Does a pro-life stand matter?

Buster Brown and the baby

Does a pro-life stand matter, or will more modern approaches reduce the number of abortions more? Apart from the moral issues raised by the government's condoning of child murder, consider this quote from an interesting article by Michael J. New:

As Election Day approaches, the mainstream media is, as usual, showcasing self-identified ''pro-lifers'' who are supporting the Democratic Party's pro-abortion presidential nominee. In 2004, a number of media outlets cited an analysis by ethicist Glen Harold Stassen which claimed--wrongly--that the number of abortions had increased slightly since President Bush's inauguration in 2001. The New York Times published an op-ed by Dean Mark Roche of Notre Dame encouraging pro-life Catholics to vote for John Kerry. This year the story is similar. Former Reagan administration Assistant Attorney General Doug Kmiec and Duquesne University Law Professor Nicholas Cafardi, both of whom claim to be opponents of abortion, have received plenty of media attention for their support of Barack Obama.

Their arguments are the same ones put forward in 2004. They have not improved with age. Most of these authors attempt to make one of two points: either a) that there is little that elected officials can do to curb abortion through legislation, or b) that the pro-life movement has not reaped any real benefits from supporting candidates who oppose abortion. Voters should, therefore, they argue, place greater emphasis on other issues. However, an examination of the history of the pro-life movement and a careful analysis of abortion trends demonstrate that these arguments are deeply flawed. In fact, the success of pro-life political candidates has resulted in substantial reductions in the abortion rate.

For instance, the 1990s decline in the abortion rate--a decline that is eagerly touted by these Obama and Kerry supporters--had virtually nothing to do with policies enacted by President Clinton, and much to do with the dramatic increase in the number of states that were enacting pro-life laws. The information below comes from NARAL's Who Decides, an annual publication which provides information about abortion legislation:

- In 1992, virtually no states were enforcing informed-consent laws; by 2000, 27 states had informed-consent laws in effect.

- In 1992, no states had banned or restricted partial-birth abortion; by 2000, twelve states had bans or restrictions in effect.

- In 1992, only 20 states were enforcing parental-involvement statutes; by 2000, 32 states were enforcing these laws.

Furthermore, there is plenty of evidence which suggests that these and other types of pro-life legislation have been effective at reducing the incidence of abortion.

Read the whole thing here.

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.”

Gay Marriage Comes to Connecticut

It has happened. The Supreme Court of Connecticut has issued its long-awaited decision in the Kerrigan case, and has effectively legalized homosexual marriage by judicial decree.

I haven't read the decision yet, but you can download a copy here (large PDF file).

As a recovering lawyer I will give you my analysis at some point FWIW.

There are several dissenting opinions:

• Justices Borden and Vertefeuille (who always did right by me when I appeared in front of her)
  

• Justice Vertefeuille separately
  

• Justice Zarella.

Kudos to Justice Zarella, who bravely stated:

The ancient definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman has its basis in biology, not bigotry. If the state no longer has an interest in the regulation of procreation, then that is a decision for the legislature or the people of the state and not this court. Therefore, I conclude that the equal protection provisions of the state constitution are not triggered. I further conclude that there is no fundamental right to same sex marriage. Accordingly, I dissent.

What happens when same-sex marriage is permitted?

Think it can't affect you or affect many different spheres in society? Think again! Watch this video which is being used to rally people to the pro-family cause in California. You will be alarmed at what happened in Massachusetts when same-sex "marriage" was legalized there. As we await the Connecticut's Supreme Court decision in the Kerrigan case, please keep praying earnestly for our State.

Be sure to use the video menu to email it to others who care about our State and our children.

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.

State Supreme Court allows limits on adult businesses

Some good news on the family front where the Connecticut Supreme Court has upheld the right of the Town of Berlin to regulate so-called adult businesses.

The high court's unanimous ruling comes a month after hearing arguments from attorneys representing the town and VIP, an adult novelty store. The dispute is over the legality of a Berlin ordinance regulating the location of sexually oriented businesses.

At least five other municipalities around the state enacted similar laws, said Berlin lawyer Erika Amarante.

"I'm obviously pleased," Amarante said. "I'm sure those municipalities are happy as well."

Berlin officials contend the ordinance is a way to control the adult businesses that have popped up in recent years. The ordinance bars adult-themed businesses from being within 250 feet of a residentially zoned area.

Give thanks for this good news and let's pray for sanity to make more inroads. More here from the Connecticut Post.

Watch your roofs!

Now it's not just copper; church thieves are after the lead in your roofs as well:

“Whenever I get an early morning phone call these days, I think, ‘Oh no, they’ve taken the roof again,’ ” said John Deave, 80, a retired barrister and a churchwarden at St. Guthlac’s church in Stathern, another Leicestershire village, where the church was vandalized in January.

Part of the problem is that no one is going to church in some of these places.

The fruit of the sexual revolution

U. S. News & World Report lays it out in black and white:

"What we found is alarming," Dr. Sara Forhan, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a teleconference Tuesday. "One in four female adolescents in the U.S. has at least one of the four most common STDs that affects women."

"These numbers translate into 3.2 million young women nationwide who are infected with an STD," Forhan said. "This means that far too many young women are at risk of the serious health effects of untreated STDs, including infertility and cervical cancer."

These common STDs include human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, herpes simplex virus and trichomoniasis, Forhan said.

Forhan announced the results as part of the CDC's 2008 National STD Prevention Conference, in Chicago.

"These findings are really giving us a lot of pause about how we provide care to adolescent girls who are sexually active," said Dr. Elizabeth Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York City and chairperson of the Executive Committee of the Section of Adolescent Health of the American Academy of Pediatrics. "The numbers are really astonishing."

Street preachers rile up Mystic

Interesting issues here:

Last Saturday, one of the preachers, a polite young man from the Victory Bible Baptist Church in Ledyard, 18-year-old Jayson Hill, was issued a $103 ticket by Stonington police, accused of creating a public disturbance.

I was there when police wrote Hill the ticket, and it was a remarkably subdued and, yes, quiet confrontation. Hill and a companion preacher lingered afterwards, still holding big signs suggesting the GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD.

Hill stopped preaching that afternoon, but he said he would plead not guilty to the ticket, hire a lawyer if necessary and return.

“We have the right to do what we are doing,” said Hill, who lives in Ledyard and works as a construction laborer. “This is America. We have the freedom to do this. We are spreading the Gospel. We are not going to whisper.”

More here at the Day, and here.

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.

America: Christian or Secular?

Michael Medved, who is no shrinking violet, is out with an op-ed piece claiming that the Founders intended a Christian America, not a secular one. Although this would have been obvious to anyone born prior to 1900, his historical review is instructive for us who live in this benighted latter day:

In fact, the same Congress that approved the First Amendment gave a clear indication of the way they understood its language when, less than 24 hours after adopting the fateful wording, they passed the following Resolution: “Resolved, that a joint committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States, to request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceable to establish a Constitution of government for their safety and happiness.” It never occurred to this first Congress in 1789 that their call for a government sponsored day of “thanksgiving and prayer” would conflict with the prohibition they had just adopted prohibiting “an establishment of religion.” Not until the infamous Everson decision of 1947 did the Supreme Court create the doctrine of a “wall of separation between church and state,” quoting (out of context) from an 1802 letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association. President Jefferson created the image of the wall in order to reassure the Baptists that government would never interfere with their religious life, but he never suggested that religion would have no role in government. In 1803, in fact, Jefferson recommended to Congress the approval of a treaty that provided government funds to support a Catholic priest in ministering to the Kaskaskia Indians.

Three times he signed extensions of another measure described as “An Act regulating the grants of land appropriated for Military services and for the Society of the United Brethren for propagating the Gospel among the Heathen.” Jefferson also participated every week in Christian church services in the Capitol Building in Washington DC; until 1866, in fact, the Capitol hosted worship every Sunday and, intermittently, conducted a Sunday school. No one challenged these 71 years of Christian prayer at the very seat of federal power: given the founders' endorsement of the positive role of organized faith, it hardly inspired controversy to convene worship at the Capitol. In fact, at the time of the first Continental Congress, nine of the thirteen original colonies had “established churches” – meaning that they each supported an official denomination, even to the point of using public money for church construction and maintenance. These religious establishments – clearly in contradiction to the idea of a “secular government” – continued in three states long after the adoption of the First Amendment. Connecticut disestablished its favored Congregational Church only in 1818, New Hampshire in 1819, and Massachusetts in 1833.

Amazingly enough, these established churches flourished for nearly fifty years under the constitution despite the First Amendment’s famous insistence that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

Read the whole thing (and comments if you can tolerate it) here.

Photo by Joey Gannon; some rights reserved.

Attorney Admits Guilt in Church Pornography Case

Back in February we blogged about the case of Attorney Phil Russell, who was accused of obstructing justice by destroying a church computer containing child pornography. Yesterday, Russell pled guilty in a case that lawyers think will hinder their ability to represent people effectively. From the Courant:

After signaling for months that he intended to fight the charges, lawyer Philip Russell disclosed in federal court that he had reached a negotiated settlement with prosecutors. He then pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of misprision of a felony, which means he was aware that a felony had been committed, but did not report the crime to authorities.

Russell had been charged with obstruction of justice and destruction of evidence. He was accused of destroying a laptop computer after his clients, officials of Christ Church in Greenwich, found the computer and determined that it contained pornographic images of children. The computer was the property of Robert Tate, the church's former longtime choirmaster.

The problem here for lawyers:

The Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association argued that Russell learned of the computer's contents in a confidential conversation with his client, the church. To turn the computer over to authorities would violate that confidence [creating potential problems for Russell with the Bar]; to retain it would violate federal child pornography laws.

(Read the full story here.)

Not a good choice - ruin your career or be be prosecuted for violating child pornography laws! In any case let's continue to pray for Christ Church in Greenwich and all the persons involved.

More on Connecticut's abortion clinics

Peter Wolfgang at FIC graciously quoted our story yesterday about Planned Parenthood and has done an admirable job digging further into the netherworld of Connecticut's abortion clinics and what happens after the "procedure" is over.

People seldom have the taste for a real examination of all the various businesses that surround the trade in abortion. This is understandable. But reflexive politics shouldn't keep the public and its representatives from looking again - and looking hard.

Read the rest of the FIC Blog story here.

Will States ever prosecute Planned Parenthood facilities for violations?

Disturbing and yet apparently all too common:

Police investigating a kidnapping and sexual abuse case in Connecticut have confirmed that a Planned Parenthood abortion business did an abortion on a 15 year-old girl who is the victim. The news is the latest in a string of cases across the country where abortions have been used to cover up cases of sexual abuse.

That sad saga continues, complete with the revelation, gruesome to me, that abortion centers apparently keep remains long enough to allow DNA testing, but another large question is whether statutory rape statutes are being taken seriously enough by officials and electorates. Does the value they assign on easy abortion on purely ideological grounds outweigh the State's interest in protecting teen (and pre-teen) girls from predation?

Will anyone draw the proper conclusions from the circumstances of the Gault case?

For more on the problem, read this story from the National Catholic Register.

State Senate votes to investigate one of its own

From Capitol Watch:

The Senate unanimously voted today to create a bipartisan committee that will recommend if Sen. Louis C. DeLuca of Woodbury should face disciplinary action for conspiring with a trash hauler to threaten his granddaughter's husband.

DeLuca, a Republican who pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to commit a threat, was one of three senators who spoke during the brief, solemn debate. He left the chamber before the vote, barred by Senate rules from voting on a measure that directly affects him.

“The course of action that we take today is not easy, but it is necessary, and we do not embark upon it lightly,” said Senate President Donald E. Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn.

No indeed. Equal time from a leading Republican by way of Channel 8:

One of DeLuca's Republican colleagues, Senator David Capiello of Danbury, has called for his resignation for the good of the Senate.

"Frankly, I'm concerned about Senator DeLuca and his family and what he will be going through. This is not going to be a good time for anyone involved," said Capiello.

More on Trinity Episcopal Church in Bristol

Thanks to the sharp-eyed anonymous reader who alerted us to the fact that the Episcopal Diocese lawsuit against Rev. Helmandollar and church vestry members was mentioned today in the Bristol Press. (Link unavailable.) Other folks are now picking it up as well:

Hartford Courant (an AP story which was also picked up by Channel 3 and some newspapers)

Channel 8

Channel 30

I'm sure we'll be hearing about this one for months to come. I'll be interested to see just how deeply the Connecticut courts want to enmesh themselves in matters of church governance. Oddly, there are actually sections of our State statutes (see Sect. 33-266) dealing with the polity of the Episcopal Church:

The manner of conducting the parish, the qualifications for membership of the parish and the manner of acquiring and terminating such membership, the number of the officers of the parish, their powers and duties and the manner of their appointment, the time of holding the annual meeting of the parish and the manner of notification thereof and the manner of calling special meetings of the parish shall be such as are provided and prescribed by the constitution, canons and regulations of said Protestant Episcopal Church in this state.

Here's my short list of questions:

• Will the State follow this statute, and is it even constitutional for Connecticut to have legislated in this manner?
• What if the Episcopal Church has severed itself from the Anglican Fellowship worldwide?
• What if Bishop Smith has acted improperly in taking this step?
• In other words, should a Connecticut Superior Court judge be deciding this or should the Episcopal or Anglican bishops?

New Haven launches illegal immigrant ID card program

Has the Mayor put the welcome mat out?

You can find this story everywhere in the Connecticut media, but it's interesting to see the view from abroad, in this case the BBC no less:

A city in Connecticut has become the first in the United States to issue identity cards to illegal immigrants.

New Haven - best known as the home of Yale University - is offering the cards to all its residents, including to some 12,000 undocumented immigrants.

City leaders say the plan will enable immigrants to open bank accounts and make them less vulnerable to crime....

But opponents said the move would encourage illegal immigration.

Bill Farrel, of Southern Connecticut Citizens for Immigration Reform, said: "It's going to be a welcome mat for illegal aliens to come to the region, flood the labour market and dry up working-class and middle-class jobs."

BBC Americas editor Will Grant says the controversial move stands in stark contrast to the approach towards illegal immigrants adopted in other parts of the US.

New laws and proposals in more than 90 cities or counties across the country include prohibiting landlords from renting to illegal immigrants and penalising firms that employ them....

Are there really 12,000 undocumented immigrants in New Haven, a city which ostensibly has a population of only 124,000?

It's this kind of cold, hard number that bothers people, something which IMHO the political leaders of both parties don't understand. In my experience of half a lifetime, most people bear no ill will towards immigrants - especially in Connecticut, where so many of us have immigrant roots through grandparents who arrived between 1890 and 1930. But many people who are not xenophobic or racist feel that society is being completely made over without anyone even asking them for their opinion. Lawmakers castigate the people for being concerned about the lack of security, increase in crime and education costs and so on and so on.

And we may wonder why it is in Connecticut that a city feels compelled to thumb its nose at the Federal government and create a potential magnet for lawlessness.

Will lawlessness breeds lawlessness? Witness New York City's possible issuance of New Haven-style IDs.

Photo by Vanessa Hamtaro, some rights reserved CC2.0.

The Contradictions of Connecticut - The Pocket State

For cities its size, Stamford is a very safe place. How safe? Safe enough to be the 9th safest city in the country. And, what's more:

Stamford was the second safest among 26 cities in the Northeast with populations of at least 100,000, trailing only the town of Amherst, N.Y. Bridgeport ranked 25th and Hartford ranked 26th among Northeast cities in that category.

But all is not rosy even in Stamford:

Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy said he was pleased with the ranking but said the police department faces a new challenge in keeping Stamford among the elite during a budget crisis.

"How do you continue to do that in light of the resources?" Malloy said. "We're all scratching our heads over that question."

The department has cut overtime spending, taken officers out of the detective bureau and reduced the number of on-duty patrol officers to cope with budget cuts slated for 2007-08.

The city's violent crime rate has climbed five years in a row, including double-digit percentage increases in 2005 and 2006, city records show.

Police responded to 393 violent crimes last year, up from 353 in 2005 and 305 in 2004 - a 29 percent increase over two years.

The increase outpaced the nationwide jump in violent crime over the last two years. Violent crime in the United States increased by 2.3 percent in 2005 and 1.3 percent last year after declining consistently for nearly a decade.

Experts have blamed the trend on declining federal aid to police departments and rising youth violence.

Well, there are problems - and then there are problems. Would Mayor Malloy swap his problems for Hartford's? Or Bridgeport's?

Stamford was the second safest among 26 cities in the Northeast with populations of at least 100,000, trailing only the town of Amherst, N.Y. Bridgeport ranked 25th and Hartford ranked 26th among Northeast cities in that category.

In case you're wondering, New Haven typically doesn't report numbers to the FBI. They are perhaps too busy at the moment subverting Federal law by legitimizing illegal immigration. Whatever your views on that, what does this teach the next generation about lawlessness? I frankly find it disturbing. And, to even ask the question about how many crimes are being committed by illegal immigrants is to invite accusations of racism and xenophobia.

More to the point, what does it say about us as a people that Connecticut is the Pocket State - a pocket of money here, a pocket of poverty there, a pocket of safety here, and pocket of real danger there? How long can this be a viable model?

I could have linked to stories about the crime in Hartford (four killings in one weekend) but I don't know which one to pick.

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).