Thomas More Society Responds to Obama’s Decision Not to Defend the Defense of Marriage Act

WASHINGTON, March 2, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ — Last week President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr., claimed that there is no justifiable basis for continuing to defend Sec. 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). As a result of the President’s and the Attorney General’s conclusions that DOMA is unconstitutional, the Department of Justice (DOJ) will no longer defend DOMA in court. Paul Linton, special counsel, Thomas More Society, a veteran constitutional attorney, has written a response that gives a rebuttal to the letter from the Attorney General. Linton’s response is available here.

Section 3 of DOMA defines marriage, for all purposes of federal law and federal benefits, as the union of one man and one woman. Homosexual activists who want to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples have filed multiple lawsuits challenging DOMA as unconstitutional.

Examples of Linton’s arguments that the DOJ should be defending DOMA include:

• The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the legal arguments that the Constitution protects the right to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples in Baker v. Nelson. Linton’s rebuttal points out that there is a summary decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that rejects major constitutional claims to a right to same-sex “marriage.” DOJ attorneys can make arguments in court that the Supreme Court has already rejected the legal challenges to DOMA. This is an argument the DOJ can use in lower courts because of the Supreme Court precedent.
• Federal courts have upheld the constitutionality of DOMA. Linton lists them in his response. Therefore, the DOJ lawyers can defend DOMA by pointing to these federal court decisions that uphold DOMA.
• Courts have rejected the DOJ interpretation that “sexual orientation” is a protected class like race under the Constitution. The DOJ justification for not defending DOMA relies on its own conclusion that classifications based upon “sexual orientation,” like those based on race or gender, are subject to rigorous review under the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Linton shows that the DOJ’s reasoning is defective because, even if the DOJ does not agree with those court decisions, it can rely on them to defend DOMA.

“In his letter the US Attorney General wrote that it is only in the rarest case that the Department of Justice should not defend an act of Congress. Based on longstanding law and numerous court decisions, this is not one of those rare cases. The president has the obligation under the constitution to defend DOMA.” said Peter Breen, executive director for the Thomas More Society in Chicago.

About the Thomas More Society: Founded in 1997, the Thomas More Society is a national public interest law firm that exists to restore respect for life in law. Based in Chicago, the Thomas More Society defends the sanctity of human life, traditional family values and religious liberty in courtrooms across the country. The Society is a nonprofit organization wholly supported by private donations. For more information or to support the work of Thomas More Society, please visit www.thomasmoresociety.org. 

With President Barack Obama and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder abdicating their constitutional obligations to defend the laws of the United States, particularly the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the onus has now fallen on the U.S. Congress to act in defense of the law it passed and President Bill Clinton signed in 1996.

With the U.S. Senate still controlled by Democrats, the House of Representatives led by Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is where a defense would come from. “I’m really disappointed in the President and the Department of Justice in the fact that they’re not going to defend a law that Congress passed overwhelmingly,” Boehner told CBN’s David Brody on Sunday. “It’s their responsibly to do that.”

Boehner also told Brody that one option is for the U.S. House to appoint a special counsel to defend DOMA and that a decision on a course of action is likely by Friday.

U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said “that House Republicans would take action to protect the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) against recent legal challenges.” Cantor also said that “to have the administration take the position, the president take the position, that he’s not defending the law of the land, is something very troubling….”

It remains critical, however, that Speaker Boehner receives support from the American people.

Please take 5 minutes to call Speaker Boehner. Thank him for his defense of traditional marriage, and encourage him to follow through with the U.S. House intervening in defense of the Federal DOMA by appointing a special counsel.

Speaker of the House John Boehner:             202-225-0600

You can also contact Speaker Boehner through his WEBSITE, or via Facebook and Twitter.

For our families,

David E. Smith
IFI Executive Director

P.S. The Chicago Tribune continues its assault on natural marriage in an editorial defending the President’s decision.

he U.S. State Department recently announced that it is replacing the “father” and “mother” fields on passport applications with “parent 1” and “parent 2.”

A statement on the State Department’s website noted:

“These improvements are being made to provide a gender neutral description of a child’s parents and in recognition of different types of families.”

Homosexual rights groups lauded the decision saying that “changing the term mother and father to the more global term of parent allows many different types of families to be able to go and apply for a passport for their child without feeling like the government doesn’t recognize their family.”

Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins said the decision is “clearly designed to advance the causes of same-sex ‘marriage’ and homosexual parenting without statutory authority, and violates the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act.”

The new application will debut in February. Click HERE to read more.

The Obama Administration has announced that it is abandoning a controversial new “end-of-life” policy recently incorporated into new Medicare regulations. The Administrations says it is setting aside the plan, which would have reimbursed doctors for holding “advance care planning” discussions during annual “wellness” visits.

The policy was similar to language originally inserted by U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) into President Obama’s recently passed health care legislation. That language, which was developed by the pro-euthanasia group Compassion and Choices, was also abandoned after critics charged it would create federally funded “death panels.”

The New York Times reports that the Administration decided to eliminate the new “advance care planning” regulation because more people needed to have the opportunity to comment on it before it went into effect.

Obviously that wasn’t the original plan. Congressman Blumenauer, who is a supporter of assisted suicide, had sent a memo to his allies urging them to help keep the public in the dark.

“We would ask that you not broadcast this accomplishment out to any of your lists because e-mails can too easily be forwarded,” he stated in his memo. “Thus far, it seems no press or blogs have discovered it. The longer this regulation goes unnoticed, the better our chances of keeping it.”

The pro-life community has been greatly concerned about federally funded end-of-life “counseling” because of the stridently anti-life philosophy of President Obama and his advisers. Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, a man known as the President’s “health care alchemist” and a chief architect of the President’s health care plan, has been an outspoken proponent of health care rationing for the elderly and the disabled. Dr. Emmanuel is also the older brother of former White House Chief of Staff and candidate for Chicago Mayor, Rahm Emanuel.

Dr. Emmanuel has stated in the past that government-managed health care should not provide services to individuals “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens.” Dr. Emmanuel has included patients with dementia and children with learning disabilities on that list.

In the midst of the latest ruckus over senior citizen health care, the White House has announced that Dr. Emmanuel will be leaving his post as health adviser in the Office of Management and Budget.

Unfortunately, he is not leaving the Administration, but is returning to his former job as the Director of the bioethics department in the National Institutes of Health.

According to the New York Times, the infamous “death panels” that were removed from President Barack Obama’s final 2,000+ page Government Health Care bill have been revived stealthily by government bureaucrats. The restoration of these “death panels” is coming in the form of a Medicare policy that will “pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forego aggressive life-sustaining treatment.”

The reason why this is possible, as the New York Times puts it, is because “the laws [in ObamaCare] were so broad and complex that executive-branch regulators have wide leeway in determining what the rules should say and how they should be carried out.”

According to our friends at Liberty Counsel, the “voluntary advance care planning” language was hidden on page 238 of a nearly 700-page document, the implementation of which began on January 1, 2011. The language comes from U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), the author of the original end-of-life proposal. The New York Times reported an email from his office saying, “Thus far, it seems that no press or blogs have discovered it, but we will be keeping a close watch and may be calling on you if we need a rapid, targeted response. The longer this goes unnoticed, the better our chances of keeping it.”

For more information on the revival of the “death panels,” read “The ObamaCare Nightmare Before Christmas” by Jason Mattera and “Return of the Death Panel” by John Hayward.

Times are tough economically. I know you are careful where every penny is spent these days, as are we. Please know that the Illinois Family Institute (IFI) greatly appreciates every gift we receive — no matter the size.

In light of the current economic climate, and to help meet our financial needs, I’d like to encourage you to consider becoming an IFI Sustaining Partner.

If you have never given on a regular basis to our ministry, would you please consider a small monthly gift — as little as even $15, $25 or $50?

Thank you!!!

The United States Congress delivered a most unwelcome Christmas gift to the U.S. military when it voted to open the ranks of America’s Armed Forces to active homosexuals. The lame-duck session of Congress voted to repeal a federal law adopted in 1993 that declared that homosexual conduct is incompatible with service in the military.

The law overturned by Congress stated that a person who “engages in, attempts to engage in, has a propensity to engage in, or intends to engage in homosexual acts” is ineligible for service in America’s military branches. That law had codified military policy that has existed since the time of George Washington and the Continental Congress.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rammed the repeal legislation through Congress in the final days before Christmas with the help of numerous lame-duck Congressmen who had just been repudiated by the voters. In so doing, they helped PresidentBarack Obama fulfill his campaign pledge to the homosexual community to reshape America’s military culture to accept homosexual conduct.

The repeal legislation was approved in the House by a vote of 250-175. The Illinois Congressional Delegation voted 13-5 in favor of this bill, including U.S. Representatives Bobby Rush, Jesse Jackson Jr., Daniel Lipinski, Luis Gutierrez, Mike Quigley, Danny Davis, Melissa Bean, Jan Schakowsky, Debbie Halvorson, Jerry Costello, Judy Biggert, Bill Foster, and Phil Hare voted in favor of the repeal.

The U.S. Senate approved the repeal bill by a vote of 65-31. Illinois’ two U.S. Senators, Dick Durbin and Mark Kirk voted in favor of allowing avowed homosexuals to serve in the Armed Forces.

How exceedingly tragic it is that our nation’s uniformed fighting forces, long known for high moral standards and personal integrity, have been politically coerced to embrace and endorse an immoral, unhealthy, and perverse lifestyle. How disturbing it will be to watch our nation’s young enlisted men and women compelled to participate in “retraining” and indoctrination in the supposed virtues of homosexual affections.

Pat Buchanan, in a recent commentary on Townhall.com, offered a telling perspective: “The least respected of American institutions, Congress, with an approval rating of 13 percent, is imposing its cultural and moral values on the most respected of American institutions, the U.S. military.”

Buchanan branded the Congressional action as a victory in the culture war for the “new morality of the sexual revolution of the 1960’s.” “While this new morality may be orthodoxy among our elites in the academy, media, and the arts, Middle America has never signed on and still regards homosexuality as an aberrant lifestyle, both socially and spiritually ruinous. Behind these beliefs lie the primary source of moral authority for traditionalist America: the Old and New Testaments, Christian doctrine, and natural law.”

Congress voted to homosexualize the U.S. military over the objections of the leaders of most military branches. Congressional leaders also chose to ignore the results of a survey of U.S. service members that revealed the damaging consequences of a change in military policy. Nearly a third of service members said that the presence of active homosexuals in the U.S. military would have a negative or very negative impact on morale and unit cohesion. Those numbers were much higher among combat forces, where soldiers are called upon to live in close personal quarters.

It would seem that the introduction of more sexual tension into U.S. service ranks is the last thing the military needs. A recent Defense Department study found that reports of sexual assaults at the three U.S. military academies rose 64 percent in the 2009-2010 academic year. Anuradha Bhagwati, the director of the Service Women’s Action Network, says the report “signals a lack of any real dedication by our military leadership to change an environment that is weakening our military.”

The survey of active service members also revealed that the forced change in the military culture could lead to a huge exodus of current service members. Nearly a quarter of those responding to the survey said the acceptance of homosexuality in the military would cause them to leave the service or seriously consider leaving. That number was as high as 38 percent among Marines. If the responses are correct, that could amount to as many as half a million service members looking for an early exit.

Richard Eubank, the National Commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, expressed dismay at the Congressional action. “The majority of the fighting and dying in our nation’s wars has always been done by the infantry, and if those at the tip of the spear have a problem with repeal, then it would behoove everyone to pay more attention to their concerns. Repeal advocates are focused primarily about pushing a social agenda about individual rights. National security, unit cohesion, and morale are the farthest things from their mind.”

Eubank also voiced concern about the impact of repeal on the volunteer nature of the U.S. military. “If implementation is to occur, it must be done cautiously and with the interests of the military and nation first and foremost; otherwise this social experiment could spell the end of America’s all-volunteer military, which is not a price this nation appears to be willing to pay.”

One of the gravest concerns about the change in the spiritual climate of the Armed Forces is the impact it will have on the service of military chaplains. Daniel Blomberg, litigation counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, asks, “What happens if a soldier confides to a chaplain that he is a homosexual? What happens when the chaplain responds according to the dictates of his faith and says that type of behavior — like other types of sexual immorality — is sin and therefore not in accordance with God’s will? It is likely that the chaplain will be open to a charge of discrimination based on ‘sexual orientation.”

Blomberg adds, “None of our troops, and certainly not our chaplains, should be forced to abandon their religious beliefs to continue their military service. None of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines should ever be made to choose between serving their country or obeying their God as a result of this damaging policy decision.”

The conscience rights of all members of the U.S. military will be under attack, and it appears that no member of the service, whatever their rank, will be immune. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen is calling for the dismissal of the Marine Corps’ leading officer, Commandant GeneralJames Amos, because Amos dared to challenge President Obama’s crusade to homosexualize America’s military forces.

The strategy of homosexual activists to normalize homosexual behavior in America’s most respected institution is part of a larger campaign to radically subvert all social institutions, most particularly the institution of marriage. Within days of the repeal, the Washington Post wrote in an editorial: “Activists are hoping that the repeal gives them significant new leverage. For the first time they can argue that if the Army trusts gay men and women with rifles, why shouldn’t society trust them with wedding rings?”

It does not seem a coincidence that Vice-President Joe Biden celebrated Christmas Eve by pontificating that so-called “gay marriage” is inevitable in this country. Biden stated recently on Good Morning America that the Administration’s next goal is to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

Congress votes undermine the troops by pandering to the radical Left and their social agenda…

Illinois Family Institute is appalled by the lame duck Congress — including our own U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Mark Kirk for their vote to homosexualize our nation’s Armed Forces.

Over the weekend, the U.S. Senate voted 65-to-31 to ignore our military history and traditional morality regarding sexuality and allow those who self-identify as homosexual to serve openly in the armed forces. Illinois’ junior Senator Mark Kirk, along with Republican Senators Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Scott Brown (Massachusetts), and retiring Senator George Voinovich (Ohio) broke rank with their party on this fundamental issue of common sense, sexual morality and national security and instead cast their votes for a radical political agenda that will undermine our Armed Forces.

Senate Republicans made a vow not to vote on “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” until the budget was resolved. In doing so, they not only have put radical homosexual political interests above fiscal interests but also have put our troops at risk during wartime. Furthermore, they have broken trust with the people.

The Pentagon’s own study revealed that nearly two-thirds of those serving believe the repeal would have some negative or significant negative effects. Twenty-four percent of service members said they would leave or seriously consider leaving the military if “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” were repealed.

In November the American people told Washington they wanted change in the policies and practices of their elected officials. Instead, Congress has gone full-tilt toward “business as usual,” pushing extreme special interest agendas instead of the issues on the minds of working families. The American people were not demanding this type of legislation — it is being forced upon us, thanks in large part to a very well financed homosexual lobby.

Yet government leaders are not listening to the men and women in uniform. Gambling with our national security over political correctness is not an American value voters support.

By a vote of 250-175, the U.S. House passed a bill yesterday that would repeal the military’s longstanding “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy involving sexual activity. It now moves on to the U.S. Senate.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is once again trying to push a bill that would repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Illinois’ U.S. Senator Mark Kirk must hear from Illinois citizens who are opposed to allowing open homosexuality in the military.

Take ACTION:  Contact Illinois U.S. Senator Mark Kirk to ask him to OPPOSE the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the ban on open homosexuality in the military — a ban that dates back to General George Washington who believed that the military should uphold the Judeo-Christian values upon which our nation was founded.

General James Amos, the head of the Marine Corps, recently told reporters that a change in the policy could result in casualties. “When your life hangs on the line, you don’t want anything distracting… mistakes and inattention or distractions cost Marines’ lives.”

Despite not having yet passed a budget or dealing with the tax code, liberals in Washington are obsessed with pushing a radical social agenda that didn’t show up on the American people’s list of priorities prior to Election Day. This blatant “in your face” to Americans that voted against the liberal agenda must be rejected.

Unfortunately, nothing was going to stop the repeal in the U.S. House, but there remains hope to stop it in the U.S. Senate. Senator Mark Kirk, a military veteran, needs to hear from Illinois this week on this important vote!

Read more: There is an interesting editorial on this issue appearing on the web site “big peace.” It theorizes that the repeal of DADT, which is strongly opposed by front line combat forces, could decimate recruitment and retention numbers and lead to the reinstatement of the draft. You can read that editorial about yet another negative impact of repealing DADT HERE

ACTION: Please contact Senator Kirk’s office at 202-224-2854 or by clicking the link below and urge him to vote against “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal.

The rush to repeal the 1993 law stating that homosexuals are not eligible to serve in the military, sometimes erroneously referred to by the Executive Order of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” would change our military in ways we cannot yet measure or understand. Our military leaders — with the exception of Adm. Mike Mullen — understand this and object to the repeal. *

Gen. James Amos, Commandant of the Marine Corps, has said that he was concerned that the repeal of the law would have a negative effect on unit cohesion and combat readiness of the Marine Corps. Who among the members of the Senate is a better judge of that than the commandant?

U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) — a war hero in his own right — is leading the opposition, and he needs Americans to call, fax and e-mail their representatives in Washington D.C. so that a stealth maneuver to homosexualize our military does not occur.

Take ACTION:  Contact President Obama and Illinois U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Mark Kirk to ask them to OPPOSE open homosexuality in the military.

Background
Enforcement of any new “tolerant” policy would result in zero tolerance for servicemen and women who believe that homosexuality is wrong. The military would then be used as a battering ram against American society’s resistance to mandated acceptance of homosexuality.

In August, during his last visit with troops in Afghanistan, Gen. James Conway repeatedly asked gatherings of enlisted Marines throughout Helmand province whether they thought unit cohesion would be harmed if openly gay people could serve. Almost unanimously, the young Marines indicated they felt it would.

The Marine generals’ views parallel those of 1,167 retired generals and admirals who have signed a petition opposing any effort to remove the law.

* Quote from Liberty Counsel’s Mathew Staver’s letter to U.S. Senators.

Docs 4 Patient Care: National Organization Believes Doctors & Patients Best Qualified To Make Health Care Decisions, Not Government Bureaucrats: Repeal ObamaCare.

Quickly growing association of highly respected physicians believe Health Care Reform Bill was intentionally designed to fail: The purpose of the legislation (Health Care Reform Law) will eventually be used to promote a one-size fits all single-payer system which will drastically decrease the efficiency of the greatest health care system in the world.

Although most Americans opposed the passage of President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, the bill was rammed down the throats of the public–with the help of a Democrat-dominated United States Congress. Since the passage of what many call “ObamaCare,” Americans are learning what’s included in a law that will have a greater impact on the nation than any piece of legislation passed during the last half century.

Docs 4 Patient Care is one of fastest growing national organizations with an agenda motivated by the premise that doctors and their patients know what’s best regarding decisions over health care than government bureaucrats.

I recently interviewed Dr. Mark Neerhof, Founder and President of the Illinois Chapter of Docs 4 Patient Care [www.Docs4PatientCare.org]. To say the least, Dr. Neerhof’s comments were enlightening. Docs 4 Patient Care was founded in the spring of 2009 when health care reform was being debated. At that time, it was quite clear that ObamaCare was not just reform of health insurance, but a government takeover of our healthcare system. And in the process, the doctor-patient relationship was threatened. Therefore, the primary focus of Docs 4 Patient Care is the preservation of the doctor-patient relationship.

“ObamaCare creates 159 new federal agencies, boards, committees, etc., employing roughly 150,000 new federal employees to manage your healthcare,” said Dr. Mark Neerhof. “Panels of appointed bureaucrats will be given the power to determine what health care you should receive. The Secretary of Health and Human Services will have the power to establish protocols for medical practice, and physicians will be penalized if they do not follow those protocols.”

According to Neerhof, President Obama and those he has appointed to implement the health care law no longer believe in the primacy of the doctor-patient relationship. Rather than being driven by the obligation to do what is best for their patients, doctors will do what is best for the collective, following rules that are determined by government authorities to achieve that end.

As evidence of this, Neerhof points out the following quote from Dr. Donald Berwick in his book New Rules: “Today, this isolated relationship [between doctor and patient] is no longer tenable or possible… Traditional medical ethics, based on the doctor-patient dyad must be reformulated to fit the new mold of the delivery of health care… The primary function of regulation in health care, especially as it affects the quality of medical care, is to constrain decentralized individualized decision making.”

“This is a dangerous departure from the tradition of the primacy of the doctor-patient relationship, a concept that has guided us for millennia,” Neerhof told IFI.

Neerhof further believes that the recently passed health care bill was intentionally designed to fail, and will ultimately lead to a single-payer national health care system. Consider that the new law does the following:

1. The government determines what coverage insurance companies need to provide.

2. The federal government can regulate how much insurance companies can charge for that coverage.

3. The penalties for individuals not obtaining coverage are relatively small.

4. Any individual can go to an insurance company – even if he or she is already sick or injured – and demand coverage, and by law, they cannot be denied.

“This is a lethal cocktail for health insurance companies,” added Neerhof.

And in case the government needed any further assurance that insurance companies would not survive, they also introduced control of medical loss ratios (MLR) into law. The medical loss ratio is the percent of premiums that insurance companies spend on administrative activities verses their delivery of patient care. Currently, insurance companies spend about 30% of premiums on administrative activities. The new law decreases that to 15%, and it has not detailed what is considered administrative versus patient care activities.

All of this from members of Congress who, from the outset, stated they wanted single-payer national health care. This legislation will get them there by eliminating health insurance companies in the near future.

Neerhof posed this question: “What is the problem with single-payer national health care? Look at the evidence. Compare outcomes in any country that has single-payer national health care to those in the United States, and you will find inferior outcomes, such as dramatically lower survival rates with just about any form of cancer, lower incidence of patients getting the preventative care that they need (such as mammograms, PSA levels, and colonoscopies), and fewer patients being on newer generation, more advanced medications.”

“With respect to innovation, 80% of the significant developments in medicine in the last 30 years came from the United States,” concluded Neerhof. “In brief, our health care system is the envy of the world. Our legislators just gave all of this away for a utopian dream of a single-payer national health care system. In doing so, they also burdened us with a bill of at least $2.5 trillion over the next 10 years. This will devastate our country financially.”

According to Docs4PatientCare.org: “Attempting to enact his big-government health care scheme, President Obama and his supporters frequently claimed that a ‘majority’ of doctors supported his health-care plans. When the American Medical Association – which had opposed HillaryCare – signed onto Obama’s plan last year, the organization seemed to make the President’s case. Most people assumed that the AMA represented most of the doctors in the country.

In fact, the AMA represented 17 percent of all physicians in the United States at the time of the health care reform debate (that number has been significantly decreasing since then), and many of those AMA members are students and residents. Further, the federal government has given the AMA exclusive rights to publish billing codes for physicians. This exclusive right earns the AMA between $70,000,000.00 and $110,000,000.00 per year. With this carrot and stick approach toward negotiations, the AMA was hardly an objective negotiating representative of physicians in the health care debate. The AMA clearly betrayed practicing physicians by giving the appearance that they represented American physicians in the recent health care reform debate.

Docs 4 Patient Care is committed to preserving the doctor-patient relationship. They welcome physicians, non-physician health care providers and patients alike who are committed to the same goal. Docs 4 Patient Care currently has 3,500 physicians and 11,000 non-physician members. Because ObamaCare is a threat to the doctor-patient relationship and to the quality of medical care in the United States, Docs 4 Patient Care endorses and openly supports candidates for national office who are committed to repealing and replacing ObamaCare.

Docs 4 Patient Care would ultimately like to be the voice for the practicing physician in matters related to health care.

For more information and to join Docs 4 Patient Care, go to www.Docs4PatientCare.org

In response to yesterday’s ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips in a case brought by the gay activist group Log Cabin “Republicans” (LCR), ordering a halt to enforcement of the 1993 law stating that homosexuals are ineligible for military service, Center for Military Readiness President Elaine Donnelly issued the following statement.

“U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips has proven what the Supreme Court has recognized several times: The judiciary is the branch of government least qualified to make policy for the military.

“Judge Phillip’s outlandish ruling, which would not withstand Supreme Court review, sweeps aside the well-established principle of judicial deference to the other branches of government, which is firmly rooted in Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution. (Section 8: “The Congress shall have Power…to make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.”)

“Judge Phillips apparently sees herself as Supreme Judicial Commander of the U.S. Military, having reached her short-sighted conclusion after eight days of one-sided testimony from gay activists who failed to prevail in the legislative branch. It is absurd to suggest that a rogue district judge knows more than elected members of Congress.

“In 1993 Congress conducted twelve legislative hearings and numerous field investigations, followed by hours of floor debate culminating in bipartisan, veto-proof majorities enacting the 1993 law. Unlike the Clinton administrative policy known as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ the actual law clearly states, ‘There is no constitutional right to serve in the armed forces.’ (Section 654, Title 10, U.S.C., Finding No. 2)

Donnelly continued, “If the U.S. Solicitor General does not appeal Judge Phillips’order in the Log Cabin case, the Obama administration will have abandoned fundamental constitutional principles allocating power and responsibility for military affairs to the legislative and executive branches, just to deliver on the president’s political promises to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) activist groups.

“White House officials are well aware that allowing the judiciary to take command of the military, or any action themselves to implement orders or regulations revoking the 1993 law administratively, would break faith with the troops and destroy bonds of trust that must exist between the Commander-in-Chief and the forces he leads.

Commenting on the administration’s conduct of the Log Cabin case, Donnelly added, “Justice Department lawyers did not present a “facial” case before the district court (defending the law “on its face,”) because the law and several Supreme Court precedents did not require them to do so. Instead, they relied on the long-standing principle of judicial deference in military matters, and the separation of powers doctrine embodied in the U.S. Constitution.

“This presentation in court obligates the Obama Administration to file an immediate appeal. (See page 9 of Judge Phillips’ decision.) The district court order purporting to govern the military worldwide is so irregular and extreme, even the controversial Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit might reject it. The Supreme Court certainly will.

“Matters of constitutional principle and separation of powers go far beyond the question of professed homosexuals in the military. That issue is important to the future of the armed forces but less important than the question of who gets to decide.

“Department of Justice attorneys know this. We expect the administration to appeal and the Supreme Court to affirm once again that federal judges do not have the power to make policy for our military. President Obama must not surrender constitutional powers to the courts for reasons of political expediency, particularly when the Defense Department and Congress are in the midst of an ongoing review of the consequences of repealing the 1993 law.”

More information on this subject is provided in several sections of the website of the Center for Military Readiness and the Military Culture Coalition.

Big government sees no limit to its reach. A behemoth with slimy tentacles reaching into every crevice of American life, it is now trying to squirm into the sexual lives of American citizens, including our teens.

Lesbian activist and U.S. Representative Tammy Baldwin sponsored the “Health Data Collection Improvement Act 2010 (H.R. 6109),” a piece of legislation whose deceptive title conceals its highly partisan, offensive, and absurd content.

This legislation would “require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to ensure that each HHS health service program or HHS health survey provides, to the extent the Secretary determines appropriate and practicable, for the voluntary collection of data on the sexual orientation and gender identity of individuals who apply for or receive health services through such program, or who respond to such survey” (emphasis added).

Baldwin believes that it’s important for the financially strapped federal government to know the sexual proclivities of all citizens who avail themselves of any services provided by the Department of Health and Human Services. This would apply even to teens who use the services of school-based health clinics.

Lesbian Baldwin seeks to fashion the government into both an arm of the homosexuality-affirming juggernaut and an institutional voyeur. She wants the government to ask citizens whether they like to have sex with people of the same sex, the opposite sex, or both. She also wants to ask citizens whether they engage in cross-dressing and whether they desire to have healthy parts of their sexual anatomy electively amputated.

Why stop there? Why not ask intrusive questions about other forms of deviant sexual practices and disorders?

If Baldwin’s proposal is not troubling enough, she was able to convince eleven others (all Democrats) to join her in voting to send this legislation to the full House Committee on Energy and Commerce (According to Connie Hair writing for Human Events, “Rep. Zach Space (D-Ohio)…hastily exited the hearing room when the bill was called up for consideration,”). All ten Republicans voted “no.”

This is just one reason why a “truce” on the “social issues” is impossible. A truce would require both sides to participate, and social radicals will never agree to a truce.

Recently, I was shocked to learn about how hundreds or perhaps thousands of Illinois homeowners are using a strategy called “strategic default” to walk away from their current mortgage obligations. Literally thousands of homeowners in Illinois and across the country find themselves “upside down” or “”underwater” regarding the homes they currently live in. The terms “upside down” and “underwater” refer to homeowners who owe more money on their homes than they are currently worth.

It is widely believed the Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac debacle has led to the current economic crisis and deep recession facing America today. However, no one can say Americans are not resourceful and, at times, not in good ways. In the case of “strategic default,” which is also known as voluntary foreclosure, participating homeowners may not be ethical, but they have certainly found a way to beat the system.

In part, this situation is a result of the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, quasi-privately owned and government-backed corporations, which insured loans to many homeowners whose income level should not have qualified them for mortgages they could not afford.

Here’s how this “strategic default” strategy works. Those who are having trouble meeting their current mortgage notes, but may not be in default or foreclosure, or are simply seeking lower mortgage payments, go out and purchase new homes. They find homes with lower mortgage payments more commensurate with their income.

On their credit applications and in meetings, new lenders inquire about the status of the current mortgages held by those seeking to get out from under their old mortgage agreements. The perspective lenders take the applicant’s word, in good faith, that their old homes are in the process of being sold. Technically, though this may not be true, new lenders provide mortgages based on inaccurate or misleading information from perspective buyers. Once a new mortgage is secured, the homeowner then simply walks away from their old mortgage obligation, leaving their credit rating in shambles, but at least these individuals or families are now living in a home they can more readily afford.

“It’s amazing concerning what’s happening,” said a licensed Illinois real estate appraiser who requested anonymity. “These people are playing with fire, as they skirt the law regarding the provisions of accurate and honest information they are giving financial institutions. These individuals have good credit ratings at the time and the financial institutions they are negotiating with have no reason to doubt whether the information on the new mortgage applications is accurate and complete. It’s dishonest, yet it is a sign of the times.”

However, a substantial number of those who are participating in this “strategic default” scheme are violating federal law, the government is catching on and some of these people may be in legal jeopardy for lying to new lenders. To exacerbate the problem, the new lenders are not exercising due diligence which led to the meltdown of America’s economy in the first place.

There are actually entrepreneurs who are helping, for a fee, walk people through the process of stepping away from their homes and the promissory notes they signed with their original lenders. This practice brings into question not only legal and fiscal concerns, but a moral issue as well. Some Illinois residents apparently feel justified with breaking a legal contract because of government bank bail-outs and Washington, D.C.’s fiscal irresponsibility which has resulted in our nation’s historic mounting national debt and the financial crisis America is facing. These individuals obviously feel if the government does not have to adhere to a budget, why should they? Of course, two wrongs do not make a right. However, many homeowners look at “strategic default” as a way to provide themselves a personal bail-out, even though it has a devastating impact on their credit rating. What’s good for the goose, is good for the gander–to their way of thinking–and “strategic default” may simply represent a lesson well taught by local, state and federal government.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is holding hearings on President Obama’s nominee to the United States Supreme Court, current Solicitor General Elana Kagan.

Her nomination should be opposed for any number of reasons:

• She is a judicial activist, who agrees with former Justice Thurgood Marshall that the Constitution given to us by the Framers was “defective” and that it contained “outdated notions of liberty, justice and equality.”
• Her “judicial hero” is former Israeli justice Aharon Barak, who said a judge “may give a statute a new meaning…[t]he statute remains as it was, but its meaning changes, because the court has given it a new meaning that suits new social needs.”
• She is anti-military and pro-homosexual. While dean of the Harvard Law School, she kicked military recruiters off campus, in defiance of a federal law which had been upheld by the Supreme Court on a unanimous vote. She said she “abhorred” the military’s ban on allowing open practicing homosexuals to serve, and called it a “moral injustice of the first order.”
• She believes in the supremacy of international law over the Constitution. While dean at Harvard Law, she dropped the required course on the Constitution and replaced it with a required course on international law.
• She is pro-abortion. She has contributed financially to pro-abortion groups, and believes that abortions should be taxpayer funded. You can learn more about Kagan’s abortion activism in this outstanding column outlining how she undermined efforts to ban the gruesome procedure of partial-birth abortion during her time in the Clinton White House.
• She believes that the government may ban political pamphlets and books during an election season, in violation of the First Amendment’s free speech protections.
• She is anti-Second Amendment. She is “not sympathetic” to the claim that individuals have the right to keep and bear arms under the Constitution.
• She is anti-capitalist and pro-socialist, once writing glowingly of “socialism’s greatness.”
• Former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork said “that’s the danger of Ms. Kagan that she hasn’t had any experience that would lead her to mellow…the academia is not a place where you use prudence and caution and other virtues of a judge.” Bork also warned that if Kagan was to be confirmed “you will have a court that is much more to the left than we have today.”

While we do not expect either of Illinois’ U.S. Senators to ever oppose the president’s nominations, you should call them anyway and let them know that you want to encourage them to “Vote NO on the confirmation of Kagan to the Supreme Court.” You can also tell them that it is clear from her statements, writings, and conduct as dean of Harvard Law that she holds a philosophy of judicial activism, is militantly anti-military, and is an ardent supporter of abortion and the homosexual agenda.

Sen. Dick Durbin

WASHINGTON, D.C. — (202) 224-2152
CHICAGO — (312) 353-4952
SPRINGFIELD — (217) 492-4062
CARBONDALE — (618) 351-1122

Sen. Roland Burris

WASHINGTON, D.C — (202) 224-2854
CHICAGO — (312) 886-3506
SPRINGFIELD — (217) 492-5089
MOLINE — (309) 736-1217
CARBONDALE — (618) 529-7471

You may want to call the Republican Leadership in the U.S. Senate as well, to encourage them to oppose Kagan’s nomination with a filibuster:

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

WASHINGTON, D.C — (202) 224-2541

Sen. Jon Kyle (R-AZ)

WASHINGTON, D.C — (202) 224-4521

“We’re a nation of laws, and a nation of immigrants…” ~ Barack Obama

Those words define clearly the fine line Congress will need to consider in any attempt to correct our nation’s crisis concerning immigration. America is facing unprecedented confusion as to what should be done to correct our deteriorating situation. Our nation of laws and immigrants has become frustrated with unenforced law and inefficient bureaucracies.

We’re in this situation because no lawmakers since the Reagan days have had the will or the fortitude to tackle the emotionally-charged and politically-potent topic of immigration.

Certainly we’re a nation of immigrants — 99 percent of our family lines originated ten or twelve generations ago outside the United States. But we’re also a nation of laws. In this case, important laws are ignored.

The current crisis of illegal immigration is bearing down on us now as the recession has brought to the forefront millions of dollars nearly-bankrupt state governments are forced each year to dole out in public education, health care and public aid for non-Americans living within our borders.

That’s serious enough, but at the same time, the border state of Arizona passed a strongly-worded provision immigration groups insist is unconstitutional and discriminatory. Indeed, a law that simply duplicates the federal immigration law scheduled to go into effect at the end of July has set the nation into controversy and prodded the federal government into action to reform our immigration policy.

Where should social conservatives be on this issue? We are prolife and believe all humans are made in the image of God and should be treated with dignity. But because we know civility is based upon God’s law and as an extension, human laws and statutes, we must strike a balance that makes sense and protects our citizens while welcoming newcomers.

Before any reform discussion commences, our borders should be secured. In an age when our homeland’s security is threatened by terrorists, stealth spies, drug cartels, kidnappers and criminals that would destroy us, we should reinforce the walls protecting our nation’s borders.

President Obama said in a recent bi-partisan strategy meeting at the White House that our borders should be secured, but refuses to provide border states like Arizona with the personnel and funding to secure them. Arizona’s Governor Jan Brenner (R) said last week that talks with members of the Obama Administration concerning what they planned to contribute to Arizona’s increasingly-serious immigration problem were “disappointing.” Brenner said the feds will provide minimal assistance while the state is left to battle an onslaught of illegals coming across the Mexican border.

Illinois Congressman Luiz Gutierrez (D-Chicago) is leading the Obama Administration’s congressional reform effort. The points Gutierrez enumerated before a 2009 immigration rally in Washington DC provide insight into what the Obama Administration may define as comprehensive reform.

Gutierrez appealed to American compassion, saying, “We will not rest until the rage stops, and our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers are not torn apart by the government of the United States of America.”

“When you deport a mother, you deport her American citizen children. When you deport parents, you deport entire families,” Gutierrez said. “We won’t stop, we cannot wait… We have families to save… We have mothers and children to keep together. We will not rest until that is accomplished.”

Gutierrez said the solution to America’s immigration woes starts with “a pathway to legalization.” He promised background checks on those seeking citizenship. He said they will take English classes and pay taxes and in exchange, they should receive documentation.

Those of us born in America take for granted what a privilege it is to be an American citizen. America is a nation of immigrants. We hold our door open to all. But America is also a nation of laws. We reward law-abiders and punish law-breakers. We do not reward law-breakers and punish law-abiders.

We should secure the borders, revamp and streamline the nation’s immigration laws and enforce the law. In the meantime, we must decide what to do with those who’ve broken the law.

Our broken and ignored system of law has created an atmosphere for the nation to be divided and confrontational on the immigration issue. The solutions to this complicated situation we find ourselves in will not be simple.

But throughout the process, our utmost goal — as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws — must be to return to being a nation of immigrants that respect and abide by the law. Any other way, and America will become a diminished nation of chaos.