Mike Huckabee, Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer Threaten To Leave GOP Over Gay Marriage (+video)

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Photo Credit: On Top Mag

Social conservatives Mike Huckabee, Tony Perkins and Gary Bauer are threatening to leave the Republican Party if it softens its stance against gay marriage.

After the Republican National Committee (RNC) released a report which called for less vocal opposition to gay rights, several conservatives reacted angrily.

“The vast majority of the GOP base believes that marriage is a non-negotiable plank of the national platform,” said Perkins, president of the Christian conservative Family Research Council (FRC). “If the RNC abandons marriage, evangelicals will either sit the elections out completely, or move to create a third party. Either option puts Republicans on the path to a permanent minority.”
In an interview with Newsmax, Huckabee, a former GOP candidate for president, said the GOP risks alienating its base over the issue.

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Time Magazine: Your Child’s Religion May Be ‘Mental Illness’

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Photo Credit: WND

According to an article published this week on Time magazine’s website, your child’s “fastidiousness to religious practices” may be a sign of mental illness.

“Religion can be a source of comfort that improves well-being,” begins the article by author Francine Russo. “But some kinds of religiosity could be a sign of deeper mental health issues.”

In the article titled “Can Your Child Be Too Religious?” Russo continues, “If your child is immersed in scripture after school and prays regularly throughout the day, you may breathe a sigh of relief. She’s such a good girl. … Or maybe not. Your child’s devotion may be a great thing, but there are some kids whose religious observances require a deeper look. For these children, an overzealous practice of their family faith – or even another faith – may be a sign of an underlying mental health issue.”

The article explains therapists report seeing children and teens who dive into excessive religiosity as an unhealthy coping mechanism, a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, that’s “no more spiritual than fanatical hand washing.”

The article describes a type of OCD called scrupulosity, where children “obsessively worry that they have committed blasphemy, been impure or otherwise sinned” and warns against religious delusions or hallucinations that parents may be less attuned to “when it occurs under the guise of faith.”

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State Grants Secret Service Vast New Powers to Circumvent Sheriffs

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Photo Credit: WND

A bill is heading to Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper’s desk that Republican lawmakers say would give members of the Secret Service broad arrest powers in the state and could provide a framework for federal agents eventually to enforce gun restrictions.

“This is absolutely insane,” Rep. Lori Saine, R-Dacono, said. “In theory if a Secret Service agent is in a county where the sheriff has refused to enforce some of the recent unenforceable gun laws, the agent could arrest an individual if he believes the law has been broken.”

The idea actually aligns with an Obama agenda to create vast new restrictions and regulations on guns. WND has reported that hundreds of sheriffs nationwide, including many in Colorado, have said they cannot enforce federal restrictions that would violate the Second Amendment.

In Colorado, Weld County Sheriff John Cooke said he and many other county sheriffs “won’t bother” with several laws poised to go into effect in Colorado because they would be impossible to enforce.

One of the laws would require private sellers to do a background check on purchasers in private gun transaction, but the sheriffs wonder how to keep track of whether gun owners are meeting the new requirements.

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Obama Accused of Trying to ‘Nationalize’ Elections

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order Thursday establishing a Presidential Commission to deal with “election administration” that critics say is an attempt to nationalize the country’s elections for partisan advantage.

The Executive Order states the Commission “shall identify best practices and otherwise make recommendations to promote the efficient administration of elections in order to ensure that all eligible voters have the opportunity to cast their ballots without undue delay.”

The Commission will focus on polling places, how better to train and recruit poll workers, managing voter rolls and poll books, voting machines, ballot simplicity, English proficiency, and absentee ballots. The states–not the federal government–traditionally have responsibility over such matters.

Obama will appoint no more than nine members to the Commission and appointees will be drawn from among individuals with “knowledge about or experience in the administration of State or local elections, as well as representatives of successful customer service-oriented businesses, and any other individuals with knowledge or experience determined by the President to be of value to the Commission.”

Election law expert and former Department of Justice official J. Christian Adams labeled such a Commission a “solution in search of a problem.”

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The Death of the Family: Delusion and Parochialism About Marriage

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Photo Credit: National Review

Gay marriage? It came up at dinner Down Under this time last year, and the prominent Aussie politician on my right said matter-of-factly, “It’s not about expanding marriage, it’s about destroying marriage.”

That would be the most obvious explanation as to why the same societal groups who assured us in the Seventies that marriage was either (a) a “meaningless piece of paper” or (b) institutionalized rape are now insisting it’s a universal human right. They’ve figured out what, say, terrorist-turned-educator Bill Ayers did — that, when it comes to destroying core civilizational institutions, trying to blow them up is less effective than hollowing them out from within.

On the other hand, there are those who argue it’s a victory for the powerful undertow of bourgeois values over the surface ripples of sexual transgressiveness: Gays will now be as drearily suburban as the rest of us. A couple of years back, I saw a picture in the paper of two chubby old queens tying the knot at City Hall in Vancouver, and the thought occurred that Western liberalism had finally succeeded in boring all the fun out of homosexuality.

Which of these alternative scenarios — the demolition of marriage or the taming of the gay — will come to pass? Most likely, both. In the upper echelons of society, our elites practice what they don’t preach. Scrupulously nonjudgmental about everything except traditional Christian morality, they nevertheless lead lives in which, as Charles Murray documents in his book Coming Apart, marriage is still expected to be a lifelong commitment. It is easy to see moneyed gay newlyweds moving into such enclaves, and making a go of it. As the Most Reverend Justin Welby, the new Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, said just before his enthronement the other day, “You see gay relationships that are just stunning in the quality of the relationship.” “Stunning”: What a fabulous endorsement! But, amongst the type of gay couple that gets to dine with the Archbishop of Canterbury, he’s probably right.

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Putin Orders Ban On Adoptions By Foreign Same-Sex Couples

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Photo Credit: RIA Novosti/Aleksey Nikolsky

President Putin is against the adoption of Russian orphans by foreign same-sex couples, Russian media reveal. The government and the Supreme Court have reportedly been requested to come up with amendments to the law by July 1.

Most likely the order will be fulfilled by the Ministry of Education and Science, which deals with issues concerning orphans and adoptions, according to Izvestia daily. But the ministry says it has not yet received instructions on the matter.

Tensions over the issue arose in mid-February, after the French National Assembly approved a sweeping bill to legalize gay marriage and allow same-sex couples to adopt children.

Soon after that children’s rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov vowed he would do everything possible to ensure that Russian orphans are only adopted by traditional, heterosexual families.

In February, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported that it planned to verify the possible “psychological damage” inflicted on Russian orphan Yegor Shabatalov.The boy was adopted by an American woman, who lived in a same-sex marriage with another US citizen. However, she concealed her relationship from Russian authorities when she filed the adoption request.

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Experts: Abortion Not Medically Necessary To Save The Life Of A Mother

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Photo Credit: Life News

Leading medical experts speaking at a major International Symposium on Excellence in Maternal Healthcare held in Dublin have concluded that “direct abortion is not medically necessary to save the life of a mother.”

Professor Eamon O’Dwyer, speaking for the Committee of the Symposium, said that the outcome of the conference “provided clarity and confirmation to doctors and legislators.” Participants in the symposium.

Experts in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, mental health, and molecular epidemiology presented new research, and shared clinical experiences on issues surrounding maternal healthcare to the packed Symposium attended by more than 140 Irish medical professionals.

Particular attention was paid to the management of high-risk pregnancies, cancer in pregnancy, foetal anomalies, mental health and maternal mortality. The Symposium’s conclusions were issued in the Dublin Declaration on Maternal Healthcare which states:

As experienced practitioners and researchers in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, we affirm that direct abortion is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman.

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Mark Steyn: Ted Olson ‘Lazy,’ Interracial Marriage Laws Irrelevant to Same-Sex Debate

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On Hugh Hewitt’s Thursday night radio program, National Review columnist Mark Steyn said former Solicitor General Ted Olson is fundamentally wrong to cite the landmark 1967 Loving v. Virginia case — which invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage — as evidence that gay marriage should be legal, because that case fundamentally understood marriage as the union of a man and a woman…

Steyn, author of “After America: Get Ready for Armageddon,” said that unlike laws prohibiting same-sex marriage, restrictions on interracial marriage ran flatly contrary to that generations-old, traditional conception of marriage.

“Ted Olson said, well, you know, once upon a time, we banned interracial marriage, so this is exactly the same as Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 case that struck down interracial marriage,” Steyn said. ”Justice [Anthony] Kennedy said, … ’What are you on about?’ … Interracial marriage is basically an invention of 19th-century America that was at odds with existing common law marriage, as it had been for hundreds of years.”

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Selling Out the Nation: Labor, Business Reach Immigration Deal

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Senate negotiators cleared the last major hurdle to reaching a bipartisan immigration reform deal Saturday as labor and business groups signed off on a visa program for future low-skilled workers, according to sources familiar with the talks.

The agreement marks a major breakthrough and significantly improves the odds of passing a larger immigration bill because it brings two powerful Washington interests on board on an issue that contributed to the defeat of past reform efforts. The visa program, which allows businesses to bring in up to 200,000 low-skilled workers annually depending on economic conditions, would be among the most controversial elements of the overhaul package. But the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are expected to play a key role in helping blunt attacks by conservatives activists and liberals.

“This issue has always been the dealbreaker on immigration reform, but not this time,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a leader of the Senate’s Gang of Eight, said in a statement Saturday night.

The Gang of Eight remains in negotiations on the broader bill. The senators have reached tentative agreement on many of the major issues, including the path to citizenship and border security, but they have yet to review the legislative language and caution that they don’t have a deal until they agree on everything.

The reform bill is so complex that none of the senators is willing to say they have an agreement until they can look at it on paper. The group is preparing to spend the next week finalizing the legislation, with an announcement likely to come when they return from the Easter recess on April 8 — although it will mark the start of a long and difficult road to passage.

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North Korea Increases Tensions With South By Issuing Threat Over Factories

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Photo Credit: KCNA/EPA

The rising tension between North and South Korea escalated further on Saturday as Pyongyang threatened to shut down a vital factory complex run jointly by the two countries.

North Korea has been engaged in a massive display of sabre-rattling in recent days, declaring that it was in a “state of war” with its far wealthier and more powerful southern neighbour. It has also cut a military hotline between the two countries that was one of the few ways that senior North and South Korean officials could talk to each other, adding to a sharp sense of unease about events on the Korean peninsula.

Now North Korea has explicitly said that it may target the Kaesong industrial park – an important trade zone that is run jointly with South Korean expertise and North Korean labour. Kaesong is a vital source of foreign currency for the North and has been operating normally so far, despite the bellicose warnings dominating headlines in both Koreas.

A spokesman for the North Korean department controlling Kaesong was quoted by the country’s state news agency as warning the country would “shut down the zone without mercy” if it felt it was not being taken seriously.

Recent weeks have seen a torrent of bellicose rhetoric from Pyongyang threatening dire consequences for both South Korea and the US. North Korea is angry about the annual South Korea-US military drills, which will run until the end of April, and at the UN sanctions imposed after it carried out another nuclear test in February.

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