harmonicminer

THIS IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH

The year is 1865. The Civil War finally comes to an end and the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolishes slavery.

For awhile, things looked pretty good for freed slaves. Just a year after the Civil War ended, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, conferring citizenship and equal rights for black people. A few months later, Congress approved the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing due process and equal protection under the law to all citizens.

Two years after the Civil War, in 1867, Congress passed Reconstruction Acts. The status of the Negro was the focal problem of Reconstruction. Though slavery had been abolished the white people of the South were determined to keep the Negro in his place, socially, politically, and economically. Enter the notorious “Black Codes.” These codes were regarded as a revival of slavery in disguise. The first such body of statutes was enacted in the state of Mississippi in November 1865.

That same year in Tennessee, a group of ex-Confederate soldiers formed the KKK, a group of domestic terrorists with a focused objective: to intimidate freed former slaves and their white supporters. Klan terrorism succeeded in preventing African-Americans from using their newly won rights. The Klan’s aim was to prevent African-Americans from voting, getting an education, competing for jobs and owning property.

By 1869, Congress approved the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteeing African Americans the right to vote.

Congress approved the Civil Rights Act in March of 1875 and by 1883 it was overturned. On October 15, the Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. The court declared that the Fourteenth Amendment forbids states, but not citizens from practicing discrimination.

From 1870 to 1895, many blacks gained elective office throughout the Nation, but outbreaks of violence against blacks in the South became more and more common.

It wasn’t long before America’s cities were over-flowing with former slaves and their extended families. They were migrating north to seek employment opportunities in industrial cities and to escape racism, and violence. The Great Migration from the south to north began around 1915. More than 4 million blacks –former farmers and field workers became bell hops, butlers, maids, doormen, cooks, and nannies–they shined shoes and cleaned toilets. They attended schools—many started businesses or became teachers and by 1920, African American writers, poets and artists emerged in a period of creativity known as the Harlem Renaissance. Black people started to realize the American Dream came not only in white–but black and shades of gray, as well.

Meanwhile, the KKK was raging a lynching war on Negroes in the south and Margaret Sanger and friends were devising an evil plan of their own. She was a staunch believer in eugenic controls to enforce what she called “race hygiene.” She associated with known racists and in 1926 she was the guest speaker at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Silverlake, New Jersey.

In Margaret Sanger’s book The Pivot of Civilization, (published 1922), she also called for the elimination of “human weeds,” for the segregation of “morons, misfits, and maladjusted,” and for the sterilization of “genetically inferior races.

In 1939, Sanger’s NEGRO PROJECT was initiated. The plan was simple-get rid of black people. Kill them off by limiting the growth of the population by abortion and sterilization

She knew that some blacks would figure out their sinister plot so it was decided by Sanger to take the plan to the clergy and charismatic members the black community to have them deliver the death message to their congregations.

In a letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble Sanger stated, “We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. And the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”

Notice that Sanger said the ministers should be “hired.” There are many black ministers, politicians and community organizers today who support abortion, Sanger’s form of ethnic cleansing–most of them are still “hired.” They have sold their souls for “30 pieces of silver.”

Margaret Sanger went on to become the founder of Planned Parenthood an organization that makes most of its blood money by killing children—especially black children.

Abortion providers are still being located for the most part in black neighborhoods and are still delivering the same old message–that black, poor children, living in urban areas–are not worthy of life. America would be a better place without black people.

The KKK brutally killed about 3500 black people since it began in 1865—Margaret Sanger’s Planned Parenthood is responsible for the more than 17 million black deaths since 1973.

Every day more than 5000 babies are slaughtered by the blades of the abortion butchers—decapitated, ripped apart…killed.

How can America say we are better than the regimes of the Holocaust, Darfur, Sudan or China if we allow the butchering of America’s innocent children to continue?

This is Black History Month. Let’s remember why the killing began and then vow in Jesus’ name to end it…

I’ve commented many times on the Shoah of abortion, and how the enormous injustice of it is especially bitter in inner-city minority communities, where Planned Parenthood and its competitors do the largest part of their business.  This is just about the first time I’ve seen serious mention of black abortion rates in the major media.

The message on dozens of billboards across the city is provocative: Black children are an “endangered species.”

The eyebrow-raising ads featuring a young black child are an effort by the anti-abortion movement to use race to rally support within the black community. The reaction from black leaders has been mixed, but the “Too Many Aborted” campaign, which so far is unique to only Georgia, is drawing support from other anti-abortion groups across the country.

“It’s ingenious,” said the Rev. Johnny Hunter, national director of the Life Education and Resource Network, a North Carolina-based anti-abortion group aimed at African-Americans that operates in 27 states. “This campaign is in your face, and nobody can ignore it.”

Oh, I don’t think NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN will have much trouble ignoring it.

The billboards went up last week in Atlanta and urge black women to “get outraged.”

The effort is sponsored by Georgia Right to Life, which also is pushing legislation that aims to ban abortions based on race.

Black women accounted for the majority of abortions in Georgia in 2006, even though blacks make up just a third of state population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nationally, black women were more than three times as likely to get an abortion in 2006 compared with white women, according to the CDC.

This understates the real jeopardy of African-American children. It isn’t that it’s false, it’s that it disguises the fact that black children are about five times as likely to be aborted as white children.

“I think it’s necessary,” Cheryl Sullenger, senior policy adviser for Operation Rescue, said of the billboard campaign. “Abortion in the black community is at epidemic proportions. They’re not really aware of what’s actually going on. If it shocks people … it should be shocking.”Anti-abortion advocates say the procedure has always been linked to race. They claim Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger wanted to eradicate minorities by putting birth control clinics in their neighborhoods, a charge Planned Parenthood denies.

“The language in the billboard is using messages of fear and shame to target women of color,” said Leola Reis, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Georgia. “If we want to reduce the number of abortions and unintended pregnancies, we need to work as a community to make sure we get quality affordable health care services to as many women and men as possible.”

In 2008, Issues4Life, a California-based group working to end abortion in the black community, lobbied Congress to stop funding Planned Parenthood, calling black abortions “the Darfur of America.”

Pro-Life Action League Executive Director Eric Scheidler said a race-based strategy for anti-abortion activists has gotten a fresh zeal, especially in the wake of the historic election of the country’s first black president, Barack Obama, who supports abortion rights.

“He’s really out of step with the rest of black America,” Scheidler said. “That might be part of what may be shifting here and why a campaign like this is appropriate, to kind of wake up that disconnect.”

Abortion rights advocates are disturbed. Spelman College professor Beverly Guy-Sheftall called the strategy a gimmick.

Is it a “gimmick” to simply tell the truth?

“To use racist arguments to try to bait black people to get them to be anti-abortion is just disgusting,” said Guy-Sheftall, who teaches women’s history and feminist thought at the historically black women’s college.

“These one-issue approaches that are not about saving the black family or black children, it’s just a big distraction,” she said. “Many black people don’t know who Margaret Sanger is and could care less.”

Stunningly, this “professor” seems to think that’s a good thing.  Why are there so many blacks who don’t know about Margaret Sanger’s opinion of blacks, their value to society (not much in her mind), and the desirability of blacks not reproducing?  These people have been VERY ill served by “black studies” programs and “black history” weeks and so on, which should surely include prominent attention paid to a person who wanted many fewer of them, and helped found Planned Parenthood to bring that outcome about.

On the right side of this page, there are some links for you to click. They are Black Genocide, CURE, Issues4Life, and LEARN.  Educate yourself, if this is new to you.  You cannot support abortion-on-demand, or politicians who support it, and care about the future of African-Americans in the USA.

UPDATE!  See the rebuttal ad at the bottom of the original post.

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The discussion before the ad was run:

And, in case you missed it, the ad:

You decide.

But it seems clear to me that “pro-choice” still doesn’t mean much more than “pro-abortion.”

NOW thinks that CBS shouldn’t have run the ad because “it might make a woman who had an abortion feel bad”.

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UPDATE!  It would seem that NOW has made a rebuttal ad to the Focus on the Family ad.  Here it is:

Many thanks to commenter Bob for directing my attention to this.

That’s It? Tebow Ad Unmasks the Abortion Movement

In the days running up to last weekend’s Super Bowl, the media and blogosphere erupted in a frenzy of debate over an innocuous pro-life ad sponsored by Focus on the Family. The news was that 2007 Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother Pam would be featured in a “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life” spot, which, it was assumed, would tell the story of Tim, “the miracle baby” whose mother refused an abortion during a difficult pregnancy. Missionaries in the Philippines, Pam and Bob Tebow refused to choose the doctor-advised abortion option, although Pam had been taking heavy medication following a bout with dysentery.
Without seeing the ad – and with very little information – groups like Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and NOW (National Organization for Women) responded with a fury that awakened mainstream America. Expecting the ad to convey an anti-abortion message, they demanded CBS remove it from airing. A protest letter, penned by the Women’s Media Center, suggested the ad be refused because it was sponsored by Focus on the Family. “By offering one of the most coveted advertising spots of the year to an anti-equality, anti-choice, homophobic organization, CBS is aligning itself with a political stance that will damage its reputation, alienate viewers, and discourage consumers from supporting its shows and advertisers,” the letter said. Jemhu Greene, president of the group, said, “An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year — an event designed to bring Americans together.”
The characters of both Tim and Pam were maligned and subjected to malicious gossip. A charge by feminist Gloria Allred that Pam Tebow was a liar grew wings of its own as it spread throughout talk radio and the Internet. Allred based her charge on the fact that abortion was illegal in the strongly Catholic nation of the Philippines. An ESPN columnist warned Tim not to be manipulated by the far right. “Tebow is not an innocent, and he does not appear to be deluded. He may agree with everything Focus on the Family represents. But he’s still a young man, still breathing the fumes of a home-schooled background with two parents who believe in the inerrancy of every single word of the Bible. Now, they could be right and I could be wrong on the Bible thing – although it’s going to be hard to convince me the whole belly-of-the-whale thing wasn’t allegory – but he could be setting himself up to be associated with causes and beliefs that may not be his own. All the qualities that make him admirable – earnestness, devotion, a willingness to expound on his beliefs – make him vulnerable.”
Both CBS and Focus on the Family assured audiences that the ad had been approved and was suitable for broadcast. Yet the nation was drawn into this debate, as the life issue made its way onto business and sports pages, talk radio, and Facebook pages. Over 250,000 “fans” joined one Facebook group supporting the commercial. Surveys found support for CBS to run the commercial outnumbering its opposition.

Much more at the link above. And it reveals the Left for what it is… essentially totalitarian and against free speech, interested in muzzling anyone who disagrees, and believing that they should be able to suppress a message just because of its source….  or its content.

You will have trouble believing this.

The authorities are calling their inability to prosecute the mother for murder a “loophole in the law.”

Mother Murders Child and Walks Away

In a shocking and heartbreaking story that seems to defy all reason, Angela Hatcher of NBC 12 in Virginia reported today that a mother who killed her newborn baby by suffocating it under bed sheets cannot and will not be charged of murder due to a loop hole in Virginia state law. According to the law, if a child is still connected to its mother by umbilical cord, it has not yet assumed its own identity, and is therefore the property of the mother.

Investigator Tracy Emerson said that the mother “could shoot the baby, stab the baby as long as it’s still attached to her in some form by umbilical cord or something and it’s no crime in the state of Virginia… Simply because the mother was there, and the baby had not taken its own identity allegedly at this point, it makes the baby not its own person.”

Emerson went on to say that the baby was full-term, healthy, and that the mother was aware of her pregnancy and had even received prenatal care. Could it get any worse?

Hatcher reported that there had been “similar case” in Campbell County before and investigators like Tracy Emerson had approached lawmakers about closing this terrible loophole. Apparently, no representatives were willing to alter the law because it was “too close to the abortion issue.”

Really? I’d like to see a normal person try to justify this heinous act of murder, or even justify ignoring it, because they were afraid to bring up “the abortion issue.”

This past summer, the federal appeals court in Richmond voted to uphold a ban on partial birth abortion. That means the horrific and gruesome practice of killing children in the womb is illegal, while at the same time, a woman who goes through the pains of labor is allowed to murder her child? It’s all infanticide, and it all should be illegal.

The partial birth abortion ban was a huge victory for pro-life forces in Virginia. How cynical that a victory for children in the womb would be followed by an injustice for those who have survived to make it out? Fortunately Governor-elect Bob McDonnell has said that he will sign any law that makes it to his desk regarding this issue. State Senator Steve Newman told local news reporters that he has already started drafting a bill.

The “pro-choice” position has so poisoned the conscience of America that I fear for our nation. If we will tolerate this, what won’t we tolerate?

I’m sure that Peter Singer sees no problem with this, no problem at all.

Some on the Christian Left would like to pretend that they are pro-life while essentially supporting politicians and policies that are pro-abortion. (More on that general topic here.)   In this interesting article, Michael New discusses this, and sums up this way:

It seems that any concerns about abortion raised by Catholic Left groups like Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United are nothing more than rhetorical arm-waving. Technically both groups are nominally pro-life, but neither group has once criticized the Obama administration for pursuing policies which undermine the sanctity of human life, such as rescinding the Mexico City policy, repealing the Dornan Amendment, and ending the federal ban on funding on embryonic-stem-cell research.

However, health-care reform is more visible than some of these other initiatives. Furthermore, there is a good chance that if health-care reform is passed, the Department of Health and Human Services will be issuing reimbursements for abortions. To fend off future criticism, the Catholic Left probably saw a need to issue some statements to purchase itself some political cover.

Yep.

The AP has decided to print the photo of a young marine as he is dying, despite the expressed wishes of his family and the Secretary of Defense that the soldiers privacy be respected and the photo not be released. The AP is doing this in the name of “journalistic realism” and “telling the real story of the Afghan war.”

The AP reported that the Marine’s father had asked – in an interview and in a follow-up phone call — that the image, taken by an embedded photographer, not be published.

The AP reported in a story that it decided to make the image public anyway because it “conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it.”

The photo shows Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard of New Portland, Maine, who was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade in a Taliban ambush Aug. 14 in Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, according to The AP.

Gates wrote to Thomas Curley, AP’s president and chief executive officer. “Out of respect for his family’s wishes, I ask you in the strongest of terms to reconsider your decision. I do not make this request lightly. In one of my first public statements as Secretary of Defense, I stated that the media should not be treated as the enemy, and made it a point to thank journalists for revealing problems that need to be fixed – as was the case with Walter Reed.”

“I cannot imagine the pain and suffering Lance Corporal Bernard’s death has caused his family. Why your organization would purposefully defy the family’s wishes knowing full well that it will lead to yet more anguish is beyond me. Your lack of compassion and common sense in choosing to put this image of their maimed and stricken child on the front page of multiple American newspapers is appalling. The issue here is not law, policy or constitutional right – but judgment and common decency.”
……………

Morrell said Gates wanted the information about his conversations released “so everyone would know how strongly he felt about the issue.”

The Associated Press reported in a story about deliberations about that photo that “after a period of reflection,” the news service decided “to make public an image that conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it.

“The image shows fellow Marines helping Bernard after he suffered severe leg injuries. He was evacuated to a field hospital where he died on the operating table,” AP said. “The picture was taken by Associated Press photographer Julie Jacobson, who accompanied Marines on the patrol and was in the midst of the ambush during which Bernard was wounded. … ‘AP journalists document world events every day. Afghanistan is no exception. We feel it is our journalistic duty to show the reality of the war there, however unpleasant and brutal that sometimes is,’ said Santiago Lyon, the director of photography for AP.

It is the policy of essentially every mainstream news organization, including the AP, NOT to print photos that show the reality of abortion, and what aborted unborn human beings look like.  They won’t show what aborted human beings look like after being aborted at 9 weeks, or 15 weeks, or 24 weeks, or 30 weeks.  It would be “too disturbing,” it seems.  But they will show other, equally or even more distubing photos without apparent restraint, whenever it fits the news agenda of the day. 

Some newspapers won’t even run print ads paid by pro-life organizations if they tell the truth too accurately about abortion, and they may even object to accurate descriptions of abortion, let alone photos of the killed human being that results from it.  I would go further with this…  but you already know it’s true, don’t you?  Because you have just about never seen a picture of an aborted baby in any major newspaper, newsmagazine or network TV broadcast, have you?  But you have routinely seen bodies piled high in Holocaust photos, people being shot in the back of the head in executions by totalitarian regimes, and many other horrible, but true, events.

The cognitive dissoance is stunning, because on the one hand the mainstream media buys into the lie that aborted babies aren’t really people, just some kind of thing that could have developed into one…  and on the other hand, it is apparently more disturbing to them to show a photo of an aborted fetus than to show the murder of someone they DO accept as a full human being.  I guess it’s just too disturbing to show a photo of the death of a non-person.

It seems that photographically telling the truth about abortion is NOT on the news agenda….  but showing the last moments on earth of a mortally wounded soldier IS.

Pray for the family of the deceased soldier, as their pain is increased by this barbarous decision.

Animal activists torch home of Novartis chief

Anti-vivisectionists in Austria are thought to be behind a string of attacks on the Swiss-based pharmaceuticals giant Novartis.

In the most recent attack, on Monday in the Austrian town of Bach, activists are believed to have set fire to the holiday home of the company’s chief executive officer, Daniel Vasella. A fire accelerant was found at the scene, suggesting it was started deliberately, reports Reuters.

Last week, activists desecrated the graves of Vasella’s parents, stealing an urn containing the remains of his mother. That echoes a similar incident in the UK in 2004, when activists dug up a coffin and stole the remains of a woman whose family had run a business breeding guinea pigs for research.

If this had been done to an abortionist, it would have made major headlines around the world, accompanied with bloodcurdling cries of “terrorist!” and dark comparisons to “religious fundamentalists” who have violent tendencies.  Of course, in this case, since the religion in question is earth-worshipping paganism, and the target was the CEO of an evil corporation (never mind that abortion is ALSO big business, VERY big business, but one that is considered holy by some people), no such connections will be made.

In Austria, the activists also left the message “Drop HLS Now” on the headstone of Vasella’s mother’s grave, a warning for Novartis to cease funding animal experiments at Huntingdon Life Sciences – a company in the UK that conducts animal experiments for pharmaceutical companies.

Huntingdon Life Sciences has been the focus of a huge campaign by activists whose leaders are now mostly in jail following trials last year. But Novartis says it has not worked with HLS for years.

About three weeks ago, graffiti attacking Novartis and Vasella was scrawled over the church in Vasella’s village of Risch in central Switzerland. According to CNBC, messages have also been left on roads (with video) near Vasella’s home, including: “Vasella is a killer”, “We are watching you”, “Death to Vasella”, and “We’ll be back”.

What’s really crazy: this sort of talk wouldn’t even qualify as “hate speech” under the USA hate speech laws that the Democrat congress is trying to ram through. That’s because people who support basic medical research that saves lives are not a protected group.

Exit question: did you hear about this story ANYWHERE else in the media? If you did, did it get anything like the play it would have gotten if it was about something done to an abortionist? This post is going to be posted about two weeks after the events. So there will have been plenty of time for the coverage to happen…. if anyone cares.

Class dismissed.

CURE | Root of nation’s economic crisis is moral crisis (much more at the link, all worth reading)

A travesty of justice has occurred in Oakland, California. But realities surrounding this local issue point to how the economic crisis in our nation is symptomatic of and flows from a deeper fundamental moral crisis.

A black pastor awaits sentencing, which could amount to two years in prison and $4,000 in fines, for standing outside an inner city abortion clinic holding a sign saying “Jesus Loves You & Your Baby, Let Us Help You,” and offering pro-life literature.

Walter Hoye, founder and chairman of the Issues4Life Foundation, was found guilty of “unlawful approach” under the “Access to Reproductive Health Care Facilities Ordinance” enacted in Oakland in 2008.

Under the ordinance, it is prohibited, within 100 feet of the entrance to a “reproductive health facility,” to approach within eight feet of a client “for the purpose of counseling, harassing, or interfering” with that person.

Imagine if a black “minister” like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton had been standing in the same place holding a sign that said, “Abortion is a civil right! God Bless you for having the courage to do it!” Does anyone reading this think they would have been arrested, detained, or even talked to by law enforcement? This is simply a case of law in the service of evil, and giving permission for evil speech (the real “hate speech”), while denying the gentle expression of simple truth.

We all need to pray for Walter Hoye, for him to have courage and the support he needs to pursue his appeals. A donation might be in order, too.

And we need to pray for America, which has simply lost its way.

The previous post in this series is here.

From the Cardinal Newman Society

A national Catholic higher education organization has identified 10 Catholic colleges and universities that are promoting student internships with organizations whose missions or activities are directly opposed to the moral teachings of the Catholic Church, including on fundamental issues such as abortion and marriage.

“This discovery validates the concerns of so many thousands of faithful Catholic parents and students, that public scandals at Catholic colleges are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. “Under what definition of ‘Catholic education’ do students receive academic credit to work for leading pro-abortion organizations?”

Last week, CNS wrote to the presidents of these colleges and universities to inform them of the problems with their internship programs. None have yet indicated that they will take steps to remedy the problems.

The internship programs—along with concerns about theological dissent, weakening academic standards and declining campus culture at many Catholic colleges and universities—help explain why most students and recent graduates of Catholic institutions believe that abortion and gay marriage should be legal, despite the Church’s clear teachings to the contrary. That was one of the disturbing findings of a November 2008 study published by the CNS Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Education and titled “Behaviors and Beliefs of Current and Recent Students at U.S. Catholic Colleges.”

This is not only a Catholic problem, of course.  Many evangelical colleges and universities bring speakers to their campuses who undermine the central missions of the institutions, as well as encouraging student participation in organizations that support pro-abortion and anti-family public policy.   Certainly, there will be times when a “professional internship” may require a student to participate in or with an organization whose ethos is questionable in these matters.  (Student teaching comes to mind.  The NEA is pro-abortion and anti-family through and through, and indirectly controls a great deal of American public education.)  But there seems to be an unfortunate pattern at some Christian colleges and universities of encouraging student participation in essentially leftist organizations promoting socialism, abortion-on-demand, leftist public and foreign policy, etc., such as CLUE, Progressive Christians Uniting, NAACP, Faith Voices for the Common Good, etc.  Such organizations may even be invited to campus to recruit students with week-long workshops.

Some of these organizations take moral stances at odds with Christian tradition, but may nevertheless do some good work.  Even Hamas hands out food and clothing in Gaza.  Not that these are “terrorist organizations” (although Progressive Christians Uniting seems quite fond of CAIR, which is a HAMAS supporter), but the point is that “doing good” is not a sufficient cause to place students with organizations that support evils like abortion and the destruction of the traditional family, or simply deafeningly bad ideas like socialism and pacifism, which generally lead to evil down the road.

At a minimum, if Christian universities/colleges are going to place students in internships with left-wing groups such as these, part of the “critical thinking and evaluation” exercises surrounding the intership should involve challenging the underlying assumptions and associations of the groups where students are placed.

Christianity is not distilled essence of leftism with scripture quotations.  The book of Luke is not a license for the government to play the role of Robin Hood, even if “red-letter-Christians” might wish otherwise.  And our failure as a society to protect the unborn remains the single biggest moral divide in our nation, much as slavery was 200 years ago, even if “enlightened evangelicals” are embarrassed to stand up against abortion-on-demand, when the cost is the good regard of the secular world with which they want to be friends.

If an organization passes out food to the hungry, and then supports politicians and policies that promote easy access to abortion, exactly what is that organization’s moral status?

Before we place our students with organizations whose values are divergent from Christian tradition (regardless of the religious clothing these organizations may wear), we’d better seriously consider what other options we have, and we’d better be certain we have prepared those students with sufficient intellectual and spiritual armor to resist the values-bending pressures they’ll have to endure.

There is a followup to this post here, about CLUE and the agenda they pursue.

H/T:  Christiansagainstleftistheresy

The next post in this series is here.

Francis Collins is an evangelical, and Obama’s pick to head the NIH.  Some have commented on Obama’s “inclusiveness” in giving the position to an evangelical Christian who is quite public about his faith, including in his book, The Language of God.

But a closer reading of Obama’s embryonic research policy, new NIH guidelines, and Francis Collins’ equivocations about the moral status of embryos leads to a lot of unanswered questions about the relationship between Collins’ faith and his public persona as scientist and future NIH head.

Read the link, and then ask yourself if Obama has not simply chosen a Christian who won’t rock the boat, yet again.

The Abortion Administration. Much more at the link.

In his first week in office, President Obama issued an executive order overturning the Reagan-era Mexico City regulations, which had prohibited American foreign aid from going to organizations that finance overseas abortions. Just a few weeks later, the Gallup organization revealed that the executive order was the single most unpopular action taken by the president during his honeymoon period. At a time when American families had experienced an average 25 percent decline in their net worth, it would appear that increasing the net worth of foreign abortionists was not high on their to-do list.

Their reaction was even less surprising in the light of another recent Gallup finding: For the first time in over 10 years, voters who describe themselves as pro-life have taken the lead (by 51 to 42 percent) over voters who describe themselves as pro-choice. Even this understates antiabortion sentiment, since many people who describe themselves as pro-choice, when probed, favor restrictions on abortion that the present Supreme Court, with its five members who voted for or favor Planned Parenthood v. Casey, would never allow.

Given the breadth of his domestic agenda, the president might want to make a midcourse correction on abortion. Why highlight an issue where the bulk of the American people, including a sizable share of the 52.9 percent of the electorate who voted for him, are either going in the other direction or have severe qualms?

But by now, nearly six months in, the bottom line for Barack Obama is clear. After making a few polite noises about finding “common ground” with pro-lifers, his administration has shown zero interest in doing so. Instead, the Obama agenda is to weave government-backed abortion into the fabric of American life and make it a far more integral part of domestic and foreign policy than ever before.

……

Why is Obama pushing ahead with such a radical abortion agenda? Since there’s no way to accuse him of doing it out of poll-driven opportunism, sincere conviction becomes the most plausible motive. Sometimes the simplest, most straightforward answer makes the most sense. A president who once said he wouldn’t want his daughter punished with a baby if she made a mistake is deeply committed to making free and easy access to abortion an inescapable element of American culture.

Read it all.