Believers

Spokesman: Perry plans to attend GOP debate

Pray for Rain. 1000 homes lost in this go-around.

“I don’t know,” Perry said when asked by CBS if he will participate in the GOP debate, set for Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California.

“That’s a fluid situation at the moment, so again I go back to we’re going to be taking care of the folks here,” the governor continued to say on CBS. “I got a great team of people to work with. That’s one of the things I’ve been blessed with for 10 years.”

via Spokesman: Perry plans to attend GOP debate.

Robert P. George: Serious GOP Debate

Set your video recorder to CNN at 3 PM EST on Monday, September 5 in order to watch Senator Jim DeMint, Congressman Steve King, and philosopher and bioethicist Robert P. George question the  Republican candidates for President.  The forum will not be a debate, but a series of individual interviews at the Palmetto Freedom Forum in South Carolina.

Professor George has been called the smartest man in the US and I’ve blogged about him and quoted him many times (best, here) at LifeEthics.org.  As an admitted groupie of men like Professor George and Dr. Leon Kass (sorry guys), the Palmetto forum would be my dream forum!

“I think people are aware that things are not right,” George says. “They are not technical problems to be solved by choosing the best technocrat. . . . People have a sense that the problems run deeper than that, that they have to do, in a very significant measure, with a loss of fidelity over the years, a falling away from our own principles. . . . They are looking for a conversation that goes deeper.”

via A Serious GOP Debate – Robert Costa – National Review Online.

Governor Rick Perry at The Response (video)

Governor Rick Perry spoke at The Response, a prayer meeting held at the Houston Reliant Stadium, without introduction. I watched the Internet live video stream.

News stories said that the big screen only noted, “Rick Perry, Austin, TX.” This was the same sort of identification given the rest of the speakers. There’s a news story and video montage here, at the Austin American Statesman.

There was nothing political in his talk, just prayer, testimony and reading from the Scriptures in Joel, Isaiah, and Ephesians. And he gave a good testimony.

News coverage also said that he had asked the American Family Association, Reverend James Dobson (founder of Focus on the Family), John Hagee (of San Antonio’s Cornerstone Church) and other groups to organize this meeting long before the media began playing up his name as a possible Presidential contender in 2012.

As I watched the video, I followed the chatter on Twitter (mostly #theresponse, some of the #theresponseusa messages). Maybe 2/3 or more of the messages were from nonbelievers who spent nearly the whole 7 hours mocking the proceedings. The messages were filled with hate and profanity – while claiming that it is Christians who hate. Some of the worst hate messages came during the prayers for Israel.

What a shame – but at least they watched all day, so I won’t call it a waste of their time!

I’m afraid that many of the Internet audience does not understand our motive for praying. Yes, we do ask for help, protection and forgiveness. But the main reason we pray is our gratitude and wish to be one with our Creator and Saviour God.  I wasn’t raised to dance, clap or make showy prayers with my hands in the air, but I appreciate that the people I saw online appeared to be genuine and consistent in their acts of worship.

The protesters online, in Austin, and in Houston claim that the evangelicals represented “hate groups” and a religion that excludes most Americans. Well, they’re wrong. Christianity has some basic rules of conduct, but no one is excluded. It’s not as though we check your pedigree or believe that Christ requires years of study and onerous tasks before you can become a Christian. John 3:16 pretty much tells you what to do, Romans 5:8 tells you why He died for us, and Ephesians 3:14 -21 explains what we were doing today.

John 3:16  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Rom 5:8  but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Ephesians 3:14 – 21  For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,   that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,   so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith–that you, being rooted and grounded in love,   may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,  and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.   Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,
Eph 3:21  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Dividing Conservatives: Who Started This, Anyway?

(The ACLU is probably hiring lawyers as we speak. See! Government can create jobs outside of Government bureaucracies.)

Remember when we were told not to pay attention to what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms? Now, they’re forcing us to watch. We didn’t start this round, but get ready: Conservatives who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman will be treated as divisive and accused of splitting the Conservative vote.

President Obama has declared his support for legislation ending the Defense of Marriage act. The bill, the Respect for Marriage Act, will be heard today in the Senate Judicial Committee.

The full title is, “S.598, The Respect for Marriage Act: Assessing the Impact of DOMA on American Families.” In the House, it’s H.R. 1116. According to the Examiner.com,

The bill which was introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) would repeal all three sections of DOMA which places a strong federal hold against states rights in the matters of legalized same sex marriage recognition.

The new bill is set out to repeal specifically the sections in which DOMA defines marriage as the union between a man and a women, instructs states not to recognize same sex marriages performed in other states and prohibits the federal government from recognizing legally performed same-sex marriages.

Which is probably exactly where it should be heard. After all, now there can be more lawsuits,like this one in Vermont against private business owners who does not want to celebrate same sex marriage in their Inn.

There’s a conversation on Facebook about whether the phrase “gay conservative” is an oxymoron. I maintain that it is.  Will organizations like the Log Cabin Republicans still want to vote with Conservatives who are happy to form coalitions on fiscal  matters, small government, and the sanctity of life, but who won’t support the change they want to make in the family or the definition of marriage? Will they join in the debate in favor of “Respect for Marriage,” and how will they do it?

The basic unit of society is the family. Social experiments with the family are not conservative because they risk weakening that basic unit, the source of support and protection in times of crisis and where we learn the skills that allow us to function in the greater society.

There is no historical support for same sex couples forming a stable family.  There’s more empiric evidence for stable families resulting from polygamy. For that matter, the Egyptian Pharaohs, who practiced incest in order to keep their power in the family, managed to hold their reign together longer than the entire history of open same-sex lifestyle, much less the legalization of their “marriages.”

Those who disagree with me tell me to go along to get along and to quit bringing “the church” into politics, “because parties are about politics & policy issues not religious ideology.”

While I do have strong religious convictions, I don’t like to use religious arguments in politics. I don’t need to claim that the only reason to support traditional monogamous marriage is because marriage is a covenant with our Creator. I consider the fact that I can debate tough philosophical (even “ideology”) by using empirical arguments is proof that my position is close to the truth.

My fellow conservatives and I did not start this. The ones bringing in “controversy” are the ones who demand to make us aware of what should be a very private matter and that we agree with their redefinition of marriage and the family.  It is they who insist on dividing conservatives by identifying first as homosexual, then as fiscal conservatives, etc. This identification declares that their purpose is not to cut spending or support small government: their primary purpose in forming a political group is to gain sympathy for their true cause.
(edited, 11AM, 7-20-11, to remove a repeated sentence. 8-9-11, for grammar and to add link to NYT story on Vermont Inn.)