Judging Marriage, Proposition 8 Struck Down

One gay judge invalidates 7,000,000 voters in California.

Chuck Colson
Chuck Colson

8/5/2010 – Chuck Colson –

Yesterday, federal district court Judge Vaughn Walker, a Reagan appointee, overturned California’s Proposition 8, which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

While the immediate impact is limited to the state of California, the consequences of this egregious bit of judicial overreach threatens to be nationwide.

Two years ago, the California Supreme Court ruled that denying same-sex couples the right to marry violated the state constitution. In response, supporters of traditional marriage followed California’s legal and democratic process: They collected enough signatures to put a proposed amendment to the state constitution on the ballot. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Reality and the American Left

8/1/2010 – Steve McCann –

Europe, the birthplace of socialist/Marxist theory, is rapidly retreating from this failed ideology — and has been for some time. There is now an open discussion among the most die-hard of Leftist ideologues conceding the fact that a political or economic system which guarantees prosperity to that country’s citizens, and operates a massive central government model, cannot work in the modern age of global economy and communication.

In the United States, however, the Left, including those in the White House, are determined to go where others have failed. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Ground Zero is American Holy Ground. No Mosque Near Ground Zero

Ground Zero Cross 7/27/2010 – Fr. Johannes Jacobse –

Sacred ground is more easily understood by European Christians than their American counterparts. Some events are so catastrophic, or prove to be so historically significant, that they transcend the categories we normally employ to explain them. These events must reference something higher to make sense to us.

NAPLES (Catholic Online) – Muslims have it over secularists, but not Christians – at least the clear thinking ones anyway. The Muslim proposal to build a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero is not only an affront to all people who died there, but another chapter in a cultural jihad that seeks to replace the cultural traditions of Christendom with Sharia, the code of law derived from the Koran and from the teachings and example of Mohammed.

First the caveats. Yes, most Muslims are not jihadists; they may see the non-Muslim as an infidel but won’t resort to violence to defeat him . Yes, Muslim believers pose no threat to American cultural norms and legal structures as long as their numbers remain small. Yes, every Muslim citizen should be afforded the rights due to all Americans regardless of their religion. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

The Evolutionary Scientists: Apostles of a New Morality

7/25/2010 – Miguel A. Guanipa –

Most evolutionary scientists are unacquainted with the nearly extinct brand of academic deference which comes from a humbling realization that a science degree does not automatically confer a plenary understanding of the vast complexity of the universe. The least diffident ones in the field are not shy about airing their personal grievances against what they view as Religion’s insolent encroachment on the scientific enterprise.

In response, Christians often feel compelled by necessity to point out that these men of science step outside of their boundaries, when they advise the former not to engage in polemics about scientific matters too lofty for their intellects to comprehend. Christians are hence tasked with reminding overzealous scientists that their discipline is more suited to probe the sundry observable schemes that animate our meticulously woven universe, and not to pronounce moral judgments. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Delegitimizing Liberalism

7/22/2010 – J. Robert Smith –

Five decades after liberalism began to fail, it’s still with us and finding potent ways to diminish liberty. Liberalism has — or seems to have — more lives than a cat. It’s sustained principally by two things, both powerful: myth and interest. If liberalism as a political and societal force is ever to be marginalized, it first must be separated from the myth that it grows in the same garden of liberty and republican virtues as conservatism and libertarianism. Voters and the public need to learn and appreciate that liberalism is largely a statist creed alien to the nation’s heritage. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

ObamaCare Mythology: One Man’s Life Is Another Man’s Loss

ObamaCare A nightmare for America7/20/2010 – John Griffing –

If President Obama is to be believed, health care is a dwindling, finite resource that must be rationed. According to Obama, quality health care for some deprives the less fortunate of quality care. The only good health care in Obama’s worldview is that which is “redistributional.”

So says Dr. Donald Berwick, Obama’s new health care czar, appointed to oversee the distribution of $800 billion worth of benefits payments. This mostly means denying life-extending treatment to seniors, in practice. Of course, Obama lacks the constitutional authority to appoint an individual with this kind of authority without Senate confirmation, but using the “recess appointment” ruse, shocking even Democrat senators, Berwick now holds vast power over who gets what medical treatment.

But no matter. Obama has decided. Illegality has not stopped other contentious Obama appointments. Obama does what he wants, when he wants, regardless of his sworn oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Pity the Postmodern Cultural Elite

7/20/2010 – Victor Davis Hanson –

I think most of our problems transcend politics, which is increasingly a reflection of an elite, insider culture that is completely at odds with the majority of the country that it oversees.

So what is a cultural elite?
It is a sloppy term that might include the academic class in the university that educates our children in college. The upper echelons that run government departments constitute part of this cultural elite. So does an entertainment cadre that oversees television and Hollywood. Corporate managers are elites as well.

There is no racial, regional, religious, or tribal commonality. One shared allegiance perhaps is to higher education that certifies the cultural elite by diplomas of all sorts from a “good school,” as well as a respectable salary and a nice home with appurtenances. The good life of the elite is defined by both the absence of worry about necessities, and a certain status that accrues from properly recognized advanced education and sensitivity. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Read the Label

Chuck Colson
Chuck Colson

7/19/2010 – Chuck Colson –

Everywhere you turn, someone is warning Americans about the dangers of childhood obesity. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver toured the country preaching the gospel of healthier school lunches. The first lady has made fighting childhood obesity her top priority.

While I’m all for healthier eating and exercise, I can’t help but think, however, that in our concern over our kids’ waistlines, we have overlooked a far bigger threat—the one to their souls.

The threat I’m referring to is pornography. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

An Independent Witness to Marriage

7/16/2010 – Stuart Koehl –

In the pending court case for overturning California’s Proposition 8, which banned “gay marriage,” two leading conservative legal scholars face off: Charles J. Cooper, taking the classical conservative line that organic social institutions such as marriage have an inherent value and cannot be redefined by legal fiat, and Theodore Olson, taking the more libertarian line that government should simply regulate contractual relationships between individuals and not become involved in private matters. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail