Brian Tashman's blog

Ironically-Named 'Military Religious Freedom Protection Act' Opens the Door for Conservative Scare-Tactics

After the American Center for Law and Justice hosted Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) to promote his bill that he claims would help stop Obama from “using the military as a guinea pig” for the “radical homosexual agenda,” Jay Sekulow of the ACLJ sent an email alert to members claiming that if Huelskamp’s Military Religious Freedom Protection Act fails to pass Congress, then “military chaplains could be required to perform same-sex marriages”:

Soon military chaplains could be required to perform same-sex marriages.

To continue ministering to the men and women who are putting their lives on the line for our country, military chaplains would have to violate their faith.

The Senate is considering legislation to protect religious liberty in our military, and we must act now for these strong men of faith.

The House of Representatives has already passed legislation that protects the religious liberty of everyone serving in the military – especially chaplains. The Senate is days away from taking up similar legislation, and we must act quickly.

Religious liberty is a foundational right, and we should expect our elected officials on both sides of the aisle to support it. President Obama's endorsement of same-sex marriage may be driving his policy, but it should not affect the religious freedom of our men and women who risk their lives to protect our rights and freedom.

Despite Sekulow’s ominous message, the Washington Post reported following the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell that while chaplains will be able to perform same-sex marriages in states where they are legal; they will not be required to do so:

The Pentagon will permit military chaplains to perform same-sex marriage as long as such ceremonies are not prohibited in the states where they reside, it said Friday.

Defense Department guidance issued to military chaplains said they may participate in ceremonies on or off military bases in states that recognize gay unions. Chaplains are not required to officiate at same-sex weddings if doing so is counter to their religious or personal beliefs, the guidance said.

In fact, the only way the Military Religious Freedom Protection Act significantly changes the law is by imposing a ban on the use of military installations in same-sex marriage ceremonies, prohibiting houses of worship on military property from exercising their freedom to marry same-sex couples in states where it is legal.

Rep. Walter Jones Likens Church Tax Rule to Communism

Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) appeared today on Truth that Transforms, the flagship radio program of Truth in Action Ministries, to push his Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act, which the Interfaith Alliance notes would allow houses of worship to engage “in partisan politicking,” such as endorsing candidates from the pulpit, “without losing their tax-exempt status.” Truth in Action Ministries recently produced a film likening the rule to Nazism, and Jones told host John Rabe that the tax provision is like “communism” and “socialism.”

The congressman also conflated the risk of forfeiting tax-exempt status with losing civil rights, saying that the IRS has eroded the “freedom of speech” in the U.S.  Jones also said that unlike liberals, “those on the conservative side believe in freedom of speech and therefore they’re not reporting anyone.”

The last church to have lost its tax-exempt status was Randall Terry’s church which took out an advertisement opposing the election of Bill Clinton in 1992.

Rabe: In reality it also seems that in some ways the threats have outstripped the actual actions, no one should be threatened with the loss of their tax exemption for speaking freely but it seems like this is something that the ACLU and Barry Lynn and groups like that use to get churches to self-censor as well, it might be helpful for pastors to understand that if they stand up and are bold and speak the truth anyway, they may find that the IRS has their hands full trying to do anything about it.

Jones: I think you are right on that, John, I think it’s a law that is very difficult to enforce and in fact the Internal Revenue Service will tell you and they testified to this that they are dependent on a third party to report. Is that communism? Is that socialism? What is that?

Rabe: Yeah, it’s spying on each other.



Rabe: It does seem that this provision has been somewhat selectively enforced is it just my perception or is it reality that those on the conservative side of the spectrum seem to face more sanctions on this sort of thing than those on the liberal side of the spectrum.

Jones: Well if I can answer you this way I think those on the conservative side believe in freedom of speech and therefore they’re not reporting anyone. But I will say that to me, left or right, this should not be part of America, this should not be the intimidation of some law that was never debated that a group or an element can use this law to intimidate. John, that’s not America, you know that, I know that, you’ve been saying that, I’m just telling you this is one of those issues that ought to be repealed, let’s get it off the books and let’s return this country to freedom of speech.

Ed Klein Says Michelle Obama 'Wears the Pants in the Family,' Controls President Obama

Conservative author and conspiracy theorist Ed Klein joined Sandy Rios of the American Family Association today to promote his book, “The Amateur,” where he revealed that Michelle Obama is the real power broker in the White House. Klein said that he learned from friends of the Obama’s that the First Lady “wears the pants in the family” and “is even further to the left than her husband.” He said she grew up “with a real chip on her shoulder” over anti-black discrimination and claims she has “never really gotten over that”:

Klein: They give me a portrait of a very, very strong-minded, powerful woman who wears the pants in the family. That her husband, Barack Obama, has I’ve been told again and again is actually afraid of Michelle, afraid of her temper, afraid of her shunning him, turning a cold shoulder to him, things like that, he is very susceptible to her moods. She comes from a very political family, her father was a precinct family, getting out the vote on the local neighborhood level for the old Mayor Daly, so she grew up steeped in politics and with a real chip on her shoulder because of her feeling that African Americans were second class citizens in Chicago, which they were back then, not any longer, but they were back then, and she’s never really gotten over that. In my view she is even further to the left than her husband, Barack Obama.

Rios: That’s the take you get on Valerie Jarrett as well, they are pushing him to this ideology which I think he does embrace too.

Klein: I do too; I think it’s in his system.

Rios: In his DNA.

Rios was also interested in the role of President Obama’s adviser Valerie Jarrett, telling Klein: “she was born in Iran—that for the life of me makes no sense—she is the daughter of Vernon Jarrett. Vernon Jarrett, how strange, was a very close friend of Frank Marshall Davis who was one of the editors of the Communist newspaper in Chicago who became later Barack Obama’s mentor.” Rios complained that “you can find out all kinds of alarming things” about Jarrett “without working too hard…they thought I was crazy.”

However, Vernon Jarrett is not Valerie Jarrett’s father. Her father is Dr. James Bowman, and Jarrett was born in Iran as her parents moved to there after her father found a job there at a hospital. Vernon Jarrett is the father of Jarrett’s late ex-husband Dr. William Robert Jarrett. The couple divorced in 1988 and he died in 1993.

Despite bragging about writing two chapters about Jarrett in his book, Klein doesn’t correct Rios and it is unclear if he even knew she was wrong in the first place.

Rios ended her show warning that Obama “has done tremendous harm to the black community by being who he is” and “is out for [the] destruction” of America:

Rios: There was a dark cloud, there was like a delusion, a strong delusion, that settled over America—it wasn’t about color—I think the sad thing is, I am grateful America has come to the place where they will elect an African American president, I think that has tremendous value and it should have, but not this one. I know too many fine men of color who love this country and I think he has done tremendous harm to the black community by being who he is, and who he is is he’s not a lover of this country. Most black Americans even in spite of the things that have happened in this past, the things that we’re ashamed of, still, this is their home, this is their country, this is their children who fight in wars and they don’t want someone leading who is out for destruction.

FRC Mobilizes Against DOMA Repeal, Warns of 'Grave Threat' to the 'Well-being of the Family'

In advance of a court case on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and amid calls to repeal the discriminatory law, the Family Research Council today sent an appeal to members urging them to tell Congress that a repeal of DOMA would present a “grave threat” to the family and religious liberty. In an email to members, FRC president Tony Perkins lamented that the Obama administration has already “forced open homosexuality upon the military” and provided “taxpayer-funded marriage benefits to same-sex couples.”

Few were shocked by the recent announcement of President Obama's "evolved" support for redefining marriage. His words have finally followed his actions - or his inaction when it comes to marriage policy. In less than four years, the Obama Administration has forced open homosexuality upon the Armed Forces, opposed state marriage amendments, refused to do its constitutional duty to defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DoMA), and awarded taxpayer-funded marriage benefits to same-sex couples.

Now some in Congress are seeking to repeal DoMA - an act that would endanger the marriage laws in 44 states that currently define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

There are those who hope you will step aside and allow this God-given institution to be redefined. We cannot allow the DoMA law to be repealed. Please sign our Stand for Marriage petition, and join us in showing Congress and President Obama that marriage is worth standing for.



Given that the family consisting of marriage between one man and one woman is the foundation of civil society, I urge Congress and President Obama to uphold and defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DoMA), which defines marriage for the federal government and affirms the rights of states to protect the institution of marriage. President Obama's cynical endorsement of same-sex "marriage," along with his failure to do his constitutional duty to enforce and defend federal law in relation to marriage, combined with the plans of some in Congress seeking to overturn DoMA - is a grave threat not only to the well-being of the family, but to the religious liberty of countless Americans who do not wish to be forced to embrace a counterfeit version of marriage.

The Ultimate Obama-Islam-Sharia-Agenda 21-Immigration-Debt Conspiracy

The number of right-wing conspiracy theories relating to President Obama, Islam, Sharia Law, immigration, Agenda 21 and the debt seems to be growing exponentially…but finally now there is one conspiracy theory that brings them all together.

Avi Lipkin, who on speaking tours in churches and synagogues across America says he learned secret information from his wife, whom he claims is an Israel intelligence officer. On Crosstalk with Vic Eliason of VCY America, Lipkin maintained that Obama is a Saudi plant who is out to destroy Israel and the United States:

Lipkin: Obama was made a Muslim man in Indonesia by age 11. He said, ‘I’ve got health care problems, I got economic problems in America, Muslims in Egypt and Muslims in the Muslim world, be patient, I will show you when the time comes what I am going to do to Israel.’ My wife picked up other broadcasts, for example the Saudis were saying, ‘we will have a Muslim in the White House in 2008.’ The Saudis also said, ‘Obama has three tasks: task number 1 is to destroy the Shiite threat in Iran, task number 2 is to destroy the Jewish threat Israel, task number 3 is to destroy the great Christian Satan America and turn America into a Muslim country.’

Surely you’ve heard that one before. But, you may not have known that Obama will destroy America by supporting the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in order to collapse the region’s economy after the group persecutes the country’s Christians, leading to a wave of Muslim immigration to the United States. Obama will then settle the “50-100 million” Muslim immigrants on “lands confiscated by Agenda 21,” the sustainable development initiative, and bring about Sharia law in the U.S.

Obama also built up the national debt to a point where the U.S. will need a bailout from Saudi Arabia, who will grant it with the condition that “America will surrender its Christianity.” Lipkin explains that God sent the Muslim immigrants to the U.S. to be “hunters” of Jews and Christians, forcing them to leave the U.S. and move to Israel:

Lipkin: The Muslim Brotherhood is going to end up either killing, converting to Islam or expelling the remaining Christians of Egypt. When the Christians of Egypt are gone, the economy of Egypt is gone. When the economy of Egypt is gone, the 76 Muslims who remain are going to starve to death. What do people do when they starve? They leave. Where do they go to? America. Who’s going to bring them in? Obama. Where is he going to settle them? In the lands confiscated by Agenda 21.



Lipkin: America will be Muslim by 2016. 2016 is the eighth year of President Obama, meaning he is going to bring in 50-100 million Muslims because it is inevitable that all these Islamic countries cannot rule, they don’t know how to rule themselves, they are completely inept, and after they kill all the Christians that remain there will not be any economy left so you’re going to have overnight 50-100 million Muslims coming in. You cannot put them in American cities, you have got to create entire new areas populated in the United States and Canada with these Muslims.

Eliason: Where Sharia law holds forth?

Lipkin: Yes! So you have Agenda 21, you have Sharia law, by the way I’m going to throw out a real wildcard now. You have all those people who talk about the American debt being insolvable, where are you going to get $14 trillion from? The answer is very simple, you don’t think the Saudis have $14 trillion in cash? They’ll give you the cash and they will say ‘we own you now, we’re going to take over America.’ And Americans will say, ‘if we don’t do this we’re going to lose our economy and we’re going to lose our dollar and everything.’ The American economic problem is not a problem if the Saudis come in and bring in their cash. The problem here is America will surrender its Christianity.



Lipkin: If and when a war breaks out in the Middle East between Israel and its neighbors then you will see 10, 20, 30 million, maybe more, 40, 50 million Muslims, some of them are going to rise up in a 9/11 type terrorist attacks and they are not afraid to die, they cherish death, and American law enforcement with all the best of intentions will not be capable of dealing with this. They are not going to kill 10 million, they are going to kill some and a lot of Jews and Christians are going to go into hiding and eventually a lot of them will eventually leave the United States and coming to Israel so I see this as a spatula, they leave by God, you have the hunters and these hunters are going to be the Muslims. I believe America will come out of this mess but it’s going to be a very rough time, weeks, months, before the situation is brought under control. The more Muslims you have in America the more capable they will be to wreak havoc on Jews and Christians.

American Family Association, Family Research Council Attack Target for Selling 'Pride' T-Shirts

While Target created a firestorm in 2010 for donating to a conservative group backing an anti-gay, and unsuccessful, Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota, the retailer now is selling t-shirts to benefit the Family Equality Council, a group representing LGBT families.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said “if they're looking to resonate with Americans, they ought to try defending marriage”:

Target's slogan is "expect more." And when it comes to their politics, Americans do. Hello, I'm Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. One of America's biggest companies isn't just named Target--it's becoming one. Starting May 20, the mega-chain's introducing a new line of same-sex "marriage" merchandise that says, "Love is love." Target promises to donate 100% of the profits to a national homosexual group--but they don't specify which one. Retail analyst Britt Beemer says that Target's strategy isn't "very smart," especially in conservative states, where it does the biggest business. "Anytime a retailer gets away from doing what they should be doing by being involved in a social cause, [they] lose." The company said it wanted to "resonate beyond fashion." But if they're looking to resonate with Americans, they ought to try defending marriage. According to voters, the country's still very opposed to redefining it. Let Target know that its agenda isn't your style. Log on to target.com, scroll down, and click "Contact Us."

Naturally, the American Family Association is also fuming, and the organization’s president Tim Wildmon released an action alert and letter blasting the company:

Target is joining President Obama in ramming same-sex marriage down the throats of the American people.

Send an email to Target Chairman Gregg Steinhafel. Let him know that a majority of Americans oppose same-sex marriage and are able to use their pocketbooks to voice their opposition to companies that support it.



Dear Chairman Steinhafel:

Thirty-one states have overwhelmingly voted for constitutional amendments to protect marriage as only between one-man, one-woman. And your company does business in all of these states.

That's why I can't understand why Target would purposely choose to offend me by donating cash to support the Family Equality Council's push for legalizing homosexual marriage.

I urge you to reconsider this promotion and stop supporting a gay marriage campaign.

Otherwise, I will reconsider shopping at your stores and choose making my purchases from your competitors.

Talk Show Host: Karl Marx Created Climate Change to Destroy Capitalism

Earlier we reported that James Dobson warned that the environmental movement is a “Satanic” effort to help radical Islamists and Cal Beisner claimed that the movement is modeling itself after Satan. Conservative talk show host and Eco-Tyranny author Brian Sussman appeared yesterday on Eagle Forum Live with Phyllis Schlafly and identified yet another sinister force behind the environmental movement. Sussman claims that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels not only created the environmental movement but also the nefarious, anti-capitalist and anti-Christian notion of man-influenced climate change. And now, Sussman says, they have a powerful disciple in the White House:

1883, you had two well-known left-wing thinkers who had a pretty big audience, these were people who hated capitalism and hated Christianity as well, they wanted to liquidate Christianity, they came up with a scenario, they said, ‘capitalism produces pollution and that pollution could change the climate and bring us into an ice age that would destroy all species.’

That was 1883, they put together this wild theory to destroy capitalism by scaring people of the coming ice age. Those two thinkers were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, this was 1883. Might I just add Phyllis, the left hasn’t left this, first it was global cooling, then it was global warming, then it was global cooling, then it was global warming, and now it’s just a catchall phrase known as climate change and the fact of the matter is there isn’t substantial science to back any of these claims up.



Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and their ilk, they don’t care about capitalism, they don’t care about free market opportunities, they want a planned and controlled economy because they believe that most of us our incapable of running our own lives and the scary thing is now, Phyllis, we have these people in all levels of government of the United States, including in the White House and the West Wing of the White House.

At Latest Rally, Desperate Abortion Rights Opponents try to Salvage the Heartbeat Bill

Janet Porter of Faith2Action returned to her native Ohio last year to pass the patently unconstitutional “Heartbeat Bill,” which would criminalize abortion in the majority of cases. Despite success in the State House the GOP-controlled State Senate has refused to even put the bill up for a vote, with the Republican Senate President criticizing Faith2Action for making “exaggerated and inflammatory statements.” While it looks like Porter’s Heartbeat Bill won’t make it to the floor of the State Senate, that didn’t stop her from organizing one last rally in the Capitol to push for its passage.

While the last Heartbeat Bill rally featured prominent anti-choice activists such as Lou Engle, Jim Garlow and Wendy Wright, her rally on Saturday included less renowned (but just as extreme) conservatives like Linda Harvey and Timothy Johnson.

Cynthia Dunbar, a former member of the Texas Board of Education who is now a law professor at Liberty University, in her address to the rally made the specious claim that “94% of the quotes of the Founding Fathers contemporaneous to our nation’s founding came either directly or indirectly from the Bible” and maintained that legislators shouldn’t worry about passing the unconstitutional Heartbeat Bill since “Roe v. Wade is not law at all.” “Guess what legislators,” Dunbar said, “you don’t have the freedom to make any laws if they are contrary to what God has said in his Holy Scripture.”

Watch highlights of Dunbar’s speech here:

Porter in a last ditch effort in WorldNetDaily said she is tired of sending teddy bears and flowers to legislators and instead now will send them postcards with a rhinoceros on it, saying Republicans who don’t back her bill are RINO’s:

After 53 co-sponsors out of a 99-member House, multiple rallies, billboards, bumper stickers, yard signs, television, radio and full-page print ads, five 5,000 red heart balloons, heart chocolates, heart cookies, heartbeat teddy bears, 2,200 red roses, an airplane that flew over the statehouse and demonstrating more support than any bill in America, IT’S TIME FOR A VOTE.

There are two basic methods of persuasion: the carrot and the stick. We have given these senators so many carrots, they have spit them out in our face. Perhaps it’s time for another approach.

They didn’t like the teddy bears and roses, so let me introduce a more direct approach, one that will not let them get away with further delay and more excuses. On neon-pink postcards, the 23 Republican members of the Ohio Senate are being asked a very simple question: Are they Republican or Republican In Name Only (RINO)?



Why does an Ohio bill affect you? Because when Ohio protects children with beating hearts, other states will follow. Mississippi already has. They already passed a version of Ohio’s Heartbeat Bill through their House, but, unfortunately, their Senate killed it. We can’t let them do it here.

Someone has to break through the wall of Roe to protect unborn children, and there is no one closer than Ohio, who can send the most pro-life law in America to pro-life Gov. John Kasich for his signature with ONE SENATE FLOOR VOTE.

 

Anti-Gay Activists Slam NAACP for Backing Marriage Equality

Following the NAACP’s endorsement of marriage equality, the anti-gay right quickly pounced on the news.

Alveda King, as always, tied the topic to the question of abortion rights and claimed to speak for her uncle and other relatives in claiming that the King family has always opposed the “homosexual agenda”:

"Neither my great-grandfather an NAACP founder, my grandfather Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr. an NAACP leader, my father Rev. A. D. Williams King, nor my uncle Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. embraced the homosexual agenda that the current NAACP is attempting to label as a civil rights agenda," says King, founder of King for America and Pastoral Associate for Priests for Life.

"In the 21st Century, the anti-traditional marriage community is in league with the anti-life community, and together with the NAACP and other sympathizers, they are seeking a world where homosexual marriage and abortion will supposedly set the captives free.”

Stephen Broden, a Republican politician who has said that the violent overthrow of the government should be “on the table,” dubbed the NAACP “irrelevant”:

Stephen Broden, pastor of Fair Park Bible Fellowship in Dallas, notes that the black community is suffering from soaring unemployment, an extraordinarily high rate of abortions, a high school drop out rate among black teenagers that is breathtaking, an exploding rate of single parent households and the decimation of black families.

Yet, Broden says, the NAACP is making statements about same-sex marriage. “The NAACP has proven again to be an irrelevant organization as it relates to issues of survival for the black community,” says Broden who co-authored Life at All Costs with King and Gardner. The book addresses issues such as abortion and homosexuality.

Domestic violence perpetrator turned “pro-family” activist Timothy Johnson called on African Americans to ditch the NAACP and join his own group, the Frederick Douglass Foundation:

"When you recognize that the black community is strongly a Christian-based group of people, conservative in most of the things they believe, the NAACP has gone diabolically the opposite direction of tradition of the black community," he states. "[The NAACP] really is doing this in order to stay relevant and in order to build up their revenues as it relates to what they can get from the gay community."



"... I think those individuals who call themselves Christian or call themselves Jewish who are members of the NAACP should denounce the organization, should cancel their membership, and really look for something else or another organization such as the Frederick Douglas Foundation to be affiliated with," he states.

Nebraska pastor Dan Delzell warned in the Christian Post that “homosexual acts become like a drug for those who give into this dangerous temptation”:

Martin Luther King's dream was that "little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers." President Obama's dream seems to be that little black boys and little white boys will watch their teenage brothers go to prom together....and eventually enter into a legal marriage with one another. Did Martin Luther King have this dream for little black boys and little white boys?



President Obama is leading the way on gay marriage for what he hopes will be a large following of black pastors and their congregations. Many black pastors are not following his lead. The vast majority of pastors in the black community do not want the children in their church being taught that homosexual behavior is no longer sinful. They do not want the teenagers in their church experimenting with homosexuality. These pastors know that, like other sexual sins, homosexual acts become like a drug for those who give into this dangerous temptation.



God is not a cosmic killjoy. That is why He created sex for man and woman to enjoy in marriage. We would be wise to share the biblical teaching on sexuality with every young person in America. Otherwise, the sexual dream that gets planted in their mind by a well-meaning preacher or politician could quickly turn into a never-ending nightmare.

Gary Bauer Suggests Gay Rights Leads to Single Motherhood; Star Parker Ties Same-Sex Marriage to Failing Schools

The Religious Right never fails to try to divide African Americans and the LGBT community and ignores the fact that there are many LGBT African Americans.

The latest example is an email alert from Gary Bauer of American Values, who said that the NAACP is hurting black families by endorsing same-sex marriage because allowing men to marry other men, Bauer claims, would exacerbate the problem of single motherhood:

The governing board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) endorsed same-sex "marriage" over the weekend. The move is not likely to go over well with blacks, who have overwhelmingly supported traditional marriage in previous ballot measures.

Moreover, it is complete nonsense. The socio-economic status of black Americans has declined over the last few decades. We have an emerging black middle class, but the percentage of out-of-wedlock births, the number of abandoned black women, the number of black men incarcerated, etc., have all gone up and in some cases dramatically so. The NAACP's marriage to liberal ideology has been a failure.

The unemployment rate among blacks is a staggering 13%. Yet, the leaders of the NAACP got together this weekend and decided that a top priority for their organization was men "marrying" other men. How does that help the black family, which is already suffering from a lack of men in the home? If black leaders want to come up with a plan to address the ills of the black community and restoring fathers to their children and mothers is not at the top of their list, then they are not helping the black community.

The NAACP's decision pits the breakdown of the black family versus the demand of a largely white, upper-income sexual minority to redefine the meaning of marriage. That would seem to be an easy choice. But NAACP leaders chose to spend their political capital fighting for the interests of San Francisco and Greenwich Village. In doing so, they risk losing the moral authority of the people they claim to represent.

Star Parker even tried to link President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s endorsement of marriage equality to low-performing public schools:

President Barack Obama now commands center stage following his formal announcement that, yes, he supports same sex marriage.

But for perspective on how we got to this point, we should shift our sights to three days before the president's announcement. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appeared on MSNBC where he responded "yes, I do" when asked if he supports same sex marriage.



It's not trivial that Duncan, the man who oversees this massive enterprise molding the minds of our nation's youth, publicly rejects the traditional definition of marriage in favor of one saying it just takes two (so far) warm bodies of any gender combination.

The president brandishes one of his favorite words in explaining his support for same sex marriage. "Fairness."

Actually, this is about unfairness.

We have bought into a grand illusion that we can make our public spaces value neutral. But this is impossible.

The struggle in our public spaces is about competing worldviews. Not neutrality.



2011-2012 Resolutions of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, include support of same sex marriage and sex education programs that appreciate "diversity of ...sexual orientation and gender identification."

Randi Weingarten, president of the nation's second largest teacher's union, American Federation of Teachers, lives in an open lesbian relationship.

It should come as no surprise when Obama says he sees much of the growth in support for same sex marriage as "generational," with strong support coming from our youth.

Attitudes reflect education. We have created a world in which it is illegal to teach youth in our public schools traditional religious values but it is not illegal to teach them competing values of nihilism, materialism and relativism. And these competing values are actively promoted.

As elsewhere, the main victims are poor, minority kids, often from broken families, held hostage in these public schools and prohibited from being taught the very values that could save their lives.

Is there a way out? I only see one: Universal school choice. Liberate parents and kids from government and union controlled schools. In a free America, parents who don't share Arne Duncan's values shouldn't have them forced on them.
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