Dr. Dobson weighs in on Connecticut gay marriage

Connecticut has captured what little market there is in the news for anything other than the global economic meltdown. Dr. James Dobson is chiming in:

“Today’s ruling by the Connecticut Supreme Court to impose same-sex 'marriage' adds another tragic example of runaway judges trampling on citizens’ right to decide public policy for themselves. In doing so, the court has placed the desires of adults over the needs of children, who, social science research proves, do best when they are raised by their married mom and dad living in the same home.

“We decry this decision by justices unelected and unaccountable to the people, and will do whatever is necessary to oppose it. Not only have these judges knowingly deprived Connecticut children of a mother or a father, but they have usurped the role of the legislators to create law. Short of a federal marriage-protection amendment, marriage can only be truly protected by defining it in state constitutions. I pray the citizens of California, Arizona and Florida will seize the opportunity next month to settle this marriage crisis in their states once and for all.”

Critical rally for marriage this Sunday, September 28th

This Sunday, September 28th at 2:30 p.m. the Family Institute of Connecticut will hold a Rally for Marriage on the steps of the state Capitol in Hartford. FIC says:

This will be Connecticut's most important marriage protection event yet—but it may not succeed unless thousands of people like you turn out to make their voice heard!

Bishop Jeremiah Torres of the House of Restoration Church, Pastor Brian Simmons of Gateway Christian Fellowship, "CT 6" Pastor Christopher Leighton, Rabbi Joshua Hecht of Beth Israel Synagogue, Fr. Greg Markey of St. Mary's Church in Norwalk and other major clergy and politicians will join FIC executive director Peter Wolfgang to speak in defense of marriage and the right to Let the People Decide at the Rally. Parking will be available at The Legislative Office Building Parking Garage, Elm St, Market St and the Bushnell Parking Lot....

News of a "counter-rally" has raised the stakes for the Rally for Marriage. In order for our Rally to be a success, we must turn out substantially more people than our opposition. Please ask your pastor, priest or rabbi to rally fellow believers to attend the September 28th Rally for Marriage. Please arrange to have a bus leave from your church following Sunday services. The success of the rally depends on turnout, and turning out thousands for marriage protection will not happen unless Connecticut's churches are willing to take a stand. Your willingness to organize your church to attend the rally could make the difference between failure and success. The stakes are that high! For more information, contact FIC at 860-548-0066 and ask for Larry....

Change is good. Sometimes.

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, author of Love and Economics:It Takes a Family to Raise a Village, will not buy into the hoopla concerning same-sex marriages:

Advocates of same-sex “marriage” insist that theirs is a modest reform: a mere expansion of marriage to include people currently excluded. But the price of same-sex “marriage” is a reduction in tolerance for everyone else, and an expansion of the power of the state.

Read the rest here.

What would Jonathan Edwards think?

I think I know why the man in this picture looks so sour: he read this post!

I didn't know Yale once expelled students for being gay. The things you can learn from reading the Courant!

Act 1 was about to start and Richard Lalli had a few last words for his students. Orpheus, Apollo and the others huddled around in their white robes. "Try to be free," Lalli said calmly. "And make it as much your own as possible."

With that, he retreated to the church balcony, dressed for the opera in a silk scarf. In a few short months, his students had mastered "L'Orfeo," and as the opening music filled the rafters, Lalli looked as proud as any parent in the room.

A vocalist, pianist and professor, Lalli is about to take on a new role: master of Yale University's Jonathan Edwards College. He and his partner, Dr. Michael Rigsby, who will be assistant master, are set to become the first openly gay couple to head a campus dorm when they move in next January.

Yale is divided into a dozen residential colleges, each with its own dining hall, intramural sports teams and social events. The college master presides over it all: reassuring parents, nurturing students and providing entertainment, a job that can make directing a Baroque opera, by comparison, seem easy. With Lalli's appointment, Yale follows Harvard in naming a same-sex couple to a high-profile, mothering role, a milestone for a school that once expelled students for being gay.

In a sign of how far society has come, no one is expecting much controversy. "You can never control for every loose cannon, but I just don't think this is an issue anymore," said a close friend, Ralph Hexter, the openly gay president of Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass.

I guess not. We sure have come a long way indeed.

Federal lawsuit seeks to overturn Massachusetts homosexual marriage

Rev. John Rankin of the Theological Education Institute has filed a lawsuit in a Federal District Court seeking to overturn the regime of homosexual marriage that was imposed on Massachusetts by its Supreme Judicial Court.

As someone who practiced law for nearly 15 years, I can tell you that his argument is extremely interesting and very fine. In essence, Rankin says that the Massachusetts Judicial Court has destroyed our concept of unalienable rights and thus our system of Constitutional Law by declaring that classes of people possess rights, not individuals. In American law, individuals possess unalienable rights for they have derived them from the Creator.

Goodridge violates the nature of personhood as defined in the Fourteenth Amendment, where the unalienable rights of life, liberty and property are ascribed equally to all persons, as individual persons, and not due to membership in any given group, whether objectively or subjectively defined, whether fixed or malleable in declared nature.

The class of people who would engage in same-sex "marriage" is not even a true class of people, as it is "malleable" or changeable. The result has actually been to destroy the rights of others and create "super rights" before which all others must yield. Thus, while claiming it was upholding rights, it has actually destroyed all rights by making them alienable. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court did this without even considering what it was doing with respect to Federal Law and our Federal Constitution. The result is that courts or legislatures can create new rights according to the whims of the season.

Under current federal law (e.g. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act), civil rights, congruent with the Fourteenth Amendment, cannot, nor ever have otherwise been assigned to a malleable identity, to subjective choice. Goodridge thus rewrites federal law, and without examining the issue. If such malleability and subjectivity were consistently applied in this context, there would be no boundaries in place to restrict the possibility of consanguineous, polygamous or group marriage. And beyond this context, if applied consistently, malleability of individual and group identity for the sake of perceived government benefit opens up a Pandora’s Box which Balkanizes civil rights.

Notice what Rankin is saying: under the current regime, there is no brake or impediment to a government legalizing incest, polygamy or group marriage. I can't say what success Rev. Rankin will have - in this political climate, probably none apart from a Divine intervention - but I believe he has posed important questions, questions which no one seems to be articulating or which at any rate no one has dared to argue where it might count.

The number of same-sex civil unions in Connecticut plummets

Why have civil unions dropped almost in half from 2006 to 2007?

Is it because people are waiting for full marriage rights or is it because there really isn't that much demand for it?

I suspect the latter.

Gay marriage hearings at the Connecticut Supreme Court

Listen here to the story, and continue to pray for the Supreme Court to exercise godly wisdom.

Rally for Liberty in Hartford on September 12

From the Family Institute of Connecticut comes this notice:

On Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 10:00 a.m. FIC will hold a Rally for Liberty on the east grounds of the state capitol in Hartford. Please come to show your support for marriage protection and for self-government! Please also forward this message to every pro-family state resident you know and encourage them to do likewise!

We want to encourage the Supreme Court to do the right thing. The Court should not take it upon themselves to undemocratically impose a radical redefinition of marriage-our most precious social institution-on all of society. They should let the people decide!

Franklin church breaks away from UCC, goes independent

The Norwich Bulletin has run an interesting piece on the Franklin Congregational Church, which recently elected to leave the United Church of Christ. Its pastor is Al Stewart:

He was working in Waterbury when he agreed to become pastor of the Franklin Congregational Church only if it left the United Church of Christ [UCC], a denomination he felt had become too politically involved and very liberal, particularly in its support of same-sex marriage and homosexual ministers....

In the time leading up to the split, Stewart said the Connecticut Conference of the UCC sent a letter to Franklin members to try to discredit his qualifications as a minister.

Eastern Regional Minister, the Rev. Lois Happe, declined to comment on the letter.

"It's always sad when a church feels they are no longer able to sustain their connection to the United Church of Christ," she said.

Happe said though the UCC nationally supported same-sex marriage, it encourages individual congregations to act autonomously in their position on the issue.

"There is a diversity of opinion on how to regard interpretations of Scripture," she said, noting the issue of homosexuality has caused rifts in many mainline denominations.

Of course there is a diversity of opinion: Romans 1 is now considered hate speech.

Massachusetts will uphold gay marriage for now

Massachusetts legislators narrowly defeated today a measure which would have allowed voters to vote directly on the question of same-sex marriage. Fifty votes were needed but only 45 voted in favor of the measure. Read an AP story here.

This is obviously a deeply disappointing day for pro-family advocates in Massachusetts. Please continue to pray for this situation.

Pray urgently for Massachusetts

Massachusetts State House in Boston

Please pray for our neighbor to the north as Massachusetts faces a Constitutional Convention. New England Concerts of Prayer states:

Once again, thank you for your powerful prayer support for the Massachusetts Marriage Amendment. The amendment must now pass a second vote by the Legislature in the Constitutional Convention which is scheduled for 1:00 pm, Thursday, June 14. In order for the Amendment to appear on the Massachusetts ballot in November of 2008, it must receive 50 votes and we currently have 57 legislators who are on record to vote for the amendment.

The new Senate President, Therese Murray, who presides over the Convention, has publicly stated that she will ask for a vote on June 14 though she herself will vote against it. Powerful forces, including the governor, attorney general, and house speaker are now pressuring the state legislators to vote against it. Newspaper reports cite that Governor Patrick will offer high paying patronage jobs to legislators to change their votes. Even U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and DNC Chairman Howard Dean have been calling our legislators twisting arms for the gay lobby. On top of all this, our opponents, MassEquality, have launched a $750,000 media campaign leading up to June 14 designed to change the votes of our legislators.

Click here to watch an important Prayer Alert video from PrayTV (Windows Media file).

Rally for Marriage brings out 300 to Hartford

Yesterday's Rally for Marriage brought out an estimated 300 people - on a Wednesday morning no less, according to the Family Institute of Connecticut. We give thanks for the representation from our elected representatives, which, according to the FIC, included Rep. Marilyn Guiliano (R - Lyme, Old Lyme, Old Saybrook, Westbrook), Al Adinolfi (R - Cheshire, Hamden, Wallingford), Vincent Candelora (R - East Haven, North Branford, Wallingford), Bruce Morris (D - Norwalk) and T.R. Rowe (R - Trumbull).

Channel 8 has some reporting here, and there's an AP story here which quotes FIC's Brian Brown on the need for a constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage. Many media outlets seem to have ignored this story altogether.

Major rally for marriage scheduled for this Wednesday

From the Family Institute of Connecticut comes this notice:

On Wednesday, May 23rd at 10:00 a.m. the Family Institute of Connecticut will hold a second Rally for Marriage and Lobby Day on the east grounds of the state capitol in Hartford. After the Rally all of those interested will make their way over to room 1B of the Legislative Office Building where we will receive packets of pro-family information. From there we will go to meet with our individual legislators to ask them to vote against same-sex "marriage" whenever it comes up again--and to vote for a referendum to let the people decide.

Anti-family activists already plan to bring back the defeated same-sex "marriage" bill at their earliest opportunity. And several of Connecticut's Supreme Court Justices have hinted that they might be willing to impose same-sex "marriage" by judicial fiat.

At the Rally FIC will discuss a mechanism in our state constitution that provides our best opportunity to let the people decide the future of marriage. But it to make happen, we will need your support.

We need your help to get the word out about our May 23rd Rally to your churches, friends and families. We especially need the help of homeschoolers who were central in making the previous rally so successful. The next fight to protect marriage begins on May 23rd!

Please call your state representative and state senator and make an appointment to meet with them on May 23rd. House Democrats can be reached at 800-842-8267 and House Republicans can be reached at 800-842-1423. Senate Democrats can be reached at 800-842-1420 and Senate Republicans can be reached at 860-240-8800.

Directions to the Legislative Office Building (LOB)
(The Legislative Office Building is located at 300 Capitol Avenue, Hartford.)

Traveling on I-84 East - Take Exit 48, Capitol Avenue, get into the right lane of the exit ramp. At the end of the exit ramp turn right onto Capitol Avenue. Take the first right past the Legislative Office Building, proceed to the back of the garage and take a right to enter the garage using the left hand lane.

Traveling on I-84 West - Take Exit 48, towards Asylum Street, go straight onto Spring Street. Turn right onto Asylum Avenue, stay straight onto Farmington Avenue. Turn left at the YWCA (will be diagonally to your left in front of you) onto Broad Street, proceed through two stop lights, immediately after the Armory building take the first left into the driveway and then another left at the end of the driveway. Follow this road around the garage to the back and take a right to enter the garage using the left hand lane.

Traveling on I-91 North or South - Take Exit 29A, Capitol Ave., stay over to the far left. You will come to Pulaski Circle, travel halfway around and take a right onto Elm St. Go to the end of Elm St., you are now facing the Capitol Building. Take a left onto Trinity St. At the first traffic light take a right onto Capitol Ave. Go past the Capitol building and the I-84 entrance ramp, all on your right. Take the first right past the Legislative Office Building, proceed to the back of the garage and take a right to enter the garage using the left hand lane.

Parking Instructions - Parking is extremely limited. Allow yourself extra time to park.

• Limited public parking is available on level one of the Legislative Office Building.
• Across the street from the Legislative Office Building, and across Capitol Ave. is Hungerford Street. There is street parking in this entire neighborhood, free of charge.
• When all else fails, on Oak Street (diagonally across to the left from the Legislative Office Building) off of Capitol Ave., there is a public parking garage in the CT Education association Building (CEA building - across from CT Supreme Court Library). This garage costs money, but will save you the time and aggravation of having to park.
• There is also parking available on the street next to the parking garage.

I know what Thomas Hooker would do!

Thomas Hooker and Company give thanks upon reaching the Connecticut River. As far as we can tell, there was no discussion of the virtues of homosexual marriage that day.

For those who don't remember their philosophy and logic classes, Princeton's WordNet dictionary defines sophistry as "a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone."

There's no better example of this sort of thing than Hartford Courant writer Susan Campbell, who wonders what Connecticut Puritan Thomas Hooker would think about homosexual marriage.

Hmmm, that's really a tough one! Could be fodder for a graduate thesis.

Ms. Campbell has advice for the pro-family citizens of Connecticut:

Going to the Christian scriptures on this, as opponents seem so wont to do, doesn't work. If you're quoting Jesus on homosexuality, you're making it up. Jesus was silent on the topic.

Attention, Hartford Courant: the New Testament is not a collection of the "Sayings of Jesus."

The New Testament is a collection of 27 books, none of which was authored by Jesus. The New Testament books, mostly authored by Jesus' apostles, condemn homosexuality in strong terms and, by the way, we learn in 1 Corinthians, chapter 6 that some Christians used to be homosexuals before coming to faith in Christ. It seems that Jesus Christ has the power to free people from homosexual desires, or so the New Testament writers seem to have thought!

Jesus Himself, being Jewish, was raised in an environment where the Law of Moses (the Torah) forbid homosexuality on pain of death.

There was therefore no reason for Jesus to give sweeping discourses on the desirability of homosexual "marriage." All Jews and Christians who have the least shred of interest in following the sacred texts of their religions of course accept as a given that God is opposed to the practice of homosexuality.

As for Thomas Hooker, people should read what he had to say instead of suggesting that he might have lacked guidance on the matter. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, which Susan Campbell calls "a progressive piece of writing" and which Hooker helped to author, suggests that society should be ordered according to Christian teaching and morality.

For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God by the wise disposition of his divine providence so to order and dispose of things that we the Inhabitants and Residents of Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield are now cohabiting and dwelling in and upon the River of Connectecotte and the lands thereunto adjoining; and well knowing where a people are gathered together the word of God requires that to maintain the peace and union of such a people there should be an orderly and decent Government established according to God, to order and dispose of the affairs of the people at all seasons as occasion shall require; do therefore associate and conjoin ourselves to be as one Public State or Commonwealth; and do for ourselves and our successors and such as shall be adjoined to us at any time hereafter, enter into Combination and Confederation together, to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess, as also, the discipline of the Churches, which according to the truth of the said Gospel is now practiced amongst us; as also in our civil affairs to be guided and governed according to such Laws, Rules, Orders and Decrees as shall be made, ordered, and decreed as followeth:

How very interesting! It seems that early Connecticut residents believed their government was formed in order to maintain the liberty and purity of the Gospel.

But, one may ask, on what basis did these Colonial Progressives make decisions and laws? It seems that in Hooker's world the Governor and Magistrates had

"the power to administer justice according to the Laws here established, and for want thereof, according to the Rule of the Word of God..."

In other words, if there was no law applicable to a given situation, the Word of God would tell them what to do. (Attention Courant - that would be the Bible!)

And so, finally, we know what Thomas Hooker would think about two men getting married. He would think the same thing about it that everyone in the Judeo-Christian tradition has always thought about it: it's wrong.

Please stop saying that we can't tell what Christianity teaches about this, or worse, that it teaches that "gay marriage" is OK.

Pray for the Connecticut Supreme Court

The State's highest Court takes up this morning the matter of whether there is a constitutional right of homosexual couples to marry rather than merely enter into civil unions. Arguments begin at 10:00 AM.

Please pray for the preservation of marriage as the union of one man and one woman, lest the unthinkable become the norm.

Tremendous victory for pro-family forces in Connecticut

The Hartford Courant is reporting that leading Democrats do not intend to seek a vote on same-sex marriage this term, citing the likely lack of votes:

"A significant number of legislators have told us that they are currently in favor of same-sex marriage personally, but feel the state will be ready for it in another year or two. With time, these are the people that will create a majority," [Representative Mike] Lawlor said in a press release issued Friday. "This doesn't surprise me because we've been seeing the same trends happening in the general public, too, with more people gradually coming out in support for same-sex marriage. When it passes, I hope it is a strong bipartisan vote as was the case with civil unions in 2005."

While we give thanks for this, we must remain vigilant in prayer. We ask you to continue to pray as the Connecticut Supreme Court will hear oral argument on Monday in a case seeking the validation of same-sex marriage.

Recap of Judiciary Committee Hearing on Same-Sex Marriages

Peter Wolfgang at the FIC Blog has a great recap of the testimonies and votes of various Representatives on the Judiciary Committee in last week's same-sex marriage bill vote.

Bright spot: Democratic Rep. Bruce Morris, who isn't buying the equation of same-sex rights and civil rights for African-Americans:

He cited Loving vs. Virginia, the case striking down laws forbidding people of different races to marry, on how “marriage is fundamental to our very existence and survival.” He said Brian was right about 2 men being biologically incapable (”without outside intervention”) of having a child and that it was for reasons like this that a very liberal court in Washington ruled against same-sex “marriage.” He mentioned the remarks of another African-American member of the Committee, saying that he too had thought about this as an African-American–and concluded that the civil rights analogy employed by same-sex “marriage” proponents doesn’t hold up. It isn’t arbitrary for the legislature to say marriage is between a man and a woman because, historically and culturally, it is true.

Well, of course. This is so patently obvious that the Left must resort to Stalinist tactics of erasing history to get us to think otherwise. Still, it's comforting to hear someone in the State Democratic party state these truths so clearly.

Read it all here.

Governor still standing by pledge to veto bill for same-sex marriage

Channel 8 reports that Governor Rell still intends to veto same-sex marriage legislation.

"I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. The vote in the committee does not change my mind on that," said Rell. "I will veto the bill...."

Peter Wolfgang and the leaders of the group most opposed to the bill [note: that would be the FIC] say that this committee was stacked against their position. They will now push for a constitutional convention to allow for a public vote on the issue.

"This goes beyond even the same-sex marriage issue. There are a lot of people from both sides of the fence on all kinds of issues who understand that the legislature is being less and less representative of its constituents every day," said Wolfgang.

Keep praying over this issue!

Connecticut House Judiciary Committee approves gay marriage bill

"There are many organizations that advocate multiple-party marriage," said T.R. Rowe, a Republican from Trumbull. "There are institutions that advocate man and boy relationships … this isn't about civil rights. This is about radically redesigning the most basic … institution that society has."

You betcha. More from the Courant here.

The Connecticut Post has a little more here.

An AP story from the Danbury News-Times.

And here's Channel 8, with video.

How many people are actually gay?

The objectivity of government reporting is called into question by a study suggesting that the percentage of homosexuals in the population is overstated and does not take into account the fact that homosexuality is strongly linked to an early death. You may need some understanding of statistical analysis for this one, but go here for the report.

Who would have an interest in not telling the public:

a. That there aren't nearly as many homosexuals as people are being told; and
b. That homosexuals die substantially earlier than other people?

Some strong language from the report:

If the prevalence of homosexuality diminishes with age, eliminating older adults from sexuality surveys tends to conceal this diminution and to increase the apparent fraction of homosexuals. Furthermore, if the prevalence of homosexuals declines because of the early death of those engaging in same-sex sex, and if the practice of homosexuality were to be directly tied to a foreshortening of life, contemporary public health cannon [sic] would dictate condemnation and discrimination against such behavior (e.g., consider the parallel of smoking).