Blogs

Today the San Francisco Ethics Commission is supposed to render a decision in the complaints filed against former Supervisor Tony Hall.

In preparation for the decision, both side – Hall’s defense, and the Ethics Commission staff acting as “prosecutors” – have prepared closing arguments, called Findings of Fact, and submitted them to the commission for consideration.

From Times Online

Richard Owen in Rome

The Vatican has said it opposes a European Union proposal for a United Nations declaration formally condemning discrimination against homosexuals, which it claims would "de-criminalise" same sex unions.

Monsignor Celestino Migliore, the Holy See's permanent observer at the UN, said the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church forbade "unjust discrimination" against homosexuals. However outlawing discrimination by means of a UN declaration meant that states which did not recognise same sex marriages would come under pressure to do so.

By Staff Writer, PinkNews.co.uk

The UN general assembly meets next month:
No Comments Yet on UN General Assembly will hear plea for end to LGBT discrimination

Next month's meeting of the United Nations General Assembly will make history when a declaration against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity will be presented.

All 27 countries of the European Union have signed the declaration, which will be presented by France.

The initiative for the declaration follows a campaign by the committee coordinating the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO).

by Paul Hogarth, 2008-12-02

If you get your news about Sacramento from the San Francisco Chronicle, you’d believe Arnold Schwarzenegger is a “Kindergarten Cop” stuck with a “worse than worthless” legislature that can’t agree on a state budget. Moreover, you’re probably “outraged” that members of the state legislature left town during the budget mess – although it’s clear that obstructionist Republicans weren’t going to let anything pass anyway. The real outrage is that California’s a deep blue state with constituents who want a functional government – but the two-thirds vote requirement gives us an Alabama budget. And Arnold (who’s proven to be a worse Governor than a B-movie actor) can’t keep his own party members in line, and even vetoed the state budget when it didn’t go his way – as he hopes for his own exit strategy through an appointment in the Obama Administration.

A pro-family activist is questioning why there is no outrage over the murder of a college student by a homosexual.

On November 21, William Smithson, 43, of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to life in prison for the September 2006 strangulation murder of 23-year-old Jason Shephard. Smithson, a homosexual, murdered Shephard after slipping him GHB, a date rape drug, then hid the body in the basement of his home.
 
Diane Gramley, president of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, says it is ironic that homosexuals used the murder ten years ago of Matthew Shepherd to push for hate crimes laws -- yet remain largely silent about the murder of Jason Shephard.

After the passage of Prop 8 in California, homosexuals are still howling that they don’t have “equal rights.”  Hopefully, the California Supreme Court will respect the equal rights of voters by affirming Prop 8 because the howls of homosexuals are false.  The truth is every person in America already has equal marriage rights!

            We’re all playing by the same rules—we all have the same right to marry any non-related adult of the opposite sex. Those rules do not deny anyone “equal protection of the laws” because the qualifications to enter a marriage apply equally to everyone—every adult person has the same right to marry.  

Homosexual activists have launched a hate campaign against the Mormons because of the church's support for Proposition 8 in California. Prop 8 defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. Here are some examples of how gays are targeting Mormons:

• A lawsuit by Fred Karger, homosexual activist, claims that the Mormons violated election laws in California.
• Richard Raddon, director of the Los Angeles Film Festival, was forced to resign when it was discovered he contributed $1,500 to support Prop 8.
• Homosexual groups are calling for the revocation of tax-exempt status.
• For more examples, Google "Mormons prop 8."

A pro-family activist and former presidential candidate says a recent editorial in a leading business publication illustrates just how little the American voting public knows about president-elect Barack Obama.

 Two months before the presidential election, Investors Business Daily (IBD) published an editorial entitled "Michelle's Boot Camps for Radicals." It revealed that Barack Obama was a founding member of the board of a publicly funded non-profit organization known as Public Allies, but he resigned when his wife Michelle became executive director of the Chicago chapter of Public Allies in 1993.
 
The IBD editorial said the organization's mission is to radicalize American youth and use them to bring about "social change" through threats, pressure, tension, and confrontation. On its website, Public Allies said the IBD piece painted an inaccurate, distorted view of their work. But the editorial points out that during the presidential campaign, Obama said, "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the military.

How Obama will use his ardent laptop-armed cadres is unclear. So is the extent to which they'll rally behind his priorities, press him for their own or both.

Joe Trippi, the Internet politics guru whose computer geeks made Howard Dean a contender in 2004 and who went on to design Obama's socially networked campaign machine, offers a provocative and educated guess.

Trippi predicted that Obama would use his forces, first and foremost, to intimidate congressional foes of his agenda, rally his allies and forge "one of the most powerful presidencies in American history."

Certainly, Obama reaches the White House with the biggest, best organized, fastest-acting grass-roots army in the history of presidential campaigning.
Moreover, because his Internet operation was miles ahead of Republican John McCain's, Obama's liberal-to-libertarian electronic activists are in a position to dominate the new political medium much as conservative Republicans dominate talk radio.

By Kathleen Gilbert

LONG BEACH, California, November 19, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – California’s first lady, Maria Shriver, recently told Sally Quinn of the Washington Post that she considers herself "a Catholic in good standing" despite the fact that she openly advocates abortion.

"I find I don't spend a lot of time trying to square my own daily life with the institutional Church," said Shriver.  "I pick and choose."

Shriver called herself a "cafeteria Catholic," a term that is most often used in a derogatory manner, referring to individuals who only selectively submit to Church teaching and authority while still calling themselves Catholic.

On the disparity between Church teaching and her belief on abortion, Shriver told Quinn, "I often talk to my daughters at the dinner table about the difference between being pro-abortion and being pro-choice."  She explained that she believes supporting the right to choose an abortion is different from supporting abortion.