Scottie Hughes - Why a Solution Will Destroy the Democratic Party

We have problems in America. The most obvious is a busted budget, an overtaxed citizenry (at least for the 53% who pay into the system), another push on gun control, a broken immigration system, a socialist healthcare model and gay marriage rights. The litany of challenges we face goes on. They plague our political discourse with negativity and dissension.

This in a country that can find cures for certain cancers, use technology to discover new galaxies, and perhaps most stunning to this parent, a country that create devices that can hold my children’s attention for more than an hour. And yet why can’t we find a solution to these never ending arguments?

It’s simple, really. Those on the left don’t want America to find a solution! They thrive and survive on the concept of making sure there will always be a victim.

A solution would bring peace. A solution would bring harmony. A solution would also be devastating to the Democratic Party, which thrives on misery and conflict.

Take immigration. The left loves to reignite the immigration debate, if for no other reason than they practically hear the 12 million illegals registering as Democrats every time they hurl around the word “amnesty.” Then they try and invoke sadness by telling stories of families ripped apart by our border, unable to celebrate holidays together because anchor provisions don’t exist. Last, they appeal to our ego by saying American citizens don’t want to do the work these migrant workers perform.

The Republicans play into their trap by offering half-measure solutions and “compromises” which cause major splintering within our own party. Great Tea Party supporters like Sen. Marco Rubio are instantly demonized despite their almost perfect Conservative track record except in this issue.

The truth is the main reason why immigrants aren't going home is because of legislation like this. We are incentivizing people to break the law, just like the 1986 immigration "reform" bill did.

I have sympathy for those who want to become Americans, and those who are here. But I also have sympathy for the hundreds of thousands around the world who want to come here legally. They wait for hours at consulates, go through lotteries, and sometimes that takes years. Why should they go to the back of the line?

Imagine someone breaks into your home and then the police show up and say they can stay because they can't do anything about. Is that going to encourage criminals or discourage them? If we're not a nation of law and order and process than we're not really a nation. It's said the reason we need to pass this law is because we are ineffective at enforcing our existing laws. That's a sad commentary on America.

Gun control is one issue that should unify the Republican base. The other side’s playbook is as tired as it is predictable. There is the constant grandstanding with victim’s family members of mass shootings. What we have yet to see is any press conference held on an inner city street corner with gang members vowing to turn in their handguns.

The playbook also requires trotting out easily punctured myths. Take for example the gun show loophole.” A Bureau of Justice Statistics report on “Firearms Use by Offenders” found that fewer than 1% of U.S. “crime guns” came from gun shows, with repeat offenders even less likely than first-timers to buy guns from any retail source. Gun shows are touted by the left (and right) as a problem- but they’re not.

Pro-gun legislators often will say they’re not looking to ban private sales; they just want background checks to occur. But again, how can a sale be a private sale if it must first be run through a federal agency? But more pressing than any other question, how can ANY of these measures would have or could have stopped Sandy Hook? The gun used was grandfathered in and exempt from an “assault weapons” ban that had been in place in Connecticut since 1994, the mother was allowed to have it. Days before the killing, the shooter went to a Dick’s Sporting Goods to buy a rifle and was denied- the current system worked. He went home, killed his mother and used her gun.

No matter what happens, the left will continue to paint conservatives as bloodthirsty and heartless. The ironic part is that we hear silence from the left when the issue of killing unborn children is raised. Only through the intrepid efforts of a few citizen journalists on the right did Americans ever hear the name Kermit Gosnell.

What would the left do if Republicans proposed a series of bills that gave them everything they have been wishing for yet because the Republicans proposed it, we would get all the credit with the different demographic groups? Would the left fight us as we gave them back a taste of their own medicine, as the Democratic Party would be in certain chaos? I predict we would see that exact same problem occur on the left that is now happening on the right. Infighting, division, demonization, and ultimately implosion would eventually occur, as the Democratic Party would not be able to exist without the concept of a victim. The only problem would be that if we accepted the complete liberal agenda as they propose, America as we know it today would be the ultimate victim.

Scottie Hughes

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Matt Barber - Religious Freedom and ‘Gay Marriage’ Cannot Coexist

Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. – Psalm 73:6

“Gay pride” necessitates anti-Christian hate. It must. “Gay marriage” and other “sexual orientation”-based laws do violence to freedom and truth. They are the hammer with which the postmodern left intends to bludgeon bloody religious liberty and the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic.

According to the unequivocal moral precepts of the Judeo-Christian tradition – explicit throughout both the Old and New Testaments – homosexual behavior is a sin. Sin is evil. Homosexual behavior is the central, defining characteristic of so-called “gay marriage.” Therefore, “gay marriage” is evil. Christians are obligated to avoid sin – to “do no evil.”

I know; it’s not popular to speak such simple truths in today’s politically correct world. But I’m not out to win a popularity contest.

Neither is Ms. Barronelle Stutzman. Ms. Stutzman is the Christian owner-operator of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Wash. She is, by all accounts, a lovely, sweet, elderly woman who both employs and regularly serves open practitioners of the homosexual lifestyle. Sadly, she has become the latest victim in a fast-growing string of secularist attacks against Christians and other morally minded people. If “same-sex marriage” becomes the law of the land, I can assure you that we will soon see a virtual explosion in the same kind of anti-Christian persecution Ms. Stutzman now suffers.

Recently, one of Ms. Stutzman’s frequent homosexual customers requested that she provide flower arrangements for his same-sex “wedding.” She politely declined, saying that her Christian conscience and “relationship with Jesus Christ” prevented her from any involvement with counter-Christian “same-sex marriage.” She was, quite simply, a Christian being Christian. The two hugged and parted ways.

Unfortunately, in our ever-”progressive” culture, being Christian has fast become a most dangerous proposition. As each homofascist demand is checked from liberals’ sin-centric wish list, it only gets worse.

As a result of her constitutionally guaranteed religious free exercise, Washington State’s newly elected Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed charges against Ms. Stutzman, seeking both a monetary judgment and an injunction to physically force her to violate her Christian conscience. He would compel her to either lend her artistic expression in support of counterfeit “gay marriage” – something Christianity steadfastly recognizes as mortal sin – or face further charges.

Speaking of steadfast, to her credit, Ms. Stutzman has stood firm. She has refused to cave under Ferguson’s tyrannical torment. Ferguson, on the other hand, has revealed himself a creep and a coward – a “progressive” bully who apparently gets off on abusing elderly women. He’s a disgrace to Washington State and should be thrown out of office and disbarred.

Still, this type of government persecution must be expected. Ferguson is a liberal. The liberal viewpoint is that any viewpoint, save the liberal viewpoint, must be criminalized and prosecuted.

Like many of us, Joseph Backholm, with the Family Policy Institute of Washington, has long warned about the consequences of radically deconstructing the institution of natural marriage. “Now that the law says marriage is genderless,” he recently wrote of Ms. Stutzman’s ongoing abuse, “those who think otherwise [must] … conform or be punished. … Now liberals believe they are legally entitled to someone else’s labor.”

To homosexuals I say this: Yes, you are equal in God’s eyes. You are loved. These things are true, not because of your homosexual lifestyle, but, rather, they are true in spite of it.

Most homosexuals know intuitively, I think, that their lifestyle is unnatural and immoral and that the oxymoronic notion of “same-sex marriage” is a silly farce. Thus, they must force others to affirm both their self-destructive lifestyle and their mock “marriages” under penalty of law. They must physically compel everyone to engage their “emperor’s new clothes” delusion, so they can feel better about bad behavior.

Well, my friend, making everyone else “call evil good and good evil” won’t fill that dark void in your soul. Only repentance and redemption through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ can do that.

When we give deviant sexual conduct preferred status in law, Christian morality becomes illegal. If you think government-recognized “gay marriage” is harmless to society, you’re playing the fool. It places the Christian sexual ethic and free exercise of religion in direct conflict with law. It’s my sense that many liberty-minded people are finally coming awake to this disturbing reality.

Although we all sin, Christians are commanded to neither support nor engage in evil. Hence, Christians – true Christians – cannot engage in nor condone the unrepentant practice of homosexual behavior. Neither can we support sin-centric “gay marriage.”

This rudimentary equation is built upon the natural laws of moral physics. Christianity is magnetically charged truth. Homosexual behavior is a magnetically charged lie – a spiritual and biological falsehood. Christianity and homosexual sin are as north to south. Polar opposites cannot occupy the same position in time and space. They repel one another. It’s physically, spiritually and legally impossible for religious freedom and preferred legal status for sexual sin to coexist in harmony. Ms. Stutzman’s persecution is just the latest example of this timeless reality.

Why are Christians so afraid to call sin sin? It’s time for invertebrate believers to grow a backbone. Truth, in love, is the balance. Yes, the world will hate you, because it first hated Christ. So what? Count it a blessing – even unto death.

Here’s my recommendation: When those who are lost to the world hate on you, laugh at them. Then cry for them. Then pray for them. Follow Christ’s example and ask, as did He, that God “forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Then get up, dust yourself off and get back in the fight.

Albert Einstein once said, “Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.”

He was right.

Barronelle Stutzman followed this advice and – though she currently faces government persecution for her choice – she has also become an accidental hero. Pray for her. I know God will surely bless her faithfulness.

Still, know this: If you are a Christian in today’s America, you too will almost certainly find yourself with a similar decision to make. When man’s law violates God’s law, you will have to choose which to obey. Choosing God can mean persecution.

I’ve made my choice.

How will you choose?

Matt Barber

Matt Barber served as Policy Director for Cultural Issues with Concerned Women for America before joining Liberty University School of Law in 2008. In addition to his Juris Doctorate degree, Dean Barber holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from Regent University and a Bachelor of Science in Organizational Management from Colorado Christian University.

Matt Barber is a published freelance writer, many newspapers and online publications run his columns, including the Washington Examiner, Washington Times, Insight magazine, WorldNetDaily.com, TownHall.com and many others.

Matt Barber was a law enforcement officer for three years and a corporate fraud investigator for five years.

Matt Barber served twelve years in the Army National Guard, and was an undefeated professional boxer, retiring in 2004. Several times prior to turning pro, he was a state and regional Golden Gloves champion, competing in the 1992 Western Olympic Trials and winning a Gold Medal in the 1993 Police and Fire World Games.

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Is Bill O'Reilly becoming Ted Baxter

Bill O'Reilly thinks to highly of himself. Bill talks over people, will not let anyone get a word in edgewise and attacks anyone who does not agree 100% with his viewpoint. This session with Laura Ingraham is NOT an isolated incident. Bill also defends Barack Obama on many issues which are indefensible. This is why I do NOT use Bill O'Reilly videos on this website. RG (WJF)

Background on O'Reilly Losing His Cool:

O’Reilly in a late March show said that gay marriage proponents have successfully defined it as a civil rights issue, which he called a “compelling” argument that social conservatives have yet to counter.

“The other side hasn’t been able to do anything but thump the Bible,” O'Reilly said.

Rush Limbaugh took umbrage at this. On his own radio show last Wednesday (3/27/13), he took out after O’Reilly, calling him “Ted Baxter," after the pompous anchor from the old Mary Tyler Moore show.

O’Reilly had “marginalized” many religious Fox News viewers with his statement, said Mr. Limbaugh.

“A lot of them do have a very deeply held religious belief about what traditional marriage is,” said Ingraham.

O’Reilly countered that he was not insulting people’s religious belief.

“Why did you use the word ‘thump?’ ” asked Ingraham.

“Because that’s the way you get it across,” said O’Reilly.

Mary Tyler Moore - Shut Up Ted

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Matt Barber - Marriage is What it is

“It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is,” said the smooth-talking, skirt-chasing, totally busted philanderer.

“Well, no, Bill,” replied Congress. “Actually, things just ‘is’ what they is.”

Here’s what marriage is: The God-ordained, lifelong, covenantal union between man and wife, designed to provide men, women and children optimal stability and overall well-being. Marriage is that biologically, spiritually and morally centered institution calculated to ensure responsible procreation and perpetuate the human race. Marriage – real marriage – represents the fundamental cornerstone of any healthy society (any society that hopes to survive, at least).

Here’s what marriage is not: Anything else.

In short, marriage is what it is.

That our nation has fallen so far, so fast in its embrace of empty relativism makes the head swim. It’s at once perplexing and heartbreaking that we have a U.S. Supreme Court seriously considering inventing a newfangled “right” to that chicane aberration tagged “same-sex marriage.” This is true particularly when one considers that the defining behaviors central to “gay marriage” were, for hundreds of years and for obvious reasons, legally and properly classified as “crimes against nature.” Though our postmodern zeitgeist may have changed, objective reality has not.

Indeed, American culture, while casting aside that which is just, moral and true, has, instead, taken-up that which is unjust, immoral and false. This abject rejection of absolute truth provides compelling evidence that the good ‘ol USA – the greatest nation on earth – is on the fast track to becoming “the late, great USA.”

So-called “gay marriage” is a counterfeit – a mockery of legitimate marriage. It’s like taking a rotten apple, spray-painting it orange, and then calling it an orange. “Same-sex marriage” is no more real marriage then a rotten apple is an orange. It’s mock marriage.

One of the best appraisals I’ve read on marriage was presented in 2003 to the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI). Among other things, the future pontiff explicitly recognized the empirical fact that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” Following are excerpts from his treatise titled “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons”:

The Church’s teaching on marriage and on the complementarity of the sexes reiterates a truth that is evident to right reason and recognized as such by all the major cultures of the world. Marriage is not just any relationship between human beings. It was established by the Creator with its own nature, essential properties and purpose. No ideology can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man and a woman … in order to cooperate with God in the procreation and upbringing of new human lives. …

In the first place, man, the image of God, was created “male and female” (Gen 1:27). Men and women are equal as persons and complementary as male and female. Sexuality is something that pertains to the physical-biological realm and has also been raised to a new level – the personal level – where nature and spirit are united. …

There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts “close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.”

To be sure, “marriage equality” already exists. It is, quite simply, the self-evident truth that both husband and wife are co-equal, indispensable partners essential to the formulation of a marriage covenant. While moral relativists clamor for their propagandist version of “marriage equality,” the rest of us live in marriage reality.

Every single mentally competent adult enjoys the right to marry within exactly the same parameters required by natural law. Thus, “equal protection under the law” is afforded to all. As long as your spouse-to-be is 1) not too closely related, 2) of legal age, 3) only one person, 4) of the opposite sex and 5) a biped of the genus homo-sapien – then you’re golden. Marry away.

If you remove one requirement – in this case, the binary male-female prerequisite – then there is no justification, logical or legal, for not removing all requirements. If we yank one foundational brick from the marriage wall, then, as in the days of Jericho, the whole danged thing comes a-tumblin’. That is to say, if the Supreme Court rolls out “gay marriage,” then legalized polygamy, incestuous marriage and heaven-knows-what-else must inevitably follow.

Even still, the left loves to suggest that “gay marriage” supporters are “on the right side of history.” This is utter nonsense. Natural marriage has, for all of history, been on the “right side of history;” and so it shall remain.

Another rotten apples-to-oranges false equivalency is to claim that precluding “gay marriage” is akin to banning interracial marriage. Again, this is nonsense. Liberals, in making their case for the former, are quick to cite Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court case that invalidated anti-miscegenation laws.

By comparing “gay marriage” to interracial marriage, leftists endeavor to draw a parallel where none exists. The Loving Court both recognized and affirmed the fundamental man-woman nature of marriage while simply – and rightly so – removing arbitrary and truly discriminatory racial barriers. While Loving left the institution of natural marriage fully intact, a pro-”gay marriage” ruling by the High Court would thoroughly deconstruct it.

In sum, proponents of counterfeit “gay marriage” pretend that normalcy, biology, history, morality and sanity are all irrelevant to the debate. They are not. As counterfeit money devalues the dollar, counterfeit “gay marriage” devalues the institution of legitimate marriage.

Scripture reminds us that, “there is nothing new under the sun.” Ultimately, the oxymoronic notion of “same-sex marriage” is nothing new. It’s both rooted in man’s age-old rebellion against God and ancient pagan sexual morality.

So, I’ll leave you with this fundamental question: Since God undeniably designed marriage to be the exclusive union of man and wife – who, or what, then, do you suppose manufactured the absurd notion of “same-sex marriage?”

I think the answer is pretty clear.

Matt Barber

Matt Barber served as Policy Director for Cultural Issues with Concerned Women for America before joining Liberty University School of Law in 2008. In addition to his Juris Doctorate degree, Dean Barber holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from Regent University and a Bachelor of Science in Organizational Management from Colorado Christian University.

Matt Barber is a published freelance writer, many newspapers and online publications run his columns, including the Washington Examiner, Washington Times, Insight magazine, WorldNetDaily.com, TownHall.com and many others.

Matt Barber was a law enforcement officer for three years and a corporate fraud investigator for five years.

Matt Barber served twelve years in the Army National Guard, and was an undefeated professional boxer, retiring in 2004. Several times prior to turning pro, he was a state and regional Golden Gloves champion, competing in the 1992 Western Olympic Trials and winning a Gold Medal in the 1993 Police and Fire World Games.

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Daniel Greenfield - The Deconstruction of Marriage

Originally Published on the Sultan Knish blog

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The only question worth asking about gay marriage is whether anyone on the left would care about this crusade if it didn't come with the privilege of bulldozing another civilizational institution.



Gay marriage is not about men marrying men or women marrying women, it is about the deconstruction of marriage between men and women. That is a thing that many men and women of one generation understand but have trouble conveying to another generation for whom marriage has already largely been deconstructed.

The statistics about the falling marriage rate tell the tale well enough. Marriage is a fading institution. Family is a flickering light in the evening of the West.

The deconstruction is destruction. Entire countries are fading away, their populations being replaced by emigrants from more traditional lands whose understanding of the male-female relationship is positively reactionary. These emigrants may lack technology or the virtues of civilization, and their idea of marriage resembles slavery more than any modern ideal, but it fulfills the minimum purpose of any group, tribe or country-- it produces its next generation.

The deconstruction of marriage is not a mere matter of front page photos of men kissing. It began with the deconstruction of the family. Gay marriage is only one small stop on a tour that includes rising divorce rates, falling childbirth rates and the abandonment of responsibility by twenty and even thirty-somethings.

Each step on the tour takes apart the definition and structure of marriage until there is nothing left. Gay marriage is not inclusive, it is yet another attempt at eliminating marriage as a social institution by deconstructing it until it no longer exists.

There are two ways to destroy a thing. You can either run at it while swinging a hammer with both hands or you can attack its structure until it no longer means anything.

The left hasn't gone all out by outlawing marriage, instead it has deconstructed it, taking apart each of its assumptions, from the economic to the cooperative to the emotional to the social, until it no longer means anything at all. Until there is no way to distinguish marriage from a temporary liaison between members of uncertain sexes for reasons that due to their vagueness cannot be held to have any solemn and meaningful purpose.

You can abolish democracy by banning the vote or you can do it by letting people vote as many times as they want, by letting small children and foreigners vote, until no one sees the point in counting the votes or taking the process seriously. The same goes for marriage or any other institution. You can destroy it by outlawing it or by eliminating its meaningfulness until it becomes so open that it is absurd.

Every aspect of marriage is deconstructed and then eliminated until it no longer means anything. And once marriage is no longer a lifetime commitment between a man and a woman, but a ceremony with no deeper meaning than most modern ceremonies, then the deconstruction and destruction will be complete.

The deconstruction of marriage eroded it as an enduring institution and then as an exclusive institution and finally as a meaningful institution. The trendy folk who claim to be holding off on getting married until gay marriage is enacted are not eager for marriage equality, they are using it as an excuse for an ongoing rejection of marriage.

Gay marriage was never the issue. It was always marriage.

In the world that the deconstructionists are striving to build, there will be marriage, but it will mean nothing. Like a greeting card holiday, it will be an event, but not an institution. An old ritual with no further meaning. An egotistical exercise in attention-seeking and self-celebration with no deeper purpose. It will be a display every bit as hollow as the churches and synagogues it takes place in.

The deconstruction of marriage is only a subset of the deconstruction of gender from a state of being to a state of mind. The decline of marriage was preceded by the deconstruction of gender roles and gay marriage is being succeeded by the destruction of gender as anything other than a voluntary identity, a costume that one puts on and takes off.

Destroying gender roles was a prerequisite to destroying gender. Each deconstruction leads naturally to the next deconstruction with no final destination except total deconstruction.

Gay marriage is not a stopping point, just as men in women's clothing using the ladies room is not a stopping point. There is no stopping point at all.

The left's deconstruction of social institutions is not a quest for equality, but for destruction. As long as the institutions that preceded it exist, it will go on deconstructing them until there is nothing left but a blank canvas, an unthinking anarchy, on which it can impose its perfect and ideal conception of how everyone should live.

Equality is merely a pretext for deconstruction. Change the parameters of a thing and it ceases to function. Redefine it and expand it and it no longer means anything at all. A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but if you change 'rose' to mean anything that sticks out of the ground, then the entire notion of what is being discussed has gone and cannot be reclaimed without also reclaiming language.

The left's social deconstruction program is a war of ideas and concepts. Claims of equality are used to expand institutions and ways of living until they are so broad as to encompass everything and nothing. And once a thing encompasses everything, once a rose represents everything rising out of the ground, then it also represents nothing at all.

Deconstruction is a war against definitions, borders and parameters. It is a war against defining things by criminalizing the limitation of definitions. With inclusivity as the mandate, exclusivity, in marriage, or any other realm, quickly meets with social disapproval and then becomes a hate crime. If the social good is achieved only through maximum inclusivity and infinite tolerance, then any form of exclusivity, from property to person to ideas, is a selfish act that refuses the collective impulse to make all things into a common property with no lasting meaning or value.

As Orwell understood in 1984, tyranny is essentially about definitions. It is hard to fight for freedom if you lack the word. It is hard to maintain a marriage if the idea no longer exists. Orwell's Oceania made basic human ideas into contradictory things. The left's deconstruction of social values does the same thing to such essential institutions as marriage; which becomes an important impermanent thing of no fixed nature or value.

The left's greatest trick is making things mean the opposite of what they do. Stealing is sharing. Crime is justice. Property is theft. Each deconstruction is accompanied by an inversion so that a thing, once examined, comes to seem the opposite of what it is, and once that is done, it no longer has the old innate value, but a new enlightened one.

To deconstruct man, you deconstruct his beliefs and then his way of living. You deconstruct freedom until it means slavery. You deconstruct peace until it means war. You deconstruct property until it means theft. And you deconstruct marriage until it means a physical relationship between any group of people for any duration. And that is the opposite of what marriage is.

The deconstruction of marriage is part of the deconstruction of gender and family and those are part of the long program of deconstructing man. Once each basic value has been rendered null and void, inverted and revealed to be random and meaningless, then man is likewise revealed to be a random and meaningless creature whose existence requires shaping by those who know better.

The final deconstruction eliminates nation, religion, family and even gender to reduce the soul of man to a blank slate waiting to be written on.

That is what is at stake here. This is not a struggle about the right of equality, but the right of definition. It is not about whether men can get married, but whether marriage will mean anything at all. It is about preserving the shapes and structures of basic social concepts that define our identities in order to preserve those very concepts, rather than accepting their deconstruction into nullification.

The question on the table is whether the institutions that give us meaning will be allowed to retain that meaning. And that question is a matter of survival. Societies cannot survive without definitions. Peoples do not go on existing through the act of occupying space. The deconstruction of identity is also the destruction of identity.

And that is what we are truly fighting against.

Daniel Greenfield

Visit Daniel's Blog Sultan Knish by clicking HERE

Daniel Greenfield is a blogger and columnist born in Israel and living in New York City. Daniel is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a contributing editor at Family Security Matters.

Daniel's original biweekly column appears at Front Page Magazine and his blog articles regularly appear at Family Security Matters, the Jewish Press, Times of Israel, Act for America and Right Side News, as well as daily at the Canada Free Press and a number of other outlets. Daniel has a column titled Western Front at Israel National News and his op eds have also appeared in the New York Sun, the Jewish Press and at FOX Nation.

Daniel was named one of the Jewish Press' Most Worthwhile Blogs from 2006-2011 and his writing has been cited by Rush Limbaugh, Melanie Philips, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, Judith Klinghoffer, John Podhoretz, Jeff Jacoby and Michelle Malkin, among others.

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Matt Barber - Marriage Equality Spells Marriage Extinction

This week the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on two of the most critical cases of our time. On Tuesday, March 26, attorneys will make the pitch both for and against California’s Proposition 8. This, of course, is the Golden State’s pro-marriage amendment. It maintained the timeless definition of natural marriage as between man and wife.

Then, on Wednesday, March 27, the high court will consider the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), passed in 1996 with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by then President Bill Clinton. It, likewise, secured the definition of legitimate marriage for purposes of federal law.

Although both cases certainly address a multitude of legal and political issues, they also involve a number of moral and cultural considerations that, if wrongly decided, will literally shake Western civilization to the core.

The stakes could not be higher. Of central concern is whether the Supreme Court will put its official stamp of approval on “same-sex marriage.” Ultimately, these nine justices will decide either to recklessly deconstruct, radically redefine and render functionally trivial the age-old institution of natural marriage – or leave it alone.

They’d better leave it alone.

Here’s the bottom line: Homosexual activists don’t want the white picket fence. They want to burn down the white picket fence. The endgame is not to achieve so-called “marriage equality,” but, rather, to render marriage reality meaningless.

In a recent column headlined, “The Revolt of Intelligence Against ‘Marriage Equality,” worldview expert Rick Pearcey addressed one prominent “gay” activist’s admission that the destruction of natural marriage signifies the left’s ultimate cultural coup de grâce.

“Masha Gessen, a lesbian and a journalist, spoke frankly about this at a conference in Sydney, Australia,” he wrote. “‘It’s a no-brainer that we should have the right to marry,’ she said. ‘But I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. … ‘Marriage equality’ becomes ‘marriage elasticity,’ with the ultimate goal of ‘marriage extinction.’”

Still, if counterfeit “same-sex marriage” becomes the law of the land, then much will follow before marriage extinction inevitably occurs.

One of liberals’ favorite Alinskyite defense mechanisms is to ridicule the opposition if confronted with some irrefutable argument against some hallowed left-wing delusion. Such is the tactic employed whenever a thinking person walks into the room and points this out: Once the government pretends that some vague combination of “love” and “consent” are all that a “marriage” requires, then other “arbitrary” and “discriminatory” parameters beyond a binary male-female prerequisite must also go poof.

That is to say, if the Court magically divines some constitutional right to “same-sex marriage,” then full “marriage equality” necessarily demands that polygamous, incestuous and any other equally aberrant nuptial cocktail be likewise permitted.

It’s a “no-brainer,” right?

To that end, I’m very concerned with the Supreme Court’s recent history of radically redefining that which cannot be redefined. Though examples abound, I’m thinking specifically, as concerns the topic at hand, of the Court’s 2003 holding in Lawrence v. Texas.

In Lawrence, the liberal majority, for the first time in history, radically redefined male-on-male sodomy – hitherto classified “a crime against nature” – as a “constitutional right.”

In his characteristically brilliant dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia voiced my concerns better than I can: “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices,” he wrote. “Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision.”

So, if the high court removes one natural marriage parameter for one special-interest group, then “equal protection under the law” requires that it remove all natural marriage parameters for all special-interest groups.

Liberty Counsel made these very points in a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the Supreme Court: “Ultimately, there is no principled basis for recognizing a legality of same-sex marriage without simultaneously providing a basis for the legality of consensual polygamy or certain adult incestuous relationships,” noted the brief. “In fact, every argument for same-sex marriage is an argument for them as well.”

Another brief filed by 18 state attorneys general voiced similar concerns: “Once the natural limits that inhere in the relationship between a man and a woman can no longer sustain the definition of marriage, the conclusion that follows is that any grouping of adults would have an equal claim to marriage,” they wrote.

The brief further observed the self-evident “no-brainer” that legitimate marriage is “optimal for children and society at large.”

It’s all very simple. If anything is marriage, then everything is marriage. And if everything is marriage, then nothing is marriage at all. “‘Marriage equality’ becomes ‘marriage elasticity,’ with the ultimate goal of ‘marriage extinction.’”

I sincerely hope that the honorable and learned men and women who sit on the highest bench in the land recognize that all of these San Francisco-style social-engineering games are a deceptive means to a destructive end. And it’s not the emotionalist end they’ve dolled-up and dished out. The left’s fierce push for “gay marriage” has nothing to do with “marriage equality” and everything to do with “marriage extinction.”

Or, as Ms. Gessen candidly put it: “[I]t’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist.”

I just pray that at least five justices still think it should.

Matt Barber

Matt Barber served as Policy Director for Cultural Issues with Concerned Women for America before joining Liberty University School of Law in 2008. In addition to his Juris Doctorate degree, Dean Barber holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from Regent University and a Bachelor of Science in Organizational Management from Colorado Christian University.

Matt Barber is a published freelance writer, many newspapers and online publications run his columns, including the Washington Examiner, Washington Times, Insight magazine, WorldNetDaily.com, TownHall.com and many others.

Matt Barber was a law enforcement officer for three years and a corporate fraud investigator for five years.

Matt Barber served twelve years in the Army National Guard, and was an undefeated professional boxer, retiring in 2004. Several times prior to turning pro, he was a state and regional Golden Gloves champion, competing in the 1992 Western Olympic Trials and winning a Gold Medal in the 1993 Police and Fire World Games.

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Crystal Wright - Gays Don’t Have a Right to Marriage

The mere words same-sex marriage connote it’s not a “marriage” by use of the term, but rather an aberration of a societal norm that a small group are determined to force onto the majority. Only 3% of Americans are gay.

Since the beginning of time, before marriage was formally recognized by state laws, it was defined between a man and a woman not just for kicks, but because people of the opposite sex have coupled off to procreate, as a means of continuing society. It takes a man and woman to biologically create a baby, so naturally society began to recognize marriage between a man and a woman to encourage stable families and cultures.

Two men and two women will never be able to create a baby. This is fact not fiction. People argue that not every married couple has children. While every married couple won’t choose to have babies or be able to, marriage between a man and woman is at the core of society’s cultural foundation and must be protected.

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments in two cases, California’s Proposition 8, where citizens voted to ban gay marriage, and the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, defining marriage between a man and a woman. Proponents of gay marriage are asking the court to ignore centuries of a societal norm and legalize gay marriage as the law of the land on the basis of the 14th amendment.

Activists often refer to the 1967 Loving vs. Virginia case to argue that denying gays a right to marriage is discriminatory. In the Loving case, the Supreme Court ruled laws banning interracial marriage were illegal because they violated the 14th Amendment’s “equal protection of the laws” clause, which applied to all citizens. Mildred Loving, a black woman, and her husband, Richard, a white man, had the right to marry because the institution of marriage is inherently between a man and a woman, not between two men or two women, and therefore gay couples don’t have a right to marriage.

During arguments in the California case, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia plainly pointed out, marriage has never been a “fundamental” right for gays, as lawyer Theodore Olson tried to assert. “When did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791? 1868, when the 14th Amendment was adopted?” said Scalia.

For gays to suggest a right to marry is akin to blacks fighting for civil rights is not only preposterous but also offensive to the highest order. Emmett Till, a 14 year old black boy was beaten, his eye gouged out, murdered, and thrown in the bottom of a lake with a “cotton gin fan barbed wired to his neck” all because he whistled at a white woman. Till was denied civil rights. The Supreme Court declared black slaves property instead of citizens in the 1857 Dred Scott case; therefore denying blacks equal rights to their white slave masters under the Constitution. I don’t see how denying gays marriage rights is akin to slavery holding blacks in bondage as property, as liberals assert.

My mother and father joined “sit ins” at segregated lunch counters in the 1960s to fight for the basic right to eat, work, live and learn in the same places as whites. Blacks and some whites were lynched, murdered, hosed down and arrested so blacks could enjoy their undeniable rights under the Constitution. I don’t see gays undergoing the same struggle in their quest to marry.

America is almost a moral wasteland as it is. People are expected to look the other way, condone and accept as societal norms things like teen pregnancy, out of wedlock births, and the left’s constant mockery and disintegration of traditional family values. Cue the liberal rant: “Stay at home mom Ann Romney never worked a day in her life.”

It’s no coincidence that 38 states where gay marriage was placed on the ballot voters rejected it because it attempts to redefine a societal norm. Nine States and the District of Columbia allow gay marriage. The DC Council voted to approve gay marriage, bypassing a ballot initiative for fear residents would reject it. Of the remaining states, courts forced them to allow gay marriage. While some states have voted in favor of gay marriage, the majority voted against it because they think it’s wrong.

What’s overlooked in the gay marriage debate is that gays represent 3% of the US population yet they are attempting to force their life choices as mainstream on the 97% majority. From gay marriage, to gay adoptions, homosexual curriculum in public schools, and the demand for gay Boy Scouts leaders, when will this gay war on society END?

Crystal Wright

Crystal Wright is a black conservative woman living in Washington, D.C. Some would say she is a triple minority: woman, black and a Republican living in a Democrat dominated city. She’s contemplating moving back to her home state of Virginia, where her vote would count for something. By day, Crystal is a communications consultant and editor and publisher of the new website, conservativeblackchick.com. Crystal earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Georgetown University and holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Theatre from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Wright is the principal owner of the Baker Wright Group, LLC , a full service public relations firm, specializing in communications counseling, media relations, message development, media training and crisis communications. The firm’s approach is straight forward counseling: an unvarnished approach to public relations.

Visit Crystal's Website by clicking HERE

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Michael Brown - Mr. Clinton, You Are Wrong About Overturning DOMA

Dear Mr. Clinton, with all respect to the office of the president which you held for 8 years, I must say that it is not just ironic that you are now asking the Supreme Court to overturn the legislation you signed into law 17 years ago. It is downright tragic.

In your March 7th editorial for the Washington Post, you wrote that although it “was only 17 years ago” when you signed the Defense of Marriage Act, “it was a very different time.”

May I ask you, sir, if 17 years have changed the nature of men and women, of mother and fathers and children, of the essential elements of a family? Have 17 years changed multiplied thousands of years of human history? Have 17 years changed fundamental faith values embraced by several billion people worldwide?

You explain that, 17 years ago, “In no state in the union was same-sex marriage recognized, much less available as a legal right, but some were moving in that direction.”

In point of fact, since 1996, 32 states have voted to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman (the majority of them since 2004), including my current home state of North Carolina, which just last year overwhelmingly wrote natural, organic marriage into the constitution by a vote of 61% to 39%, despite a strong majority of Democrats statewide.

It is true that, for the first time, several states voted in 2012 to redefine marriage, but those were heavily blue states where traditional marriage proponents were outspent by as much as five-to-one, and even then, the voting was close.

Can you really claim some kind of mandate when 9 times out of 10 (32 states out of 36), when the people have been given a right to vote, they have voted against genderless marriage? The mandate is actually against your position, sir, not for it.

In your editorial, you offer a transparently weak justification of your signing of DOMA, which leads me to ask: Mr. Clinton, did you have no conscience when you signed that bill into law? Did you have no gay or lesbian friends? Had you not met any upstanding gay or lesbian couples, working hard to raise a family? I’m sure that was not the case, sir, and with all candor, your justification for signing DOMA in 1996 while asking the Supreme Court to overturn it in 2013 smacks of political correctness more than dispassionate conviction.

You wrote that when DOMA comes before the Court on March 27, “the justices must decide whether it is consistent with the principles of a nation that honors freedom, equality and justice above all, and is therefore constitutional. As the president who signed the act into law, I have come to believe that DOMA is contrary to those principles and, in fact, incompatible with our Constitution.”

Do you honestly believe, Mr. Clinton, that any of the framers of the Constitution countenanced a day in our great nation when men would be marrying men and women marrying women, and in the name of the Constitution, at that? And since when did our Constitution guarantee the government’s endorsement of all romantic attractions and sexual behaviors? And are you genuinely unaware that redefining marriage is just the tip of the iceberg of a massive societal transformation in the name of LGBT rights, including the undoing of gender distinctions?

And with your brilliant legal mind, sir, are you oblivious to the fact that polygamists and polyamorists, too numerous to be ignored, are also appealing to “freedom, equality and justice” in the pursuit of their “rights”? What will you say to them, especially given the fact that their lifestyles are now being mainstreamed by the very same media that has so shaped American thinking on homosexual issues?

You wrote, “Because Section 3 of the act defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, same-sex couples who are legally married in nine states and the District of Columbia are denied the benefits of more than a thousand federal statutes and programs available to other married couples.”

But what does this have to with the radical redefinition of marriage? What does this have to do with sanctioning an institution that will guarantee that a child has either no mother or no father? What does this have to do with rendering marriage genderless, to the point that marriage certificates could be reduced to Partner A and Partner B, along with birth certificates being reduced to Parent A and Parent B? (In this context, I should mention the Florida judge who “approved the adoption of a 22-month-old baby girl that will list three people as parents on her birth certificate – a married lesbian couple and a gay man.”)

Mr. Clinton, if marriage is simply the union of two people and not the union of a man and a woman, can you give me one solid intellectual reason or one compelling social argument why marriage cannot involve more than two consenting adults? What is so special about the number “two” if it does not consist of a male and female, with their unique biological and social compatibility and, in normal circumstances, their ability to produce children whom they will raise for the next generation?

You claim to know now that DOMA not only provided “an excuse for discrimination,” but that “the law is itself discriminatory.” Surely you must realize that polygamists, polyamorists, and others will find your current position “discriminatory.” More importantly, the sanctioning of same-sex “marriage” will mean that multiplied tens of millions of God-fearing Americans will be codified as bigots, surely the height of ugly discrimination.

Mr. Clinton, you were right before. You are wrong now. I pray that God will give you another change of heart.

Dr. Michael Brown

Michael Brown holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and is the author of 20 books. He has served as a professor at a number of seminaries and hosts the nationally syndicated, daily talk radio show, the Line of Fire.

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Michael Brown - Time For Sensitivity Training

Chris Culliver, the San Francisco 49ers player who badmouthed gays last week, will soon begin LGBT sensitivity training. When do the public figures who badmouth conservative Christians begin their sensitivity training?

Back in 2007, basketball player Tim Hardaway received an avalanche of criticism when he said during a radio interview, “I hate gay people. I don’t like to be around gay people. I’m homophobic. I don’t like it. It shouldn’t be in the world for that or in the United States for it. So yeah, I don’t like it.” He too went to sensitivity training and has since emerged as a gay rights spokesman.

Also in 2007 (as I documented in A Queer Thing Happened to America), Isaiah Washington, star of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, referred to (then-closeted) gay co-star T. R. Knight with the “f--got” word during a heated, on-set incident. He then compounded his transgression in a backstage interview with reporters at the Golden Globes’ event, held on Monday night, January 15th, 2007: “No, I did not call T.R a f--got. Never happened, never happened.”

ABC was quick to express its outrage: “We are greatly dismayed that Mr. Washington chose to use such inappropriate language at the Golden Globes, language that he himself deemed ‘unfortunate’ in his previous public apology,” the network said in a statement. “His actions are unacceptable and are being addressed.”

Neil Giuliano, then president of GLAAD (the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, better described as Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Disagreement) referred to the situation as “deeply troubling” and stated that Washington’s repeated use of the word was “inexcusable,” asking for a meeting to discuss “the destructive impact of these kinds of anti-gay slurs.”

Then, on Thursday, January 18th, 2007, Washington came clean, expressing how deep his problems really were: “I apologize to T.R., my colleagues, the fans of the show and especially the lesbian and gay community for using a word that is unacceptable in any context or circumstance. . . . I can neither defend nor explain my behavior. I can also no longer deny to myself that there are issues I obviously need to examine within my own soul, and I’ve asked for help.”

He too went for professional counseling and rehabilitation, but despite his apology and his efforts to make amends with the LGBT community, ABC fired him. Contrition and sensitivity training were not enough for the great transgression of simply uttering the “f-----” word.

Contrast this with the reaction to actor Mark Ruffalo’s 2010 comments regarding conservative Christians and others who were opposed to redefining marriage. He said, “It’s the last dying, kicking, screaming, caged animal response to a world that is changing, a world that’s leaving a lot of those old, bigoted, un-accepting views behind. It’s over. Those against it are very tricky and they’re using really dark ways to promote their ideas.”

Was he sent off to sensitivity training? Would you like to venture a guess?

How about Roseanne Barr? Did she go to sensitivity training after expressing her ire towards Chick-Fil-A customers (especially Christian customers) in some notorious messages on Twitter last year? She tweeted, “Anyone who eats S*** Fil-A deserves to get the cancer that is sure to come from eating antibiotic filled tortured chickens 4Christ,” adding, “off to grab a s*** fil-A sandwich on my way to worshipping Christ, supporting Aipac and war in Iran.”

Of course, she did receive criticism for being insensitive to cancer victims, tweeting in response, “Rereading my tweet I realize that I used the wrong word-I shouldn’t have used the word deserves. . . . I meant to warm ppl not 2 eat processed food.” But her vile attacks on conservative Christians continued unabated and without apology. Of course!

How about Bill Maher, a veritable treasure trove of anti-Christian comments? He actually made an entire movie called “Religulous” that was devoted to mocking religious faith, but somehow, I missed the news about his subsequent apologies and his time spent in sensitivity training.

And what about the new painting by West Hollywood artist Bronwyn Lundberg? It’s entitled “The Lesbian Last Supper” and features Ellen Degeneres as Jesus. (I kid you not.) Lundberg explained, “Religious art will inevitably strike strong responses in some people but those are issues I can’t worry about because I really can’t identify with them.”

In other words, the less you can relate to the sacred things of the Christian faith, the more you are welcome to mock them.

Can you imagine what the reaction would have been had Lundberg been a Christian artist (or even secular artist) who produced a portrait mocking gays, only to reply to her critics, “I can’t worry about their negative reaction because I really can’t identify with gays”?

Now, the truth be told, I think it’s a great idea for people who do not approve of homosexual practice to sit with LGBT leaders and young people and hear about their lives and their struggles. Absolutely. If we differ, let’s do so without caricature and with grace and sensitivity. And, to be perfectly candid, I hardly expect Christian-bashing to go away any time soon (see John 15:18-20).

But I raise these issues because, once again, the glaring, ridiculous double standard needs to be exposed, and, in light of the extreme reaction to any criticism of homosexuality today, one can only wonder what’s coming tomorrow.

Dr. Michael Brown

Michael Brown holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and is the author of 20 books. He has served as a professor at a number of seminaries and hosts the nationally syndicated, daily talk radio show, the Line of Fire.

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Michael Brown - Piers Morgan Wants to Amend Moses

Fresh off his attack on America’s gun control laws, Piers Morgan set his sights on another set of laws that trouble him, the laws of Moses and the Bible. But before he called for an amendment to the Bible to recognize “gay rights,” Morgan actually asked his guest, Pastor Rick Warren, a very fair question, and Warren stumbled in his answer.

Of course, Morgan’s timing could not have been worse. After all, this was a Christmas Eve interview with a Christian leader, and Morgan is not exactly riding a wave of popularity. And to compare the Bible to the Constitution shows a real lack of understanding, let alone sensitivity. (According to Morgan, “Both the Bible and the Constitution were well intentioned but they are basically, inherently flawed.”)

Even those who do not believe the Bible to be God’s Word generally have the prudence not to call for an amendment to the Scriptures. The idea is patently absurd. (To quote Morgan again, “My point to you about gay rights, for example, it’s time for an amendment to the Bible.”)

Who will be responsible for making the amendments? Shall we amend the Bible on an annual basis? Shall we do it by regional vote? By age? By gender? Perhaps we can each amend the Bible as we please, whenever we like? (Come to think of it, in practical terms, that’s what a lot of people do on a daily basis!)

Morgan actually called for a “new Bible,” thereby making a mockery of his very position. (Note to Piers Morgan: If “the Bible” is merely a book containing the latest human opinion, it is not “the Bible.” This would be like calling for the manufacture of a “new car,” only to produce a horse.)

But putting this drivel aside, Morgan’s first question to Warren was actually valid. And while Warren, to his credit, unashamedly spoke of his faith in the Bible as God’s Word, noting that what “is flawed is human opinion” – not the Bible – “because [human opinion] constantly changes,” he failed to respond properly to Morgan’s question. This set up Morgan to make his ridiculous call for an amendment to the Bible. (To Morgan’s credit, at least he recognized that the Bible does prohibit homosexual practice, in contrast with the editors of the new Queen James Bible, who simply rewrote the troubling passages.)

To buttress his argument that the Bible was inherently flawed and in need of updating, Morgan cited the law of Moses that adulterers should be stoned to death. This dialog then ensued:

WARREN: That’s . . . a civil law for the nation of Israel.

MORGAN: But it’s still an element of the Bible that is flawed.

WARREN: Well, evidently, for that generation, that’s their – that’s their commandment.

MORGAN: Exactly my point. . . .

WARREN: But it’s not one of the moral laws.

MORGAN: No, but it’s still in the Bible, and it’s flawed.

This is where Warren’s response fell short.

First, the law against adultery was a moral law, not a civil law. The specific penalty for adultery, namely, stoning, was part of Israel’s civil law, but even at that, Torah law does not distinguish between moral law and civil law.

It would have been better to say, “We both agree that adultery is still wrong; it’s just the penalty for adultery that has changed. It’s the same with homosexual practice.”

Second, Warren offered a weak defense for the validity of this law, saying, “evidently, for that generation, that’s their – that’s their commandment.”

Actually, it would have been better to say that Israel was a theocracy, and as a nation, the people of Israel heard God speak his laws from Mount Sinai. America is not a theocracy and we are not trying to make America into a theocracy. Also, in the ancient Near East, the laws of Moses were actually more compassionate in many ways than the laws of the surrounding nations. But either way, laws like these were common at that time.

More importantly, Jesus, in the New Testament – which is part of the Bible! – spoke against the stoning of an adulteress, without downplaying the sin of adultery. So, Warren could have simply said, “We don’t need to amend the Bible. The Bible already dealt with the very question you raise.”

Of course, if Warren had the time, he could have asked Morgan what right our contemporary Western culture has to throw stones at ancient Israelite morality (no pun intended). For every person stoned to death in ancient Israel for sexual sins, countless thousands of people in Europe and America suffer and even die because of sexually transmitted diseases. I wonder how a line like that would have gone over on the show?

Ironically, after Rick Warren commended Piers Morgan for bringing up these issues, calling for more civil discussion, Moran agreed, saying, “The debate should always be respectful. It's the moment -- it applies to politics, too. . . . The moment it becomes disrespectful and discourteous and then rude and then poisonous, you never achieve anything.”

Perhaps Morgan forgot this principle when he vilified gun lobbyist Larry Pratt as an “incredibly stupid person”? But I digress. Calling for an amendment to the Bible is more than enough for now, and I have no desire to compare today’s gun laws with the Law of Moses.

Dr. Michael Brown

Michael Brown holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and is the author of 20 books. He has served as a professor at a number of seminaries and hosts the nationally syndicated, daily talk radio show, the Line of Fire.

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Michael Brown - The “Diversity” Police Strike Again

In the upside down, gay activist lexicon, tolerance means intolerance, inclusivity means exclusivity, and diversity means my way or the highway. Dr. Angela McCaskill, associate provost of diversity and inclusion at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, is the latest victim of the diversity police.

McCaskill is now on administrative leave after working at Gallaudet for 23 years. She assumed her current position as the university’s first Chief Diversity Officer in January, 2011, and she seemed ideally suited for her job, being female, African American, and deaf. In fact, she was “the first deaf African American woman to earn a PhD” from Gallaudet, hailed as “the nation’s premiere school for the deaf.” At present, however, she is so shaken by the university’s actions that her husband reports that she is under doctor’s care.

What was this accomplished woman’s great transgression? As a private citizen and resident of Maryland, she signed a petition in July supporting marriage as the union of a man and woman. And she signed this petition on the way out of a church service where her pastor had preached against redefining marriage. Almost three months later, a faculty member became aware of this and issued a complaint to the university, and McCaskill was immediately relieved of her responsibilities.

PlanetDeafQueer reported that, “On November 6th, Maryland voters will decide whether the Civil Marriage Protection Act, which was enacted by the Maryland legislature and grants lesbian and gay couples the equal right to marry, is upheld or rejected. While there are many that support overturning this important civil rights legislation, one person you would never expect to be in favor of doing so is Gallaudet University’s own Chief Diversity Officer and Maryland resident, Dr. Angela McCaskill,” noting that her “job at Gallaudet is to promote diversity and inclusion at Gallaudet.”

But there is not a single mention of gay or lesbian issues on the university’s web page entitled, “About the Office for Diversity and Inclusion.” Instead, the Mission Statement declares, “The mission of the Office for Diversity and Inclusion at Gallaudet University is to promote an academically enriching and supportive climate that allows all the diverse members of its community to thrive and succeed. The Office for Diversity and Inclusion will achieve its mission by collaborating with units on campus to intentionally design a comprehensive, university-wide approach to diversity; facilitate equity, access, social justice and inclusion; and, empower students, faculty, and staff to build a diverse and inclusive campus community. Through the cultivation of diversity, the Office for Diversity and Inclusion will lead efforts to institutionalize diversity as a fundamental transformative force that fosters professional growth and academic excellence.”

Can someone fulfill this role without believing that marriage should be radically redefined? Is it possible for the Chief Diversity Officer “to promote an academically enriching and supportive climate that allows all the diverse members of its community to thrive and succeed” without believing that a man should be able to marry a man and a woman marry a woman?

The answer is obviously yes, since even PlanetDeafQueer noted that, “Dr. McCaskill is well liked by students. ‘She’s been a great ally to the LGBT community and supported many of the LGBTQA Resource Center’s programs,’ said one student, who asked to remain anonymous. ‘I’m heart broken about this.’” So, you can be a friend of the LGBT community without believing that marriage should be redefined.

But there’s a more fundamental question to ask: Whatever happened to “diversity and inclusion”? Whatever happened to Dr. McCaskill’s Constitutional rights and freedoms?

Before “diversity and inclusion” became gay activist code words, they actually used to mean what they meant. (What a novel idea!) “Diversity and inclusion” referred to the welcoming of diverse viewpoints and ideologies and peoples. Now, however, in classic Doublespeak, they mean the opposite of their original definition (and in the name of “tolerance” at that).

But this is nothing new. To give a personal example, in June, 2009, Grand State Valley University (GSVU) in Michigan, a publicly funded institution, hosted an event to counter Focus on the Family’s Love Won Out conference, which was being hosted by a local church. (The Love Won Out conference was devoted to helping people with unwanted same-sex attractions.)

GSVU invited a militant opponent of Love Won Out to give a presentation mocking the idea that sexual orientation could be changed, to be followed by a panel discussion with five participants. When this was announced, the university received more than 10,000 emails requesting that I be included in the panel discussion, since all the participants were proponents of gay activism.

Despite this email deluge calling for just one of the five participants to have a differing viewpoint, and bearing in mind that the panel discussion was already quite secondary to the main presentation which would ridicule conservative Christian viewpoints, the university refused to include me. To be specific, it was the department of inclusion and diversity that refused to include me!

But all hope is not lost. Back in DC, the Washington Times has now reported that, “Leaders on both sides of the Maryland fight over same-sex marriage are urging Gallaudet University to reinstate an employee who was suspended because she signed a petition in favor of traditional marriage.”

Now that would be a refreshing step in the right direction, not to mention in the direction of diversity and inclusion.

Dr. Michael Brown

Michael Brown holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and is the author of 20 books. He has served as a professor at a number of seminaries and hosts the nationally syndicated, daily talk radio show, the Line of Fire.

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Alfonzo Rachel - Liberals Hate the First Amendment and Religious Freedom

Liberals have no respect for the First Amendment. They do not believe in freedom of religion, and hide their hate by accusing others of anger and violence. They even accuse Christians of being extremists because of their opposition to abortion. Hear why on the ZoNation.

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Star Parker - Black Pastors Oppose President, Democrats on Same Sex Marriage

Support for same sex marriage is now in the Democratic Party preliminary platform. Once approved by the full platform committee and voted on at the convention, same sex marriage will have the formal support of the Democratic Party.

But as Democrats institutionalize their support for same sex marriage, their relationship with the Party’s most loyal constituency, black Americans, becomes increasingly uneasy.

A new survey just released by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows 65 percent of Democrats supporting same sex marriage compared to just 40 percent of blacks.

A group of 3,700 plus black pastors, the Coalition of African-American Pastors, under the leadership of Rev. William Owens, has moved to formally oppose the Democratic Party and President Obama on this issue.

The group is spearheading a “Mandate for Marriage” campaign to gather 100,000 signatures on a petition declaring support for traditional marriage and calling “on President Obama to repudiate his assertion that gay marriage is a civil right.”

These black pastors are not in the business of politics nor are they policy wonks. They are driven by commitment to Biblical truths and the direct challenge to and rejection of these truths by social acceptance of homosexual behavior and same sex marriage.

They don’t see Biblical truths as academic points divorced from the practical realities of life. They see them as the rules that sustain life. And they see the crises spreading in their communities and in our nation as acceptance of these truths fall by the wayside.

HIV/AIDS is devastating black America. Reading the grim statistics from the Center for Disease Control makes clear that this plague is driven, first and foremost, by homosexual behavior.

According to the CDC, “In 2009, African Americans comprised 14% of the US population but accounted for 44% of all new HIV infections….black men accounted for 70% of the estimated new HIV infections among all blacks…black men who have sex with men represented an estimated 73% of new inflections among black men…”

Research abounds showing the importance of intact traditional family life in the education success of children and of overall economic health.

In recent testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution noted that individuals who follow three rules – complete high school, work full time, and wait until 21 and get married before having a baby – have a 2 percent chance of winding up in poverty and a 72 percent chance of being in the middle class.

Since the 1960s, American family life in general has deteriorated with the departure from traditional values and the concomitant growth in government and the welfare state.

But deterioration of black family life has been the most pronounced.

In 2008, according to a Pew Research Center report, 32 percent of black adults were married, compared to 61 percent in 1960.

These black pastors understand that collapse of family, out of wedlock births, single parent households, promiscuity, drugs and crime are the crises undermining black physical and economic health today. And they understand that a society that accepts as valid alternative lifestyles which undermine life sustaining Biblical truths is a society that will inevitably promote and advance this deadly behavior.

And they understand that the weakest communities are the most vulnerable - which means their own communities.

This Coalition of African-American pastors is showing, very much in the spirit of the civil rights movement, that the political choices facing blacks are not limited to deciding which political train to get on. They are jumping up front to influence where the train is going.

It’s high time for blacks to serve up some black tea to the Democratic Party, like the Tea Partiers are doing with Republicans, and move to change the values and direction of the party they have loyally supported but that’s no longer representing their interests.

Star Parker

Star Parker is founder and president of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, a 501c3 think tank which explores and promotes market based public policy to fight poverty, as well as author of the newly revised Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can do About It.

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