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May 24, 2013 (Heritage Foundation) - The media claim we don’t exist. OK, that’s a slight exaggeration. But after all, we’re Millennials, born during the Reagan administration. We’re supposed to be of the generation that is embracing same-sex marriage in droves.

Instead, we’re standing strong on upholding the truth about what marriage is.

We’ve been asked—repeatedly—whether the position we’re promoting is pointless. Are we willing to endure cultural scorn for holding to a position as supposedly outmoded as natural marriage?

Politicos and pundits offer hyperbolic missives on how conservatives are losing young Americans, who are likely to be more libertarian on social issues. The preferred talking point is to assert the demise of the opposition; Same-sex marriage is “inevitable.”

A justly revered conservative columnist, George F. Will, has said twice on ABC’s “This Week” that opposition to same-sex marriage is a dying trait. “Quite literally,” he said, “the opposition to gay marriage is dying. It’s old people.”

Tweet to Mr. Will: Reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated. #NotDeadYet

Languishing in Obscurity

Every generation will witness to the truth that marriage—the union of a man and woman, husband and wife, father and mother—is the very institution that determines whether our civilization stands or falls. Americans will not stay silent on cherishing and promoting this truth.

The most fundamental unit of society, marriage is founded on the anthropological truth that men and women are different and complementary, the biological fact that the union of a man and woman also creates new life, and the social reality that children need a mom and a dad.

Marriage reflects these realities that are unique to our gendered selves: Man and woman come together as husband and wife to be a father and mother to any children their union produces.

All the polls and court rulings in the world cannot undo the truth that the union of a man and woman is unique among human relationships. But they can obscure these truths, make it less likely that men and women commit to each other permanently and exclusively. This in turn reduces the odds that children will know the love and care of their married mother and father.

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No doubt the youngest generation of Americans has shifted on redefining marriage. And there are strong cultural and intellectual currents in opposition to the truth. But this makes sense. America has experienced a slow erosion of marriage over the past 50 years that is now culminating in the view that marriage must be redefined to include same-sex relationships. Americans with same-sex attractions aren’t to blame for this, but redefining marriage will only further weaken our marriage culture.

In the 1960s, heterosexuals, acting on the destructive liberal ideology of the  “Me Generation,” increasingly began to debase human sexuality and the marital relationship. As a result of the sexual revolution and the introduction of no-fault divorce laws, marriage became an institution more about the desires of adults than the needs of children—an institution that need not even aspire to permanency. In the eyes of marriage revisionists, marriage was about adult emotional union and sex became more casual—something conquerable, rather than embraced for what it could beget: children.

Laws and cultural practices shape belief; belief shapes behavior. So it is little surprise that when the law redefined marriage through no-fault divorce that Americans changed their behaviors, with divorce rates rising from single digits to nearly 50 percent. This culture focused on adult romance—that a marriage should last only so long as the love does—is what today’s Millennials have inherited.

Long Erosion

Same-sex marriage is, in a certain sense, a logical progression in the erosion of the meaning of marriage. The question facing Americans now is whether we will further abandon the norms of marriage—monogamy, sexual exclusivity and permanency—and promote the collapse of the institution by fundamentally redefining it.

Consider some of the costs. The American experiment of tampering with marriage has been one of heartache and despair. The historical record is not fun to tell. Many were led to believe that more liberalized understandings of marriage and sexuality would mean the liberation of individuals from an archaic, oppressive institution.

The opposite has proven true. Today, 40 percent of all children are born outside marriage (over 70 percent among black Americans). The easy attitude about divorce is fully ingrained in the public conscience. Broken homes only perpetuate further brokenness, ensnaring all in an endless cycle of poverty and government dependency. The welfare state increasingly steps in to fill the role of absent parent; government means-tested assistance providing cash, food, housing, medical care and social services to poor and low-income single parents amounted to $330 billion in 2011.

The situation is familiar, as even President Barack Obama has said: “We know the statistics—that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.”

Fathers matter, and marriage helps to connect fathers to mothers and children.

Defending marriage is not about reclaiming a vestigial social unit of yesteryear. Marriage is a universal human good that puts the interest of civilization as a first priority.

For decades, social science has shown that children tend to do best when reared by their married mother and father. Government recognizes marriage because it is an institution that benefits the public good. It is an institution unlike any other.

Marriage is society’s least restrictive means to ensure the well-being of future citizens. State recognition of marriage protects children by incentivizing adults to commit permanently and exclusively to each other and their children.

The movement to redefine marriage in America grew in the space of a few years without rigorously examining the potential impact of changing society’s most fundamental institution. Americans have not counted the cost of redefining marriage.

Obvious Effects

Redefining marriage would further distance it from the needs of children and deny, as a matter of policy, the ideal that children need a mother and a father.

Redefining marriage would diminish the social pressures and incentives for husbands to remain with their wives and their biological children, and for men and women to marry before having children. The concern is not so much that a relatively small number of gay or lesbian couples would be raising children; rather, it would be difficult for the law to send a message that fathers matter when the law has redefined marriage to make fathers optional.

In recent decades, as already noted,  marriage has been weakened by a revisionist view that marriage is more about adults’ desires than children’s needs. This view reduces marriage primarily to emotional bonds or legal privileges. Redefining marriage represents the culmination of this revisionism and would leave emotional intensity as the only thing that sets marriage apart from other bonds.

However, if marriage had to do only with intense emotional regard, marital norms would make no sense. No reason of principle requires an emotional union to be permanent. Or limited to two persons. Or sexual, much less sexually exclusive (as opposed to “open”). Or inherently oriented to family life and shaped by its demands.

In other words, if sexual complementarity is optional for marriage, then almost every other norm that sets marriage apart is optional, too.

Redefining marriage, of course, further marginalizes those with traditional views and erodes religious liberty. The law and culture would seek to eradicate such views through economic, social and legal pressure. Believing what virtually every human society believed until the past decade or so—that marriage is the union of a man and woman ordered to procreation and family life—increasingly would be seen as a malicious prejudice to be driven to the margins of culture.

The consequences for Christians and other religious believers already are apparent. After Massachusetts redefined marriage to include same-sex relationships, Catholic Charities of Boston was forced to discontinue adoption services rather than place children with same-sex couples against its principles. Massachusetts public schools began teaching elementary-age children about same-sex marriage, defending their decision as showing they are “committed to teaching about the world they live in, and in Massachusetts same-sex marriage is legal.” An appeals court ruled that parents have no right to opt out of these classes.

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty reports that “over 350 separate state anti-discrimination provisions would likely be triggered by recognition of same-sex marriage.”

The Marriage Movement

Long before Americans debated same-sex marriage, another debate launched what came to be called the “marriage movement.” Its purpose was to explain why marriage was good for the men and women who were faithful to its demands, and for the children they reared.

Articles in mainstream magazines—including Barbara Dafoe Whitehead’s 1993 cover story for The Atlantic, “Dan Quayle was Right”—documented how family fragmentation was wreaking havoc on society. In 1996, Mike and Harriet McManus launched Marriage Savers to combat marital breakdown. In 2001, Wade Horn championed the Healthy Marriage Initiative for the Bush administration.

Such efforts—from Focus on the Family’s ministries to various fatherhood initiatives—targeted high divorce rates and the rising birth rate for unmarried women. Same-sex marriage wasn’t on anyone’s radar. The concern of the marriage movement leaders, like that of today’s leading conservative scholars and activists, was much broader.

So it’s not surprising that one of the most prominent opponents of redefining marriage, Maggie Gallagher, was active in the marriage movement throughout the 1980s and ’90s. She wrote a book in the late ’80s on how the sexual revolution was “killing family, marriage and sex” and “what we [could] do about it.” Then, her 2000 book made “the case for marriage,” showing the many ways that marriage is better for couples than cohabitation.

The question of whether to redefine marriage to include same-sex relationships didn’t take center stage until 2003, when the Massachusetts Supreme Court claimed to find a constitutional right to that recognition. Those who had led the marriage movement for decades had to ask themselves: Would recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages strengthen the marriage culture, or weaken it?

Lessons from the Past

That’s the backdrop of the debate that Americans (especially Millennials) are having. Some wonder why conservatives choose to focus exclusively on same-sex marriage. The answer is simple: We don’t.

First, conservatives always did—and still do—make other social and political efforts to strengthen the marriage culture. The push for same-sex marriage was brought to us. Second, now that this is the live debate, we can’t ignore it. The outcome will have wider effects on the marriage culture.

Taking a long view of history, we believe America and Western civilization will self-correct on marriage over time—regardless of polls or Supreme Court rulings. A historical parallel helps explain our optimism. The experiences of the early pro-life movement—a beleaguered, criticized few—shed revealing light on how to navigate political and cultural forces that want to shut down debate.

It’s instructive to consider the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. After that ruling, many of America’s cultural elites considered the abortion debate settled. But 40 years later, the debate continues and the pro-life movement has made considerable gains in reviving a culture of life.

But that didn’t look likely in the years just after Roe, when public opinion shifted strongly in favor of abortion access. With each passing day, it seemed, another pro-life figure—Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Al Gore, Bill Clinton—would switch to embracing abortion on demand, attempting to predict how the political calculus would affect election outcomes and electoral appeal.

The elites ridiculed pro-lifers as being anti-woman, as “on the wrong side of history.” The pro-life ranks were aging; their children, increasingly against them. Even the Southern Baptists were supportive of Roe. It looked like a losing battle. How easy it would have been just to give up and go home.

But courageous Americans refused to sit silently by. And now the pro-life side has turned the tide in key areas of the struggle. On the question of the humanity of the child in the womb, pro-lifers have won the intellectual battle decisively. Today, most Americans oppose most abortions. On the state level, pro-life laws proliferate.

Looking to the Future

There are lessons here. Today’s young people have the blessing of inheriting pro-life arguments, organizations, and strategies. Now we have to do that work on a new issue. Arguments can change minds.

Christians who have embraced a faulty view of marriage can be converted. Whatever journalists, intellectuals and other elites may tell us, the only way to guarantee a political loss is to sit idly by. We must frame our message, strengthen coalitions, devise strategies and bear witness.

Witness to the truth matters for its own sake. However, persistent, winsome witness also tends to produce good fruit, even if it takes 40 years and counting. In this struggle to preserve marriage, we need to take that long view—one that doesn’t look to immediate wins or losses, but decade-long paradigm shifts that reshape how Americans think about marriage.

So, we’re optimistic for two reasons. First, as young people settle down, marry and have kids, they’ll develop greater appreciation for what makes a marriage and for the gendered nature of parenting. They’ll come to see that husbands and wives aren’t interchangeable, and that mothers and fathers aren’t either.

Second, if we are correct about the likely harms of redefining marriage, then even a season of experiencing genderless marriage and its consequences in some places will lead to a reassessment. After all, the harms of divorce and non-marital childbearing led to the marriage movement of the 1980s and ’90s.

It’s not accurate to say the times have relegated the defense of marriage to the geriatric ward. And there’s no such thing as being on the “right” or “wrong” side of history. There’s only being on the right or wrong side of truth.

What’s next on the marriage front? Americans committed to marriage coming out of the shadows. Moving forward to rebuild marriage begins with refusing to remain silent.

Why? Because we cannot stay silent about the truth of what marriage is, and the manifold ways it builds the America we all long for.

-Ryan T. Anderson, 31, is the William E. Simon Fellow in Religion & a Free Society at The Heritage Foundation and co-author of the book What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense. Andrew T. Walker, 27,  is a policy analyst in Heritage’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society.

This article originally appeared on the Heritage Foundation and is reprinted with permission.

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 24, 2013 (Family Research Council) - Senator Mike Lee's resolution should have been a no-brainer. Who could possibly object to a non-binding measure condemning the mass murder of newborns? Senate Democrats, that's who. They spent the better part of a floor debate explaining why Kermit Gosnell's crimes against humanity were no different than getting a root canal in a dirty dentist's office.

Senator Lee, who had hoped to find some common ground after Gosnell's atrocities, learned first-hand how absolutely militant the president's party can be on abortion. Together with 10 cosponsors (Senators Toomey, Rubio, Cruz, Inhofe, Scott, Blunt, Burr, Vitter, Johanns, and Boozman), Lee's resolution would have simply acknowledged that Congress has a "responsibility" to investigate "abortions...[that] involve...infants who are born alive or are capable of being born alive, and therefore are entitled to equal protection under the law."

Among other things, Senator Lee called for hearings into the gruesome (and growing) trend of infanticide and greater oversight of abortion clinics across the country.

Senators Barbara Boxer, D-CA, and Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, vehemently disagreed, even going so far as to introduce a counter-resolution that would take the spotlight off the real issue (murder) and put it on a convenient subplot: sanitation. "Whatever the setting is," Boxer argued, "if it's a reproductive health care clinic, if it's a dentist, if it's any type of doctor, any kind of clinic, where there are willful violations of the law and violations of human dignity and violations of standard of care, we should call them out."

Under Blumenthal's measure, the Senate wouldn't single out the abortion industry but instead condemn all health care violations. And while the Democrats would be all too happy to turn this into a debate about general medical safety, the reality is this: as horrific as the conditions were in Gosnell's clinic, the biggest health violation there was the taking of innocent human life.

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Senators Boxer and Blumenthal, meanwhile are only interested in helping abortion clinics perform more hygienic killings. But as anyone who's followed the Gosnell trial knows, this is about more than sanitizing murder--it's about protecting living, breathing children. The idea that these cold-blooded killings are on par with a routine teeth-cleaning is outrageous. How many times have you gone to the dentist and worried about the doctor snipping your spinal cord? As wince-inducing as the descriptions of Gosnell's office are, liberals want to distract Americans from the real issue here, which is the systematic killing of born-alive and nearly-born babies.

Unfortunately, the pain of abortion is just as excruciating whether those children are inside the womb or out. That's why Congressmen like Trent Franks, R-AZ, are fighting to outlaw abortion after 20 weeks. Rather than put children through the agony of a late-term abortion procedure, Franks is setting out to ban the brutal practice in an area under Congress's direct control: the nation's capital. Just last week, Lila Rose released the shocking footage of a local D.C. abortionist, who is willing to deliver babies at the latest stages of development before killing them. Under Rep. Franks' D.C. Pain bill, Congress would refuse to let the District's clinics torture children the way Gosnell did.

In the meantime, other House leaders are laser-focused on cleaning up the country's abortion clinic filth. The Chairmen of both the House Judiciary Committee (Rep. Bob Goodlatte) and House Energy and Commerce Committee (Rep. Fred Upton) are doing everything in their power to ensure that no run-down clinics go unpunished.

Regardless of the work it's creating for their offices, Congressmen Goodlatte and Upton are launching nationwide investigations to see what state officials are doing to prevent another "regulatory collapse" like we witnessed in Gosnell's Philadelphia. Both gentlemen sent letters -- one to all 50 state attorneys general and another to public health officials -- about their efforts to monitor and license clinics, as well as inquiring about what had been done to protect the rights of newborns and their mothers.

Join me in thanking Reps. Goodlatte and Upton for dedicating their time to stopping one of the greatest human tragedies in America. What a contrast it is to the Barbara Boxers and Richard Blumenthals of the Left!

This article originally appeared on the Family Research Council and is reprinted with permission.

NEW YORK, May 24, 2013 (Acton Institute) -  AllAfrica.com published a press release from the Guttmacher Institute, the research division of Planned Parenthood, summarizing a new study that “the poorest countries are lagging far behind higher-income developing countries in meeting the demand for modern contraception. Between 2003 and 2012, the total number of women wanting to avoid pregnancy and in need of contraception increased from 716 million to 867 million, with growth concentrated among women in the 69 poorest countries where modern method use was already very low.”

Around the developing world, “Roughly three-quarters (73%) of the 222 million women in developing countries who want to avoid a pregnancy but are not using a modern method now live in the poorest countries, compared with 67% in 2003,” according to the report. “Furthermore, women in the poorest countries who want to avoid pregnancy are one-third as likely to be using a modern method as those living in higher-income developing countries.” Thankfully, between 2003 and 2012, “there was a shift away from sterilization (declining from 47% to 38% of all modern method use in developing countries) toward methods with higher failure rates, namely barrier methods (increasing from 7% to 13%) and injectables (from 6% to 9%).”

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For those who value human dignity, this is actually good news. The “lagging behind” of birth control availability and success is the greatest hope for the developing world. In addition to the rule of law and sustained property rights, what Africa needs is more people, not less, in order for many countries to build the types of sustainable economies that allow real needs to be met in the long-run. In Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II explains why:

Besides the earth, man’s principal resource is man himself. His intelligence enables him to discover the earth’s productive potential and the many different ways in which human needs can be satisfied. It is his disciplined work in close collaboration with others that makes possible the creation of ever more extensive working communities which can be relied upon to transform man’s natural and human environments. Important virtues are involved in this process, such as diligence, industriousness, prudence in undertaking reasonable risks, reliability and fidelity in interpersonal relationships, as well as courage in carrying out decisions which are difficult and painful but necessary, both for the overall working of a business and in meeting possible set-backs.

The final recommendations in the study include a need for increased allocation of financial resources at the global and country levels to improve access to contraceptive services and expand capacity where needed. Next, is a proposal to improve the quality of services including offering a range of methods to meet the different needs of women and couples, ensuring voluntary choice of methods, training staff to increase provision of accurate information and confidential and respectful care, giving priority to adequate counseling and follow-up care, and facilitating methods. And, finally, public education interventions are needed to reduce barriers to contraceptive use.

The best thing for the developing world would be for all of these recommendations to fail. What seems like compassion for the poor is, in fact, the dark ideology, borrowed from the eugenic visions of progressivism, that people are mere consumers and not creative producers. The worldview underlining this report is the belief that people are nothing but mere mouths to feed, thus draining society of static resources and not women and men who have been endowed with intellect, reason, and creativity to mutually discover ways to meet their needs and the needs of their families in a world where resources are dynamic. If man is man’s principle resource then what the developing world needs is more human capital not less.

This article originally appeared on the website of the Acton Institute and is reprinted with permission.

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 24, 2013 (Operation Rescue) — During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (HR 1797) held on Thursday, Rep. Trent Franks, R-AZ, displayed photos released by Operation Rescue depicting one aborted baby that was apparently killed after birth at a Houston, Texas, abortion clinic operated by Douglas Karpen. The photos were provided by former clinic workers who came forward to blow the whistle on Karpen’s heinous acts.

The photos were shown in support of the legislation that would provide nationwide protection for unborn children after 20 weeks when they are known to feel pain.

HR 1797 was amended from applying only to the District of Columbia to a national bill after grisly details of babies being born alive then murdered came out during the murder trial of late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of three counts of first degree murder in the deaths of three newborn babies.

Rep. Franks asked Dr. Anthony Levatino, a former abortionist and one of the three pro-life witnesses who powerfully testified of the need for this legislation, to estimate the fetal age of the photo that was displayed on a large screen in the hearing room, Dr. Levatino replied that he estimated the baby to be between 24 and 28 weeks gestation, which is beyond the legal limit of up to the 24 week milestone in Texas.

“Now if a healthy baby — otherwise healthy – were born alive at that age, what would be his or her chances of long-term survival?” asked Rep. Franks.

Dr. Levatino remarked without hesitation, “The majority would survive.”

Another bombshell dropped during the hearing came from Dr. Maureen Condic, who is associate professor of neurobiology and adjunct professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She testified that the fetus is capable of reacting to pain as early as 8-10 weeks. This is when most abortions in America take place.

“The neural circuitry underlying the most basic response to pain is in place by eight weeks,” she testified. “This is the earliest point at which a fetus can feel pain in any capacity.”

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“Her testimony completely blows the pro-abortion arguments out of the water that dispute the fact that babies can feel pain at 20 weeks,” said Cheryl Sullenger, senior policy advisor for Operation Rescue. “These are the kinds of facts that have been kept from the American public by the pro-abortion lobby, media. We can only wonder how the public will react when they learn that ‘blob of tissue’ they have heard about is literally a tiny baby that is painfully tortured to death during even first trimester abortions.”

Also testifying was nurse and pro-life blogger and speaker Jill Stanek. She testified of her experience as a nurse holding an aborted baby that was born alive and left to die. She also noted other horrific cases of late-term abortionists known to do illegal procedures reminiscent of Gosnell’s horrific abortions. Information from Operation Rescue was cited in a footnote in her written remarks.

“We really appreciate the work of Rep. Franks and the testimony of Mrs. Stanek, who highlighted our documentation of abortion horrors, as well as the powerful testimony of the others who spoke," Sullenger said. "We constantly endeavor to get information like this into the hands of the public, and we are grateful for their help in doing so. It is hard to believe that anyone seeing those photos would not have second thoughts about abortion practices in this nation. We pray that these hearings will be the beginning of dramatic changes in the nation that will ultimately lead to an end to the barbaric act of abortion.”

The photos may be seen in this document:

Photos of Babies 1 & 2

Witness Written Testimony:

Dr. Anthony Levatino; Obstetrics and Gynecology, Las Cruces, NM
Dr. Maureen Condic; Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, University of Utah, School of Medicine
Ms. Jill Stanek, RN; Mokena, IL

This article originally appeared on Operation Rescue and is reprinted with permission.

May 24, 2013 (LiveActionNews.org) - Yesterday, Representative Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) held a hearing on H.R. 1797, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, originally for D.C. but now intended for the entire nation. On the “pro” side of the congressional divide were Reps. Franks, King (R-Iowa), Chabot (R-Ohio), and Gohmert (R-Tex.); the “anti” side comprised Reps. Nadler (D-NY), sporting a suspiciously large soft drink, and Conyers (D-Mich.), who divided his time among forgetting the number of the bill he had presented himself to oppose (H.R. 1793?), plugging ObamaCare, and sleeping.

Four witnesses testified – three for the bill, one against. The three in favor – Dr. Anthony Levatino, a reformed abortionist; Dr. Maureen Condic, a neurobiologist; and Jill Stanek, a nurse – presented unimpeachable testimony as to the “universal agreement” (per Condic) that a pre-born child does indeed feel pain at 20 weeks. Their testimonies are worth examining in detail, but I want to focus on the fourth witness: Ms. Christy Zink, a mother who aborted one of her three children.

Zink testified that she had received in 2009 “terrible news” about her son, at that point twenty-one weeks along – that he was, “in effect[,] missing one side of his brain,” and that he would live a life of “near-constant pain” should he be born. Zink followed her doctor’s advice and ended the boy’s life in utero. She said her abortion was “made out of love,” “to spare my son’s pain and suffering,” and that she was testifying “on his behalf.” H.R. 1797 is “downright cruel,” Zink said, because it would “inflict pain” on everyone who is not the pre-born child in question.

Now, Ms. Zink is characteristic of the sort of witness pro-abortion politicians like Reps. Nadler and Conyers like to bring to these hearings. She is not a doctor, let alone an abortion doctor, like Anthony Levatino, who can describe exactly what happens to the child during an abortion because he’s performed over 1,200 of them. She is not a neurobiologist, like Maureen Condin, who can lay out the parts of the human brain that respond to pain and explain how even “congenitally decorticate” children – i.e., children missing up to 80% of their brains – nevertheless respond to pain stimuli. She is not a registered nurse, like Jill Stanek, who cradled born-alive infants rather than leave them to die per her hospital’s orders.

Considering the overwhelming relevant expertise of these witnesses, one has to ask: why on Earth would Conyers and Nadler see fit to have Zink testify alongside them?

The answer, in short, is because she is political gold. Though not an expert in the relevant subject matter, she is a mother of three (two still living) with a sad story. Pro-aborts like Nadler and Conyers play emotional chicken using a woman like Ms. Zink: her story is the currency with which they gamble, and they dare Rep. Franks and the others to question it.

Often, people in Franks’s position under these circumstances blink; it’s hard not to. But not this time.

People from both sides of the room told their own stories; Levatino mentioned his daughter, the loss of whom convinced him to abandon committing abortions. Rep. Franks spoke of his brother, who lived a full life of forty years with Down syndrome. And Rep. Gohmert described his daughter, born premature, struggling to see and to breathe, on the verge of death. He quoted the NICU doctor: “It is so important that the baby hear your voice. Please talk to your baby, and caress her. Talk to her. Her eyes don’t work real well; she won’t recognize you. But she will know your voice, because she’s heard you in utero.”

“Ms. Zink,” Gohmert concluded, “having my great sympathy and empathy both, I still come back wondering: shouldn’t we wait, and see if the child can survive, before we decide to rip him apart?”

Pro-aborts like NARAL and Planned Parenthood will likely shriek that it’s cruel to call Zink’s testimony into question. But by treating Ms. Zink as a witness at a hearing instead of a pathetic pity-case, Franks, Gohmert, and the rest gave her the highest possible respect. That’s what she was there for – and Nadler and Conyers knew it going in.

Conyers, in a rare moment of wakefulness, declared Ms. Zink’s story “uncomfortable.” (He said no such thing in response to Stanek’s story, or that of Levatino, whom he called “Dr. Levantano.”) Rep. Gohmert, getting back on topic, asked Levatino how Conyers’s discomfort might compare to that of the child torn apart in the womb. Conyers desperately tried to sidetrack Levatino with a digression on ObamaCare – “Let me put it this way: can you just say you don’t like it?” Levatino, getting back on topic, bluntly demanded the relevance of the question. (Answer: thirty seconds of stuttering.)

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The Republican representatives who matched Ms. Zink’s heartfelt pro-abortion story with their own pro-life ones were not cruel. The expert witnesses who used scientific evidence and medical experience to dismiss Ms. Zink’s personal testimony as irrelevant were not cruel.

No, what’s cruel is the rank cynicism with which abortion-peddling Democrat politicians like Nadler and Conyers prop up people like Ms. Zink. She got to be told, again and again, to her face, via both indisputable scientific evidence and powerful personal stories to match her own, that she made the wrong decision. For no reason, save as a crass appeal to emotion, Nadler and Conyers put this woman in a position to be reminded, over and over, that her son did live a life of “near-constant pain,” albeit a much shorter one – and this by her choice.

After the hearing, NARAL tweeted their thanks to Reps. Nadler and Conyers. Pro-choice champion Nadler poisonously suggested in his opening remarks that pro-lifers were “gleeful” about the Kermit Gosnell case. (He agitatedly recanted his remark only after Rep. Franks called him out on it.) He then spent the rest of the hearing sucking his soft drink or lazily propping his face up with his hand. Pro-choice champion Conyers slept through one half of the hearing and spent the other ignoring the witnesses (three of whom were women) to chat with his neighbors, or else stammer through the fallout from his torturous attempts at gotcha questions.

Maybe Jerrold Nadler doesn’t know the astronomical abortion rate in his city, but I suspect he does. Maybe John Conyers has slept through every declaration of how abortion has wrought havoc on the black community, but I suspect not. These are NARAL’s crusaders for women – querulous, desultory old men who prop up a wounded woman and then sleep or snack through her testimony, expecting their pro-life opponents – because they are gentlemen – to abandon their fight for the very lives of innocent children so as to prevent Ms. Zink’s feeling worse than she does already.

A federal twenty-week ban on abortion is a step in the right direction, and I commend Rep. Franks for taking it. But even better is the congressman’s resolve to speak for the voiceless among us, regardless of the depths to which his opponents will sink, and regardless of the human collateral damage those opponents are willing to accrue to keep their sacred cow mooing.

As for Reps. Nadler and Conyers, they are a disgrace and an embarrassment. Nadler may whinge about the “war on women” – this ridiculous phrase was one of the first out of his mouth – but anyone who would leave a woman like Ms. Zink twisting as these two have would be better-served keeping his mouth shut when it comes to defending the fairer sex.

Reprinted with permission from LiveActionNews.org. 

May 24, 2013 (Mercatornet.com) - The marriage debate in France has been watched closely around the world. The huge rallies in favour of traditional marraige have been particularly noteworthy. Following the redefinition of marriage in France last week, MercatorNet’s Blaise Joseph caught up with young French marriage activist Maxime Lagorce, from La Manif Pour Tous Sydney, who recently spoke at the World Congress of Families.

So first up: France has just redefined marriage. What is the mood in the country? How do people feel about it?

Obviously there are some people who are happy, but many others are not. But I think we will see this coming Sunday with the number of people at the rally that people defending marriage haven’t given up. We are all expecting more people at this rally than at the two previous demonstrations. A lot of people are disappointed by this decision. It was rushed. After the constitutional court validated the bill on Friday, the President then signed it Saturday morning at 6am. So the government obviously wanted to rush it so we don’t talk about it anymore. That has been the case throughout this debate in France. A lot of people feel that democracy hasn’t been respected in this instance and that our politicians haven’t listened to us.

Do you think it’s possible France will be the first country in the world to repeal same-sex marriage laws?

Honestly, I don’t trust our politicians enough to be confident that they will have the courage to do that. The problem is that the next significant election (of the President and the parliament) will be in four years time, and the opposition at the moment is having debates about whether the bill should be abolished or else just amended, but due to the media pressure, the opposition seems to be leaning towards just amending the new laws, and do not have the courage to really defend their values. So I’m not sure that they will have the courage to do that. However, the movement to keep protecting the family and marriage is still going strong. And one of the first actions will be support pro-marriage candidates at the upcoming city council elections, including the Paris council election. We are urging the opposition to select candidates who will defend marriage more.

Now tell us about La Manif Pour Tous. How did it start?

The new President Hollande was elected in May a year ago. We knew the same-sex marriage issue was going to come up in his first term, although it wasn’t discussed much during the campaign, because economic matters were very prominent. But it was on the agenda for the first term. A group of organisations defending marriage met together at that time to set up a strategy to oppose the proposals, which at the time everyone thought would pass seamlessly with little opposition. They were joined by numerous religious organisations, and even homosexual associations who felt that their voices were being stolen by the gay marriage lobby. So they managed to start last November with local gatherings in several cities, and the turnout was encouraging and far better than expected. They then decided to hold a much larger rally in Paris in January, and that was a great success.

And how did you get involved in La Manif Pour Tous?

For me personally, I wasn’t involved with the pro-marriage organisations before the rally in January, I was just working in Australia (I arrived here two years ago), but a group of French here were frustrated looking at what was happening in France. And we heard in January that there were gatherings in Tokyo, London, Rome, and Quebec protesting the government’s bill at the same time as the rally in Paris, so we so we decided to put together a group in Sydney. And since then, overseas groups of La Manif Pour Tous have started up in many different countries. So we are a very de-centralised, grassroots organisation. It has also given us the opportunity to link with lots of international pro-family organisations, such as at the World Congress of Families.

Lots of people right around the world were very surprised that such huge number of people in France, over 1 million, took to the streets to protest against redefining marriage. How did you manage to unite such a diverse range of people in defending traditional marriage?

Yeah. It is a bit of a mystery, obviously. A bit of a miracle! We were surprised as well! The leaders of the movement have been careful about trying to control the messages going out from the movement. They have been quite strict, I would say. We’ve focussed on the rights of children. No religious arguments. Trying to attract people from every religion or none. No political arguments. We’re not against the president or the government, just against the bill, so we’ve been joined by people who even voted for Hollande.  Also, we’ve not made any negative arguments against homosexuality, so we’ve avoided being treated as “homophobic”. Non-violent, non-aggressive, very positive, happy movement. With the economic crisis, the country is a bit depressed, so we wanted a more positive movement, with funny and catchy slogans, which made the people want to come and join us, having a good time! So not your usual angry protest. So we’ve succeeded in getting people from a lot of different backgrounds.

The impression in many Western countries is that young people are mostly in favour of redefining marriage. But that doesn’t seem to be the case in France, does it?

Yes definitely. Because they are the first ones hit by the economic crisis, and have suffered from some of the consequences of the relativism from the 1960s with their parents divorcing, and the consequences of past attacks against family values in general. So there are a lot of young people motivated by this in France. And it was quite unexpected, because at the start most people thought it would be mainly older people opposing the same-sex marriage laws. Having said that, there are also many young people in favour of same-sex marriage, some of whom are passionate activists, but for many they are for it because of media pressure and talk about “equality” and haven’t really thought about it. But there are a large number of youth in La Manif Pour Tous who are passionate and very well informed about marriage. So that is cause to be optimistic about the future of the marriage movement in France.

Reprinted under a Creative Commons License from Mercatornet.com. 

May 24, 2013 (Mercatornet.com) - The Boy Scouts have fought long and hard against being forced to include avowed homosexuals in its ranks as either Scouts or scoutmasters. In the Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000), the Supreme Court upheld the Boy Scouts' First Amendment right of expressive association in removing an assistant scoutmaster who was “an avowed homosexual and gay rights activist”.

In writing for the majority, Chief Justice William Rehnquist said that the “presence [of the avowed homosexual] in the Boy Scouts would, at the very least, force the organization to send a message, both to the youth members and the world, that the Boy Scouts accepts homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior”. Forcing the Scouts to do this would have violated their First Amendment right because, as the Court noted, the Boy Scouts asserts that it "teach[es] that homosexual conduct is not morally straight," and that it does "not want to promote homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior".

This just changed. On May 23, 2013, the Boy Scouts of America's national governing body voted to lift its long-standing ban on openly homosexual youth in the program. Effective January 1, 2014, "No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone."

The organization, as Justice Rehnquist might express it, just sent a message. It’s the same message that the homosexual activist was trying to force the Scouts to send back in 2000 –  “that the Boy Scouts accepts homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior”. Does this seem too harsh and assessment?

The official position of the Scouts had been to “not grant membership to individuals who are open or avowed homosexuals” (emphasis added). A BSA June 28, 2000 press release stated that “Boy Scouting makes no effort to discover the sexual orientation of any person. Scouting's message is compromised when prospective leaders present themselves as role models inconsistent with Boy Scouting's understanding of the Scout Oath and Law”.

In other words, the Scouts had a rule somewhat similar to the “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell” policy that the US military entertained and, for the same reason, it was not to be allowed to stand. It interfered with the rationalization for homosexual behavior. In other words, by announcing their proclivities publicly, “open” homosexuals are not only telling others that they have accepted themselves as active homosexuals; they are insisting that others accept them on that basis, as well. What otherwise would be the reason for openly declaring their sexual proclivities?

On June 7, 2012 the Scouts’ policy had been not to “grant membership to individuals who are open or avowed homosexuals or who engage in behavior that would become a distraction to the mission of the BSA. Scouting believes same-sex attraction should be introduced and discussed outside of its program with parents, caregivers, or spiritual advisers, at the appropriate time and in the right setting”.

Why, less than a year later, is this no longer true?

By now accepting openly homosexual members, the Boy Scouts are, at the very least, certainly going to be dealing with a major distraction (can homosexual Scouts bunk together?). But what is much worse, it is implicitly accepting the rationalization for homosexual sexual behavior as part of its moral formation. This will make the Scouts complicit in the corruption of youth. It is avoiding doing this explicitly by continuing to insist on chastity from its Scouts in its policy that that “any sexual conduct, whether heterosexual or homosexual, by youth of Scouting age is contrary to the virtues of Scouting”. However, if it is accepting the homosexual inclination as legitimate, what then could be wrong with the thing toward which it is inclined, meaning homosexual behavior?

“I’ve waited 13 years for this,” said Matt Comer, now 27, who had to leave his scout troop at age 14 after he started a Gay-Straight Alliance at his school. Since the fourth grade, he said Thursday to the New York Times, he had dreamed of becoming an Eagle Scout and was crushed when he was denied the chance. “Today we finally have some justice for me and others,” he said. “But gay youths will still be told they are no longer welcome when they turn 18.”

But what Mr Comer had done by starting his Gay-Straight Alliance was directly to challenge the teachings and regulations of the Boy Scouts. In other words, rather than abide by the rules of the organization he had voluntarily joined, he insisted on his own rules to the extent to which the Boy Scouts must be made to conform to them. That is Mr. Comer’s idea of justice: conforming others to his will.

This is what makes it particularly hilarious to read the cant used by the homosexual movement to celebrate its victory. It’s all now about inclusiveness. Reuters reported that the founder of Scouts for Equality, “Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout raised by two lesbians, said the time had come for change. ‘There is nothing Scout-like about exclusion of other people, and there is nothing Scout-like about putting your own religious beliefs before someone else's’”.

Apparently, Wahls failed to notice that the new policy will lead to the exclusion of many more people than the policy excluding open homosexuals did. He also neglected to notice that the Scouts have not yet been stripped of their requirement that Scouts must possess a belief in God in order to be a member. Why should the Scouts any longer be allowed to get away with this exclusive requirement? Think of all the atheists who want to grow Scouting. Should they be denied this experience? Why shouldn’t the Scouts be forced to deny that principle so that the atheist can go camping? Wouldn’t this also be “compassionate, caring and kind,” as Wayne Brock, the paid chief executive of the Boy Scouts, characterized his decision on homosexual Scouts? No, in fact, it would not be those warm and fuzzy things; it would be derelict in denying the fundamental principle of the importance of belief in God in forming manly character – just as this decision was derelict in ineluctably accepting the rationalization for homosexuality.

Now, to the newly excluded by newly included. The New York Times reported that:

“Allison Mackey of Hanover, Pa., has five sons — one an Eagle Scout, three now active in scouting and an eight-year-old who had planned to join. The family has discussed the issue and reached a decision, she said: all the sons were willing to abandon the Boy Scouts if openly gay members are allowed. ‘The Boy Scouts are something we’ve really enjoyed because they celebrate manliness and leadership,’ she said. But she added that she and her husband were ‘looking to encourage our sons in traditional Christian values. To stand by principles would be difficult,’ she said. ‘But we’re going to have to say ‘no.’ The organization is giving up freedom.’”

What freedom might that be? Well, certainly the freedom not to be instrumentalized by the homosexual movement to move its agenda through society. The Boy Scout leadership must see that this is what it has allowed to happen. And it is only the beginning.

Under tremendous pressure, the Boy Scouts finally flinched when it allowed its principles to be put up for a vote and now, after the vote, it caved. Alas, it was the last significant private institution in United States standing against the homosexual juggernaut, which only just last year took down the US military. The proposed compromise seems slightly disingenuous since there had never been a sexual orientation litmus test for entering Scouts, and the only thing disallowed was the open promotion of the homosexual cause. Therefore, what does this policy change mean, if not the abandonment of the prohibition of such promotion? If you accept the promotion, you accept what it teaches. No matter how the Boy Scout leadership tries to camouflage it, that is what is so iniquitous about their cave-in.

This decision was like throwing red meat to the wolves. They will want more. And more is already being asked for.

"Today's vote is a significant victory for gay youth across the nation and a clear indication that the Boy Scouts' ban on gay adult leaders will also inevitably end," GLAAD spokesman Rich Ferraro said. “We’ll continue urging corporate donors and public officials to withhold their support,” until the leadership issue is resolved.”

How will the Boy Scouts stand in the winds that blow then? They will have to reap the wild wind and not much will be left standing. Alas, it was a great group and it need not have acceded to its own demise. It could have continued fighting – according to the very principles of courage and leadership that they are supposed to be instilling in the young.

Robert R. Reilly is the author of The Closing of the Muslim Mind. He is currently completing a book on the natural law argument against homosexual marriage for Ignatius Press. Reprinted from Mercatornet.com under a Creative Commons License.