Tag Archives: Litigation

French mayor faces jail time for refusing to conduct gay couple’s wedding

From the NY Daily News.

Excerpt:

Jean-Michel Colo stirred up controversy by becoming the first French official to formally refuse to officiate at the wedding of a gay couple, Jean-Michel Martin and Guy Martineau-Espel. The Arcangues mayor’s actions defied a landmark French law allowing same-sex unions.

Two men are suing the mayor of a French village for refusing to marry them, in the first reported legal action over same-sex marriage since it was legalized in May amid strong, sometimes violent opposition.

Guy Martineau-Espel and Jean-Michel Martin, both in their 50s, filed a legal complaint against the mayor for refusing to marry them at the town hall of Arcangues, a village in southwestern France where the couple has lived for a decade.

“We will fight this battle to the finish,” Martineau-Espel told Reuters.

France adopted legislation in May that allows gay and lesbian couples to marry and adopt children, following in the footsteps of 13 other countries.

But the move divided opinion in France and came at a political price for the already unpopular government of President Francois Hollande.

Opponents of the law, led by Catholics and conservatives, staged mass street protests, some of which ended in violence, and the debate was also blamed for a spate of homophobic attacks in the mainly Catholic country.

Weddings in France are conducted by mayors or their deputies at town halls, of which there are about 36,000.

The couple in Arcangues applied to marry in May but the right-wing mayor, Jean-Michel Colo, turned them down.

Colo was summoned earlier this week by a government official and told to apply the law. He asked for more time to consider his options, prompting the couple to take action.

A refusal to comply with the gay marriage law could mean Colo faced up to five years in jail and a fine of up to 75,000 euros ($98,000).

“Even if in the end we manage to get married, we will stay the course with our legal complaint,” said Martineau-Espel.

This is pretty standard for countries that legalize gay marriage. You can just look at these examples from Canada, for confirmation that this is what happens after a country legalizes gay marriage. And they all promise that religious liberty will be protected before it’s passed, too. It’s even happening in Massachusetts.

Do you believe Obama when he says that our religious liberty will be protected even if marriage is redefined to include gay marriage, polygamy and polyamory? I think you can believe Obama as much about that as you can believe him about being able to keep your health care plan or about the Benghazi attack being caused by a Youtube video. The man’s a pathological liar, and that’s been proven over and over again.

What opposition to Christmas displays tells us about atheism

A post critical of litigious atheists, by Doug Giles.

Excerpt:

The atheists I grew up with in Texas were a tad bit pluckier than today’s lardy hagfish atheists who file lawsuits every winter when they see a child wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Yep, the anti-theists I used to hang out with in the Lone Star state were rugged individualists who were so busy milking this existence that they didn’t have time to bleat like a stuck sheep because a plastic baby Jesus statue endangered their delicate beliefs.

My other non-believing buddies who weren’t the robust Hemingway types were usually heady stoners who were into physics, Pink Floyd and Frisbee and were completely comfortable around people of faith versus today’s reflexively irate, touchy atheists who pop a blood vein in their forehead if they accidentally hear “Silent Night” playing at Macy’s.

For God’s sake atheists, übermensch up why don’t you?

Giles then goes on to explain one of the latest attempts by former-Pentecostal-hymn-singer Dan Barker to ban nativity scenes and other Christmas stuff from being displayed.

Then concludes:

Yep, according to the 21st century metrosexual atheist motif, anything that offends them should now be banned. That makes me scratch my head because I thought the atheists were the tough-minded ones who could stare death in the face and mock God and His dictates, but now a silicone statue of Yeshua in diapers puts them in a tailspin. Hello, sweetie.

He mentions Dan Barker in his article, so I think it’s worth linking to this post I wrote about how Dan Barker abandoned Christianity. To persist in the Christian life requires a certain amount of intelligence and wisdom. You have to be good at life. Dan couldn’t cut it.

Intel CEO blames Democrats for destroying the economy

Article from CNET News by someone who understands job creation. (H/T Neil Simpson’s latest round-up)

Excerpt:

Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini offered a depressing set of observations about the economy and the Obama administration Monday evening, coupled with a dark commentary on the future of the technology industry if nothing changes.

Otellini’s remarks during dinner at the Technology Policy Institute’s Aspen Forum here amounted to a warning to the administration officials and assorted Capitol Hill aides in the audience: unless government policies are altered, he predicted, “the next big thing will not be invented here. Jobs will not be created here.”

The U.S. legal environment has become so hostile to business, Otellini said, that there is likely to be “an inevitable erosion and shift of wealth, much like we’re seeing today in Europe–this is the bitter truth.”

[…]Otellini singled out the political state of affairs in Democrat-dominated Washington, saying: “I think this group does not understand what it takes to create jobs. And I think they’re flummoxed by their experiment in Keynesian economics not working.”

Here’s Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina, from the same article:

The comments from Intel’s chief executive echoed statements made a day earlier by Carly Fiorina, the former HP CEO turned Republican Senate candidate.

America’s skilled-worker visa system is so badly broken and anti-immigration that “we have to start from scratch,” Fiorina said, adding that too many government policies push jobs overseas instead of making U.S. companies competitive against international rivals.

“Our corporate tax rates are the second highest in the world,” and Congress has repeatedly failed to make an R&D tax credit permanent, Fiorina told the Aspen audience. It’s time to start “acknowledging the reality that companies go where they’re welcome,” she said. (The effective U.S. corporate income tax is 35 percent, far over the industrialized-nation average of 18.2 percent.)

Here’s a recent IBD article with more from Otellini, and other CEOs

First Otellini:

“I can tell you definitively that it costs $1 billion more per factory for me to build, equip and operate a semiconductor manufacturing facility in the U.S.,” he said. And 90% of that added cost, he said, is due to taxes and regulations that other countries don’t have.

Then other CEOs:

Earlier in the week, Illinois Tool Works CEO David Speer, whose company employs 60,000 worldwide, laid out his dilemma — and that of hundreds of other CEOs: “I could borrow $2 billion tomorrow for 3 1/2%,” Speer said. “But what am I going to do with it?”

[…]In June, Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon Communications and head of the Business Roundtable, warned of a growing anti-business slant in both Congress and the White House. Tax hikes, regulations and constant policy shifts, he said, “harm our ability … to grow private-sector jobs in the U.S.”

And don’t forget the costs that Obamacare imposed on companies, causing all medical premiums to go through the roof because of the new health care mandates and taxes on things like medical devices.

Red State explains what the Obammunists should be doing:

As our government continues to make it more difficult to do business in the US, companies must increasingly look to more favorable climates abroad. If Washington really wants to spur job creation here in the US, they should repeal the health care overhaul, reduce spending, cut the corporate tax rate, give up on cap and trade, and reform litigation. Instead we have been treated to an extended experiment in government control – one that is obviously not producing new wealth, new jobs, or any real hope for the emergence of the industries of the future.

It takes a lot of courage for a CEO like Otellini to come out against the Obama administration, and the neo-Keynesian oligarchy in Washington. Taking a billion dollars from Intel to study Chinese prostitutes and to build turtle tunnels is not a good thing to do if you want to have more jobs. But the thing is – Obama thinks it is a good thing to do, because he is totally ignorant of how the economy works. So, don’t vote for him or any of his silver-spoon limousine liberal friends who were born with rich parents. Democrats don’t know how jobs are created.