Tag Archives: Washington

News

Atheist morality: Seattle’s gay Democrat mayor resigns after child sex abuse allegations

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Young people seem to like gay marriage more than they like individual liberties
Young people seem to like gay marriage more than they like individual liberties

The main thing I remember about this man is that he strongly pushed for gay marriage in the state of Washington, and that he was celebrated by atheists when gay marriage became the law in Washington. Everyone was proud of him, proud of gay marriage, and proud of their state, because this is the kind of morality that atheists champion.

The far-left New York Times reports:

The mayor of Seattle, Ed Murray, said on Tuesday that he would resign after announcing in May that he would not seek a second term. Several men have comeforward to accuse Mr. Murray of sexually abusing them decades ago, when they were underage.

The announcement came just hours after The Seattle Times published a story with an account by a fifth man, Mr. Murray’s cousin, who said Mr. Murray had abused him in the 1970s.

[..]Mr. Murray, 62, a Democrat, is the city’s first openly gay mayor, and had served in the State Legislature for many years before being elected in 2013.

[…]The liberal Mr. Murray is generally considered a father of Washington’s same-sex marriage law, which he pressed in the State Legislature for years.

The radically-leftist New York Times isn’t about to tell you what this Democrat gay-marriage activist actually did – that’s not news that’s fit to print. For that you have to go to Life Site News.

Gay activist Terry Bean and Barack Obama
Gay activist Terry Bean and Barack Obama

Not the first time

Here’s some Democrat concern for the chldren, reported in the far-left CNN, of all places. Headline: “Obama backer, Democratic fundraiser Terry Bean charged in sexual abuse case”.

Excerpt:

A prominent supporter of President Barack Obama and co-founder of the Human Rights Campaign was arrested last week on charges of sodomy and sexual abuse related to what authorities said was an encounter with a juvenile male.

Terrence Bean, 66, a major Democratic donor and a celebrated gay-rights activist, was indicted on two felony charges of sodomy and a misdemeanor count of sexual abuse by a grand jury and arrested in Oregon Wednesday, according to a statement from the Portland Police Bureau.

[…]The charges relate to an alleged encounter the two had with a 15-year-old boy in Oregon last year, The Oregonian reported. Bean’s attorney has denied the charges and said in a statement that Bean is the “victim of an extortion ring.” CNN is not naming the alleged victim because the network does not identify minors or victims of sexual assaults.

[…]Bean, a real-estate developer and co-founder of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and the Human Rights Campaign, is a powerful figure in Democratic politics.

The Oregonian reported that he helped raise more than half a million dollars for Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, and Federal Election Commission records show he’s contributed thousands to Democrats, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and others.

Photos posted online show him with the Obamas, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and aboard Air Force One with the President.

In remarks at a 2009 Human Rights Campaign dinner, President Obama thanked Bean, calling him a “great friend and supporter.”

This goes right to the top of the Democrat party. Gay activists are connected to people at the top of the Democrat party. When a person votes Democrat, they’re either pedophiles themselves or they are (effectively) voting for increased normalization of pedophilia.

Pedophilia is nothing but the elevation of the desires of selfish adults over the protection of children. And we already know where the Democrats stand on that – we just have to look at how they reconcile irresponsible recreational sex with the right to life of the unborn. This is the party of adult selfishness. They don’t care about the needs of children at all. They see children as commodities, instead of people made in the image of God in order to know God.

Objective morality for atheists

I have a friend who is an atheist who tells me that he doesn’t need God to ground objective moral values. He is a good person, he says. He supports gay marriage. He was proud when the Seattle mayor got gay marriage passed in his state. He says that objective moral values are easily grounded on atheism.

Let’s review what objective morality (moral realism) really means in practice for atheists:

In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

(Richard Dawkins, “God’s Utility Function,” Scientific American, November, 1995, p. 85)

Whatever morality atheists try to claim, the truth is that their worldview cannot ground it rationally. This universe is an accident. There are no objective human rights. There is no objective morality. There is no free will nor moral agency. There is no judge of our actions when we die. Other human beings are just lumps of matter to be used for our own pleasure, as long as we are powerful enough to escape the disapproval of those accursed Bible-believers. Assume that every atheist is either like the Seattle mayor or is proud of what he is doing. That’s what atheists vote for, after all. This is the world they want to actualize through their voting. The whole point of atheism is to get rid of moral restraints on the pursuit of pleasure. The great virtue that motivates young atheists to turn away from the Bible is just “I want to get drunk and have premarital sex without consequences”. End of story. It’s not intellectual.

More atheism objective morality:

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News

Supreme Court upholds vicious anti-Christian decision by 9th Circuit CA

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Barack Obama speaking to Planned Parenthood
Barack Obama speaking to Planned Parenthood

Free speech and religious liberty hero David French wrote about the Stormans family case on Tuesday, in National Review.

Just as a preliminary comment, I really like how upset David French is sounding lately. I have written posts in the pasts where I was upset, and said things that I wanted to take back. And I have a whole herd of editors who regularly tell me if the drafts that I send them are “too mean”. But this article by Mr. French has some comments that were I think a little over the edge, but that’s just fine with me. I liked it a lot. It’s time to be direct and say what is really motivating the secular left.

He says:

Today the Supreme Court declined to hear one of the most extraordinary and plainly vicious anti-Christian cases I’ve ever seen. My friends and colleagues at the Alliance Defending Freedom represent the Stormans family, owner’s of an Olympia, Washington, pharmacy called Ralph’s Thriftway. The Stormans — like many Christians pharmacists — decline to fill prescriptions for abortifacients (drugs that can kill a fertilized egg, often by preventing implantation). When customers request abortifacients, the Stormans decline to fill the prescription and then refer them to one of “more than 30 other pharmacies within five miles of Ralph’s.”

This process is entirely conventional and normal. Indeed, it was so mundane that the state of Washington stipulated that “facilitated referrals do not pose a threat to timely access to lawfully prescribed medications.” In other words, the fact that the Stormans refuse to sell abortifacients didn’t cause a single person to lose access to the drug of their choice. But to anti-Christian bigots, it is intolerable that Christian professionals exist unless they bow the knee to the Baal of the sexual revolution, so Washington’s governor took action — demanding that the Washington State Board of Pharmacy issue regulations that required pharmacists to issue abortifacients regardless of religious or moral objections. In his dissent from the Court’s denial of certiorari, Justice Alito described the state’s anti-religious motivations:

The District Court found that the regulations were adopted with “the predominant purpose” to “stamp out the right to refuse” to dispense emergency contraceptives for religious reasons. Among other things, the District Court noted the following. When the Board began to consider new regulations, the Governor of the State “sent a letter to the Board opposing referral for personal or conscientious reasons.” The State Human Rights Commission followed with “a letter threatening Board members with personal liability if they passed a regulation permitting referral” for religious or moral reasons. And after the Board initially voted to adopt rules allowing referrals for reasons of conscience, the Governor not only sent another letter opposing the draft rules but “publicly explained that she could remove the Board members” if need be.

Ah, yes. The “Human Rights Commissions” that exist in so many countries, whose primary purpose is to stamp out the basic human rights of Bible-believing Christians using the power of the state.

The governor in question, by the way, is Christine Gregoire, who narrowly defeated a wonderful conservative a while back named Dino Rossi in 2004, and then defeated him again by a larger margin in 2008. I wonder how many “Christians” voted for Gregoire in Washington state in those elections. Rossi favors an exception for the Christian pharmacists.

More:

Christian pharmacists could either comply with state demands or close their pharmacies — an action that could actually “reduce patient access to medication by forcing some pharmacies—particularly small, independent ones that often survive by providing specialty services not provided elsewhere—to close.”

Predictably, the Ninth Circuit sided with the state. Just as predictably, our pitiful Supreme Court let the ruling stand. So Washington gets away with its pure anti-Christian animus, and it establishes a state religion to the god of sex. While Washington is an outlier (for now), it is showing Blue America the path forward — and any red state governor who refuses to defend religious liberty is completely without excuse. They can’t rely on federal courts to cover for their own lack of courage and conviction. As for the church? If it keeps gutlessly delegating defense of its liberties entirely to lawyers and politicians, then it will richly deserve its legal fate. It’s time to take a stand.

So, in the state of Washington, one of the most liberal and secular states in the union, you can’t be a Christian and be a pharmacist.

I think what French is trying to say there is that groups like the ADF and the ACLJ have been a thin line of resistance to judicial tyranny for many years, but Christians are not helping things by voting for Democrats – usually because they are looking for a handout from the government at their neighbor’s expense. Remember, Obama got Supreme Court picks when he was elected and then re-elected. People who voted for Obama voted for a more liberal Supreme Court – and the persecution of real Christians, like the Stormans.

You can read more about the case from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) web site. And the Daily Signal has more about the history of the case.

Now, keep in mind that this is the same state that is going after a Christian florist who referred her a gay customer to another florist for their wedding. She had served him faithfully for years, but when she turned him away for their wedding, then the state decided to go after her for her life savings and business. Never live in this immoral state.

News

Washington D.C. city council repeals protections for religious schools

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From the Washington Times.

Excerpt:

The D.C. Council has stripped religious schools of legal protection against certain discrimination lawsuits, voting unanimously to repeal an exemption that had been in place for decades.

Under city rules, it is an “unlawful discriminatory practice” for a school to limit any use of facilities, services, or programs to someone based on “sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.”

However, an amendment inserted by Congress in a federal appropriations bill 25 years ago offered an exemption for religiously affiliated schools or schools “closely associated with the tenets of a religious organization,” allowing them to restrict funds, facilities and endorsements based on their religious convictions regarding homosexuality.

This provision, dubbed the “Armstrong Amendment,” came after Georgetown University refused to recognize a pro-gay student group, explained Michael Scott of the D.C. Catholic Conference.

Sen. William Armstrong authored the exemption, called the Nation’s Capital Religious Liberty and Academic Freedom Act, which allowed religiously affiliated schools in D.C. to withhold funds, facilities and approval from people and groups “that are organized for, or engaged in, promoting, encouraging, or condoning any homosexual act, lifestyle, orientation, or belief.”

But that exemption is now gone, thanks to a Dec. 2 vote by the council to overturn that provision. The council voted “unanimously without comment or changes” to pass the Human Rights Amendment of 2014, which included the repeal of the code, Mr. Scott explained.

Washington, D.C. is one of the most Democrat-dominated cities in the United States. So if you are wondering who pushes through an anti-Christian agenda like this one, it’s no mystery.