This is in response to the April 22 letter to The Sun by Chris Irwin in which she charges the National Organization for Marriage and the Rev. Raymond Suriani with “bullying.” I ask “who’s bullying whom?”

It is Ms. Irwin’s baseless complaint to the IRS against the Rev. Suriani that constitutes bullying.

She contacted the IRS alleging that the Rev. Suriani engaged in political lobbying when he reminded his parishioners of church teaching on homosexuality and marriage, and encouraged them to exercise their right as American citizens by contacting their senator, whose duty is to represent them and their views at the Statehouse.

This harassment leveled against the Rev. Suriani is a typical intimidation tactic designed to silence all those who disagree with the gay agenda, and it is just the tip of the iceberg. In Sweden and Canada, ministers were jailed for quoting from the Bible and preaching against homosexual behavior once marriage was redefined there.

The redefinition of marriage impacts personal lives well beyond same-sex couples. One’s choice of a partner does not concern me, but when they come to our legislatures and courts and force the rest of us to recognize and accept their relationship as identical to that of a man and a woman, it affects everyone.

The most serious threat to bipartisan immigration reform doesn't involve border security or guest workers or even the path to citizenship.

It’s about gay rights.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), an outspoken defender of traditional marriage, warned that " if that issue is injected into this bill, the bill will fail and the coalition that helped put it together will fall apart."

Faith groups that have been involved in crafting the legislation are also worried about the negative impacts of this cavalier move which, if viewed unvarnished, is nothing but another attempt to surreptitiously undermine the Defense of Marriage Act:

"We strongly would oppose the provision and it could could force us to reconsider our support for the bill," said Kevin Appleby, director of the Catholic Bishops’ Office of Migration Policy and Public Affairs. "It immediately makes the bill a partisan bill and the bipartisan effort could begin to unravel."

And Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, issued a statement against the proposed amendment saying, in part: "We hope that President Obama and Democrats in Congress are not willing to sacrifice the legalization of millions of undocumented immigrants for the sake of appeasing the gay lobby."

The four protesters leapt out of their seats at a debate on blasphemy and freedom of expression held at the Brussels' Free University (ULB) campus Tuesday evening, baring their breasts and squirting water at Archbishop Andre Leonard as they accused him of homophobia.

The story notes:

[T]he archbishop himself remained composed and apparently at prayer throughout.

The women used water bottles made for blessed holy water, shaped like Catholic statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The picture to the left shows Archbishop Leonard picking up and kissing one of the bottles following the disruption.

Two of the more interesting (where “interesting” is a euphemism for “horrifying”) aspects of the debate over gay “marriage” are inexorably intertwined: the decision by the movement’s backers to pretend that there is no strong connection between marriage and children (this is overwhelmingly done by those who do not have children) and a separate but related track to “get government out of marriage,” which is treated as some sort of tactical decision to, er, divorce government from its ability to decide who may marry and when.

The former is overwhelmingly done by libertarians who have taken the curious position that the failure by the state to expand a right is the same as the affirmative denial of that right, and by liberals who do not understand what rights actually are. The latter is a position taken by libertarians who believe the state’s role in marriage reaching back centuries is part of the nanny state, and conservatives who either legitimately want to preserve marriage from the barbarians or who like sounding good to their more left-wing friends.

Yet it is in the confluence of these two fantasies that the lie of both is exposed. I think it is helpful, as we embark on destroying yet another social institution and just assuming something else will pop up in its place, to understand what we are doing and what its likeliest consequences are.

These consequences, of course, somehow involve children.

A Michigan high school canceled a speech by former Sen. Rick Santorum after teachers became outraged over his opposition to gay marriage and threatened to stage protests and a possible work stoppage.

Santorum had been invited to deliver a upcoming speech on leadership by the Young Americans for Freedom chapter at Gross Pointe South High School. But the speech was canceled on Monday after the school district’s superintendent heard from angry teachers.

“It’s a sad day when liberal educators are allowed to influence young minds – extending free speech rights only to those who share their liberal views,” Santorum said in a statement posted on Patriot Voices. “This has nothing to do with the content of a speech, but rather the context of my convictions.” (FoxNews Nation)

During an interview Sunday, Rep. Matt Salmon's (R-Ariz.) gay sontold KPNX-TV that CNN and MSNBC cancelled interviews with him after he told them he would not bash his father for his stance againstgay marriage.

Matt R. Salmon told KPNX-TV that he is disappointed that his father has not changed his position on gay marriage, however, he still enjoys a good relationship with him and supports him. He also said his father is not a "bigot."

"People want controversy," Salmon said.

Accused of canceling the interviews are MSNBC's "The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell" and CNN's "Piers Morgan Live."

The younger Salmon said MSNBC cancelled his scheduled interview because "they had intended to be critical of him and" he was unwilling to do so. Additionally, he claimed CNN was "very gung ho" about doing an interview but then became disinterested when he reiterated he wouldn't attack his dad.

In an interview aired over the weekend, Rep. Matt J. Salmon (R-Ariz.) told a local news station that his son’s homosexuality has not led him to change his position on gay marriage.

“I don’t support the gay marriage,” the congressman said. But Salmon emphasized that he loved and respected his son and did not consider homosexuality a choice.

“My son is by far one of the most important people in my life. I love him more than I can say,” an emotional Salmon told 3TV. “It doesn’t mean that I don’t have respect, it doesn’t mean that I don’t sympathize with some of the issues. It just means I haven’t evolved to that stage.”

... “We respect each others’ opinions and we just know that on certain issues we have to agree to disagree,” the congressman’s son, Matt R. Salmon, told The Post. “I love my father and realize that he can have the opinions that he has, and they might differ from mine, but that doesn’t change the way I feel about him.”

... Salmon also expressed disappointment in those who have reacted to the interview by leaving “hate speech” on his father’s Facebook page. “If he’s going to change his mind it’s going to come from a place of love,” Salmon said. “All they’re doing is fighting intolerance with intolerance.”

Ryan Anderson, a fellow at Heritage and co-author of "What is Marriage?" patiently gave lucid answers to their questions, even as Piers peppered him with questions without giving him time to respond.

It wasn't a conversation, it was a trial.

They didn't even allow Ryan to sit at the same table as them. Orman went so far as to call Anderson "uneducated" on the question of marriage and insultingly called him "sweetheart".

On the "uneducated" remark, consider what Denny Burk points out:

"Ryan Anderson graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Princeton University and he’s a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Notre Dame. He just co-authored a book that is probably the definitive case for traditional marriage. He’s a fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an all-around brilliant guy. "

At the 12 minute mark, Orman loses control and lashes out at Anderson, pointing her finger at him, etc.

Piers did nothing to intervene or stop her, even as he continually interrupted Anderson.

Then, as if that was not enough, she called on the audience to express their disapproval of Anderson personally by booing, etc.

This is a travesty and Piers Morgan and Orman owe Anderson and pro-marriage Americans an apology.

That's why I'm proudly proclaiming I STAND WITH RYAN on Twitter and Facebook.

Watch the video and see for yourself:

Orson Scott Card, a talented science fiction writer, is part of a team of writers and artists assembled by DC Comics to create an “Adventures of Superman” comic series ahead of the release of the summer Superman film Man of Steel.* Card is also a believer in the Biblical definition of marriage who has the courage to say so.

Orson Scott Card’s views, such as “the left is at war with the family,” and opposition to same sex marriage are reflective of his Christian faith and hardly “out of the mainstream,” but they have now earned him and DC comics a call from homosexual activists for a boycott.

National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown told Fox News he was simply stunned that homosexual activists are trying to destroy a man’s career.

“This is completely un-American and it needs to be stopped,” Brown said. “Simply because we stand up for traditional marriage, some people feel like it is okay to target us for intimidation and punishment.”

Brown called the attacks on Card frightening and said it’s another example of radical homosexual activists trying to punish those who believe marriage should be a union between a man and woman.

“Marriage is the union of a man and a woman,” Brown said. “That is not hateful. That is not bigoted.”

Orson Scott Card is one of the best-selling science fiction writers alive. He is also a devout Mormon who opposes same-sex marriage. A group of pro-gay comics fans is up in arms over the fact that DC has hired Card to write a new Superman series. The Guardian is making it sound like a huge deal:

... “Superman stands for truth, justice and the American way. Orson Scott Card does not stand for any idea of truth, justice or the American way that I can subscribe to,” said Jono Jarrett of Geeks Out, a gay fan group. “It’s a deeply disappointing and frankly weird choice.”

A film of Ender’s Game, co-produced by Card and starring Harrison Ford, is set to be released in November. Jarrett speculated DC was hoping pre-publicity for the movie would drive sales for the comic.

Fortunately, a gay comic writer quoted in the piece understands that blacklisting Card is offensive:

Dale Lazarov, a gay comic writer, said it was counterproductive to attack Card’s appointment: “I’ve known Orson Scott Card is a raging homophobe since the early 90s. I refuse to buy or read his work. But asking that he be denied work because he is a raging homophobe is taking it too far. Asking for workplace discrimination for any reason is counterproductive for those who want to end discrimination on their own behalf.”

True enough. What does Card’s view on homosexuality have to do with Superman? This is about trying to punish Card for thoughtcrime.

The Family Research Council shooter, Floyd Lee Corkins II, on Wednesday pleaded guilty to charges that include assault with intent to kill and committing an act of terrorism.

Shockingly enough, Corkins told FBI agents that he chose FRC as a target based on the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate map.”

In case you were unaware, the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated FRC a “hate group” because of the conservative organization’s position on gay marriage:

It is absolutely extraordinary to me that, as of this writing, almost a week after these revelations have been made public, SPLC has still not taken down their hate map.

This hate map includes at the top a photo of (presumably) neo-nazis in military style gear. If you look on the SPLC Hate Map it lists the Family Research Council (and Traditional Values Coalition) as "Anti-Gay". Click on that link and you see this image:

More faces of hate, more provocation.

But it doesn't end there. The SPLC includes a photo of FRC President Tony Perkins alongside images of graphic, anti-gay imagery that FRC and Tony Perkins has condemned repeatedly!

The SPLC Hate Map is not designed to bring hatred to light. It is designed to instigate hatred against the people it lists.

The SPLC still lists the Family Research Council, which so recently would have been the scene of a human massacre were it not for the heroic actions of the security guard who was shot in the process, on this Hate Map. Even after a killer admitted he used this map to find victims and unleash his own hatred at them with a gun.

SPLC, take down your Hate Map. Ending hatred starts with you.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION BY SIGNING THE PETITION FOR SPLC TO TAKE DOWN ITS HATE MAP HERE.

Documents uncovered from a Freedom of Information Act request show the Obama administration's Department of Justice enjoys a close relationship with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization that brands principled opposition to homosexuality “hate.”

The SPLC has built an elaborate fundraising empire by branding mainstream Christian ministries – including the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, and Concerned Women for America – as “hate groups” for opposing homosexuality.

The legal watchdog Judicial Watch filed the request to see what effect SPLC's designation of “hate groups” had on the government. The two-dozen pages of e-mails it received reveal views of DOJ employees that border on adulation.

The department invited co-founder Morris Dees to appear as the featured speaker at a July 31, 2012, “Diversity Training Event.” The Assistant Attorney General's office “wants to take Morris out to lunch” before his simulcast remarks, entitled “With Justice for All,” one e-mail stated.

A “training blurb” stated that the event “qualifies for mandatory annual diversity training.”

“I will pick you [Morris Dees] up at the airport July 30,” DOJ employee Barry Kowalski wrote Dees in an e-mail. “Would you go out to dinner with my wife and me and our two teenage daughters that first night? The girls need some inspiration from a master of inspiration,” he gushed.

Breitbart:

"...It's impossible not to notice that this is precisely what many on the left accused Sarah Palin of doing in January 2011 after Jared Loughner shot Rep. Giffords and several bystanders in a Tucson parking lot. At the time, the left claimed Palin's district map featuring crosshairs might have given Loughner ideas. No connection between the map and the shooting was ever found. Indeed, it turned out Loughner had been obsessed with Giffords before Palin's map even existed.

Now that anti-right, anti-hate SPLC is implicated in providing targets for a politically motivated mass shooter will the national media turn on the SPLC the way they did on Sarah Palin?"

Erick Erickson of RedState:

"...Floyd Lee Corkins, II, who shot a security guard at the Family Research Center as he attempted to shoot up the organization was directly inspired to take action by a list of supposed “hate groups” on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website.

... I hope my friends in the media who spent much time talking about Sarah Palin’s political target map will now talk about the Southern Poverty Law Center’s routine and reckless use of the label “hate group” with which is smears conservatives.

By the way, Palin took down her target map after the controversy. The Southern Poverty Law Center? Crickets..."

HotAir:

"...Why yes, this is eerily similar to the left claiming after Gabby Giffords was shot that Palin’s “crosshairs” election map inspired Jared Loughner. With two differences. First, Loughner was not, in fact, inspired by Palin whereas this guy, per his own plea bargain, did consult the SPLC website in choosing people to kill. Second, you’ll see zero coverage of this inconvenient entry in the canon of political hate in wider media because it can’t be used as a blunt object with which to bludgeon the right.

... Funny thing, though: The SPLC itself was verrrrry quick to try to tie Jared Loughner to the “far right”, and kept at it long enough that they were posting speculative pieces about “political rhetoric” and its role in the Tucson shooting as late as 13 days after it occurred. Not only are they comfortable with a free-speech slippery slope when it’s right-wingers who are at risk, they’re willing and eager to add some grease."

An Italian archbishop has revealed that he was confined to his home, forced to remain inside his “besieged” residence, when homosexual activists staged a protest there earlier this month, and warned that gay-rights campaigners aim to prosecute all who oppose their agenda.

... Archbishop Crepaldi said that the protest was organized against him because of “the false and very grave accusation of being intolerant and racist.” He said that gay-rights activists are determined to gain approval for same-sex marriage, and toward that end will accuse all opponents of “homophobia.”

The archbishop warned that the goal of the demonstrators was to define “homophobia” as a crime, in order for “those who say publicly--as the Catholic Church has always done--that the real family is only that founded on marriage between a man and a woman, to be declared homophobic, intolerant, racist, and therefore, subject to criminal prosecution.”

"...As David Mills notes below, Wendell Berry has recently claimed that opponents of same-sex marriage are necessarily and categorically rejecting a whole class of people. He tells us this kind of “categorical condemnation is the hatred of the mob” and as such is the worst kind of hate.

The pastor whom President Obama has chosen to deliver the benediction at his inauguration this month delivered a sermon in the 1990s in which he called on fellow Christians to fight the “aggressive agenda” of the gay rights movement and advocated “the healing power of Jesus” as “the only way out of a homosexual lifestyle.”

... In it, Mr. Giglio cites Scripture in saying that homosexuality “is sin in the eyes of God, and it is sin in the word of God.” He warned against gay rights. “That movement is not a benevolent movement,” he said. “It is a movement to seize by any means necessary the feeling and the mood of the day, to the point where the homosexual lifestyle becomes accepted as a norm in our society.”

Inaugural officials did not respond to a request for comment, and a spokeswoman for Mr. Giglio was not available.

... The controversy over Mr. Giglio carries echoes of the 2009 inaugural, when Mr. Obama offended many gay people by selecting the Rev. Rick Warren, author of “A Purpose Driven Life” and an opponent of same-sex marriage, to deliver the invocation. Gay rights advocates have not forgotten.

If we ask ourselves how it is that the advocacy of gay marriage has become an orthodoxy to which all our political leaders subscribe, we must surely acknowledge that intimidation has some part to play in the matter. Express the slightest hesitation on this score and someone will accuse you of “homophobia”, while others will organise to ensure that, even if nothing else is known about your views, this at least will be notorious. Only someone with nothing to lose can venture to discuss the issue with the measure of circumspection that it invites, and politicians do not figure among the class of people with nothing to lose.

Yet it is unlikely that the ordinary conscience will find itself entirely at ease with a change that overthrows social norms on which people have depended throughout recorded history. In this, as in so many things, people of conservative temperament look around for the person who will speak for them and find only an embarrassed silence. Strident minorities, acting on the growing disposition to censor their opponents, ensure that the deeper the question, the more likely it is to be settled by shallow arguments.

"Mormon leaders unveiled a new website Thursday encouraging church members to be more compassionate in discussions about homosexuality.

Church officials insist they haven't changed the Mormon teaching that marriage is only between a man and a woman and that same-sex relationships are sinful. However, the website includes an appeal to gay and lesbian Mormons to stay in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"Reconciling same-sex attraction with a religious life can present an especially trying dilemma," church leaders wrote on the website. "Anyone who lives in both worlds can attest to its difficulty. But with faith, love and perspective, it can be done."

Mormons faced intense criticism after church leaders helped fund and lead the fight for California's Proposition 8, a constitutional ban on gay marriage that voters adopted in 2008 after the state Supreme Court ruled that gay Californians could marry.

Mormon officials said they were stunned by the backlash from gay activists and from many Mormons who felt the church was wrong to take such a prominent role in favor of the ballot measure. Since then, church leaders in Salt Lake City and elsewhere have been trying to reach out to gays and lesbians to heal tensions.

"We must not judge anyone for the feelings they experience," church authorities wrote, saying homosexuality "should not be viewed as a disease or illness."

The website rarely uses the words "gay" or "lesbian," the terms preferred by the gay community. Instead, the site refers mostly to people "with same-sex attraction" and features testimony from gay Mormon men and women who are not in same-sex relationships."

Those who say intolerance is a major problem in the debate over homosexuality and same-sex “marriage” have a valid point, but not in the way they think, according to one of the nation’s most popular pastors.

In a whirlwind media tour to promote the tenth anniversary edition of his bestseller, The Purpose Driven Life – What on Earth Am I Here For?, Rick Warren said the belief people can differ without rancor has disappeared, replaced by an insistence on ideological conformity.

“I am in favor of not redefining marriage,” he said on Tuesday’s edition of CBS This Morning “It’s not illegal to have a gay relationship in America. And so, it’s not a big issue to me.”

Co-host Charlie Rose replied, “You have to be tolerant of other people’s views,”

“The problem is that ‘tolerant’ has changed its meaning,” Warren said. “Tolerant used to mean, I may disagree with you completely, but I’m going to treat you with respect. That’s what tolerant means.”

“Today, to some people, tolerant means you must approve of everything I do,” he continued. “That’s not tolerance. That’s approval.”

Christian believers and others in Britain are expressing outrage after the country’s leading homosexualist lobby group declared the Cardinal Archbishop of Edinburgh, Keith O’Brien, “Bigot of the Year” for his opposition to “gay marriage”. While Stonewall and some others continue to defend the award category, even some of the group’s greatest supporters have criticized it, saying the designation damages their own cause.

Gerald Warner, a Catholic journalist and sometime policy advisor to the Scottish Conservative party, called the award a sign that the homosexualist movement is sinking further into “homofascism”. He told LifeSiteNews.com, “How would the politically correct media respond if the most prominent Catholic pressure group in Britain last night voted Ben Summerskill, of Stonewall, ‘Weirdo of the Year’? We all know the answer.

“So why is ‘hate speech,’ and even a hate award, acceptable, so long as it is directed against a Prince of the Church for reasserting the timeless and unchangeable doctrine of the Catholic Church as it has stood for 2,000 years?”

While Stonewall and other homosexualist activist groups continue to defend the award, others have said it brings the tenor of the debate down to the level of the schoolyard. --LifeSiteNews

Recently our youth group, ages 7 to 17, felt called to take a stand for marriage, as traditionally defined by all previous generations. We decided that for the next four weekends we would hold signs along Payne Road in Scarborough, asking Mainers for their support.

We consulted the police and followed their safety recommendations. As we stood along the sidewalk, a tremendous number of people enthusiastically showed their support. But many of the opposition were extremely hostile.

On one occasion, a middle-aged man with children in the back seat of his SUV deliberately drove up onto the sidewalk. He was dangerously near the children as he continued accelerating, plowing over 15 of our marriage signs and covering a span of more than 100 feet. The little ones were very scared.

He pulled off only to avoid hitting a telephone pole, and we saw him laughing as he sped away. The police chased after him and when confronted, the man claimed that he was "distracted." Thankfully, a nearby store captured the entire crime on video.

On another occasion, a car drove by and the passenger leaned out the window, exposing his private parts. I was embarrassed by this lack of decency.

We children endured people calling us names, throwing things at us and hundreds upon hundreds of people sticking up their middle fingers and screaming X-rated profanities. And they call us hateful people?

In the name of "tolerance," I have been insulted, disrespected and bullied, simply because of my beliefs: that marriage is between a man and a woman and that children need both a mother and a father. In spite of all this, I am determined to continue exercising my First Amendment rights and standing up for the true meaning of marriage. -- Portland Press Herald

... In this referendum same-sex marriage advocates are looking to the people of Maine for compassion and understanding to grant them the right to marry with all the marriage entitlements. The privileges of marriage can be available to them under the title of civil unions.

Our reader Tim in MT shared this video with us that he had made after catching Michelangelo Signorile on SiriusXM radio yesterday.

The left-wing radio talker, twice in the segment (at about 2:15 & 3:45) advises his gay Romney-supporting caller to drink arsenic or other poison so he can commit suicide. At 2:57, he tells the young man that he should not be allowed to vote.

We're waiting for Dan Savage to condemn Signorile's (repeated and egregious) advice to this young man in Utah.

Yesterday, a Vote Yes billboard in Minneapolis was vandalized.  The destruction demonstrates the kind of environment Minnesotans can expect if marriage is redefined in Minnesota.

The vandalism came on the heels of a new TV ad by Minnesota for Marriage citing similar examples in six other states that have  legalized same-sex marriage including Washington, D.C., and Canada.  Like the vandalized billboard, the examples show how citizens, like most Minnesotans who believe marriage is the unique union of one man and one woman, are certainly not living in a “live, let live” society.

“This kind of disrespect is a perfect example of what Minnesotans, who simply believe marriage is between one man and one woman, can expect if marriage is redefined,” said John Helmberger, Chairman of Minnesota for Marriage. -- Minnesota For Marraige

King County Sheriff’s detectives have arrested a 23-year-old Burien man suspected of tearing a “Reject R-74″ sign off a campaign volunteer’s car and calling her names, then shoving another woman who tried to help her.

Sgt. Cindi West, spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office, said the man was arrested at a house in the 900 block of 164 St.  S.E.  just after 10:00 this morning.  He was booked  in the King County Jail for investigation of malicious harassmentt.

The case will be forwarded to the prosecutor for review, West said.

Referendum 74 is the ballot measure that asks voters to approve or reject the state’s new same-sex marriage law.

A spokesman with the Preserve Marriage Washington campaign, which is seeking to repeal  the law, said the 61-year-old campaign volunteer was going to distribute the signs in her car to other workers on Sunday when the incident happened.  A second woman witnessed it and stepped in to help, at which point the man allegedly pushed that woman and called her by a racial slur.

Officials with the opposing campaign have said that while they condemn any acts of this kind, claims of harassment are tactics that opponents of same-sex marriage have used in the past, including during a same-sex marriage battle in California in 2008.

We reported earlier on this story here.

On Sunday, one of our volunteers, Arlene Mark – a Chinese American woman – was verbally attacked while waiting to distribute literature to other volunteers. What is more, Nikki Davis who came to her aid – an African American woman – was assailed with racial slurs.... According to the victims, the assailant ran at Arlene’s car, hit the back of her vehicle, and ripped the Reject 74 campaign yard sign off of the side of her car that she had taped onto her vehicle so that other volunteers who were going to meet her in the parking lot could recognize her in the rain.  As he tore the sign, threw it on the ground, and stomped on it, the same-sex marriage activist yelled at Arlene, “This is what I think of your f—ing sign!  I’m gay and proud of it.”  The perpetrator shouted vulgar profanities at Arlene calling her a “b—-” and screaming “f—- you!” 

The assailant then turned his ire on Nikki Davis, an individual uninvolved with the campaign who came to Arlene’s aid. He proceeded to hurl racial epithets and vile slurs at her, including calling her a “black b—-” and the n-word, and telling her to “go back to Africa.” He also pounded on the back of the van, and kicked its tires. Nikki, who was terrified for Arlene, for herself, and for her children who were with her in the car, called the police.

Nick Clegg has become embroiled in a row over gay marriage after aides had to remove comments in the draft version of a speech calling opponents "bigots".

... Mr Clegg later insisted he never intended to use such language as it was "not the kind of word" he would use.

Sources close to Mr Clegg said the "bigot" claim was "a mistake" in an early draft of the speech which should not have been released to the press.

... Extracts released early by officials said: "Continued trouble in the economy gives the bigots a stick to beat us with, as they demand we 'postpone' the equalities agenda in order to deal with 'the things people really care about'

... Conservative MP Peter Bone - who has repeatedly called for the coalition to be broken up - said if Mr Clegg believed what was said in the original draft of the speech, he was not a "fit and proper person to be deputy prime minister".

"Nick Clegg has got to explain himself and apologise very rapidly," he told the BBC News Channel.

... "This is not the way the deputy prime minister behaves."

The campaign group Coalition for Marriage, which opposes any change to the law, described the remarks as "intolerant".

"It also shows his contempt for the millions of ordinary men and women in this country who oppose the politically correct drive to rip up the centuries old definition of marriage," its campaign director Colin Hart said. -- The BBC

"... New Mexico, whose marriage laws discriminate against same-sex unions, has a “compelling interest” in compelling Huguenin to provide a service she finds repugnant and others would provide? Strange.

... The Huguenin case demonstrates how advocates of tolerance become tyrannical. First, a disputed behavior, such as sexual activities between people of the same sex, is declared so personal and intimate that government should have no jurisdiction over it. Then, having won recognition of what Louis Brandeis, a pioneer of the privacy right, called “the right to be let alone,” some who have benefited from this achievement assert a right not to let other people alone. It is the right to coerce anyone who disapproves of the now-protected behavior into acting as though they approve of it, or at least into not acting on their disapproval.

So, in the name of tolerance, government declares intolerable individuals such as the Huguenins, who disapprove of a certain behavior but ask only to be let alone in their quiet disapproval. Perhaps advocates of gay rights should begin to restrain the bullies in their ranks."

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York City gave the closing benediction at the Democratic National Committee's convention and offered this line which is a veiled way of praying for the upkeep of the institution of marriage:

"We praise and thank you for granting us the life and the liberty by which we can pursue happiness.  Show us anew that happiness is found only in respecting the laws of nature and of nature’s God.  Empower us with your grace so that we might resist the temptation to replace the moral law with idols of our own making, or to remake those institutions you have given us for the nurturing of life and community."

As Steve Ertelt reports, numerous Democratic and gay marriage activists responded on Twitter by hurling the f-bomb at Cardinal Dolan.

"...Since no minimally decent political party would let a bigot or misogynist take the podium at its convention—much less bless the proceedings—accepting the cardinal's offer to appear amounts to an implicit but unmistakable concession that there's no bigotry in opposing the redefinition of civil marriage, nor any misogyny in fighting for the unborn. 

...the Democrats are, whether they like it or not, sending an implicit signal of their own. The cardinal's presence confounds efforts by the abortion-rights and gay-marriage movements to stigmatize and marginalize those who refuse to fall into line.

Some on the left fear that Cardinal Dolan will use the platform that the Democrats are providing to preach about the right to life of unborn children and the importance of preserving traditional marriage. He doesn't have to do that. He will make his point and achieve his goal just by showing up."

A Connecticut homosexual pled guilty on Tuesday to sending 300 threatening messages, including death threats, to the leader of a state pro-life, pro-marriage organization.

53-year-old Daniel Sarno of Enfield, Connecticut, admitted intimidating Peter Wolfgang, the executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, over a six-month period from last November until May.

One message read: “No mercy for homophobes. I suggest you make your funeral arrangements real soon, Mr. Wolfgang.”

Another said, “I sure hope somebody blows you away. Yer dead.”

Sarno once asked, “Are ‘family values’ worth dying for, Mr. Wolfgang?”

Wolfgang said Sarno identified himself as a homosexual in the letters, which came addressed “Attention: Peter Wolfgang.”

“Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident,” Wolfgang said in a statement e-mailed to LifeSiteNews.com. “In fact it is part of a growing and disturbing intimidation campaign among some proponents of same-sex ‘marriage.’ It is clear that their pretense of ‘tolerance’ is over.” -- LifeSiteNews

Photo credit: Minnesota for Marriage's Facebook page.

An Enfield man admitted in court Tuesday that he sent hundreds of threatening letters to the director of the socially conservative Family Institute of Connecticut, which is at the forefront of political opposition in Hartford to gay marriage.

The guilty plea in U.S. District Court by Daniel Sarno comes a week after an apparently similarly motivated event in which an armed man espousing opposition to social conservatism shot a security guard while trying to enter the offices of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 15.

The Family Institute and the Family Research Council are affiliated organizations created to press agendas that include opposition to abortion and to marriage other than that between a man and a woman.

Sarno, 53, admitted orchestrating a letter-writing campaign that began in November and ended in May when U.S. postal inspectors tracked the letters to his house, an official familiar with the matter said. All the letters were addressed to Family Institute Executive Director Peter Wolfgang.

"No mercy for homophobes," said one letter, obtained by The Courant. "I suggest you make your funeral arrangements real soon, Mr. Wolfgang. (Trust me. I know.)"

Sarno pleaded guilty Tuesday to two counts of mailing threatening communications.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham said, "Some of the letters contained threats separate and apart from the generally obnoxious nature of the letters."

Sarno, in many of the letters, referred to people who shared the beliefs of the Family Institute as "Bible thumping," "fear mongering" and "sanctimonious," Durham said.

... Wolfgang, who was in court, issued a statement through his organization thanking authorities for protecting him, his family and his professional colleagues.

"Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident," Wolfgang said. "In fact, it is part of a growing and disturbing intimidation campaign among some proponents of same-sex 'marriage.' It is clear that their pretense of 'tolerance' is over.

"Using death threats to stifle debate is un-American. These types of tactics won't work. The Family Institute of Connecticut will continue its work to strengthen and protect marriage, life and religious freedom."

The statement from the Family Institute said that in the letters, Sarno "identified himself as homosexual and made it clear that he was threatening Peter's life because of Peter's beliefs and public advocacy."

The LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign and the Southern Poverty Law Center are standing by their decision to label conservative group Family Research Council a "hate" group even as some in their camp back away. But they say it's not because FRC simply opposes same-sex marriage. FRC is "hateful" because it links gay people to pedophiles, they claim.

HRC and SPLC also argue that the "hate" label should stick – even in the wake of a shooting that took place at the FRC headquarters last week – because the conservative group wants to expel gays from the U.S.

But are those claims true?

FRC, which champions traditional marriage and religious freedom, released a document this week refuting the charges of "hate."

"FRC has never said, and does not believe, that most homosexuals are child molesters," the group says in its document.

A gay activist opens fire in a conservative organization's offices, inspired by the steady drumbeat of leftist vitriol against those who value traditional marriage, and no one says a word.

You won't hear any call for civil discourse from President Obama's bully pulpit over the shooting and wounding of a security guard at the offices of the conservative Family Research Council (FRC) in Washington, D.C.

The alleged shooter was a volunteer at a community center for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, and the FRC favors traditional marriage.

Those who blamed Sarah Palin for the shooting of Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords or Rush Limbaugh for the Oklahoma City bombing are strangely silent.

At least the likes of ABC's Brian Ross didn't reflexively blame the Tea Party, as he did after a gunman shot up an Aurora, Colo., movie theater.

On Tuesday, the Human Rights Campaign put on its blog a piece titled, "Paul Ryan Speaking at Hate Group's Annual Conference," referring to the FRC.

It said that the "FRC has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It's a group that has advocated for the criminalization of homosexuality, called for LGBT people to be exported from the U.S., and has pushed dangerous lies trying to link being gay to pedophilia."

The FRC has done none of those things but that didn't stop the Daily Kos from vilifying the FRC for its support of Chick-fil-A: "Chick-fil-A's corporate 'charity' arm WinShape has donated millions of dollars to groups like Family Research Council. FRC doesn't just oppose marriage equality, they really do HATE gays."

This is not an isolated or rare occurrence -- it is an epidemic of theft and free speech suppression.

And yet, this Minnesota man chose to respond with love and forgiveness when his sign was stolen:

To the person(s) who stole our Vote Yes yard sign in support of marriage between one man and one woman:

I forgive you.

Are you really so afraid of democracy that you would break the law to silence my voice?

You can steal all of my yard signs, but you will not steal my vote.

Has someone stolen your yard sign? I hope not! I believe in free speech … even if I disagree with it.

I’d like to know how putting a yard sign out is hateful and bigoted ... and your action … is out of love and respect. -- Winona Daily News

The head of a second Christian conservative organization said Friday she was told by authorities that a note containing her group's contact information was found in the pocket of a man charged with opening fire at the Washington offices of another such group, wounding a security guard.

Traditional Values Coalition President Andrea Lafferty said FBI agents visited her group's Capitol Hill offices hours after the Wednesday morning shooting as part of their investigation. The next day, she said, members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force came by and confirmed that "our information was in his pocket," including the location of the group's offices.

"I was stunned," Lafferty told The Associated Press, adding that she believes her group may have been targeted.

... Like the FRC, the Traditional Values Coalition has supported the president of Chick-Fil-A and his staunch opposition to same-sex marriage.

Tony Perkins, who heads the Family Research Council, hinted Thursday at a news conference that the FRC was not the only group targeted, although he did not elaborate.

"Maybe, going forward, you may find out more information that we may not have been the only one," he said.

"...[Last week's] shooting at the Family Research Council brings to mind something that has bothered me about self-described civil rights organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center.  For years, the SPLC has ingratiated themselves to the public by evincing an image of a politically neutral organization that serves as the one-stop resource for information on bigoted and violent organizations.  But instead of focusing exclusively on true “hate organizations” like white supremacists and Islamic jihadists, the SPLC has pursued a political agenda in recent years to defame conservative organizations by lumping them in with neo-Nazis and skinheads. 

... In 2010, SPLC labeled the Family Research Council as a hate group and listed them together with no-name neo-Nazi groups on their site.  They did the same for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that simply advocates lower levels of immigration out of fiscal and national security concerns.  When did we get to a point where groups that have a different political agenda from the SPLC are branded as hate groups?"

"The National Organization for Marriage, which has actively campaigned against same-sex marriage efforts, also condemned what it termed an attack on the Family Research Council."

The Wall Street Journal:

"Elizabeth Ray, a spokeswoman for the National Organization for Marriage, said the group increased security at its Washington, D.C., offices after the shooting, as did similar groups at the state level."

CNN:

The Associated Press:

Though authorities did not publicly reveal a motive, advocacy groups across the ideological spectrum condemned the violence, with some casting it as a hate crime.

"Today's attack is the clearest sign we've seen that labeling pro-marriage groups as `hateful' must end," Brian Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, said in a statement.

Religion News Service:

The FRC’s strong stance against gay marriage and abortion have led some to question the motive for the crime. The National Organization for Marriage quickly condemned the attack and suggested the shooting may have come in response to characterizations of the FRC as “hateful.”

The Daily Caller:

“Today’s attack is the clearest sign we’ve seen that labeling pro-marriage groups as ‘hateful’ must end,” NOM president Brian Brown said in a statement. “The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled the Family Research Council a ‘hate group’ for its pro-marriage views, and less than a day ago the Human Rights Campaign issued a statement calling FRC a ‘hate group’ — they even specified that FRC hosts events in Washington, DC, where today’s attack took place.”

SPLC’s research director Heidi Beirich told Talking Points Memo on November 24, 2010, that there was no difference between Family Research Council and the Ku Klux Klan:

I asked her if a Republican choosing to address the FRC [Values Voter Summit] convention next year would be making the same choice as one who addressed an Aryan Nation rally.

“Yeah,” she told me. “What we’re saying is these [anti-gay] groups perpetrate hate — just like those [racist] organizations do.”

The SPLC can see no difference between Family Research Council and a group that lynched black people in order to keep them from voting.

"... I suppose it’s natural to have an exaggerated sense of the faults of one’s political opponents and a diminished sense of the faults of one’s allies.

We see a bit of this in a column by liberal writer Dana Milbank published by the Washington Post in the wake of the shooting of a Family Research Council employee by someone angry at the organization for its stand on marriage and sexual morality. But to his very great credit, Milbank pulls no punches in directly and sharply criticizing people and institutions on the liberal side for smearing as “bigots” and “haters” those who disagree with them.

In fact, Milbank goes so far as to say that “the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes gay marriage, is right to say that the attack is the clearest sign we’ve seen that labeling pro-marriage groups as ‘hateful’ must end.” The entire piece is worth reading. Milbank’s central claim is sound. But beyond that, his making it displays impressive integrity. He surely knows that it will earn him a hefty share of the abusive rhetoric he rightly deplores."

"...this shooting should remind us all of an important truth: that while much of the political anger in America today lies on the right, there are unbalanced and potentially violent people of all political persuasions. The rest of us need to be careful about hurling accusations that can stir up the crazies.

... I disagree with the Family Research Council’s views on gays and lesbians. But it’s absurd to put the group, as the law center does, in the same category as Aryan Nations, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Stormfront and the Westboro Baptist Church. The center says the FRC “often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science.” Exhibit A in its dossier is a quote by an FRC official from 1999 (!) saying that “gaining access to children has been a long-term goal of the homosexual movement.”

Offensive, certainly. But in the same category as the KKK?

Since the shooting, conservatives have complained that the media have played down the story. This probably has less to do with bias than with the fact that nobody was killed. Still, there is something to the complaint.

... The National Organization for Marriage, which opposes gay marriage, is right to say that the attack “is the clearest sign we’ve seen that labeling pro-marriage groups as ‘hateful’ must end.”

MSM ignores shooting At Family Research Council HQ...

Shooter had 15 CHICK-FIL-A sandwiches in backpack...

'I don't like your politics'...

PERKINS: Act of 'terrorism'...

Cops: Was LGBT volunteer...

Charged with assault, intent to kill...

Family Research Council spokesman J.P. Duffy has issued a statement on the "inaccurate internet reports" -- mine was here -- on the conservative group's stance on a resolution condemning an anti-gay bill in Uganda. FRC, said Duffy, does not support Uganda's bill -- although I don't know who said it did. Instead:

FRC's efforts, at the request of Congressional offices, were limited to seeking changes in the language of proposed drafts of the resolution, in order to make it more factually accurate regarding the content of the Uganda bill, and to remove sweeping and inaccurate assertions that homosexual conduct is internationally recognized as a fundamental human right.

As I noted, the Democrat-authored resolution made several blanket statements about the universal rights of sexual preference. The FRC lobbied to take those out, something completely in line with what its membership would expect.

Even after the shooting of a security guard at the Family Research Council, the Huffington Post can’t stop slamming the pro-family organization as a “hate group.” The Huffington Post waited less than three hours before publishing an article which complained about “the Family Research Council, which the Southern Poverty Law Center deems a hate group.”

Contributor Waymon Hudson, in an August 15 article titled “Paul Ryan: Poster Boy of Today’s Extreme GOP,” posted an attack on Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan which slammed the Family Research Council on 1:36 PM – less than three hours after the shooting, which took place around 10:45 AM. Attacking Ryan as an extremist, Hudson complained that Ryan “has agreed to address the Family Research Council, which the Southern Poverty Law Center deems a hate group, at the organizations annual Voters Value Summit in September.”

The Huffington Post’s job is to spin the news for all kinds of left-wing causes – attacks on the Family Research Council are normal for them. But couldn’t they at least have waited a day before repeating the charge of the left-wing hacks at the Southern Poverty Law Center and attacking a group whose members were targeted by a gunman less than three hours earlier?

Corkins has been charged with assault with intent to kill. According to an FBI affidavit, Corkins allegedly said words to the effect of “I don’t like your politics” when he encountered Johnson.

“The FBI said Corkins had 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches, a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol, two additional magazines loaded with ammunition and an additional box of 50 rounds of ammunition when he came into the building,” according to a report on the FBI intel. “His parents told the FBI that Corkins “has strong opinions with respect to those he believes do not treat homosexuals in a fair manner.”

"We’ve seen news of the shooting of a security guard today at the Family Research Council office in Washington, D.C., and are getting media inquiries about it. There are unconfirmed reports that the shooting was ideologically motivated. We condemn all acts of violence and are following the story closely."

The gunman, identified as 28-year-old Floyd Lee Corkins II, entered the lobby of the organization's Chinatown headquarters around 10:45 a.m. and expressed disagreement with the conservative group's policy positions, sources tell Fox News.

... The suspect "made statements regarding their policies, and then opened fire with a gun striking a security guard," a source told Fox News.

Sources also said the gunman may have been carrying a bag from Chick-fil-A, the embattled fast-food restaurant whose president came under fire from gay activists after he said he did not agree with same-sex marriage.

Sources told Fox News that after guard took away his gun, the suspect said, "Don't shoot me, it was not about you, it was what this place stands for."

Authorities were treating the attack as a case of domestic terrorism, although James McJunkin, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said authorities do not yet know the gunman's motive.

... Corkins had been volunteering for about the past six months at The DC Center for the LGBT Community, said David Mariner, executive director of the community center, which is in Northwest Washington. He usually staffed the center's front desk on Saturdays, and his most recent shift was about two weeks ago.

Family Research Council Shooting Unleashes Conservative Vengeance on Twitter [by David Sessions]

A gunman who allegedly targeted the Family Research Council for its anti-gay marriage views gave right-wing pundits a chance to give liberals—who often are quick to attribute violence to conservative ideology—a taste of their own medicine.

"...Corkins had been volunteering at a U Street NW community center for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, according to officials there.

... Allan P. Chan, 28, a former George Mason student, said he met Corkins at a campus gym about six years ago. They worked out together, lifting weights, and began to socialize and watch television together. Chan described Corkins as secretive and somewhat odd. Corkins’s Facebook page included no photos, not even his own, and he displayed an intense interest in the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

“He was a fanatic of Nietzsche,” Chan said.

... In the lobby, the intruder began “making statements” in opposition to the Family Research Council’s social conservatism, a law enforcement official said."

National Organization for Marriage's Brian Brown says that the Family Research Council shooting was “politically motivated” and labeling the organization a hate group is “totally irresponsible.”

Brown says, “All the indications from multiple sources that were there, say the shooter actually came in and started attacking the policies of the Family Research Council.”

He continues, “Everything points to the fact that this was politically motivated…. Groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center which has labeled the Family Research Council, which is a mainstream group, a hate group. That sort of talk… is totally irresponsible and unacceptable and I think this incident makes that clear.”

Yesterday’s shooting at the conservative Family Research Council in downtown Washington, D.C., is symptomatic of a broader lack of civility in political discourse, the head of an organization promoting traditional marriage said Thursday.

“[The] responsibility is on the shooter but we need to have a civil debate over issues like redefining marriage,” said Brian Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, appearing on CNN’s Early Start. “But we should not be attacking and labeling as hate groups those [with which] we disagree. We should condemn violence of any sort but we should also be responsible.”

He singled out the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“[When] you take the Family Research Council, which is again a mainstream group that does a lot of work in D.C., the Values Voters Summit is a huge summit in Washington, D.C., that stands up for traditional values, and you have a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center actually saying this group is no different than the Aryan Brotherhood, you’ve crossed a line,” Brown said. “It’s totally unacceptable.”

A note on NOM's policies: we denounce all violence and harassment against all Americans on either side of the gay marriage divide. We believe good people disagree even on very important moral issues like the future of marriage.  We have repeatedly said that we see gay people as part of America --friends, neighbors and fellow citizens-- with whom we agree on some things and disagree on others.

NOM's comment policy does not permit suggestions of violence of any kind. Any comments like that will be deleted as soon as we get a chance to review them.

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said the shooter walked into the lobby of the building at about 10:45 and was confronted by the security guard as if the guard was asking him where he was going.

The man then took out a gun and opened fire on the guard, Lanier said. The guard and others wrestled the man to the ground, disarmed him and waited for police, she said. The guard was then taken to the hospital and is in stable condition, the chief said.

The shooter is in FBI custody and has not yet been charged, authorities said.

“The security guard here is a hero, as far as I’m concerned,” Lanier said. ”He did his job. The person never made it past the front.” -- The Washington Post

"...Since my article came out, I have been through far worse than I ever thought would happen. My job is at risk, and worst of all, my coworkers received an e-mail from a gay rights organization with the title "COMPLAINT AGAINST CSUN'S ROBERT LOPEZ: GAY BASHER." Soon I got e-mails from administrators. People really investigate claims like this.

Gay basher?

What the heck has this movement come to?

For God's sake, I am a bisexual raised by a lesbian couple, who helped countless people dying of AIDS. I've spent my life cleaning up the messes left by gay politics. I wrote an honest essay. That's bashing?

The gay marriage movement has finally crossed the line into insanity. They must burn their own villages to save them from their phantasmal bullies. All the real things that gays could do to improve their real problems are right before their eyes: be humane to one another, forgive others, care for their most needy, and most of all, pick their battles. Support pro-life politicians and adopt foster kids saved from abortion. Vote for Republicans who believe in school vouchers, get bullied gays into safer schools... But they choose not to. They have dedicated themselves to a scorched-earth campaign for gay marriage. And when that war is won, they will have conquered a wasteland. I wonder what Eliot would have to say." -- The American Thinker

Their side:

"It’s like they saw us for the very first time.

They have heard about us. They certainly talk about us enough. They psychoanalyze us. They mock us. But they never really see us.

They know we may turn elections, even elections about marriage and even in liberal states. This is a puzzle to them because they certainly don’t know any of us on the Upper West Side of Manhattan or the Hollywood Hills.Perhaps they thought we were an embarrassment from the past, cringe-inducing folks from back home, odd ducks living down dusty roads, dangerous creatures living in malarial fever-swamps.

But they saw us last week lined up by the millions waiting sometimes hours to buy chicken sandwiches. We celebrated the day in our joyful, quiet, and respectful way – and it profoundly freaked them out. Rachel Held Evans is a left-wing Christian blogger..."

Our side:

"...And so this whole episode was important. We came out in droves. We came out by the millions and we voted with a buck and a cluck. Normal people. Not hate-filled bigots. It was a quadruple victory. First, we won. Second, they lost. Third, they know they lost. And fourth, they really saw us for the first time.

Perhaps as important as them seeing us for the first time is that we also saw ourselves. Face it: this issue can be lonely, lonely in the workplace, in popular culture, lonely among friends, lonely even among family.

Our opponents like it that way. They want us alone, isolated and defeated. They harp on the inevitability argument and it is quite effective. But last week the tables were turned. Last week we weren’t so alone were we? We were huge and didn’t it feel amazing? Didn’t you shyly smile at others in line, like we knew a secret? Well, it’s not a secret anymore.

Whoever thought that “Eat Mor Chikin” would become a secret password and a rallying cry for Western Civilization?"

At one point they tell him: "We don't want tolerance, we want equality."

I attended Friday night’s “Kiss-in” protest outside the only Chick-fil-A location in Chicago. The small group of between twenty to thirty protesters gathered outside the restaurant around 7pm. A few same-sex couples took the opportunity to kiss in public, as the protest organizers encouraged attendees to do on their facebook page.

I asked many of the protesters whether they agreed with Alderman Moreno’s actions; the reactions were mixed. Some agreed — one woman told me she took a “European view” of our Constitutional Rights — while others felt he was in the wrong despite agreeing with him in a general sense.

While there, a group formed around an elderly African-American homeless man, who was reading his bible while seated along a fence rail off to the side of the protest. Some in the group confronted the man, who was reading the bible aloud, and engaged him in theological debates. A few others took the opportunity to mock the man, which I captured on video:

Nearing the end of the protest, someone from the group wrote on the sidewalk in front of the homeless man, “He’s Really Gay Deep Down,” with an arrow pointed to where he was seated.

The Frederick News-Post reported Sunday that a Chick-Fil-A restaurant in Frederick, Maryland, was the target of vandals who gluedgay marriage stickers and other items to the windows sometime Saturday night.

Cpl. Gregory Santangelo said that in addition to the stickers, several homemade signs and an image "with the American and gay pride flags combined," were also affixed to the windows.

He also told the Post that the restaurant hired a cleaner to remove the items.

According to the Post, video surveillance of the suspect and physical evidence were collected, and the Frederick County Bureau of Investigation is looking into the matter.

At least two other Chick-fil-A restaurants have been vandalized since company president Dan Cathy expressed support for traditional marriage.

Manny Castro, the self-described street artist who admitted he painted "Tastes Like Hate" on the side of a Torrance Chick-fil-A last week in response to the chicken empire's anti-gay-marriage stance, has been arrested, Torrance police tell the Weekly.

Sgt. Steven Jenkinson said Castro was collared in West Hollywood about 7 p.m. yesterday.

Castro is was arrested on suspicion of vandalism, according to Torrance police.

Although Castro admitted to the artwork in response to the Chick-fil-A CEO's stance against same-sex marriage, Torrance detectives say they developed independent evidence that leads to the provocateur.

Here's a copy of the mailer.

"...If we redefine marriage to include same-gender couples, we're saying there is no important difference between the partnership of two men, and the union of one man and one woman. In other words, women are disposable. They can be excluded from marriage and replaced with men. This is gender discrimination. This eliminates femininity and motherhood from the basic family unit. This is anti-gender.

Example: Sex advice columnist and SSM advocate Dan Savage likes to refer to a woman's birth canal as the [click here to see the unedited, graphic quotation]. If a Christian like Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy uttered such a sexist slur, the media would rip into him. But because Savage speaks for the gay community, he gets a media pass and an invite to the White House.

At the same time, allowing unigender couples to marry means that two women can marry each other, eliminating men from the family. Again, this is gender segregation and gender discrimination. This is anti-gender."

The idea makes the head spin: Mitt Romney marrying Donald Trump. Michele Bachmann marrying Sarah Palin. And President Obama officiating at both weddings.

Dating website BeautifulPeople.com has launched a campaign featuring the “weddings,” with actors portraying the famous politicos, to publicize its new gay and lesbian versions, BeautifulPeopleGay.com and BeautifulPeopleWomenOnly.com. After a billboard company rejected the images, BeautifulPeople.com put up “censored” versions, with outlines only, this week in cities including Clearwater, Fla., and West Hollywood, with the full versions on mobile billboards in New York City and on the company’s website.

“This is a national campaign championing equal rights for the LGBT community and pledging support in a colorful way,” said Greg Hodge, Beautiful People’s managing director, in a press release. “Through a humorous campaign we wanted to showcase how many of our political heavyweights are living in the last century.” For every membership to the gay and lesbian sites, Beautiful People will donate 15% of the fee to a nonprofit championing marriage equality.

First, Adam Smith, a former CFO and treasurer for manufacturer Vante uploaded a video of himself verbally harassing a courteous Chick-fil-A employee:

His employer, Vante, let him go immediately after being made aware of his activities and issued the following statement:

The actions of Mr. Smith do not reflect our corporate values in any manner. Vante is an equal opportunity company with a diverse workforce, which holds diverse opinions. We respect the right of our employees and all Americans to hold and express their personal opinions, however, we also expect our company officers to behave in a manner commensurate with their position and in a respectful fashion that conveys these values of civility with others.

We hope that the general population does not hold Mr. Smith's actions against Vante and its employees.

This is position which echoes that of NOM's corporate fairness project. And the video above has already been viewed over 750,000 times, so word is getting out.

Second, proponents of redefining marriage attempted yesterday to launch a counter-protest against the wildly successful Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day with some activism of their own: a "kiss-in". Those efforts have already been marred, the Los Angeles Times reports, by "Tastes Like Hate" graffiti being scrawled on a Chick-fil-A location in Terrence, CA:

Third, this pattern of harassing Chick-fil-A's ability to do business was already set earlier in the week when a group of pro-SSM halted the grand opening of a Chick-fil-A location in Laguna Hills, CA:

View more videos at: http://nbclosangeles.com.

Examples of pro-SSM hate and intolerance like these are a reminder that we need to stay vigilant to demand that our rights to believe and support biblical marriage are not silenced by the other side.

Together, united, they can't drown out or silence our voice!

Photo by Edward Marshall

Police and fire crews closed down the Chick-fil-A on Foxcroft Avenue in Martinsburg for nearly three hours following a bomb threat that was called in just before 1 p.m. today.

The caller mentioned that a "device" had been placed within the restaurant. The building was evacuated, but was deemed safe at about 3:45 p.m. after no bomb or any other type of device was discovered.

Martinsburg City Police and the Martinsburg Fire Department personnel investigated the scene, along with Berkeley County Sheriff Kenny Lemaster. A National Park Ranger with a canine unit arrived at the scene at approximately 2:45 p.m. to assist, and a second from the West Virginia State Police arrived later as well.

Luckily there's an easy way to settle this. Here's a second photo I took the same day:

That's clearly 15 people in line for Chick-fil-A.

Back to my original photo:

If you were actually there last week, you would know the gentleman in the red hat is the order taker for Chick-Fil-A (go back and check yourself) -- if all those people are going to the grey truck (Pho Junkies' truck by the way, great food) why is the Chick-fil-A guy taking their orders?

Of course, that whole line is really to Chick-fil-A.

What's amazing to me in all of this is how many militant gay activists instantly presumed that I was lying. Really, guys? Don't project your paranoia on me.

I welcome them to come out to Chick-Fil-A's DC food truck next Wednesday to see just how long the lines are for themselves (and eat some delicious chikin!).

"...While Chick-fil-A as a corporation may have certain priorities, the local stores are each unique.  And they largely don’t care about sexual orientation in their day-to-day operations.  When a customer came up to the front counter, we never asked them to check a box for their sexual orientation or religious beliefs before serving them. We just smiled, asked them how they were feeling that day, and asked them what they wanted to eat.

... The goal of Chick-fil-A and its employees is not to be oppressive or discriminatory.  Its goal is to sell you delicious chicken, and to do so while upholding certain beliefs and principles. Yes, their corporate office may fund some programs that support traditional family models.  But there will never, EVER be a litmus test put in place banning an LGBTQ person from coming into a Chick-fil-A restaurant just like everyone else and enjoying a meal. This is the universalizing nature of good restaurant hospitality – every guest should receive equal kindness and equally good service, period.  No exceptions.

... For those who support the franchise, please think before you decide how best to show your support. The best thing you could do is give them regular business. If you really must thank someone for taking their position, please do so in person or with a personally-written letter, not a pre-formatted note or a printout that someone else did for you. Even better, show them that you really care – if the service is of good quality, leave the dining room team a tip! Tips were a huge positive energy boost for me and I’m sure they would be for current Chick-fil-A employees as well." -- The College Conservative

"...Whatever its faults, Regnerus’s study has unique strengths, even beyond the size and randomness of its sample, that his critics ignore altogether. His commendable attempt to include a diversity of views among his advisers is rare within the guild, where the leftism is unrelieved. So too were his willingness to immediately publish his research materials online and his pledge to make all his data digitally available this fall. Rather than a study of monochromatic and well-to-do lesbians or gay men, he managed to capture the full ethnic, socioeconomic, and geographic range of gay America. And his study is one of the first to systematically measure outcomes from the children themselves, rather than simply through the reports of their parents.

The limitations of Regnerus’s study compare favorably with the shortcomings found routinely in the same-sex literature. It does no credit to the guild that researchers have choked on Regnerus’s paper while happily swallowing dozens of faulty studies over the last 20 years—because, you can’t help but think, those studies were taken as confirming the “no difference” dogma. “If the Regnerus study is to be thrown out,” wrote the Canadian family economist Douglas Allen in a statement supporting Regnerus, “then practically everything else [in the literature] has to go with it.”

Whoever said inquisitions and witch hunts were things of the past? A big one is going on now. The sociologist Mark Regnerus, at the University of Texas at Austin, is being smeared in the media and subjected to an inquiry by his university over allegations of scientific misconduct.

Regnerus's offense? His article in the July 2012 issue of Social Science Research reported that adult children of parents who had same-sex romantic relationships, including same-sex couples as parents, have more emotional and social problems than do adult children of heterosexual parents with intact marriages. That's it. Regnerus published ideologically unpopular research results on the contentious matter of same-sex families. And now he is being made to pay.

... The very integrity of the social-science research process is threatened by the public smearing and vigilante media attacks we have seen in this case. Sociology's progressive orthodoxy and the semicovert activism it prompts threaten the intellectual vitality of the discipline, the quality of undergraduate education, and public trust in academe. Reasonable people cannot allow social-science scholarship to be policed and selectively punished by the forces of activist ideology and politics, from any political quarter. University leaders must resist the manipulation of research review committees by nonacademic culture warriors who happen not to like certain findings.

Science already has its own ways to deal with controversial research results. Studies should be replicated. Data sets should be made public and reanalyzed. And new and better studies should be conducted. Eventually the truth comes out. By those means, Regnerus might be shown to have been wrong or perhaps be vindicated. That is how science is supposed to work.

By contrast, political attacks like those on Regnerus are contemptible and hurt everyone in the long run, including progressives. Everybody—especially officials at the University of Texas at Austin—needs to be vigilant in protecting scholars and their research against those inside and outside of academe who seek to silence scholars whose research runs counter to the current orthodoxy.

Gay rights campaigners have held a mock wedding outside Holyrood as a sign of support for same sex marriage.

The staged event comes ahead of the Scottish government making its views known on the issue.

Currently the law in Scotland, as in the the rest of the UK, allows civil partnerships between couples of the same sex.

In the Scottish Parliament, the party leaders are united in support of a change to the law.

Although civil partnerships offer the same legal treatment as marriage across a range of matters, such as inheritance, pensions provision, life assurance, child maintenance, next of kin and immigration rights, they are still distinct from marriage.

... Outside the Edinburgh parliament, lesbians Jaye and Ruth Richards-Hill took part in a mock wedding conducted by Rev Jane Clarke of the same-sex marriage supporting Metropolitan Community Church.

AP Photo/Peter Kramer

"...Mrs. Pitt has at least one high-profile supporter on her daughter-in-law's side of the family: Jolie's dad Jon Voight!

“Good for her,” Voight told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column, adding that he agrees with the points-of-view expressed by Jane.

A rep for Brad Pitt, an avid supporter of President Obama, did not respond for further comment. Jane Pitt declined further comment when we attempted to reach her.

Brad’s brother Doug also defended his mother earlier this week during an appearance on the "Today Show."

“I think moms and dads and kids agree to disagree all over the world. So why would our family be any different? There can be healthy discussion when people disagree with you,” he said. “The bad thing is when it turns to venom and negativity, and we don’t have that in our family. It’s open discussion. We can learn from each other and, if anything, it solidifies your point. Or maybe you learn something.”

"...Several sociologists have come to Regnerus’s defense, saying it’s unprecedented for a highly respected, tenured professor to be investigated on such charges because a blogger didn’t like the study’s findings.

“For some of these journals, the acceptance rate is about 5 percent,” said Dr. Byron Johnson, a professor of sociology at Baylor University and co-director for the Institute for Studies of Religion — a fact which reflects the quality of the science involved. “It’s not like he gave a speech and made a slur. Typically, when (academics) disagree with research, we do our own. Let’s do this in an academic way, not a witch hunt — led by the blogosphere and people who have no credentials.”

[Previous S-S parenting] studies may have been accepted because “their findings are politically correct,” Johnson said. “And people say we’re supposed to throw out Regnerus’s study? You don’t throw everything out, but you do have to go back and look at everything. But to say the previous studies trump his, which is what they’re implying, is ridiculous.”

The political furor over Regnerus’s study, Johnson said, could have a chilling effect on further research.

Scott Rose, who writes that I have blood on my hands for opposing gay marriage (read this to get a flavor of who Scott Rose is and how he thinks), has filed an ethics complaint charging a serious scholar with “scientific misconduct” for publishing a study in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The study was incidentally reviewed by three major family sociologists, Paul Amato, Cynthia Osbourne, and David Eggebeen.

Will Saletan’s question about a “Liberal War on Science?” is beginning to look prophetic. Will the academic community react against political attacks on scholarship like this? Or will liberalism trump the guild? Stay tuned.

After explaining the new research on same-sex parenting, Dr. Ablow says:

"...these are concerning data, that have to be investigated, and I know how controversial it is but as a doctor, as somebody who cares about science, you can't dismiss numbers that come across as compelling as these do."

And later in the interview:

"...it's such a controversial thing [talking about this issue], I have to tell you I hesitate to write the blog. Because every time I do I get threats -- no I get threats, people come, they're going to come to my office, they're going to burn down my house, it's incredible ... in this politically correct insane environment, citing data doesn't seem to be compelling enough, because there's a lot of hatred."

Watch the whole segment:

Jane Pitt, the mother of actor Brad Pitt, was the target of hateful and misogynistic tweets from pro-abortion liberals after the Springfield News-Leader published her letter supporting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Twitchy reported Friday.

Gawker painted her as a "loon," but liberals on Twitter went overboard.

... "Once again, the Left’s revolting intolerance of conservative free speech is on display for all the world to see. Let’s hope Jane Pitt answers with even louder, bolder speech," Twitchy added.

...A post at Buzzfeed noted that in 2008, Brad Pitt donated $100,000 to fight California's Proposition 8. While he may differ with his mother's point of view, he still thinks highly of her.

"She's very, very loving — very open, genuine, and it's hilarious because she always gets painted in the tabloids as a she-devil. There's not an ounce of malice in her. She wants everyone to be happy," the actor said of his mother in January.

Read Jane Pitt's letter here.

Rhys and Esther Curnow, from Newcastle, received scores of messages after opponents of their stance on same-sex marriage including a Labour councillor circulated their Facebook details online.

They included messages saying the couple, who are committed Christians, should “rot in hell” and wishing they would become infertile or die of cancer.

Several included explicit references to sexual acts while others suggested they should be subjected to “compulsory sterilisation”.

The couple, who married in March, became the public face of the Coalition For Marriage campaign, backed by Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, earlier this month when they handed in the group’s petition to David Cameron.

Mr Curnow, a charity researcher originally from Wales, and his wife, a primary schoolteacher from the West Midlands, dressed in wedding clothes and posed on the steps of Number 10 with a gift wrapped package containing signatures.

... A separate Facebook group was set up describing them as “homophobic”.

After receiving more than 100 direct messages the couple changed their security settings to block incoming messages other than from friends.

They have reported the matter to Northumbria Police but yesterday officers claimed that there was no evidence of a crime being committed as the messages did not contain direct threats. -- The UK Telegraph

I can’t remember the last time my town’s been in the national news—in fact, maybe there hasn’t really been another time. I guess that’s why what’s going on now has taken so many of us by surprise.

I’m the youth minister at a church in Erie, Illinois—a town of about 1,500 people that represents a mixture of local business owners, farmers, teachers and factory workers and others.

We’ve never experienced anything like this—where for the last several weeks our town has been the target of a national pressure campaign launched by gay activists and liberal media. People in our town have been called insulting names by angry bloggers. They’ve gotten phone calls to their home and hate emails from people who don’t even live here.

So what was our town’s big crime—the one that suddenly put us on the map for hate speech and CNN coverage?

Well—we just dared to say no.

No, that is, to GLSEN’s (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) materials coming into to our pre-kindergarten through fourth grade elementary school. (Read more about thathere). And our local school board had the courage to listen to the concerns of the majority of parents, voting 5-2 to reject the materials. (I got involved in this whole thing after a bunch of parents started contacting me about what was happening.)

In what they are touting as a “world first,” a Quebec homosexual activist group has launched a “registry of homophobic acts” with support and funding from the Quebec Government’s Justice Department. Standing alongside Montreal Police Chief Johanne Paquin and Commander Alain Gagnon, the leadership of the group Gai Ecoute launched the anonymous tipster registry at a press conference today.

Included in the definition of actions classified as “homophobic” and deemed worthy of reporting to the registry are: “any negative word or act toward a homosexual or homosexuality in general: physical abuse, verbal abuse, intimidation, harassment, offensive graffiti, abuse, injurious mockery, inappropriate media coverage and discrimination.”

A press release from the group says that anyone who has experienced or witnessed an act of homophobia “must” report it to the registry of homophobic acts.

Funding and support for the venture comes from the Quebec Justice Ministry’s department of “The Fight Against Homophobia.” The Justice Ministry was tasked with fighting homophobia in 2008 and last year pledged $7 million to ‘anti-homophobia’ activities. --LifeSiteNews

“As most of you already know, I am the state representative for the 4th Legislative District, an ardent supporter of Israel, and a committed Christian. However, some of you may not be aware of the support my campaign has received within the Messianic Jewish community.

“Sometime between 10:30 p.m. May 29, 2012, Tuesday night, and 6:00 a.m. May 30, 2012, Wednesday morning four campaign signs were vandalized in the north Spokane Valley area. The signs were spray painted with violent, threatening, hateful, sexually explicit, anti-Semitic, and anti-Christian words and symbols. This is clearly an attempt to threaten, harass, and intimidate me and my family.

“The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident and I have also notified members of the Messianic Jewish community.

“This hate crime follows on the heels of my involvement in the R-74 campaign to stop the blatantly unconstitutional SB 6239 and my outspoken criticism of current Democrat leadership in Olympia and their continued inability to pass a truly sustainable balanced budget after wasting half the session on homosexual marriage. It appears I was targeted by members of the violent and radical progressive movement for my conservative consistent stand for limited constitutional government and my religious beliefs.