1st Amendment

Confused About the Ongoing Bundy Ranch Debacle? Read On…

Published by Papa Giorgio

I have been a bit confused as well, but after a few days of digesting news — old and new media — I have come to the conclusion that if I had the time/money I would take a trip out to the Bundy Ranch and help. Below is some of the news that fortified this previous “on-the-fence” position I had.

(The below video is via GOP Daily Dose.) An earlier video had me hoping this would end well, but alas, it turns out Harry Reid was right for once when he said, “Well, it’s not over. We can’t have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it. So it’s not over” (Breitbart).

Firstly, I wish to thank Powerline for a well written, thought out, presentation that has cleared up some more issues for me. I suggest reading their entire article entitled: “Why You Should Be Sympathetic Toward Cliven Bundy,” it is worth the time.

On Saturday, I wrote about the standoff at Bundy Ranch. That post drew a remarkable amount of traffic, even though, as I wrote then, I had not quite decided what to make of the story. Since then, I have continued to study the facts and have drawn some conclusions. Here they are.

First, it must be admitted that legally, Bundy doesn’t have a leg to stand on. The Bureau of Land Management has been charging him grazing fees since the early 1990s, which he has refused to pay. Further, BLM has issued orders limiting the area on which Bundy’s cows can graze and the number that can graze, and Bundy has ignored those directives. As a result, BLM has sued Bundy twice in federal court, and won both cases. In the second, more recent action, Bundy’s defense is that the federal government doesn’t own the land in question and therefore has no authority to regulate grazing. That simply isn’t right; the land, like most of Nevada, is federally owned. Bundy is representing himself, of necessity: no lawyer could make that argument.

That being the case, why does Bundy deserve our sympathy? To begin with, his family has been ranching on the acres at issue since the late 19th century. They and other settlers were induced to come to Nevada in part by the federal government’s promise that they would be able to graze their cattle on adjacent government-owned land. For many years they did so, with no limitations or fees. The Bundy family was ranching in southern Nevada long before the BLM came into existence.

Over the last two or three decades, the Bureau has squeezed the ranchers in southern Nevada by limiting the acres on which their cattle can graze, reducing the number of cattle that can be on federal land, and charging grazing fees for the ever-diminishing privilege. The effect of these restrictions has been to drive the ranchers out of business. Formerly, there were dozens of ranches in the area where Bundy operates. Now, his ranch is the only one. When Bundy refused to pay grazing fees beginning in around 1993, he said something to the effect of, they are supposed to be charging me a fee for managing the land and all they are doing is trying to manage me out of business. Why should I pay them for that?…. (continued after break)…

LOL! Government Thinks the 1st Amendment Is an Area (Scary)

“Let’s be clear: the BLM is its own worst enemy on this issue, and many others. The agency’s ludicrous mishandling of this week’s protests with “First Amendment Zones” and the like is part and parcel of a years-long and mounting disrespect for public involvement in the management of its own lands. The probably illegal denial of public comment at solar project hearings we reported on in 2011 remains BLM Desert District policy, an issue we’re continuing to track.” (KCET)

The Washington Times gets to the core of the issue and why a militarized force (many government agencies, even the Post Office, that have no law enforcement needs have such units now) may be being used. And it is where an administration places it’s eggs:

Mr. Reid’s son Rory Reid, a former Clark County commissioner, represented ENN Mojave Energy, a Chinese-backed company seeking to build a $5 billion solar plant near Laughlin, Nev. The company ultimately dropped those plans after failing to secure sufficient financial backing, according to reports.

That project was more than 100 miles from the Bundy Ranch, Ms. Orthman said.

A separate solar project, involving a local Indian tribe, that Mr. Reid has pushed also does not overlap with the Bundy ranch.

“[Harry] Reid’s push for solar energy development in southern Nevada included attendance last month at a groundbreaking ceremony for a solar power facility that involves the Moapa Band of Pauites and First Solar Inc.,” said the KLAS-TV report. “But that 250-megawatt power plant will be roughly 35 miles southwest of the Bundy ranch.”

…read more…

Powerline continues to explain there may be some alternative energy interests (the Washington Times article directly above) involved in why the BLM is enforcing the issue right now, and then PL goes on to explain:

…So it is possible that the federal government is driving Bundy off federal lands to make way for mitigation activities that enable the solar energy development to the north. But I don’t think it is necessary to go there. Rather–this is the second and more important point–it is obvious that some activities are favored by the Obama administration’s BLM, and others are disfavored. The favored developments include solar and wind projects. No surprise there: the developers of such projects are invariably major Democratic Party donors. Wind and solar energy survive only by virtue of federal subsidies, so influencing people like Barack Obama and Harry Reid is fundamental to the developers’ business plans. Ranchers, on the other hand, ask nothing from the federal government other than the continuation of their historic rights. It is a safe bet that Cliven Bundy is not an Obama or Reid contributor.

The new head of the BLM is a former Reid staffer. Presumably he was placed in his current position on Reid’s recommendation. Harry Reid is known to be a corrupt politician, one who has gotten wealthy on a public employee’s salary, in part, at least, by benefiting from sweetheart real estate deals. Does Harry Reid now control more than 80% of the territory of Nevada? If you need federal authority to conduct business in Nevada–which is overwhelmingly probable–do you need to pay a bribe to Harry Reid or a member of his family to get that permission? Why is it that the BLM is deeply concerned about desert tortoises when it comes to ranchers, but couldn’t care less when the solar power developers from China come calling? Environmentalists have asked this question. Does the difference lie in the fact that Cliven Bundy has never contributed to an Obama or Reid campaign, or paid a bribe to Reid or a member of his family?

Based on the evidence, I would say: yes, that is probably the difference. When the desert tortoises balance out, Occam’s razor tells us that the distinction is political.

So let’s have some sympathy for Cliven Bundy and his family. They don’t have a chance on the law, because under the Endangered Species Act and many other federal statutes, the agencies are always in the right. And their way of life is one that, frankly, is on the outs. They don’t develop apps. They don’t ask for food stamps. It probably has never occurred to them to bribe a politician. They don’t subsist by virtue of government subsidies or regulations that hamstring competitors. They aren’t illegal immigrants. They have never even gone to law school. So what possible place is there for the Bundys in the Age of Obama?

Read it all!

Here is a good explanation in media form via FreeDomain Radio that clearly goes through the many aspects of this confrontation.. well:

(From the above videos description) Nevada Rancher Cliven Bundy – of Bundy Ranch – is locked in a standoff with the federal Bureau of Land Management over illegal cattle grazing, endangered tortoises and property rights. It gets even better…

The fight involves a 600,000-acre area under BLM control called Gold Butte, near the Utah border. The is the habitat of the protected desert tortoise, and the land has been off-limits for cattle since 1998.

Five years before that, when grazing was legal, Bundy stopped paying federal fees for the right. Bundy stopped paying grazing fees in 1993. He said he didn’t have to because his Mormon ancestors worked the land since the 1880s, giving him rights to the land.

“We own this land,” he said, not the feds. He said he is willing to pay grazing fees but only to Clark County, not BLM.

“Years ago, I used to have 52 neighboring ranchers,” he said. “I’m the last man standing. How come? Because BLM regulated these people off the land and out of business.”

Nevada, where various federal agencies manage or control more than 80 percent of the land, is among several Western states where ranchers have challenged federal land ownership.

Freedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.fdrurl.com/donate

Another good “new media” presentation filters out the junk and provides the below cache of the original issue and drive behind the Bundy Ranch “round-up” ~ pun intended. This comes via SCG News:

Cached Forensic Evidence

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Mozilla Co-Founder Brendan Eich Out for Marriage Views (UPDATED)

Published by Papa Giorgio
...Tammy Bruce Lays Down the Law!

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” ~ Last Line, Animal Farm, George Orwell. (h/t, GayPatriot)

More at Twitchy!

Breitbart posts the AP story on Brendan Eich that should familiarize those with the story:

Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich is stepping down as CEO after protests of his support of a gay marriage ban in California.

The Mountain View-based nonprofit maker of the Firefox browser had promoted him last week.

At issue was Eich’s $1,000 donation in 2008 to the campaign to pass California’s Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment that outlawed same-sex marriages. The ban was overturned when the U.S. Supreme Court last year left in place a lower-court ruling striking down the ballot measure.

Mozilla Chairwoman Mitchell Baker apologized for the company’s actions in an open letter online Thursday. She says Eich is stepping down for the company’s sake.

She says Mozilla believes in equality and freedom of speech. It is still discussing what is next for its leadership.

Gateway Pundit drives home the importance of this action that should imbolden those who care about freedom:

And, how did gay groups know Eich donated money to the Proposition 8 Campaign? Because the Obama IRS leaked this information to a gay-advocacy group in 2012. First Things reported, via The Tatler:

Amazingly enough, it is entirely due to the fact that Eich made a $1,000 donation to the campaign urging a ‘yes’ vote on California’s Proposition 8. When this fact first came to light in 2012, after the Internal Revenue Service leaked a copy of the National Organization for Marriage’s 2008 tax return to a gay-advocacy group, Eich, who was then CTO of Mozilla, published a post on his personal blog stating that his donation was not motivated by any sort of animosity towards gays or lesbians, and challenging those who did not believe this to cite any “incident where I displayed hatred, or ever treated someone less than respectfully because of group affinity or individual identity.”

Gay Patriot adds some key thoughts with a couple posts from Twitter (above and below):

The hounding of Brendan Eich has inspired Andrew Sullivan to direct some disapprobation toward some people who actually deserve it for a  change.

His flaw lies in assuming the progressive left wants a “tolerant and diverse society.” They don’t. Read the responses to his Tweet. Most of them are totally on-board with intolerance and witch-hunts.

The gay left is reveling in their power to ruin anyone whose opinion is not in line with what they consider acceptable. As I said before, they are only going to get more obnoxious….

UPDATE!

60% of Intel Employees Supported Prop 8

Uh oh: 60% of Intel employees who donated in Prop 8 debate supported banning gay marriage

….Political correctness begins on your own desktop, my friends.

The Los Angeles Times maintains a database of contributions for and against Proposition 8. The database includes the names of a donor’s employer, as is required by campaign finance law. I checked the records for some of the largest technology companies in Silicon Valley: specifically those that were in the Fortune 500 as of 2008. The list includes Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Cisco Systems, Apple, Google, Sun Microsystems, eBay, Oracle, Yahoo, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Symantec. I limited the search to donors who listed California as their location.

In total between these 11 companies, 83 percent of employee donations were in opposition to Proposition 8. So Eich was in a 17 percent minority relative to the top companies in Silicon Valley…

However, there was quite a bit of variation from business to business. At Intel, 60 percent of employee donations were in support of Proposition 8. By contrast, at Apple, 94 percent of employee donations were made in opposition to Proposition 8. The opposition was even higher at Google, where 96 percent of employee donations were against it, including $100,000 from co-founder Sergey Brin.

Follow the link for Silver’s table with the numbers for each company. The only footnote to Intel being the sole outlier is that, at Hewlett-Packard, while there were more employees who donated against Prop 8 than for it (103/54), supporters ended up donating more actual money than opponents did ($40,990/$32,616). Sounds like someone, or ones, at HP is busting out big bucks to defeat equality. We should find them. “HP” does resemble “H8,” you know….

Progressives Want State Run-Dictatorships (redundant) ~ And Proudly Say So

Published by Papa Giorgio

Frontpage Magazine explains the above graphic found in a leftist/progressive/liberal Slate article:

Salon was a major presence on the liberal web before Atlantic, Slate and the Daily Beast began gobbling up all its traffic. Now it’s become a student newspaper tackling hot button issues involving transgender cafeterias and microcelebrity twitter outrages.

Considering how badly Salon is failing, it makes sense why it would look forward to the nationalization of the media, but it’s also just as stupid as you expect it to be. Case in point, this…

Imagine a world without the New York Times, Fox News, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and countless other tools used by the 1 percent to rule and fool. In a socialist society run by and for the working people it represents, the mega-monopolies like Walmart, Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil, and the corporations that run the tightly controlled “mainstream media” will be a thing of the past.

Socialist countries do have independent media outlets. Salon and Fred Jerome apparently mean Marxist-Leninist. They just don’t say so because even their readers might question what there was to admire about Pravda.

A democratic, accessible-to-all media will move to center stage in a socialist USA. In some ways this democratization of the media is already happening on the Internet. But the government’s ability to spy on and even turn off the Internet belies any real democracy. In a socialist democracy, working people will control the political process, the way in which they make a living, and collectively and individually, they will influence mass culture.

If you’re following this megaton level of stupid, Salon envisions an all-powerful Socialist state where the government will not be able to spy on people or control the internet.

…read more…

The Federalist (Gary) makes the point of the article clear:

The crazy-ass American Left just can’t get over that they were not alive during the Russian Bolshevik Revolution.  If only they could have been there then things would have been done right.

Now the screwballs at Salon.com put their Marxist wet-dreams on the Internet as proof of what they really want for America.

Gary continues with a few excerpts:

✚ ‘Bye, Rush! If corporate media disappeared the people could have their voices heard.’
✚ Imagine a world without the New York Times, Fox News, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and countless other tools used by the 1 percent to rule and fool.
✚ In a socialist society run by and for the working people it represents, the mega-monopolies like Walmart, Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil, and the corporations that run the tightly controlled “mainstream media” will be a thing of the past.
✚ Besides accumulating their own profits, the media are daily trumpets for the rest of the corporate world’s advertising.
✚ The (newspaper) ads are laid out before anything else except the lead stories; the other news and feature stories are then fit between ads. . . . Media owners’ profits do not come primarily from the money we spend to buy their publications, but from the ads inside them.

Oh the horror!  Imagine a business actually planning out advertising so they could collect money and pay the wages of their employees!

Because they are losing the PR battle, they want to cook the books by destroying leftist media as well in order to STOP Fox News and Talk radio acolytes from having a platform (because they SMOKE similar programs in ratings).

Gay Baker Forced to Serve Westboro Baptist Church

Published by Papa Giorgio

“….Imagine a homosexual videographer being forced to video a speech that a conservative makes against homosexual behavior and same sex marriage. Should that homosexual videographer be forced to do so? Of course not! Then why Elane Photography?” ~ Gay Patriot

A great post from Clash Daily-Doug Giles, enjoy the not so funny point:

At least Oregon is applying its anti-discrimination laws evenhandedly. Interesting story out of Gresham: The Oregonian is reporting that Bruce Bottoms – a homosexual baker and owner of “Cakes By Cupcakes” – has been charged with anti-Christian discrimination by the Oregon Ministry of Human Rights (OMHR).

Mr. Bottoms and his partner, Lance Limpkowski, recently declined to bake a cake for the notoriously anti-”gay” Westboro Baptist Church (WBC). As a result, they’ve been forced to shut down their business.

It seems that, in another tired attempt to be provocative, representatives from the attention-starved WBC demanded that Bottoms and Limpkowski bake a cake for a Westboro fundraiser with the group’s trademark slogan, “God Hates Fags,” emblazed in rainbow frosting across the top. Mr. Bottoms, who reportedly moonlights as a part-time blogger for the homosexual activist “Human Rights Campaign,” was understandably appalled. He refused.

“Look, I’ll serve anybody, Christian or otherwise,” said Bottoms. “I just refuse to bake a cake that endorses an ideology that I find obscene. If Westboro came in and asked me to bake a birthday cake with the words ‘Happy 120th, Papa Freddy,’ it’d be my pleasure,” he said. “I didn’t decline to bake the cake because the customers defined themselves as ‘Christian’; I refused because nobody should be forced to lend their talents to endorse – whether directly or indirectly – a message or event that they find repugnant.”

Tolerance Enforcement Commissioner Brad Avakian disagreed: “We are committed to a fair and thorough investigation to determine whether there’s substantial evidence of unlawful discrimination,” he told the Oregonian. “The goal is never to shut down a business. The goal is to rehabilitate. For those who do violate the law, we want them to learn from that experience and have a good, successful business in Oregon. Everybody is entitled to their own beliefs, but that doesn’t mean that folks have the right to discriminate,” he said.

Meanwhile, churches and Christian groups across America organized a boycott of Cakes By Cupcakes, picketing the business and threatening to target other businesses that associated with Bottoms and Limpkowski. The two men have additionally reported multiple death threats, with one Presbyterian preacher leaving a voicemail: “Die bigots! You anti-Christian haters need to keep your Christophobia to yourselves!” he said.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

Although the “Cakes By Cupcakes” incident didn’t actually happen, something quite similar is happening across America. It’s a photo negative of the above scenario, but it’s equally absurd. Homosexual activists and “progressive” government officials are targeting Christian business owners – true Christians, not hateful Westboro-types – for real anti-Christian discrimination. And they’re doing it in the name of “non-discrimination.”

…read more…

McCarthyism Against Religious People in the Military

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is from the Baptist Press via Pastor Dean:

SAN ANTONIO (BP) — Due to a perceived slight against homosexuality, Senior Master Sgt. Phillip Monk is in a fight for his career. The Lackland Air Force base first sergeant was told by his commanding officer to clear out his office on Aug. 9. The point of contention reportedly is not about anything Monk said, but what he refused to say.

“It’s all because he didn’t say anything wrong. He thought it,” said Steven Branson, pastor of Village Parkway Baptist Church in San Antonio. Monk, his wife and their three teenage sons faithfully attend services each Sunday the pastor said.

Branson said he has been in touch with Monk since the sergeant told him Sunday (Aug. 11) of the untenable situation. The pastor said Monk feels abandoned by the institution he has served for 19 years. Deployed as a medic, Monk devoted himself to saving the lives of his fellow service men and women, according to his pastor.

“Now I’m in trouble,” Monk told Branson, “and everybody’s leaving me behind.”

At issue is Monk’s refusal to reveal his personal views regarding homosexual marriage to his commanding officer. According to a Fox News report, the commander, a lesbian, asked Monk to report on disciplinary proceedings for an Air Force instructor under investigation for making objectionable comments about homosexual marriage during a training session.

According to Fox News, Monk interviewed the instructor and determined his comments were not intentionally provocative. But some trainees complained. Monk suggested that his commander use the incident as a learning tool about tolerance and diversity, but to no avail.

“Her very first reaction was to say, ‘We need to lop off the head of this guy.’ The commander took the position that his speech was discrimination,” Monk reportedly recounted.

Branson said the commander began to press Monk about his views on the issue.

Fox reported, “She said, ‘Sgt. Monk, I need to know if you can, as my first sergeant, if you can see discrimination if somebody says that they don’t agree with homosexual marriage.'”

Having witnessed the commander’s ire regarding the instructor, Monk declined to answer. He also understood Air Force policy demands silence from homosexual detractors.

“She got angrier and angrier with him,” Branson said. “So he got fired for something she thinks he believes.”

The action will be a mark on an otherwise spotless record. Branson called Monk “pure military” — a real “do-it-by-the-book” serviceman who also happens to be a strong Christian.

…read more at Fox News Insider…

Concepts: “The Loss of Secular Society” (Distortions from the Left)

Published by Papa Giorgio

I am amused to see a guy — John Van Huizum — mention his two-decades of writing articles, and then, follow this resume reference with this:

I think that when you put God on a U.S. issued coin or banknote, you obviously ignore what should be a separation of church and state, as many of our founders intended.

Please, besides writing crap for two decades backed by nothing more than opinion, tell me what the Founders thought of “separation of church and state” John. Tell me what books you have read to come to such a conclusion, please. And I imagine you would have read a few from each viewpoint to come to such a FIRM conclusion, like: “you OBVIOUSLY ignore what should be a separation of church and state, as many of our founders intended” (emphasis added). In a paper I did on this topic, I note that the same persons that wrote and ratified the 1st Amendment, did something that according to John they shouldn’t have done if how he views the topic is true. For instance, as soon as they finished with Constitutional issues (its creation and passage), they immediately went to their prospective states and wrote their state constitution. Here are some excerpts from them:

State Constitutions

On the day the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, they underwent an immediate transformation.  The day before, each of them had been a British citizen, living in a British colony, with thirteen crown-appointed British state governments.  However, when they signed that document and separated from Great Britain, they lost all of their State governments.

Consequently, they returned home from Philadelphia to their own States and began to create new State constitutions.  Samuel Adams and John Adams helped write the Massachusetts constitution; Benjamin Rush and James Wilson helped write Pennsylvania’s constitution; George Read and Thomas McKean helped write Delaware’s constitution; the same is true in other States as well.  The Supreme Court in Church of Holy Trinity v. United States (1892) pointed to these State constitutions as precedents to demonstrate the Founders’ intent. 

Notice, for example, what Thomas McKean and George Read placed in the Delaware constitution:

“Every person, who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust… shall… make and subscribe the following declaration, to wit: ‘I do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed forever more, and I acknowledge the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.’”

Take note of some other State constitutions.  The Pennsylvania constitution authored by Benjamin Rush and James Wilson declared:

“And each member [of the legislature], before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz: ‘I do believe in one God, the Creator and Governor of the Universe, the rewarded of the good and the punisher of the wicked, and I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration.’”

The Massachusetts constitution, authored by Samuel Adams – the Father of the American Revolution – and John Adams, stated:

 “All persons elected must make and subscribe the following declaration, viz. ‘I do declare that I believe the Christian religion and have firm persuasions of its truth.’”

North Carolina’s constitution required that:

“No person, who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the [Christian] religion, or the Divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office, or place of trust or profit in the civil department, within this State.”

You had to apply God’s principles to public service, otherwise you were not allowed to be a part of the civil government.  In 1892, the Supreme Court (Church of Holy Trinity v. United States) pointed out that of the forty-four States that were then in the Union, each had some type of God-centered declaration in its constitution.  Not just any God, or a general God, say a “higher power,” but thee Christian God as understood in the Judeo-Christian principles and Scriptures.  This same Supreme Court was driven to explain the following:

“This is a religious people.  This is historically true.  From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation….  These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons: they are organic utterances; they speak the voice of the entire people….  These and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.”

…read more…

In other words, for two decades John has been writing hearsay and not doing the hard work a knowing what the “F” he is talking about. Unfortunately, due to time, I am not able to critique other issues in this short article I found wanting. That being said, I am sure the reader gets the point from this single critique (as well as my previous) that John is your typical secular liberal. I think I agree with Milton Berle’s assessment of John (*wink*), “with him, ignorance is a religion.”

Military Chaplains Soon Forced Into Performing Same-Sex Marriages? (Two veterans from over a year ago think so)

Published by Papa Giorgio

BigGovernment has this:

The stage is being set so that military Chaplains can and most likely will be ordered to perform same sex marriage in contradiction to their religious beliefs.

WASHINGTON, May 22, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Democrat House leaders including Nancy Pelosi have opposed a measure to ensure military chaplains are not forced to perform same-sex “marriages,” arguing that it is based on a “manufactured crisis” and therefore unnecessary – a response strongly criticized by chaplain advocates.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday echoed sentiments issued by the Obama White House regarding the conscience language, part of a defense spending bill, saying that “there’s nothing that says that chaplains act against their faith.”

The result will be that chaplains of certain faiths abandon the military as they are forced to choose between violating their faiths or being driven out for not performing such marriage ceremonies.

What is required is the respect of certain long-established and broadly supported religious beliefs. We currently lack a White House and Democrat leadership capable of providing this respect. When Leftists empowered by big government meet religion, religion loses and is ultimately diminished in size and influence.

…read more…

In a recent response to a friend post on FaceBook, I mentioned the types of areas that same-sex marriage hurts religious belief and places where faith and care and concern for the poor as well as children:

…Unfortunately, like many others, this is what Thomas Sowell calls “stage one” thinking. Emotions based policy making without asking what affect a decision will have on society. The oldest (and most successful) adoption agency in Massachusetts (80-years in the field of placing children with families, Illinois and California are sure to follow) and DC had to shut their doors because of their religious option to prefer heterosexual couples when adopting to homosexual couples, from Universities ceasing to give insurance to their students and staff, to forcing chaplains in the military to marry gay couples. These are the early consequences to stage one thinking…

You can add military chaplains to the mix. Decisions like these do not just affect “marriage,” they reverberate throughout all society. Special rights always sets up battles and shows how they destroy healthy thinking, for instance this dichotomy:

“If homosexuality is really genetic, we may soon be able to tell if a fetus is predisposed to homosexuality, in which case many parents might choose to abort it. Will gay rights activists continue to support abortion rights if this occurs?” ~ Dale A. Berryhill, The Assault: Liberalism’s Attack on Religion, Freedom, and Democracy

The question become this, then. Would conservatively religious people serving LESS in the military hurt or help our nation? Does forcing one to reject his religious conscience by Government edict good or bad for society? This is stage two thinking. About 0.1 percent of all American military personnel officially declare themselves to be atheists, while about 77% are Christians — with about 3,000 chaplains — of some flavor (Catholic, Protestant, and the like).  Would our military and national defense suffer if less-and-less Christians joined? The left never asks these questions, they merely legislate from emotional stances:

The Blaze has this portion on the matter:

According to a policy statement released by the administration yesterday, President Barack Obama “strongly objects” to provisions in a House defense authorization bill that would prohibit the use of U.S. military property in same-sex marriages and protect military chaplains who refuse to perform gay marriage ceremonies against their religious beliefs.

Arguing that the measure’s “overbroad terms,“ the Obama administration claims such a measure ”is potentially harmful to good order and discipline.”

…read more…

Commentary Magazine ends their wonderful article on this topic very astutely:

…If President Obama does veto the protections offered to chaplains by the House — as his Office of Management and Budget recommends — then it is possible to envision a future where Catholic, evangelical and Orthodox Jewish clergy will no longer be welcome as military chaplains.

At the American Conservative, Rod Dreher quotes American Jewish Congress chief counsel Marc Stern as saying that, “no one seriously believes that clergy will be forced, or even asked, to perform marriages that are anathema to them.” Yet the “sea change” that same-sex marriage will create in American law will bring with it consequences that advocates for this measure aren’t acknowledging. As Dreher writes:

The strategy of the pro-SSM side seems to be to deny that anything like this could possibly happen, and that people who say it could are being irresponsible scaremongers. Then when it actually happens, they’ll say oh, who cares; those bigots deserve what they get.

Dreher is right. The legal problem here is not so much the direct issue of redefining marriage from the traditional understanding of it being one man and one woman. Rather, it is the implications that stem from government sanction that will redefine some religious believers as being outside of not only mainstream opinion but literally outlaws and vulnerable to prosecution and/or defunding on the grounds of discrimination against gays.

The only way for advocates of same-sex marriage to avoid the stigmatizing of some faiths in this manner is to agree to legal stipulations that remove any possibility that religious institutions could be compelled to sanction behavior their religion regards as immoral. But if they refuse to do so, as the White House is indicating with its opposition to House protections for military chaplains, then gay marriage ceases to be a civil rights issue and becomes the focal point of a kulturkampf in which religious freedom is on the line. If that is the way things are heading, then military chaplains won’t be the last victims in the purge of believers.

…read more…

 

Democrats Hurting Majority In Drive To Egalitarian “Special Rights” Utopia

Published by Papa Giorgio

One Franciscan University employee said:

“But there you have it: thanks to the government’s firm desire to make sure the one or two women left in the country who did not have easy and cheap access to contraceptives, abortofacients [sic], and sterilization procedures, our 2,500 students will no longer have an insurance plan ready and waiting for them.”

[….]

Franciscan’s refusal to comply with the HHS edict shows that this issue will not go away quietly for Obama among Catholics and members of other faiths less inclined to vote Democrat.  As more Catholic institutions opt out, the issue will get more and more acute for Obama as bishops press hard for freedom of religious conscience.

…READ MORE…

Earlier (Feb 6, 2012), the Archdiocese of Boston said it may stop offering insurance:

The Archdiocese of Boston says it may stop offering health insurance for its employees if the Obama administration does not relax a new rule that requires many church-affiliated employers to cover the cost of birth control in employee health plans.

In a sharply worded letter sent to parishioners, Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley called the rule a violation of Catholic consciences. Citing the Church’s longstanding opposition to contraception, O’Malley wrote:

In its ruling, the Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty.

O’Malley’s letter was one of many sent out to parishes across the country at the behest of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

…READ MORE…

What a rotten consequence of Democratic leftism! It — liberal ideology — makes many unintelligent to the real problems and ways to fix them with common sense (like inter-state insurance competition, tort law reform, and the like).

Here is a great example from 2006 of how leftists ideology harms the people they purport to say they help. In this example, children:

(Washington Times, 2006) The recent decision by Catholic Charities of the Boston Archdiocese to stop offering adoption services to avoid placing children with homosexuals is reverberating through child welfare circles and sparking fears that other Catholic Charities agencies may follow suit.

“Everyone’s still reeling from the decision,” Marylou Sudders, executive director of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (MSPCC), said yesterday.

“Ultimately, the only losers are the kids,” said Maureen Flatley, a Boston adoption consultant and lobbyist. If other Catholic Charities agencies withdraw from public adoption, “you can’t even begin to talk about what the impact of that will be nationwide,” she said.

[….]

A spokeswoman for the state DSS said it was already working to “transition” hundreds of foster children to new agencies. The Boston Catholic Charities’ contract expires June 30.

[….]

Ms. Sudders of MSPCC said that by not renewing its state license, Boston Catholic Charities will be opting out of myriad services, including recruitment of adoptive parents, training, home studies, managing adoption placements and working with special needs adoptions. She said the loss of the state’s biggest and most experienced adoption agency is “a very big deal for Massachusetts and a very big deal for the kids.”

The Democratic Party, enslaving, hurting, and killing the innocent since 1812!