California voters will decide, next Tuesday, whether to approve a three billion dollar bond issue to fund human cloning for destructive embryonic stem-cell research.
Under the plan, a few entrepreneurs and their bankrollers will make millions, but have no liability – even if they experiment on humans and something goes wrong.
Dr. Rex Green said, “There’s no way that you can give $3 billion to a group of people for their own self interest and then allow them to exempt themselves from the basic protections of human subjects. There’s going to be exploitation.�
Dr. Green further stated, “Honest advocates of embryonic research will state that we are decades away from seeing potential therapies.�
I pray Californians reject Proposition 71. This is yet another affirmation that we MUST vote our values – for both state and national elections.
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear a case accusing Planned Parenthood of false advertising. This is one more case where judges are uneasy about hearing unflattering facts about the abortion industry.
By refusing to hear the lawsuit, justices let stand a state court ruling against three California women who sued Planned Parenthood claiming the abortion provider published misleading ads about the safety of abortion.
Karen Malee, President of the Coalition on Abortion/ Breast Cancer, said the original court got it wrong.Ms. Malee has pointed out that there is a recognized breast cancer risk of abortion. More than 128 studies in the U.S. and Europe show a link between abortion and breast cancer.
Since abortion is the most common procedure performed on American women, why would the Court refuse to look at the evidence that doctors around the nation are acquiring?
There is only one reason: a politically correct agenda that says abortion at any cost, even if those costs are the lives and health of American women.
Maplewood Elementary School in Puyallup, a suburb of Seattle, Washington, announced last Wednesday that they would forego their tradition of allowing the students to have a costume party the last half hour of class on the last school day before Halloween.
School District spokesperson Karen Hansen explained that the district just wanted to, “be sure we’re using our time in the best interest of our students.�
Hansen said the decision was made for three primary reasons:
First, Halloween parties and parades waste valuable classroom time.
Second, some families can’t afford costumes.
It’s the third reason that has caused some parents to become upset. The district says that children dressed in Halloween costumes might be offensive to real witches. Hansen said, “The costumes would not be respectful of the Wiccan religion.�
I can think of several reasons why I would prefer Halloween not be a major event. Fear of offending the Wiccan witches would not be one of them.
I sure hope our Christian children acting out the nativity scene next month, wearing their flowing bathrobes and head coverings don’t offend the Islamic terrorists.
Last Sunday former President Jimmy Carter told the Guardian international that George Bush has exploited the suffering of September 11 and turned back decades of efforts to make the world a safer place. He went on to say that President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair are responsible for helping fuel the depth of anti-American feelings in the Islamic world.
Truth be known, as they say, I think he really believes that. If one thought he was just plain lying, it might be easier to accept. But to think a former President, who supports John Kerry, is so out of touch that he missed the part about who did what to whom on 9-11 is just plain scary.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.�
I’m not surprised that they do it – I’m just surprised that they do it with a straight and pious face.
Political campaigning in churches has been the target of every left-wing gatekeeper in recent history – never more then during the past few months – as long as it was conservatives who were thought to be campaigning.
The “separation� issue has been well cared for by the liberals, unless of course it was one of their own.
Al Gore continues his tour of black churches, campaigning for John Kerry.
George Orwell said it best: “All left-wing parties in the highly industrialized countries are at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to fight against something which they do not really wish to destroy. They have internationalist aims, and at the same time they struggle to keep up a standard of life with which those aims are incompatible.�
Samuel Adams said, “Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual – or at least that he ought not to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.�
John Witherspoon, one of the truly great theologians of early America said, “The people in general ought to have regard to the moral character of those whom they invest with authority either in the legislature, executive, or judicial branches.�
America is not an accident. Throughout our history, great leaders have acknowledged the providential uniqueness of America.
John Jay, our first Supreme Court Justice said, “The Americans are the first people whom Heaven has favored with an opportunity of deliberating upon and choosing the forms of government under which they should live.�
Samuel Adams said in 1775, “Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust be men of unexceptionable character. The public cannot be too curious concerning the character of public men.�
Pastor Matthias Burnett, Pastor of First Baptist Church in Norwalk stood in his pulpit May 12, 1803 and reaffirmed those words by saying, “Look well to the character and qualifications of those you elect and raise to offices and places of trust.�
As this election draws near, greater wisdom cannot be found.
Let us again be inclined to elect those among us who are of good character and principle.
Many have been advocating “voting values� this election. Including myself. And we should.
But it occurred to me that most everyone will actually vote their values.
John Adams said on August 29, 1763 that, “We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands: It becomes necessary to every subject then, to be in some degree a statesman: and to examine and judge for himself of the tendencies of political principles and measures.�
It has become clear to all that this Presidential election offers two very distinct different agendas.
Cameron Diaz, during a recent Oprah show told woman they must vote this election, suggested that if they don’t vote November 2nd, rape might be legalized in the United States. She said, “I mean we could lose the right to our bodies. If you think that rape should be legal, then don’t vote.�
This election is the most important election that I have seen in my lifetime. During the next four years we will not only continue to fight terrorism, but will be challenged on every social and moral front. The President of the next four years will not only lead America during these troublesome times, but will likely appoint more than one Supreme Court Justice, thus setting the moral tone in America for many years to come.
Yes, we must, as President John Adams said, examine and judge for ourselves the tendencies of political principles and measures.
We all felt the loss when we heard that Christopher Reeve had passed away. The headline I saw simply said: Superman is Dead. Surely, he will be missed.
I was personally shocked by Vice Presidential Candidate John Edward’s response. I honestly thought I had misunderstood what I had just heard.
In a speech at a high school in Newton, Iowa, on Monday, he said, “We will stop juvenile diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other debilitating diseases.� (Referring to federal funding of embryonic stem cell research). “When John Kerry is President, people like Christopher Reeve are going to get up out of that wheel chair and walk again.�
John Kerry said in the second debate that scientists have told him, “We have the option� of curing Parkinson’s, diabetes, and spinal cord injuries using embryonic stem cells.
Princeton University Professor Robert P. George insists no scientists – not even those most aggressively in favor of the research that destroys embryos – have ever told Kerry any such thing. Dr. George said, in a column for National Review Online, “What Kerry has done here is told the big lie about embryonic stem cells.� He said the claim is “outrageous.�
He went on to say, “For months now, the Kerry Campaign and its surrogates, such as Ron Reagan, Jr., have cruelly led suffering people to believe that cures for their diseases are just around the corner. All we have to do is replace Bush with Kerry, open the federal funding spigot, and presto! The blind see and the lame walk. The Kerry’s Campaign’s hyping of embryo-destructive research for political gain is the cruelest and most shameful episode in the story of the 2004 election.�
Actually Christopher Reeve, in a Reader’s Digest interview earlier this year had expressed doubt about the effectiveness of embryonic stem cell research.
Here is the bottom line.
There is no ban on embryonic stem cell research. President Bush has withheld federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
Studies that have been funded with state and private money have not ever yielded clinical trials. No one, anywhere, has any planning to apply embryonic stem cells.
Stem cells from adults or umbilical cords have yielded remarkable results.
So – is this just a big misunderstanding by the liberals or is it intended to be misleading?
Who knows?
Herbert Hoover said, “No public man can be a little crooked. There is no such thing as a no man’s land between honesty and dishonesty.�
In watching the third and final Presidential debate last night, I wondered what the American public was learning that we didn’t already know.
Anyone who cares about these things already knows that George W. Bush is not as slick as John Kerry and certainly not as practiced. We already know how President Bush will act in certain situations because we have seen him in both peace and war – in triumph and tragedy. We know little about John Kerry, other than that he passed 5 bills in twenty years as a Senator and has voted on both sides of most issues. And that he has “a plan� for everything.
The division in America, which was referenced again last night, is usually categorized as, “an even split between Democrats and Republicans.� I don’t think it is. I believe it is a cultural split – a cultural war over the most important social and moral issues.
It was impossible for our first President, President George Washington, to predict the future challenges of the newly formed republic of the United States. It is equally impossible to predict what America will face in the coming post 9-11-01 years.
Having a plan is good, but being a person of substance with a plan is much better.
It is generally agreed that George Washington was the right choice for our first President. I’m confident we will make the right choice this time as well.
“I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an Honest Man.� George Washington
Supreme Court Justice, Joseph Story, has said regarding the Supreme Court, "The danger is not, that the judges will be too firm in resisting public opinion in defense of private rights or public liberties; but that they will be ready to yield themselves to the passion and politics and prejudices of the day."
He said that in 1829.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court said it would take up the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on government land and buildings.
The high court will hear appeals early next year involving displays in Kentucky and Texas.
The Rev. Barry W. Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State said that he hopes the court uses the cases to declare government displays of religious documents and symbols unconstitutional. Supreme Court Justice Story also said, "One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the common law. There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying its foundations."
So, do the presence of the Ten Commandments on public property establish a state religion? This is what the Supreme Court will consider. Interestingly, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, noted that as the court considers this issue in their chamber, they will be sitting near a large carving of Moses holding the Ten Commandments.
Let us pray that the court will not yield to the passions, politics and prejudices of our day that such to remove every vestige of what made America the greatest nation in human history.
Once again Senator Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, has spoken on behalf of all of us who are pro-life. He said last week he had called a special hearing on embryonic stem cell research because the national debate was losing sight of the truth. He said, “I’m troubled that science is being distorted in the debate over human embryonic stem cells and some are even casting doubt on the scientific fact that young human embryos are human beings.�
Laurie Zoloth, a professor at Northwestern University, strongly supports research with human embryos. She called it a First Amendment right.Brownback personalized her support of embryonic stem cell research by asking, “What would have happened had we experimented on you at the blastocyst stage?�After attempting to avoid the question, Ms. Zoloth finally conceded that, “I wouldn’t have existed.�
Dr. Marc Hedrick with Macropore Biosurgery reported that one of the most promising research areas derives stem cells from human fat tissue.It is becoming ever more clear, that much of the embryonic stem cell research is based on faulty science and provides false hope to many who desire cures for debilitating illnesses.
John Adams, America’s first Vice President and second U.S. President wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.�
Thank you, Senator Brownback, President Bush, and other elected leaders, who are deeply committed to the sanctity of life.
Thomas Jefferson once said, “The original error [was in] establishing a judiciary independent of the nation, and from which, from the citadel of the law, can turn its guns on those they were meant to defend, and control and fashion their proceedings to its own will.�
Not a better example of Jefferson’s concern is presently playing out in Florida.You may have heard that Florida’s high court nullified Terri’s Law. Last fall, the Florida Legislature passed a special measure to give Florida Governor Jeb Bush the right to intervene in the medical procedure of death by starvation/dehydration of Terri Schindler Schiavo. Last week, the Florida Supreme Court took away the Governor’s authority – finding “Terri’s Law� unconstitutional.
This decision sets the stage for Michael Schiavo, Terri’s guardian and husband, to resume his quest to have her food and water removed.
What you may not know is that Michael Schiavo has already won a lawsuit granting him a large sum of money based on his claim that he would care for Terri in her disabled state. As soon as the money was in the bank, he began advocating for the right to remove her feeding tubes and starve her to death. Further, it has been discovered by Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, that Schiavo has been living with another woman and has two children by her. Certainly an example of conflict of interest.
It is also one more reason why we must elect people of character and moral courage. We must vote this November. And we must vote our values.
“It is impossible rightly to govern the world without God and the Bible.� George Washington.
Kate and Steve Johnson were unable to conceive because he is a paraplegic, injured in a bicycle accident.
They and their two-year-old daughter, Zara, were recently in Washington DC along with others who were on Capital Hill to deliver a message to Congress: support embryo adoption and President Bush’s policy to limit federal funding in embryonic stem-cell research.
The children, who are called “snowflakes�, are all formerly frozen embryos but are now healthy, active growing kids. They were adopted under a program run by a group called Nightlife Christian Adoptions – whereby an embryo is given from its biological parents to a couple unable to conceive naturally. US Senator Rick Santorum, one of the sponsors of the event, said the purpose of the program “is to take these little children and given them the potential to live the rest of their lives as the gifts from God that they are.�
Kate Johnson said “For Steve, all he has to do is look at Zara, who wouldn’t be here with us today if someone had dissected her for embryonic stem cells research.�
The great challenges of our day require leadership of deep religious conviction.
Abraham Lincoln said, “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for that day.�
Great leaders are people who recognize their own limitations and from where to draw inner strength.
Recently the Institute on Religion and Democracy examined responses from four major mainline Protestant churches toward human rights abuses around the world from 2000 – 2003. The results should not have surprised me. But they did.
I had no idea how bad things really are. Oh, no; not the human rights abuses. Most of us have seen and read of the atrocities committed against human beings around the world. I have personally traveled the world in mission work and have seen it, first hand.
It’s the position of the four church denominations that caused me to pause and reflect.
The Institute reported that 35 percent of the criticism of these churches was aimed at Israel, while 32 percent criticized the United States.
Erik Nelson, co-author of the Study said it was the list of countries they ignored that he found most interesting. He said, “Nations with notorious human rights abuses, such as China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkmenistan, received no criticism whatsoever.�
Alan Wisdom, another author of the Report, said he thought the leaders of these mainline denominations seem to focus only on those abuses that can be attributed to the U.S. and Western “imperialism,� including Israel as a “Western entity.�
The Episcopal Church USA, one of the churches surveyed, objected to the Report, but could not give one example indicating that the Church had criticized any Arab nation.
These same churches complimented the Soviet Union of the 70’s and 80’s and their so-called liberation causes, ignoring the grievous human rights abuses by the then Soviet Union and its satellites.
These are also the same churches that often support the ACLU and American’s United for Separation of Church and State in their effort to remove all public expressions of our Judeo-Christian heritage.
These are generally the same churches that stand up in defense of gay marriage and openly gay clergy.
Are they really that out of touch? Or is there something more? In the face of strong opposition by their members and adherents, they continue firmly in these non-Biblical positions. No wonder these churches are experiencing not only a loss of membership, but of resources as well.
Alexis de Tocqueville, a French Statesman observed “In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country. I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion – for who can search the human heart? But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the soul of men than in America.�
Are the liberal leaders of some churches simply out of touch with the American people?
No, there is a category of liberal activist leaders, including clergy, judges, politicians, and yes, news anchormen, who are not so much out of touch as they are out of step. They are out of step with the traditions and values that made our country great. They are out of step with what is most important to most of us. They, “the elite,� are marching one direction, while a majority of Americans are marching in another direction. And that determines which church we attend, what news we listen to and who we vote for.
As the countdown to the Presidential election continues, so does the noise. Why we should and should not vote for certain candidates and issues.
James Abram Garfield, the last of the log cabin Presidents, attacked political corruption and won back for the Presidency a measure of prestige it had lost during the Reconstruction period. Not often quoted, this 20th U.S. President was certainly a man of wisdom and insight. He once said: “Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If the next centennial does not find us a great nation, it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political process.�
Without doubt there are differing political forces vying for power and control in the upcoming election. We, as citizens, have both the right and the responsibility to “aid� in controlling the political forces.�
Remember Edmund Burke’s words, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.�Vote. And VOTE values.
According to overnight Neilson Ratings, 55 million people watched the debate. They were influenced not only by what they saw and heard from the candidates, but also by whom they watched and listened to immediately following the debate.
NBC spoke to 17 percent of those watching, CBS spoke to 12 percent of those watching, while Fox spoke to 5 percent of the viewers. I would suspect that Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather were less than “fair and balanced.�The consensus this morning is that John Kerry turned in the better “performance.�
Late last night Rudy Guilliani made an interesting comment. He said, “President Bush shared his heart, John Kerry lectured us.�
What is extremely concerning to many is that Kerry continues to misrepresent and mislead with his words.
Last night he repeated a line from one of his television ads, “George Bush has spent $200 billion on the war in Iraq,� however; the General Accounting Office shows as of last month, the cost has been $119 billion.
Peggy Noonan referenced the debate as “the prosecutor vs. the normal guy.� She said Kerry is artful with words, but shaded in what he says.
A couple of days ago Diane Sawyer on ABC asked Kerry if the Iraq war was worth it. Kerry’s response was, “It depends on the outcome.�
In 1991, Senator Kerry explained that the reason he voted against the Gulf War was because he knew the vote was to actually go to war. In 2002 he says he voted for the war in Iraq but didn’t realize that the President would actually proceed; thus his vote against the 87 billion dollar funding.
The more I watch candidate Kerry, the more I’m reminded of one of my visits to a used car lot.
I think John Kerry is looking at the world through the lens of Vietnam and the pre 9-11-01 world. He looks at the world through a very liberal, elitist, secular worldview. The President looks at the world through a post 9-11-01 lens. He sees the world through the lens of deeply held core values. He responds to current events through deeply rooted beliefs in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
This election is not about performance in a debate or public appearance. It is about a cultural war of which the winner will have the opportunity to teach and influence our children.
Alan Jackson asked the question in his hit song, “Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning?�
I think Mr. Kerry may have fallen off the world that day and does not understand the social and cultural dynamics of the post 9-11-01 world.
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