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This Blog is about my life as a wife of a Retired navy reservist and Submariner, my political views, my family life and my interests.
From Times Online here:
The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. It opposes gay marriage and, in October, a leading Vatican official called homosexuality “a deviation, an irregularity, a wound”.
Benedict's speech was also seen, however, as a denunciation of "gender theory" – the study of how gender assignments affects the behaviour of individuals. The Catholic Church has repeatedly spoken out against gender theory, which gay and transsexual groups promote as a key to understanding and tolerance.
“That which is often expressed and understood by the term ‘gender’ in the end amounts to the self-emancipation of the human person from creation and from the Creator," the Pope said.
"Human beings want to do everything by themselves, and to control exclusively everything that regards them. But in this way, the human person lives against the truth, against the Creator Spirit.”
The recent decision of the California Supreme Court redefining marriage demonstrates the continued willingness of unelected judges to overturn – and frankly ignore – the will of the people on a vital issue of social policy that lies at the core of any successful society. The decision to alter dramatically the meaning of marriage in California will have long-term (and as yet not fully known but nevertheless serious) consequences. The decision, at the very least, flies in the face of mounting evidence that children need (and deserve) the care of a father and a mother. The decision also ignores the now undisputable facts that altering the historic meaning of marriage destabilizes the institution of marriage and weakens its vitally important social roles. For example, in countries that have had same-sex “marriage” for a significant period of time (e.g., the Netherlands), marriage rates are at all-time historic lows, the number of children born out of wedlock are at all-time historic highs and marital dissolution rates have reached all-time historic levels.
The People of California must act – dramatically and quickly – to place a constitutional amendment preserving marriage on the ballot. The meaning of marriage involves much more than a simple question of “equality.” Rather, it involves a broad range of issues that go to the very core of the social processes that make civilization possible. Those who support marriage as the union of a man and a woman are not driven by animus toward those with diverse sexual orientations. On the contrary, they are driven by well-founded concern for the future of their children, grandchildren and generations of Californians yet unborn.
Palin's office issued this statement Saturday:
"Gov. Palin stopped by the church this morning, and she told an assistant pastor that she apologizes if the incident is in any way connected to the undeserved negative attention the church has received since she became a vice-presidential candidate on Aug. 29. Whatever the motives of the arsonist, the governor has faith in the scriptural passage that what was intended for evil will in some way be used for good."
Bill McAllister, the governor's media spokesman, said he wasn't sure when Palin last attended the church. He said she would not attend services this morning because she's traveling to Juneau, where she will release next year's proposed state budget on Monday. But the governor's children do plan to go to church, he said.
It was Bush's fourth visit to the war zone as president and his last before President-elect Barack Obama takes office Jan. 20. Bush's most recent Iraq stop was over 15 months ago, in September 2007.
Bush's trip was conducted under heavy security and a strict cloak of secrecy. People traveling with the president agreed to tell almost no one about the plans. The White House tried to avoid raising suspicion about the president's whereabouts by putting out false schedules detailing activities planned for Bush in Washington on Sunday. Though the security situation in Iraq has improved dramatically, a trip to that war zone is still considered dangerous.
An Iraqi man in Prime Minister Nouri-al Maliki's palace threw two shoes at President Bush during a joint press conference with Maliki. The president had to duck to avoid the shoes but he was not hit.
The man was grabbed and dragged out screaming.
Bush joked about it and said, "that was a size ten shoe he threw at me you may want you to know. "
Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss handed the GOP a firewall against Democrats eager to flex their newfound political muscle in Washington, winning a bruising runoff battle Tuesday night that had captured the national limelight.
Chambliss' victory thwarted Democrats' hopes of winning a 60 seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. It came after a bitter month long runoff against Democrat Jim Martin that drew political luminaries from both parties to the state and flooded the airwaves with fresh attack ads weeks after campaigns elsewhere had ended.
Minnesota - where a recount is under way - now remains the only unresolved Senate contest in the country. But the stakes there are significantly lower now that Georgia has put a 60-seat Democratic supermajority out of reach.
With 70 percent of the precincts reporting, Chambliss captured 60 percent to Martin's 40 percent. Chambliss' win is a rare bright spot for Republicans in a year where they lost the White House as well as seats in the House and the Senate.
When John Ziegler first launched his website, How Obama Got Elected, his poll showing that Obama voters appeared ignorant of the campaign issues touched off a heated controversy over the results. Ziegler offered a double-or-nothing challenge to anyone who wanted to fund another Zogby survey of McCain voters, but Zogby dropped out of the project instead. Now John is back with a new survey — and it verifies the first:
The 12 “Zogby” questions were duplicated, one on the Keating scandal was added for extra balance. The results from Obama voters were virtually IDENTICAL in both polls.
Here are the highlights:
* 35 % of McCain voters got 10 or more of 13 questions correct.
* 18% of Obama voters got 10 or more of 13 questions correct.
* McCain voters knew which party controls congress by a 63-27 margin.
* Obama voters got the “congressional control” question wrong by 43-41.
* Those that got “congressional control” correct voted 56-43 for McCain.
* Those that got “congressional control” wrong voted 65-35 for Obama.
Talk radio listeners and Fox News viewers answered that correctly far more often than any of the others. MS-NBC viewers actually answered that better than CNN viewers, but network news consumers did the worst. CNN and network news viewers couldn't’t even get a majority of their consumers educated enough to answer that fairly simple question.
I’d say that Ziegler gets his vindication. Be sure to read all of the data, including the crosstabs from Wilson Strategies.