Tag Archives: Gay Rights

Commentary

Ron Paul on the issues: Ron Paul’s positions on abortion and gay marriage

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Ron Paul on gay marriage

Let’s look in this article from the Advocate to find out Ron Paul’s views on same-sex marriage.

Excerpt:

Paul was asked whether his libertarian views on such controversial issues — mainly his belief that personal liberties should not be encroached upon by the federal government — could help him attract socially conservative voters. Paul said he believes that states should have the right to legalize gay marriage, marijuana, and prostitution if they choose to do so.

“If you do not protect liberty across the board, it’s a First Amendment–type issue,” he said. “We don’t have a First Amendment so we can talk about the weather. We have the First Amendment so we can say very controversial things. So, for people to say that, ‘Yes, we have our religious beliefs protected, but people who want to follow something else, or a controversial religion — you can’t do this’ … if you have the inconsistency, then you’re really not defending liberty. But there are strict rules on freedom of choice of this sort, because you can’t hurt other people, you can’t defame other people, but yes, you have a right to do things that are very controversial. If not, you’re going to end up with a government that can tell you what to eat or drink or whatever.”

Gay conservative group GOProud released a statement in support of Paul and the other politicians seeking the party’s nomination.

“[We] thank Congressman Ron Paul for rightly making the case that marriage and family laws should be decided at the state level, not by the politicians in Washington,” the organization said Friday.

That’s Ron Paul’s view of marriage.

Ron Paul on abortion

Here’s what Ron Paul wrote about abortion.

Excerpt:

As the Senate prepares to vote on the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito this week, our nation once again finds itself bitterly divided over the issue of abortion. It’s a sad spectacle, especially considering that our founders never intended for social policy to be decided at the federal level, and certainly not by federal courts. It’s equally sad to consider that huge numbers of Americans believe their freedoms hinge on any one individual, Supreme Court justice or not.

Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided, but not because the Supreme Court presumed to legalize abortion rather than ban it. Roe was wrongly decided because abortion simply is not a constitutional issue. There is not a word in the text of that document, nor in any of its amendments, that conceivably addresses abortion. There is no serious argument based on the text of the Constitution itself that a federal “right to abortion” exists. The federalization of abortion law is based not on constitutional principles, but rather on a social and political construct created out of thin air by the Roe court.

Under the 9th and 10th amendments, all authority over matters not specifically addressed in the Constitution remains with state legislatures. Therefore the federal government has no authority whatsoever to involve itself in the abortion issue. So while Roe v. Wade is invalid, a federal law banning abortion across all 50 states would be equally invalid.

What states would legalize abortion if Ron Paul allowed states to decide whether abortion should be legal?

Here’s the map:

Which states would Ron Paul allow to legalize abortion?
Which states would Ron Paul allow to legalize abortion?

That’s Ron Paul’s view of abortion.

You can read more about Ron Paul’s troubling views on social issues on Caffeinated Thoughts.

But there’s more. Here’s Ron Paul’s view of the Middle East. He is indifferent to Iran having nuclear weapons. Especially troubling, given the recent terrorist attack on American soil, which implicated the elite Iranian Quds Force.

UPDATE: A commenter adds:

It’s more accurate to say that these are Paul’s views on how states should go about answering these issues. His personal views on these issues are quite clear, that he ascribes to the natural view of marriage and abhors abortion. However he advocates relegating these issues to individual states because of his overriding commitment to a limited federal government and because he believes the constitution does not enumerate such decisions to the federal government for it to answer such questions for all states in the union.

This is true. But if the man becomes President, a lot of unborn babies will still be killed in states that he allows to legalize abortion, and a lot of children will still grow up without a mother or a father, in states that he allows to redefine marriage.  So despite his personal views, the net effect of electing him will be that abortion is permitted in some states, and same-sex marriage, too. So clearly, Ron Paul is not as pro-life or as pro-marriage as other candidates like Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum.

News

Christian demoted for expressing disagreement with same-sex marriage

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From the UK Daily Mail, worrying news about the state of free speech in the UK. (H/T Dina)

Excerpt:

Mr Smith has worked for 18 years for Trafford Council and Trafford Housing Trust, which manages more than 9,000 homes in Sale, Greater Manchester.

But he now finds his career in tatters over a comment he wrote on his personal Facebook page one Sunday morning in response to a BBC story headlined ‘Gay church “marriages” get go-ahead’. The story referred to Government plans to lift the ban on homosexual couples holding civil partnerships in churches and other religious settings.

Mr Smith, whose Facebook profile identified him as working for the Trust as a housing manager, commented: ‘An equality too far.’

A few hours later, one of his Facebook friends, a work colleague whose identity is not known to The Mail on Sunday, posted: ‘Does this mean you don’t approve?’

The following evening after work, Mr Smith, who attends an evangelical church in Bolton, responded: ‘No, not really. I don’t understand why people who have no faith and don’t believe in Christ would want to get hitched in church.

[…]Mr Smith was disciplined after a second colleague complained to the Trust’s ‘equality and diversity lead’, Helen Malone.

A few days later, Mr Smith was summoned from his home to a meeting at the Trust’s headquarters in Sale, where he was told he was being suspended while the complaint was investigated.

He was warned that even though his Facebook page could be viewed only by registered friends, rather than by the general public, those readers included colleagues who had taken issue with his comments.

A shocked Mr Smith, who managed a team looking after local housing issues, immediately removed the reference to where he worked from the page.

The following month he was called to a disciplinary meeting before Mike Corfield, the Trust’s Assistant Director, Customers. Although Mr Smith was allowed to put his case, insiders described the meeting as ‘tense and fraught’.

According to legal documents lodged at Manchester County Court, Debbie Gorman, a ‘neighbourhood manager’ also at the meeting, said Mr Smith’s comment could cause offence.

She said she had interpreted it as saying ‘gay people are not as equal as people who are not gay’ and that the comment could be viewed as homophobic.

Mr Corfield said it was not the comment but its potential misinterpretation that was at issue, but still ruled that Mr Smith had committed a serious breach of discipline for which he could be dismissed.

But because of his loyal service, Mr Smith was instead demoted to money support adviser, handling rent collection. His pay was reduced to £21,396, phased in over a year, and he was given a final written warning.

Mr Smith has been advised he cannot speak to the press, but his solicitor Tom Ellis, of Aughton Ainsworth in Manchester, said: ‘Adrian was shocked and distressed to have been disciplined in this way. He never expected this to happen – it came completely out of the blue.

When people on the secular left talk about tolerance, equality and diversity, this is what they mean. You can’t even make a comment on your on personal Facebook page without being censored by state for thought crime.

The fact is that gay rights and religious liberty are on a legal collision course. (H/T Ruth Blog)

Excerpt:

When the relationships of “gay people” need societal validation, some of them, at least, have made it clear that it’s not all that wrong to stop dissenters from living according to their beliefs.

“There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases, the sexual liberty should win because that’s the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner,” said sexual activist and former ACLU attorney Chai Feldblum before President Obama appointed her to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where she now has power to try to enforce that view. “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win,” she said.

Indeed, isn’t this the reason that the religious liberty exemptions in the New York marriage redefinition bill don’t include conscience exceptions for individuals or businesses? The idea is that everyone must accept the newly imposed values and live accordingly. A wedding photographer who can’t in good conscience use her artistic expression to make a same-sex ceremony look good as part of her creative work will be regarded no differently than the racist behind the lunch counter who doesn’t want to serve blacks. As Feldblum explained in The Brooklyn Law Review:

Just as we do not tolerate private racial beliefs that adversely affect African-Americans in the commercial arena, even if such beliefs are based on religious views, we should similarly not tolerate private beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity that adversely affect LGBT people.

And if you’re a New York clerk who has a problem of conscience with issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Gov. Andrew Cuomo says you need to give up your job, despite New York law that states otherwise. After all, as one Albany law professor who apparently doesn’t bat an eye about putting this on par with racism says, “There is just not a good legal argument that you have the right to discriminate.”

So if you’ve been on the fence about protecting marriage—wondering how someone else’s same-sex “marriage” will affect your marriage—now you’ve got a good bit of the answer: if you’re part of the 62 percent of Americans who believe marriage should be defined only as the union of a man and a woman, prepare to be regarded as the Ku Klux Klan member next door—and for your children to be taught the same perspective at your local government-run school. As a post titled “Can We Please Just Start Admitting That We Do Actually Want To Indoctrinate Kids?” on the Queerty website put it:

They accuse us of exploiting children and in response we say, “NOOO! We’re not gonna make kids learn about homosexuality, we swear! It’s not like we’re trying to recruit your children or anything.” But let’s face it—that’s a lie. We want educators to teach future generations of children to accept queer sexuality. In fact, our very future depends on it.

The message is frequently that recognition for same-sex unions will have no effect on those who disagree with them, but the evidence clearly says otherwise. As Princeton politics professor Robert P. George notes, “once one buys into ideology of sexual liberalism, the reality that has traditionally been denominated as ‘marriage’ loses all intelligibility . . . one will come to regard one’s allegiance to sexual liberalism as a mark of urbanity and sophistication, and will likely find oneself looking down on those ‘ignorant,’ ‘intolerant,’ ‘bigoted’ people—those hicks and rubes—who refuse to get ‘on the right side of history.’”

And let this be a lesson to all of you who don’t have aliases, and who do have your colleagues who can see your comments on sites like Facebook. Don’t be surprised when things like this happen to you.

News

California public schools introduce gay indoctrination starting in kindergarten

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From the liberal Los Angeles Times. (H/T Come Reason)

Excerpt:

At Wonderland Avenue Elementary School in Laurel Canyon, there are lesson plans on diverse families — including those with two mommies or daddies — books on homosexual authors in the library and a principal who is openly gay.

But even at this school, teachers and administrators are flummoxed about how to carry out a new law requiring California public schools to teach all students — from kindergartners to 12th graders — about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans in history classes.

“At this point, I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” Principal Don Wilson said.

Educators across the state don’t have much time to figure it out. In January, they’re expected to begin teaching about LGBT Americans under California’s landmark law, the first of its kind in the nation.

Notice how dissent from GLBT indoctrination is portrayed in the mainstream media:

In 2005, L.A. Unified debuted the nation’s first chapter in a high school health textbook on LGBT issues covering sexual orientation and gender identity, struggles over them and anti-LGBT bias. A section on misconceptions says sexual orientation is not a choice — a statement many religious conservatives disagree with.

Unfortunately for the leftist media, the peer-reviewed studies show that homosexuality is a choice – but that’s not what young people are going to learn in California public schools. They’ll learn what the GLBT lobby wants children to believe, instead.

And it’s OK to deprive a child of a mother or father:

On a recent morning, teacher Jane Raphael invited her two dozen kindergartners, first-graders and second-graders to sit in a circle and tell a story about their family. The students described a cross section of modern-day America: moms and dads and athletic siblings, crazy dogs, a cat named Lulu, a fish that died, divorced parents, a girl with two mommies.

You can bet that the public schools won’t be teaching the children about gay crime horror stories like Joshua Brown or Frank Lombard. These stories are a thousand times more horrifying than Matthew Shepard, but no one has ever heard about those stories. No, that’s not what the GLBT lobby wants children to learn about at all.

And that’s the problem with public schools – they only tell children what the government wants the special interest groups who get them elected want children to hear. The government wants to get re-elected, so they put public functions up for sale to the highest bidder. Special interest groups like the GLBT lobby promise them votes and campaign donations in exchange for telling children what they want the lobby wants them to believe. They only want to minimize the damage is to cut off the funding for government functions – perhaps by giving parents more control over education with voucher programs.

Even some Christian conservatives support this by voting to transfer money from private taxpayers into public schools. I once knew a Christian woman who told me that forcing her husband to pay more in taxes for public schools was a good idea, because public schools fed children free breakfasts so that all the children would be “equal”. Although she denied it, what she was really voting for was the indoctrination of children with gay proganda using her family’s money – money earned by her Christian husband. Apparently, she thought that the public schools needed her husband’s money more than her family did. When pressed by me, she admitted that she held that view because it made her feel good – she had never thought about the consequences of her voting for her husband’s ability to lead the family in a Christian direction.

Lenny has more to say about this decision by the California public schools.