Posted on 06/02/2003 12:24:58 PM PDT by Remedy
The Rev. Jerry Falwell, one of President Bush's staunchest supporters in the Christian right, may be shying away from the Commander-in-Chief as the 2004 election fast approaches. The current National Liberty Journal, a Falwell publication, features a story ominously headlined "Christian Leaders Threaten to Abandon GOP in 2004."
Penned by the Journal's editor J.M. Smith, this lead story lambastes the Republican party and its current chairman, Marc Racicot, for getting too cozy with gay groups.
The issue of GOP courting of gay activist groups has been swirling in Washington for months, and became a lighting rod issue for the Christian right and pro-family groups after Republican National Committee Chairman Raicot met privately with members of the Human Rights Campaign, a powerful gay group.
The conservative groups also were angered after the White House and RNC offered only tepid support for Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, after remarks he made were harshly criticized by gay groups.
The weight given to this issue by Falwell's publication can not be ignored, and indicates how serious this issue may become in Bush's re-election effort. Leading Lights
The Journal quoted such leading lights in the family oriented conservative community as former presidential candidate Gary Bauer and the Family Research Council's Ken Connor, a group founded by Dr. James Dobson.
As NewsMax.com first reported [Christian Right Talks of Bolting GOP in 2004] Connor said, "If Republican leaders cannot mount a vigorous defense of marriage the pro-family voters perhaps should begin to reconsider their loyalty to the party."
In reaction to Racicot's meeting with the Human Right Campaign, a dozen top conservative leaders met with RNC chairman in early May and conveyed their concerns to him. Most came away convinced they had made some headway in convincing Racicot of the danger of massive defections should the GOP cave on such issues as gay marriage. However, as the Journal reports, their hope were dashed when Racicot suggested that religious conservatives are opposed to the gay rights agenda because of fear and ignorance.
The Advocate, a gay magazine, quoted Racicot telling gay activists, "They probably don't know gay people."
Smith responded that Racicot, in so speaking, showed his "own ignorance and willingness to make blind suggestions about people of faith."
The gay magazine also quoted Racicot as saying Christian activists had frightened potential supporters: "People fear to educate them. [They have] their own fear and lots of misinformation and disinformation, which some do for political expediency." 'Tone Deaf'
These insensitive remarks about Mr. Bush's strongest and most dedicated supporters provoked Ken Connor to write "Mr. Racicot appears to be utterly tone deaf - or openly hostile - to the concerns of the GOP's pro-family voters who oppose same-sex marriage, mainstreaming homosexuality in the public schools, allowing gays to serve openly in the military, adopt children, and making homosexual conduct a protected civil right with special legal privileges. We question whether Mr. Racicot has the sensibilities to lead the Bush Campaign."
Adding fuel to the fire, the notoriously left-wing New York Times revealed Saturday that in early May White House officials went out of their way to host 200 members of the Log Cabin Republicans, a 25-year-old gay Republican group. According to the Times, the visit "included a policy briefing with senior administration officials in the Old Executive Office Building," which "symbolized their progress under President Bush."
Noting that "the emergence of gays as a more vocal presence in Republican politics is angering some leaders of conservative groups," the Times reported that White House officials were dismissive of the complaints, arguing that the President Bush is "simply trying to be inclusive and find common ground with gays when he can," a strategy "political analysts say has worked well for Mr. Bush on other issues."
The Times noted conservative concerns and that pro-family groups "have been sending pointed messages to the White House warning that President Bush's re-election is in jeopardy if he continues to court what they call the 'homosexual lobby...'"
"Although Mr. Bush did not attend," the Times reported, "gone are the days when Bob Dole, a Republican candidate for president, refused a campaign contribution from the Log Cabin group."
"In '96, Bob Dole returned a check," Randy Boudreaux, 33, a Log Cabin leader from Louisiana, told the Times reporter who accompanied the group on the bus ride to the White House. "Now we're going to the White House." Bringing People Together
Defending White House approaches to gay groups, Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman told the Times that the president "believes strongly that one of the roles of a leader is to bring people together around shared priorities."
Furthermore, some Republican strategists like Charlie Black think Bush's outreach is a good idea. Black told the Times that Bush "understands the old Reagan rule, which is somebody who supports me 80 percent of the time is my 80 percent friend and not my 20 percent enemy."
The Times recognized the serious political consequences that could flow from current GOP outreach attempts towards gay groups, noting that "the current tension between gays and conservatives" illustrates the risks of that strategy, which puts "the two main tenets of Mr. Bush's brand of Republicanism - the 'big tent' philosophy and the 'family values' agenda - on a collision course, just in time for the 2004 election campaign."
Almost all political pundits agree that in the 2000 election Christian right voters gave Bush his margin of victory in his slim win over Al Gore.
"The first crash, people on both sides say, could be in June, when the Supreme Court is expected to rule on a case involving a Texas law banning sodomy," the Times predicted. "The case is regarded as pivotal for those advocating equal rights for gays, and many legal experts predict that the Supreme Court will overturn the law."
The Times quoted Ken Connor as saying, "Candidate Bush said in the second debate that he felt marriage was a sacred covenant, limited to a man and a woman. That was not a huge issue in 2000. Mark it down. It will be a big, big issue in 2004."
The paper added comments by Free Congress Foundation head Paul Weyrich that should convince the White House of the dangers the president faces as a result of GOP flirting with supporters of the gay agenda.
Speaking of the meeting with Racicot, Weyrich said, "The main message that we delivered was that you are playing with political fire if you are seen to be in any way compromising with the homosexual lobby."
With Falwell's influential National Liberty Journal joining in the fray, the political fire has just gotten hotter.
14 States, and the military have sodomy laws.
POLITICAL : America First Party
POLITICAL : Constitution Party
SODOMY: Brief Of The States Of Alabama, South Carolina, And Utah (S.C.O.T.U.S.& Sodomy)
In keeping with the historical analysis described above, this Court has primarily limited its recognition of non-textual fundamental rights in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to "personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education." 27 In 1997, this Court cataloged the list as follows:
In a long line of cases, we have held that, in addition to the specific freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, the "liberty" specifically protected by the Due Process Clause includes the rights to marry, LOVING V. VIRGINIA , 388 U.S. 1 (1967); to have children, SKINNER V. OKLAHOMA EX REL. WILLIAMSON , 316 U.S. 535 (1942); to direct the education and upbringing of one's children, MEYER V. NEBRASKA , 262 U.S. 390 (1923); PIERCE V. SOCIETY OF SISTERS , 268 U.S. 510 (1925); to marital privacy, GRISWOLD V. CONNECTICUT , 381 U.S. 479 (1965); to use contraception, IBID. ; EISENSTADT V. BAIRD , 405 U.S. 438 (1972); to bodily integrity, ROCHIN V. CALIFORNIA , 342 U.S. 165 (1952); and to abortion, [ PLANNED PARENTHOOD V. CASEY , 505 U.S. 833 (1992)]. 28
"The entire fabric of the Constitution and the purposes that clearly underlie its specific guarantees demonstrate that the rights to marital privacy and to marry and raise a family are of similar order and magnitude as the fundamental rights specifically protected." 29
The fundamental role of marriage and family in our society has been recognized on many occasions by the Court. In ZABLOCKI V. REDHAIL , 30 the Court invalidated a Wisconsin statute requiring certain persons to obtain a court order before marrying:
[T]he right to marry is of fundamental importance for all individuals. Long ago in MAYNARD V. HILL , 125 U.S. 190 (1888), the Court characterized marriage as "the most important relation in life," ID. , at 205, and as "the foundation of the family and of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress," ID. , at 211. In MEYER V. NEBRASKA , 262 U.S. 390 (1923), the Court recognized that the right "to marry, establish a home, and bring up children" is a central part of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause, ID. , at 399, and in SKINNER V. OKLAHOMA EX REL. WILLIAMSON , 316 U.S. 535 (1942), marriage was described as "fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race," 316 U.S. at 541. 31
The Court went on to conclude that the right to marry is one of the "matters of family life" protected by the right of privacy implicit in the Due Process Clause. 32 In MOORE V. CITY OF EAST CLEVELAND , the Court also dwelt on the historical role of marriage and the family in American society: "Our decisions establish that the Constitution protects the sanctity of the family precisely because the institution of the family is deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." 33
This Court has never recognized a fundamental right to engage in sexual activity outside of monogamous heterosexual marriage, let alone to engage in homosexual sodomy. Such a right would be antithetical to the "traditional relation of the family" that is "as old and as fundamental as our entire civilization." 34 Even the amorphous "right to privacy" recognized in GRISWOLD and expanded upon in ROE V. WADE was never intended to include a right to have sex with whomever and however one pleased. In ROE V. WADE , this Court stated that the Due Process Clause does not include "an unlimited right to do with one's body as one pleases." 35 Twenty-five years later, in WASHINGTON V. GLUCKSBERG , this Court again rejected the proposition that "all important, intimate, and personal decisions" are protected by the Due Process Clause. 36
In his POE V. ULLMAN 37 dissent, which foreshadowed the recognition of the marital right of privacy in GRISWOLD V. CONNECTICUT , Justice Harlan said that homosexual activity, even when "concealed in the home," was a proper matter of state concern and could be forbidden by the States:
Yet the very inclusion of the category of morality among state concerns indicates that society is not limited in its objects only to the physical well-being of the community, but has traditionally concerned itself with the moral soundness of its people as well. Indeed to attempt a line between public behavior and that which is purely consensual or solitary would be to withdraw from community concern a range of subjects with which every society in civilized time has found it necessary to deal. The laws regarding marriage which provide both when the sexual powers may be used and the legal and societal context in which children are born and brought up, as well as laws forbidding adultery, fornication, and homosexual practices which express the negative of the proposition, confining sexuality to lawful marriage, form a pattern so deeply pressed into the substance of our social life that any Constitutional doctrine must be built upon that basis. 38
SODOMY : CENTER FOR THE ORIGINAL INTENT OF THE CONSTITUTION (LAWRENCE v. TEXAS SODOMY BRIEF)
THE HISTORIC AUTHORITY OF THE STATES TO CRIMINALIZE SODOMY IS WELL-SETTLED
The historical evidence clearly shows that state legislatures have always possessed a broad authority to outlaw private, consensual sex, and that they also prohibited same-sex sodomy specifically since the earliest days of American history. Enactment of the Bill of Rights in 1791 and the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 did not alter that state legislative authority.
This Court has frequently looked to the Constitution's "text, history and precedent" to determine its meaning. ELDRED V. ASHCROFT , ___ U.S. ___, 123 S.Ct. 769, 777 (2003). As this Court recently reiterated in ELDRED V. ASHCROFT , "a page of history is worth a volume of logic." ID ., quoting NEW YORK TRUST COMPANY V. EISNER , 256 U.S. 345, 349 (1921); SEE ALSO U.S. TERM LIMITS, INC. V. THORNTON , 514 U.S. 779, 790 (1995) ("Against this historical background, we viewed the Convention debates as manifesting the Framers' intent that the qualifications in the Constitution be fixed and exclusive.").
It is a settled constitutional principle within our federal republic that states possess general police powers. Inherent within these powers lies the duty to regulate the "health, safety, and morals" of their members. BARNES V. GLEN THEATER , 501 U.S. 560, 569 (1991) (referencing public indecency statutes which were designed to protect morals and public order). States have used this police power to promote marriage and direct the sexual activities of their citizens into marriage by criminalizing a wide variety of nonmarital sex acts, such as polygamy, rape, fornication, adultery, prostitution and incest. While crimes such as rape and incest are not consensual, adultery, prostitution, polygamy and fornication are private acts between consenting adults that have been regulated throughout our nation's history. As we shall demonstrate, states have possessed and properly exercised the authority to regulate deviate sexual conduct including sodomy at all relevant times in our nation's history.
SODOMY : Legislators,State of Texas, Lawrence v. Texas, No. 02-102
In evaluating whether § 21.06 is rational, the Court should consider that the provision is one part of a larger network of laws designed to further the legitimate State interest of promoting traditional marriage of one man and one woman.
The laws regarding marriage which provide both when the sexual powers may be used and the legal and societal context in which children are born and brought up, as well as laws forbidding adultery, fornication and homosexual practices which express the negative of the proposition, confining sexuality to lawful marriage, form a pattern so deeply pressed into the substance of our social life that any Constitutional doctrine in this area must build upon that basis.
Poe , 367 U.S. at 546 (Harlan, J., dissenting). The connection between § 21.06 and marriage is undeniable. The same legislature which changed the Texas sodomy law in 1973 to its current form, at the same time changed Texas' marriage law to explicitly specify, for the first time, that marriage in Texas may only be between "a man and a woman." T EX . F AM . C ODE § 2.001 (Acts 1973, 63rd Leg., p. 1596, ch. 577, § 1). Even in teaching sexual education, Texas law emphasizes that sex should be within marriage and other conduct, such as homosexual sex, is discouraged. Sex education materials must "emphasize sexual abstinence before marriage and fidelity in marriage as the expected standard" and must discourage "homosexual conduct" and note that it violates § 21.06. T EX . H EALTH & S AFETY C ODE § 85.007.
SODOMY:Why Is the Church Silent... Again?
Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 US 186 (1986) The Constitution does not confer a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy.
BURGER, C.J., Concurring Opinion Decisions of individuals relating to homosexual conduct have been subject to state intervention throughout the history of Western civilization. Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards. Homosexual sodomy was a capital crime under Roman law.... During the English Reformation, when powers of the ecclesiastical courts were transferred to the King's Courts, the first English statute criminalizing sodomy was passed.... Blackstone described "the infamous crime against nature" as an offense of "deeper malignity" than rape, a heinous act "the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature," and "a crime not fit to be named." W. Blackstone, Commentaries . The common law of England, including its prohibition of sodomy, became the received law of Georgia and the other Colonies. In 1816, the Georgia Legislature passed the statute at issue here, and that statute has been continuously in force in one form or another since that time. To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.
Thomas Jefferson on Sodomy Sect. XIV. Whosoever shall be guilty of rape, polygamy, or sodomy* with a man or woman, shall be punished; if a man, by castration, a woman, by boring through the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch in diameter at the least. Peterson, Merrill D. "Crimes and Punishments" Thomas Jefferson: Writings Public Papers (Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. 1984) pp. 355, 356.
Hundreds rally for '10 Commandments judge' Moore wrote a separate concurring opinion, repudiating homosexuality on religious grounds, calling it "abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature and of nature's God."
SODOMY : Homosexual Agenda Unrelated to Civil Rights Movement, Conservative Blacks Insist
SODOMY : Ex-Gay Lobbyists Visit Capitol Hill The shock of Ex-Gay Lobby Day was that out of 50 appointments on the Hill, nobody had ever heard of anyone changing from homosexuality," said Linda Wall, who most recently ran for state Senate in Virginia’s Tidewater area.
"As a former lesbian schoolteacher, I realized more than ever the importance of sharing my past life as a lesbian so others know that there is a choice. I also see how vital it is that we ex-gays be permitted a seat at the table of public policy making to assure the full disclosure of information pertaining to sexual orientation," Wall said.
SODOMY : An Open Letter to David Horowitz
I would urge you to read some of these comments, which have been published by the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Their comments are available in "The Innate-Immutable Argument Finds No Basis in Science: In Their Own Words: Gay Activists Speak About Science, Morality, Philosophy".
In addition, Exodus International, a national group of ex-homosexuals, has produced a good deal of material on the causes and cures of homosexuality. I would encourage you to access the Exodus International web site for details: Exodus International.
Traditional Values Coalition has published a number of Homosexual Urban Legends that explain various faulty information and assumptions presented by homosexual activists. I would encourage you to read these: Homosexual Urban Legends.
Second, homosexual activists are not content to be tolerant of Christians and other faith groups or of our beliefs about homosexuality as a sin and a sexual perversion. Homosexual groups like HRC are determined to silence any opposition to the homosexual agenda. They are working aggressively to impose restrictions on our freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of religion—in public, private, and religious organizations. These efforts are typically carried out by imposing speech codes in schools and by passing "hate crime" laws that punish speech and religious expression.
Homosexuals are intolerant of anyone who opposes their agenda. And what is this agenda? It has been spelled out repeatedly throughout the past thirty years.
For example, at the 1993 homosexual March on Washington, homosexual activists issued a detailed list of their demands and goals. Among those demands was the lowering of the age of sexual consent so that homosexuals can gain legal access to children; the abolition of any laws prohibiting sexual behavior between "consenting adults" (legalizing prostitution and sodomy); and the passage of laws prohibiting so-called "discrimination" against drag queens, transsexuals, or cross-dressers in public employment. The March on Washington demands are available here: 1993 March on Washington Demands.
In 1987, two homosexual activists outlined how they would "overhaul straight America" in an article published by Guide magazine. These strategists created a marketing strategy designed to vilify their opponents and to portray themselves as "victims" in a media blitz that has gone on for years. You will learn a great deal about the homosexual agenda by reading this article: "The Overhauling of Straight America."
As a former Communist, you are undoubtedly aware of the Marxist background of Harry Hay, who is considered the father of the modern-day homosexual "rights" movement. Hay formed the Mattachine Society and based it upon the Communist cell principle and revolutionary activism.
You are also undoubtedly aware of Leslie Feinberg, a radical Marxist and male-to-female transgender who is an editor with the Worker’s World Party. Feinberg is fueling both transgender activism (blurring the distinctions between male and female) as well as being a major influence in the anti-war efforts by ANSWER and other anti-American groups. Feinberg and others view homosexuality and transgenderism as "sexual liberation" from all social norms.
The Human Rights Campaign is now partnering with GenderPac, a transgender group based in Washington, DC. HRC has also sponsored a "Two Spirit" event with transgender groups. At this conference, sexually confused girls were shown how to have their breasts removed so they could become "men."
This is where the homosexual movement is headed—and this is why Traditional Values Coalition is so opposed to the normalization of homosexuality and transgenderism in our society. These sexually confused individuals need counseling, not societal approval or "tolerance."
It is my hope that you will carefully read the resources I’ve mentioned to you in this letter and that you will take a principled stand against the spread of sexual confusion in our nation. Our children deserve to be protected from the purveyors of sexual perversion and dysfunction. We do them a disservice by "tolerating" those who wish to prey upon our children and who wish to stifle free speech and religion.
In the end, cultural disputes and widespread dismay over the country’s moral state overshadowed the economic optimism that was expected to put Al Gore in the White House, allowing Bush to eke out a victory.
All this goes to confirm that, to borrow a title from an earlier First Things article, "It’s the Culture, Stupid" (April 1994).
How would greater turnout have affected the election results in 2000? The conventional wisdom is that greater turnout helps Democratic candidates, but this chestnut is not necessarily true. Although nonvoters tend to be centrist on issues, perceive fewer differences between the candidates, and care less about the outcome than voters do, these generalizations apply within the context of particular religious groups. For example, evangelical nonvoters fall between their brethren who voted for Bush or Gore on such measures, but they were closer to Bush on moral issues, and closer to Gore on social welfare questions.
As political scientist Walter Dean Burnham has suggested, such complex party coalitions are best described by geological metaphors. Today the ancient ethnoreligious bedrock of vote choice has been eroded by rising tides of disengagement, while simultaneously being fractured by the upheavals of cultural politics. Indeed, the religious formations we saw in 2000 have been developing for some time and have now solidified. This fact has vital ramifications for governance. In the future Republicans will remain solicitous of traditionalists, and evangelical traditionalists in particular, while Democrats will privilege the concerns of religious minorities, secularists, and modernists. Regardless of well-meaning admonitions to both parties to "move to the center," ignoring such large core constituencies would be political suicide.
What is needed is "bridging" social capital: activity that reaches beyond the religious group itself to work with others on causes that involve "loving thy neighbor," but are not purely sectarian in nature. Traditionalist Protestants and Roman Catholics are remarkably generous in donating their time and energy to worthy causes: we find (as Putnam did) that they are much more engaged on the whole than religious liberals or secular people. But they are also more likely to volunteer in ways that bond them with one another, serving the needs of people within the community of faith, rather than connect to the needs of others beyond the fold. In this respect, the declining number of mainline Protestants is particularly disturbing, for this group
With Kerry (or any other Democrat), we'll also get our taxes raised.
If you read the LCR website you will see that their goal is to change the Republican Party. It's not about AGREEING with the GOP; it's about changing the GOP. It looks like they're far more successul than we are. As for the HRC, the group Racicot met with, they're far left. Would we meet with any other far left groups and talk their talk just to look "inclusive." Stupid!
> Focus Group Tie In [Hillary Hires Pollster, Weighing 2004 White House Bid-Bill Says 'Do It']
The press will spotlight
every thing and any thing
dividing the right.
Blue Nation is like
an opium den of scum --
they're all together.
If they can get us
fractured even a little,
Hillary will win...
Please don't enable the Democrats to elect a president. This is big picture thinking vs. micro thinking.
e-mail that to BUSH!
Homosexual behavior increases risk of AIDS - Dr. Brian J. Kopp, ... An exhaustive study in The New England Journal of Medicine, medical literature's only study reporting on homosexuals who kept sexual "diaries," indicated the average homosexual ingests the fecal material of 23 different men each year.
Medical Consequences of What Homosexuals Do FECAL SEX About 80% of gays (see Table) admit to licking and/or inserting their tongues into the anus of partners and thus ingesting medically significant amounts of feces. Those who eat or wallow in it are probably at even greater risk. In the diary study,5 70% of the gays had engaged in this activity--half regularly over 6 months. Result? --the "annual incidence of hepatitis A in...homosexual men was 22 percent, whereas no heterosexual men acquired hepatitis A." In 1992,26 it was noted that the proportion of London gays engaging in oral/anal sex had not declined since 1984.
Citizens Against Government Waste Since the first federal resources were made available to state and local health agencies for AIDS prevention in 1985, federal funding, which now includes money for research, treatment, and housing, has skyrocketed to $13 billion for fiscal 2003. As a result of the work of highly mobilized lobbying forces, more is spent per patient on AIDS than on any other disease, though it does not even currently rank among the top 15 causes of death in the United States. In one year, 1998, heart disease, the nation's leading cause of death, killed 724,859 Americans only 6.8 percent less than the 774,767 who have contracted AIDS in the last 20 years.2 Of those 774,767 total AIDS cases, 462,766 have died. During that same period, 14 million Americans 30 times more have died of heart disease.
I won't miss you.
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