Truthiness:
the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true;
a quality characterizing a ‘truth’ that a person making an argument or assertion claims to know intuitively ‘from the gut’
or because it ‘feels right’ without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.

A disgraceful column in the Chicago Tribune by the often disingenuous Eric Zorn serves as a reminder of how essential dishonesty is in the ultimately tragic effort to normalize homosexuality.

Zorn censoriously castigates Christians who seek to honor God in all that they do, including their work, describing them as “censorious photographers….sour and judgmental looking with revulsion” at homosexual “wedding” partners, and “saying bitterly to the guests ‘Smile, somehow.’” He further censoriously imagines a “reproachful caterer, slamming dishes down to express her contempt” and “an opprobrious deejay or sanctimonious florist grumbling darkly throughout the festivities.”

While glibly imagining these ugly and implausible scenarios, Zorn admits to a complete inability to “imagine that the fuss about gay weddings and their potential to impinge on religious freedom of service providers is a real-life problem.”

While providing not a single case in which a sour and judgmental Christian photographer looked with revulsion at homosexual “wedding” partners, or a reproachful caterer contemptuously slammed dishes, or a deejay or florist grumbled darkly during a reception, he did provide a case in which an actual Christian photographer was sued and fined for her demurral from photographing a lesbian commitment ceremony. And then there are the bakers and florist who are being sued. Oh, and let’s not forget about the fertility specialists who were sued for refusing to inseminate a lesbian, and the bed and breakfast owners who have been sued for not renting their facilities to homosexual couples.  

Zorn’s solution to the problem of the loss of religious liberty is to endorse yet another of obscene sex columnist Dan Savage’s harebrained schemes. Savage, the homosexual activist who describes orthodox Christians as “bat sh**, a**h***le, do***ebags,” has proposed establishing a database of “gay-hostile wedding service providers” whom Zorn describes as embodying a “we don’t serve your kind here” sentiment.

By now the lies of Zorn should be obvious: First, he posits hypothetical scenarios involving imaginary Christians for which he apparently has no evidence. Then he implies that actual Christians refuse to serve homosexuals when he likely knows—or should know—that the photographers, bakers, florists, and fertility specialists do provide their products and services to homosexuals, unless the particular service being requested violates their religious beliefs. In other words, Zorn lies when he suggests that Christians “don’t serve” homosexuals.

Contrast Zorn’s and other “progressives’” lies and ugly ad hominem attacks with Baronelle Stutzman’s response to this debate. She is the Washington florist who declined to provide floral arrangements for the same-sex “wedding” of a homosexual client whom she had served for nine years knowing full well that he was homosexual.

Please watch this moving video and send it to friends (click here).

Zorn rightly presumes that Christians who believe that both the Old and New Testaments condemn homosexual acts (while imploring all sinners to repent and “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness”) will not sign on to such a dubious database. There are countless numbers of Christians who trust the scores of theologians trained in exegesis, including contemporary theologians, who teach that Scripture does indeed condemn homosexual acts. These Christians also believe that Scripture offers those who experience same-sex attraction the same freedom from bondage to sin (which is different from absence of sinful desires) that is offered to sinners who experience other sin predispositions. These Christians would not sign on to such a database.

And why not? (I’ll answer this question as if Savage and Zorn were serious and not merely snotty in their proposal.)

First, orthodox Christians wouldn’t sign on to such a database, because they’re not “gay-hostile.” They don’t hate those who experience homoerotic attraction and affirm a homosexual identity.

Second, they wouldn’t sign on, because those on the Left whose mission is to eradicate conservative moral beliefs will stoop to lies and slander to achieve their pernicious goal.

Without a shred of evidence, “progressives” continually assert the following non-facty, truthies:

• Homosexuality is biologically determined.
• Homosexuality is analogous to race or skin color.
• Homosexuality is in all cases immutable.
• All those who believe homosexual acts are immoral are stupid and ignorant (It is astonishing that “progressives” continue to assert this. I’d like to see Zorn or any other “progressive” debate N.T. Wright, Andrew Wilson, Doug Wilson, Elizabeth Scalia, Patrick Henry Reardon, John Piper, Nancy Pearcey, Robert George, Robert Gagnon, Anthony Esolen, William Lane Craig, D.A. Carson, J.Budziszewski, or Michael Brown on topics related to homosexuality).
• All those who believe that homosexual acts are immoral and that marriage is inherently sexually complementary are motivated by animus (I guess that includes Time Magazine’s Person of the Year: Pope Francis).
• Marriage has no inherent connection to sexual complementarity. (Then whence cometh the “twoness” of marriage?)
• Marriage has no inherent connection to reproductive potential.
• Marriage is constituted solely by love. (Then why not allow five people to marry? Why not allow two brothers to marry? And why should marriage be conceived of as a union between those who experience erotic/romantic love? Why not expand the definition of marriage to include platonic friends?)
• Children have no inherent right to know and be raised by their biological parents whenever possible (If biological heritage is so irrelevant as to render the creation of intentionally motherless or fatherless children justifiable, how do “progressives” account for the fervent public interest in genealogy?)

In a recent Public Discourse essay titled “The Culture of Dishonesty: Abortion, Divorce, and Obamacare,” Carson Holloway questions Americans’ tolerance for deception:

Americans’ acceptance of President Obama’s lies reveals how dangerously comfortable we have become with dishonesty. It will take a profound renovation of our culture to restore truthfulness to its proper place and establish political freedom on a more secure foundation. How did American culture grow so dangerously accustomed to falsehood?

In order to know whether an idea embodies love, one must first know if it’s true. The idea that volitional homosexual acts are morally neutral or morally good is not true and, therefore, promoting it is not loving. Promoting such an idea to young children—as is happening in our publicly subsidized schools—is downright evil.

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Someone needs to thump some sense into syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts for his claim that the now-vetoed Arizona religious freedom bill would have allowed “businesses to refuse service to gay people on religious grounds.” Not so, but more on that in a minute.

Nine times in Pitts’ short column he repeats the mantra “Boycott Arizona,” perhaps hoping to hypnotize an intellectually and morally slothful public. One wonders how far Pitts and his ideological ilk will take their march against diversity and tolerance. Can Arizona citizens express their conservative views on issues related to homosexuality and gender confusion in letters to the editor without Pitts ordering a boycott? Can public libraries order books from conservative scholars without Pitts caterwauling “Boycott Arizona”? How do citizens employ their speech rights—which were intended to protect even unpopular speech—if promoters of tolerance like Pitts try to make it impossible to earn a living if they do so?

What makes his command to boycott Arizona even more troubling is he doesn’t seem to  understand what the law actually entails. Eleven law professors of diverse political persuasions and perspectives on same-sex “marriage” sent a letter to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to correct the media’s misrepresentation of the law, which they describe as “egregiously misrepresented”:

SB1062 does not say that businesses can discriminate for religious reasons. It says that business people can assert a claim or defense under [Religious Freedom Protection Act], in any kind of case (discrimination cases are not even mentioned, although they would be included), that they have the burden of proving a substantial burden on a sincere religious practice, that the government or the person suing them has the burden of proof on compelling government interest, and that the state courts in Arizona make the final decision.

These law professors also explain that “The federal government and eighteen states have Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs). Another twelve or thirteen states interpret their state constitutions to provide similar protections.”

This bill would have merely clarified an Arizona law that has been on the books for fifteen years. National Review editor, Rich Lowry, explains that “A religious freedom statute doesn’t give anyone carte blanche to do whatever he wants in the name of religion. It simply allows him to make his case in court that a law or a lawsuit substantially burdens his religion and that there is no compelling governmental interest to justify the burden” (emphasis added).

In his fervor to command Americans not to vacation in or do business with Arizona, Pitts forgot to mention the federal equivalent of Arizona’s proposed law, which was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by then U.S. Representative Chuck Shumer (D-New York) and signed into law by President Bill Clinton twenty years ago. Pitts is going to be hard-pressed to find somewhere to vacation now that the entire country is off-limits.

Pitts accuses opponents of same-sex “marriage” of going “bughouse” over comparisons to the Civil Rights Movement, but he spends no time explaining why such a comparison bothers opponents—including African American opponents of same-sex “marriage.” And he glaringly fails to provide any evidence for his implicit claim that homosexuality per se is equivalent to race or skin color, which is necessary to justify his comparison of the push to normalize homosexuality to the Civil Rights movement.

Pitts does, however, provide evidence of his theological ignorance:

Don’t be fooled by pious babblespeak that claims these laws only protect the rights of religious people who object to homosexuality. No one seeks to compel any preacher to perform a same-sex marriage if doing so violates his conscience. But if that pastor works for a bakery during the week, it is none of his business whether the wedding cake he bakes is for John and Jan or John and Joe.

Pitts’ theological ignorance is evident when he says that the content of one’s labors is religiously irrelevant to people of faith. For true followers of Christ, there should be no area of life untouched by their faith.

Pitts may not be familiar with these verses:

• “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men…”
• “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.”
• “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
• “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
• “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”

It is at minimum oxymoronic to argue that in the service of bringing glory to God, a Christian can take part in and profit from a ceremony that God detests.

Christians are also commanded to “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness.” This means in part that though Christians may love, spend time with, and provide goods and services to homosexuals (and all the rest of sinful humanity), they should not take part in any way with same-sex pseudo-wedding ceremonies, which are, indeed, unfruitful works of darkness.

Further, Pitts’ assertion that the sex of the partners seeking to marry is none of the baker’s business is just silly. It becomes the baker’s business when the “grooms” tell him that he will be baking a cake—in other words, using his labors and profiting from—their unbiblical pseudo-wedding.

What Pitts is really saying is that the baker shouldn’t care about whether the cake is for a same-sex pseudo-wedding or a true wedding, but what the baker cares about is not Pitts’ business.

Pitts did offer this conciliatory message: “it’s time those of us who value comity, concord and tolerance make our voices heard.”

Yes, nothing says comity, concord, and tolerance quite like these preceding words from Pitts:

[T]hese laws amount to little more than temper tantrums by last-ditch bigots who don’t realize history has passed them by as a Ferrari does a traffic cone. But perhaps there is something to be said for inflicting economic pain as a way of saying, “Cut it out.” Perhaps the right wing’s proud embrace of ignorance and intolerance has grown so toxic they demand to be confronted.   

Pitts closes with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr., so I will too: “How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God.”

To which I say, Amen.

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Hey, gals, want to avoid being raped? Put away that Lady Smith 38. No need for pepper spray. Self-defense classes? Not necessary. The solution is simple. The best defense against rape is to just cast away your “deeply troubling” Christianity and become a secularist slut.

So goes the advice of one Katie McDonough, Salon.com assistant editor, fertile fount of millennial wisdom and – well – and whatever else.

In an article published at Salon Feb. 20 titled, “The right’s warped ‘purity’ culture: 4 ways evangelical views of sex took over America,” Ms. McDonough provides an unvarnished glimpse into the profligate mind of the postmodern “progressive.” (Yes, you read that right. Purity is warped and biblical sexual morality has taken over America.)

In what amounts to little more than an anti-Christian hit piece on Patrick Henry College – or “God’s Harvard” as the evidently prone-position-prone journo pejoratively pokes – Ms. McDonough says that it’s time for American women to reject all those biblically imposed “gender complementarian” norms and do away with our “toxic purity culture” once and for all. (Because, just look around. That dang ol’ toxic purity is everywhere. What America really needs is more debauchery.)

It gets better.

Christianity causes rape, McDonough asserts, warning us that we suffer a “convergence of rape culture (whatever that is) and evangelical culture.”

Get that? In this woman’s “progressive” mind, when the lady says, “I’m saving myself for marriage,” the bad guy hears, “Come and get it!” Still, Ms. McDonough does have this much right: It can’t be rape if you’re giving it away like peanuts on the plane.

She goes on: “While it may be tempting to draw a red line around Christian fundamentalist views on gender and sexuality to distinguish them from supposedly evolved ‘secular’ culture, there is considerable, uncomfortable overlap between the two.” (The cognitive dissonance: It hurts!)

So, if I’m understanding her right – and, admittedly, Ms. McDonough’s screed is borderline coherent – what she’s essentially claiming is that, when it comes to sex, both secular America and Christian America are really just one big ball of puritanical prudery.

In fairness, I suppose she could actually believe this. It’s all relative with the relativist. For the “anything goes”-type, Miley Cyrus may well be indistinguishable from the Virgin Mary. When you’re colorblind, everything looks kinda gray.

She continues: “Evangelical Christianity makes visible – through purity pledges and doctrine assigning women the role of man’s ‘helpmate’ – the norms and expectations about female virginity and subservience that so often remain hidden in the secular world.” (Ooh. Loves me some man-hate.)

So, get it? Purity and virginity bad. Impurity and promiscuity good. I’ll give Ms. McDonough this: She calls it like she sees it.

She goes on to make the same tired “war on women” claim we’ve heard so much of lately, warning the would-be chaste that biblical sexual morality is really “only about reproduction and male entitlement.”

She then mocks columnist Susan Patton as “a joke” for “arguing in mainstream publications that women who have sex outside of marriage are setting themselves up for disaster and heartbreak.” (Yeah, and?) This is in response to Patton’s observation in a recent Wall Street Journal column that, “The grandmotherly message of yesterday is still true today: Men won’t buy the cow if the milk is free.” To which, with indignation, McDonough sneers: “This is purity culture passed off as ‘common-sense’ wisdom, which was published in a ‘serious’ and secular paper. In 2014.” (So now “secular” is synonymous with slutty?)

McDonough’s advice? Girls, give away that milk now, ya hear! (To which the frisky-frat-boy “bro-choice” choir sings: “Amen!” Hey, “pro-choice” gals, you do know that most “pro-choice” guys only support your so-called “abortion rights” so that you’ll put out, right?)

Secular-”progressives” like McDonough have been working to deconstruct traditional sexual morality for generations. And today – more than at any point in history – they’re having success in spades. Despite her wincey whines to the contrary, Ms. McDonough knows this to be true.

And so do you.

The goal is to impose – under penalty of law – the left’s own moral relativist, sexual anarchist worldview. Hence, we see a flood of unelected liberal judges, for instance, arbitrarily ramming counterfeit “gay marriage” down the throats of millions of Americans, complete with the threat that Christians either join the delusion – and pretend that sin-centered “same-sex marriage” is real and right – or suffer the consequences.

Another example is Obamacare’s despotic HHS abortion mandate that unconstitutionally requires Christian organizations to cast aside millennia-old church doctrine and get with the postmodern, pro-abort program.

The list goes on.

All of which makes McDonough’s central declaration her most ludicrous: “[O]ne point remains clear,” she proclaims. “Conservatives want to enshrine religiously defined norms about sexuality into law.”

No, Ms. McDonough. The only people “enshrining sexuality” into law are “progressive” social engineers like Barack Obama, Justice Anthony Kennedy and the rest of you godless lefties – hell-bent on taking the screws to America.

Now that is “rape culture.”

The “sweet” young man who killed two people, and then himself, in a Maryland shopping mall on January 25 was a pothead.

But the police revelation that the killer mentions “using marijuana” in a diary has been played down by the media, which in recent months have seemed almost ecstatic about the legalization of the drug in Colorado. President Obama, a one-time heavy user, recently called the drug safer than alcohol.

The link between marijuana and mental illness, documented in the medical literature, is not a popular subject for journalists who themselves may use pot and be reluctant to tell the truth about high potency marijuana and its powerful, psychoactive component.

Just after the murders, the killer, Darion Aguilar, was described in a Washington Post story as a “good kid” with no criminal record who was perceived as “harmless.” His mother called him a “gentle, sweet kid.”

But now the story has dramatically changed.

“Howard County police said on Twitter that Darion Aguilar wrote of using marijuana, expressed ‘thoughts of wanting to die’ and even said he was ‘ready to die,’” reported The Washington Post. But the marijuana reference was buried in the fifth paragraph, even though it helps explain why a “harmless” young man would turn into a psychotic monster.

The police Twitter account reported that Aguilar, in his writings, “indicates he thought he needed a mental health professional, but never told his family. He also mentions using marijuana.”

In Maryland, where the mall killings took place, the Marijuana Policy Project is pushing legal dope. State Senate President Thomas V. “Mike” Miller has endorsed legalization of marijuana and even remarked about taking a “toke” for a toothache.

Less than a week after Aguilar brought a shotgun into the shopping mall in Columbia, Maryland, state police arrested another doper, George Hong Sik Chin, as he threatened employees at the Tumi luggage store in Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda, Maryland. “Police searched his truck and found a small amount of marijuana and a pipe, and drug charges were pending,” The Baltimore Sun reported.

Police said he was wearing camouflage, acting disorderly, and threatening to kill employees of the luggage store. Another account said he was “babbling incoherently.”

Nevertheless, the Marijuana Policy Project, which conducts fundraisers at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, posted five billboards surrounding the stadium that hosted the Super Bowl on Sunday, claiming that “marijuana is safer than both alcohol and playing professional football.” This claim echoes statements made by President Barack Obama, a one-time member of the “Choom Gang” in Hawaii, and a heavy user of marijuana.

U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), during a January 29 Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing of the Justice Department, questioned Attorney General Eric Holder about Obama’s recent statement to The New Yorker that marijuana isn’t more dangerous than alcohol:

Sessions: …did the President make or conduct any medical or scientific survey before he waltzed into The New Yorker and opined, contrary to the position of attorney generals and presidents universally prior to that? That marijuana is not as I’ve quoted him? Did he study any of this data before he made that statement?

Holder: Well, I don’t know, but I think, as I said…

Sessions: Did he consult with you before he made that statement?

Holder:  No, we didn’t talk about that.

Sessions: Well, what about this study from the American Medical Association, October of 2013? ‘Heavy (inaudible) use in adolescents causes persistent impairments in neurocognitive performance and I.Q. And use is associated with increased rates of anxiety, mood and psychotic thought disorders,’ close quote. Or this report from Northwestern University in December—last December. Quote: ‘The study found that marijuana users have abnormal brain structure and poor memory, and that chronic marijuana use may lead to brain changes resembling schizophrenia. The study also reported that the younger the person starts using marijuana, the worst the effect.’ Would you dispute those reports?

Holder: I have not read the reports, but I don’t—if they are—if they are, in fact, from the AMA, I’m sure they are good reports. But that is exactly why one of our eight enforcement priorities is the prevention of marijuana to minors.

Sessions: Well, Lady Gaga said she’s addicted to it, and it is not harmless. She’s been addicted to it. Patrick Kennedy—former Congressman Kennedy—said the President is wrong on this subject. I just think it’s a huge issue. I hope that you will talk with the President—you’re close to him—and begin to push back—pull back from this position that I think is going to be adverse to the health of America.

Liberal commentators laughed at Senator Sessions’ reference to Lady Gaga being addicted to marijuana, but in fact she said she was “smoking up to 15-20 marijuana cigarettes a day,” allegedly to deal with various ailments.  She has been a longtime Obama supporter.

This article was originally posted on the Accuracy in Media website. 

Hypocrisy, thy name is liberalism. What a difference a few years makes.

Remember when “progressive” media types chided President George W. Bush till they were blue in the face for “going it alone” on Iraq? Well, apparently “going it alone” is totally cool if you have a “D” after your name.

David Corn, Washington bureau chief over at the uber-liberal Mother Jones magazine is disappointed that an increasingly imperialist President Barack Obama wasn’t imperialist enough during his recent State of the Union Address. He’s furious that our already chestless Commander-in-Hearing-Himself-Talk showed off his bona fides in weakness and “let the Republicans off easy.”

Wrote Corn:

Obama didn’t use this opportunity to focus on the reason he has to go it alone: Republicans hell-bent on disrupting the government and thwarting all the initiatives he deems necessary for the good of the nation. Even when he quasi-denounced the government shutdown, he did not name-check House Speaker John Boehner and his tea-party-driven comrades.

What? “All the initiatives” Obama “deems necessary”? “Go it alone”? Yeah, Josef Stalin – affectionately nicknamed “Uncle Joe” by Obama’s hero, FDR – had a lot of initiatives he “deemed necessary,” too. And like Obama, he also preferred the “go it alone” approach.

Seriously, has Mr. Corn never heard of the separation of powers? The president doesn’t get to just unilaterally “deem” laws into effect. He’s the chief executive, not the chief lawmaker. Neither should he be the chief lawbreaker.

Yet here we are and so he is.

More than any other president in American history (yes, Nixon included), Obama has done both – make the “law” and break the law. Just consider, for instance, his unprecedented, arbitrary, capricious and completely illegal “do-whatever-I-want-to-do” shredding of his signature dark comedy: Obamacare.

Get used to it. During last Tuesday’s SOTU Obama announced his intention to keep at it. In fact, he plans to ramp-up the lawlessness.

And why shouldn’t he? A gutless GOP establishment has let him get away with it at every turn. Corn was partly right. He was justified in taking a jab at the speaker of the House. On this we agree: House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) needs to be “checked,” just not for the reasons Corn supposes.

Even some liberals are waking up to the fact that, for the first time, America is living under – as U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) calls it – “the imperial presidency.” In a posting originally titled “Obama: Efforts to rein him in not serious,” the off-the-rails-liberal CNN.com took Obama to task for his autocratic misbehavior (CNN later changed the article title to “President Obama says he’s not recalibrating ambitions.” Amazing what an angry phone call from this White House can do to the Obama-natical state-run media).

Noted CNN:

Once, Barack Obama spoke of what he wanted for his presidency in terms of healing a nation divided. ‘This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal,’ he said.

Today, Obama is talking about executive orders and executive actions – with a pen or phone – if a divided Congress won’t or can’t act on an agenda he laid out this week in his State of the Union Address. …

Sen. Ted Cruz described the actions as ‘the imperial presidency,’” continued CNN, “and House Republicans have threatened to rein in the president’s use of executive actions.

‘I don’t think that’s very serious,’ Obama said. …

Right. Most despots don’t take “very serious” efforts to rein them in, particularly when their political opposition has shown neither the courage nor the inclination to do so.

David Corn disagrees. He thinks more despotism is just what the “progressive” doctor ordered. He ended his Mother Jones rant – all but calling the president a weenie: “Obama barely called out Republicans in this speech; he did not exploit this high-profile moment to confront the obstructionist opposition,” he complained.

Au contraire, my corny little friend. Barack Hussein Obama has stored up no short supply of exploitations. Most especially, he has exploited the very people he is sworn to serve.

“We the people.”  

This past Sunday night’s Grammy awards was a tragic freak show that demonstrated the entertainment industry’s arrogance, ignorance of marriage, and disregard for children. It was a gawdy spitball hurled in the all-seeing eye of a holy God.

The spectacle was bookended by a soft-core porn performance by the not-single lady Beyoncé who twerked and jerked her half-revealed derriere in a series of “dance” moves that simulated sex and stimulated sexual appetite, while the crowd cheered in puerile excitement.

Beyoncé was later joined by her husband Jay-Z who seems to revel in the lustings of strangers for his wife. What kind of man gets pleasure from his wife’s flaunting of her sexuality and from the certain knowledge that men desire to do things to his wife because of her arousing dress and actions? Is it money that motivates his eager embrace of his wife’s immodesty, or pride that he has access to her body when all other leering men do not? If it’s money, how is he different from a pimp?

Beyoncé’s performance reinforced the cultural deceit that modesty and the notion that conjugal love is private are archaic puritanical irrelevancies. Beyoncé has abused her power as a beloved role model for young girls to teach them terrible lessons about sexuality and marriage. Her performance raises many questions:

• What motivates a young, married mother to flaunt her partially-exposed sexual anatomy to the world and simulate sex movements?
• Deep down is this what she truly wants to do?
• Deep down does she really want her husband to delight in the objectification and commodification of her body for the prurient pleasures of other men?
• Would Jay-Z and Beyoncé want their daughter to one day perform like her mother for the pleasures of men? What would they think about an 18-year-old Blue Ivy recreating her mother’s performance but in a seedy club for the eyes of less expensively attired and botoxed men and women? 
• Is Beyoncé comfortable with her father watching her performance?
• What kind of mixed message does this performance send to children? Parents and pediatricians tell children that parts of their bodies are “private parts” that only parents and doctors should look at or touch. We convey that message to them from the earliest prepubescent ages. So, what happens after sexual maturity? Do those “private parts” suddenly become public parts?  
• Is modesty in dress the same as prudery, or is it a virtue to be cultivated?

Beyoncé’s vulgar anti-woman, anti-marriage performance foreshadowed the climactic setpiece of the evening: Queen Latifah, long-rumored to be a lesbian, officiated at the “weddings” of 33 couples, many of whom were same-sex couples, while accompanied by the preachy, feckless song “Same Love” by Macklemore and the song “Open Your Heart” by the Dorian Gray-esque Madonna. It was a sorry, sick, non-serious ceremony that looked like something from the garish dystopian world of the Hunger Games, replete with a cheering sycophantic audience, faux-stained glass windows, a faux-choir, a homosexual faux-pastorette, and “Madonna” with her faux-face. It was a non-wedding festooned with all the indulgent gimcrackery of Satan’s most alluring playground: Hollywood.  

Here’s an excerpt from theologian and pastor Doug Wilson’s must-read blog post about the meretricious Grammy extravaganza—I mean “wedding”:

[T]hose Christians still besotted by our contemporary sintertainment standards are not going to reflect on how compromised they all are until next year, when the Grammys will have John the Baptist’s head brought out on a platter. And even then, there will be no little debate about it, because some of our more illustrious cultural thinkers will no doubt point out that John’s somewhat direct method of approaching Herod left something to be desired. It was not — let us be frank — an invitation to mutually constructive dialog. It ended badly, to be sure, and John did have such promising gifts and so it grieves us to say that, at least in part, he brought it upon himself.

A homosexual East Coast journalist called me last week, angry about my open letter to Notre Dame University president Father Jenkins. He is angry at just about everything orthodox Christians say about homosexuality, including the assertion that the legalization of same-sex “marriage” will destroy marriage. He believes that “progressives” are not destroying marriage but, rather, expanding it.

I explained that many “progressives” believe—as conservatives do—that marriage has a nature. We just disagree on the features that constitute that nature. Conservatives believe marriage is constituted by romantic/erotic feelings, “binariness” (i.e., marriage is composed of two people), and sexual complementarity. The Left believes that marriage is constituted by romantic/erotic feelings and “binariness.” The journalist agreed with this definition of marriage.

I suggested that if someone were to propose “expanding” the legal definition of marriage to include platonic friends in as large a group as these friends desire, “progressives” who believe that romantic/erotic feelings and binariness are essential constituent features of marriage would likely respond that this redefinition is not an expansion but the destruction of marriage. One cannot jettison inherent features from an institution without changing it so fundamentally that it is, in reality, destroyed.

Conservatives argue that sexual complementarity is as fundamental to marriage as romantic-erotic feelings and “binariness.” Jettisoning the essential constituent feature of sexual complementarity represents the destruction of marriage. Self-righteous Grammy “sintertainers” just hammered another nail in the cultural coffin of marriage.

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Duck Dynasty’s raggedy, curmudgeonly Phil Robertson has displayed a moral courage and boldness that should shame many (perhaps most) religious leaders in this country. And in so doing, he has won a huge victory for truth, religious liberty, and diversity. A&E has rescinded their arrogant, ignorant, and narrow-minded suspension of the family patriarch, Phil Robertson.

One of the many remarkable aspects of this brouhaha is the Left’s alleged indignation about Robertson’s crude language. His use of two anatomically correct terms to describe the preference most males have for normal intercourse gave “progressives” the vapors (Isn’t it the Left that believes it’s a moral imperative that preschoolers always use anatomically correct terms? No cute euphemisms for our two-year-olds. But heaven forfend that adults should use anatomically correct terms, especially when alluding to sodomy).

This prudery is remarkable from the crowd that worships at the altar of sexual deviance during annual public celebrations of homosexuality and cross-dressing and on many a family hour sitcom. Where were these paragons of linguistic virtue when a beloved homosexual character on Modern Family made a joke about “Sondheimizing” children?

I wonder if “progressives” got their undies in a twist over the title of the GQ Magazine interview that started this whole controversy: “What the Duck?” Oh, those clever wordsmiths at GQ.

Surely, this quote about the Louisiana backwater from the author of the GQ interview must be tormenting “progressive” language police:

I shouldn’t be sitting around the house and bitc**ng because the new iOS 7 touchscreen icons don’t have any f**king drop shadow. I should be out here, dam**t! Killing things and growing things and bringing dead things home to cook! There is a life out in this wilderness that I am too chickensh*t to lead. 

What really bedevils “progressives” is not the use of vulgar language. What really sticks in their craw is the audacity of anyone daring to suggest that the primary sexual act of homosexual men is deviant, perverse, abnormal, immoral, or a pathway to disease.

Another remarkable aspect of this incident is that “progressives” are so profoundly ignorant of theology and yet so unself-conscious about pontificating on matters of which they are so ignorant. Robertson’s main sin—according to the non-judgmental crowd—was his affirmation of the historical position of the church that homosexual acts are among the many sins that afflict humans. “Progressives” who know next to nothing about the Bible and exegesis think they’ve got orthodox Christians over a barrel when they—“progressives”—bring up Old Testament verses about eating shellfish or wearing mixed fabric clothing, or when they bring up verses about judging not or the absence of condemnation in Christ. A quick peak around the Internet would clarify the context and meaning of those passages and reveal to these exegetes the flaws in their manipulative use of Scripture.

But neither correct understanding nor obedience to Christ is their goal. Their goal is to compel deference to their self-serving desires by hook or by anti-biblical crook. Corrupting and exploiting Scripture is one of their tactics. The exploitation of the courts and government schools are two other means by which they seek to coerce compliance with their sexual ideology. And ad hominem attacks on any public figure who dares to express moral propositions with which they disagree is yet another.

The movement to normalize homosexuality is a pernicious movement. The end game is the eradication of the belief that homosexual acts are immoral. When that’s not possible, “progressives” seek to make it socially and politically impossible to express it. They will use vicious slander and outright lies (e.g., that homosexuality is analogous to race) to achieve their ends.

And still most churches remain silent, bending over backwards (which is easy for men without chests and spines) to prove that they don’t hate homosexuals. It should be shocking that pastors and priests say nothing while public money is used to affirm sin as righteousness to our little ones in our public schools. It would behoove church leaders who tsk-tsk Phil Robertson’s crude language to spend a little time thinking about their accommodation of the profound evil taking place in our schools. How are they exposing these deeds of darkness? How are they being salt and light? How are they protecting their flocks? Are they teaching the whole counsel of God?

In A&E’s statement, they emphasized that Robertson’s views “are not views we hold.”

So, do they reject Robertson’s belief that only God can judge who’s going to Heaven or Hell?

Do they reject Robertson’s belief that it’s our job as Christians to love our fellow sinners and tell them the good news about Jesus.

Do they reject Robertson’s common knowledge claim that that Nazis, Communists, and Muslims are not followers of Jesus Christ?

Do they reject the belief that “Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers” will inherit the kingdom of God? Well, those were words paraphrased by Robertson, and they’re words that St. Paul wrote to the church in Corinthians shortly before he wrote what is known as the Love Chapter, widely read at all kinds of ceremonial occasions. Do the biblical scholars at A&E reject all of Corinthians or just the inconvenient parts?   

Perhaps they don’t hold the view that African Americans are “godly people,” because Robertson said that those he worked side by side with in the cotton fields were godly people.

Most important, Robertson said this in the interview: “If you simply put your faith in Jesus coming down in flesh, through a human being, God becoming flesh living on the earth, dying on the cross for the sins of the world, being buried, and being raised from the dead—yours and mine and everybody else’s problems will be solved.”

Sadly, the powers that be at A&E probably don’t hold this belief. 

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Keep the pressure on! 
Let A&E know what you think of their religious bigotry. 

Ever since reports surfaced that A&E was trying to crack down on religious expressions by the Robertson family during taping of their mega-hit show Duck Dynasty, we knew it was just a matter of time. And it finally happened late last week.

The story became a media firestorm throughout the country when Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson was punished by A&E–placed on “indefinite hiatus”–for his remarks on homosexual behavior. When this news broke, the Internet and social media exploded.

Robertson was doing an interview with GQ magazine when he was asked about his faith and the faith of the Robertson clan. The faith of this beloved all-American family is well-known. So when asked questions about faith and sexuality, Robertson didn’t hold back. He said:

“Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men…Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right…”

You can read Phil’s entire quote (which is crude and graphic) in the GQ article HERE.

These comments garnered the ire of GLAAD, a multi-million dollar homosexual activist group, which called on A&E to end the hit show. (GLAAD officially stands for Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.)  A&E decided to suspend Phil Robertson, then to put him on “indefinite hiatus.” In other words, A&E fired a Christian for sharing his Christian views in the free press when asked. Or, as one of my friends said it, “Irony of the night: you can’t be the real you with your real opinions if you star in a ‘reality’ show.”

A&E quickly issued a statement to distance themselves from the controversy, saying:

“We are extremely disappointed to have read Phil Robertson’s comments in GQ, which are based on his own personal beliefs and are not reflected in the series Duck Dynasty.  His personal views in no way reflect those of A+E Networks, who have always been strong supporters and champions of the LGBT community. The network has placed Phil under hiatus from filming indefinitely.”

Talk about viewpoint discrimination. 

The executives at A&E Network have not only taken sides in the culture war, siding with radical LGBTQ activists, but they have blatantly discriminated against orthodox Christianity.  While they proudly claim to be “champions of the LGBT community,” one has to wonder when they will ever champion people of faith.

As you might expect, Facebook and Twitter exploded with support for Robertson. Pages dedicated to #StandByPhil gained tens of thousands of supporters in mere hours.  My personal Facebook wall saw nonstop images and articles about Phil Robertson for more than 24 hours.

This shouldn’t be a surprise to A&E or anyone else.

Duck Dynasty became one of the most popular shows on television, and the most popular show on A&E. The Robertson family has been outspoken about their faith. Robertson sons regularly speak in churches, conferences, and events. And when they do, they bring Bible’s and share their faith. They have spoken about the issue of homosexuality before, along with pre-marital sex, abortion, and creation. So no one is surprised by these comments.

The reality is that Duck Dynasty has been a ratings machine for A&E and perhaps the only reason people like me even watch the network. The sponsors of Duck Dynasty, like Wal-Mart, have made millions off the show and A&E is still considered a relevant network thanks to the Robertson’s. As one person noted, Duck Dynasty doesn’t need A&E–A&E needs Duck Dynasty. So what they’ve done is alienate their base by catering to a minority that likely doesn’t watch their network. That seems to be a very foolish business decision.

A&E seems more interested in political correctness and catering to a few folks at GLAAD than to the millions that watch their hit show. A GLAAD spokesman commented on the remarks made by Robertson:

“Phil and his family claim to be Christian, but Phil’s lies about an entire community fly in the face of what true Christians believe. He clearly knows nothing about gay people or the majority of Louisianans — and Americans — who support legal recognition for loving and committed gay and lesbian couples. Phil’s decision to push vile and extreme stereotypes is a stain on A&E and his sponsors, who now need to re-examine their ties to someone with such public disdain for LGBT people and families.”

Robertson issued his own follow up statement making it clear that he doesn’t hate anyone:

“I myself am a product of the 60s; I centered my life around sex, drugs and rock and roll until I hit rock bottom and accepted Jesus as my Savior. My mission today is to go forth and tell people about why I follow Christ and also what the Bible teaches, and part of that teaching is that women and men are meant to be together. However, I would never treat anyone with disrespect just because they are different from me. We are all created by the Almighty and like Him, I love all of humanity. We would all be better off if we loved God and loved each other.”

Phil, just like most Christians, understands that we are to love every person just as God does, but that does not mean we have to approve of their behavior or agree with their political views. Sexual sin of any kind is still sin and Robertson is explaining that it is indeed possible to respect a person without approving of their sin.

The bottom line is that the view of sexuality expressed by Phil Robertson is still held by a majority of the world and within major religions. I can’t help but wonder if things would be different if Phil Robertson was a Muslim. But the truth is that this should serve as an eye opening experience for all those who think it’s possible for religious civil rights and homosexual “rights” to coexist.  They cannot.

Homosexuals don’t want people merely to accept their lifestyle, they want everyone–including Christians–to approve of it. They don’t want religious exemptions in “anti-bullying” laws, or in onerous legislation like ENDA and other non-discrimination proposals. They want to force everyone to celebrate their lifestyle and will not stop until that goal is achieved.

A recent Associated Press report claiming that the challenge to Illinois House incumbents who voted for marriage redefinition has “fizzled” is utterly misleading. According to our information, eight of the nine Chicago Democrats challenging Democratic incumbents would have voted no or present on SB 10, the same-sex “marriage” legislation sponsored by homosexual State Representative Greg Harris (D-Chicago).

This is an astounding fact that should not be lost on readers. Not one, not two, not three, but eight pro-marriage Chicago Democrats are challenging Democratic incumbents in the March 18, 2014 primary election.

Fizzled?  Hardly.

Marriage redefinition didn’t a month ago and still doesn’t have the support that the dominant media wants you to believe it does. It is evident in the fact that Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) had to twist arms to get SB 10 to pass in his chamber and by the fact that a good number of Chicago Democrats are running as pro-marriage Democrats. That, however, is not the narrative the media wants to promote. They choose to frame it as a conservative-cup-half-empty story.

Compound these facts with the fact that all three of the weak-kneed Republicans who voted for SB 10 have primary challengers who are pro-marriage, and it adds up to anything but a “fizzle.”

Pictured above, left to right, top row: State Representatives Tom Cross (R-Plainfield), Art Turner (D-Chicago), Ron Sandack (R-Westmont), Al Riley (D-Hazel Crest)

Bottom row, left to right: State Representatives Will Davis (D-Chicago), Elgie Sims (D-Chicago), Thaddeus Jones (D-Calumet City), Ed Sullivan (R-Mundelein)

From now until the end of the year your tax-deductible gift to Illinois Family Institute will be doubled, up to $25,000 due to the generosity of some long-time supporters.   

Click here to double your tax-deductible donation to IFI today!

This past Thursday, the CapitolFax political website, liberal political pundit Rich Miller re-posted a recent IFI fundraising appeal, ridiculing it as “over the top” and highlighting the phrases he, Miller, views as particular over-the-toppish.

After reading his post and the subsequent comments, I posted some comments myself, copied here:

1. Rich characterizes portions of Dave Smith’s article as “over the top.” That’s rich (no pun intended). Nothing could be more “over the top” than the notion that sexual complementarity is wholly irrelevant to marriage.
   
   
2. Miller highlights the phrase “evil agenda” as over the top. “Evil” is defined as “morally bad or wrong; causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful.” Severing the link between children and their mothers and fathers for no reason related to parental loss, abuse, incompetence, or abandonment is evil. Creating children to be deliberately motherless or fatherless is evil. Encoding in law the deceit that marriage is solely constituted by subjective feelings of deep romantic affection is evil. That is to say, all of the above are morally wrong and cause pain.
   
   
3. One of the effects of legalizing same-sex pseudo-marriage will be to diminish religious liberty. Former Georgetown University law professor lesbian Chai Feldblum has confirmed this as inevitable. That too is evil.
   
   
4. One of the commenters, “Frustrated GOP,” embarrassingly suggested that opposing the legal recognition of same-sex unions as marriages is the equivalent of endorsing racism. How is homosexuality per se analogous to race? It’s a stupid analogy that is strategically effective because we have  an intellectually lazy and easily manipulated/intimidated public.
   
   
5. One of the commenters, “Tatler,” suggested David Smith was contradictory in his statements regarding societal collapse. Perhaps Tatler should read more closely. Smith wrote that we—that is to say, humans–can’t know what “Illinois will be like in twenty years,” and that “Only God knows for certain.” Then Smith pointed us to what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah in large part because of their indulgence in homosexuality: God destroyed them. It is not contradictory to say humans don’t know with certainty what Illinois will be like in twenty years and to say that Scripture shows that God does not eternally tolerate evil.
   
   
6. Miller and some of his commenters also ridiculed the phrase “moral collapse.” The legal recognition of same-sex unions as marriages will have a corrosive effect on marriage, which has already been damaged by prior feckless philosophical shifts that emerged from, normalized, and exalted self-indulgence. The dissolution of true marriage, my friends, is a sure sign of and contributor to moral collapse. 

Here are some of the comments from those who believe same-sex pseudo-marriage (which, by the way, has nothing to do with equality) is good for children and good for America: 

– Aloysius – Thursday, Oct 17, 13 @ 8:16 pm:

The Illinois Family Institute:
Hearts of lead and brains of fruit.
Better a sharp stick in the eye
Than lectures from the I.F.I.

– Demoralized – Thursday, Oct 17, 13 @ 3:56 pm:

the Illinois Family Institute isn’t part of any…intelligent discussions unless you consider hate-mongering intelligent.

– Jim’e’ – Thursday, Oct 17, 13 @ 3:48 pm:

I’m distressed that these characters at the “family institute’ are quite possibly making a living off of their campaign. Well, I guess some would say that Cardinal George’s education campaign is not doing well because of his spiteful statement on gays

– truthteller – Thursday, Oct 17, 13 @ 3:43 pm:

Supporting unjust, discriminatory laws seems to be what religionists do. That makes the baby jesus cry.

– Eddy – Thursday, Oct 17, 13 @ 3:36 pm:

Funny, I didn’t see a picture of the POTUS setting up barricades. I’d promis the dude 3 and a half cents to ask him to quit exaggerating. I have two gay nieces, both are wonderful mothers. There’s nothing evil about them or anyone in my family. I’ve been divorced three times. I’m a great dad. I log 30,000 miles a year in my car. All is fine with my family. Jesus would love to break bread with my family. It irks me when “Christian” groups promote hate and fear. That’s not the Christians I hang out with. Pathetic

– frustrated GOP – Thursday, Oct 17, 13 @ 3:30 pm:

“OMG, replace “Same sex marriage” with “desegregation” and I bet you find something from 50 years ago that sounds the same. Signed by the grand wizard himself.

The party of Lincoln, and born out of abolition is turning into the honoree at an Irish Wake, just a guy in the corner holding a beer taking up space until someone puts him in the ground. Less and less relevant and smelling worse by the day.

I want to encourage everyone to prayerfully consider attending the Defend Marriage Lobby Day in Springfield next Wednesday, and if you’re unable to attend, please contact your representative and urge him or her to vote “NO” on SB 10. If your representative intends to vote “yes,” ask him or her the questions in this article.

Click HERE to make a tax-deductible donation to the Illinois Family Institute.

Click HERE for information about the Oct. 23rd Defend Marriage Lobby Day.

As part of a national journalism conference on Tuesday, August 20, America’s Survival, Inc. (ASI), a public policy organization, is officially releasing a new report on radical changes at Fox News that should cause great concern to pro-family conservatives.

“Pushing Sean Hannity out of the 9:00 p.m. slot, to make way for pro-homosexual advocate Megyn Kelly, is another sign of the channel’s left-ward drift and decline,” said ASI President Cliff Kincaid, a veteran journalist and media critic. 

Mocking the Fox motto of “Fair, Balanced and Unafraid,” the new report is titled, “Unfair, Unbalanced and Afraid: Fox News’ Growing Pro-Homosexual Bias and the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association.” It is available in advance at the ASI website www.usasurvival.org. 

The 40,000-word report, written by former reporter and social activist Peter LaBarbara, examines how journalism today, even at Fox News, “has become pro-homosexual propaganda, with many media stories appearing as if they were written by LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) activists.” Like other major media, the report notes, Fox News through its parent company, News Corporation, is a long-time funder of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA). LaBarbera runs the Americans for Truth about Homosexuality group. 

The cover of the report features a photo of Fox News star and afternoon host Megyn Kelly posing for a photo at the 2010 NLGJA fund-raiser in New York City. Every year, Fox News violates basic journalistic ethics by joining other major media as a corporate sponsor of the NLGJA. The report cites documentary evidence that the coverage of homosexuality by Fox News is tilted in a left-wing direction, and that the channel has failed its conservative viewers. When Kincaid and LaBarbara sent a letter to Fox chief Roger Ailes earlier this year asking for a meeting on the subject, they were rebuffed. 

At the August 20 conference, ASI President Kincaid will himself narrate a PowerPoint presentation on “The Rise and Fall of Fox News,” focusing on how the channel has gradually abandoned its viewer base and why conservatives should look elsewhere for news and information. Acknowledging that the channel began and succeeded as a platform for conservative voices ignored by the major media, Kincaid will nevertheless explain why he is troubled by a series of liberal hires at the channel and a new book that documents Ailes’ relationships with civil rights agitators Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. He will also discuss the real reason why Glenn Beck was fired from the channel. To cover or attend the conference, which is being held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., please contact Phil Kent at (404) 226-3549 and /or philkent@philkent.com. 

While examining how various Fox News personalities have approached the homosexual issue, the new ASI report looks closely at Kelly, a so-called “rising star” at the channel who has a history of trying to “marginalize and discredit religious conservatives.” Sean Hannity currently hosts the show during the 9:00 p.m. time period that Kelly is reportedly taking over. 

One of the examples cited is how Kelly emerged as a “Transgender Advocate” for “Chaz” Bono, after the former child actor switched genders from female to male. Kelly was “arrogant and belligerent” in a 2011 interview with Dr. Keith Ablow, in response to his excellent FoxNews.com article urging parents not to let their impressionable children watch “Chaz” Bono on “Dancing with the Stars.” Kelly’s hostile interview with Dr. Ablow reached a low point when she accused him of “adding to the hate” against transgenders. 

The report adds, “Viewers should remember that it was Kelly… who set up Bill O’Reilly’s ‘Thump the Bible’ hubbub by stating that in her prior interview with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, she did not hear any ‘compelling’ arguments against same-sex ‘marriage.’ This led O’Reilly to enthusiastically agree and make his famous remark (which many Christians and conservatives found pejorative).” 

“So-called ‘Bible thumpers’ and other Christians and conservatives who have been offended by Fox News should get the message,” says Kincaid. “This is a channel that has lost its way and that viewers should lose their way to on the remote control.”

Some pro-family organizations are rankled at the latest attempt by a liberal media outlet to co-opt two of America’s most beloved children’s pop culture icons on behalf of the pro-homosexual movement.

The Muppets Bert and Ernie, perhaps the most recognized characters of the popular U.S. children’s television program Sesame Street, have been used to commemorate last week’s landmark Supreme Court rulings on same-sex “marriage.” The latest issue of The New Yorker magazine shows the duo cuddling on their sofa as they watch a television featuring members of the United States Supreme Court.

The illustration, titled “Moment of Joy,” suggests the two characters were joyfully celebrating the recent rulings overturning the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage.

Dan Gainor, vice president of business and culture for the Media Research Center, believes children are the ultimate losers.

“What happened to the idea that we could have the innocence of youth?” asks Gainor. “Where children are not abused this way? Where the characters they grow up with and learn from are made gay?”

Gainor cites the move to reverse the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, a “Was Jesus Gay” article in the Huffington Post, and now the cover of The New Yorker magazine as examples of a major propaganda initiative to convince the world that a large number of the world’s population is “gay.”

“Literally, from pre-K all the way up to senior citizens, they use TV, they use radio, they use movies, they use news and entertainment and magazines,” says Gainor. “The whole goal is [to proclaim] that all male or all female friendships … must be gay. Their opinion is basically everybody must be gay. No, that’s actually not the case.”

Gainor is not alone in his criticism.

“It’s beneath contempt for a magazine of The New Yorker‘s stature to use Bert and Ernie to celebrate behavior which is immoral, unnatural and unhealthy,” says Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association (AFA). “The artist is just dead wrong. This is a tragic day for kids who will wind up in same-sex households.”

Wildmon notes a study by University of Texas researcher Mark Regnerus that concluded children raised in same-sex environments fared worse in 77 out of 80 outcomes when compared to children raised in intact homes by a mother and a father.

“The Bible has had it right from the beginning: marriage is between a man and a woman, and it’s the optimal nurturing environment for children. The New Yorker ought to be ashamed of itself,” concludes Wildmon.

On Friday, columnist Bryan Fischer accused the magazine of promoting “child endangerment” and “child abuse” by using the images of Bert and Ernie. Fischer also cited the findings of Mark Regnerus.

‘Great for our kids’?

The Ernie and Bert characters have lived together for several years in an apartment in the basement of 123 Sesame Street. Although they sleep in separate beds, they share a bedroom, which has led some to speculate the characters portray a homosexual relationship.

In 2011, after an online petition asking for Sesame Street to have Bert and Ernie “wed” went viral, the shows producers’ refuted that claim. That same petition also asked producers to add a transgender character.

“Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves,” Sesame Workshop said in a statement at the time. “Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.”

Jack Hunter, the artist who designed the cover and first posted his image on a Tumblr account, said: “It’s amazing to witness how attitudes on gay rights have evolved in my lifetime. This is great for our kids, a moment we can all celebrate.”

Originally posted at OneNewsNow.com.

Chicago Tribune columnist and self-presumptive GOP consultant  Eric Zorn offered to “straighten out state GOP’s gay mess.”  In a nutshell, his nutty recommendation is for the Illinois Republican Party to “appoint someone who supports the legalization of same-sex marriage” to run the party. At least Zorn recognizes the critical importance of that oft-dismissed “social issue” of marriage.

He has joined homosexual activist Log Cabin Republicans in calling for a more inclusive “big tent.”

He has two reasons for this suggestion: 1. It will result in “sputtering, incoherent apologies from cynical Leftists,” and 2. It’s good politics.

Zorn claims conservative fears about the erosion of religious freedoms are unwarranted. Apparently, he hasn’t heard about the florist in Washington who is being sued by the state for her religiously based refusal to provide flowers for a same-sex “wedding.”

And apparently he is unaware that lesbian and former Georgetown University law professor Chai Feldblum has publicly stated that when same-sex marriage is legalized, conservative people of faith will lose religious rights. Surely, Zorn is not so foolish as to believe these kinds of cultural effects happen immediately.

Zorn is either ignorant or disingenuous when he seeks to reassure people of faith by stating that the same-sex “marriage” bill pending in the Illinois House “provides significant protection for religious institutions that don’t wish to formalize same-sex unions.” Why doesn’t Zorn talk about the protections—or lack thereof—for Christian schools in hiring or for Christian owners of businesses, particularly those involved in the wedding industry (e.g., florists, caterers, photographers, videographers, wedding/reception venue-owners).

I give Zorn credit for one surprising admission. He looked at the cultural shift on marriage among younger voters and admitted that “their high schools…have had gay-straight alliance groups and assemblies at which tolerance for homosexuality has been drummed into them” (emphasis added).

Well, I give him partial credit for the “drummed into them” part. What he failed to acknowledge is that it’s not “tolerance” that’s being drummed in, but compulsory approval.

Zorn then makes the risible claim that people are “looking at the evidence and arguments” and concluding that legalization of same-sex “marriage” is a good idea. The vast majority of Americans, especially our youth, have never heard the best arguments from conservative scholars on marriage. They are not carefully examining evidence and arguments. They’re being indoctrinated in schools that censor conservative resources. They’re being  emotionally manipulated by skilled Hollywood myth-makers. And they’re being maligned into silence by liberal bullies who hurl the “hater” epithet at anyone who dares to express moral propositions with which the Left disagrees.

This dearth of intellectual exploration explains why our lawmakers and liberal pundits refuse to answer the following questions:

1. What is marriage? What are the inherent, fundamental constituent features of marriage? 
2. Why should marriage be limited to two people? 
3. Are polyamorists and bisexuals denied their civil rights and are they being treated unequally since they cannot marry the persons they love? 
4. Marriage revisionists claim that the sole defining feature of marriage is love. They claim that marriage is solely about “who loves whom.” If that’s so, why is the government involved? If the government has a vested interest in legally recognizing and affirming love, then why doesn’t it recognize other loving relationships, like close platonic friendships? 
5. Do children have an inherent right to a mother and a father? 
6. Since marriage revisionists assert that the prohibition of “same-sex marriage” is analogous to the prohibition of interracial marriage, could you tell me in what specific ways homosexual unions per se are analogous to interracial unions? 

Liberals accuse the Republican Party of being “non-inclusive” because it seeks to preserve in law the recognition of marriage as an inherently sexually complementary institution. If that’s the case, is the Democratic Party non-inclusive when it seeks to impose its dogmatic view that sexual complementarity is wholly irrelevant to marriage?

If “progressives” think marriage revisionists have been treated poorly in the Republican Party, imagine how “progressives” would treat the ideological enemy in their midst. How about busting wide open the welcoming doors of the Democratic Party to those who believe that marriage is inherently sexually complementary? And I don’t mean just to those Democrats who privately hold those beliefs. I mean open up those inclusive doors to Democrats who hold those views, express them, and lobby for them. Embrace those Democrats who publicly endorse the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and support a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman.  Imagine what would happen if Democrats were to start lobbying for a change in the Democratic platform’s position on marriage or if Speaker Michael Madigan began “privately” urging his colleagues to oppose the redefinition of marriage.

Actually, we don’t have to imagine. The Democratic Party, the bastion of pseudo-tolerance, “monoversity,” and hypocrisy, would go ballistic. Just look at how “progressives” talk about Republicans who believe marriage has a nature, fundamental to which is sexual complementarity.

Common sense and statistics would suggest that surely there are some Democrats who recognize that marriage is inherently sexually complementary. Why don’t we hear about or from them? We don’t hear from them because the “progressive” demand for intellectual and political conformity is too oppressive, too nasty, and too costly for dissent on issues related to homosexuality.

By calling the abandonment of principles “inclusivity,” progressives hope to badger the Republican Party into inviting foxes into the hen-house, something which the Democratic Party would never do—not even in the service of “inclusivity.”

The Left insists on abusing MLK Jr.’s paraphrase of Thomas Parker in the service of normalizing homosexuality: “The arc of the Moral Universe is Long, but it Bends Toward Justice.” Those words have a pithy quotable ring to them, but they’re not absolutely true. Or perhaps it’s the “long” part to which we pay too little attention. Societies move toward and then retreat from justice. For example, ancient societies once embraced the practice of sacrificing children to gods and then later rejected such barbarism. But in 1973, America, arguably the most just and compassionate society in history, once again publicly embraced the sacrifice of children, and in a form even more incomprehensible: Mothers started sacrificing their unborn babies on the altar of their own selfish desires.

Ancient civilizations once embraced homosexuality and then moved away from such a corrosive embrace. And now destructive foolishness is once again embraced.

Currently on this issue, the arc of morality is just bent. 

There are issues on which political pragmatism is warranted and acceptable. The nature of marriage is not one of them—never was, never will be. The nature of marriage is not a peripheral issue of relative insignificance. It is essential to children’s rights, parental rights, speech rights, religious liberty, and the future of any society.  The Left’s continued denial of the ineluctable erosion of these rights through the normalization of homosexuality and the legal recognition of same-sex unions as “marriages” points to either their failure of imagination, their lazy refusal to think through the logical implications of an idea, or their dishonesty. (By the way, the legal recognition of same-sex unions as “marriages” doesn’t signify smaller government. It will increase dramatically the government’s intrusion into marriage.)

The Republican door to those who actively seek to radically redefine marriage or any other homosexuality-affirming legislation should be slammed shut. Log Cabin Republicans can meander over to that wide open, inclusive, welcoming Democratic door and try to change the views of the Democratic Party on guns, immigration, tax policy, or abortion.

Oh, and while we’re celebrating all this Democratic openness, maybe the Democratic supporters of true marriage (i.e., sexually complementary marriage) can pop out of the closet and be celebrated by those diversity-loving Dems.

As to Zorn’s reasons for his presumptuous and foolish suggestions: 1. Only vengeful, small-minded people would sacrifice essential principles and truth for the “sputtering, incoherent apologies of cynical Leftists,” and 2. Only foolish people would sacrifice the single most important cultural institution, the inherent needs and rights of children, and truth for political expediency.

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Written by Don Irvine, Accuracy in Media

Last Friday evening at the  South Carolina Democratic Party’s annual dinner, party chairman Dick Harpootlian said he hoped that gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen would send Gov. Nikki Haley “back to wherever the hell she came from,” in an obvious reference to Haley’s Indian heritage.

Harpootlian, who has a reputation for shooting his mouth off—he accused Lindsey Graham of being ”light in the loafers” in 2002—defended his remarks by saying he was referring to the country Haley came from and not her Indian heritage.

That explanation didn’t sit too well with MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski, who said, “you don’t do that,” noting that Haley was raised in South Carolina, attended Clemson and that her parents were Sikh immigrants.

Brzezinski, before admitting that a liberal bias was protecting Harpootlian, also mentioned that this wasn’t the first time Harpootlian attacked Haley. Last year he said she was missing in action and “down in the bunker, a la Eva Braun.” Then came the acknowledgement:

Let me just say, fair enough, that if a Republican did this, we’d be covering it like crazy — so we’re covering it because it was wrong and those statements were absolutely wrong.

While Mark Halperin didn’t concede that there had been a liberal bias, both Willie Geist said Mike Barnicle agreed that if it had been the head of the South Carolina Republican Party making a similar remark about a Democrat, the reaction would have been very different, with Barnicle adding, “we would have led with it.”

For the rest of the liberal media, what Harpootlian said isn’t racist, because as we learned during the 2012 election, Democrats can’t be racist.

UPDATE: Harpootlian now says he meant Haley should return to her previous profession—she was an accountant at her parent’s clothing store.

That was what I told the TV reporter the other day when he asked for my thoughts on NBA player Jason Collins.  In spite of that comment, they came to my office for the interview anyway.

When asked about this previously unknown mid-level player, I said “with 12 million Americans out of work, 48 million Americans on food stamps, and 32 million US adults functionally illiterate, an athlete announcing that he wants to have sex with other men isn’t really that newsworthy. It is all media hype.”

I also pointed out that, as a parent, I don’t appreciate hearing about the sexual behavior of athletes over the airwaves.  I didn’t like hearing constant coverage of Wilt Chamberlain’s claim to having slept with 1,000 women, and I don’t like hearing about this Collins matter at every top of the hour news break. What we should care about is how they play basketball.  I also said that we should never base our standard of what is right and wrong upon the behavior of athletes.

However, upon later reflection, I realized that this isn’t entirely true.  There are some things that can be learned from Jason Collin’s stunt.  For example, Mr. Collins’ announcement was a surprise to his former fiancé, Carolyn Moos, who played in the Women’s NBA.  It was also a surprise to Jason’s twin brother, Jarron.

The media may mention Ms. Moos, but they may not want to mention Jason’s identical twin too often.  Doing so may remind people that, unlike race, there is no genetic cause or “gay gene” driving homosexual behavior.  If there were, Jason’s happily married, father of three, twin brother would also be involved in homosexuality, and he’s not.

Another obvious point is the media’s intentional fawning over Collins and their desire to compare him to Jackie Robinson. (Robinson was a devout Christian who may not have appreciated a comparison between sexual behavior and skin color.)  Collins’ announcement that he wants to have sex with other men landed him on the cover of Sports Illustrated and a phone call of congratulations from President Barack Obama, and many more accolades.  There was no heroic act by Collins to earn him a similar comparison to the bigotry and attacks that Robinson faced.

It is a strange world we live in when we elevate athletes who deviate from natural norms, we heap fame on musicians who run afoul of the law or father multiple children out of wedlock and turn our backs on those of honorable behavior like Tim Teabow.  We mock or even attack anyone who stands for traditional values. All the while, we continue to wonder why we have so many social problems.

As  C. S. Lewis once complained, “In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

(The media, culture and the homosexual political agenda . . .a cartoon can sometimes say it like an entire 1200 word essay.)