Exxon Mobil continues pro-family stance

Shareholders continue to hold ground despite pressure from homosexual activists groups. This shows unique leadership in a corporate environment where “bending the knee” to a small but powerful gay lobby is commonplace. Read more.

Gay Marriage vs. the First Amendment?

From National Public Radio, no less:

As gay couples in California head to the courthouse starting Monday to get legally married, there are signs of a coming storm. Two titanic legal principles are crashing on the steps of the church, synagogue and mosque: equal treatment for same-sex couples on the one hand, and the freedom to exercise religious beliefs on the other.

The linked article includes summaries of court cases where activists have sued over adoption, housing, religious schooling, in-vitro fertilization, wedding services and facilities, and access of religious groups to public facilities. It's an indication that we need to do some serious thinking about the implications of gay marriage laws.

Update: Just wanted to share some thoughts from one more article on the same subject:

This illustrates exactly why when courts redefine marriage to include same-sex couples, it is no simple matter of letting private individuals do what they wish...

Now we see what happens when this newly redefined right to have strangers regard one’s relationship as particular and intimate crashes into the reality that most of the world’s religions regard such intimacy between two women or two men as wrong in one way or another – as “fundamentally disordered,” as the Catholics put it.

What happens is that judges sweep the religious views aside.

Not that courts are outlawing the mere belief that gay sex is a sin, at least not yet. But as Marc D. Stern of the American Jewish Congress writes in Tuesday's L.A. Times, allowing mere belief or not actually forcing clergy to perform gay “marriages” is an awfully narrow view of religious liberty.

The practical effect is that religions are increasingly stopped from behaving as if they believed that homosexual relationships were wrong. Believers can believe; they just can’t let that belief govern their actions if it in any way impairs what is a new right to have one’s homosexual relationship affirmed by the implicit social approval that comes with marriage. Under this new calculus, so much as merely declining to shoot pictures for pay amounts to an unacceptable “hatred.”

“Human Rights” in Canada--and New Mexico

A “human rights commission” in Alberta, Canada, has ruled that a Christian pastor, Rev. Stephen Boission, has no right to say anything “disparaging” about homosexuality. Here’s Ezra Levant’s summary:

A Christian pastor has been given a lifetime ban against uttering anything "disparaging" about gays. Not against anything "hateful", let alone something legally defined as "hate speech". Just anything negative.

So a pastor cannot give a sermon.

But he must give a false sermon; he is positively ordered to renounce his deeply held religious beliefs, and apologize to his tormentor for having those views.

And then that pastor is ordered to declare to his entire city that he has renounced his religious views, even though he has not.

That's Alberta's human rights commission.

If you follow the links and read the ruling, you’ll see that the basic issue was an anti-gay-marriage letter to the editor by the pastor, published in the local paper. Frankly, the letter was pretty harsh, and the language in it was probably not the way that I would try to persuade someone of my views about homosexuality. It isn’t exactly a prime example of Christian love. But, Rev. Boisson’s views are certainly based in Biblical passages about homosexuality.

Canada doesn’t have identical free speech protections as our first amendment, but it does have a similar passage in its founding charter. Nevertheless, a government commission (not even a real court) has ruled that Christians don’t have the right to express a religious belief.

It’s easy to say well, that’s Canada, it can’t happen here. And it’s true that we have stronger free speech protections than our neighbors to the north, but at least one state, New Mexico, has its own human rights commission similar to the Canadian system.

From Eugene Volokh, Photographers Denied the Freedom To Choose What They Photograph:

Elaine Huguenin co-owns Elane Photography with her husband… Elane refused to photograph Vanessa Willock's same-sex commitment ceremonies, and just today the New Mexico Human Rights Commission held that this violated state antidiscrimination law. Elane has been ordered to pay over $6600 in attorney's fees and costs.

One blogger summarized the issue this way:

The Huguenins have the right to refuse to photograph any number of things they regard as moral issues, whether it’s a photo shoot at Planned Parenthood, a poster for the Ku Klux Klan, or a keepsake album for participants in a baby seal hunt. The Constitution may offend the politically correct crowd, but it is quite clear that Americans should not be forced to promote a private message that violates their conscience.

Enter At Your Own Risk

As of last Friday, it is now legal in the state of Colorado for men to enter women’s locker rooms. This radical law was the product of gay activists as they continue their campaign to normalize homosexuality in our culture.

Worldnetdaily.com article

The Denver Post makes it seem like this new law is no big deal.

High School Students Counter Pro-Gay Day

The Alliance Defense Fund reports that The Day of Truth (April 28th, 2008) will be designed to counter the pro-gay event known as “The Day of Silence” (April 25th, 2008).

Watch a short video about it here.

To learn more, go to: www.dayoftruth.org.

Pro-gay “Day of Silence” in U.S. Schools

This was reported in an email by AFA.net:

Homosexual Day of Silence - Is Your Child's School on the list?

Because of the action of concerned parents, hundreds of schools have removed their school as a listed participant in the pro-homosexual "Day of Silence." You can join the fight for your children too!

On, Friday, April 25, several thousand schools across the nation will be observing "Day of Silence (DOS)." DOS is a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools.

When AFA alerted parents of this public school classroom disruption by homosexual student activists, many took action immediately! If you haven't gotten involved, it's critical that you do so today!

A simple phone call or letter to school administrators, telling them your child will not attend school the day it observes DOS, may be enough to cause some participating schools to change their plans. Sample letter here.

Please listen to a 60-second radio ad warning parents about Day of Silence, then forward this email to your local Christian or conservative radio station. Ask them to broadcast it as a Public Service Announcement (PSA)! MP3 file or WAV file

Click here for Frequently Asked Questions about the Day of Silence.

In the past week alone, over 200 schools have announced they are dropping plans to participate. Please, get involved for the sake or your children, and all children, today!

Take Action!

What should parents do? Check with your local school principal to see if your child's school will be participating in DOS. If the school is participating, notify other parents about DOS and ask them to join in keeping their children out of school on that day.

Here is a partial list of schools which are expected to participate in DOS: If your school is listed, call your local school and ascertain whether they officially or passively allow students to observe "Day of Silence." If your school is listed, please double-check with your local school to see if the school is actually sponsoring DOS. Sometimes the "participation" turns out to be a handful of kids who are saying they have a homosexual club and are observing this protest day, but without school endorsement. We sincerely hope your school, if listed, is not actually an official sponsor. If it is not, we will take them off the list, if a school official asks us to do so. Please e-mail your correction to webmaster@missionamerica.com.

Some tips:

1. Be sure of the date that DOS is planned for your school. (The national date is April 25, but some schools observe DOS on a different date.)
2. Inform the school of your intention to keep your child home on that date and explain why. Click here for a sample letter.
3. Explain to your children why you're taking a stand: Homosexual behavior is not an innate identity; it is a sinful, unnatural and destructive behavior. No school should advance a physically, emotionally, and spiritually destructive sexual lifestyle to students.
4. Schools do not have to tolerate students remaining silent in class. Schools can adopt policies that require parental consent for students to attend any club, including those premised on sexual orientation or gender identity. Click here for more information from Attorney Mat Staver with Liberty Counsel who provides free information to parents, students, and schools regarding their rights associated with noncompliance on the Day of Silence.

Could The Golden State Go Red in 2008?

Christianexaminer.com reports that “Christian leaders in California were given ‘a real jolt and a wake-up call’ Oct. 12 when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger stunned conservatives by signing into law several bills—similar to those he vetoed last year—that expand homosexual teaching in public schools.” Pastors across California are responding by organizing a major petition drive aimed at getting a marriage protection amendment on the November 2008 ballot. If the churches in the Golden State (see article) respond like churches in Ohio did in 2004, is it possible that the state could go red?

Mayor Not Intimidated By Homosexual Activists

Mayor Jim Naugle (D) continues to show bold leadership and persaverence as he tries to save lives in his community of Fort Lauderdale despite opposition and efforts at intimidation by local gay activists.

Watch related videos by clicking here.

What “hate crimes” laws can do to Christian freedom

Here’s a sample of what can happen if the Senate passes S.1105, the "hate crimes" bill.

Dem Candidates go Gay TV

Last Thursday evening, The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay-left lobby, hosted a one-hour Democratic presidential debate on Logo, the Viacom gay channel and sister network to CBS.

Newsbusters reports:

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have confirmed their attendance. As a colleague joked yesterday about Democrat refusal to acknowledge Fox as a news network: "Oh, so the Democrats won’t go on networks with an agenda."

Read more.

The Intolerance of Today’s Tolerance Movement

There is a modern myth that true tolerance consists of neutrality. Nothing could be further from the truth. One can not tolerate something unless one disagrees with that thing. This important point has been lost in the modern perversion of the word tolerance. Now, if you think something is wrong, one is considered intolerant. In his Townhall.com article entitled "Gen. Pace & the Myth of Moral Neutrality,” Greg Koukl writes that the buzz surrounding Gen. Pace's moral comments "reflects one of the most entrenched assumptions of moral relativism in our society today: that there is such a thing as morally neutral ground, a place of complete impartiality where no judgments nor any forcing of personal views are allowed. Each of us takes a neutral posture towards the moral convictions of others. This is the essence of tolerance, or so the argument goes."

Coach Tony Dungy not intimidated by gay activists

Watch this clip as he responds to the pressure.