In the wake of the controversy surrounding the Tebow’s pro-life commercial during the Superbowl, I have to admit that my immediate reaction when it finally aired was: Really? What was all the hype about?

Let me be clear that I was very impressed by the Tebow ad. Rather, my reaction was in response to the numerous op-eds written about this short little spot in addition to the major campaign waged by pro-abortion groups against CBS and the Tebows over the last few weeks. Perhaps the most humorous (and disturbing) comment about the Tebow commercial yet is Terry O’Neill of NOW accusing the Tebows and CBS of promoting violence against women. “I am blown away at the celebration of the violence against women in it,” she said. I think CBS should be ashamed of itself.”

Why the hype?

I thought the Tebow commercial was beautiful, simple and understated. It was attractive in its simplicity and deep message. It definitely was not aggressive, ugly or manipulative:

Perhaps the greatest threat against abortion-rights has nothing to do with people like Pam Tebow or Focus on the Family, but is simply the message itself: truth. Truth is inherently attractive and has no need for sensationalizing

On that, in response to Terry O’Neill’s comment about the ad promoting violence against women, I might suggest that she would consider watching a little unborn girl undergo the “medical procedure” that abortion is. Indeed, in doing so she will witness firsthand the reality that abortion is one of the most heinous acts of violence that could ever occur to a little girl (or little boy).

Tags: Super Bowl, Tim Tebow

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Following on Bob Morrison’s post on the President’s National Prayer Breakfast remarks, read Mother Teresa’s speech, reprinted below in full. It is beautiful, and in it three times she calls abortion the greatest destroyer of peace:

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Well, I checked the facts, and the Politico was correct.  I only doubted the reporting due to the massive amount of President Obama’s proposed increase in education spending.  Could it possibly be true?  Tuesday’s February 2^nd Politico column by Eamon Javers and James Hohman on the newly released proposed federal budget contained this text on one of the “Winners” – Education:

Obama calls for ramped-up education spending. Department of Education outlays would increase from $32.4 billion in 2009 to $71.5 billion in 2011. Obama puts money into a laundry list of initiatives, from a $1.6 billion increase in child care funding to making permanent the expansion of Pell Grant payouts.

He has sought to please his supporters in the powerful teachers unions by pushing to rework the unpopular parts of Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. Now he’s trying to put $3 billion more into K-12 education generally, with up to an extra $1 billion if Congress reworks the education system in the way he wants this year.

If you look at the 2011 budget’s section for the Department of Education (pp. 63-68), go to page 68 and look for the line entitled “Total, Outlays.”  There one finds that the actual 2009 budget for the Dep’t of Education was $32.409 billion and that the projected amount for 2011 is $71.479 billion.  By my calculation that is a 121% increase in two years.

I am not an expert on direct loan programs, but on the same page the figures for disbursements increases from $100.7 billion (2009 actual) to $135.0 billion (2011 projected) – a 34% increase over two years.  This Congress wants to enact a statute to federalize the student loan programs, so the budget contains this gobbledygook comment: “This measure would then use savings to make historic investments to increase college access and success, and would lay a foundation for success for America’s youngest children.”  What does that mean?  $$,$$$,$$$,$$$.$$  Good grief.

Tags: 2011, budget, Education, Obama, politico

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President Obama’s powerful words at today’s National Prayer Breakfast were rightly examined by my dear colleague, Cathy Ruse. How can the same man who wants to force us to pay for the slaughter of innocents seem so convincing? He is surely right to say we must see the face of God in our fellow human beings. We must. Does he?

Abraham Lincoln said it well in 1858. He said the Founders believed that “nothing stamped in the divine image was sent into the world to be trod upon.” Our question to President Obama, with all due respect, is: Are not unborn children so stamped? Can we not see the face of God in their faces?

Lincoln condemned no one in his Second Inaugural, but he said it must seem strange for anyone to ask the help of a just God in wringing his bread from the sweat of another man’s brow. Then the President quoted Scripture: Let us not judge lest we be judged. So we must not judge.

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Tags: Abortion, Mother Teresa, President Obama

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President Obama’s speech this morning at the National Prayer Breakfast included a moving litany about looking in the eyes of every different kind of person and in each seeing the face of God. They should’ve scheduled a Q & A! What should we see when we look through the screen of an ultrasound machine at the sweet little closed eyes of a baby? It would be impossible for President Obama to answer that question in any way that would not utterly undercut the central theme of his speech. And “above my pay grade” would be the worst answer.

A word to the White House image mavens: The rank hypocrisy here will be clear to the majority of Americans who are pro-life, and no doubt to many in the minority who are not.

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One thing I have noticed in the debate over homosexuals in the military is that roughly 99.5% of the American public, including 99.5% of long-time Washington political reporters and 99.5% of members of Congress, believe three key things about the issue.

1. The current policy regarding homosexuals in the military is governed by a law known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
2. Under current law, homosexuals are allowed to serve in the military as long as they are not open about their sexual orientation.
3. Doing away with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would allow homosexuals to serve openly in the military.

Each of these three statements is false.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is not the law of the land. It was a compromise policy announced by the Clinton Administration in July of 1993, after their original proposal to simply open the military to homosexuals was widely rejected.[i]

When Congress adopted legislation on this issue in November of 1993, they did not say that homosexuals were welcome to serve in the military. On the contrary, they declared, “The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.”[ii]

Doing away with the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy would only allow more consistent enforcement of the current law against homosexuality in the military, unless Congress were to also repeal the law that they adopted in 1993.

For the record, here are the findings that Congress made—and that President Clinton signed into law—in 1993. This is the current law regarding homosexuality in the military:

Congress makes the following findings:

`(1) Section 8 of article I of the Constitution of the United States commits exclusively to the Congress the powers to raise and support armies, provide and maintain a Navy, and make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.

`(2) There is no constitutional right to serve in the armed forces.

`(3) Pursuant to the powers conferred by section 8 of article I of the Constitution of the United States, it lies within the discretion of the Congress to establish qualifications for and conditions of service in the armed forces.

`(4) The primary purpose of the armed forces is to prepare for and to prevail in combat should the need arise.

`(5) The conduct of military operations requires members of the armed forces to make extraordinary sacrifices, including the ultimate sacrifice, in order to provide for the common defense.

`(6) Success in combat requires military units that are characterized by high morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion.

`(7) One of the most critical elements in combat capability is unit cohesion, that is, the bonds of trust among individual service members that make the combat effectiveness of a military unit greater than the sum of the combat effectiveness of the individual unit members.

`(8) Military life is fundamentally different from civilian life in that–

`(A) the extraordinary responsibilities of the armed forces, the unique conditions of military service, and the critical role of unit cohesion, require that the military community, while subject to civilian control, exist as a specialized society; and

`(B) the military society is characterized by its own laws, rules, customs, and traditions, including numerous restrictions on personal behavior, that would not be acceptable in civilian society.

`(9) The standards of conduct for members of the armed forces regulate a member’s life for 24 hours each day beginning at the moment the member enters military status and not ending until that person is discharged or otherwise separated from the armed forces.

`(10) Those standards of conduct, including the Uniform Code of Military Justice, apply to a member of the armed forces at all times that the member has a military status, whether the member is on base or off base, and whether the member is on duty or off duty.

`(11) The pervasive application of the standards of conduct is necessary because members of the armed forces must be ready at all times for worldwide deployment to a combat environment.

`(12) The worldwide deployment of United States military forces, the international responsibilities of the United States, and the potential for involvement of the armed forces in actual combat routinely make it necessary for members of the armed forces involuntarily to accept living conditions and working conditions that are often spartan, primitive, and characterized by forced intimacy with little or no privacy.

`(13) The prohibition against homosexual conduct is a longstanding element of military law that continues to be necessary in the unique circumstances of military service.

`(14) The armed forces must maintain personnel policies that exclude persons whose presence in the armed forces would create an unacceptable risk to the armed forces’ high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.

`(15) The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.

---

[i] Susan Yoachum and Carolyn Lochhead, “Clinton Orders New Gay-GI Policy: He concedes few will like compromise,” The San Francisco Chronicle, July 20, 1993, p. A1.

[ii] National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994, Public Law 103-160, November 30, 1993, Title V, Subtitle G, Sec. 571, “Policy Concerning Homosexuality in the Armed Forces” (10 U.S.C. 654); online at: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c103:5:./temp/~c103HPMAIr:e399464:

Tags: Don't Ask Don't Tell

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Recently, the ACLU of West Virginia has forgotten the Constitution and the rules of self-governance. For more check out wv4marriage.com.

Tags: ACLU, Jeremiah Dys, Marriage, West Virginia

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Last year, it was as if we had all been inundated by the great Wave. Barack Obama as candidate said he felt “a righteous wind” at his back. For many of us, though, his support–so broad, so overpowering, so irresistible–was a force of nature.

That great Wave threatened to sweep all before it. The work of decades would be undone. The people had spoken. For many in this democratic republic, the voice of the people is the voice of God. To say no to anything President Obama wanted was to risk being called an obstructionist, a blinkered reactionary, or worse, a racist, a terrorist.

Mr. Obama took the advice of those who specialize in doing things the smart way. If you’re going to do something many of the people might not like, do it fast, do it early, and give them time to forget about it.

It’s the same cynical advice these smart types gave to John Edwards. Wait until an earthquake happens in Haiti, or a revolution occurs in Massachusetts, before you admit paternity, before you stop your relentless lying. And then hope nobody notices. The roar of the Wave might mask whatever you say.

So, President Obama very quickly cast down the Mexico City Doctrine of Ronald Reagan. That policy was duly reaffirmed by both Presidents Bush. Who cares about this stuff, anyway? Wingers? Thumpers? People who are, in the dismissive words of the Washington Post, “poor, uneducated, easy to command?”

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Tags: Abortion, Health Care, Mexico City Policy, President Obama

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In the latest Mapping America, adults in always-intact marriages who attend religious services at least weekly are the least likely to report that they sometimes drink too much alcohol.

Tags: alcohol, Mapping America, Marriage, religious attendance

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In the late 1990s, former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote a book called Lost in the Cabinet about his admitted misadventures as head of a major federal agency.

Now comes his latest missive, an article in the left-leaning American Prospect Magazine called “What Happened to Democracy.” In it, he decries industry lobbyists and back-room negotiations – pretty standard fare for a liberal who is as yet un-mugged by reality.

No one wants “closed door” deals or unfair benefits for any company or group.  But then Mr. Reich takes us into the intellectual thin air with this statement: He calls for “adequate public financing for congressional and presidential candidates who refuse private funding, more constraints on lobbyists, tighter rules for who must register as a lobbyist, fuller disclosure, and tougher rules on the revolving door between public service and private gain.”

Let me see if I understand: The federal government will pick and choose what candidates are viable for public office (that’s the basis of public financing) but people representing private corporations and business associations (that would be lobbyists) merit “more constraints.”

Then Mr. Reich leaps beyond the ether into stratospheric terra incognita and gets thoroughly lost in political space: “Yet nobody seems to be talking about these sorts of reforms. They don’t appear on Obama’s agenda. True, they don’t generate lots of public excitement, and they’re murderously difficult to enact. But without them our democracy doesn’t stand a chance.”

Conservatives have, for decades, been calling for full and immediate disclosure of campaign contributions.  No argument there.  But does Mr. Reich honestly believe that without federal financing of elections and tighter rules about lobbying – it’s already illegal for lobbyists even to buy a Congressman a cheeseburger; how much more “constrained” can the rules get? – “democracy doesn’t stand a chance?”

We live in a republic, not a democracy, a political sphere in which people govern themselves through elected representatives at the local, state and national levels.  Our Founders were terrified of democracies, considering direct self-rule an invitation to mobocracy and social dissolution.  They believed that representative self-government is the only sure way for honorable, or as they put it, “virtuous,” citizens to maintain ordered liberty.

My good friend and former colleague Bill Wichterman will be addressing this theme at the Family Research Council in a speech titled, “Did the Founding Fathers Establish a Democracy?” this coming Thursday, February 4 at 11 a.m. ET.  The speech will be Webcast and can be viewed at frc.org.

I hope Mr. Reich will join us.  Perhaps together we can learn a thing or two about representative republican democracy.

Tags: Robert Reich

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As the brutal consequences of China’s one-child policy that became law in 1978 are becoming fully known, it is apparent that unborn females, young girls and young women are the real victims of this law.

Chinese parents have traditionally preferred sons, since a son carries the family name, inherits family properties and supports his parents in their old age, while Chinese daughters become part of their husband’s family. Thus, limiting families to one child has resulted in the sex-selection abortion of girls as Chinese parents are forced to choose between their future security and the lives of their daughters.

The magnitude of this situation and the vast numbers of Chinese women missing because they were aborted is being acknowledged, as Chinese boys now outnumber girls by the millions — resulting in a dire shortage of eligible brides for China’s young men. The most calamitous consequence of the shortage of Chinese girls is the growing trade of foreign girls and women from many countries — especially Korea — being trafficked into China for the purpose of forced marriages and sexual exploitation.

China’s one-child policy is a triple whammy against women. It begins with the women who are forced to make the horrendous decision to abort an unborn baby girl because sons are preferred in a one-child family. Then, the life of the aborted baby girl is snuffed out, obviously without her consent. Now, women beyond China’s borders are paying the price of this misguided and cruel policy as they are forcibly trafficked into China to sexually satisfy China’s disproportionately male population.

As this travesty against women is perpetuated in China and surrounding countries, one wonders where the female “pro-choice” defenders are when it comes to these women who are being forced into unimaginable situations, clearly not of their own choosing. Rather than speaking up for millions of women in this dire situation, a coalition of women’s groups in the U.S., including Women’s Media Center, National Organization for Women and the Feminist Majority Foundation, are galvanized and unloading their fire on a Super Bowl ad about one woman who tells of choosing life for her son. Pam Tebow chose to continue a risky pregnancy rather than abort her baby, and her inspiring story is one of celebrating life and families. You can read here the opinion of a pro-choice Washington Post staff writer, Sally Jenkins, who agrees that the nation can learn much from the Tebows.

As the Tebows are telling their story of choosing life, other compassionate people are working through their local pregnancy resource centers (PRCs) to provide healthy alternatives to abortion. Please log on to www.apassiontoserve.org and read about the extraordinary contributions made by the nation’s PRCs in meeting the needs of women, youth and families.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 1, 2010
CONTACT: J.P. Duffy or Darin Miller, (866) FRC-NEWS

FRC Responds to New Study Showing Abstinence Education is Most Effective

Washington, D.C. – Family Research Council (FRC) released the following statement in response to the release of a new study demonstrating the effectiveness of abstinence education. The study was compiled and released by Drs. John and Loretta Jemmott from the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Geoffrey Fong from the University of Waterloo and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research in Waterloo, Ontario.

Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins made the following comments:

“This study tells us clearly that abstinence education, not the promotion of high-risk sexual behavior among teens, is needed. The study reports that abstinence education successfully reduced self-reported sexual involvement among African American students in grades six and seven.

“In light of this study and others showing the positive health benefits of abstinence education, it is unfortunate that this Congress and administration has zeroed out abstinence education in favor of sex-ed programs that advocate high-risk sexual behavior when it is children and young teens who suffer the consequences.

“Despite an enormous amount of money going to comprehensive sex-ed programs dating much earlier than abstinence education programs, recent CDC data show that an alarming 40 percent of teen girls who are sexually active are infected with an STD.

“The government does not promote drug use or underage drinking, and it should not promote high-risk sexual behavior either. The evidence shows clearly that sexual abstinence is the healthiest behavior for youth.”

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Most of us recall the story of Joan of Arc, the young French maid who donned male armor and battled the English to save her country during the Hundred Years’ War. Another famous story from that war involves the Burghers of Calais. This coastal town was abandoned by the French Army in 1347 and faced annihilation by vengeful English troops under King Edward III. Six of the town’s merchants—or burghers (from which we get the word bourgeoisie) offered their own lives as a ransom, if only the King would spare the town his wrath.

The King agreed to take these men’s lives and spare the city. He fully intended to hang them, as a terrible example to other towns who resisted his might. But the King’s young wife, Queen Phillippa, fearing for their unborn child, begged the King to spare the Burghers’ lives. The King relented.

The Burghers of Calais were memorialized in a famous group of statues by the great 19^th century French sculptor, Auguste Rodin. We have a copy of the statues in Washington at the Hirschhorn Museum.

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The New York Daily News reported last night (Thursday, 1/29/2010):

The White House ordered the Justice Department Thursday night to consider other places to try the 9/11 terror suspects after a wave of opposition to holding the trial in lower Manhattan.

The dramatic turnabout came hours after Mayor Bloomberg said he would “prefer that they did it elsewhere” and then spoke to Attorney General Eric Holder.

Well, the dam appears to be breaking on ostensibly what is the easiest of the “Jack Bauer War” issues facing the Obama Administration: that is, where to try KSM.  I say “ostensibly” because the matter of where to try KSM will not be as easy it may seem.

All this being said, there are all sorts of conflicting stories about whether or not this will happen.  See Jack Foster’s piece at NRO.

According to the Daily News’ account four options are being considered – all in New York State:  1) Governors Island (near Manhattan and Brooklyn); 2) West Point, N.Y. (U.S. Military Academy); 3) Newburgh, N.Y. (Stewart Air National Guard Base); and 4) Otisville, NY (Federal Correction Institution).

Why won’t this be so easy?  First, leaving aside Governor’s Island, these communities will go crazy in opposition.  Even Governor’s Island may not leave New Yorkers feeling warm and fuzzy.  Second, a civilian trial will still be a disaster.  Think Slobodan Milošević turning the Hague into a circus for a year.  Enormous damage will be done to the national security.  Third, the cost will still be enormous.  Fourth, what civilian will risk his or his family’s well-being to sit on the jury?  Can the jurors identity be protected?

I guess the good news is that they can always move the trial back to Guantanamo.  Didn’t KSM already plead guilty before a military commission down there and ask to be executed?  Oh, I forgot, he was given the mass-murdering-jihadist-criminal-procedure-do-over-and-mulligan.

So, how long does Eric Holder have left as Attorney General?

Tags: Eric Holder, Guantanamo, KSM, Otisville, Stewart Air National Guard Base, West Point

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A few weeks ago I had a truly edifying conversation with a Mrs. Slyvia Slifko, who helped to found Image Clear Ultrasound (ICU) in Akron, Ohio.

In 2004, after working for a number of years in a pregnancy resource center, Sylvia wanted to offer pregnant mothers considering abortion the opportunity to see their developing baby in ultrasound. Recognizing that location was critical Sylvia hoped to find an RV or van for a mobile sonogram unit. In a very short period of time and thanks to a generous donor, a number of pieces came together to make Sylvia’s hope a reality, including the purchase an RV, a sonogram machine, and the help of a retired MD and part-time Sonographer.

Since that time ICU has enabled women who don’t have access to sonograms but do have questions about the life in their womb this priceless opportunity, for free. In the process, as many as 1500 abortions have been averted.  To hear this inspiring story in her own words, listen to Sylvia’s interview on FRC’s weekly radio show.

And to learn more about Sylvia’s work or how you to do similar work in your locality, visit her website.

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My good friend Tom McClusky had the wit and the heart to remind us all of Ronald Reagan’s speech on the occasion of the Challenger disaster in 1986. Tom circulated the video clip of Reagan speaking to the nation that very night.

The morning had been clear and cold–in Washington as it was in Florida. I was working at the U.S. Department of Education then. We were all watching on TV as the rocket launched the Space Shuttle into the skies over Cape Kennedy. We were more interested in this flight than in many shuttle flights because a teacher was on board. In fact, we had seen Krista McAuliffe and her fellow astronauts in the elevators of F.O.B. 6–our department’s office building. That’s because NASA occupied the top three floors of our building.

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Tags: Ronald Reagan

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OK. I’ll admit it. I skipped the President’s State of the Union Address last night. It’s not the first time I’ve done that. Since I have to be up before five to get to the pool on time, I decided not to lose sleep over Barack Obama. And, with the wonders of technology, I knew I could get it all online. Which I did, over a strong cup of morning coffee.

I managed to see Justice Alito mouthing the words—simply not true when the President totally mischaracterized the Supreme Court’s latest ruling on free speech and campaign finance. Alito was so right. His silent dissent thundered through the House Chamber. If this President is going to make a charade of the State of the Union, there are obviously others skilled at the game of charades, too. How proud I am that I worked to get him confirmed.

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Tags: SOTU, State of the Union

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A new report published online in Nature describes how Stanford scientists turned mouse skin cells directly into nerve cells, without any intermediate stem cell step. Starting with mouse skin cells in the lab dish, they added three nerve-specific genes using viruses. According to senior author Marius Wernig, the “induced neuronal cells” are fully functional.

“We actively and directly induced one cell type to become a completely different cell type. These are fully functional neurons. They can do all the principal things that neurons in the brain do. That includes making connections with and signaling to other nerve cells.”

Wernig’s group took a page from Yamanaka’s book in discovering the right mix of factors to add. They started with 19 genes expressed in neural tissue, testing various 5-gene and 3-gene sets until finally narrowing down to just three genes that worked to convert the skin fibroblasts to neurons. The change took a week with an efficiency of almost 20 percent, faster and better than the reprogramming seen with iPS cells. Wernig said:

“We were very surprised by both the timing and the efficiency. This is much more straightforward than going through iPS cells, and it’s likely to be a very viable alternative. That means reprogramming doesn’t only go backward, but can occur in any direction. If you extrapolate from this, you could probably turn any cell in your body into any other cell if you just know the right factors.”

Wernig and his colleagues are now trying to do the same direct reprogramming with human cells and Stanford has applied for a patent on the process.

In 2008, Doug Melton’s team at Harvard used a similar technique to directly reprogram adult mouse pancreas cells, turning them into insulin-secreting beta cells. That cell reprogramming was accomplished within the bodies of the mice by infecting their pancreas with viruses containing three transcription factors; the newly-formed beta cells could ameliorate hypoglycemia in the mice. In his Nature paper, Melton noted that the new direct reprogramming method

“suggests a general paradigm for directing cell reprogramming without reversion to a pluripotent stem cell state.”

Commenting on the latest Stanford results, Melton thought it was a major advance because it used cells that could be easily obtained from a person, and takes a more direct route to changing cells than Yamanaka’s iPS cell method, which creates undifferentiated embryonic-like stem cells.

“Instead of trying to turn them back into pluripotent stem cells and then make those into differentiated cells, he’s short- circuiting that process and saying let’s go right from one readily available cell to another cell of interest.”

Perhaps the most significant fact is that the cells make the change without first becoming a pluripotent type of stem cell, like an embryonic stem cell. Given that pluripotent stem cells are notoriously difficult to control, bypassing that step with direct reprogramming becomes an extremely attractive method to transform cells.

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There were times during last night’s speech when reality seemed suspended: The President’s evident sincerity and earnestness were undermined by the caustic laughter that occasionally greeted his comments.  At other times, silence met his words.  And, in media theory courses across the land, analyses will be done of the number of times he looked to the Republican side of the aisle – he seemed far more concerned with the GOP responses to his remarks than those of his own party.  Maybe the spectre of another Joe Wilson moment (“You lie!”) had him jumpy.

More seriously, I wonder if his desperation to be liked is compelling him to try to woo his skeptics.  Of course, he won’t succeed.

It is hard not to like President Obama, at least the persona he projects in such settings as the State of the Union Address.  He seems so reasonable.

Yet his policies are those of a man of the Left.  It is as though he believes empathy is a substitute for substantive compromise, or that by virtue of patiently listening he can lull his opponents into political somnolence.

The speech, like the Obama presidency, was interwoven with unintended ironies:

** Mr. Obama calls for unity and patriotic oneness but simultaneously calls for open homosexuality in the military in a time of war.  He knows this will go nowhere, but throws the political bone to the homosexual lobby anyway.  Why?  Because he can say he tried (placating a key part of his base) while bearing no real consequence (the measure lifting the ban on gays in the military won’t succeed and so, given the relative inattention of the American people to this issue in a time of economic
crisis, there will little political price to pay for Democrats in November).

** He insists on taxpayer-subsidized abortion, resists litigation limits against health care providers and persists on wanting to micro-manage Americans’ medical care but urges Republicans to share with him their ideas about health reform – as though they have not already done so myriad times!

** He is all over the map on taxes, calls for yet another commission on entitlement reform (as if the several essential steps were not obvious, especially after many other such reform bills, panels, studies, commissions, select committees, etc.) and rewrites the economic history of the past decade — and does so with such seeming intensity that one wants to join him in the land of political make-believe.

The President needs to come to terms with some basic realities: People aren’t stupid.  Politicians aren’t children.  Civility doesn’t mean acquiescence.  And facts are stubborn things.

Tags: Obama, SOTU, State of the Union

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Washington, D.C. – Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released the following statement in response to President Obama’s first State of the Union Address:

“At a time of enormous economic challenge, two on-going wars in which Americans are fighting and increased terrorist threats to Americans at home, President Obama seems untethered from that reality as he called on Congress to force the military to allow open homosexuality. As a veteran of the Marine Corps, the timing of the President’s call in the midst of two wars shows that he is willing to jeopardize our nation’s security to advance the agenda of the radical homosexual lobby.

“The military is a warrior culture for a reason: Our service members wear the uniform to fight and win wars, not serve as liberal social policy guinea pigs. The sexual environment the President is seeking to impose upon the young men and women who serve this country is the antithesis of the successful warfighting culture and as such should be rejected.

“Tonight the President also proposed expanding the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit which would only benefit families if: both parents work, a single parent works, or one parent works and the other is in school. In other words, it completely discriminates against families with stay-at-home parents, who wouldn’t see a penny from this plan. The President’s plan further drives a wedge between parents and children as it would encourage parents to place their children in government approved day-care rather than encouraging one parent to stay home and personally care for their off-spring.

“This new socialized child care proposal comes on the heels of a proposed major marriage tax penalty included within the President’s health care bills. A tax penalty on married couples only serves to discourage couples from marrying while encouraging societal instability through cohabitation and divorce.

“If this administration cared about getting families back on their feet, it would double or triple the across-the-board child tax credit and let parents decide how to spend the money. For many, it may be all the incentive they need to stay home and care for their kids.

“We applaud Governor Bob McDonnell for calling for a land in which ‘innocent human life is protected.’ There is no more innocent life than that which is carried in a mother’s womb, and the Governor’s call is not only right in itself but is also clearly in line with the convictions of the American people, who overwhelmingly oppose the President’s proposal to use our hard earned dollars to pay for abortion coverage in his health reform plan.

“Family Research Council pledges to work with our allies and the thousands of families we represent to oppose the President’s plans to socialize child care, sexualize the military, and penalize married couples through a government takeover of the U.S. health care system.”

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Tags: Obama Administration, SOTU, State of the Union

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