Thoughts From A Conservative Mom

Posts Tagged ‘Motherhood’

Mother’s Day this year was full of joy and tears.  I loved the sweet kisses, cards and handmade gifts from my three beautiful girls.  I was missing Autumn, who would be almost two months old today.   And the sight of blood told me that I was saying goodbye to another sweet angel baby I’d hoped to meet in December.

After several days of spotting and no progress, my husband and I decided to go get an ultrasound and got the shock of our lives: I was carrying twins.  They had stopped developing at 7 weeks.  Even through our sadness, I had to laugh at the look on Dave’s face when the ultrasound tech said “twins.” It was priceless!

Hope and Eden were born at 10:30pm on Wednesday, March 15th. They will be buried next to their sister Autumn under our Maple tree.

It’s been quite an emotional roller coaster, but I have peace that God knows what He’s doing. There hasn’t been a lot of grief in my life up until recently, so I don’t begrudge that it’s my turn. I know a lot of people who have suffered a lot worse.  I know that I’m not alone.  I know we live in a fallen world with broken bodies, and sometimes things just go wrong. That’s why I chose the names Eden and Hope. Eden is what we lost when sin came into the world, and it’s what God will restore someday, but in the meantime we’re stuck in this fallen world where bad things happen. But we have hope because we know it won’t always be this way. Someday everything will be set to rights. This is not the end.

God keep you until we meet in heaven. Mommy loves you.

My husband and I recently found out that we are expecting again, due in December.  After our loss last fall, it’s a wonderful surprise, but it also means that I’m constantly exhausted and my usual late night blogging sessions are fewer and farther between (as you’ve probably already noticed).   My days are full of homeschooling, errands and the busyness of life with three kids plus one on the way.  When the house is finally quiet enough to work, I’m often too tired to stay awake.

During the day I continue to post regularly on the Oregon Tea Party Facebook Page, so please “like” and follow my posts there.  Then click “share” on the ones you find most important.  It’s a simple way to spread the word and make a difference.

I will occasionally post on my Thoughts From A Conservative Mom Facebook Page, so feel free to “like” that page as well.

I’ll try to still update my blog a couple of times a week, but it just won’t be as frequently.

Thank you all for your understanding as I adjust to a new pregnancy.

Love,

Rachel

How did we get to the point where we not only murder innocent children, but use tax dollars to pay the hit men?

“Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

Dave Boyer reports at The Washington Times:

President Obama offered a defiant defense of government funding for Planned Parenthood Friday and urged the group’s members to help his administration sign up more women for benefits under his besieged health-care law.

The first sitting president to address Planned Parenthood, Mr. Obama accused conservative politicians of trying to “roll back the clock” on abortion rights and health-care services for women.

“They’ve been involved in an orchestrated and historic effort to roll back basic rights when it comes to women’s health,” Mr. Obama told the group’s annual convention in Washington. “When politicians try to turn Planned Parenthood into a punching bag, they’re not just talking about you, they’re talking about the millions of women who you serve. And when they talk about cutting off your funding, let’s be clear, they’re talking about telling many of those women, ‘You’re own your own.’

That is a bold-faced lie.  Pro-life groups do more to support and provide services for women in crisis pregnancies than anyone else.   And those services don’t involve murdering a child and scarring a woman for life!

Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said Mr. Obama should have reproached Planned Parenthood officials for not doing more to stop the alleged violations at the clinic of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. Planned Parenthood officials in Philadelphia said they encouraged patients who complained to them about the clinic to report it to state authorities.

“President Obama blatantly ignored this inconvenient truth about the abortion industry’s horrific lack of oversight, and disparaged the pro-life advocates who wake up each morning with the goal of saving the lives of unborn children and women from the pain of abortion,” Ms. Dannenfelser said in a statement.

Instead, the president decried efforts across the country to limit women’s access to abortion services.

Read more at The Washington Times

As he ended his speech, Obama blasphemously called on God to “bless” the largest child murder organization in the country.

“As long as we’ve got to fight to make sure women have access to quality, affordable health care, and as long as we’ve got to fight to protect a woman’s right to make her own choices about her own health, I want you to know that you’ve also got a president who’s going to be right there with you, fighting every step of the way,” said Obama. “Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you.”

Murdering children is NOT health care, and the choice to kill a child is NOT a choice about one’s one health, but to end the life of another human being.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” ~ Isaiah 5:20

Steve Deace observed:

Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, referred to blacks as “human weeds” and “reckless breeders.” Ironic the first black president is the first president to speak to a child killing organization founded by a racist who targeted blacks. KKK should be applauding Obama’s speech today, for they had the same goals as Sanger.

Ironic, indeed.

Obama takes swipe at pro-life activists, ignores Gosnell during Planned Parenthood speech

Obama’s Twisted, Symbiotic Relationship With the Abortion Industry

Obama’s War on the Pro-life Movement

Obama’s 5 Most Controversial Comments About Abortion,’Women’s Rights’ During Planned Parenthood Speech

Every Ninety-Four Seconds Planned Parenthood Aborts a Life – Obama Asks God to “Bless” Their Work

Obama Attacks Pro-Lifers: They Want To Turn Clock Back To 1950′s

Obama Asks Planned Parenthood To Help Him Implement Obamacare

Planned Parenthood Awards ‘Margaret Sanger’ Award to Short German Offering Final Solution for Undesirable Children

Obama Gives Millions In Taxpayer Dollars To Planned Parenthood After States Defund Them For Medicaid Fraud

Federal government refers women to Planned Parenthood, sites condemning pregnancy resource centers

Planned Parenthood is one of Obama’s biggest fans.  They poured millions of dollars and volunteer hours into his re-election campaign, and have been rewarded handsomely for their support.

Obama has directed millions in federal taxpayer dollars into their coffers, sending his Justice Department to sue any state that tries to block taxpayer funding of abortion.

He is forcing all employers – even those with religious objections – to purchase insurance policies that include abortions.   And Obamacare is on the verge of creating an enormous boom in business to the abortion industry, which they are preparing for by building enormous new abortion clinics.

Is it any wonder they invited him to be the keynote speaker at their annual fundraiser dinner?

David Limbaugh observes at Human Events:

It bears repeating that Obama strongly opposed the Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which would have required doctors to assist babies born as a result of a failed abortion. How about his opposition to a bill that would have prevented partial-birth abortion?

If Obama wanted to make abortion rare, would he be such a strong supporter of Planned Parenthood and its notorious abortion industry? No one could be more in bed with that organization than Obama, who is planning on attending the organization’s fundraising gala this coming Thursday.

Obama and the pro-abortion left don’t want to call attention to the grisly practices of Gosnell for a number of reasons. You can disguise the practice of abortion with euphemisms, such as “they snipped the baby’s spinal cord,” but in the end, we are talking about the intentional killing of human life, and it follows that a facility so morally corrupt as to routinely engage in that despicable practice might not dot and cross all its other ethical i’s” and t’s.

If Obama or the leftist media were to shine a disinfecting light on the Gosnell trial, it might lead to a public discussion on abortion and an inquiry into how widespread such abuses are. The less attention the left permits to be drawn to this the better.

But there are additional sinister reasons Obama and his liberal media cohorts have suppressed the news on this story, knowing as they do just how horrendous Gosnell’s clinic was.

The pro-abortion left ridicules and condemns Second Amendment advocates for being paranoid purists in opposing all restrictions on gun rights, but in the purist and paranoia categories, they make gun advocates look like pikers.

Abortion is the left’s holy grail; it is liberals’ sacred ritual, about which nothing negative may be uttered for fear that it might lead to even the slightest infringement on it. Likewise, the abortion lobby simply will not countenance any restriction on abortion or any negative light to be cast on any abortion practice or clinic for fear that it could lead to a slippery slope whereby abortion might actually become significantly rarer. That would be a big setback for the lucrative abortion industry and for the campaign blood money it generates for supporting politicians.

Read more at Human Events

Exposing the Abortion Agenda: Blood Money

Planned Parenthood receives record amount of taxpayer funding

Obama Gives Millions In Taxpayer Dollars To Planned Parenthood After States Defund Them For Medicaid Fraud

Federal government refers women to Planned Parenthood, sites condemning pregnancy resource centers

Planned Parenthood Has Long History of Hiding Sexual Abuse

Planned Parenthood Argues For ‘Right’ To Murder Infants Already Born

Obama’s War on the Pro-life Movement

 A young girl taking this pill without medical supervision could bleed to death or cause irreparable damage to her reproductive system.  This has NOTHING to do with protecting women and children.  It has everything to do with defending abortion in every circumstance, no matter how unreasonable, dangerous and destructive to the young  mother (much less her child).

Steven Ertelt reports at Life News:

A federal judge has ordered the federal government to make the morning after pill available for sale to teenagers nationwide.

Judge Edward Korman, a federal judge based in New York City, heard arguments in a case filed by the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights over whether the FDA should have ultimately allowed teens to buy the Plan B drug without a doctor’s order. The pro-abortion group says such drugs are being held to a different standard than other drugs and that decisions are not based on science, but on politics.

The lawsuit was filed prior to the decision by the Obama administration in December 2011 to not allow sale of the morning after pill to teens.

Read more at Life News

Parents, doctors, and pro-life citizens are outraged, warning that this will put young girls at risk:

“There is a real danger that Plan B may be given to young girls, under coercion or without their consent. The involvement of parents and medical professionals act as a safeguard for these young girls. However, today’s ruling removes these commonsense protections,” concluded Higgins.

Americans United for Life president Charmaine Yoest noted that the business interests of Big Abortion were again at play as news broke of a federal judge allowing the so-called “morning after” pill to be sold to girls 16 and younger over the counter.

“This decision allows the abortion industry to gamble with young girls’ health in distributing a life-ending drug, with no real understanding of the long-term implications on their bodies,” said Dr. Yoest. “Equally troubling, this allows young girls pressured into sex or even abused by adults to be manipulated into taking pills that cover up what is a criminal act.”

“Young girls need medical supervision in taking such a potent and potentially life-ending drug,” said Dr. Yoest. “The implications for informed consent — and the long-term health impact on women of all ages — are deeply troubling.”

Read more at Life News

I pray that no young girls end up dying from this drug before this ruling is overturned.

Judge Edward Korman Orders ‘Morning-After’ Pill to Be Sold to 11-Year-Old Girls Over the Counter

Plan B Ruling Disregards Serious Health Concerns

U.N. Group Calls for Abortion as Human Right for 10-Year-Olds, Decriminalization of Prostitution

Planned Parenthood endorses post-birth abortion

View on YouTube

You won’t believe your ears.  The casual way in which this woman dehumanizes infants into mere property that can be disposed of at will is vomit-inducing.

The Weekly Standard reports the shocking exchange:

Florida legislators considering a bill to require abortionists to provide medical care to an infant who survives an abortion were shocked during a committee hearing this week when a Planned Parenthood official endorsed a right to post-birth abortion.

Alisa LaPolt Snow, the lobbyist representing the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, testified that her organization believes the decision to kill an infant who survives a failed abortion should be left up to the woman seeking an abortion and her abortion doctor.

“So, um, it is just really hard for me to even ask you this question because I’m almost in disbelief,” said Rep. Jim Boyd. “If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?”

“We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician,” said Planned Parenthood lobbyist Snow.

Rep. Daniel Davis then asked Snow, “What happens in a situation where a baby is alive, breathing on a table, moving. What do your physicians do at that point?”

“I do not have that information,” Snow replied. “I am not a physician, I am not an abortion provider. So I do not have that information.”

Rep. Jose Oliva followed up, asking the Planned Parenthood official, “You stated that a baby born alive on a table as a result of a botched abortion that that decision should be left to the doctor and the family. Is that what you’re saying?”

Again, Snow replied, “That decision should be between the patient and the health care provider.”

“I think that at that point the patient would be the child struggling on the table, wouldn’t you agree?” asked Oliva.

“That’s a very good question. I really don’t know how to answer that,” Snow said. “I would be glad to have some more conversations with you about this.”

Read more at the Weekly Standard

Advocates for infanticide correctly understand that the only difference between a baby inside and outside the womb is age and location. Both are living, biological human beings. So if “convenience” is the only standard for deciding who is “fit” to live, individuals outside the womb become equally disposable. Once you establish the precedent that government can deny one group of human beings the right to life, taking life from another group is relatively easy.

This is why the media is ignoring the trial of Kermit Gosnell, a late-term abortionist who would gruesomely snip the spinal cords of surviving babies with a pair of scissors.  They can’t allow people to realize where their agenda really leads.  They are willing to defend and justify the cruelest forms of murdering helpless infants in order to protect their false “choice” narrative.

Don’t forget that as an Illinois State Senator, Obama voted FOUR TIMES against legislation that would have provided medical care for exactly these babies, who survived a botched abortion only to be left to suffocate or dehydrate.

‘I’m Almost in Disbelief’: Planned Parenthood Rep Says Mother and Doctor Still Have Right to Decide Baby’s Fate If Born Alive And Breathing On A Table

Kermit Gosnell is No Different Than Other Abortion Doctors

Ethicists Argue For Acceptance Of ‘After-Birth Abortions‘ As Newborns ’Are Not Persons’

Obama Supports Infanticide

Journal defends its publication of an article advocating “after-birth abortion”

Baby denied medical treatment and handed back to his mother to die

Mark Steyn: Fourth-Trimester Abortion

In the twisted mind of the Left (the ideology of which the United Nations is the primary propagandist), telling a woman that she can’t murder her child is the same as genitally mutilating her.

Offering a person the counseling and therapy needed to address the deep wounds at the root of same-sex attraction is equal to torturing and beating them.

You can’t even reason with someone that detached from reality and logic.   Black is white, up is down, wrong is right, love is hate, night is day…and nothing you say will convince them otherwise.

Kirsten Anderson reports at Life Site News:

A recent United Nations report on torture and mistreatment in health care systems around the world singled out lack of access to abortion as a form of “torture,” classifying it as a human rights violation on par with female genital mutilation, forced sterilizations and state-sanctioned beatings.

The report also says governments should recognize the preferred sex of ‘transgender’ individuals without regard to biology, arguing that forcing such people to undergo sex-reassignment surgery in order to prove their case is equivalent to torture.

[...]  The report calls for the “elimination of homophobia” in health care settings, calling on “all States to repeal any law allowing intrusive and irreversible treatments, including forced genital-normalizing surgery … ‘reparative therapies’ or ‘conversion therapies,’ when enforced or administered without the free and informed consent of the person concerned.”

[...]  One of the main ‘protection gaps’ identified was a lack of easy access to abortion in some countries.

“The Committee against Torture has repeatedly expressed concerns about restrictions on access to abortion and about absolute bans on abortion as violating the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment,” Mendez wrote.

In the densely-worded 23-page report, Mendez devotes an entire section to “Reproductive Rights Violations.”  While a list of violations towards the beginning of the section includes female genital mutilation, forced abortion, and forced sterilizations, much of the text that follows is focused on abortion access.

Read more at Life Site News

United Nations Backs Report Calling Abortion a Human Right

U.N. Group Calls for Abortion as Human Right for 10-Year-Olds, Decriminalization of Prostitution

Irony Alert: UN Human Rights Commissioner Wants To Make It A Crime To Oppose Abortion

California Bill Seeks To Deny Those Struggling With Homosexuality The Option Of Reparative Therapy

Former APA president says organization controlled by ‘gay rights’ movement, positions no longer science based

What is this, the Soviet Union?   Neighbors narking you out to the cops because they don’t like a photo you posted?

Todd Starnes reports at Fox News Radio:

New Jersey police and Dept. of Children and Families officials raided the home of a firearms instructor and demanded to see his guns after he posted a Facebook photo of his 11-year-old son holding a rifle.

“Someone called family services about the photo,” said Evan Nappen, an attorney representing Shawn Moore. “It led to an incredible, heavy-handed raid on his house. They wanted to see his gun safe, his guns and search his house. They even threatened to take his kids.”

Moore was not arrested or charged.   [...]

Moore, of Carneys Point, is a certified firearms instructor for the National Rifle Association, an NRA range safety officer and a New Jersey hunter education instructor.

He recently posted a photograph of his son wearing camouflage and holding his new .22 rifle. The child has a New Jersey hunting license and recently passed the state’s hunter safety course.

“If you look at the picture, his finger isn’t even on the trigger – which is proper,” Nappen told Fox News. “If half of Hollywood could follow that rule we’d be thankful.”

Brown said their role is not to go out and search Facebook for photos of children holding weapons.

“In general our role is to investigate allegations of child abuse and neglect,” she said.

The family’s trouble started Saturday night when Moore received an urgent text message from his wife. The Carneys Point Police Dept. and the New Jersey Dept. of Children and Families had raided their home.

Moore immediately called Nappen and rushed home to find officers demanding to check his guns and his gun safe.

Instead, he handed the cell phone to one of the officers – so they could speak with Nappen.

“If you have a warrant, you’re coming in,” Nappen told the officers. “If you don’t, then you’re not. That’s what privacy is all about.”

With his attorney on speaker phone, Moore instructed the officers to leave his home.

“I was told I was being unreasonable and that I was acting suspicious because I wouldn’t open my safe,” Moore wrote on the Delaware Open Carry website. “They told me they were going to get a search warrant. I told them to go ahead.”

Moore took this photo of police outside his home.

Nappen told Fox News the police wanted to inventory his firearms.

“”We said no way, it’s not happening,” he said. “This is a guy who is completely credentialed and his son is also credentialed.”

The attorney said police eventually left and never returned.

[...]  “To make someone go through this because he posted a picture of his son with a .22 rifle on his Facebook page is pretty outrageous,” he said. “Does that mean that anyone who posts a picture like that has to consent to a home inspection and a gun inspection? I don’t think so.”

Read more at Fox News Radio

‘I Was Seriously Mad About It’: 11-Year-Old Behind Facebook Gun Photo Speaks Out

Know Your Rights: Citizens Journalists Show How Not To Comply With Unconstitutional Detention, Searches or Questioning

New York state offers $500 reward for reporting gun owners

Schools’ ‘Zero Tolerance’ Weapons Policies Used To Bully Innocent Children

Innocent Americans Defend Themselves With Guns: The Stories You’re Never Told

12-Year-Old Girl Shoots Home Intruder

14-Year-Old Boy Shoots Armed Intruder, Saves Younger Siblings

Teach Your Kids to Shoot

Last I checked, children’s biological and psychological needs don’t change to fit the convenience and preferred lifestyles of adults. Children are hard-wired to need BOTH their mother AND their father. When one is missing, it creates a void and a wound that can never be entirely filled by a substitute.  My heart breaks for children who are forced into this situation – for they are not given a choice.

Terence P. Jeffrey reports at CNS News:

The Obama Justice Department is arguing in the United States Supreme Court that children do not need mothers.

The Justice Department’s argument on the superfluity of motherhood is presented in a brief the Obama administration filed in the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, which challenges the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that amended California’s Constitution to say that marriage involves only one man and one woman.

The Justice Department presented its conclusions about parenthood in rebutting an argument made by proponents of Proposition 8 that the traditional two-parent family, led by both a mother and a father, was the ideal place, determined even by nature itself, to raise a child.

The Obama administration argues this is not true. It argues that children need neither a father nor a mother and that having two fathers or two mothers is just as good as having one of each.

[...]  So far in the history of the human race, no child has ever been born without a biological father and mother. Now, in the Supreme Court of the United States, the Executive Branch of the federal government is arguing that, regardless of the biological facts of parenthood, states have no legitimate and defensible interest in ensuring that children conceived by a mother and a father are in fact raised by mothers and fathers.

The brief that the Justice Department presented to the Supreme Court discussed children only as items controlled by others, not as individual human beings who have God-given rights of their own. It simply assumes that a child has no inherent right to a mother or father and that the only right truly in question is whether two people of the same-sex have a right to marry one another and that that right encompasses a right to adopt and foster-raise children.

To take this view and be consistent with the principles of the Declaration of Independence—which recognizes the ultimate authority of the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” and says that “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”—the Obama Justice Department must advance the assumption that natural law and Nature’s God give children no right to a mother and father and no right not to be legally handed over by the government to be raised by same-sex couples.

Read more at CNS News

Ken Blackwell points out at Townhall:

As for children raised by two adults of the same sex, the most extensive study ever done was that of Dr. Mark Regnerus. Dr. Regnerus of the University of Texas conducted the largest, most rigorously controlled study in history. Here’s what the U.T. study found:

The results of the NFSS [National Family Structures Study]research revealed that the “no differences” claim—the claim that children raised by parents in gay or lesbian relationships fared no worse and in some cases better than children raised by intact biological parents—was not true. On the contrary, the children of these households, on average, did worse than children raised by their biological, still-married parents.

The weight of scientific evidence–as opposed to Donald Verrilli’s politically correct posturing–shows that his statements before the High Court are “not true.” Remember, we are talking about the well-being of the children, not whether the adults in these relationships are well-satisfied with their domestic arrangements.

People around the world are amazed at the casual way some Americans are ready to dispense with mothers and fathers. In France, for example, a young pro-marriage spokesman joined the nearly 800,000 impassioned defenders of marriage who turned out in Paris on Jan. 13th. This young spokesman–Xavier Bongibault–said “everyone needs a mother and a father. It’s only natural.” It isnatural. And this young demonstrator is gay.

He understands what the Obama administration refuses to acknowledge: Children need their mothers and fathers. It is their natural right. We can go as far back as 1790 and Edmund Burke and the French Revolution to see confirmation of this. The Rights of Man, wrote the great Irish philosopher and parliamentary leader, include the right to “the inheritance of our parents and the consolations of religion.”

The Obama administration is casting all that away. President Obama promised to “fundamentally transform America.” Few then realized he meant it. Abolishing marriage is what he is doing. Not changing. Not expanding. More than re-defining marriage, he is abolishing it.

Read more at Townhall

Same-Sex Parenting: A Social Experiment Without Science Behind It

Legislature Can’t Answer Child’s Question: ‘Which Parent Do I Not Need: Mom or Dad?’

Growing Up With Two Moms: The Untold Children’s View

Family Structure Studies: Statistical Outcomes For Children From Different Family Structures

Mom and Dad: Kids Need Both

Why Children Need a Male and Female Parent

The Oncoming Human Rights Crisis…Caused by the LGBT Movement

The terrible injustice of same-sex ‘marriage’: my story

Study confirms children of heterosexual parents happier, healthier

New Data on Same-sex Parenting Challenges Gay Orthodoxy

Reinventing the Family: Good Intentions Are Not Enough

Top 10 gay marriage false ‘facts’

The Gay Playbook, And How It’s ‘Overhauling’ America

Traditional Families: Accept No Substitutes

The Marketing of Evil: How corruption is packaged, perfumed, gift-wrapped and sold to us

Once upon a time in America, parents – not the state – were recognized as being primarily responsible for their own child’s education, and children were viewed as individuals with hearts and souls, instead of merely cogs in a collective “workforce.”

Lindsey Burke writes at the Heritage Foundation:

President Obama announced a major effort to expand government preschool early this afternoon. The plan would create a “continuum of child care for children from birth to age 5.”

Expanding government preschool, particularly federal preschool, is wrought with problems. Any expansion of government preschool, whether state or federal, comes at the expense of private providers, who must compete with “free” government programs. When the private provision of care is pushed out of the market, that ultimately means fewer choices for families.

Moreover, taxpayers and parents already know what big government preschool looks like: the federal Head Start program. Head Start has had no long-term impact on the cognitive abilities of participating children, has failed to improve their access to health care, has failed to improve their behavior and emotional well-being, and has failed to improve the parenting practices of parents. And this is according to scientifically rigorous evaluations by the program’s own administering agency, the Department of Health and Human Services.

Sadly, the limitations of preschool aren’t unique to Head Start. Georgia and Oklahoma—the two states in the nation that currently have the type of expansive preschool President Obama is proposing—have failed to see benefits accrue from the hundreds of millions of dollars their taxpayers spend annually. In Oklahoma, families have actually seen reading scores decline among children after implementing universal preschool.

Read more at the Heritage Foundation

Promises Obama Can’t Keep

Politics, not reality, dominate Obama’s preschool appeal

Obama pushes preschool plan, won’t discuss cost

Why Professionals and Politicians Are Wrong About Preschool

Study shows ‘Head Start’ is $166 Billion Fed Ed Failure, Media ignores results

Is Staying Home With Kids a Societal Good?

“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”  ~  Colossians 2:8

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what we’ve done by not studying Biblical Economics, and by absorbing our society’s distorted view of children as burdens and commodities.

Andrea Roltgen writes at Freedom Outpost:

The Government has washed our nation out to a sea of debt to other nations.  They have created a culture of falsely believing that all life choices should equal the same financial outcome for everyone, and that everyone who believes they are due material wealth ought to have it.   Children have become an “expensive burden” we seek to avoid, but debt for personal expenditures and entitlement programs are not offensive today.  The common idea is that “Children are soooo Expensive!”

In our culture, we have chosen lifestyle of debt, life-long entitlement mentality and lavish living.  Frugality of past generations is largely gone.  Some of the poorest people appear to be able to afford Smart Phones.  Priorities are definitely skewed.

There is certainly nothing wrong with nice things, beautiful homes, etc. In fact, having ambition to succeed is inherently American.  However there is something decidedly different about the last two generations of Americans.  The last two generations have decided to pursue these material and temporal possessions at the expense of their children, and their eternal Christian inheritance.  The other problem is that very few families can actually afford to live this lifestyle, regardless of how many children they have.  Most people, right out of the gate into adulthood, begin their lives in debt.  They begin either in debt themselves for college, or living a lifestyle sustained by the help or debt of their own parents.

This has left a huge societal impact, because Christian families are simply not having children anymore, because of the misguided belief that their single most important contribution to their children is what they can give to them materially speaking.  With fewer Christians raising their children in an intact Christian home, fewer responsible, hard working, and freedom-loving adults are being set out into society.  We can clearly see the impact on our freedoms and our government and society since the nation began forfeiting children in favor of debt.

Since this has culturally become the norm, there are several societal prerequisites to qualifying to have children.  Notice none of them are of eternal benefit for others, or for ourselves. This means that what society deems of value, God has spoken and said is largely worthless..even the vast educations..etc.  Again, goals and accomplishment are not worthless or evil.  Parents inherently want a good future for their children, and often will sacrifice to help obtain that.  However, if parents put more stock into ensuring their children have all their whims met, rather than raising solidly grounded, disciplined and responsible children, we have products of their misguided efforts abounding. The pursuit of these idols of wealth above eternal perspectives, or if they are pitted against raising any children for the Kingdom, then they limit the ability of people to raise children fully for the Lord and to stand on principle in his or her nation.

Read more at Freedom Outpost

America’s Birth Rate Declined For The Third Year Running

Couples Are Postponing Childbirth and Suffering the Consequences 

Fewer Dollars and Babies Threaten Social Programs

Mark Steyn: The West Is Not Having Enough Babies To Sustain Its Civilization

Empty Cradles, Demographic Destiny and the Death of the West

Dave Ramsey: Christians Should Lead U.S. Economic Recovery

Dave Ramsey: The Truth About Debt

Why Is Obama Offering All Women Free Sterilization?

View on YouTube 

This testimony was given by Bill Stevens at the Connecticut State Capitol.   His daughter survived the shooting at Newtown, but her friend did not.   Stevens is furious that politicians want to exploit this tragedy to disarm law abiding citizens who are trying to protect their families:

Stevens told the panel that he is not there to cite statistics, lives saved by a gun or the economic impact. He was there to remind those people about the U.S. Constitution and the 2nd Amendment, the Constitution of the State of Connecticut in regards to self-defense.

He said, “Unfortunately, her friend’s little sister was murdered in Sandy Hook that day when lock-down and 911 were not enough to protect her from an evil person.” Not protect her from an assault rifle or some inanimate object, but from an evil person.”

“Quite different from the security you all have here at the capitol. It was fun getting frisked on the way in,” said Stevens.

Stevens read part from the state’s constitution on the right to bear arms in self-defense and told the panel, “These rights are inalienable and endowed by our creator, not you politicians.”

Toward the end of his testimony, Stevens said:

“But criminals and tyrants…tyrants, especially be aware that lock-down is not an option at the Steven’s resident. And 911 will be dialed after the security of my home has been established.”

“Why is that same security that my daughter enjoys at home with her dad not available at school inNewtown? That is what you should be considering, not making her dad a criminal,” Steven asked.

“Charlton Heston made the phrase “From my cold dead hands” famous and I am here to tell you today, you will take my ability to protect my Victoria from my cold dead hands.”

Read more at the Examiner

Newtown father: Take my ability to protect my child from my ‘cold, dead hands’ [VIDEO]

Newtown Father: “Gun Laws Are Not The Problem”

Innocent Americans Defend Themselves With Guns: The Stories You’re Never Told

‘Violence’ not the real target of war on guns: Masking all-out assault on individual liberty

‘I Will Not Be Disarmed,’ Former Marine’s Letter Warns Gun-Grabbing Senator

The 2nd Amendment Is What Makes The Other Nine Possible

Robert Oscar Lopez has taken so much heat since he penned this article about growing up with two lesbian mothers, but he believes it’s worth it because he wants to be the voice for children who are being used as pawns in the gay marriage debate:

Between 1973 and 1990, when my beloved mother passed away, she and her female romantic partner raised me. They had separate houses but spent nearly all their weekends together, with me, in a trailer tucked discreetly in an RV park 50 minutes away from the town where we lived. As the youngest of my mother’s biological children, I was the only child who experienced childhood without my father being around.

After my mother’s partner’s children had left for college, she moved into our house in town. I lived with both of them for the brief time before my mother died at the age of 53. I was 19. In other words, I was the only child who experienced life under “gay parenting” as that term is understood today.

Quite simply, growing up with gay parents was very difficult, and not because of prejudice from neighbors. People in our community didn’t really know what was going on in the house. To most outside observers, I was a well-raised, high-achieving child, finishing high school with straight A’s.

Inside, however, I was confused. When your home life is so drastically different from everyone around you, in a fundamental way striking at basic physical relations, you grow up weird. I have no mental health disorders or biological conditions. I just grew up in a house so unusual that I was destined to exist as a social outcast.

My peers learned all the unwritten rules of decorum and body language in their homes; they understood what was appropriate to say in certain settings and what wasn’t; they learned both traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine social mechanisms.

Even if my peers’ parents were divorced, and many of them were, they still grew up seeing male and female social models. They learned, typically, how to be bold and unflinching from male figures and how to write thank-you cards and be sensitive from female figures. These are stereotypes, of course, but stereotypes come in handy when you inevitably leave the safety of your lesbian mom’s trailer and have to work and survive in a world where everybody thinks in stereotypical terms, even gays.

I had no male figure at all to follow, and my mother and her partner were both unlike traditional fathers or traditional mothers. As a result, I had very few recognizable social cues to offer potential male or female friends, since I was neither confident nor sensitive to others. Thus I befriended people rarely and alienated others easily. Gay people who grew up in straight parents’ households may have struggled with their sexual orientation; but when it came to the vast social universe of adaptations not dealing with sexuality—how to act, how to speak, how to behave—they had the advantage of learning at home. Many gays don’t realize what a blessing it was to be reared in a traditional home.

My home life was not traditional nor conventional. I suffered because of it, in ways that are difficult for sociologists to index. Both nervous and yet blunt, I would later seem strange even in the eyes of gay and bisexual adults who had little patience for someone like me. I was just as odd to them as I was to straight people.

Life is hard when you are strange. Even now, I have very few friends and often feel as though I do not understand people because of the unspoken gender cues that everyone around me, even gays raised in traditional homes, takes for granted. Though I am hard-working and a quick learner, I have trouble in professional settings because co-workers find me bizarre.

In terms of sexuality, gays who grew up in traditional households benefited from at least seeing some kind of functional courtship rituals around them. I had no clue how to make myself attractive to girls. When I stepped outside of my mothers’ trailer, I was immediately tagged as an outcast because of my girlish mannerisms, funny clothes, lisp, and outlandishness. Not surprisingly, I left high school as a virgin, never having had a girlfriend, instead having gone to four proms as a wisecracking sidekick to girls who just wanted someone to chip in for a limousine.

When I got to college, I set off everyone’s “gaydar” and the campus LGBT group quickly descended upon me to tell me it was 100-percent certain I must be a homosexual. When I came out as bisexual, they told everyone I was lying and just wasn’t ready to come out of the closet as gay yet. Frightened and traumatized by my mother’s death, I dropped out of college in 1990 and fell in with what can only be called the gay underworld. Terrible things happened to me there.

It was not until I was twenty-eight that I suddenly found myself in a relationship with a woman, through coincidences that shocked everyone who knew me and surprised even myself. I call myself bisexual because it would take several novels to explain how I ended up “straight” after almost thirty years as a gay man. I don’t feel like dealing with gay activists skewering me the way they go on search-and-destroy missions against ex-gays, “closet cases,” or “homocons.”

Though I have a biography particularly relevant to gay issues, the first person who contacted me to thank me for sharing my perspective on LGBT issues was Mark Regnerus, in an email dated July 17, 2012. I was not part of his massive survey, but he noticed a comment I’d left on a website about it and took the initiative to begin an email correspondence.

Forty-one years I’d lived, and nobody—least of all gay activists—had wanted me to speak honestly about the complicated gay threads of my life. If for no other reason than this, Mark Regnerus deserves tremendous credit—and the gay community ought to be crediting him rather than trying to silence him.

Regnerus’s study identified 248 adult children of parents who had same-sex romantic relationships. Offered a chance to provide frank responses with the hindsight of adulthood, they gave reports unfavorable to the gay marriage equality agenda. Yet the results are backed up by an important thing in life called common sense: Growing up different from other people is difficult and the difficulties raise the risk that children will develop maladjustments or self-medicate with alcohol and other dangerous behaviors. Each of those 248 is a human story, no doubt with many complexities.

Like my story, these 248 people’s stories deserve to be told. The gay movement is doing everything it can to make sure that nobody hears them. But I care more about the stories than the numbers (especially as an English professor), and Regnerus stumbled unwittingly on a narrative treasure chest.

Read more at Public Discourse

Now, Lopez is warning that the current state of the LGBT agenda is leading to a potential human rights crisis for children:

A year ago, I was afraid to fight what is happening in the LGBT community.  Unaware of  what the response would be, I published some articles about being the product of gay parenting and received hundreds of e-mails from around the world pleading with me to fight against a growing human-rights crisis caused by the LGBT movement.  They wrote from so many places, so many countries; they had such eloquence and force; they were children of sperm donors, troubled adoptees, people agonized by the baby-farming in India and elsewhere, gays horrified at what is being done in the name of “gay families,” religious people, atheists, people who know for whatever reason that buying babies and erasing fatherhood or motherhood is not the fruit of love.

I cannot stay silent anymore.  My race forbids it; perhaps, being the descendant of Puerto Rican slaves and knowing that the LGBT movement is reducing people — children, sperm donors, surrogate mothers – to chattel.  I have assembled a document listing the main points of urgency.  I fear that the only movement that can take action would have to be global; in the United States, as I explain, the academy, the fourth estate, the democratic process, and the judiciary are all ill-equipped to stop what the LGBT movement is doing.

[...]  What is the slogan that I speak of with greatest horror?  ”I deserve the same rights as anyone else.”  That might be a harmless slogan, except not when the “right” you are referring to is the right to “build a family” to show that “you are capable of love.”

“I deserve the same rights” eventually means that a same-sex couple deserves to have a child provided to them, even though they can’t conceive it themselves.

If straight couples get to have undiluted custody of such a child, so should gay couples.  So they must have the “right” to enforce contracts preventing surrogate mothers from wanting their babies back, the “right” to have sperm banks operate and sell them sperm, the “right” to jump the queue in line for Catholic Charities, the “right” to farm babies in the third world, the “right” to extort gratitude from the children they’ve placed in these situations, and the “right” to blind a child to at least one of his or her biological parents.  If any of these “rights” is not held up with the full force of a state apparatus, then the slogan fails.  Hence, we see the case of Dred Scott revived.  To be treated as first-class citizens, gays need the government to cow their chattel into submission.

Underneath the appeals to “love” lies a morass of brutally gory market mechanisms, approaching science fiction.  The changes in gay culture have created a large pool of same-sex couples who not only want children without involving themselves with the opposite sex, but also feel that any qualms are banned forms of hate speech.  Meanwhile, a recent Gallup poll found that each generation of Americans is becoming gayer: now, over 6% of citizens under the age of 29 identify as LGBT.  As recently as three years ago, polling consistently found LGBTs to make up less than 2% of the population.

The fight for marriage has never been about marriage.  Marriage is the only way to have legal cover and shield themselves from criticism for their bioethical stunts.

Market demand is a powerful thing, and it is growing because of the increase in LGBT couples as well as the cultural messages convincing young gays that they will be given children or else society is oppressing them.  Here in Los Angeles, I’ve seen the eerie proliferation of designer babies in gayborhoods, and the increasingly anesthetized reaction of gay couples’ friends.  People go to third-world getaways to pick out babies, place ads for surrogates who can give them a certain eye color, and even collaborate with human trafficking.  Never forgetful of my own pains as a lesbian’s son in the 1970s, I see the faces of these gay couple’s children, and sometimes, I have to run away and cry.  I know the dazed glare, the powerlessness of these children, their helpless desire to please their parents, their fear of showing their parents any sign that the arrangement has been hurtful. 

And yet, I can scarcely forget, this is only the beginning.  While some say “it gets better,” all signs show that it will grow far worse.

Read more at American Thinker

The Oncoming Human Rights Crisis…Caused by the LGBT Movement

Study confirms children of heterosexual parents happier, healthier

New Data on Same-sex Parenting Challenges Gay Orthodoxy

Reinventing the Family: Good Intentions Are Not Enough

Top 10 gay marriage false ‘facts’

The Marketing of Evil: How corruption is packaged, perfumed, gift-wrapped and sold to us

Yet Another Study Confirms Gay Life Expectancy 20 Years Shorter

The Gay Playbook, And How It’s ‘Overhauling’ America

Traditional Families: Accept No Substitutes

Compromise on same-sex ‘marriage’ is suicide for religious liberty

In Wisconsin, a sheriff is warning citizens to take responsibility for their own defense, because when seconds count, the police are minutes away:

The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office released a new public service announcement regarding gun safety on Thursday, January 24th that is getting attention for its bluntness.

In the PSA, Sheriff David Clarke says, “With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option. You could beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back. But are you prepared?”

He goes on to say, “You have a duty to protect yourself and your family. We’re partners now. Can I count on you?”

Jacob Schneider is a firearms instructor at the MGS Group — attached directly to the Shooters Shop in West Allis. He is happy someone has finally spoken up about the need to own a gun.

“He is saying we are responsible, in a lot of cases for our own personal safety,” said Schneider.

Naturally, liberals are freaking out at the mere suggestion that citizens should take some personal responsibility instead of leaving their safety completely in the hands of the ruling class:

“If he does not feel he is capable of  doing this, and he’s not qualified to take on this role of public safety, he should resign and he should do it today,” said Jeri Bonavia of the non-profit Wisconsin Anti-violence Effort.

Bonavia says Clarke is asking citizens to become vigilantes.

“To issue a blanket statement that people should be out there, arming up, and taking care of safety matters that really law enforcement officials are trained to do, is just irresponsible,” said Bonavia.

[...]  Clarke fired back with his own statement. It read: ”Several years ago a tire iron-wielding suspect beat Mayor Tom Barrett to within inches of his life.  I would think that he would be a lot more sensitive to people being able to defend themselves in such instances.  A firearm and a plan of defense would have come in handy for him that day.”

Read more at Fox 6 Now

It came in handy for these college students when armed burglars burst into their home:

This week, two students at the Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York used an “assault rifle” that may soon be banned by law to frighten away armed burglars who had broken into their home.

Local station ABC 13 reports that the students, Christopher Boise and Raymond (no last name given) were awakened in the wee hours Tuesday morning to noises coming from the basement.

Boise got up to investigate and found two men, one with a gun pointed at him, at the bottom of the stairs in the lower level of his apartment.

Hearing Boise’s cry of alarm, Raymond instinctively went for his AR-15 rifle, which he kept legally for self-defense.

When the men came to Raymond’s door, they saw the barrel of his gun at the ready and fled immediately.

“Nothing was taken and no shots were fired,” the station reports.

Police officials confirmed that the gun was legal and Raymond had acted rightly in protecting his property.

Read more at Human Events

Nothing gets the bad guys on the run like the sight of a rifle in the hands of an “I refuse to be a victim” homeowner!

Mary Chastain at Breitbart describes several recent incidents where innocent citizens’ ability to defend themselves literally meant the difference between life and death:

Five people tried to break into a home in Oklahoma City, OK. The woman homeowner and her friend shot two of them with her gun. The other burglars fled to another house to escape the gunfire. The shooting victims are in serious to critical condition, but the woman and her friend were unharmed.

Without warning, a man tried to kick-in the door of a home in San Antonio, TX.  The mother quickly called 911 while her son shot at the man through the door. The man shot his gun before he fled. The mother and son were unharmed and police are still looking for the suspect.

Two men in San Antonio, TX tried to steal some beer from a store, but were stopped because a customer had his concealed weapon. The suspects left with nothing and the police will not charge the customer.

In Canyon Lake, TX, a man used his shotgun to defend his neighbor against her ex-boyfriend, who was carrying a baseball bat. He heard the sound of breaking glass and decided to investigate. He found a man trying to break into his neighbor’s trailer and confronted him. The suspect walked towards him with the baseball bat despite being told numerous times to stop. The man had no choice but to shoot the suspect in self-defense.

Read more at Breitbart

There are more stories where this came from, so the next time you hear a liberal ask, “when was the last time a gun actually saved a life,” pass a few of these stories along to them:

Guns Save Lives – Stories of Self Defense

Media Ignore Story Of School Gunman Stopped By Armed Employee

Man Uses Gun To Protect 2-Month Old Son From Armed Robber

Georgia College Student Saves Himself, Ten Friends By Shooting At Masked Attackers, Killing One 

Tennessee home intruder stopped by armed residents

Oklahoma Woman Stops Robbers With Gun

Robbery halted by grandmother with a gun

Mother Shoots Home Intruder, Saves Her Kids

12-Year-Old Girl Shoots Home Intruder

14-Year-Old Boy Shoots Armed Intruder, Saves Younger Siblings

Teen Mother Shoots, Kills Intruder

The Story of A Man Who Only Had 7 Rounds in His Pistol

Why Young Women Want AR-15s

The Great Equalizer: Women and the Right to Bear Arms

Teach Your Kids to Shoot

Gun-Outlawed Chicago Sees 22 Murders In Only 11 Days

Let’s Set The Record Straight: 5 Common Misconceptions About Guns & Mass Shootings

You’d think if half a million people showed up in D.C. for ANY cause, it would generate more recognition on the evening news than a 10-second soundbite and a few dismissive remarks.   With today’s media hopelessly intertwined with the Left, you’d be wrong.

Caroline May reports at the Daily Caller:

Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the country gathered on the National Mall to voice their opposition to legal abortion in America at the 40th annual March for Life Friday.

Standing below a banner highlighting the 55 million abortions that have occurred since the legalization of Roe v. Wade, politicians and advocates spoke against the practice and the policies that validate it.

Read more at the Daily Caller

In a new low, the lamestream media have found a way to omit the inconvenient word “life” from their reporting:

Thinking of learning a new language? Try English – broadcast media style. Specifically, try abortion-reporting speak – a tongue as notable for the words it doesn’t use as those it does.

This year’s annual March for Life, this Friday, Jan. 25th, marks the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. And, though you might think it would be difficult to talk about something called the March for Life without using the word “life,” the broadcast networks have shown the utility of abortion-reporting speak. In the past 10 years, 91 percent of ABC, NBC, and CBS anchor reports on the March for Life and Roe v. Wade failed to mention the word, “life.”

In 22 reports, “life” was used just twice.  The first came from NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell. O’Donnell said in a Jan. 22, 2003, “Today” segment when she introduced a “pro-life group.” The other came from CBS’ Russ Mitchell in a Jan. 22, 2007, “Early Show” report when he described a “march for life” marking the 34th Roe v. Wade anniversary.

The other 20 reports employed a variety of alternate descriptions for the March for Life and pro-life activists. The March and counter-demonstrations were rallies sponsored by both opponents and supporters of Roe v. Wade, according to NBC’s Brian Williams on Jan. 24, 2005 and his colleague Ann Curry on Jan. 22, 2007. The marchers were “opponents” (ABC’s Jake Tapper, Jan. 23, 2006), and “anti-abortion activists” (NBC’s Tom Brokaw, Jan. 22, 2003) rather than “pro-lifers” or “pro-life marchers,” as they self-describe.

The linguistic selections are far from unconscious. A recent interview by NBC’s Andrea Mitchell illustrated the “life” language prejudice pervading broadcast media. When Republican strategist Juleanna Glover identified herself as “deeply pro-life” in an interview, Mitchell interrupted, “Well, what I would call anti-abortion,” and added, “to use the term that I think is more value neutral.”

And the bias is institutionalized. Journalists should “Use anti-abortion instead of pro-life and abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice,” according to The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook’s 44th edition. Instead of making the argument about life and death or choice and constraint, AP advocates for the flat, procedural term: abortion.

Read more at Life News

ABC, CBS, NBC, New York Times All Ignore March for Life

Marching for Life in the Face of a Pro-Abortion Media

Salon: “So What If Abortion Ends A Life?”

‘I survived Roe, but Roe won’t survive me!’: March for Life youth rally packed to capacity (PHOTOS)

Speaker Boehner Tells March for Life: We Will Stop Abortion Funding

March for Life Proves the Next Generation Pro-Life on Abortion