Culture Clips – March 20, 2007

Gen. Pace vs. Parson Warner

"You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you," said Leon Trotsky. And that is surely true of the culture war.

Before an editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, not only endorsed presidential policy by which active homosexuals are discharged from the service, he declared that policy to be right morally.

"I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immorality. I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way."

Equating homosexual sex with adultery, Pace added, "(I)f we find out so-and-so is sleeping with somebody else's wife," we do not tolerate it. As Pace was supporting policy, why did he find himself in a Beltway firefight?…

The Washington Post allowed as how Pace "is entitled to his opinions, of course," but should have considered the "impact of his public expression of intolerance on the men and women he commands." …

What this uproar tells us is that America is no longer a moral community. On the most fundamental issues — abortion, promiscuity, homosexuality, euthanasia, sterilization, cloning, and the creation of, and buying and selling of, fetuses for research — we are at war. What part of the nation sees as progress, the other sees as depravity.

And where there is no moral community, there will not long be one country. For in a religious or culture war, there is no peaceful coexistence.

One side wins, the other side loses.

Patrick J. Buchanan
WorldNetDaily
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?
ARTICLE_ID=54711

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Principal Bans Parents from Pro-Gay Seminar

Administrators at North Newton High School in Newton, Mass., have held a seminar for students that explained how to know they are homosexual, but banned parents from attending.

"It's absolutely insane," parent Brian Camenker, who also is chief of the Mass Resistance organization, said. "I met with the principal. She told me no parents are allowed. She said only by invitation. I asked, 'Can I be invited.' She said, 'No.'"

The event, called "ToBeGlad Day," was the school's "Transgender Bisexual Gay Lesbian Awareness Day," and students were given a pamphlet that explains what it means to be "gay," tells students how they are supposed to know if they are "gay," and responds to the question, "Will I ever have sex?"

"This is very, very scary stuff," Camenker said. "The pamphlet also lists places kids can go to meet homosexuals. How would something like this affect a kid who might be going through a confused and vulnerable time in his life? Well … the school isn't interested in what YOU think."

He said some of the topics of the seminar, as reported by the student newspaper, included: "It's natural to be gay," "Nature vs. Nurture," and "Fabulous Gay History."

That report from the student publication, he said, was the only way for parents to get information about what is going on, since they were banned on orders of the principal from attending.

"The first step in coming out is to tell yourself that you are gay and say, 'That's OK,'" the brochure tells students. "Later you may want to tell someone else — someone you trust to be understanding and sympathetic…"

Certainly not one of those homophobic religious people, however. "I had to reject a lot of negative heterosexual and religious programming that made me feel lousy about myself as a gay person," said a testimony from "Bill, age 18."

Bob Unruh
WorldNetDaily
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp
?ARTICLE_ID=54708

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9th Circuit Court Endorses Censoring Christians

A ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded that municipal employers have the right to censor the words "natural family," "marriage" and "family values" because that is hate speech and could scare workers.

The ruling came in a case being handled by the Pro-Family Law Center, which promised an appeal of the drastic result.

"We are going to take this case right up the steps of the United States Supreme Court," said Richard D. Ackerman, who along with Scott Lively argued the case for the Pro-Family Law Center.

"We are simply unwilling to accept that Christians can be completely silenced on the issues of the day — especially on issues such as same-sex marriage, parental rights, and free speech rights," he said.

The decision came in an unpublished "memorandum" from the court, and was in a dispute over the promotion of the homosexual lifestyle within the city offices of Oakland, Calif.

It found that municipalities have a right to dictate what form an employee's speech may take, even if it is in regard to controversial public issues.

"Public employers are permitted to curtail employee speech as long as their 'legitimate administrative interests' outweigh the employee's interest in freedom of speech," said the court's opinion by judges B. Fletcher, Clifton and Ikuta, who noted that their writings are "not appropriate for publication."

"The district court appropriately described [the Christians' speech rights] as 'vanishingly small,'" the opinion continued.

However, as the Pro-Family Law Center noted, the court "completely failed to address the concerns of the appellants with respect to the fact that the City of Oakland's Gay-Straight Employees Alliance was openly allowed to attack the Bible in widespread city e-mails, to deride Christian values as antiquated, and to refer to Bible-believing Christians as hateful. When the plaintiffs attempted to refute this blatant attack on people of faith, they were threatened with immediate termination by the City of Oakland. The Ninth Circuit did not feel that the threat of immediate termination had any effect on free speech."

The case had developed when two city employees who wanted to launch a group of people who shared their interests posted a notice on a city bulletin board — after a series of notices from homosexual activists were delivered to them via the city's e-mail system, bulletin boards and memo distribution system.

The notice said:

Good News Employee Associations is a forum for people of Faith to express their views on the contemporary issues of the day. With respect for the Natural Family, Marriage and Family values.

If you would like to be a part of preserving integrity in the Workplace call Regina Rederford @xxx- xxxx or Robin Christy @xxx-xxxx

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp
?ARTICLE_ID=54587

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