A couple of weeks ago, two law professors from Pepperdine University (Douglas W. Kmiec and Shelley Ross Saxer) asked the California State Supreme Court to consider a compromise position on the issue of gay marriage (read the article here). The court was reviewing the recent passage of Proposition 8 in California, and Kmiec and Saxer came up with an idea that they thought would please all sides. Essentially, their idea comes down to this.
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Editorial Critiques Obama’s Stem Cell Policy
The editors at the Washington Post are holding President Obama’s feet to fire concerning his broad support for embryonic stem cell research. They say that Obama cannot rely on scientists for answers to moral questions: “This is in large part an ethical question. Mr. Obama is right to turn to scientists for advice on the matter, but he should not hide behind them in making the ultimate decision.” Read the rest here.
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Obama and ‘Laboratory Plantations’
Yesterday I wrote about President Obama’s executive order that forces tax-payers to fund the destruction of innocent human life. Today, Ben Mitchell comments on the irony that President Obama would be the one to give this order. He writes: “If anyone should see the irony in all this it should be the nation’s first African-American president. Of all people, he should know the lessons of our history. The consequences are disastrous when one group of human beings is regarded as less than human in order to serve what other people think is the greater good. American chattel slavery certainly served the ‘greater good’ of those plantation owners in the South.
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Destroying Human Life at Tax-payers’ Expense
Today, President Barack Obama signed an executive order lifting the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Let’s be clear about what this means. Tax-payers will now be forced to pay for research that destroys innocent human life in its earliest stages. You wouldn’t have known what was at stake had you listened to President Obama’s remarks today just before he signed the order. In fact, you wouldn’t even have known that human life was on the line at all. Here is the justification that President Obama gave for signing what amounts to a death-warrant for embryonic human life.
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Proposition 8 Revisited
Amanda Shaw reports on the First Things blog that the Supreme Court of California is considering the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the ballot initiative passed last November that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. At issue is how marriage should be defined vis a vis human rights. Shaw writes: “To hear media accounts of legal rights, a particular definition of marriage is assumed, and assumed to be fixed, while that definition is precisely what is in question. Today, the proposition is being challenged on the basis that it was improperly posed and passed as an amendment, while in fact—by supposedly restricting minority rights—it falls into…
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Obama To Rescind Conscience Rule on Abortion
President Obama has announced plans to rescind the “conscience rule,” a measure that protects healthcare workers from losing their jobs when they “refuse to participate in care they feel violates their personal, moral or religious beliefs.” In particular, the rule protects those who do not want to participate in “treatments” that destroy unborn human life. According to the Washington Post, there may still be protection for workers who do not want to participate in abortion. But the problem comes down to how one defines abortion. There are a variety of drugs that prevent unborn babies in their earliest stage of development from implanting in the womb. Pro-choicers regard such treatments…
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A Compromise on Same-Sex “Marriage”?
Last Sunday, David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch penned an op-ed for the New York Times and made the case for a compromise between those on opposite sides of the same-sex “marriage” debate. Here’s what they proposed: “It would work like this: Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage. But there would be a condition: Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will. The federal…
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Obama’s Pornography Defending Appointment
President Obama has recently selected a pornography defending attorney to be Deputy Attorney General of the United States. Albert Mohler wrote about the appointment last week saying this: “One of the leading legal defenders of pornography has been David Ogden, a lawyer who can only be described as a First Amendment extremist, who has even argued against laws against child pornography. “President Barack Obama has nominated David Ogden as Deputy Attorney General of the United States. This nomination is both ominous and dangerous. Given David Ogden’s high visibility in defense of pornography, this nomination sends a clear and unmistakable message. The pornography business will have a friend in high office…
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Piper Thunders To Obama on Abortion
Last week, President Obama released a statement celebrating the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. The video above shows Dr. John Piper’s response. As I watched Piper thunder, I thought of John the Baptist’s conflict with Herod. It was a courageous, God-exalting, sin-exposing confrontation with evil. I am grateful to God for Piper’s powerful, prophetic voice in defense of life. You can download the entire sermon here or listen to it below. [audio:http://www.desiringgod.org/download.php?file=http://media.desiringgod.org/audio/2009/20090125.mp3]
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Nancy Pelosi Thinks We Need Less Children Being Born
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is defending the fact that hundreds of millions of dollars of the forthcoming stimulus package are to be spent on “family planning.” Her argument is very simple. The economy is bad. Having babies costs money. Would-be parents need to save their money by not having babies.