Court decision diminishes meaning of marriage

From www.sourcenewspapers.com:

I’ve heard it said by some that when the U.S. Supreme Court rules on something, it is the “final answer” to any questions surrounding an issue and, therefore, must be good. But considering the Supreme Court has historically ruled in favor of slavery and the killing of the unborn, shouldn’t we scrutinize every court decision for its broader implications?

For instance, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on same-sex marriage, supporters took to the streets and social media with the slogan, “love wins”; and in rewriting the 14^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Justice Anthony Kennedy said same-sex marriage allows two homosexuals to “find a life they could not find alone.”

It all sounds good because everyone deserves love and respect. But truth be told, the Constitution’s purpose is not to promote or legitimize love.

What the Supreme Court did was redefine marriage as an institution that existed for thousands of years primarily to benefit children, into one that primarily benefits adults. Marriage, as between one man and one woman, has been the only institution that can most closely guarantee a child’s right to unity with both his mother and father.

It is precisely because so many children benefit from growing up with a married mother and father – and ultimately how that benefits society -- that governments started supporting marriage. This support never had anything to do with the love between the man and woman. It had everything to do with the unique, complementary nature of the man and woman -- namely the potential ability to conceive a child, and the different and important qualities each gender offers that child.

But now in the name of love, we’ve abandoned that unique trait of marriage to make it whatever anyone wants it to be. Marriage has been reduced to nothing more than helping couples feel their love is now seen as legitimate, which is not the true point of marriage. If it were, then parents would need to "marry" their children to prove their love is legitimate.

Accordingly, if marriage is now defined solely by love, not gender, how can we deny the polygamist his many wives? How can we deny the sister marriage to her brother? The boundaries have been obliterated along with the meaning of marriage itself.

In fairness, plenty of heterosexuals have diminished marriage as well. Cohabitation, out-of-wedlock births and rampant divorce have all undermined the institution. The task at hand now is to reintroduce the worth of traditional marriage’s benefits to society in terms of bringing up children in stable homes with a mom and a dad whenever possible.

Unfortunately, same-sex marriage cannot benefit society in the same way. It only impacts the adults involved. As for children, of course the only way this is possible for homosexual couples is through adoption or surrogacy. But both automatically deny the child’s right to both a mother and a father, and surrogacy reduces women to the professional pimping of their own bodies. This is tragic in itself, but worse, it makes innocent children the guinea pigs in a wild social experiment geared mostly toward the satisfaction of adults.

Ominously, same-sex marriage also seriously threatens religious liberty in America. Though the Court justices suggested that religious dissenters of same-sex marriage may continue to “advocate” and “teach” their views on marriage, they refused to acknowledge the right to “exercise” religious beliefs.

This is worrisome because now that homosexual marriage is the law of the land (as decreed by five unelected people in robes who ignored millions and millions of votes on the issue), on what grounds can someone choose his religious beliefs over demands that he participate in something that violates his beliefs?

We’re already seeing it, such as with the Christian Oregon bakers who were fined $135,000 and had a gag order placed on them for declining to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple whom they had served lovingly for years beforehand. Also, immediately following the Supreme Court's decision, activists announced they would now target religious institutions and Christian colleges that teach biblical views on homosexuality.

What remains to be seen, then, is the extent to which Christians will win their lawsuits, because that is what it will come to: The need to fight for religious freedom in the courts, rather than being able to enjoy the freedoms once guaranteed in our Constitution. And given today's increasingly liberal judges who decide base on their own political views, not the Constitution or other laws, how often do you think Christians will win their cases?

When our courts begin rejecting the Constitution to make up rights for some, while stripping others of theirs, we are no longer a nation of law. Sadly, in efforts to eradicate perceived discrimination against homosexuals, it seems the Supreme Court has succeeded only in legitimizing discrimination against Christians, while rendering meaningless an institution that exists primarily for the benefits of children and society.

As for love, we are all different and are all called to tolerate those differences and to love one another. There is no question about that. But it needs to go both ways. Undermining children and forcing people to act against their beliefs is not tolerance, it is not freedom and it certainly doesn't feel like "love wins", despite what the catchy slogan conveys.

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Random questions of the day....

Since raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would raise product and service prices, how would this help low income people who will have to come up with more money to buy the things they need - especially when employers will have to reduce hours and numbers of employees in order to afford the artificial wage hike?

Why did President Obama waste no time illuminating the White House in rainbow colors following the Supreme Court's decision on same-sex "marriage", but took so long to lower the White House flag to half mast after four U.S. Marines were murdered in a terrorist attack on U.S. soil?

If Obama is serious that he doesn't want Iran to get a nuclear bomb, why did he lift sanctions against Iran, which will allow billions and billions of dollars to flow into the country to help it build its nuclear capabilities (and sponsor even more terrorism)? And why does the deal include giving Iran advanced notice of potential inspections?

If Hillary Clinton is so pro-woman and anti-racism as she claims to be, why then does she support Planned Parenthood, which was founded to eradicate the black race and to this day kills millions of future women?

If same-sex "marriage" means "love wins", as its supporters claim, does that mean traditional marriage was based on hate?

If Planned Parenthood wants us to believe an unborn baby is just a "clump of cells", why then do they refer to actual body parts in describing how they sell newly killed "unborn" baby body parts?

If Hillary Clinton is for the middle class as she claims, why then did she promise to destroy Uber - the brilliantly innovative mode of transportation that is putting money in the pockets of the middle class people who are offering Uber services?

If proponents of same-sex "marriage" say it won't affect anyone, why then did they promise to go after churches and Christian colleges once the Supreme Court legalized it?

How can wind turbines be such a great producer of energy if they have to be turned off when it gets too windy?

If 820,000 illegal immigrants in the US have criminal convictions, how can we say illegal immigration is not a problem?

How come Obama is importing Muslim refugees into America by the thousands, but is ignoring the Christian refugees who are being slaughtered by Muslim fanatics?

Just wondering.....

Obama more loyal to drug felons than US prisoners of Iran

The President of the United States is making a big to-do about visiting a prison today for the first time. He wants to bring attention to unfair prison sentencing. He has already commuted the sentences of about 46 drug felons and personally wrote letters to them and/or their families in a show of support and encouragement.

Meanwhile, in Obama's disastrous, destructive and dangerous deal with Iran, the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, Obama didn't even mention the four US citizens being held by Iran as prisoners (one whose whereabouts are unknown) for made up crimes, including a Christian pastor there to build orphanages yet accused of undermining the Iranian government.

Obama has barely reached out to the families of these men. He did not demand the prisoners' release in exchange for giving Iran free rein to build nuclear weapons thanks to the money they will now have freely flowing into their country because Obama has lifted economic sanctions against them. No word in this Iran deal about the US captives and how their prison sentences are unjust. No comforting phone calls to their families after the deal with the devil was made. Only arrogant displays of self-congratulations as Obama visits convicted felons in US federal prisons.

Shame on this man.

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Abortion doc caught on tape selling baby parts: Watch

Planned Parenthood is at it again. The largest abortion mill in America - the one that claims to provide mammograms and adoption services, but doesn't; the one that turns a blind eye to the sex trafficking of minor-aged girls - has finally revealed itself for the diabolical entity that it is. 

As reported on LifeNews.com, new and utterly disturbing "undercover footage shows Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Senior Director of Medical Services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, describing how Planned Parenthood sells the body parts of aborted unborn children and admitting she uses partial-birth abortions to supply intact body parts." She admits all this while slurping wine and chomping on salad, as if she is discussing nothing more than the weather.

Selling body parts is against federal law. But in today's culture of death, including a U.S. President who voted four times as senator to allow babies born alive after a late-term abortion attempt to be killed anyway - and who claimed his steadfast support of Planned Parenthood -- will this unfathomable woman and the organization she represents be prosecuted as she and it deserve to be? If elected president, would Margaret Sanger-fan Hillary Clinton simply decriminalize such actions? 

Watch the video and share your thoughts. And then please share it as widely you can on your social channels. It's time to expose Planned Parenthood once and for all. Enough is enough.

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Happening now: State-paid sex changes for kids without parental notification

Under a first-in-the-nation policy quietly enacted in January that many parents are only just now finding out about, 15-year-old children are now allowed to get a sex-change operation in Oregon without parental notification or consent. Bonus: Oregon will pay for it through its Medicaid program, the Oregon Health Plan.

Children, who in most states cannot drive, smoke, donate blood, get a tattoo, or even take an aspirin that's unsupervised by a school nurse, can get their genitals removed and or mutilated without their parents’ knowledge.

The decision to cover sex-change operations specifically was made by Oregon's Health Evidence Review Commission (HERC) - members of which are appointed by the governor and paid by the state of Oregon. With no public debate, HERC changed its policy to include cross-sex hormone therapy, puberty-suppressing drugs and gender-reassignment surgery as covered treatments for people with gender dysphoria, formally known as gender identity disorder.

Just for the record, gender dysphoria is classified by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental disorder (for now) in which a person identifies as the sex opposite of his or her birth. It is rare, affecting one out of every 20,000 males and one out of every 50,000 females.

And, according to a 2008 study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, "most children with gender dysphoria will not remain gender dysphoric after puberty."

Fifteen year-old kids are just barely past the phase of thinking the opposite sex has cooties, yet Oregon commission members think kids this young are in a position to make such an enormous decision on their own regarding their sexual identity. 

It's interesting how in the liberal worldview, an adult with no criminal history or history of mental illness should not be allowed to buy a handgun, but a 15 year-old  suffering from a proclaimed mental disorder should be allowed to single-handedly accept harmful and life-changing medical procedures without the consent and involvement of his parents.

As Lori Porter of Parents' Rights in Education put it, "It is trespassing on the hearts, the minds, the bodies of our children. They're our children. And for a decision, a life-altering decision like that to be done unbeknownst to a parent or guardian, it's mindboggling."

I think it's more than mindboggling. I think it's a profound sign of just how dark our country has become. All boundaries of right and wrong and common sense are simply disappearing in this haze of anything goes - especially regarding sexuality - in which we are now living. God help us. We need Him and prayer like never before.

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Hatred being used for political gain

In murdering nine black Christians in Charleston, SC, a 21 year-old gunman claimed he hoped the massacre would start a race war. But instead he sparked something else: Christian forgiveness from the victims’ families and a promise that love would prevail. No riots, no looting, just mercy.

In contrast, President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and other leftists wasted no time exploiting the tragedy in the name of their own race war and used it to renew the call for tighter gun control. It’s interesting how today’s Christians are the ones considered hateful, when true hatred in the form of mass murder is used as a convenient tool for political gain.

Since promising to fundamentally transform America before taking office in 2009, Obama has actively worked at doing so, often by using race as a flashpoint to divide Americans. From Trayvon Martin to Michael Brown and others, Obama has used highly publicized incidents to exacerbate racial tensions, quick to blame any incident involving a black “victim” and non-black “offender” on racism, despite no proof of racism.

The fact that the Charleston murderer is a self-proclaimed racist dovetails nicely with Obama’s insulting claim last week that racism is in America’s DNA. In other words, according to our president, there is no changing us. We are hateful, bigoted people by nature. Where’s the hope in that?

Worse, in a complete show of disrespect to the black Christians brutally murdered, just days afterward Obama used the "N-word" in a speech, implying that just because people might not use it in public, doesn't mean they're not racist. Translation: they still use it in private and, therefore, are disgusting racists. What on earth...?

Barack Obama has taken us back to racial animosity and bitterness like no other president. In fact a recent CNN/ORC survey found that 84% of Americans feel race relations are worse since Obama took office. Instead of making our country more color blind, he has color coded it. He has poured gasoline on smoldering racial division and helped create the abyss across which black and white citizens now stare at each other with increasing anger, mistrust and incomprehension. 

As for other incidents, such as Sandy Hook, the Colorado theater shootings, etc., the president can’t claim racism, so must trot out his other favorite scapegoat, guns, and his desire to make it harder for law-abiding citizens to have them.

It doesn’t matter to the Left, though, that gun laws don’t keep people like the Charleston murderer from inflicting evil on others. It doesn’t sink in that where gun laws are most strict, such as in D.C. and Chicago, gun crimes are the most rampant.

What the Left cannot accept is that there are and always will be people who are very unstable, disturbed, or just plain evil, and they will continue to murder and hurt others, with or without guns. No gun law will ever fix that. But maybe a spiritual renewal in our country could help.

Instead of blaming racism or guns, maybe we should focus more on how to live moral lives. Perhaps we should look at the impact that divorce, violent videogames, pornography, and a culture that devalues unborn life has on people. Maybe we should consider how a progressive society that fights so hard to remove God and denounce Christianity can backfire, producing people who see no value in anything or anyone at all beyond their own self interests.

Commenting on the Charleston massacre, Obama said “there is something particularly heartbreaking about a death happening in a place in which we seek peace,” referring to the church where the murders occurred. True, but it’s an awkward proclamation from a president who has exhibited outright hostility toward Christians since taking office.

From forcing Christian taxpayers to fund the major abortion mill, Planned Parenthood (which, by the way, was founded specifically to “weed out” the black race), to making Christians pay for abortifacients through Obamacare; from supporting the crackdown on prayer and religious services in our military, to comparing Christians to ISIS terrorists, Obama can hardly claim a loving affinity with Christianity in America. As for the true Christianity exemplified by the Charleston victims’ loved ones, I’m not sure the president knows what to do with that, but perhaps it will change some hearts of those currently riding the “Christians-are-hateful” bandwagon.

What’s particularly surprising about this case is how seemingly willing our president and others are to ignore the obvious in favor of fanning the flames of racism. Murdering nine Christians at Bible study was the mark of a psychotically disturbed loner. But the ridiculous solution being put forth is to remove public displays of the Confederate flag, as though symbols incite people to commit mass homicide.

Rather, maybe we should consider the fact that the gunman was on the prescription drug Suboxone, reported by its users to cause extreme agitation and outbursts. In fact, the perpetrators of several heinous mass shootings in recent years, including Sandy Hook, Aurora, CO, Virginia tech and Columbine, were all on some form of psychotropic drug. This is completely ignored, however. Instead our president and presidential hopeful, Hillary, prefer to exploit crime to divide people and justify bigger government.

It’s gratifying though to see that the good people of South Carolina are not falling for it. Church bells across Charleston tolled in unity this past week for the victims, while strangers, black and white, joined hands in prayer and mourning. And unlike the rioters of Ferguson, MO, and Baltimore, MD, thousands from all races gathered on Charleston’s Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge in a peaceful expression of solidarity in response to the murderous rampage of a self-proclaimed racist. Whether everyone standing on that bridge was actually Christian or not, they exhibited the true Christian traits of peace, forgiveness and love.

None of this means criminal perpetrators should be let off the hook of course. But it does mean evil must be recognized for what it is and not used for political gain or to incite disharmony and distrust among Americans. In fact, imagine if our current leadership were to follow the loving example set forth by Christians who forgave a murderer, despite their agonizing pain. If we truly want healing and unity in America, it seems love, not inflammatory rhetoric, would be a good place to start.