Natural Inclinations

The brouhaha over President-Elect Obama's choice of Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in Forest Lake, CA, and author of The Purpose Driven Life,  to give the invocation at his inauguration is mind-boggling to me.  Because he supported Proposition 8, he in the minds of the homosexual community, is unfit to pray.  Ok then.  Same old, same old, yarn - because you don't support gay marriage you are a homophobe.  You are a hate monger, etc., etc.  Yawn.

In the midst of all of this Warren gives an interview with Ann Curry.

ANN CURRY: Your position [on gay marriage] has raised the spectre that you are homophobic.

Warren responds with a hearty laugh.

CURRY: You laugh, but that is why gay people are angry.

RICK WARREN: Well, I could give you a hundred –

CURRY: Are you homophobic?

WARREN: I don’t know any church in America that’s done more to help the gay community, particularly with AIDS, than Saddleback. But the hate speech against me is incendiary.

CURRY: If science finds that this is biological, that people are born gay, would you change your position?

WARREN: No, and the reason why is because we all have biological predispositions. I’m naturally inclined to have sex with every beautiful woman I see. But that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

Transcript HT: Cassy Fiano

Watch a video of this exchange:

 

Video HT: Hot Air

 

I love Warren's vivid, but true example.  Just because we have a natural predisposition toward a particular sin or vice does not mean we have license to engage in that behavior.  It may seem natural to do so, but that doesn't make it right.  So the natural inclination argument for homosexual behavior doesn't wash.

 

Originally posted at Caffeinated Thoughts.

Saltsman for RNC Chairman

Some of you when you read the title your eyes will gloss over.  That's ok.  I'm a political junkie so I don't expect everybody to be as interested in this as I am.  However, after the shellacking that the GOP took on November 4th it is going to be vital that they select the right person to take the reigns of the Republican National Committee.  

We actually have two fine candidates running.  Former Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele has thrown his hat in the ring.  I like him.  He definitely has a future in the party I think and is a solid conservative.  If he won I believe he would do an excellent job.

The other candidate is Chip Saltsman who is lesser known, but he has an impressive resume as well.  He is a solid conservative.  He was successful in his role as the Tennessee GOP chair.  He also was Mike Huckabee's campaign manager.  It was in his role with Huckabee that leads me to believe he would be the best choice for heading the national party.

The Huckabee campaign utilized some of the best grassroots efforts and online activity than any other campaign on the GOP side.  The Democrats showed that they are ahead in that department.  I was impressed by how well the Huckabee campaign reached out to bloggers which is something I didn't see with the McCain campaign.

He shares his vision for the party's future here.  I'd like to highlight a few things regarding his vision:

• The first thing he mentions is the need to strengthen the state parties.  Here in Iowa I can see that is vital if the GOP wants to win state, let alone, national elections.  The Democrats grassroots efforts put the GOP's to shame which is one of the reasons (not the only reason) Iowa shifted from red to blue in four years.  This is also the primary reason why Obama won North Carolina as well.  State parties can't be ignored.
• He wants to invest in new technologies to reinvigorate party efforts... he goes on to say:

"We need to rethink our online tactics and strategy. The past election cycle taught us a number of valuable lessons: the growing political significance of self organizing citizen activism; the speed at which viral information travels through the blogosphere and other digital media; the power of online fundraising; the extent to which younger voters rely on and demand online information and interactivity; and the peril of a strategy blind to these irreversible developments."

• He wants to implement outreach programs to expand the party base.  The GOP simply needs to reach out to new voters... young, hispanic, etc.  In Iowa, the Democrats killed the GOP in new registrations.  That can't continue if we expect to win elections.

Again you read his vision here.  I urge you to contact your state's Republican National Committee Man and Committee Woman to ask them to consider voting for Chip Saltsman.

Originally posted at Caffeinated Thoughts.

Technorati Tags: Chip Saltsman,Michael Steele,Republican National Committee

Forced Abortions

If pro-choice advocates support an organization that supports coercive abortion policies are they still pro-choice?  China is notorious for having coercive abortion policies in order to enforce their populations control measures that they have in place.  Another episode of this happening is making news:

Arzigul Tursun, who lives in China’s far northwest region, is more than six months pregnant and is being hounded by authorities who want her to have an abortion. Tursun already has two children with her husband.

Late on Sunday, Tursun fled the hospital that she was staying at while awaiting her abortion. But she was tracked down by police Monday afternoon at a relative’s house and was again taken to the hospital for an abortion, according to Radio Free Asia.

“The police found my wife,” Nurmemet Tohtasin, the woman’s husband, said in a telephone interview from the Women and Children’s Welfare Hospital, to RFA. “My wife’s father was already at the hospital. They will probably do the abortion today.”

The village chief and party secretary had forced her husband to find Tursun after she escaped from the hospital on Sunday. Nurmemet took officials to two of Tursun’s relatives’ homes and to her parents’ home.

“They said if we don’t find Arzigul, they would take our house and our farmland,” he said.

Source: Christian Post

The last eight years the Bush Administration has withheld money from the U.N. Population Fund because of its support of these practices.  It is predicted that President-Elect Barack Obama will reverse that presidential order.

There is the general issue here of why taxpayer money is being used for this purpose at all.  I believe it is entirely unethical to use taxpayer funds to support a practice that most people believe is wrong.  Don't mistake some people not wanting to outlaw abortion as being a supporters of the practice and feeling like it should be funded with taxes.  This is really should be a bipartisan issue.

More specifically, why would a pro-choice president want to support financially an organization that enables taking a woman's choice away?  This doesn't seem pro-choice to me.  As far as I'm concerned this practice is anti-woman, and I don't believe is representative of the type of change that Americans voted for.

Originally posted at Caffeinated Thoughts.

How Obama Got Elected

Yikes.

Only One Group Showed Hate Here

Video footage of a Prop 8 protest in Palm Springs shows homosexual activists and protesters surrounding a cross-bearing elderly lady trying to answer questions from a reporter and verbally accosting her, physically harassing her and the reporter, swatting her cross and sign out of her hands, and trampling the cross.

Keep watching 'till the end.  Their actions speak louder than their words.  Disgusting.  It reminds me of this post on "tolerance" from waaaay back.  People never become more tolerant.  They simply shift who they are intolerant of to a different demographic.  I'm becoming more convinced of this every day.

Mandate

Harry Reid mentioned "mandate" too many times tonight. God help us.

Election Night Live Blog

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