End of the World…According to Al Gore

I do not wish to mention this as a personal or poltical attack at Al Gore.  I simply wish to mention this because of the noteworthiness I found on the Internet. 

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/eibessential/enviro_wackos/algore10yearstodoom.guest.html

* I do not endorse nor am responsible for what is said at the site linked

What do you think?  Post your comments below.

No Guts in Massachusetts

 Faced with the opportunity to let the people decide on a constitutional amendment to define marriage, the Massachusetts legislature instead took the coward’s way out – waiting until after the November elections to let their views be known.

The legislature adjourned a constitutional convention last week without considering a citizen initiative to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. A record 170,000 citizens had begun the initiative process by signing petitions asking legislators to consider a state constitutional amendment. They are still required to debate and vote on the proposed amendment, but now won’t do so until at least Nov. 9 – two days after statewide elections.

Under Massachusetts’ complex procedure for putting constitutional amendment on the state ballot, 25 percent of legislators must vote for the petition in two consecutive legislative sessions. The soonest Massachusetts voters could see a marriage amendment on the ballot is 2008.

Massachusetts, of course, is the only state in America to sanction same-sex marriage, following the absurd decision by the state Supreme Court that the state constitution contained a “right” for homosexuals to marry. The citizens’ initiative would have fixed that mistake, and the court had ruled that citizens had a right to do so.

The legislators’ failure to consider the people’s petition in a timely manner is an outrage. They should have done their duty last week, no matter how controversial the issue is, rather than wait until after most of them had faced the voters this fall.

CMC hopes Massachusetts legislators choose in November to give the people to right to decide how they will define marriage.

Source:  www.centerformoralclarity.net

What do you think?  Post your comments below.

Too Many Voters Staying Home

The right to vote is precious, but a disturbing number of Americans are treating it as common. Primary election turnouts so far this year have been abysmal.

USA Today reported this week that in primaries in 25 states through the end of June, most voters failed to show up for primary elections – even with seats in governors’ mansions and in the U.S. Senate at stake. For example:

• In New Mexico, the primary turnout was 22 percent.
• In Idaho, turnout was 26 percent.
• Just 19 percent of Pennsylvania voters bothered to show up at the polls for that state’s primary.
• Fewer than 4 percent of Virginia’s Democratic voters participated in their state’s primary.

“It’s unsettling that more Americans don’t treat the opportunity to make their voices heard,” said Pastor Rod Parsley, founder and president of the Center for Moral Clarity. “Every election gives us the opportunity to hire or retire public servants based on whether we agree with the values they hold. I can’t imagine any Christian – or any American – passing up that opportunity. Traditionally the November elections draw more voters than primaries, but primaries are important as well because they narrow our choices for the general election. If you don’t vote in your state’s primary, you certainly take your chances of being faced with two unpalatable candidates in November.”

These states have primary elections in the coming weeks. If your state is listed below, make sure to exercise your right to vote!

• July 18: Georgia.
• July 25: Oklahoma.
• August 1: Kansas.
• August 3: Tennessee.
• August 8: Colorado, Connecticut, Michigan, Missouri.
• August 15: Nevada.
• August 22: Alaska, Wyoming.

Source:  www.centerformoralclarity.net

What do you think?  Post your comments below.

Congress Votes to End Internet Gambling

CMC thanks the House of Representatives for its overwhelming vote last week in favor of H.R. 4111, the Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act. This common-sense bill will protect Americans from an insidious industry. The Senate should make this bill’s passage this year a priority.

The bill, sponsored by Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Jim Leach, R-Iowa, passed by a 317-93 vote. It helps the law catch up to today’s technology, which can literally bring a high-stakes poker game or a casino into every home in America through the Internet. Most of the gambling sites preying on the U.S. market to a tune of an estimated $6 billion a year are located overseas, which puts them outside the scope of U.S. law. This bill solves that problem by making it illegal for U.S. banks to permit the use of bank cards, checks or fund transfers to settle gambling debts.

“Virtual betting parlors have attempted to avoid the application of United States law by locating themselves offshore and out of our jurisdictional reach,” said Goodlatte last week. “These off-shore, fly-by-night Internet gambling operators are unlicensed, untaxed and unregulated and are sucking billions of dollars out of the United States.”

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., is the Senate’s leading proponent of the bill. CMC encourages the Senate leadership to take up the bill before it adjourns for the year. Gambling is simply too destructive to marriages and families to let it proliferate over the Internet the way it has.

Source:  www.centerformoralclarity.net

What do you think?  Post your comments below.

Keep Making Sense: More Judicial Victories for Marriage

Courts in two more states have upheld efforts to define marriage the way God does, as the union of one man and one woman. CMC is grateful for a wave of rulings that mark a departure from the activist decisions that make a Federal Marriage Amendment necessary.

Last week, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed last year’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon, which struck down Nebraska’s marriage amendment. In 2000, 70 percent of the state’s voters approved the amendment. Bataillon had ruled that the amendment was too broad and denied homosexuals the right to participate in the political process. The appeals court wisely noted that the amendment “and other laws limiting the state-recognized institution of marriage to heterosexual couples are rationally related to legitimate state interests and therefore do not violate the Constitution of the United States.”

Also last week, Tennessee’s state supreme court cleared the way for that state’s marriage amendment to appear on the Nov. 7 ballot. The American Civil Liberties Union had sued to block the proposal from appearing on the ballot, but the court ruled that the ACLU did not have standing in the case.

Earlier this month, courts in New York, Georgia and even Massachusetts have made rulings that favor proponents of biblical marriage. In each case, the courts have chosen to adhere to the constitutionally assigned role of the judiciary, and not to create new law in support of a political agenda. CMC welcomes these developments.

We don’t expect the liberal media to understand that these decisions simply reflect a trend, however small, of judges doing the job they’re supposed to do. The New York Times, for example, declared the Nebraska and Tennessee decisions “setbacks to gay rights.” CMC hopes these recent court decisions guide future jurists considering the right of marriage proponents to take their views to the people, just as advocates of any other political or moral issue can.

Source:  www.centerformoralclarity.net

What do you think?  Post your comments below.