According to the American Family Association's website:

Pat Harris, Global Chief Diversity Officer, Vice President, Inclusion & Diversity at McDonald’s, told AFA the company would “reaffirm our position on diversity.”

The National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce advocates for changes in laws regarding domestic partner benefits, "hate crimes" legislation, and inclusion of "gender identity and expression" in workplace legislation, among other controversial positions.

The AFA is a watchdog group that communicates information about corporate behavior and cultural trends to community activists and family values advocates. According to its website:

We believe in holding accountable the companies which sponsor programs attacking traditional family values. We also believe in commending those companies which act responsibly regarding programs they support.

The American Family Association has previously boycotted Ford and Disney, and credits pressure its members exerted on the Southland Corporation for that company's corporate decision to stop selling pornography in its stores.

We know it won't be all that concerned about "faith." You can tell this from two simple points in his comments.

First, Obama:

chose a different emphasis for why religious charities are an important answer to solving poverty and other social problems: because they better know the people who are hurting, instead of Bush's argument that religion itself is a transforming power the government must not be afraid to harness.

But this entirely negates the purpose of the faith-based ministry. The uniqueness of ministry is that it is a face-to-face meeting with someone who is acting out of love, ready to be compassionate, and committed to a cause much greater than himself. To pick "location, location, location" as the most important aspects of ministry is to miss the point entirely.

More disturbingly, Obama seeks to follow the path of gay-rights activists within past Congresses who tried to force religious providers of charity to conform to non-discriminatory hiring regulations--which would make it impossible for such ministries to retain their religious character.

The FBCI (Faith-Based and Community Initiative) grows out of a provision of the 1996 "welfare reform" act, known as "charitable choice," specifically Section 104(d) of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996:

(d) RELIGIOUS CHARACTER AND FREEDOM-

(1) RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS- A religious organization with a contract described in subsection (a)(1)(A), or which accepts certificates, vouchers, or other forms of disbursement under subsection (a)(1)(B), shall retain its independence from Federal, State, and local governments, including such organization's control over the definition, development, practice, and expression of its religious beliefs.

(2) ADDITIONAL SAFEGUARDS- Neither the Federal Government nor a State shall require a religious organization to--

(A) alter its form of internal governance; or

(B) remove religious art, icons, scripture, or other symbols;

in order to be eligible to contract to provide assistance, or to accept certificates, vouchers, or other forms of disbursement, funded under a program described in subsection (a)(2).

In brief, it levels the playing field in such a way as to enable religious organizations to compete with other helping organizations for federal grants, without having to relinquish their uniquely religious character. In other words, if you come to the soup kitchen, the church doesn't have to remove the cross on the roof, the Ten Commandments, on the wall, or the minister's religious apparel.

More importantly to the ministries, retaining their religious character means using employees who agree with the mission of the ministry--which is usually religious in and of itself. Thus, the FBCI allows ministries to hire...well, ministers. And others who are of a like mind as to the importance of faith.

Obama, however, has other ideas:

And while Bush supports allowing all religious groups to make any employment decisions based on faith, Obama proposes allowing religious institutions to hire and fire based on religion only in the non-taxpayer-funded portions of their activities — consistent with current federal, state and local laws. "That makes perfect sense," he said.

Does it, Senator?

You know who it doesn't make any sense at all to?

The people who run faith-based organizations.

If a ministry cannot hire those who share their faith, it becomes nothing more than a social agency--exactly the problem President Bush's program was meant to address.

To force a ministry to hire people who are inimical to its own best interests is to lose that ministry--either to the clients, or to the government. We have already seen this two years ago, in Boston, when Catholic Charities stopped providing adoption services rather than comply with Massachusetts' demand for gay adoption.

Have no fear, activists. Under an Obmaa regime, you won't be bothered at all by the federal dollars going to the religious, as Obama will make sure to negate the "religious" part of the whole thing. In Barack's capable hands, the only charities left in the FBCI program will be the gullible, the financially desperate, and the religiously illiterate.

It's the perfect trick to turn religious ministry dollars back into plain old social agency handouts.

The rest of Obama's promises on the FBCI are nothing more than a continuation of what President Bush has already done:

He would increase spending on social services, starting with a $500 million-a-year program to keep 1 million poor children up to speed on their studies over the summers. He would increase training for charities applying for funding and make it a grass-roots effort. He would elevate the program to be "a critical part of my administration," a reference to criticism that Bush paid barely more than lip service to his effort.

Whoever wrote that is either kidding, or has no idea what he's talking about. Increase training? Lip service?

As an active member of a faith-based ministry, I can assure you that the President has done everything possible to help religious organizations find their way through the labyrinthine process of applying for and retaining federal grants. While ministries have often been wary or unwilling--or, frankly, in some cases incompetent--it's not because the White House hasn't offered enough training. And, except for the travel expense, these seminars--from day-long to weekend--are invariably free, and studded with high-level government functionaries helping ministers and leaders of faith-based programs learn what they can and cannot do with federal money.

Moreover, the idea that FBCI is not a "critical part" of President Bush's administration is laughable. There is FBCI representation within the majority of federal Cabinet departments, and the programs cover a wide variety of ways to help. President Bush can barely start a speech--from the Naval Academy to the factory floor--without praising some "soldier in the armies of compassion" he found hanging around the place when he got there. So Obama's promising nothing new--except stripping the "faith" out of "faith-based" organizations.

We've already seen that game. In the bad old days before charitable choice, many were the ministries asked to scrub their buildings clean of any offending religious display. I know of a ministry that jumped through all the right hoops, was awarded a federal block grant--then lost the money after being told it had to remove the steeple from the building before it could receive the funding.

So, were Obama's new regulations to be put into place, we should all say what the head of this homeless shelter did: Thanks, but no, thanks. Keep your money.

And we'll keep our souls.

Today, we can add a new adjective: real.

Doctors screened out from the woman’s embryos an inherited gene that would have left the baby with a greater than 50% chance of developing the cancer.

The woman decided to have her embryos screened because her husband had tested positive for the gene and his sister, mother, grandmother and cousin have all had the cancer.

But the "brave new world" solution to the fear of having a child that may some day become sick comes at a steep price: the lives of every other embryo that might have eventually gotten sick with the disease (and several "extras" that wouldn't have). Seven of the eleven embryos created by the in-vitro fertilization were destroyed.

The screening process, known as pre-implantation diagnosis, could be used for a variety of genetic defects, promising to stop the objectionable hereditary line in couples carrying the problematic genes.

But the door such a possibility opens could well lead into a darkness we have not yet considered. Even those who find nothing morally disturbing about parents choosing to do such a thing should pause for a moment to consider what such a technique could become in the hands of governments bent on reducing health care costs, or in those whose "disapproved" genes run not just to actual diseases, but to tendencies, ethnicities, or sexual orientation.

The last time the world saw a systematic attempt at eugenics, it was cut short in its first generation, and seems to have had no positive effects and the most horrific negative ones. When young blonde women in Germany and other nations overrun by the Third Reich were impregnated by German soldiers to create a "master race," in the lebensborn program, it did not lead to a marvelous new order, but merely tore apart families and ruined the lives of everyone it touched. While the program bred the master race only by determining which pregnant women would give birth and be nurtured and which would not, it is chilling to imagine what they could have done with a systematic program designed to breed only those guaranteed to be perfect specimens.

Will the same Western nations that defeated the racist ideology that bred humans like cattle now, little more than a mere half-century later, use the same heartless calculus in attempting to bring about a disease-free society?

It may be too much to hope that eventually we mere mortals will learn not to play God. But while we are playing, it would be wise to take account of the minefield we are playing in.

On Thursday, Gevernor Bobby Jindal signed a bill that gives judges the option of ordering child rapists and certain other convicted criminals to be chemically castrated.

I want to send the message loud and clear – to the Supreme Court of the United States and beyond – make no mistake about it, if anyone wants to molest children and commit sexual assaults on kids they should not do so here in Louisiana. Here, we will do everything in our power to protect our children and we will not rest until justice is won and we have fully punished those who harm them.

The bill also allows judges to substitute physical castration for chemical castration, and does not substitute either form of castration for the prison sentence to be given out.

Jindal has frequently been mentioned as a possible vice-presidential choice for Republican Senator John McCain, despite his youth (Jindal, at 37, is barely old enough to be president himself.) He is considered to be one of nation's most effective governors, and was one of three American politicians thought to be in the veepstakes who were invited to McCain's private Memorial Day party.

In a devastating blow to those who have for years argued that the Second Amendment applies only to militia groups and not to individuals, Justice Scalia, writing for the majority in District of Columbia, et. al., v. Heller, wrote it in plain English, so even the most elite Harvard professor could understand it:

Got it? It's not difficult (though the opinion itself does run to 157 pages.)

Yes, all those backwards morons who have, for decades, pointed in frustration to the Second Amendment's "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"--those knuckle-dragging neanderthals were right.

And for those who have spent their lives pressuring legislatures to tell individuals how to manage the guns they own, even in their own homes, we have this deathblow:

Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.

So, get out of our closets now, Sara Brady.

This decision is catastrophic for the gun-grabbing industry, because it declares their mission in life to be unconstitutional. Now perhaps the liberals will agree with me that who is on the Court is a crucial consideration for the future.

Right now, your Constitutional rights are entirely dependent on Justice Kennedy.

Make no mistake, liberals, you have a fair shot at eviscerating the Constitution if you just get the right (well, "left") person on the Court. The four Justices in the minority (do you really need the roll call? Okay--Ginsburg, Stevens, Breyer, and Souter) attempt with all their might to build a case to do away with the functionality of the Second Amendment.

There is even more than one dissent in this case. The first comes from Justice Stevens, joined by the other three liberals. The four Justices fly into a snit over the idea that the majority is rejecting precedent:

Even if the textual and historical arguments on both sides of the issue were evenly balanced, respect for the well-settled views of all of our predecessors on this Court, and for the rule of law itself, see Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U. S. 600, 636 (1974) (Stewart, J., dissenting), would prevent most jurists from endorsing such a dramatic upheaval in the law.

Yet the same four justices were more than willing to pitch Johnson v. Eisentrager out the window in order to extend the right of habeus corpus to enemy combatants just a few days ago. And they had no qualms about trashing the clear precedent of Bowers v. Hardwick when they had the chance to create a right to homosexual sodomy in Lawrence v. Texas.

Justice Breyer's dissent (joined by the other three) begins by asserting his agreement with Stevens, with regard to the intention of the Second Amendment:

[T]he Second Amendment protects militia-related, not self-defense-related, interests.

However, he then moves on to argue that even if the majority were right on that issue, the DC handgun ban would still be a reasonable measure to assert the state's compelling security interests.

Yes, conservatives. Roll that over in your minds for a minute. Four justices of the United States Supreme Court do not believe you have a right to own a gun for self-defense. They believe the Second Amendment does not apply to you. Four justices. Had they one more ally, they would have won the day.

Do you doubt that a President Barack Obama would willingly supply that ally?

But it's the reason they selected the gift that rather puzzles some of us. According to those making the gift, it is based on his preference:

Even more disturbingly:

"Obama has deep faith in Lord Hanuman and that is why we are presenting an idol of Hanuman to him," said [Congress leader Brijmohan] Bhama.

He has what? The Democratic nominee for the Presidency carries a monkey god with him?

There's a question I'd like to hear him answer in a debate: "Senator, do you carry a monkey god on your person for good luck, and are you a devotee of the god Hanuman?"

"Well, Chris, I'm not carrying one now."

Maybe when it arrives, he can throw it under the bus in a show of loyalty to America and his claimed Christian faith.

In another horrific 5-4 decision, with the deciding vote cast again by Justice Kennedy, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today, in Kennedy v. Louisiana, that the death penalty constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" for people convicted of raping children.

People who are convicted of the most vile and vicious crime most of us can think of, perpetrated against the most innocent among us, are not candidates for the death penalty. Justice Kennedy wrote:

The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child...

Well, no. Of course not. It is not possible in this life to punish someone proportionally to the rape of a child. Death is far too good for someone who would physically and sexually abuse a child, steal their innocence, and scar them for life. For that, you would need torture.

But it's the best we can do. Except in the eyes of the five flexible and incomprehensibly forgiving justices of the Supreme Court. (Do I really need to tell you who were the 5 and who were the 4? Go look up the discussion we just had about the Guantanamo decision. Same game, same players.)

In the case under consideration, a wretched creature named Patrick Kennedy (no, not that one) was convicted of rape. No, not just rape. Rape of an 8-year old. But not just an 8-year old.

His 8-year old step-child.

And did I mention that he initially blamed his horrible crime on two 10-year old boys?

What a charmer.

Would anyone like to show me where the Founders would not have executed a man who raped his own 8-year old daughter? Is this what they had in mind?

Here's a little snippet from the evidence the Court reviewed that led them to their decision:

L. H. [the victim] was transported to the Children’s Hospital. An expert in pediatric forensic medicine testified that L. H.’s injuries were the most severe he had seen from a sexual assault in his four years of practice. A laceration to the left wall of the vagina had separated her cervix from the back of her vagina, causing her rectum to protrude into the vaginal structure. Her entire perineum was torn from the posterior fourchette to the anus. The injuries required emergency surgery.

Part of the Court's convoluted reasoning argues that we should consider that few states capitalize rape, although Louisiana points to the fact that the trend is toward doing so, not toward reducing the penalty. The Court downplays the importance of the trend, finally concluding that:

After reviewing the authorities informed by contemporary norms, including the history of the death penalty for this and other nonhomicide crimes, current state statutes and new enactments, and the number of executions since 1964, we conclude there is a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape.

And....so?

It is curious indeed that the Court has chosen to measure the appropriateness of a punishment by a sort of popular survey of state opinion. Do they plan to do the same when faced with the issue of gay marriage? Will our four-plus-one liberal justices grant an automatic assumption of victory to the more than 40 states that have expressed their desire to ban gay marriage?

Somehow, I doubt it.

And the Court suggests that it is somehow better for the children if the rapists are not in fear of their lives:

In addition, by in effect making the punishment for child rape and murder equivalent, a State that punishes child rape by death may remove a strong incentive for the rapist not to kill the victim.

This seems like a rather ridiculous notion to bring up, given that the existing death penalty for child rape did not in fact cause the girl's stepfather to kill her in this case. But it's clear from the ruling that Kennedy and his clique were not interested in finding a way to preserve the law in the first place.

In the end, the majority determines the ruling on two points: a "national consensus" that the death penalty is inappropriate for child rape; and an undefined, inexplicable notion called "the Court's judgment" that the first is the right position.

Alito's blistering dissent takes the majority to task for its seeming coldness to the horrific nature of the crime to be punished:

The Court today holds that the Eighth Amendment categorically prohibits the imposition of the death penalty for the crime of raping a child. This is so, according to the Court, no matter how young the child, no matter how many times the child is raped, no matter how many children the perpetrator rapes, no matter how sadistic the crime, no matter how much physical or psychological trauma is inflicted, and no matter how heinous the perpetrator’s prior criminal record may be.

In the dissent, Alito points out that states which were on the way to capitalizing child rape stalled only after the Court granted certiorari in this case, leading to a wait-and-see attitude on the part of legislators. Moreover, many are hesitant to move on the issue in light of the ruling that disallowed the death penalty for the rape of an adult woman. In the absence of a clarification of the applicability of the Eighth Amendment, it would be a Constitutional risk for states to move further toward harsher punishment. Yet, despite the risk, some did. The majority ignores its own role in the trend it uses to justify this ruling.

there is no evidence of which I am aware that these legislative initiatives failed because the proposed laws were viewed as inconsistent with our society’s standards of decency. On the contrary, the available evidence suggests otherwise. For example, in Colorado, the Senate Appropriations Committee in April voted 6 to 4 against Senate Bill 195, reportedly because it “would have cost about $616,000 next year for trials, appeals, public defenders, and prison costs.” Likewise, in Tennessee, the capital child-rape bill was withdrawn in committee “because of the high associated costs.” The bill’s sponsor stated that “ ‘[b]ecause of the state’s budget situation, we thought to withdraw that bill. . . . We’ll revisit it next year to see if we can reduce the cost of the fiscal note.’ ” Thus, the failure to enact capital child-rape laws cannot be viewed as evidence of a moral consensus against such punishment.

Alito also ridicules the majority's contention that the failure of Congress to enact such legislation has some kind of meaning, reminding them (one would think, unnecessarily--aren't they all lawyers?) that "very few rape cases, not to mention child-rape cases, are prosecuted in federal court.Congress’ failure to enact a death penalty statute for this tiny set of cases is hardly evidence of Congress’ assessment of our society’s values."

Alito finds the "national consensus" the majority claims to be largely in the imaginations of those five justices. And he makes short work of their arguments concerning effect of the death penalty on the rape victims.

Finally, Alito squarely takes on the majority's seemingly intuitional "judgment" that, while murder can be punished with the death penalty, rape can not, because it is not as "morally depraved":

With respect to the question of moral depravity, is it really true that every person who is convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death is more morally depraved than every child rapist? Consider the following two cases. In the first, a defendant robs a convenience store and watches as his accomplice shoots the store owner. The defendant acts recklessly, but was not the triggerman and did not intend the killing. In the second case, a previously convicted child rapist kidnaps, repeatedly rapes, and tortures multiple child victims. Is it clear that the first defendant is more morally depraved than the second?

This serves as yet another reminder of how crucially important the next president is, if only because he will invariably appoint one or more new justices, who will steer the court for perhaps decades to come.

Enemy combatants treated like American citizens. International custom read into American law. Traditional morality swept away with the stroke of a pen. And, now, this. You can't execute people who rape children. As Alito said, no matter how many children, no matter how cruelly, no matter how, where, or with what. You can't. No matter what.

One different justice would have changed that verdict.

Give us the president that can give us that justice. So the Court can finally give justice to the children across the nation crying out against their "nonhomicidal" rapists.

Get out and vote for that president.

Oops. Too late.

But why should the public be surprised at having its interests tossed (as the popular expression puts it) under the bus? It's Barack Obama's stock in trade to discard inconvenient people, positions, and political principles to suit his own needs. (And while I was writing this, he did it again, claiming that his new "seal" was only a one-time thing and would never be used again. No, not after it was received with giggles and embarrassment for its political clumsiness and outright mockery of the Presidential seal.)

Let's go back to his beginnings, shall we?

Barack Obama made his political bones when he was hand-picked by Alice Palmer to take her place in the State Senate when she tried for the U.S. House seat vacated by then-indicted (later convicted) child molester Mel Reynolds. Palmer lost the primary to Jesse Jackson, Jr., then re-filed for her old seat.

Rather than run against her--or anyone--clever neophyte Barack Obama challenged the signatures on the petitions for all the candidates running against him, eventually winding up unopposed for the State Senate seat. During this primary season, though not even a superdelegate, Alice Palmer threw her support to and worked for Hillary Clinton.

The wider public first saw it when Barack pretended not to be aware of anything his own pastor had said for the past twenty years. He tried to make us believe that he was like some kind of cartoon husband, just along for the ride, snoozing through the sermon, just there for the atmosphere. At the same time, he professed to be a devout Christian.

While he held onto Wright as long as that fiction worked for him, as soon as Wright got a bit impressed with himself and brought his full show--complete with strutting, mugging, spot-on impressions, and even a little dancing--to the National Press Club, Obama was finished with him.

At first, Obama, while disapproving of Wright's words, nonetheless stood by his pastor, choosing instead to deflect a splash of racism onto his own white grandmother:

"I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

(This, by the way, was when the term "under the bus" began to become associated with Obama's way of dealing with politically difficult allies.)

Then, while Barack wasn't looking, Trinity and its new pastor allowed another friend of Barack's--one he's known even longer than Wright--to step to the pulpit. When Father Michael Pfleger took the stage at Trinity, he just couldn't help himself. He got on a riff about white entitlement and ended up slamming Hillary Clinton by name, saying the reason she was crying in the primaries was because she realized her "entitlement" candidacy had been usurped by a black man.

Both presidential campaigns expressed dismay at Pfleger's sermon, but Obama chose the moment to cut ties to Trinity (conveniently without mentioning his very long friendship with Michael Pfleger, the same way he speaks of his close friend Bill Ayres as merely "an English professor," implying that he doesn't know the man very well. In fact, he has worked closely with the Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago, on numerous occasions, and it is Ayres' contribution to the field of Education, not English, that Obama most prizes.)

Pfleger and Obama go back a long way, to the early days of street organizing on the South Side of Chicago, where Pfleger introduced Obama to street politics, grant-getting, and the Saul Alinsky method of political agitation. By all accounts, Barack was very good at it. Pfleger was one of the very few South Side ministers or political figures of any type that endorsed Obama over former Black Panther Bobby Rush in Obama's ill-fated bid to unseat him. (Obama was smacked down by Rush by a wide margin, largely because he couldn't connect with African America voters the way Rush already did.)

But, all good things must come to an end, and so it was with Obama's public association with the racist politicization of the Chicago pulpits. Just after beating back Hillary Clinton's bid to get the same number of delegates she actually received votes for in the Michagan primary (Obama was awarded some of hers, just to be "fair"), Obama stepped forward before the press to sadly tell us that he was leaving Trinity UCC.

Apparent end of story.

Soon after, his longtime pal and financial seed-planter Tony Rezko fell on hard times. But he asked nothing of Obama in this, his time of trouble, and Obama gave him nothing. In abundance. When asked what he thought of the conviction of his old friend on 16 counts of various flavors of political corruption, a sorrowful Obama said:

"This isn't the Tony Rezko I knew."

A curious claim, since the crimes for which Rezko was convicted took place while Obama knew him, took money from him, bought land next door to him, and seemed close enough to him that one might reasonably assume he would know how thoroughly corrupt he was. Unless one was a simply clueless person, instead of a slick Chicago politician working the system.

In fact, Rezko's crimes had to do with many people that Obama knew well, personally and politically, including the current governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich. Rezko also has ties to the current Cook County Board President, Todd Stroger, who was endorsed by Barack Obama to take his father, John Stroger's, long-time position.

While that may sound a bit odd, you have to know Chicago. The only thing more important in Chicago than political influence (also known in the Windy City as "clout") is family. And, very often, politicians have both. There are certain names that pop up with great frequency in Chicago and Illinois politics--names like Stroger, Ryan, Madigan--and above all, Daley. And Obama, in his time, has known them all.

And let's not even bother to mention the blip that was Jim Johnson--until Obama figured out that having a friend of Countrywide picking his vice president--while he himself was hammering away at the mortgage industry, and Countrywide by name--was unhelpful to the goal of becoming president. (One wonders how he will manage to disavow Senators Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad, should the need arise.)

The historical record shows that Obama--the purported "new face" of the Democratic party--is anything but "new." The candidate of "change" is in fact a throwback to the bad old days of machine politics and cronyism. He is the same-old, same-old, brought to you by the apogee of political corruption, the Chicago machine.

In 1962, the Chicago machine delivered Illinois to John F. Kennedy, in one of the most shameless acts of national corruption in history (though nothing for Chicago itself). Today, it has submitted for your approval not a candidate for the twenty-first century, but a throwback to the worst bare-knuckle politics of the twentieth--or the Tammany Hall of the nineteenth.

Elect him at your own risk. And don't say I didn't warn you.

This year, however, there are three good reasons to vote Republican: the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court.

The Guantanamo case revealed a deeply divided Court, with that old swinger Justice Kennedy proving the most important. The four strict constructionists on the Court—Alito, Roberts, Thomas, and Scalia—dissented, while the four on the “flexible document” side signed on with Kennedy (Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter, Stevens.)

I know that most Americans are bored to death by talk of such dull stuff as Supreme Court cases, but this is the historical moment to ignore the distractions and focus. This is a turning point we cannot afford to miss.

Next, let’s look at the issue of gay marriage. Americans across the country have been watching helplessly as unelected and agenda-driven judges in state courts have overridden the expressed will of voters in more than forty states. California’s Supreme Court declared that domestic partnerships and civil unions are not sufficient equivalents to “marriage,” and homosexuals must be allowed to “marry”—which they did, just after (in a sickening coincidence) Father’s Day. The Oregon Appeals Court, on the other hand, has recently upheld that state’s ban on same-sex marriage.

Within a very short period of time (as soon as the newlyweds go home to their original states and start suing for recognition), there is assuredly going to be a Constitutional question the Supremes cannot avoid.

The genesis of all the onslaught of same-sex marriage activism comes from, essentially, one source: the 2005 Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which—overturning the defining precedent, Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)—asserted a right to homosexual sodomy as part of the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment. The Lawrence decision was a 6-3 decision. The set of 6 justices that rendered this abomination are now only five; one justice on each side has been replaced by two justices who could be easily presumed to be on the side that would have upheld Bowers and never agreed with Lawrence. Justices O’Connor and Rehnquist are gone from the Court now, but they have been replaced with Alito and Roberts—who, with Scalia and Thomas, form a fairly strong strict constructionist voting bloc.

One constructionist vote could overturn Lawrence and reverse the gay marriage trend with the stroke of a pen (or the click of a keyboard, at least).

There is also the little matter of whether American law has an intrinsic meaning of its own and should be the only source of American law.

The reasoning in the Lawrence case also included this bizarre reference to the laws of other nations:

To the extent Bowers relied on values we share with a wider civilization, it should be noted that the reasoning and holding in Bowers have been rejected elsewhere. The European Court of Human Rights has followed not Bowers but its own decision in Dudgeon v. United Kingdom. See P. G. & J. H. v. United Kingdom, App. No. 00044787/98, ¶56 (Eur. Ct. H. R., Sept. 25, 2001); Modinos v. Cyprus, 259 Eur. Ct. H. R. (1993); Norris v. Ireland, 142 Eur. Ct. H. R. (1988). Other nations, too, have taken action consistent with an affirmation of the protected right of homo-sexual adults to engage in intimate, consensual conduct. See Brief for Mary Robinson et al. as Amici Curiae 11–12. The right the petitioners seek in this case has been accepted as an integral part of human freedom in many other countries. There has been no showing that in this country the governmental interest in circumscribing personal choice is somehow more legitimate or urgent.

It is difficult to think of a statement that should more outrage patriots and constitutionalists. When the Founders brought forth their profound document, they knew they were not following the notions of other nations. Rather, they were creating something new. And it was the unique combination of English common law, common sense, Biblical values, and philosophical convictions not previously codified that led to a nation far more successful than anything anyone had expected. Indeed, the document our Founders devised has served as a model for many other countries since.

America is not what it is because it follows the latest tradition in European jurisprudence. It is a great and mighty nation, free and open, where ordered liberty is more possible than in any other country on earth—precisely because it has not bound itself to the laws of any other nation. We have no allegiances that trump the Constitution, no treaties that can be allowed to prevail over it. We will not kowtow to the pronouncements of the international “community,” but will instead keep our own counsel, secure in the notion that our Constitution represents the highest and best experiment in law and culture that has ever been seen on this earth.

But the liberals on the current court disagree.

Justice Scalia, on the other hand, has said:

It is my view that foreign legal materials can never be relevant to an interpretation of - to the meaning of - the United States Constitution.

While it is unclear how many of the Justices are internationalists, public statements by Justices Kennedy and Breyer, at least, indicate that they favor a more globalist interpretation of the law. And, since none of the six in the majority on the Lawrence case wrote any objection to that particular aspect of it, we certainly can assume they don’t hold the same disregard for it as does Scalia.

Finally, we come to the sine qua non of the American conservative/liberal split: abortion. While there is never a shortage of abortion litigation in the lower courts, the Supreme Court of late has only rarely taken them on. However, last April, in Gonzales v. Carhart, the four constructionists found Kennedy swinging their way to uphold the Congressional ban on partial-birth abortion. If Kennedy could be counted on, there would be no need for a new justice. But, for either side, Kennedy represents a question mark—and a dangerous one at that. Thus, for the cases coming up the pipeline on the divisive issue of abortion, it would be helpful to have another reliable strict constructionist on the bench.

Which brings us to: who will those justices be, when cases come up on these crucial issues? Is it possible to hope for a new resolution on some of them?

Looking at the simple gerontological realities, it seems unlikely that the next president will come though four entire years—much less eight—without the chance to replace one of our aging Justices—which weighs in favor of the constructionists, since Justice Stevens is 88, and Justice Ginsburg is 75 and has already had cancer. Of the constructionists, only Scalia is in his seventies, while the others are 60 or younger.

The next president almost certainly has the future of the Court--and American justice--in his hands.

And so, in the interests of justice, for the good of the nation, no matter how suspicious you may be of John McCain, no matter how “faux-conservative” you may consider him to be, as a conservative, you have no choice but to vote for him.

The alternatives—whether staying home, voting for Barack Obama, or throwing your vote away on a "protest" vote—are too risky to even contemplate.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MONTANA:

Section 1. Article II, section 3, of The Constitution of the State of Montana is amended to read:
"Section 3. Inalienable Right to life and inalienable rights. (1) Every person has a paramount and fundamental right to life.
(2) All persons are [born--changed to created] free and have certain inalienable rights from the moment of conception. They include the right to a clean and healthful environment and the rights of pursuing life's basic necessities, enjoying and defending their lives and liberties, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and seeking their safety, health and happiness in all lawful ways. In enjoying these rights, all persons recognize corresponding responsibilities.
(3) As used in this article, "person" includes a human being at all stages of human development or life, including the state of fertilization, regardless of age, health, level of functioning, or condition of dependency.
(4) Subsections (1) and (3) and the language regarding the moment of conception in subsection (2) must be implemented by legislation."

Colorado's amendment is actually on the ballot, having qualified with 25% more signatures than needed. The fourteen simple words that could change Colorado forever are:

The term "Person" or "Persons" shall include any human from the time of fertilization.

It is curious that there has been little attention to these groundbreaking measures, though one is tempted to think the white noise machine of the Democratic primary could have something to do with it. However, between now and November the people of Montana and Colorado will be talking about this, and if the Amendments pass, there can be little doubt that the Supreme Court will get to talk about it before long, as well.

Once again, we note that who is on that Court will have ramifications for the next several decades. Who picks the next few (and it would only take one to turn the present Court over) justices is probably the most important question this nation has faced in years.

Whether your issue is gay marriage, abortion, or the adjudication of non-American citizens captured on foreign soil trying to kill American soldiers, the next few years of the Supreme Court will be crucial turning points in American jurisprudence.

Conservatives, we must take the Court seriously. And we must do everything that we can to take the law back from the out-of-control liberal globalists that have taken over the judiciary.

Had this happened in Illinois prior to 2005, she might yet have been killed--legally, thanks to Barack Obama.

As Chair of the subcommittee the bill landed in later, he simply killed the bill--allowing doctors whose abortions unfortunately don't do the job to merely dispose of their problem the old-fashioned way. As Jill Stanek's testimony described it, at the time Illinois hospitals faced with babies intended for abortion who stubbornly survived merely wrapped them in blankets and let them die. The bill Obama opposed would have given them the same right to medical treatment as an "intended" baby is entitled to.

Although the baby wasn't intended as an abortion, that might not put her beyond the reach of Obama's utilitatarian mercies. Perhaps he would have considered her a "punishment.".

Aruna and Bhagwan Gaikwad's baby girl should thank her lucky stars she was not born under the reign of Barack Obama.

There can be no doubt that the caucus, led by the only two elected “out” Congress (you’ll excuse the expression) members—Barney Frank (D-MA) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) will quickly busy itself finding myriad ways to frustrate the will of the American people and advance causes like gay “marriage,” gay adoption, and other self-serving special privileges for LGBT persons.

The other members of Congress signed on for this mischief are:
Vice Chairs: Reps. Rob Andrews (D-NJ), Xavier Becerra (D-CA) Lois Capps (D-CA), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Joseph Crowley (D-NY), Diana DeGette (D-CO), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Mike Honda (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), James McGovern (D-MA), Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Linda Sánchez (D-CA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Hilda Solis (D-CA), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Henry Waxman (D-CA), Anthony Weiner (D-NY), and Peter Welch (D-VT.)

Members: Reps. Howard Berman (D-CA), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Robert Brady (D-PA), Michael Capuano (D-MA), Susan Davis (D-CA), Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Phil Hare (D-IL), Rush Holt (D-NJ), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Doris Matsui (D-CA), James Moran (D-VA), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Steven Rothman (D-NJ), José Serrano (D-NY), Chris Shays (R-CT), Pete Stark (D-CA), Betty Sutton (D-OH), Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), Niki Tsongas (D-MA), Robert Wexler (D-FL), and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA.)

Do with this information what you will.

The judge presiding over the trial has said that he is not sure that the material on his own website would qualify as "pornography." The material:

was extensive, including images of masturbation, public sex and contortionist sex. There was a slide show striptease featuring a transsexual, and a folder that contained a series of photos of women's crotches as seen through snug fitting clothing or underwear. There were also themes of defecation and urination, though they are not presented in a sexual context.

The Model Code of Judicial Conduct says, of those who would wear the black robes of the judiciary:

Judges should maintain the dignity of judicial office at all times, and avoid both impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in their professional and personal lives.

Does this qualify? Or does maintaining a fetishist website confer an "appearance of impropriety" in one's "personal life?"

The Code also says this:

The duties of judicial office, as prescribed by law,* shall take precedence over all of a judge’s personal and extrajudicial activities.

One might argue that it could be difficult for a person who is unsure whether he himself owns pornography to preside impartially over a trial of a man accused of having similar material alleged to actually be pornography. On the other hand, perhaps it will actually improve the chances of justice being done.

After all, Potter Stewart famously said of pornography that he couldn't precisely define it, but "I know it when I see it."

Perhaps Judge Kozinski will know what it is--because he has apparently "seen it" with a nauseating frequency.

His opponent, Hillary Clinton, has not yet conceded, but plans to weigh her options over the next few days.

The Cardinal, however, is insisting.

Pfleger has long been a controversial figure in Chicago religion and politics. But it may be his longtime association with Barack Obama that sinks his 33-year career for good.