Massachusetts has long been dodging an official vote on Gay Marriage - mostly because votes of that nature tend to pass in favor of traditional marriage. The Massachusetts Legislature has, contrary to the law, pushed off the vote for two long, and a lawsuit was brought against them in the Massachusetts Supreme court. That court has returned its verdict:

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts today ruled that the legislature would be violating the state constitution should it once again refuse to vote on the marriage amendment before its Jan. 2 recess.

“The Massachusetts high court today has affirmed what the Alliance Defense Fund attorneys noted in our Dec. 13 lawsuit: Legislators have a sworn constitutional duty to vote on the marriage amendment,” said Alliance Defense Fund Senior Legal Counsel Brian W. Raum. “Legislators who act illegally must be held accountable. If Massachusetts legislators do not vote, they will be in clear violation of the state and federal Constitutions.”

You can find the complete details of the lawsuit here.

It remains to be seen how the Massachusetts Legislator will react to this case.

I have wondered for time to time, usually in that misplaced time between sleep and awake, why the ACLU and like minded organizations have not targeted Thanksgiving as they have Christmas and Easter. I supposed the true answer is somewhere between the attention the holiday gets, and the thought that most people don’t really remember what Thanksgiving is all about.

Well, along with my heart felt Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family, please accept this little slice on what Thanksgiving is all about. The following is a quote from George Washington on what is, likely, the first official government recognition of the Thanksgiving holiday.

October 3rd, 1789:

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor; and whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to recommend to the people of the United States a day of Public Thanksgiving and Prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the twenty-six of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that Great and Glorious Being, who is the Beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country, previous to their becoming a nation; for the single manifold mercies, and the favorable interposition’s of His providence, in the courage and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish Constitutions of Government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the Great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private institutions, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discretely and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us) and to bless them with good governments, peace and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science, among them and us; and generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

May God Bless you and your loved ones this season, and fill your hearts with thankfulness to Him.

Well, here is a new one on me. I guess if you are going to protest for peace, I can think of few better ways. This one is being led by Donna Sheehan, no relation to Cindy of the same name, and is a war protester of a different sort.

From Fox News:

Two peace activists have planned a massive anti-war demonstration for the first day of winter.

But they don’t want you marching in the streets. They’d much rather you just stay home.

The Global Orgasm for Peace was conceived by Donna Sheehan, 76, and Paul Reffell, 55, whose immodest goal is for everyone in the world to have an orgasm Dec. 22 while focusing on world peace

“The orgasm gives out an incredible feeling of peace during it and after it,” Reffell said Sunday. “Your mind is like a blank. It’s like a meditative state. And mass meditations have been shown to make a change.”

All I can do is smile and shake my head – I guess its flower power with a new twist. “Make love not war” and all that.

The couple are no strangers to sex and social activism. Sheehan, no relation to anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, brought together nearly 50 women in 2002 who stripped naked and spelled out the word “Peace.”

Damn, and I missed that one too. I need to pay more attention to the anti-war wackos.

Also Reporting: Hot Air

Cross Posted from Revealing The ACLU.

From the ACLU website:

Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, three library users and a nonprofit organization today brought a lawsuit to ensure that patrons of a library system in Eastern Washington have access to useful and lawful information on the Internet.

The lawsuit challenges the library system’s policy of using a restrictive Internet filter to bar access by adults to information on its computers and of refusing to honor requests by adult patrons to temporarily disable the filter for sessions of uncensored reading and research.

No surprise here – the ACLU has been a regular proponent of unfettered access to Internet computers in public libraries. The contention is that the very fact that libraries are tax funded, they have an obligation to provide access to all information without passing judgment upon the appropriateness of the information. The only major case I can find on this topic is United States v American Library Association which left the filtering question mostly open – stating only that the congress can force public libraries to install blocking software.

Lets remember that the ACLU has fought hard against Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which requires schools and libraries to block obscene content which are pornographic or otherwise harmful to miners.

This case is somewhat different, in that it is not specifically with regards to obscene internet content.

From the ACLU ComplaintText:

NCRL has configured its SmartFilter software to block Web sites in the following categories, or in categories equivalent to the following categories: Alcohol, Anonymizers, Chat, Criminal Skills, Dating/Social, Drugs, Extreme, Gambling, Game/Cartoon Violence, Gruesome Content, Hacking, Hate Speech, Malicious Sites, Nudity, P2P/File Sharing, Personal Pages, Phishing, Pornography, Profanity, School Cheating Information, Sexual Materials, Spyware, Tobacco, Violence, Visual Search Engine and Weapons.

Some of these items, such as the Nudity, Violence, Gruesom Content, Pornography, Profanity, and Sexual Materials would be areas covered by CIPA. However, to get around this, the ACLU focuses in on other areas in there suit.

Plaintiff Sarah Bradburn has attempted to use computers maintained by the NCRL to conduct Internet research -– particularly regarding alcohol and drug-addiction topics -– in connection with academic assignments.

[…]

Plaintiff Pearl Cherrington is a professional photographer, her work consisting mostly of landscapes and outdoor scenes. She has attempted to use computers maintained by the NCRL to conduct Internet research and obtain information regarding art topics – including art galleries that might be interested in displaying her work. She has also attempted to use NCRL computers to conduct Internet research and obtain information about health topics.

[…]

Plaintiff Charles Heinlen has attempted to use computers maintained by the NCRL to conduct Internet research and obtain information on topics relating to firearms. His ability to conduct research and access information related to firearms has been restricted by the Internet filters that the NCRL has installed on its computers.

So what is the ACLU trying to do here? I believe that the ACLU is trying to set up a chain of precedent which it can use to erode CIPA, or at least loosen the general restrictions upon internet access in American’s libraries. Note the broad categories in the first quote, some of which are directly address by CIPA, and then the examples in the second quote which are areas outside of CIPA and which can be argued as unfair blocking of information.

This matter can be quickly addressed by the FCC and American Library Association providing some very specific guidance for the implementation for CIPA. This will have the simultaneous effect of removing these libraries as targets for the ACLU, and to removing ambiguity on what should or should not be blocked.

We can expect the ACLU to push back on CIPA and similar legislation in any way they can. They are possessed of a mistaken belief that free speech covers obscenity – or perhaps that obscenity itself is a concept open to wide interpretation.

Just wait until the ACLU gets a hold of this one.

From the Washington Times:

Sex offenders on probation or parole in Tennessee are banned from Halloween costume parties this year and aren’t even allowed to put up decorations, such as jack-o’-lanterns, that might attract youngsters.

The new state guidelines are meant to clarify policies that prevent offenders from interacting with children, said Board of Probation and Parole spokesman Jack Elder, and were not enacted in response to any specific problems the board has seen during the Halloween season.

[…]

The Tennessee restrictions prohibit sex offenders from attending Halloween events, such as cornfield mazes and haunted houses, handing out treats, displaying Halloween decorations, accompanying trick-or-treating children or wearing costumes.

[…]

Parole-board officers will conduct spot checks to make sure the offenders are obeying the rules. Violators could lose their parole or probation.

Good for Tennessee. This move is a logical and well thought out decision that runs the risk of being very unpopular with certain legal actives groups, such as the ACLU.

The article also notes that several other states have enacted similar laws, and the trend is expanding. Given the ACLUs stance on restricting where Sex Offenders can live and if they can frequent public parks, this sounds right on target. I am surprised the ACLU has yet to make a comment on this.

I referenced the original Michael J. Fox advertisement in support of Missuris Amendment 2 earlier today.

Here is another excellent reply to the Michael J. Fox addvertisement.

H/T to Scrappleface via HotAir.

Tomorrow, October 24th, 2006 is the 3rd annual Day of Silent Solidarity. For most of us who are no longer in collage or high-school, we may not know what this event is all about. I wanted to take the opportunity to increase the awareness of this event.

Plus, it’s just the sort of thing that will drive the ACLU and its Pro-Choice partners batty.

Students participating in the Day of Silent Solidarity will have cards, or tags which have the following, or similar, saying written on them:

“Every day in the United States of America over 4,000 American citizens are silenced against their wills. They have their voices permanently silenced and they never get the opportunity to speak on behalf of themselves. Today we stand in silent solidarity with those who have been silenced. Today we are silent, but by doing this we are being a voice for the one-third of our generation that will never have a voice. These victims are not only being silenced; they are being killed. The victims we stand on behalf of are not going to be mentioned on the news. The victims we stand on behalf of will not have a funeral. The victims we stand on behalf of were ripped from the safety and warmth of their mothers’ wombs. The victims we stand on behalf of were not blobs of tissue, but beautiful human persons, with hearts that beat, brains that gave out brain waves, and a soul. These are the victims of the abortion holocaust. Every day over 4,000 babies have their lives ended in the name of choice. Since January 22, 1973, over 46 million babies have died. The time is now to stand on behalf of these innocent victims.”

This is not a message that is going to be embraced by our schools. In the past two years schools have taken various steps to limit or impact this event. This is a non-intrusive, student lead event which takes place outside of instructional time. Even silence is free speech.

To learn more about the Day of Solidarity, visit the official website. You can also see if your school is participating.

Another interesting point, the Alliance Defense Fund put out the following release with regards t the Day of Silent Solidarity.

Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund are ready to offer legal help to students at schools across America who choose to participate Tuesday in the 3rd Annual Day of Silent Solidarity if their First Amendment rights are violated. The Day of Silent Solidarity is an event that encourages pro-life students to exercise their free speech rights on the subject of abortion.

“Pro-life speech is protected under the First Amendment and cannot be silenced because of its particular point of view,” said ADF Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb. “The Day of Silent Solidarity is a non-disruptive, student-led event that takes place outside of instructional time. School officials are not legally permitted to silence students who choose to participate in this event simply because they don’t like its viewpoint.”

I pray this event goes well and convicts many. If this message persists in our school perhaps we will have less to be concerned about in the years the follow.

Birthdays, for most of us, are a time to reflect on what we have accomplished, what we can be proud of, and the difference we may have made. In celebration of this auspicious occasion, I thought it worth a review of what Planned Parenthood has accomplished in their 90 years. The attached is a short list:

• An estimated 43 Million children where murdered before they could celebrate their birthday.
• PP has become the nations largest operator of abortion clinics, and the Wolds largest provider of abortions.
• PP has promoted rampant promiscuity without even token commentary to abstinence or restraint.
• PP has fought against virtually all limits to abortion, including: parental consent laws, informed consent laws, waiting period laws, and laws limiting abortion by term or age of the unborn.
• PP is funded, largely, by our tax dollars. In 2004 $265.2M in tax funding went to Planned Parenthood.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Planned Parenthood has been accused of not reporting cases or rape to appropriate authorities, withholding court subpoenaed medical records, and has violated parental notification laws where they have been enacted. Planned Parenthood has often been accused of pressuring young women to have abortions and has even been accused of protecting Child Predators.

I hope Planned Parenthood takes a moment to reflect on their “accomplishments” over the past 90 years. They are practitioners in murder, nothing more.

Support the following pro-life organizations, and lets stop Planned Parenthood before another 90 years and 43 Million deaths go by.

Organizations Opposing Planned Parenthood:
Life Decisions International
American Life League
Americans United for Life

It is just not safe to be a kid anymore, and it is getting worse not better. As a father of a 6 month old son I can honestly say raising him in this world becomes more and more intimidating as the days move on. Unless you have been locked in a dungeon someplace, you should know exactly what I am referring too.

The overt attacks are a piece of it. We have a couple of recent stark examples such as the sexual assault of six girls, and the fatal shooting of another in Bailey Co, the brutal murder of six Amish girls in Lancaster PA, and the Columbine shooting.

Here are some other quick examples, just in our schools, from the last 20 years or so.

• Montreal Canada 1989 – 14 dead
• Stockton California 1989 – 6 dead
• Jonesboro Arkansas, 1998 – 6 dead
• Columbine Colorado, 1999 – 15 dead
• Red Lake Minnesota, 2005 – 10 dead
• Dawson Canada, 2005 – 2 dead

Even more frightening are the results of a study done by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The study found that more than 53% of children between 3 and 17 had been the subject of a physical assault in the past year, 27% had experience a property offence, 14% victimized by child maltreatment, 8% has been sexually assaulted, and 36% has been witness to a violent crime.

Statistically our children are more at risk that ever before. Occurrences of Child Molestation are on the rise. In 1997 about 2% of Children have been molested (source), but in 2005, per the above UNC study, that number has quadrupled to 8%.

Yet that is only the overt attacks against our children, there is a much more disturbing undercurrent which speaks volumes for the future of our children. While the number of convicted pedophiles increases, organizations like the ACLU continue to fight for fewer and fewer restrictions on those pedophiles (reference), continue to defend the existence of organizations such as the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), and defends child pornography as “freedom of speech”.

Worse yet, the values we teach at home are being undermined at many schools. Public schools are actively teaching homosexuality as an accepted lifestyle (reference), and there seems little we can do about it. Yet if they try and read the Bible in school, it inevitably leads to litigation (reference).

The examples I have referenced are just a few in hundreds, and they are growing. Any parent, even those who follow no religion, should be concerned over the physical and moral wellbeing of their children.

Why are our children so at risk? We know they are manifestly ill prepared for a dark world early on, and they need adult protection. Is it that more and more adults see them as an opportunity to be snatched rather than a value to be protected?

More importantly, where do we go from here? We need to protect our children in their homes, in their neighborhoods, and in their schools. And we need to teach them morality, ethics, and sound judgment. The children of today are the adults of tomorrow, they can be no better than we enable them to be.

We, the parents, need to redouble our efforts against organizations like the ACLU, NAMBLA, and the gay rights groups who seek to harm our children physically or morally. We need to elect officials who share those values, and hold them accountable when they do not act in our best interest.

We need to elect strong judges where we can, and lobby our leaders when judges are appointed rather than elected.

Filly, we the parents need to take an active interest and role in raising our children. We are there best and last defense. If we raise them up in the way they should go, when they are older they will not stray far from it.

Most of you know about the monolog from Brian Rohrbough on the CBS “Free Speech” Segment this Monday. On the Tuesday night edition, Katie made a comment that the majority of the feedback received on Brian’s comments was negative. If not, you can find my post on it here.

From the CBS Website:

The mailman nearly suffered a hernia hauling in sacks of comments over Monday’s “freeSpeech” segment. (We took a few packages that were ticking and threw them in the creek…) Surf around the CBS News website and you’ll find all sorts of ideas and opinions about this. A tell-tale sign that this was going to be an especially interesting week: nearly every comment, on every post, for the last three days, has had something to say about “freeSpeech,” no matter what the topic.

Personally, I was struck by how many of the people who posted began their comments with one word: “Shame.” As in “Shame on you, Katie Couric.” (I might mention here that the majority of people wagging their fingers and using that word would proudly label themselves free-thinking, tolerant, progressive, maybe even liberal. Tolerance, it seems, has its limits.)

This all has me thinking about the numbers. Are there more liberals than conservatives, more left that right? Are we really in a world where the an utterance against abortion and the admonition of the Godlessness of our schools is really something that gets the masses in an uproar – or do we just have a vocal minority who are quick to take action and make their voices heard? And, most importantly, how do we answer that question?

Before I come back to the question of Political Life, the Universe and Everything, we should take a quick moment to set a baseline. The response to a CBS evening news commentary cannot be used to measure the numeric superiority of one group or another. CBS is, in the opinion of most conservatives, a liberal news outlet, and so not regularly watched by conservative minded people. We conservatives would be more apt to watch Fox News or a more conservative news source. That being the case, the response received should be in line with the viewers. The equivalent, if you will, of someone using Fox News to accusing Christians for the increase in school violence.

It dose, show us that people like the news to be agreeable to them. I am sure it was quite a shocker to most of the CBS news watchers on Monday night.

Also, before returning to the question at hand, a brief moment to shake my head at those enlightened liberals (i.e. Reed at De Rerum Natura with his article entitled “Brian Rohrbough is an Idiot”) who are attacking this man, personally, for what amounts to a video opinion column. Disagree with his comments, disagree with his sentiments, but it is bad form to attack him personally. Shame on you.

Now to the question at hand: how do we factor out as right and left in terms of minority and majority? I am certainly not the first to ask this question, so I rather than recreate the wheel, I pulled from some high quality sources.

I reference in the attached the following two studies: The American and Religious Landscape and Political Attitudes(2004) by John C. Green and The Eagleton Institute Ethnic Breakdown of Citizenry and Ethnic Voter Participation (2002). Sadly I was unable to find any more current data, even from the local library (ick – hard copy).

So what do these studies show?

42% of the US population aligned themselves with the Democrat party.
38% of the US population aligned themselves with the Republican party.
20% of the US population aligned themselves with another political party.

Over 70% of the US population considers themselves to be “Christian”, the majority (over 50%) also believing that the Bible is absolutely literal and factual, including its position on abortion, creationism, and homosexuality.

Only 10% of the US population considers themselves to be Secular (not religious) or Atheist/Agnostic.

68% of those surveyed by the American Religious Landscape study said it is Important that the President have Strong religious beliefs. Oddly, that included 24% of the Secular and 6% of the Atheist / Agnostic groups.

76% of those surveyed by the American Religious Landscape study said it was important for Organized Religious groups to stand up for their beliefs.

63% said that religion was important, or somewhat important, to political thinking.

62% said the US has a right to engage in preemptive war. I am sure that numbers has gone down some in the two years since the study.

On the flips side, only 35% of the population agreed with the US support of Israel over the Palestinians. (38% against, 27% no opinion).

On abortion, 52% said Abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances. 48% said Abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances.

51% of the population is against any ban on stem cell research. (32% support a ban, 17 have no opinion).

Only 27% of the population supported same sex marriage, with 55% supporting only traditional marriage, and the remaining 18% supporting civil unions.

Both studies contain a considerable amount of additional data on various subjects. I have linked both above in case you are curious as to what else they have to say. If I do find more current data I will provide an update to this post.

So – what dose this all say about the political makeup of the country in general? I think it points to a roughly equal split between Democrats and Republicans with the Democrats holding a slightly higher major in numbers, though a noticeably lower % of Democrats vote. It also shows that we still consider ourselves to be a nation based on religious beliefs with the vast majority of people, be they Republican or Democrat, believing religion has its place in government and politics and it is important in choosing our leaders.

I think the numbers also show the being a Republican and Democrat is much less about a principle or belief makeup, and more about other unidentified issues. Perhaps many Americans choose a political party based on family history or geography. The voting record and belief constructs do not fit neatly into the two party systems. The Religious Landscape study actually broke the groups down into 10 major groups and another 12 smaller groups based on religious beliefs (or lack there of) and party standing.

Zooming back into the Brian Rohrbough issue, I think these numbers show that the vast majority of Americans not only would not have been offended by Mr. Rohrbough’s comments, most would agree with him. Even on the abortion issue, which is much less clear, the majority of Americans support some limits to abortion – only 17% believed it should be unfettered and at the whim of the woman.

There where not questions in the studies specifically about Intelligent Design vs. Evolution, so we have to assume that of the 70% who call themselves Christians most would support a creationist view point. At the very least we have to assume that the 50% who believed that the Bible is completely factually and literally accurate would take a stand supporting Intelligent Design over Evolution.

So, CBS, you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Most of the American people agree with Brian Rohrbough, but most of your regular viewers must not.

And to those of us who are a majority, we need to make more noise. I hope we do not lack the courage of our convictions for silence in our political system is akin to concession. The vocal minority has the right of it, I cannot fault there fervor even if I cannot agree with the stand on most issues.

Thanks Brian, for speaking up for the rest of us.