Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Pretzel Logic Behind Homosexual Marriage

The law was just a plaything to California's Supreme Court, and the justices twisted logic into a pretzel as they legalized same-sex marriage by judicial fiat. The court also exposed the danger created by wishy-washy lawmakers who push "civil unions" or "domestic partnerships" as a supposed middle-ground compromise. That actually is a deadly policy of appeasement. It was the very existence of such laws that the justices used to justify this outrageous decision.

By trying to appease homosexual rights activists, those who have refused to stand up for traditional marriage helped to create this court ruling. They are the Neville Chamberlains of the cultural wars. In essence, California's highest court yesterday decreed that society cannot have a "separate but equal" matchmaking plan for same-sex couples. The moment California or any other state adopts civil unions, this decision makes clear, it's on the slippery slope that makes same-sex marriage inevitable.

This ruling also further disenfranchises citizens and voters. The court not only usurped legislative power, it ignored the clear will of the 61 percent of California voters who in 2000 placed into law this language: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

A lone justice, Marvin Baxter, wrote a clear dissent describing how radical the ruling is and what he called the "legal jujitsu" used by the majority to rationalize its decision. Two other justices dissented, but not as forcefully as Justice Baxter.

The high court ruled that the existence of a "domestic partners" statute compelled it to overturn California's marriage law and permit same-sex marriages. Otherwise, the court said, it would be a denial of equal protection if same-sex couples could get advantages similar to marriage but not actually be married as opposite-sex couples can. The lesson? Lawmakers across the country who have promoted domestic partnerships as a compromise now are exposed as enablers of the full same-sex marriage agenda. They should be held accountable accordingly. And places that have adopted such civil union laws should repeal them right away, lest they invite a blitzkrieg of more court decisions from activist judges, mimicking the California edict.

As the majority wrote for California's Supreme Court: "California . . . in recent years has enacted comprehensive domestic partnership legislation under which a same-sex couple may enter into a legal relationship that affords the couple virtually all of the same substantive legal benefits and privileges, and imposes upon the couple virtually all of the same legal obligations and duties, that California law affords to and imposes upon a married couple.

"Accordingly, the legal issue we must resolve is not whether it would be constitutionally permissible under the California Constitution for the state to limit marriage only to opposite-sex couples while denying same-sex couples any opportunity to enter into an official relationship with all or virtually all of the same substantive attributes, but rather whether our state Constitution prohibits the state from establishing a statutory scheme in which both opposite-sex and same-sex couples are granted the right to enter into an officially recognized family relationship . . . but under which the union of an opposite-sex couple is officially designated a `marriage' whereas the union of a same-sex couple is officially designated a `domestic partnership.'"

But Justice Baxter correctly noted that California's high court made a three-way power shift that violates American principles of constitutional law: It usurped the state legislature's authority to make laws, violating separation of powers. It usurped the people's authority to make laws via initiative and referendum. Because the state constitution prohibits legislators from repealing laws passed by popular vote, the court gave the lawmakers a new power to repeal such laws indirectly.

Justice Baxter said it well. He wrote in his dissent: "Nothing in our Constitution, express or implicit, compels the majority's startling conclusion that the age-old understanding of marriage - an understanding recently confirmed by an initiative law - is no longer valid. "California statutes already recognize same-sex unions and grant them all the substantive legal rights this state can bestow. If there is to be a further sea change in the social and legal understanding of marriage itself, that evolution should occur by similar democratic means. The majority forecloses this ordinary democratic process, and, in doing so, oversteps its authority.

"The majority's mode of analysis is particularly troubling. The majority relies heavily on the Legislature's adoption of progressive civil rights protections for gays and lesbians to find a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. "In effect, the majority gives the Legislature indirectly power that body does not directly possess to amend the Constitution and repeal an initiative statute. But a bare majority of this court, not satisfied with the pace of democratic change, now abruptly forestalls that process and substitutes, by judicial fiat, its own social policy views for those expressed by the People themselves.

"Undeterred by the strong weight of state and federal law and authority, the majority invents a new constitutional right, immune from the ordinary process of legislative consideration. The majority finds that our Constitution suddenly demands no less than a permanent redefinition of marriage, regardless of the popular will. "In doing so, the majority holds, in effect, that the Legislature has done indirectly what the Constitution prohibits it from doing directly. Under article II, section 10, subdivision (c), that body cannot unilaterally repeal an initiative statute . . . Yet the majority suggests that, by enacting other statutes which do provide substantial rights to gays and lesbians - including domestic partnership rights which, under [Family Code] section 308.5, the Legislature could not call `marriage' - the Legislature has given `explicit official recognition' (maj. opn., ante, at pp. 68, 69) to a California right of equal treatment which, because it includes the right to marry, thereby invalidates section 308.5.

"I cannot join this exercise in legal jujitsu, by which the Legislature's own weight is used against it to create a constitutional right from whole cloth, defeat the People's will, and invalidate a statute otherwise immune from legislative interference."

California's high court noted that other states are looking at this equal-protection argument as a basis for moving all the way to full-blown same-sex marriage in places where civil unions or domestic partnerships have been established.

Those who support traditional values - and an orderly democratic process that lets the people and their elected officials make decisions about marriage - should recognize the dangers inherent in this California decision. Any law that mimics marriage by another name needs re-examining and probably repeal as well, lest it become full-blown same-sex marriage. California voters probably will vote this fall on changing their statutory marriage protection into stronger constitutional protection.

Voters there and in other states would be wise to elevate this matter into an election issue in every other state as well, because it is elected officials who created this opportunity for wayward judicial activism by trying to placate a radical agenda rather than standing up against it.. Those elected officials should not be permitted now to blame it all on the judges, wringing their hands and trying to deny their complicity. It's time to hold accountable those lawmakers who have opened the door for this court ruling by trying to appease homosexual rights activists with laws that allow civil unions. You cannot have peace at any price with those who seek to conquer and vanquish our values.

Source



Hollywood, not American Foreign Policy, Causes Terrorism

Well, nothing is that simple. But look at America from a foreigner's perspective, whose only view is through Hollywood's television and movie productions:

Our government isn't a Democracy, but a malevolent cabal with no respect for its own people or the rest of the world. We don't fight wars for principles or defense, we fight them to steal natural resources or just out of meanness or prejudice. Our law enforcement and intelligence agencies have magical powers and use them to invade privacies, imprison people on the flimsiest excuse, and torture on a whim - the more innocent the "victim", the more torture.

Our industries exploit people, who only imagine the jobs they voluntarily take are anything better than slavery. Our religious leaders are venal hypocrites, either thieves or child molesters. Our society is rampant with racism and downtrodden poor. People are dying for lack of health care. Our economy is pathetic.

Our protagonists are sexually promiscuous and have broken families.They worry about inconsequential things, are greedy and materialistic, obsessed with the latest fashions and toys. Many kinds of sexual deviance are accepted, even glorified. People with morals are uptight bigots with their own dirty secrets.

Is it any wonder that so many foreigners have such a negative opinion of us?

In the old days of the USSR, their propaganda machines were unable to paint as negative a portrait of America as can today's Hollywood. Oh, and by the way, 60% of movie revenue comes from foreign sales. Hollywood has a money incentive to make anti-American movies. They are selling us out, for profit and for their own un-American values.

Source



Australia: Publicity forces Anglicans to stand down pedophile priest

The rectum of the church, Trevor Bulled, is still there, though -- even though he has a conviction for indecent behaviour. Sexual perversion is so popular among the clergy of the offshoots of the Church of England that they have to be dragged kicking and screaming to do anything about it

A CONVICTED pedophile priest found singing in a church choir with children three months after he was released from jail has been directed to stand down by his diocese. The move is a backflip by the Anglican Church, which stood behind a decision earlier in the year to allow Robert Francis Sharwood to sing with children in the Holy Trinity Church choir at Fortitude Valley. Sharwood was jailed for 12 months in November 2006 after being found guilty of sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy in Brisbane more than 30 years ago.

The Courier-Mail revealed in February he was singing alongside children in his parish's choir with the permission of the congregation - although some parents were unaware of the priest's past. In March, Brisbane's Anglican Dean Bishop John Parkes told The Courier-Mail pedophile priests could not be stopped from interacting with children as part of the congregation, nor from participating in church duties open to any lay person - such as singing in a choir, Bible readings or being part of the cleaning roster.

But an Anglican Church spokesman said the Brisbane diocese had now altered that stance. "We have instructed that he not be in the choir and we believe that is the case," the spokesman said. He said the church had also signed off on a pedophile reintegration program that was the centre of a six-month dispute between Holy Trinity and its professional standards board.

Holy Trinity's rector, Trevor Bulled, who was convicted for indecent behaviour at a public toilet about 20 years ago, had said in January the program was "unworkable and oppressive". Father Bulled also questioned the need for a rehabilitation program for Sharwood.

The Anglican spokesman said it had taken "some time" to get Holy Trinity to approve the reintegration program. "We have been in discussion, obviously, since that time and a number of parishioners have agreed to take part in the monitoring," the spokesman said.

Sharwood is at present appealing a recommendation by the Brisbane diocese's professional standards board to strip him of his holy orders. While he has been unable to practise as a priest since being convicted of sexually abusing a child, he has not had the title of priest taken from him.

The Anglican Church, dogged by controversy over the case, is now looking at new provisions that would see pedophile priests defrocked immediately after being convicted of child-sex offences. At present, Anglican priests charged with child sex offences are immediately stood down from their position and their licence suspended to stop them from performing ministerial duties.

Source



Australia: Stupid "non-discriminatory" police recruitment attacked

Cops call for more brawn on the beat

"Physically challenged" police are putting themselves and their colleagues at greater risk of assault, say some officers. A number of police have even called for height and weight restrictions to be re-introduced to the Queensland Police Service to improve the physical presence of officers on the beat. Prior to the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption, officers were required to be at least 172cm tall with a minimum weight of 65kg. In late 1990 those restrictions were abolished, although police were still required to pass a physical competency test.

The test was eased in 1993 because of the high failure rate of female recruits and in 1998 a review recommended the physical competency test be phased out in favour of a health-screening process. As a result, Queensland now has the least demanding physical fitness requirements of any Australian state, with applicants required only to run 2.4km in under 12 minutes and swim an un-timed 100m clothed.

Police sources told The Courier Mail that the decline in physical fitness and height requirements was contributing to the high rate of assaults on police. "Coppers are no longer physically intimidating and if you get into any strife you cannot necessarily count on your partner to help you out if they're five foot nothing and 45kg," an officer said.

Ex-Police Union president John O'Gorman, who once called for a review of the abandoned height and weight restrictions, said the size of police was no longer as important. "The introduction of capsicum spray and Tasers means police don't have to rely as much on sheer physical force in a brawl situation," he said. He said the main reason police were increasingly victims of assault was because they were reluctant to use force given the legal consequences.

In one of the worst cases of assault last year, Logan Constable Grant Sampson had a bottle smashed over his head after being called to an out-of-control party at Alberton, near Beenleigh. Constable Matt Burchard carried his unconscious partner to the safety of a garden shed which partygoers pelted with bottles as the officer called for back-up. Police said: "It was not worth thinking about" what could have happened to Constable Sampson if his partner had been unable to get him to a safe place.

Queensland Police Union president Cameron Pope said he supported the recruitment criteria. "It's been shown to me innumerable times it's not the dog in the fight, it's the fight in the dog," he said. A Queensland Police Service spokesman said there was absolutely no evidence suggesting the size of officers had anything to do with assaults. "A very small percentage of interaction with the general public results in physical confrontation," he said. "The QPS expends considerable energy training recruits in communication and non-violent dispute resolution techniques."

Source

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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