The Houston Chronicle reports that Texas Governor Rick Perry has clarified his stance on abortion and states rights. This statement from his spokesperson is a step in the right direction. “Gov. Perry is proudly pro-life and successfully championed strong pro-life legislation in Texas including parental consent, this year’s sonogram bill and a budget that significantly defunds abortions in Texas. The governor has long supported overturning Roe v. Wade, and would support amending the U.S. Constitution, with the backing of Congress and the states, to protect innocent life.”
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Is the Family Research Council a Hate Group?
From James Kushiner at Touchstone: “The Southern Law Poverty Center has a hate map showing hate groups with a list of groups for each state available when you click on any state. For instance, under Washington, DC you will find, listed with the KKK, the Family Research Council. In Illinois, the Illinois Family Institute is listed as a hate group. If you do not approve of homosexual marriage or homosexual activity, you are hateful. Period. To be consistent should they list teetotaler groups as hateful against drinkers?”
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Right To Life vs. States Rights and Rick Perry
I wrote last week about Governor Rick Perry’s walk-back of his comments about gay marriage. At a recent fundraiser, he invoked the 10th amendment to argue that New York’s decision to legalize gay marriage was just “fine” with him. He later told Tony Perkins that he merely meant to express his belief in the right of individual states to decide such matters. Now Perry has done it again. A few days ago in remarks to reporters in Houston, Perry invoked the 10th amendment again to say that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, the matter should then be decided by the voters in each state. Presumably, then, just like with…
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Michele Bachmann and Wifely Submission
The Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog is hosting a discussion of Lisa Miller’s column on evangelical “feminism.” But don’t confuse this “feminism” with egalitarianism. Here’s what Miller means by “feminism” of the evangelical stripe: A “feminist” is a fiscally conservative, pro-life butt-kicker in public, a cooperative helpmate at home, and a Christian wife and mother, above all. Rep. Michele Bachmann is Exhibit A. With her relentless attacks on big government and a widely circulated 2006 video in which she credits her professional success to the submission of her will to Jesus and her husband, Bachmann represents “a new definition of feminism.” The roundtable discussion that follows includes three other women…
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Rick Perry’s Backtracking on Gay Marriage
With public opinion seeming to move in favor of gay marriage (see my previous post), I guess it should be no surprise that politicians would be trimming their sails to the prevailing winds as well. Still, I was unhappy to hear the news that Governor Rick Perry took a libertarianish stance on the issue in remarks made at a Republican fundraiser last week. Commenting on the legalization of gay marriage in New York, he said this:
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Which presidential candidate is winning the race for the most Twitter followers?
Which presidential candidate (or potential candidate) is winning the race for Twitter followers? Here’s how the race shakes out among the current front-runners:
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Abolishing the Defense of Marriage Act
The debate about the debt ceiling has dominated the news for the last couple of weeks. As a result, many people missed a significant news story last week. The Senate Judiciary Committee held the first hearing ever held to consider abolishing The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Michael Foust reports: Wednesday’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee marked the first time any Senate or House committee ever held a hearing on overturning the 1996 law, which defines marriage for federal purposes as between a man and a woman and gives states the option of not recognizing another state’s gay “marriages.” Gay groups view its reversal as the first step toward…
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Gay Marriage, Religious Exemptions, and Religious Liberty
When the New York legislature voted to legalize same-sex marriage last month, there were a handful of representatives who formerly opposed gay marriage but who switched their vote to legalize it. To a man, they justified their decision on the basis of the “religious exemptions” that would supposedly protect religious organizations from having to violate their religious beliefs. Anyone paying attention knows that such exemptions are flimsy and probably won’t stand the scrutiny of the courts. But even more troubling is the fact that the exemptions do not cover religious individuals, but only religious organizations. This difficulty is not theoretical but has already come to a head in Vermont (another…
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President Obama on Gay Marriage
Chuck Todd asked President Obama about gay marriage in today’s press conference (starts at 5:45 above). Among other things, the President said that the legalization of gay marriage in New York was a “good thing” and that “we are moving in a direction of greater equality.” Laura Meckler pressed him on the issue later in the news conference (at 4:20), and he then stopped short of endorsing gay marriage saying, “I’m not going to make news on that today.”
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Robert George on NY Gay Marriage
Robert George had a big hand in the paper I posted earlier this week from The Witherspoon Institute, and he has some pointed words today about the gay marriage decision in New York. You need to read the whole thing, but I thought his remarks about the worldviews of the two most significant political players in New York (Cuomo and Bloomberg) were spot-on. He writes: