SCOTUS

Democrats Are Lecturing ME About Ethics and Trump!? Please

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is becoming my canned response to why i am still voting for Trump even after his horrible statements about women. Mind you, I would prefer him to step down and Pence take over, but that is neither-here-nor-there.

Firstly, Trump apologized:

paula-jones-400Has Hillary ever apologized for getting a child rapist off and laughing at his guilt? Has any liberal Democrat said, “well, you know, Bill was not fit for office in the second term” (and NOT vote for him a second time?). Paula Jones puts it well (to the right), and one should see Juanita Broaddrick relive the attack by Bill and realize that Hillary attacked these women (as did the media). Again, to be clear:

  1. KATHLEEN WILLEY CALLS FOR HILLARY TO RESIGN FROM CAMPAIGN…
  2. JUANITA BROADDRICK: She lives with and protects a rapist….
  3. PAULA JONES: Bill ‘was getting wee wee sucked under Oval Office desk and won second term’…

There are many reasons I don’t like voting for Trump. But there are many I do.

  • Reducing Taxes;
  • Border control;
  • Reducing regulations, ;
  • the Supreme Court (First and Second Amendments);
  • Rejecting political-correctness (or, cultural Marxism).

etc. (see this short audio)

There are other issues as well, but another sticking point with me is how violent Democrats are (and always have been):

[fbvideo link=”https://www.facebook.com/myiannopoulos/videos/vb.423006854503882/754896297981601/?type=2&theater” width=”695″ height=”400″ onlyvideo=”1″]

This aspect of the left needs to be fully rejected as well. A great article came out the same time I was formulating what is to follow… but first a small excerpt from the article via PJ-MEDIA:

…The creep of moral relativism in America has been steady for many decades, increasing in speed to the point that the “slouching toward Gomorrah” has become a sprint. The notion that there is objective truth or absolute morality has been universally panned to the point that everything is tolerated except standards of right and wrong. “Everyone decides for himself what is right, especially when it comes to sex” is the mantra of today’s culture.

For years, Christians in particular have been attacked and silenced as they’ve tried to challenge the immorality that is pervasive in today’s society. When they tell people casual sex is wrong, they get the inevitable, “You have no right to tell me what I can or can’t do.” If they oppose sexual immorality in any form, including adultery, they’re maligned as sanctimonious puritans by lovers of libertinism.

How ironic, then, that a culture which rejects moral standards has suddenly become so pure and pristine, sitting in judgment of someone they deem too immoral to become president because of something he said in private. As a logical person, I have to ask these paragons of newly found virtue where this standard by which they’ve judged Trump is found.

If morality is relative to each individual—a purely subjective experience—by what standard are they judging Trump? Obviously, in such a secular climate, there can’t even be a “standard.”

Why should anyone listen to people who out of one side of their mouths declare the death of objective moral standards yet out of the other condemn someone for violating objective moral standards?…

(read it all)

Now here is my canned “post” I am putting on Facebook… I will follow it up with a very short discussion about it:

…Like I said to another, I am holding my nose and voting like a Democrat.

Dems voted for a man — twice — that went to a Nazi like church for twenty years, that had sold sermons by Louise Farrakhan in their church’s bookstore, LF teaches that the white man was created on the Island of Cyprus by a mad scientist, Yakub. (Mr. Farrakhan also believes he was taken up on a UFO to meet God, and was told he was a little messiah, take note also that he was directly involved in the deaths of police officers as well.) Louise Farrakhan was featured twice on the church’s magazine which reach 20,000[plus] homes in the Chicago area. Even placing on the cover with Louise Farrakhan a third time the founder of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad. Elijah Muhammad likewise taught that the white man was created by Yakub 6,600 years ago. Walter, Louise Farrakhan teaches that the Jews in Israel do not belong there, and that the true Jews are the black people. Louise Farrakhan was invited into Obama’s church, to the pulpit and given a “lifetime achievement award.” In fact, the New Black Panthers and members of the Nation of Islam often times sat in the pews for sermons by Rev. Wright, whom Obama called a mentor. Not to mention Obama’s wife pictured with racist, anti-Semetic, UFO cult members. (https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/hot-tub-conversations/)

Other books that I purchased from Trinity United ” Akiba Bookstore ” I compare to Mein Kampf (a short example):

  • “The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew” ~ Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

An example from a book sold at Obama’s church’s bookstore:

✦ “The goal of black theology is the destruction of everything white, so that blacks can be liberated from alien gods” ~ James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, p.62
✦ “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” ~ James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, p.64

(My VIMEO)

The openly gay Democrat from Massachusetts [Barney Frank] was once embroiled in his own sex scandal, involving a young male prostitute hired as an aide back in 1987… (TIME)

These are the people who were outraged when a similarly gay “hustler” (Mark Foley) asked a sixteen-year old what he wanted for his birthday, and had PMs (private messages) with an eighteen-year old that were salacious. No sex occurred between either the 16-year old nor the 18-year old. Nancy Pelosi, who marched in lock step with a known pedophile and member of NAMBLA (who wants the age of consent to be 12-years-old) at a Gay Pride parade and then on television mentions how proud she is of this pedophile… she is now the champion of the Democratic movement? (AMERICAN SPECTATOR: When Nancy Met Harry | Democrats Called Foley Guilty of Sex Crimes)…

And this older example I am proud I elucidate others with:

…It was loyalty to that extreme agenda that accounts for Democrats holding back their ire during a far worse underage homosexual scandal: that of Gerry Studds, a Democratic Massachusetts congressman, for more than two decades.

According to the 1983 House ethics committee report, one congressional page allegedly traveled to Europe with Studds and testified that he took him to his apartment in Georgetown three or four times and that there was sexual activity between them each time. The two later took a 2 1/2-week trip together out of the country, according to the page, and “engaged in sexual activity every two or three days.”

According to the ethics panel’s report, “the relationship may have begun when the page was 16…. At that time, Rep. Studds was 36 years old.” What’s more, the underage page had told Studds that he would have preferred not to engage in sexual activity with him. “I mentioned that to him,” the former page testified.

The report added that “two other former pages, both male,” stated under oath that Studds made sexual advances to them. “One was 16 or 17” at the time of the alleged incident, “the other was 17.”

Studds never apologized, and when he was censured by his colleagues, he defiantly stood in the House well looking up at Speaker Tip O’Neill, hands casually folded behind his back. Afterward, Studds not only remained in Congress for more than a decade; the House Democratic leadership allowed him to rise in the congressional ranks and for years hold a full committee chairmanship.

Some of Studds’ Democratic colleagues even voted against the slap on the wrist of censure. Then-Rep. Parren Mitchell of Maryland, for instance, complained of the “absolute humiliation and degradation” Studds had already suffered and said censure would “cannibalize him.”

When Studds returned home to his district, an August 1983 editorial — in the liberal Washington Post of all places — asked with astonishment, “What is it exactly, or even inexactly, that those Massachusetts Democrats were so loudly cheering when they gave Rep. Gerry Studds three standing ovations last weekend? What accounts for this extraordinary response to a man just censured for having taken sexual advantage of a youthful congressional page?”

Why were Democrats cheering? Maybe the answer lies in the causes they support and the ideological company they keep.

You see, while other Republicans that are caught in affairs and “trysts” are chased out of Congress or leadership positions by GOP’ers… they never are in the Democrat Party. Well, this is only the “chickens coming home to roost” in that the culture is becoming more liberal in their social policies. The above (and the MUCH MORE I COULD NOTE: https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/a-liberal-blogger-calls-90-of-native-americans-racist/ …ETC, ETC…) did not matter to the Left at all – only NOW when they can sling mud. Mitt Romney was as close to a person can get to “walking on water,” why didn’t these self-righteous Democrats support him? Oh yeah, they attacked his character as well… a man that was the closest thing to a character giant politics has offered up in generations.

And so Trump is really a BLUE DOG DEMOCRAT. Which is why I will plug my nose and vote for this sad excuse of a man.

Like a D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T.

Here was a response to the above

Here is the initial statement based off the above that kicked of the larger conversation:

On one hand, they say Americans are horrified at Donald Trump’s naughty language in private. On the other hand, Americans bought 80 million copies of “50 Shades of Grey” and then spent $250 million watching the movie. ~ Coy Sawyer

After I posted much of the above, the conversation continued:

I will never lecture or judge anyone on how they vote, that’s none of my business. I will say this though, if I had to hold my nose while voting, I’m probably voting for the wrong person. My 2 cents.

I asked:

  • Who did you vote for the last two terms?

He responded:

  • Obama.

I respond:

He went to a racist church for twenty years. Here is an analogy with Bush in an actual conversation I had on vacation:

Walter, I will use Bush in my analogy. Let us say for twenty years Bush attended a church that twice prominently displayed David Dukes likeness on the cover of their church’s magazine which reaches 20,000 homes, and a third time alongside Barry Mills (the co-founder of the Aryan Brotherhood). Even inviting David Duke to the pulpit to receive a “lifetime achievement award.” Even selling sermons by David Duke in the church’s book store. Authors of sermons sold in Bush’s church’s bookstore teach in accordance with Christian Identity’s view that Jews and blacks are offspring of Satan and Eve via a sexual encounter in the Garden of Eden. In the church’s bookstore, the entire time Bush attended, books like Mein Kampf (Hitler), or, My Awakening (David Duke), and other blatantly racist books. Even members of the Aryan Brotherhood felt comfortable enough to sit in the pews at times… being that the pastor of the church was once a reverend for the group.

Now Walter, if Bush had gone to a church like that I would walk arm-n-arm with my Democratic comrades in making sure he would never be President. You would expect me to I am sure?

You didn’t hold your nose? Even though Obama is close friends with many anti-Semites? Even though he invited known terrorists to the White House for celebrations? He launched his political career in a domestic terrorists home… I thought (according to this administration that domestic terrorism is more of a threat than the Islamic Jihad)?

Here is his honest response (and I thank him for it):

  • Oddly enough I didn’t.

I respond:

Exactly. I am voting like a Democrat this year. No contemplation on ethics… just policy goals. Pelosi hangin’ with child molesters, Democrats giving gay Congressman who had sex with 16-year old pages… etc.

Policy is all that matters, not the newly found ethical mores of the left (every 4-years in opposition to Republicans).

He finished the conversation by saying my reasoning is why he is not voting for either choice this year. Which is his prerogative. He noted the last 8-years (under Obama) has taught him a lot (it has a few Democrats). Part of this may be the fact that well-respected liberal Democrat legal scholars are likewise afraid of the current direction of the left. And why the Court must not be seeded to Hillary:

So again, while I do not respect Trump, I will vote for the man. Here are more examples of the hypocritical Left that is now lecturing me:

MORE

★ BILL CLINTON: “A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee,”

★ JOSEPH BIDEN: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” continuinh he said, “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

★ DAN RATHER: “but he couldn’t sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.”

Since almost ALL of the Dixiecrats stayed Dixiecrats (only 3-of the 26 Dixicrats ever switched sides, often times 20-years later*), and the KKK type Democrats died of old age or finished their terms in Congress (or actually applied the Bible to their ignorance and changed their ways)… we have a new style of “racism” on the left replacing leftist racist ideology.

For instance: We have a President that went to a church [for 20-years… what if Bush had gone to a similar church?] that sold books in its book store entitled: “A Black Theology of Liberation,” or, “A Black Theology of Liberation.” These books have some quotes I AM SURE you care deeply about since you are against racist ideology:

▼ “The goal of black theology is the destruction of everything white, so that blacks can be liberated from alien gods” ~ James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, p.62

▼ “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” ~ James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, p.64

And here is Hitler in Mein Kampf: “The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew” In this same church bookstore, you could walk in and buy sermons by LOUISE FARRAKHAN.

Remember he is the guy who preaches that the white man was created on the Island of Cyprus 6,600 years ago by a mad scientist Yakub. He teaches that a UFO will put up an invisible wall around America and kill all the white people with fire who reside in that invisible “air wall”. He also teaches that he [Farrakhan was taken up to a UFO and told by ELIJAH MUHAMMAD and Jesus] that he was the “little Messiah”. This same guy was placed on the front cover of the churches magazine 3-times (once with Elijah Muhammad). AND, he was brought in and received a lifetime achievement award at the church. Even Farrakhan’s ex-aid said Obama and Farrakhan’s ties are [were] close.

DEMOCRATS chose a racist to be the keynote speaker at the 2012 Convention. JULIAN CASTRO is a member of La Raza… the group CESAR CHAVEZ (founder of the founder of the United Farm Workers [UFW]) said was a supremacist group. Not only that, but CASTRO’S MOTHER is involved deeply in the MEChA movement. That is the group that wants Mexico to take back the portion lost in the Mexican-American war. These guys/gals ACTUALLY show up in brown shirts.

Many Democrats in the House have open ties to the New Black Panthers as well…CYNTHIA MCKINNEY in fact, when she was in Congress, had them for security. So if you are truly interested in racist ideology, do not worry about all the old and gone Democrats who were racist. Or that DAVID DUKE endorses current Democrats running for office or other leaders in the current KKK vote en large for Democrats —today.

BY ALL MEANS, speak out against it (new Democrats) instead of old Democrats.

* The strategy of the State’s Rights Democratic Party failed. Truman was elected and civil rights moved forward with support from both Republicans and Democrats. This begs an answer to the question: So where did the Dixiecrats go? Contrary to legend, it makes no sense for them to join with the Republican Party whose history is replete with civil rights achievements. The answer is, they returned to the Democrat party and rejoined others such as George Wallace, Orval Faubus, Lester Maddox, and Ross Barnett. Interestingly, of the 26 known Dixiecrats (5 governors and 21 senators) only three ever became republicans: Strom Thurmond [20-years later], Jesse Helms and Mills E. Godwind, Jr. The segregationists in the Senate, on the other hand, would return to their party and fight against the Civil Rights acts of 1957, 1960 and 1964. Republican President Dwight Eisenhower proffered the first two Acts. (URBAN LEGENDS)

(Did you guys/gals comment on this when it happened? So in St Louis they beat up a black man who was handing out buttons and flags as a protest against the runaway out of control federal government. President Obama has said that the “tea party patriots” who have questioned his plan for the takeover of health care by the government are using “mob tactics.” Here is a quick video of Moveon . org, SEIU, and DNC using “mob tactics.” — The Democrat Carnahan packed the event and attempted to prevent the opposition from attending. As the video below reveals, ACORN and SEIU activists also received preferential treatment at the stage-managed event: https://youtu.be/cFeUhSlHiUQ)

…AND THEY’RE LECTURING ME!?

Mark Levin and Carrie Severino Discuss Trump’s SCOTUS Picks

Published by Papa Giorgio

Mark Levin speaks with Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network about Donald Trumps “telegraphing” of his Supreme Court [possible] judicial nominees.

I am somewhat ambivalent to his dedication to and for such picks… but in speaking to the Heritage Foundation as well as the Federalist Society he is showing some commitment to get conservative to vote for him.

In my post at The Constitutional Federalist of America, I note really three criteria that will get people like myself to vote for him…

  • He would have to announce plans to be in office for one term;
  • He would have to announce a conservative leaning VP;
  • He would have to foreshadow his choices he is considering for the Supreme Court.

…and this was one of them.

An informative segment to say the least.

For more wise counsel like this from Mark “the Great One” Levin… I invite you to visit: http://www.marklevinshow.com/

An Update (and timeline) To “The Little Sisters of the Poor”

Published by Papa Giorgio

Breitbart gives us this update to my “time-line” of activity against the religious people of the Catholic Church:

Approximately 100 million Americans do not have health insurance plans covered by Obamacare’s HHS contraception mandate because the Obama administration has exempted plans for big corporations, large cities, and the U.S. military.

The same administration, however, insists that a group of Catholic nuns who care for the elderly poor provide its employees free contraception, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization procedures–all of which are against its faith–or be forced to pay $70 million in punitive fines.

According to a press release by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty–which represents the Little Sisters of the Poor–the Obama administration has exempted corporations such as Chevron, Exxon, Visa, and Pepsi Bottling from the HHS mandate, as well as large cities like New York City. The Little Sisters have now asked the U.S. Supreme Court to protect them from the mandate.

The Obama administration claims that, through an “accommodation,” it has offered to reimburse the costs of the services it requires the Little Sisters to provide–so they should have no moral objection to complying with the mandate. The Little Sisters, however, say their legal challenge is not about money, but conscience and the freedom not to offer services in their healthcare plan that conflict with their beliefs.

[….]

More than 40 friend-of-the-court briefs have been filed at the Supreme Court on behalf of the Little Sisters. The high court will hear their case on March 23. [WITHOUT SCALIA!]…

December 14, 2014

Three main points from the brief, via Westword:

  1. The brief lays out three main complaints about the procedure. The first? Since the form “designates, authorizes, incentivizes, and obligates third parties to provide or arrange contraceptive coverage in connection with the plan,” the brief contends that “once the Little Sisters execute and deliver the Form, the Mandate purports to make it irrevocably part of the plan by forbidding the Little Sisters to even talk to the outside companies that administer their health plan, ‘directly or indirectly,’ to ask them not to provide the coverage.”
  2. In addition, the brief allows that “regardless of whether the government sincerely believes EBSA Form 700 is morally meaningful, the relevant legal question is whether the Little Sisters do. And on that point, there is no dispute: the Little Sisters cannot execute and deliver the contraceptive coverage form without violating their religious conscience. The government may think the Little Sisters should reason differently about law and morality, but their actual religious beliefs — the beliefs that matter in this case — have led them to conclude that they cannot sign or send the government’s Form.”
  3. Finally, the government’s so-called “scheme” is said to violate the First Amendment, because it has “exempted a large class of religious organizations based on unfounded guesswork about the likely religious characteristics of different religious organizations. The government has no power to discriminate in this fashion, allowing some religious organizations to survive while crushing others with fines for the identical religious exercise. This violation of the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses is compounded by a clear violation of the Free Speech Clause: the Mandate both compels the Little Sisters to engage in government-required speech against their will, and prohibits them from engaging in speech they wish to make.”

Another short commentary on what took place just a couple days ago via The Daily Signal:

Some organizations are fighting back against the accommodation because it simply shifts responsibility for purchasing coverage away from the employers, and it is still the employer’s action that triggers the objectionable coverage. This bureaucratic tweak to the accommodation, issued this past August, still does not adequately protect the religious freedom of many charities, schools and other religious organizations.

Writing for the court, Judge Cornelia Pillard found that CUA and Priests for Life failed to show that the accommodation substantially burdens their religious exercise. Instead, Pillard concluded that the only harm was Priests for Life’s feelings of being genuinely “aggrieved by their inability to prevent what other people would do….” Pillard recognized that though the accommodation may violate the challengers’ conscience, it allows the challengers to “wash their hands of any involvement in providing insurance coverage for contraceptive services.”

Essentially the court determined that the accommodation is fine because it doesn’t directly force the groups to violate their conscience.

Yet a regulation can still be a substantial religious burden even if the effect is only indirect.

The U.S. Supreme Court said as much in Thomas v. Review Board over 30 years ago. In this case, a Jehovah’s Witness steelworker was denied unemployment benefits after quitting his job because he was transferred to a part of his company that made weapons. Because of his belief in non-violence, Thomas could not participate in the manufacture of weapons. In siding with Thomas, the Supreme Court noted that “[I]t is not within the judicial function and judicial competence to inquire whether [Thomas] correctly perceived the commands of [his] faith. Courts are not arbiters of scriptural interpretation.” Instead, the Court would defer to a religious believer’s interpretation unless the claim was so bizarre or had a non-religious motivation, elements even the government concedes do not apply to Priests for Life or the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Thus, what Judge Pillard calls “a bit of paperwork” is exactly what Priests for Life find morally wrong.

What may seem trivial to one person may give rise to a serious religious dilemma for another. For example, Orthodox Jews may not flip light switches or press buttons on the Sabbath.

In short, courts should not be in the business of line-drawing when it comes to theological questions. Though the Obama administration won the round in the battle over the abortion-inducing drug mandate before the D.C. Circuit, the fight continues with the Little Sisters of the Poor.

January 5, 2014

Divided We Stand

The Supreme Court case is Little Sister of the Poor v. Sebelius, 13A691. The other cases are Priests for Life v. U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, 13-05368, and Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington v. Sebelius, 13-05371, U.S. Court of Appeals for District of Columbia (Washington).

exempt-from-obamacare-2

I posted about the Little Sisters a while ago, and we will be entering into a new faze of this issue soon:

The Obama administration was temporarily blocked by a U.S. Supreme Court justice from forcing an order of Catholic nuns to comply with a federal requirement to provide free contraceptive coverage for employees.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s two-sentence order will last at least until Jan. 3, the deadline she gave the administration to respond to a bid by the Denver and Baltimore chapters of the Little Sisters of the Poor for an exemption to the mandate. The Supreme Court released the order last night, a half hour before the mandate took effect.

The request by the nuns was one of four lodged with the court yesterday by groups claiming the administration isn’t doing enough to accommodate religious objections to the contraceptive rule. The requirement stems from the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act….

[….]

Tatel was appointed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, while the other judges on the panel that granted yesterday’s order, Karen Henderson and Janice Rogers Brown, were nominated, respectively, by George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, both Republicans. Jackson was named to the bench by Obama, a Democrat….

…read more…

Meet the Sisters

Via Gateway Pundit:

The Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic religious group for women who have dedicated their lives to the service of the elderly, is concerned that after more than a century of service the Obama Administration will force them out of the United States. The order was previously banned in China and Myanmar. The Obama Admininistration may force them out of the United States.

The religious order claims the so-called contraception mandate in ObamaCare will make it impossible for them to continue their work in the United States.

Does Sotomoyer see the dangers in this? Gateway Pundit Updates:

  • Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor blocked the Obama administration from forcing the Little Sisters of the Poor to provide free contraceptive coverage to employees. The Little Sisters of the Poor serve the elderly poor in over 30 countries around the world.

December 20, 2012

Via Gateway Pundit:

The Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic religious group for women who have dedicated their lives to the service of the elderly, is concerned that after more than a century of service the Obama Administration will force them out of the United States. The order was previously banned in China and Myanmar. The Obama Admininistration may force them out of the United States.

The religious order claims the so-called contraception mandate in ObamaCare will make it impossible for them to continue their work in the United States.

FOX News reported:

Exclude Religion Arguments Fail Miserable ~ Illusory Neutrality

Published by Papa Giorgio

In conversations since the decision I get the, “you are defending your religious point of view… what about others religious or non-religious viewpoints?” Firstly, I use — typically — non-Biblical responses. My Same-Sex Marriage Page makes one point using the Bible, the other five and secular worries that should make one consider the issue. I have written an entire chapter in my book dealing with the natural law response to the issue. I also note that at no time in history has this idea of same-sex marriage ever been even contemplated to be of equal value to society. No religious leader or major moral thinker that helped shape sour society or others ever thought different.

So, while I try to stay away from either expressly or even using my faith in the majority of the argument… lets say I were to do so? So What! Here 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…

…these problems don’t remain personal and private. The drive, especially since this issue is associated with the word “gay rights,” is to make sure your worldview reflects theirs. To counter this effort, we must demand that the medical and psychiatric community take off their PC blinders and treat these people responsibly. If we don’t, the next thing you know, your child will be taking a “tolerance” class explaining how “transexuality” is just another “lifestyle choice”…. After all, it is the only way malignant narcissists will ever feel normal, healthy, and acceptable: by remaking society – children – in their image.

Tammy Bruce, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values (Roseville: Prima, 2003), 35; 92, 206.

Justice Without Absolutes?

The French Revolution was fueled by rhetoric about the “rights of man.”  Yet without a foundation in the Judeo-Christian teaching of creation, there is no way to say what human nature is.  Who defines it?  Who says how it ought to be treated?  As a result, life is valued only as much as those in power choose to value it.  Small wonder that the French Revolution – with its slogan, “Neither God Nor Master,” quickly led to tyranny accompanied by the guillotine. The American Revolution had its slogan as well, and it goes to show how different the understanding of human nature was in these two revolutions.  The end result of our freedom also goes to show the validity in “the eternal foundation of righteousness” in which they were set.  (Tellingly, the Revolutionary slogan of the U. S. was, “No King But King Jesus!”)

According to C. S. Lewis (professor of medieval and Renaissance literature at Oxford and Cambridge universities, and a philosopher in his own right) one source of the “poison of subjectivism,” as he called it, is the belief that man is the product of blind evolutionary process:

“After studying his environment man has begun to study himself.  Up to that point, he had assumed his own reason and through it seen all other things.  Now, his own reason has become the object: it is as if we took out our eyes to look at them.  Thus studied, his own reason appears to him as the epiphenomenon which accompanies chemical or electrical events in a cortex which is itself the by-product of a blind evolutionary process.  His own logic, hitherto the king whom events in all possible worlds must obey, becomes merely subjective.  There is no reason for supposing that it yields truth.”

First mock Conversation

  • First Person: “You shouldn’t force your morality on me.”
  • Second Person: “Why not?”
  • First Person: “Because I don’t believe in forcing morality.”
  • Second Person: “If you don’t believe in it, then by all means, don’t do it. Especially don’t force that moral view of yours on me.”

Second Mock Conversation

  • First Person: “You shouldn’t push your morality on me.”
  • Second Person: “I’m not entirely sure what you mean by that statement. Do you mean I have no right to an opinion?”
  • First Person: “You have a right to you’re opinion, but you have no right to force it on anyone.”
  • Second Person: “Is that your opinion?”
  • First Person: “Yes.”
  • Second Person: “Then why are you forcing it on me?”
  • First Person: “But your saying your view is right.”
  • Second Person: “Am I wrong?”
  • First Person: “Yes.”
  • Second Person: “Then your saying only your view is right, which is the very thing you objected to me saying.”

Third Mock Conversation

  • First Person: “You shouldn’t push your morality on me.”
  • Second Person: “Correct me if I’m misunderstanding you here, but it sounds to me like your telling me I’m wrong.”
  • First Person: “You are.”
  • Second Person: “Well, you seem to be saying my personal moral view shouldn’t apply to other people, but that sounds suspiciously like you are applying your moral view to me.  Why are you forcing your morality on me?”

(Francis Beckwith & Gregory Koukl, Relativism: Feet Planted in Mid-Air (Baker Books; 1998), p. 144-146.)

SELF-DEFEATING

“Most of the problems with our culture can be summed up in one phrase: ‘Who are you to say?’” ~ Dennis Prager

So lets unpack this phrase and see how it is self-refuting, or as Tom Morris[1] put it, self-deleting.

➤ When someone says, “Who are you to say?” answer with, “Who are you to say ‘Who are you to say’?”

This person is challenging your right to correct another, yet she is correcting you.  Your response to her amounts to “Who are you to correct my correction, if correcting in itself is wrong?” or “If I don’t have the right to challenge your view, then why do you have the right to challenge mine?”  Her objection is self-refuting; you’re just pointing it out.

…Such “exclude religion” arguments are wrong because marriage is not a religion! When voters define marriage, they are not establishing a religion. In the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” the word “religion” refers to the church that people attend and support. “Religion” means being a Baptist or Catholic or Presbyterian or Jew. It does not mean being married. These arguments try to make the word “religion” in the Constitution mean something different from what it has always meant.

These arguments also make the logical mistake of failing to distinguish the reasons for a law from the content of the law. There were religious reasons behind many of our laws, but these laws do not “establish” a religion. All major religions have teachings against stealing, but laws against stealing do not “establish a religion.” All religions have laws against murder, but laws against murder do not “establish a religion.” The campaign to abolish slavery in the United States and England was led by many Christians, based on their religious convictions, but laws abolishing slavery do not “establish a religion.” The campaign to end racial discrimination and segregation was led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist pastor, who preached against racial injustice from the Bible. But laws against discrimination and segregation do not “establish a religion.”

If these “exclude religion” arguments succeed in court, they could soon be applied against evangelicals and Catholics who make “religious” arguments against abortion. Majority votes to protect unborn children could then be invalidated by saying these voters are “establishing a religion.” And, by such reasoning, all the votes of religious citizens for almost any issue could be found invalid by court decree! This would be the direct opposite of the kind of country the Founding Fathers established, and the direct opposite of what they meant by “free exercise” of religion in the First Amendment.

Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 31.

Historian Alvin Schmidt points out how the spread of Christianity and Christian influence on government was primarily responsible for outlawing infanticide, child abandonment, and abortion in the Roman Empire (in AD 374); outlawing the brutal battles-to-the-death in which thousands of gladiators had died (in 404); outlawing the cruel punishment of branding the faces of criminals (in 315); instituting prison reforms such as the segregating of male and female prisoners (by 361); stopping the practice of human sacrifice among the Irish, the Prussians, and the Lithuanians as well as among other nations; outlawing pedophilia; granting of property rights and other protections to women; banning polygamy (which is still practiced in some Muslim nations today); prohibiting the burning alive of widows in India (in 1829); outlawing the painful and crippling practice of binding young women’s feet in China (in 1912); persuading government officials to begin a system of public schools in Germany (in the sixteenth century); and advancing the idea of compulsory education of all children in a number of European countries.

During the history of the church, Christians have had a decisive influence in opposing and often abolishing slavery in the Roman Empire, in Ireland, and in most of Europe (though Schmidt frankly notes that a minority of “erring” Christian teachers have supported slavery in various centuries). In England, William Wilberforce, a devout Christian, led the successful effort to abolish the slave trade and then slavery itself throughout the British Empire by 1840.

In the United States, though there were vocal defenders of slavery among Christians in the South, they were vastly outnumbered by the many Christians who were ardent abolitionists, speaking, writing, and agitating constantly for the abolition of slavery in the United States. Schmidt notes that two-thirds of the American abolitionists in the mid-1830s were Christian clergymen, and he gives numerous examples of the strong Christian commitment of several of the most influential of the antislavery crusaders, including Elijah Lovejoy (the first abolitionist martyr), Lyman Beecher, Edward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin), Charles Finney, Charles T. Torrey, Theodore Weld, William Lloyd Garrison, “and others too numerous to mention.” The American civil rights movement that resulted in the outlawing of racial segregation and discrimination was led by Martin Luther King Jr., a Christian pastor, and supported by many Christian churches and groups.

There was also strong influence from Christian ideas and influential Christians in the formulation of the Magna Carta in England (1215) and of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Constitution (1787) in the United States. These are three of the most significant documents in the history of governments on the earth, and all three show the marks of significant Christian influence in the foundational ideas of how governments should function.

Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 49-50.

RPT’s Early Thoughts on the Same-Sex Marriage Ruling

Published by Papa Giorgio

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of gay marriage shows just how much trouble American democracy is in.

In a strongly worded dissent, the conservative justice wrote that he did not care that gay marriage was now legal, but he said that the court’s ability to make this decision represented a threat to democracy.

“Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court,” Scalia said.

“This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.”

The conservative justice railed against his fellow justices, calling the majority opinion “egotistical” and pointing out that the justices were a homogeneous group that didn’t represent the people. As proof, Scalia pointed out that many went to the same law schools, and none were evangelical or protestant Christians.

“To allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation,” Scalia said…

(Business Insider)

Two… yes, the number 2, has now become an objective concept in law over and above millions of years of evolution (Natures Law), or God’s Law (Natural Law) honing [or creating] the ideal that is the “male-female” relation. Both ideas, “Natures Law and natures God” (from the Declaration of Independence), under-girded the philosophy of the moment that wrote the greatest document/contract in human history.

The mission of the church in the West has just changed. Soon the number 2 will fall by the relativistic roadside to plural marriages. All these non-ideal familial structures (according to Nature or natures God) will erode the religious freedom the Founders set up.

But we have a generation that neither looks to history for guidance or to any religious/moral authority outside themselves.

This experiment will eventually fall into the edict of the French (Jacobin) idea of equality in outcome… And to be clear, the guillotine soon followed. Tyranny never follows far behind forced outcomes.

The priority of the male-female relationship is just a larger piece to the puzzle called “deconstructionism.”

“Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition…. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be bearers of an objective, immortal truth… then there is nothing more relativistic than fascistic attitudes and activity…. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable.” — Mussolini 

Here is a portion of a short commentary by Gay Patriot:

…Does anyone expect the activist left to be satisfied with their political victory?  If you’ve studied the history of the Civil Rights movement, you know they didn’t stop after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. There are plenty of new frontiers for the Lesbian Gay Bullying Totalitarians to pursue and keep the donations to the Sharptons and Jacksons of the HRC and other professional activist organizations rolling in.

  • Banning disagreement or criticisms of gay behavior through “anti-bullying” and “hate speech” legislation;
  • Mandating school curricula to include “gay history” as well as museums and monuments to be demanded to gay heroes like Harry Hay, Larry Bruckner, and Harvey Milk;
  • Forcing religious institutions to recognize gay marriages;
  • Churches must be forced to perform gay marriages or lose tax exempt status. (Mosques, probably not)

No, this is not the end. This is nowhere near the end. This is just another milestone on the road to our social Pyongyang. The Supreme Court has rejected the rule of law twice in two days in favor of a Judiciary Politburo…

Two short articles by R.R. Reno that have impacted me a lot just reading them through once. It seems that this is the best, considering our current climate, response that is conservative and conservatively libertarian for our [again] current culture.

Government Marriage

A constitutional right for men to marry men and women to marry women is a done deal. That’s how I read the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear cases in which lower courts ruled that marriage laws in various states that recognize unions only of a man and a woman are unconstitutional. Lower courts will continue to draw this conclusion. If portions of the country resist, the Supreme Court will very likely intervene and find a right to same-sex marriage amid the penumbras and emanations of due process or equal protection.

We are thus fast approaching a fundamental distinction between government marriage and church marriage. Government marriage is… well, it’s hard to tell. The courts have studiously ignored traditional arguments about the meaning of marriage. That’s not surprising, because all thick descriptions of marriage end up focusing on the male—female difference, which isn’t very useful if your goal as a judge is to find a constitutional right of same-sex marriage.

Given this new legal reality, what are we to think and’ do? First, we need to recognize how miserably we have failed. We sought to convince our fellow citizens of some simple truths. That marriage is a universal institution found in all cultures. That it properly organizes, regulates, and sanctifies the sexual union of male and female. That to say otherwise is unprecedented, strange, and unwise as a social policy. We tried to speak these truths in many different ways but without success.

Clarity about our failure need not entail giving up on the arguments we’ve made. Sometimes things need to be said because they’re true. But facing our failure should lead us to a keener sense of what we’re up against. It’s very hard these days to speak about men as men and women as women. Last month I wrote about the perverse way in which political correctness prevents us from talking about the problems of date rape and sexual assault in a manner that acknowledges the unique sexual vulnerability of women. We have the same problem when it comes to marriage. Our culture dreams of equality so complete that the male—female difference becomes irrelevant. Why do we need an institution to regulate the union of men and women if there aren’t any real differences between men and women?

Our current culture of the intimate life adds to our confusion. Widespread cohabitation makes marriage seem increasingly irrelevant. Our date-then-fornicate social mores run counter to the traditional claim that we should discipline our sexual instincts in accord with the limitations imposed by the institution of marriage. The fact that this culture shapes a great deal of our lives and those of our children, friends, and relatives makes our situation all the more troubling. How can we speak clearly about marriage if we participate in trends that obscure its proper meaning?

And then there’s the general fear we all feel about being “judgmental.” We take for granted the minute regulation of our economic relations. We accept extensive educational expectations and adopt rigorous regimes of exercise and dieting. But when it comes to sex and sexual “iden­tity,” our culture finds regulation suspect, even odious. This involves more than solicitude for our perennial hedonistic impulses. Anxious efforts to secure “transgendered” rights don’t focus on sexual relations at all. Those rights secure the freedom for a male to think of himself as—and to be treated by others as—a female, and vice versa. Most people I know roll their eyes when talk turns to the rights of the “transgendered community.” But they also shrink from saying anything censorious. To give full voice to traditional moral judgments about sex, sexual identity, and relationships is insensitive, puritanical, or just plain bad manners.

In this respect, Pope Francis is both very right and very wrong. We have not found a way to talk about sex and marriage, at least not one we’re confident will humanize, which is what clarity about moral truth should do. But he’s dangerously wrong to suggest that the way forward is to “obsess” less. The opposite is the case, for as both Roger Scruton (“Is Sex Necessary?”) and James Kalb (“Sex and the Religion of Me”) observe in this issue, our age is already obsessed with sex. If we don’t speak—if our church leaders don’t speak—we’ll be absorbed into our culture’s way of thinking, and our children will be catechized by progressive creeds of sexual liberation.

In the new regime of redefined marriage, we need to think long and hard about what we need to do—or refuse to do. For example, I can’t see how a priest or pastor can in good conscience sign a marriage license for “spouse A” and “spouse B.” Perhaps he should strike those absurdities and write “husband” and “wife.” Failing that, he should simply refuse the govern­ment’s delegation of legal power, referring the couple to the courthouse after the wedding for the state to confect in its bureaucratic way the amorphous and ill-defined civil union that our regime continues to call “marriage.”

More generally, I think we need to make a simple change in the way we talk about marriage. I propose dropping the term civil marriage and adopting the term govern­ment marriage. In the past, the state recognized marriage, giving it legal forms to reinforce its historic norms (or, in more recent decades, to relax them). Now the courts have redefined rather than recognized marriage, making it an institution entirely under the state’s control. That’s why it’s now government marriage rather than civil marriage. On this point I believe in the separation of church and state. The Church may participate in civil marriage. It should not participate in government marriage.

A Time to Rend

Getting out of the government-marriage busi­ness is exactly what Ephraim Radner and Christopher Seitz now urge. They’ve formu­lated a pastoral pledge. It requires ordained ministers to renounce their long-established role as agents of the state with the legal power to sign marriage certificates. I find their reasoning convincing. Easy divorce, prenuptial agreements, a general tolerance of cohabitation, the contraceptive mentality—this de­grades and obscures the meaning of marriage. But rede­fining marriage so that male—female complementarity is irrelevant? That’s a fundamental contradiction of the moss fundamental meaning of marriage.

Here’s the pledge:

In many jurisdictions, including many of the United States, civil authorities have adopted a definition of marriage that explicitly rejects the age-old requirement of male-female pairing. In a few short years or even months, it is very likely that this new definition will be­come the law of the land, and in all jurisdictions the rights, privileges, and duties of marriage will be granted to men in partnership with men, and women with wom­en. As law-abiding citizens, we join in according the ap­propriate legal recognition to these partnerships where and when they are accorded the legal status of marriage.

As Christian ministers, however, we must bear clear wit­ness. This is a perilous time. Divorce and co-habitation have weakened marriage. We have been too complacent in our responses to these trends. Now marriage is being fundamentally redefined, and we are being tested yet again. If we fail to take clear action, we risk falsifying God’s Word.

The new definition of marriage no longer coincides with the Christian understanding of marriage between a man and woman. Our biblical faith is committed to upholding, celebrating, and furthering this understand­ing, which is stated many times within the Scriptures and has been repeatedly restated in our wedding cere­monies, church laws, and doctrinal standards for centu­ries. To continue with church practices that intertwine government marriage with Christian marriage will implicate the Church in a false definition of marriage.

Therefore, in our roles as Christian ministers, we, the undersigned, commit ourselves to disengaging civil and Christian marriage in the performance of our pastoral duties. We will no longer serve as agents of the state in marriage. We will no longer sign marriage certificates. We will ask couples to seek civil marriage separately from their church-related vows and blessings. We will preside only at those weddings that seek to establish a Christian marriage in accord with the principles articulated and lived out from the beginning of the Church’s life.

Please join us in this pledge to separate civil marriage from Christian marriage by adding your name.

For a long time Christianity has sewn its teachings into the fabric of Western culture. That was a good thing. A Christian culture is not the same as a Christian commu­nity. No society is a church, no matter how thoroughly Christian its ethos. But as David Bentley Hart has writ­ten so eloquently, such a society will participate, however imperfectly, in the heavenly civilization of love. But the season of sewing is ending, and we need to separate that which is Christian from cultural forms taken over and reshaped for post-Christian purposes. Now is a time for rending, not for the sake of disengaging from culture or retreating from the public square, but so that our salt does not lose its savor.

We have posted the pledge on firstthings.com. Signa­tures welcome.

R.R. Reno, First Things, December 2014 (Num 248), 3-5.

Dennis Prager Discuss The Ultimate Issue of Marriage

Published by Papa Giorgio

Since marriage is no longer about creating a stable environment for children, and has become (and this mainly the fault of heterosexual liberals) about personal fulfillment, validation, and access to social benefits, there literally is no constraint on how much more broadly it can be redefined.

Gay Patriot (http://tinyurl.com/knuc7mq)

Megyn Kelly DESTROYS Jon Stewart & Lib Cranks

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Via Gateway Pundit) The Blaze wrote about the left’s many lies on the Hobby Lobby decision.

The Washington Post faulted several Democratic lawmakers for less-than-truthful assertions about the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, most of which implied that employers could prevent employees from buying contraception.

The 5-4 court majority actually ruled that closely held companies cannot be forced to pay for select types of contraceptives for employees.

Since some Democrats – including party leaders Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California – confessed to misspeaking, and others stated they were expressing an opinion, the Post’s Fact Checker said it would not count the comments as outright lies.

“But this collection of rhetoric suggests that Democrats need to be more careful in their language about the ruling,” the Post noted. “All too often, lawmakers leap to conclusions that are not warranted by the facts at hand. Simply put, the court ruling does not outlaw contraceptives, does not allow bosses to prevent women from seeking birth control and does not take away a person’s religious freedom.”

The Post cited eight Democrats for making misleading comments.

Government Overeach via Wickard v. Filburn ~ Clark Neily

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Video Descripton)

Dennis Prager interviews Clark Neily, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, about government overreach. Clark has a new book entitled, “Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government” (http://tinyurl.com/o5u9n8l). Clark talks briefly about the watershed case, Wickard v. Filburn, allowing the Federal government the ability to over-step its enumerated reach.

For more clear thinking like this from Dennis Prager… I invite you to visit: http://www.dennisprager.com/

See more: http://thefilburnfoundation.com/opinions.html

Backfire! California Constitution Says Prop 8 Is Still Law

Published by Papa Giorgio
The Will of the People

…As a gay conservative, I’ve always been conflicted about the issue of gay marriage. I guess it is because my political and moral philosophies are not dictated by the desire to be loved by the president or the federal government. I believe that my rights as an American citizen come from my Creator, not Barack Obama, John Roberts or Nancy Pelosi. But the reaction from most gay liberals today to theoverturning of the Defense of Marriage Act and reversing the California voters’ decision in Proposition 8 has been the opposite. The gay political class is celebrating Big Government waving its haughty approval like King George III waving his hand over his colonies.

So for those of my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters who needed the federal government’s emotional approval of their relationship: Congratulations. I just hope all gay and lesbian Americans take a moment to stop and thank Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush for nominating Justices Kennedy and Roberts so the Clinton era of discrimination could come to an end Wednesday…

(Bruce Carroll, via Gay Patriot and USA Today)

What Bruce got wrong in the above [excellent] article is that the will of the people has not been overturned… and as a gay man who loves our Constitution, he should fight for the will of the people and allow this change to come legally… as he has in the past.

Via Breitbart:

…But that means Prop 8 is still the law in California. Section 3.5 of the California Constitution specifically commands:

An administrative agency … has no power: 

(a) To declare a statute unenforceable, or refuse to enforce a statute, on the basis of it being unconstitutional unless an appellate court has made a determination that such statute is unconstitutional;

(b) To declare a statute unconstitutional;

(c) To declare a statute unenforceable, or to refuse to enforce a statute on the basis that federal law or federal regulations prohibit the enforcement of such statute unless an appellate court has made a determination that the enforcement of such statute is prohibited by federal law or federal regulations. 

As of today, there is no appellate opinion (meaning an opinion issued by a court of appeals) against Prop 8. The Supreme Court refused to issue one, and threw out the only other one (the Ninth Circuit’s). There is only a trial court opinion. So every agency in California is legally bound to regard Prop 8 as binding law….

…read more…

Liberals, apparently, are happy with 9th Circuit acting unConstitutionally? You see, a healthy court — and the 9th Circuit is NOT healthy — should not have gotten involved, at least according to SCOTUS. But judicial activism is the 9th Circuits game, and the Supe’s (SCOTUS) rightly stayed out of it.

The `Smart Guys` Debate

Erwin Chemerinsky ~ is the founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law, at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, with a joint appointment in Political Science.

Dr. John C. Eastman ~ is the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service at Chapman University School of Law, and also served as the School’s Dean from June 2007 to January 2010, when he stepped down to pursue a bid for California Attorney General. He is the Founding Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute.

The decision is really the best possible outcome we could of hoped for in regards to Proposition eight. Why? Because Prop 8 is still law and it will properly ascend back up the chain of legal ladder rungs when an attorney general refuses to marry same-sex couples according to state law.

The DOMA strengthened state-power in deciding what marriage is — as the constitution says. So the states that have defined marriage as between man-and-woman have less to fear. Mind you, the DOMA ruling will hit some snags, I explain;

But there are major inconsistencies that will need to head back to court to be smoothed out. For instance, if a couple is married in New York, and then moves to a state that doesn’t recognize SSM… Federal benefits do or do not apply? The state is not required to provide be benefits, and DOMA does not change this. A point mentioned in passing by doc Eastman is will the Feds have to confer benefits to all persons in a polygamous marriage if a state plays this? [Also, religious freedom will be front and center… more on this below]

So it is a win on the SCOTUS level… a loss [strike that earlier statement] win to voters rights on the lower level. Because, as the Breitbart article showed above, as well as the audio of Constitutional professor/Dean, John Eastman, explained — state powers were increased. Which brings us back to prop 8 and what the court[s] said/did:

(AP) ….The high court itself said nothing about the validity of gay marriage bans in California and roughly three dozen other states.

The outcome was not along ideological lines.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Antonin Scalia.

“We have no authority to decide this case on the merits, and neither did the 9th Circuit,” Roberts said, referring to the federal appeals court that also struck down Proposition 8….

As I pointed out, Prop 8 does not go by-by. There are nuances that will not be felt for a few days… but I will quickly explain what I understand:

In the California’s constitution, the government *HAS TO* uphold a proposition (again, by law) until the prop is said to be unconstitutional by an upper court. The Supe’s said they had no jurisdiction, and neither did the 9th circuit. The 9th vacated their position, and the ruling falls back down to the local judges ruling.

Which means — I believe — that the judges ruling is only effective for the two couples suing, or that particular district?

So what will happen?

…continued below

…Con’t

Jerry Brown has ordered — unlawfully mind you, because prop 8 is still legal (Camilla Harris also misunderstands California’s Constitution) — all 58 districts to start performing SSM. All it will take is one conservative county/attorney general to say no… and the case will again rise up to the echelons of SCOTUS (which has been making some good choices as of late). Except this time it will be in the Courts Jurisdiction because you will have a defense and a prosecution on its rise, which the original case did not.

In-other-words, as Dr. Eastman points out, seeing if Jerry brown and the Attorney General, Camilla Harris, follow state law is really more important than the Same-Sex Marriage debate!

Another aspect of this is the affect DOMA will have on religion, freedom of choice, and the like. Already, even in the Supreme Court, there are ad-hominem attacks and rhetoric that is itself bigoted and intolerant.

(National Journal) …In a ripping dissent, Scalia says that Justice Anthony Kennedy and his colleagues in the majority have resorted to calling opponents of gay marriage “enemies of the human race.” Despite this being the first time in human history, gender and marriage (as being between man and woman) being challenged… we are[!?] enemies of the human race? Sick!

But to defend traditional marriage is not to condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to condemn, demean, or humiliate other constitutions. To hurl such accusations so casually demeans this institution. In the majority’s judgment, any resistance to its holding is beyond the pale of reasoned disagreement. To question its high-handed invalidation of a presumptively valid statute is to act (the majority is sure) with the purpose to “disparage,” “injure,” “degrade,” “demean,” and “humiliate” our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens, who are homo- sexual. All that, simply for supporting an Act that did no more than codify an aspect of marriage that had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence— indeed, had been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human history. It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race.

(See “Deck O Race-Cards“)

The new regulations will surely thrust more cases into SCOTUS and we will finally tilt one-way or the other — by this I mean will the American people understand the clear enumerated protection of religious practice, belief in the 1st Amendment? or a hitherto unknown “right-to-marry” for same-sex couples hiding between the lines in the Constitution. The two cannot co-exist in the end.

As DOMA is implemented in the Military, we will see a clash of the above enumerated right and the special rights applied to a minority (Breitbart):

…In the Washington Post, Timothy Broglio, archbishop for the Military Services, USA, wrote:

Erosion

“Defenders of marriage may find that their rights to voice their beliefs and live according to them are quickly eroding after this court decision.” ~ Michelle Bauman

I remain confident that people of this great country, no matter the consequences, will continue to promote and defend the good and the truth of marriage as the union of one man and one woman as husband and wife for life. Marriage remains what it has always been, regardless of what any government might say.

I likewise remain confident that the First Amendment constitutional guarantee of the “free exercise of religion” will forever ensure that no restrictions or limitations on the teaching of the Catholic faith will be placed on any Catholic priest or deacon in the armed forces. Furthermore, the Constitution guarantees that no endorsed minister will ever be compelled to perform a religious ceremony contrary to the dictates of his/her faith nor will today’s decision have any effect on the role and teaching ability of a priest or deacon in the pulpit, the classroom, the barracks or in the office.

This archdiocese remains resolved in the belief that no Catholic priest will ever be compelled to condone – even silently – same-sex “marriages.”

Michelle Bauman, assistant editor for Catholic News Agency and EWTN News, wrote Wednesday that while the Supreme Court did not claim “to have discovered a fundamental ‘right’ to marry,” or a point-blank “redefinition of marriage” that would be imposed on the entire country, overturning DOMA “will affect more than 1,000 regulations and legal provisions, and could have a sweeping impact on both the legal and cultural understanding of what marriage is.”

“In addition,” wrote Bauman, “since the federal government must acknowledge all state-recognized marriages, there will be increased pressure on the states to redefine marriage.”…

No Religious Person In History Ever Supported Same-Sex Marriage from Papa Giorgio on Vimeo.

One of the failings in our current generation is the understanding behind the ethos of the founding documents of our nation. What the writers of these pieces of foundational guidelines said themselves, here is one example:

“…we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

John Adams, first (1789–1797) Vice President of the United States, and the second (1797–1801) President of the United States. Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 11 October 1798, in Revolutionary Services and Civil Life of General William Hull (New York, 1848), pp 265-6.

And we know what the Founder’s meant by the word “religion” from the debates about the First Amendment. We also know what a proper definition of a Republic means, which is what we live in… not a Democracy:

So, to conclude, while there is a lot to be optimistic about, one shouldn’t give up the fight for the ideological mind. Ours is a cause worthy of the best thinking on the matter. And a side note… debating issues. I was recently challenged with polygamy and the Bible. Christians contort for no reason over the topic. A topic meant to take your eye off the ball:

Mountain Man said

The issue of polygamy is tangentially related because the same-sex marriage debate is nothing more than an open declaration of war on the traditional and historical institution of marriage.

I agree…. however, people miss the larger issue in talking to non-believers, as well as showing believers how to make an impact on culture.

Please allow me to explain.

The Judeo-Christian understanding (as well as some of the big thinkers via Greece, like Plato and Aeschines) teaches/taught that marriage should be between one-man and one woman — or in the least between male and female. But polygamy proves the point that relationships — even in their accepted form by pagan or fallen society — have always been “male/female.” no major world religious founder, great moral thinker, or political theorist of old ever advocated this union.

So, when I debate a non-Christian on the matter, I use the idea of polygamy to make the point that this current movement is radical in its core, or, extreme. While the other side paints us as extreme for defending the idea of even male-female conventions in relationships, you can show that they are the first to reject the thinking of wise men and all culture before this generation, and that [in fact] they are the ones acting extreme. Even to the point of trying to rid society of gender differences [male/female].

But as I see it, in the marriage debate, polygamy is evidence from history that the norm a) accepted gender differences, and b) relationships have always been male-female. It is an arrow in my quiver, not someone saying the Bible approves polygamy. While the Bible does not divinely inspire polygamy and slavery, etc, it shows as a history text AND as a Divinely inspired text that relationships are male/female. I do not need to explain verse-by-verse the issue…

…the other side is making my point.

Ad-Hominem Attacks In SCOTUS, Plus, Dr. Eastman Explains the Prop 8 Ruling ~ It’s still law!

Published by Papa Giorgio

(National Journal) …In a ripping dissent, Scalia says that Justice Anthony Kennedy and his colleagues in the majority have resorted to calling opponents of gay marriage “enemies of the human race.” Despite this being the first time in human history, gender and marriage (as being between man and woman) being challenged… we are[!?] enemies of the human race? Sick!

But to defend traditional marriage is not to condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to con- demn, demean, or humiliate other constitutions. To hurl such accusations so casually demeans this institution. In the majority’s judgment, any resistance to its holding is beyond the pale of reasoned disagreement. To question its high-handed invalidation of a presumptively valid statute is to act (the majority is sure) with the purpose to “dis- parage,” “injure,” “degrade,” “demean,” and “humiliate” our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens, who are homo- sexual. All that, simply for supporting an Act that did no more than codify an aspect of marriage that had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence— indeed, had been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human history. It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race.

(See “Deck O Race-Cards“)

The gist of the above:

“Section 2 of DOMA unconstitutional. ~ SCOTUS” What this really does is strengthen states rights (better said as states-power). So the states that define marriage as hetero, are embedded with more rights, less interference from government. There will be future issues with DOMA… but that bridge must be crossed then. Also, here are some insights:

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Prop 8 does not go by-by. There are nuances that will not be felt for a few days… but I will quickly explain what I understand.

In the California’s constitution, the government *HAS TO* uphold a proposition (again, by law) until the prop is said to be unconstitutional by an upper court. The Supe’s said they had no jurisdiction, and neither did the 9th circuit. The 9th vacated their position, and the ruling falls back down to the local judges ruling.

Which means — I believe — that the judges ruling is only effective for the two couples suing, or that particular district?

So what will happen?

Jerry Brown has ordered — unlawfully mind you, because prop 8 is still legal — all 58 districts to start performing SSM. All it will take is one conservative county/attorney general to say no… and the case will again rise up to the echelons of SCOTUS (which has been making some good choices as of late). Except this time it will be in the Courts Jurisdiction because you will have a defense and a prosecution on its rise, which the original case did not.