with her linking to a story about a Kennedy’s “legacy.” Ted and John and other Kennedy’s were chauvinistic monsters (I also reference the wonderful book, “Paper Genders,” documenting of the lobotomy Sr. ordered for their [the Kennedy’s] daughter), forcing themselves on girls 16-year olds. Only someone who reveres modern day feminism (really genderism) can post like this. For instance, I posted a response in Zooey Deschanel blog on Rush this:
There are many things to say about the article, but I will comment on just one of them, quote:
“…SPARK brings together some of the brightest, badass women on the planet (like Women’s Media Center co-founder and feminist royalty, Gloria Steinem).”
This is just another example of the women on the left getting undue rewards for being extremists of the 60′s, to wit: “Overthrowing capitalism is too small for us. We must overthrow the whole F*#@+*g patriarchy!” ~ Steinem
It isn’t about women, its about anti-capitalism. There are women in the business world who practice such principles found in business… they are of no consequence however, since, [quoting from my book] these feminists consider heterosexual relations (a male and female marriage) rape:
++++++++++++
Feminist author Ti-Grace Atkinson shows her true autonomy when stating, “the institution of sexual intercourse is anti-feminist.” Marilyn French, feminist author calls all men rapists: “All men are rapists and that’s all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, and their codes.” Let us allow Gloria Steinen, feminist extraordinaire, to set the stage with the following praises about her contemporary, Andrea Dworkin, “In every century, there are a handful of writers who help the human race to evolve. Andrea is one of them.” Why preface Andrea Dworkin? Because she has this to say about men in general: “Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women’s bodies.”
But these are heroes of the left?! Good job. I think with blanket praise of the “Steinems” in the post above is ample proof that the author knows nothing about modern feminist ideology… nor have they read any Christina Hoff Sommers, Tammy Bruce, Suzanne Venker, Phyllis Schlafly, Marybeth Hicks, Kate O’Beirne, and the like.
And I will confidently assert here that Layla, in all her studies, reading of articles on “feminist icons,” and the like – LIKEWISE hasn’t read a single thing from the short list I give. She is concerned, blindly concerned with painting a conservative one way, even if it means using men who rape and kill women. What an odd dichotomy. Which is why — I presume — Republicans chase out of D.C. those who sleep with pages while Democrats give three standing ovations to, and important committee positions to. The Left never ceases to amaze me.
This same thinking applies to this situation. For instance, you see here a few media`ites sounding off on Rush, but they were obviously silent when liberal men attacked women:
All these people are no where to be found when the woman who needs some representation is a conservative or the man attacking the female is a liberal. Ideology IS religion, it IS dogma. It blinds the person to the obvious hypocrisy of how they frame the issue when compared side-by-side with how they frame others. To us it is self-evident, to them, unimaginable.
To voice your frustration with this decision, please go directly to the source and contact Dr. Marc Winger, Superintendent of the Newhall School District: 661-291-4000
…Grayson, a fifth-grader at the campus near Santa Clarita, Ca., noticed the gentleman’s outward characteristics: Tall and lean. Good looking. Charismatic. Charming. Energetic.
Then he made a fatal error: Grayson, 11, pulled a little “made you look” joke on a schoolmate seated next to him, saying something along the lines of “Obama’s visiting our school today,” referring to the magnetic figure holding court nearby.
It wasn’t Obama, of course. But from Grayson’s point of view, Chris Schauble—morning co-anchor of KTLA 5′s TV news program in Los Angeles—did possess a demeanor and countenance similar to the president’s.
According to Grayson’s dad, Darren Thomas (who provided the previous details), what happened next was scary: Word of his son’s Obama-Schauble comparison spread to Schauble’s daughter, Shelbi, who was sharing lunch with her newsman father. And Shelbi was uncomfortable with Grayson’s statement, saying it felt racist.
Then a teacher was summoned, then the principal, Candace Fleece, then the Newhall School District superintendent, Marc Winger. And that very afternoon, Nov. 4, Grayson was kicked out of Stevenson Ranch for good, his father says, for implying that all black men look alike…
…Thomas was attending the school on a waiver due to a recent move, and the superintendent decided the appropriate action was to recall the waiver and send Thomas to another school.
“It was racist because Grayson was saying that all black men look alike,” said Dr. Winger. When questioned by the parents if indeed Thomas had said that all blacks look alike Dr. Winger’s response was, “No, he only said that the man in question looks like Obama.”
Thomas has since been bullied via texts by friends of Schauble’s daughter who have taken the “racist” label placed on the boy by the school administration, calling him a “f***ing racist liar” and a “stalker.” Word of this has also spread to Thomas’ older sister’s school where she is being taunted about her brother.
When questioned about the matter, Thoma’s father, Darren Thomas, claims they are anything but racists. “To call my son, and our family, racist is the farthest thing from the truth. Nearly all of his friends are of different races, both at school and in our neighborhood. We’ve even had a black friend live with us in our house for several months last year. I don’t understand how comparing two people who look similar is a racist remark worthy of this level of discipline. I just don’t get it.”…
In Grayson’s group of friends, every single one of them is of a different ethnicity—Korean, Vietnamese, black, white, Hispanic. Our home has always been open to a wide range of people.”
That includes Julian Eubanks, a childhood friend of Grayson’s mother who bunked with the Thomas family for the first six months of 2011 while he looked for acting work.
“As a man of color and a close friend to this family, I am [offended] that such a grotesque accusation could be made against any of them, especially my ‘G-Man’,” Eubanks recently commented on a blog. “The so called adults in control of this situation have handled it horribly…they need to intervene and clear this young man’s name.”
A recent CBS News poll found that 71 percent of respondents believe it is “not appropriate” to build the mosque a few blocks from Ground Zero, including a majority (57 percent) of Democrats. A Time poll found that 68 percent are following the issue “somewhat closely” or “very closely.”
When asked if they “support or oppose the proposal to build the Cordoba House,” New Yorkers said they oppose the facility, which is expected to cost $100 million, by a 63-27 percent margin. At the same time, by a 64-to-28 percent margin, New Yorkers say Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has the constitutional right to build it.
“A majority of every demographic group – by party, region, age, gender, political philosophy – agrees that there is a Constitutional right to proceed,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg. “Even a majority of those who oppose building the mosque agree by a margin of 51-42 percent that they have the right to build it.”
Flopping Aces posted a story (ultimately tracked to Atlas Shrugs) where hours of audio of the proposed Ground Zero Mosque Imam is showing his true colors:
The Mosque issue isn’t going away and it just got more interesting. Apparently Steve Emerson, Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism (a large storehouse of archival data and intelligence on Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorist groups), has unearthed hours of audio in which Imam Rauf sounds not so moderate after all. The audio hasn’t been released yet, nor the context, but from the sounds of it….the context won’t matter a whole lot:
Steve Emerson has unearthed 13 hours of audio tape of Imam Rauf. Emerson and his team of investigators has spent the past four weeks going through the newly found material. Rauf is a “radical extremist cleric who cloaks himself in sheep’s clothing.”
Among the shocking revelations Emerson’s team will reveal next week — they found Rauf:
Defending wahhabism – a puritanical version of Islam that governs Saudi Arabia
Calling for the elimination of Israel by claiming a one-nation state, meaning no more Jewish State.
Steve Emerson’s Investigative Project fact checks some of the positions in this radical audio, which some are positions the radical Left take as well. Audio of Emerson on the Bill Bennett show can be found here. Steve Emerson shows how Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf may have committed a felony. This is a growing story and my position that says this will bit the Dems in the ass is coming to fruition.
Daisy Khan, wife of Ground Zero Mosque developer Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, said on ABC News This Week that she’s worried about rampaging Islamophobia sweeping the United States.
“this is like a metastasized antisemitism… It’s not even Islamophobia, it’s beyond Islamophobia. It’s hate of Muslims.”
Syndicated radio talk show host Tammy Bruce, a pro-defense libertarian and gay rights activist responded with “Little Daisy Whines” on her blog TammyBruce.com:
Daisy Khan doesn’t seem to understand is that perhaps this isn’t about Muslims at all, but about Americans protecting and defending a site that is now precious to us. The malignant Narcissism of these people is astounding and so encompassing they, like the Obama admin in fact, cannot see beyond their own self-obsession. Little Daisy is loathsome–we didn’t start this, they did. We didn’t choose the location, they did. And the gall to claim opposition to the GZ mosque is “metastasized antisemitism” is the same as our own government calling Tea Party Patriots Nazis, UnAmerican, and the Mob. They’re all the same. There’s only one group of people who were mass murdered on 911 and that was Americans, not Muslims. And there has been only one group continuing to implement mass murder since then–Muslims. And there is one country that still calls for the mass extinction of Jews in the world, and it’s a Muslim country.
Thursday during the 1 p.m. hour, CNN’s “Newsroom,” this exchange took place between CNN reporter Ali Velshi andTime Magazine’s deputy international editor Bobby Ghosh:
VELSHI: The name Cordoba- some people are associating it with Muslim rule and bloody battles, when, in fact, Cordoba was one of the finest times in relations between the major religions.
GHOSH: Exactly right- in interfaith discourse-
VELSHI: Yeah-
GHOSH: And the great mosque of Cordoba that people are talking about and that Newt Gingrich was talking about- the man who built it, the Muslim prince who built it, bought it from a Christian group- paid money for it and bought it from a Christian group. And there was not a lot of alarm and anger raised then.
[….]
Reinhart Dozy (1820-1883), the great Orientalist scholar and Islamophile (i.e., by any objective standard, notwithstanding Ghosh’s uncontrolled spraying of the ridiculous charge of “Islamophobia”), wrote a four-volume magnum opus (published in 1861 and translated into English by Francis Griffin Stokes in 1913), Histoire des Musselmans d’Espagne (A History of the Muslims in Spain). Pace Ghosh’s distorted reportage, here is Dozy’s historical account of the mid-8th century “conversion” of a Cordovan cathedral to a mosque:
All the churches in that city [Cordova] had been destroyed except the cathedral, dedicated to Saint Vincent, but the possession of this fane [church or temple] had been guaranteed by treaty. For several years the treaty was observed; but when the population of Cordova was increased by the arrival of Syrian Arabs [i.e., Muslims], the mosques did not provide sufficient accommodation for the newcomers, and the Syrians considered it would be well for them to adopt the plan which had been carried out at Damascus, Emesa [Homs], and other towns in their own country, of appropriating half of the cathedral and using it as a mosque. The [Muslim] Government having approved of the scheme, the Christians were compelled to hand over half of the edifice. This was clearly an act of spoliation, as well as an infraction of the treaty. Some years later, Abd-er Rahman I [i.e., the “Muslim prince” in Ghosh’s redacted narrative] requested the Christians to sell him the other half. This they firmly refused to do, pointing out that if they did so they would not possess a single place of worship. Abd-er Rahman, however, insisted, and a bargain was struck by which the Christians ceded their cathedral….
[….]
…the contemporary scholar J.M. Safran discusses an early codification of the rules of the marketplace (where Muslims and non-Muslims would be most likely to interact), written by al-Kinani (d. 901), a student of the Cordovan jurist Ibn Habib (d. 853), “…known as the scholar of Spain par excellence,” who was also one of the most ardent proponents of Maliki doctrine in Muslim Spain:
the problem arises of “the Jew or Christian who is discovered trying to belnd with the Muslims by not wearing the riqā [cloth patch, which might be required to have an emblem of an ape for a Jew, or a pig for a Christian] or zunnār [belt].” Kinani’s insistence that Jews and Christians wear the distinguishing piece of cloth or belt required of them is an instance of a legally defined sartorial differentiation being reconfirmed…His insistence may have had as much to do with concerns for ritual purity and food prohibitions as for the visible representation of social and political hierarchy, and it reinforced limits of intercommunal relations….
“We’re not married, Let’s get that straight. We have a civil partnership. I don’t want to be married! I’m very happy with a civil partnership. The word ‘marriage,’ I think, puts a lot of people off. You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships.” — Elton John
Tammy Bruce — a pro-choice lesbian, agrees with Elton John as explained in this article on her site, “Gay Marriage: Why Not?“ (this article has disappeared [except for here], however, there is a more in-depth link that is connected with the article):
The political debate rumbles on, and we’ve heard the principle arguments repeated endlessly: On one hand, the right of gays to seek the same legal protections available to straights, and on the other hand, the mainstream desire to preserve an ancient and fundamental institution. Perhaps there’s a more appropriate way to look at this. Seems to me there’s an element of narcissism on both sides of the standard argument: On one hand, MY rights; on the other hand, MY tradition. But maybe it’s not about YOU. Marriage may make us happy (or miserable, as the case may be), but its primary purpose is to create a stable environment into which children will be born and nurtured through adolescence. Certainly both our statistics and common sense tell us that children do vastly better if they grow up with loving parents, a mother and a father. For this reason, I’d rather view the battle for marriage as a children’s rights issue, rather than a ME ME MINE issue.
Looked at from this perspective, the problem with gay marriage isn’t that it’s objectively any worse than (and it may actually be better than) the broken homes and single parents and all the other indications that modern marriage is a ruined institution. The problem with gay marriage is fundamentally symbolic: It’s the societal acknowledgement of how far marriage has fallen. If not for the specter of gay marriage, we could continue to pretend that we’re still functional. We could pay our hypocritical respects to our ideal, even if that ideal no longer translates into any semblance of reality.
If you get past the politics and the rants, you’ll hear many conservative Christians acknowledge as much. They understand that winning the battle against gay marriage doesn’t mean a thing unless marriage itself once again becomes respected and meaningful.
Just as the 2nd Amendment wasn’t adopted to protect your right to hunt, so the institution of marriage wasn’t created to deliver spousal health insurance and inheritance. Don’t let the politics distract you from the big picture. This battle is in one place but the war is elsewhere.
In ancient times before Abraham, pagans sacrificed their children to idols. This is a matter of historical record. Then, as our tradition would have it, God gave us the example of Abraham and Isaac to declare an end to ritual human slaughter. In our modern, enlightened era, it seems we’ve created a new form of child sacrifice. Children have become disposable. Most of us know this is our fundamental problem. Some say that the government must step in and pick up the slack with day care and the like. Others argue that the parental commitment must be enforced. The liberal/conservative divide forms roughly along these lines. This is where the war is.
Bottom line: If we’ve lost marriage, then it really doesn’t matter what becomes of gay marriage. Think about this before you jump back into the culture war.
….So it is a self-obsession based in victimhood. Now I was raised on the left to believe that in fact this was life and death, that we’re going to destroy you before you destroy us. Now that is almost non-existent on the right, if you will. I don’t see that kind of – there’s certainly some paranoia when it comes to the extreme right – but the level of paranoia and narcissism really drives all the decision making (on the left).
I’ll give you an example when it comes to gay marriage. If Christians are against gay marriage, the gay elite don’t believe that’s because the Christian is concerned about tradition, concerned about the future of this nation, or has a series of issues (with it) surrounding their faith, instead, of course, the gay elite says, “Oh, they’re homophobes.”
They’ve made a decision because they hate me, that they’re thinking this way because of me, that they’re making that decision because they want to hurt me – as opposed to, that they may be against gay marriage because, again, of faith, because of the importance of the tradition of marriage. In fact, God forbid should they ever consider that it might not have anything to do with homosexuals at all, but it has everything to do with (people’s) families, that kind of deeper thinking beyond one’s self, they’re incapable of….
Likewise, Al Rantel in his article entitled, “Gay Talk Show Host Opposes Gay Marriage,” makes the point that as a gay man, he opposes gay marriage [he has since changed his opinion, however, these arguments still are valid as it shows one in the gay community can hold them]:
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling by four of the seven justices that the state must allow gays full marriage rights by May 17th raises a myriad of questions that some are afraid to ask in this time of political correctness run amok.
First and foremost of those questions is who said gays want to get married in the first place? Lets look at the numbers. The highest number of same sex households in America is ironically in Massachusetts, however even then it is under 2 per cent of all households. If gays make up five to ten per cent of the population as is often claimed, one would expect this number to be five times larger.
As distressing as the state of the American family is today with the high rate of divorce and adultery, the situation is far less stable among gays. This is not a slur against gays as individuals, but rather the reality of what occurs when you have what I call the all gas and no brake environment of male/male sexuality. I should know. I am a gay male.
To say that unfortunately the gay world is in a general state of hyper-sexuality that is not conducive to relationships which marriage was intended to foster is to put it mildly. Further, almost all of the issues the gay left claims it is justifiably concerned about like property, health, and financial partnership issues have already been dealt with by many states and can be dealt with through further legislation as needed. Such legal changes would encounter far less political opposition.
Why then the seeming obsession by the gay left and their activist judicial allies like the Massachusetts justices to force gay marriage on an unwilling public?
There is an answer.
Forcing a change to an institution as fundamental and established by civilization as marriage is deemed by gay activists and other cultural liberals as the equivalent of the Good Housekeeping seal of approval for homosexuality itself. The reasoning goes that if someone can marry someone of the same sex then being gay is as acceptable and normal as being short or tall.
While I certainly do not think people should be judged by who they choose to love or how they choose to live their lives, the cultural liberals in America are after more than that. They want to force others to accept their social view, and declare all those who might have an objection to their social agenda to be bigots, racists, and homophobes to be scorned and forced into silence.
The gay left has still not matured into a position of self-empowerment, but is still committed by and large to the idea that the rest of society must bless being gay in every way imaginable. This includes public parades in all major cities to remind everyone else of what some people like to do in their private bedrooms while in the same breath demanding to be left alone.
What more certifiable blessing than state sanctioned marriage of two men or two women, even for a group that has offered no indication that most even desire to enter into the kind of commitments that marriage ideally entails, or that serves the real purpose of marriage. Marriage exists in order to create a stable and structured environment for couples to reproduce and raise their offspring.
And so we have come to yet another chapter in the story of those who would portray themselves as victims in need of another sanction from the state. This time the price of social acceptance of gays is the redefinition of an institution that is thousands of years old and a cornerstone of society. Does that really seem like a wise and prudent choice for America to make at the wish of a handful of judges, and at the behest of those whose real goals are more political than anything else?
Al Rantel recently retired from radio hosting on Los Angeles’ KABC.
Paul Nathanson, a sociologist, a scholar, and a homosexual writes that there are at least five functions that marriage serves–things that every culture must do in order to survive and thrive. They are (source | Also worth mentioning is this):
Foster the bonding between men and women
Foster the birth and rearing of children
Foster the bonding between men and children
Foster some form of healthy masculine identity
Foster the transformation of adolescents into sexually responsible adults
Note that Nathanson considers these points critical to the continued survival of any culture. He continues “Because heterosexuality is directly related to both reproduction and survival, … every human societ[y] has had to promote it actively . … Heterosexuality is always fostered by a cultural norm ‘that limits marriage to unions of men and women’.” He adds that people “are wrong in assuming that any society can do without it.”
To say that unfortunately the gay world is in a general state of hyper-sexuality that is not conducive to relationships which marriage was intended to foster is to put it mildly. Further, almost all of the issues the gay left claims it is justifiably concerned about like property, health, and financial partnership issues have already been dealt with by many states and can be dealt with through further legislation as needed. Such legal changes would encounter far less political opposition.