NOM BLOG

Monthly Archives: October 2011

Video: The Facebook Martyr -- "He Can't Be Punished for His Belief"

This week's video update by the UK Christian Institute tells more of Adrian Smith's story:

Rick Perry Praises New Hampshire Effort to Repeal SSM

The Concord Monitor:

Presidential candidate Rick Perry praised the legislators working to overturn New Hampshire's same-sex marriage law last night in Manchester.

"As conservatives we believe in the sanctity of life. We believe in the sanctity of traditional marriage," Perry said. "And I applaud those legislators in New Hampshire who are working to defend marriage as an institution between one man and one woman, realizing that children need to be raised in a loving home by a mother and a father."

Can We Trust Gov. Quinn and the Illinois Department of Children & Foster Care Services to Protect Children?

Catholic Charities has a sterling record of protecting foster children in the State of Illinois. With Gov. Quinn's consent, the children they protected are now going to be transferred to new homes because the Department of Children and Foster Care Services will no longer do business with any foster care agency that does not do gay couple adoptions.

Meanwhile, for years, the Illinois DCFS did business with a man named George E. Smith (a close personal friend of the then-head of DCFS Erwen "Mac" McEwen) who apparently bilked DCFS and other state agencies of $18 million dollars.

More troublingly, Smith actually administered psychotropic drugs to children in foster care without proper medical care or consent.

When Gov. Quinn found out, he quietly pressured McEwen to resign. No public condemnation. No calls to investigate. Nothing.

The "Chicago Way" is apparently now the 'Illinois Way", where politics trumps not only good government, but basic decency.

We've mentioned this development before but see this report in Business Week:

"McEwen, who described Smith as his "personal friend and mentor," stopped cooperating with investigators in May, the report said, although state employees are required to aid such probes. He announced his resignation in August and left DCFS at the end of September.

Gov. Pat Quinn said Monday that McEwen "was given the opportunity to resign and he took that opportunity." Quinn, appearing at an unrelated news conference, did not take any other questions on the issue and did not explain why he didn't publicly disclose the reason for McEwen's departure.

Brooke Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Democrat, said the law barred Quinn from disclosing the misconduct. However, that law applies to early release of "investigatory files and reports" from the inspector general; it does not prohibit a governor from saying he believes a member of his Cabinet is mismanaging an agency.

Anderson said all contracts and grants to Smith were halted and that DCFS is taking steps to make sure nothing like this happens again. She could not describe the steps that are being taken.

McEwen and Smith did not return messages seeking their comment on the allegations."

Will Spain Repeal SSM?

After New Hampshire, next Spain?

Next month's general elections threaten to undo Spain's 6-year-old gay marriage law.

The Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, which swept into office in 2004, looks to be on the outs. Polling shows the conservative Popular Party (PP) with a 15-point lead over Socialists.

Mariano Rajoy, the leader of the PP, has previously said he believes the law is unconstitutional and that he would “change” it even if the nation's highest court ruled it constitutional.

“I will listen to the court, but I don't like the fact that there is gay marriage and I don't think it is constitutional,” he told daily El Pais. “What I don't like is the word 'marriage.'” -- On Top Magazine

Video: Christian Broadcasting Network Interviews NY Clerk Belforti

CBN News interviews New York town clerk Rose Marie Belforit (watch her interview with marriage-ADA here):

What's the scariest costume you've ever seen during Halloween?

A Halloween Message from NOM PAC NY!

Dear Marriage Supporter,

I don't know about you, but I'd have to say that the scariest costume I've ever seen is probably "Turncoat Republican Senator" masquerading as a representative of the people.

Tell NY Legislators to leave the trick-or-treating to the kids.

Don't let these turncoat senators get away with their tricks! Please consider giving a generous gift to the NOM NY PAC today to provide us with the resources we need to hold these legislators accountable to you, the people. Help us give a happy ending to this scary story playing out in the Empire State.

Brian Brown

Have a happy and safe Halloween!

Brian Brown

Brian S. Brown
Treasurer
NOM PAC New York

P.S. Donors who give $100 or more must be publicly listed on our campaign finance reports. Please give as generously as you can—whether it's $99, $50, $25, or even more, if you are willing and able to make a public stand in support of marriage. Don't let these turncoat senators get away with their tricks!

Catholic Bishop Urges Congress at Hearing to Defend Religious Liberty, DOMA

A press release from the U.S. Bishops:

The head of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) called on Congress to defend the American legacy of religious liberty on October 26, during a hearing before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.

The chairman, Bishop William C. Lori of Bridgeport, Connecticut, noted several recent actions by government entities that mark the erosion of the freedom of religion, often called the nation’s “First Freedom.” [Read his testimony here.]

... He also urged the House to reject the Respect for Marriage Act (H.R. 1116), which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). DOMA, which was signed by President Clinton in 1996, defines marriage as between one man and one woman for purposes of federal law and leaves states free to define marriage as they see fit. Bishop Lori added that the U.S. bishops “applaud the decision of the House to take up the defense of DOMA,” which the U.S. Department of Justice has refused to defend in court. He called on the House to continue that defense “for as long as necessary to obtain definitive confirmation of [DOMA’s] constitutionality.”

He added that the Department of Justice’s decision to abandon DOMA seems to “warrant congressional inquiry.”

Report: Gay Groups in Scotland Received 10x More Funding Than Church Groups

The UK Christian Institute:

Homosexual groups in Scotland have received nearly ten times as much Government funding as church groups over the past decade.

New figures reveal that since 2001-2, three homosexual lobby groups have received a total of £5.9m. However over the same period only £600,000 has gone to church groups.

Christian groups Solas and CARE for Scotland as well as a national newspaper criticised the news.

Report: ‘Baby Trafficking’ Scandal the Tip of the IVF/Surrogacy Iceberg

LifeSiteNews:

After a CNN report this week condemned an illegal surrogacy ring run by high-profile fertility lawyers, one expert says that media and the pro-life community alike still fail to acknowledge the corruption endemic in the entire “baby trafficking” business - whether legal or not.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Sandra Endo this week reported on the surrogacy business of Hilary Neiman and Theresa Erickson, two of the most prestigious reproductive law attorneys in the world, who impregnated surrogates before adoptive parents were found. If the baby survived to the second trimester, the attorneys auctioned him or her off to the highest bidder, up to $180,000 per baby.

... Jennifer Lahl, the founder and president of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, said the chilling aspects of Neiman and Erickson’s “baby trafficking” don’t only belong to illegal fertility operations. “Ms. Erickson and her co-conspirators violated a legal distinction without a difference,” said Lahl.

“Babies are being bought and sold. Women are being exploited. Non-traditional families are being made with no consideration for the children created by these technologies,” said Lahl. “And in this specific case, we see that greed trumps all.”

New Zealand Poll: Majority Oppose SSM

Bob McCoskrie, national director of Family First NZ, in The Dominion Post:

"...polling commissioned by Family First of 1000 New Zealanders through independent research company Curia Market Research in March found 52 per cent of respondents support defining marriage as being between a man and a woman, with 42 per cent opposed and 6 per cent unsure or refusing to say."

ABC Australia Challenged Over Biased Marriage Coverage

At an Australian Senate hearing, ABC Australia's managing director Mark Scott was asked pointedly by Liberal Senator Eric Abetz about how ABC has presented the marriage debate:

Senator ABETZ: I turn to the ABC program Compass and, once again, the issue of balance. I think it was on 6 July 2011. 'Marriage right vs rite' was featured, with Ms Doogue, and there were six guests sitting around the dinner table discussing same-sex marriage. Out of the six dinner guests, only one was defending the dictionary definition of marriage; the other five were against it; and the host was seen at times laughing while the sole voice for the dictionary definition of marriage was trying to make his case. Is this another example of the ABC taking a completely balanced, unbiased approach to the issues of the day?

Mr Scott : The ABC does not have a point of view, and part of our—

Senator ABETZ: Yes, but why can't it reflect the points of view on an equal basis? We have got it in Israel. We have now got it here.

Mr Scott : I did not see the program and I cannot speak in any detail on it, but I would suggest that the critical test is: are the arguments coming through in that conversation? Did the other five have a uniform view or were there different arguments or nuances that they were making? Was the spectrum being reflected in the conversation? I cannot speak about in the abstract because I did not see it. I note your concern about it...

Senator ABETZ: Also on marriage, on 16 August, 1,000 people crammed into the Great Hall to celebrate and defend the traditional definition of marriage. Did the ABC cover that on TV that night?

Mr Scott : I will have to take that on notice.

Senator ABETZ: I know the answer, but take it on notice. On 13 August, just three days earlier, the ABC evening news had a story on a pro homosexual marriage demo, where there were 10 to 12 people. Once again, can you tell us how that is indicative of the ABC's balanced reporting?

Florida Columnist Calls 60 Percent of Florida Voters "Haters"?

In 2008, more than 60 percent of Florida voters approved a state marriage amendment, protecting marriage as the union of husband and wife. Are they all haters? Gary Stein a columnist at the Sun-Sentinel, apparently can't resist flinging the insult.

We work hard to stay on the civil side of civil discourse but mainstream pro-gay marriage columnists like Gary don't feel the same obligation, apparently.

We suspect that's one reason regular voters are dubious about gay marriage. Gary writes:

Despite what the hatemongers would have you believe, the nation hasn't vaporized in a ball of fire or been overcome by Satan, despite the trend toward equality for gays.

There are still haters out there, but most people realize that not only are gay rights a matter of basic fairness, but it's almost insulting to think we need something called a Defense of Marriage Act in 2011. The haters may think gays are a threat to marriage, but maybe they should think about the 50 percent of straight marriages that end in divorce. That's your real threat to marriage.

So yes, the world is quickly passing by the haters who can't handle change.

And you have to wonder, if the haters had been around in the mid-1800s, if we would still be trying to abolish slavery today.

Restoring Marriage: The Latest from New Hampshire, NOM Marriage News, October 28, 2011

NOM National Newsletter

My Dear Friends,

Is gay marriage inevitable? Someone forgot to tell New Hampshire, where Democrats railroaded a gay marriage bill through the legislature in 2009, before losing an election to GOP legislators who ran promising to restore marriage.

The New Hampshire House Judiciary Committee voted 11-6 THIS WEEK to send a bill restoring the definition of "marriage" as the union of one man and one woman to the full House after Christmas.

"I have no apologies for my current efforts to correct a bad policy decision," the bill's sponsor, Rep. David Bates, said. "I, and many people in New Hampshire, believe that those who pushed through this law in 2009 simply did not have the right to redefine marriage for our entire society."

As Citizen Link reports,

"Approximately 75 percent of the 400 legislators in the state's House of Representatives are Republicans—many of whom ran on platforms of restoring the definition of marriage. Given that, HB 437 has good prospects of eventually landing on Gov. John Lynch's desk next year."

You don't often hear about the many signs there are showing that the American people are not on board the "inevitability" train. But the people have reversed gay marriage before, in California and Maine.

And it's looking as though New Hampshire will likely be the next state to step back from gay marriage and restore our traditional understanding of marriage. (Online polls are notoriously unscientific, but if anyone wants to weigh in on one such poll, you can do so here. As of mid-day Thursday, 55% of respondents agreed that New Hampshire should repeal same-sex marriage—although that percentage was reversed in a couple of hours as hundreds of gay marriage supporters inundated the site Thursday evening.)

Advocates of gay marriage know they are not really winning the battle for hearts and minds, and so they are unleashing a new set of arguments.

Meanwhile, Democrats who control the U.S. Senate are meeting in committee to vote on repealing the federal Defense of Marriage Act, the one federal law which protects marriage as the union of husband and wife!

Our thanks go out to the hundreds of you who responded to our email alert asking you to let Senators know: You oppose repealing DOMA!

If you haven't yet sent an email, go here, right now, and speak up for marriage!

New meme alert!

A gay-marriage activist group has issued a "report" which, naturally, was carried by all the mainstream media.

It claims that gay marriage is necessary to protect children. Two million children, it claims, would benefit if we redefine marriage.

Redefine marriage for the children! I expect you will hear that claim a lot, especially in any states considering marriage definitions.

Meanwhile the Census Bureau says that there are just 112,000 same-sex couples raising children in the whole country. And 80 percent of those children, according to the leading gay demographer, the Williams Institute, are the product of previous heterosexual relationships.

There's no particular evidence that the so-called "legal benefits" of marriage protect children. (We know this because children with remarried parents do not do any better, on average, than children of solo mothers.)

Social science evidence tells us that marriage protects children to the extent that marriage makes it more likely children will be born to and raised by their mom and dad in the same family.

No same-sex marriage does that.

There's not even an iota of scientific evidence that civil same-sex marriage makes it more likely that a gay couple will stay together (compared to either domestic partnerships or private and personal commitment ceremonies).

Gay marriage is being advocated as a personal and individual "right" in the gay community, not an authoritative moral norm.

Is gay marriage a serious proposal to protect children? Let's go through the numbers.

Let's assume that half of 112,000 same-sex couples raising children would be interested in marriage (a random but generous guess). That's 56,000 same-sex couples. Let's assume that each of these couples is raising two kids (again probably a very generous assumption), or 112,000 children. Eighty percent of these children are the product of a previous heterosexual relationship, meaning if the child's gay parent married their lover, that would be a stepfamily with no known benefits to the child.

That leaves 20% of 112,000 children who might be in some sense the child of both members of the same-sex couple: about 22,400 children.

In 2010, the Census reported that there are about 75 million children under the age of 18 in this country.

So how many kids might potentially benefit, if it turned out to be true that gay marriage has any benefit at all for children (a proposition for which there is no scientific evidence)?

0.03 percent!

That amounts to three-one hundreds of one percent of all American children.

Gay marriage is about the desire of adults, not a serious proposal to address the needs of children.

That much is very clear!

Gay marriage results in the exclusion of people and religious institutions who believe most strongly that children need a mom and dad.

The longing of children for the love of their mom and dad gets subordinated to the desire of adults to have the equality of their sexual relationships affirmed by government.

That much too is very clear!

That's what keeps me, and you, and millions of other decent, loving, law-abiding Americans from hopping aboard the gay marriage train.

Too much of this movement is grounded in fantasy, in the idea that they can make up any message they want and transform it, with the imprimatur of the mainstream media, into "truthiness"—a secular Gospel.

You and I know that cannot happen.

The voices of reason, experience, and faith come together in the marriage movement: in the common-sense understanding that marriage is unique for a reason.

God bless you for your courage in standing up for God's truth.

At NOM we will keep fighting for your rights, and for the rights of children to know and be known by, to love and be loved by, their mom and their dad.

Faithfully,

Brian Brown

Brian S Brown

Brian S. Brown
President
National Organization for Marriage

P.S. What can you do today to protect marriage? Whether you can give $20 or $200, or a monthly donation of just $5, you can make a difference in our world!

Contribute

"Massive Overreaction" Says Lawyer for UK Man Demoted Over Marriage Comments on Facebook

The BBC:

"Adrian Smith had his pay cut by 40% when he lost his managerial post at Trafford Housing Trust (THT) and was redeployed as an adviser. Mr Smith, 54, who stated that he was a THT manager on his Facebook page, wrote that "marriage is for men and women". The trust said he had been disciplined for breaching its code of conduct.

... The father-of two, from Bolton, wrote "an equality too far" on his page next to a BBC News Online story with the headline, "Gay church 'marriage' set to get the go-ahead".

... Mr Smith went on to comment on his Facebook page that, "The Bible is quite specific that marriage is for men and women".

"If the state wants to offer civil marriages to the same sex then that is up to the state; but the state shouldn't impose its rules on places of faith and conscience", he wrote.

His solicitor Tom Ellis, of Aughton Ainsworth law firm, said: "It is an extreme and massive overreaction by the trust that a man can lose his job over what I imagine most people would find are not extreme views.

"They weren't intended to be offensive and are an opinion over which he has suffered a huge pay cut."

Gay liberation Network Refuses to Condemn Attack, Threats Against Christian Liberty Academy

Charlie Butts at OneNewsNow:

A Chicago-based homosexual activist group says it won't condemn a vandalism attack against a Christian academy and pro-family group.

On October 15, homosexual activists, who later took credit for the attack, threw concrete bricks through the door and windows of the Christian Liberty Academy in suburban Chicago (see earlier story). The site was chosen for the attack because it hosted a fundraising banquet for Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.

... LaBarbera argues that if the vandalism had been against a homosexual group there would have been immediate media and police attention. “There's a massive double-standard when it comes to these so-called 'hate crimes,'” he contends. “I don't really believe in the concept of hate crimes, but it seems that it's mainly a political tool to help certain victims and not other politically incorrect victims, i.e. Christians.”

... On behalf of the [Gay Liberation Network], Schwartz posted comments about the attack on a pro-homosexual website. The group claims that Lively and LaBarbera were responsible for the attack themselves, in an attempt to appear victimized. However, the post goes on to speak against the activities of AFTAH and the Academy and ends by approving of the attack against what it describes as a “hate-group.”

Schwartz concludes the post: “We urge that the attention be kept on the real haters and violence cheerleaders…and not those who commit petty vandalism.”