If the left gets their way our Judeo-Christian heritage will be circling the drain in the same fashion as the UK.

(Telegraph) — Eunice and Owen Johns are a God-fearing Christian couple, married almost 40 years, who offered a secure and loving family home to foster children aged between five and 10. But they are to be denied the opportunity to do so any longer because they are unwilling to promote a homosexual lifestyle to a child.

Neither Mr nor Mrs Johns has anything against gay people but they are not in favour of sex before marriage, whatever an individual’s orientation. Their views were denounced by Ben Summerskill, of the homosexual pressure group Stonewall, as “old-fashioned”. Yet not that long ago they would have been considered mainstream and they are, in any case, the strongly held religious views of the couple.

The reason that they were even asked about their views on homosexuality was because Parliament passed the Sexual Orientation Regulations, making it an offence to discriminate on the grounds that someone is heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual. These are the same laws under which Peter and Hazelmary Bull, Christian owners of a guest house, were fined last month for refusing to let a gay couple share a room. But in the case of Mr and Mrs Johns, where is the victim? They were not turning anyone away. Quite the contrary — they were offering a home to children who will otherwise end up in care, and there are precious few people who will. Furthermore, since the children would be aged under 10, matters of sexuality are hardly relevant — or is it being suggested that they should be? Astonishingly, the High Court suggested that it was not so much their Christian faith as the moral certainties of the Johns that were potentially harmful to children.

There is another troubling aspect of this case. Equality laws are supposed to uphold the rights to religious belief. Yet the High Court ruled that laws protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation “should take precedence” over the right not to be discriminated against on religious grounds. Why has it been left to judges to decide whose rights trump those of others? This should have been decided by Parliament but, yet again, another sloppily drafted measure will have far-reaching consequences for freedom of conscience in this country.

Already the Roman Catholic Church has had to close its adoption agencies because they cannot conform to the law. Perhaps there is a historical irony here, because we are witnessing a modern, secular Inquisition — a determined effort to force everyone to accept a new set of orthodoxies or face damnation as social heretics if they refuse. Parliament and the courts should protect people like Mr and Mrs Johns, but have thrown them to the wolves. It is a disgrace.

HT: Anon

Where’s the MSM on this one? No, wait, wrong party made the threat.

(Northwestern) — An Oshkosh Assemblyman issued a second public apology in as many weeks Monday, the latest for comments he made on the floor of the Assembly following a vote on a contentious budget repair bill.

Rep. Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, called Rep. Michelle Litjens, R-Winneconne, Monday morning to apologize for his comments that Litjens described as containing an obscenity and the words “you’re dead.” Last week, he accepted responsibility for being issued an ordinance violation for visiting a massage parlor in Appleton that was the subject of a prostitution sting.

Litjens told The Northwestern she did not want the incident to become public, but confirmed it after other Assembly representatives contacted a Milwaukee conservative talk show host who commented on the issue on the air Monday.

Would be the absolute perfect time for Terry Jones to make good on his threat to burn the Koran.

(The Blaze) — Terry Jones, the small-time pastor known for stirring up big-time controversy, is at it again. The controversial Florida preacher first lit a spark when he called for people around the world to burn copies of the Muslim Quran to protest the construction of the Ground Zero mosque in New York, a call he later rescinded.

Now, as Muslims are invited to demonstrate their support for Shariah law in front of the White House Thursday, Jones is headed to Washington to lead a counter-protest to “radical Islam.” . . .

“By no means will we allow our Constitution to be attacked, our Constitution to be changed, our Constitution to be altered,” the counter-protest group’s Facebook page reads. “Let us join together in unity. Let us stand up, stand strong and speak loudly!

Jones is joining Stand Up America, a conservative-leaning group in marching from the Lincoln Memorial to the White House.

“It is necessary that we set very clear lines for Muslims that are here in America,” Jones says. “They are welcome to be here. They are welcome to worship. They are welcome to build mosques. But we do expect them to honor and obey our Constitution. If they desire to change our Constitution, in other words to institute Sharia, then these Muslims are no longer welcome in our country.”

Keep reading…

Rove represents the worst of the elitist GOP establishment.

Via NY Mag

. . . One week before the 2010 midterm elections, Rove took aim at Sarah Palin, questioning the wisdom of her appearance on a reality show, Sarah Palin’s Alaska, if she really wanted to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate. Palin lacked the “gravitas” to be president, went a subhead in the U.K.’s DailyTelegraph.

Rove later tried wriggling out of his comments, as well as observations he made in a German magazine that tea-partiers weren’t “sophisticated,” being unfamiliar, as Rove was, with intellectuals like the economist Friedrich August von Hayek. But Rove’s backhands weren’t accidental, nor was he the victim of outrageous tabloid reporting. When I bring up his statements about Palin during our interview, Rove says only that he wished he’d made his comments on Fox News instead — before going into a withering impersonation of Palin, recalling a scene from her TV show in which she’s fishing.

“Did you see that?” he says, adopting a high, sniveling Palin accent: “‘Holy crap! That fish hit my thigh! It hurts!’”

“How does that make us comfortable seeing her in the Oval Office?” he asks, disgusted. “You know — ‘Holy crap, Putin said something ugly!’”

HT: Headlines

Don’t hold your breath.

BRUSSELS: A senior Israeli official is suggesting the Muslim Brotherhood should be banned from standing in Egyptian elections because it is an extremist organization.

Deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon said Monday Israel would object to the Brotherhood being part of a future government “on the merit of their agenda . . . and their policies.”

The Brotherhood, which has renounced violence, is Egypt’s largest and best-organized opposition group. It was banned during the rule of recently ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

But it has been implicitly recognized by Egypt’s ruling generals, and plans to field candidates in the next elections.

Ayalon said it’s normal for democracies to ban extremist parties and noted that Israel itself banned an anti-Arab party in the past. He said Israel is not asking “the Muslim world anything we do not ask for ourselves.”

Beyond parody.

As the United Nations works feverishly to condemn Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi for cracking down on protesters, the body’s Human Rights Council is poised to adopt a report chock-full of praise for Libya’s human rights record.

The review commends Libya for improving educational opportunities, for making human rights a “priority” and for bettering its “constitutional” framework. Several countries, including Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia but also Canada, give Libya positive marks for the legal protections afforded to its citizens — who are now revolting against the regime and facing bloody reprisal.

The U.S. mission in Geneva said it would look into the status of the document in response to a question about whether any efforts are being made to cancel or postpone consideration of the report. But an agenda put out by the United Nations in January said the Human Rights Council, of which Libya has been a member since last year, will “consider and adopt” the document at its session, which is under way and continues to the end of March.

UN Watch, a watchdog group based in Geneva, called on the council Monday to withdraw the report and launch a new review that “would tell the truth about the (Qaddafi) regime’s heinous crimes.”

UN Watch Director Hillel Neuer told FoxNews.com the review, formally known as the Universal Periodic Review, is a “complete distortion” of Libya’s rights record.

Keep reading…

Thus explaining his complete obliviousness to foreign and domestic affairs. Here’s an outtake from tomorrow night’s PBS special In Performance at the White House: A Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement:

Shockingly, the Wahhabis are no fans of the Colonel.

DUBAI, Feb 28 (Reuters) — Sons of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have failed to persuade prominent Saudi clerics to issue religious rulings against a revolt that is threatening to bring down the veteran leader, Al Arabiya television said on Monday.

The Saudi-owned channel said on its website that Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam had contacted one cleric, Salman al-Awda, and Saadi Gaddafi had reached out to a second, Ayedh al-Garni, but both rejected their calls.

“You are killing the Libyan people. Turn to God because you are wronging them. Protect Libyan blood, you are killing old people and children. Fear God,” Garni said he told Saadi.

Garni made the remarks on air on Sunday, the website said, adding Awda gave the same message to Saif al-Islam.

Awda has a weekly television show on Saudi-owned pan-Arab channel MBC1 and has been praised by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden before as a religious scholar he felt did not toe the government line. Garni gave lectures in Libya last year.

Gaddafi has long been an unpopular figure in Saudi Arabia, which once accused him of plotting to assassinate the king.

Clerics close to the government have said it is not the place of religious scholars to back protests or otherwise. But others have said Gaddafi is an illegitimate ruler and denounced him as an apostate.

I guess holding the taxpayer hostage doesn’t qualify as “un-American” in the warped mind of a RINO.

I’m going to get killed for saying this (…) I don’t understand — it seems — I’m going to get so killed for this — I hate to say this, but the concept of telling people that they cannot come together to negotiate with a government — it just kind of seems un-American to me.

Via Newsbusters

This is the same CAIR executive West ripped to shreds at a recent town hall.

(Palm Beach News) — At a town-hall-style meeting February 21, Nezar Hamze stood to ask Allen West a pointed question. Hamze, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, asked West why he keeps claiming that the Qur’an instructs Muslims to attack America. West cut Hamze off before he could say much more than that. So we asked Hamze to write up what he intended to say to West that night. Below is Hamze’s response.

​Congressman Allen West was once asked by a Marine why people would warp the religion of Islam to attack America. Mr. West replied to him: It’s not a perversion; they are doing exactly what the Qur’an is telling them to do. So I called him out on his statements.

It was a very simple question I asked: Can you show me where in the Qur’an it says to attack America, kill Americans, or kill innocent people? He replied that the Qur’an was written before America existed and mentioned something about the verse of the sword and killing infidels. Unfortunately the crowd was so excited and so vocal against me that my response was cut off. Mr. West lost his composure and told me “not to blow sunshine up his butt.” Then he said that I attacked America and told me to go home. For the record, I didn’t go home; I returned to my seat and finished listening to his presentation.

Mr. West, you have brought great shame to the United States House of Representatives. Your behavior that evening represents the antithesis of our democratic republic. We look to our leaders to answer difficult questions with dignity and composure. Your behavior represented that of a military commander barking orders at a soldier. Mr. West, you are no longer a military commander, and I am not your enemy. You looked at me and said, “You attacked us, you attacked us.” I didn’t attack anything, and for you to accuse me of such horrific events is just as baseless as your knowledge of Islam. Terrorists attacked us on 9/11, Mr. West. Terrorists attacked us!

Keep reading…

It’s almost like the Democratic party is in the union’s back pocket.

(Journal Sentinel) — The 14 Wisconsin Democratic senators who fled to Illinois share more than just political sympathy with the public employees and unions targeted by Gov. Scott Walker’s budget-repair bill.

The Senate Democrats count on those in the public sector as a key funding source for their campaigns.

In fact, one out of every five dollars raised by those Democratic senators in the past two election cycles came from public employees, such as teachers and firefighters, and their unions, a Journal Sentinel analysis of campaign records shows.

“It’s very simple,” said Richard Abelson, executive director of District Council 48 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “We have interests and because of that we attempt to support candidates who support our interests. It’s pretty hard to find Republicans who support our interests these days.”

Critics of Walker’s budget-repair bill say it would mean less union money for Democrats. That’s because the legislation would end automatic payroll deductions for dues and would allow public employees to opt out of belonging to a union.

According to records compiled by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, the 14 Senate Democrats have raised a total of $1.9 million in campaign dollars since the start of 2007. Out of that sum, public employee unions and individual government workers contributed at least $344,000.

In truth, the figure may be even higher, but candidates don’t have to identify the occupations of those giving $100 or less.

There’s no way they can lose now.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Actor and activist Danny Glover has urged labor union members protesting at the Indiana Statehouse to stand in solidarity against what he called an organized campaign attacking American workers.

Several hundred union members cheered Monday as the star of the “Lethal Weapon” action movies told the protesters they are part of a nationwide battle to stop a “vicious attack” to take more from the middle class.

The protesters responded to other speakers with chants such as “We will not be moved!”

Democratic legislators have been boycotting the House since last week to prevent a vote on a slate of GOP-backed proposals. Thousands of union members last week filled Statehouse halls to protest Republican efforts to change legislation governing education and to curtail teachers’ rights.

Ironic considering the average MoveOn–SEIU leftist views the LAPD as a racist organization that oppresses minorities.

(PJM) — I had been expecting it, but when it finally came it was far worse than I had feared. I could scarcely believe my eyes.

The message that appeared in my email in-box Thursday evening came from the board of directors of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents rank-and-file LAPD officers, of which I have been a member for many years. It was an email version of the latest post on the LAPPL Blog, and it began thus: “The attack on Wisconsin workers is an attack on union members across the nation.”

A bit hyperbolic, perhaps, but no big surprise so far. The League has for some time been engaged in a preemptive campaign against legislation here in California that is in any way similar to that which has caused the recent furor in Wisconsin. (Such a law is all but unthinkable here in Democrat-controlled California, but one must be vigilant nonetheless.) . . .

The directors went on to express their condemnation for the growing campaign to deny collective bargaining rights to public sector employees, a position which, no doubt to a man, their members surely share. All of this would hardly have been worth comment had they stopped there.

There then came this paragraph:

At noon local time on Saturday, February 26, MoveOn.org will hold rallies in front of every statehouse and in every major city to stand in solidarity with the people of Wisconsin. Find a Rally to Save the American Dream near you by visiting the website and entering your zip code. You can also show your support by sending words of encouragement to Wisconsin’s workers via a special website created by the SEIU.

What? MoveOn.org? The SEIU? And they were asking cops to march in this parade? Surely this had to be some kind of elaborate Internet hoax.

And it got worse. If you dared to click on the link to find a rally, you learned that in addition toMoveOn.org and the SEIU, the events were to be sponsored by National People’s Action, theProgressive Change Campaign Committee, USAction, the Daily Kos, Media Matters, and every other leftist fringe cabal this side of the Socialist Workers Party. The post concluded with a stirring exhortation: “Our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin are under attack. They need and deserve our support. The time to pull together is NOW.” They might have gone with something a bit punchier, like “Workers of the world, unite!”

Keep reading…

HT: Rob

Oh my.

WASHINGTON — Seeking to appease disgruntled governors, President Obama announced Monday that he supported amending the 2010 health care law to allow states to opt out of its most burdensome requirements three years earlier than currently permitted.

In remarks to the National Governors Association, Mr. Obama said he backed legislation that would enable states to request federal permission to withdraw from the law’s mandates in 2014 rather than in 2017 as long as they could prove that they could find other ways to cover as many people as the original law would and at the same cost. The earlier date is when many of the act’s central provisions take effect, including requirements that most individuals obtainhealth insurance and that employers of a certain size offer coverage to workers or pay a penalty.

“I think that’s a reasonable proposal; I support it,” Mr. Obama told the governors, who were gathered in the State Dining Room of the White House.

“It will give you flexibility more quickly while still guaranteeing the American people reform.”

The announcement is the first time Mr. Obama has called for changing a central component of his signature health care law, although he has backed removing a specific tax provision that both parties regard as onerous on business. The shift comes as the law is under fierce attack in the courts and from Republicans on Capitol Hill and in statehouses around the country.

Update: And he wonders why nobody trusts him.

(Politico) — Jennifer Haberkorn reports that President Obama’s move to allow states flexibility in spending health care funds is the “most significant change” since the law was enacted, and a potential gesture toward critics.

But a source on a White House conference call with liberal allies this morning says the Administration is presenting it to Democrats as an opportunity to offer more expansive health care plans than the one Congress passed.

Health care advisers Nancy-Ann DeParle and Stephanie Cutter stressed on the off-record call that the rule change would allow states to implement single-payer health care plans — as Vermont seeks to — and true government-run plans, like Connecticut’s Sustinet.

The source on the call summarizes the officials’ point — which is not one the Administration has sought to make publically — as casting the new “flexibility” language as an opportunity to try more progressive, not less expansive, approaches on the state level.

Unbelievable cretin.

(Politico) — Mike Huckabee is going against the grain of conservative pundits and potential 2012 rivals who are merciless in attacking the Obamas, taking a softer tack as he defends the first couple on issues like healthy eating and the president’s citizenship.

While conservative talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh trashed First Lady Michelle Obama’s healthy-eating initiative — one of her few forays into public policy — as an effort to have a government-run food program, Huckabee went the other way.

“I do not think she’s out there advocating that the government take over our dinner plates,” Huckabee, who’s been open about his own battles with weight and diabetes, said last week. “In fact, she’s not. She’s been criticized unfairly by a lot of my fellow conservatives.”

On the so-called birther issue, Huckabee described doubts over the president’s citizenship as an “obsession” and a “waste of time.”

And he yoked debate over the president’s religion at conservative fringes to the attacks Obama faced in 2008 regarding his flame-throwing former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

“If people went back and heard every sermon I heard when I was a little kid and some of the more fundamentalist pastors were yelling from the pulpit at me, if they took every one of those sermons and lifted out of them certain phrases and things, it could be scandalous, but only out of the context of the bigger picture,” he told Christianity Today.

Huckabee has also said the Obamas provide a model of a good family, and has lauded the president as a loving father and husband.

With Obama’s good friend Rashid Khalidi being one of the signatories.

(Weekly Standard) — A group of faculty members at Columbia and Barnard have issued a statement opposing ROTC’s return to campus. The statement isn’t terribly noteworthy in itself — except that one of the signatories taking issue with the potential “militarization” of the university is Rashid Khalidi, activist Middle Eastern studies professor and notorious pro-Palestinian cheerleader. Apparently, the ”use of force” is “antithetical” to the ethos of the university — but only if America or our allies are involved.

The professors also try playing the “discrimination” card but, perhaps fearing a reprise of the current debate, they argue that any deviation from Columbia’s non-discrimination policy (which includes physical disability and age) should be considered grounds for continuing the ban against ROTC. This position suggests less a high-minded concern with discrimination than lockstep opposition to ROTC.

Not much of an Orrin Hatch fan but I found this rather amusing.

GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah) reportedly directed a few profane insults toward President Obama’s healthcare law in a speech late last week.

During at an appearance at an event sponsored by the Utah State University College Republicans, Hatch was asked whether he thought the nation’s healthcare system needs serious reforms. He acknowledged that states have different problems when it comes to healthcare, but called the federal law Democrats passed last year a “dumb-ass program” that will not solve them.

“Every state has different demographics, every state has different problems,” Hatch said, according to a Utah Statesman report published Monday. “It’s good to allow them to work out their own problems rather than a one-size-fits-all federal government, dumb-ass program. It really is an awful piece of crap.”

Keep reading…

He really is an arrogant little turd.

(RCP) — “As the Recovery Act funds that saw through many states over the last two years are phasing out and it is undeniable that the Recovery Act helped every single state represented in this room manage your budgets, whether you admit it or not,” President Obama told Governors on Monday morning.

Sorry for the downtime, we’ve had a nice surge of new traffic over the last few weeks and today Neil Boortz sent a monster link, added together the two overwhelmed the server. I did another quick upgrade and things should be running smoothly going forward.