Imam Abdullah Visits Congressman Carson

When you fight an information battle against Muslim jihadists in addition to hard-core research it is important to be creative and maybe even entertaining. Why, because real terrorists, like the ones who were lobbying Congress on April 13 -14, 2015 totally HATE Western communication concepts like parody, humor and sarcasm.

Therefore, we present to you and the Muslim terrorist community, one of our enlightening moments during Muslim Brotherhood Capitol Day.

In this piece, we take an inside look at a visit to the office of Congressman Andre Carson (D-IN 7th District), a Muslim Brotherhood agent of influence.

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BOOM! Allen West Goes After Muslim Student Association Cancelling American Sniper

american sniper posterIt is the highest grossing war movie in U.S. history but — as we’ve reported previously — it is in the target sights of Muslim students. Once again, a showing of “American Sniper” has been cancelled, this time at the University of Maryland, College Park.

As reported by Foxnews.com, “The University of Maryland announced it will postpone indefinitely an upcoming screening of “American Sniper” after Muslim students protested – calling the film Islamophobic, racist and nationalistic.

“American Sniper only perpetuates the spread of Islamophobia and is offensive to many Muslims around the world for good reason,” read a petition launched by the university’s Muslim Students Association. “This movie dehumanizes Muslim individuals, promotes the idea of senseless mass murder, and portrays negative and inaccurate stereotypes.”

“The critically-acclaimed film about the life of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle was supposed to be screened May 6 and 7. It was “postponed” on April 22 by the university’s Student Entertainment Events (SEE). While SEE did not mention the Muslim Students Association’s petition, they referenced a meeting with “concerned student organizations” about the film. “SEE is choosing to explore the proactive measures of working with others during the coming months to possibly create an event where students can engage in constructive and moderated dialogues about the controversial topics proposed in the film,” read a statement from SEE posted on the university’s website. The Muslim Students Association posted a Facebook message praising the university’s capitulation to their demands.”

“Praising the university’s capitulation to their demands” — in other words, the surrender of our freedom of speech and expression. Now, I find it doggone funny that the Muslim Students Association (MSA), an organization affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, is allowed to operate freely on our colleges and universities in the first place. I furthermore find it unconscionable that this group of 250 who signed this petition would influence the decision on a campus of some 28,000.

However, consider this irony: black students were allowed to freely stomp on the U.S. flag at Valdosta State College and an Air Force veteran who sought to claim the flag for proper disposition was physically restrained by campus police, arrested, and ordered never to step on the Valdosta State campus again.

Are we upside down or what?

Regarding the MSA protest, I’m starting to believe something is up with states that begin with the letter “M.” I know this banning of “American Sniper” has occurred at the Universities of Missouri, Michigan, and now Maryland — where next, U-Mass?

But who are these individuals to tell an American university what can be shown on its campus? I wonder if the movie “Twelve Years a Slave” was shown at the University of Maryland? And if these MSA students believe “American Sniper” is offensive to Muslims it means means they are supportive of Islamic terrorism and jihadism.

If they stand for freedom, liberty, and democracy, they should not be offended. As a matter of fact, Kyle’s exploits came primarily in Al Anbar province — Fallujah and Ramadi — is it offensive to these Muslim students that ISIS, the reconstituted al-Qaida in Iraq, is now driving Muslims from their homes in Ramadi? Then again, MSA is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is affiliated with Hamas and supports Islamic terrorism and jihadism, so maybe the gist of all this is that these Muslim students are upset to see the story of a heroic American who fought against their compatriot jihadist brothers.

Maybe they don’t want the truth to be known about the savage barbarism of their associates. And the University of Maryland SEE and leadership is so cowardly that they succumb to these “demands.”

The President of the University and the SEE should have sent back a simple letter with a one-word response, “Nuts.” Now, the question I have, is there a Coach John Harbaugh on the campus of Maryland, someone who will stand up to these stealth jihadists who would seek to advance their intolerance in order to suppress our rights? And let me ask a very basic question — why are they here in America studying in our schools and universities promoting their beliefs which are counter to our Constitutional Republic?

If they don’t like the fllm then doggone, don’t go see it! But, how dare they make a “demand” and worse, Maryland caved.

“We sincerely appreciate your commitment to exercising your freedom of speech to create an inclusive, just and safe campus community,” MSA wrote. Furthermore the Muslims Student Association said “American Sniper” creates a “dangerous climate for Muslim students and severely devalues the community atmosphere.”

So what the heck does beheading Christians create? What kind of climate exists in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the hotbed of ISIS recruiting? What type of community atmosphere exists for Christians and Yazidis in Mosul?

“Breyer Hillegas, president of the university’s College Republicans, told Fox News that he was furious about the cancellation. “Universities are always trying to satisfy the political correctness police and worry about who they might offend – rather than standing up for principle and the First Amendment of the Constitution,” Hillegas told me. He said the College Republicans had been behind the effort to convince SEE to show the film. “If the university prevents a movie like that from being show – it promotes intolerance and stifles dialogue and debate – and goes directly against the atmosphere that the University of Maryland is supposed to support,” he said.

What do the University of Maryland Campus Democrats have to say on the matter? Crickets. Their silence is deafening — and telling.

So here is my message to the MSA:

I and many other Americans deployed to Muslim countries to bring a chance for liberty and freedom. We lost our brothers and sisters. Some lost their limbs — all gave some, some gave all. And to have you here in our country “demanding” the story of one of our own not be told is offensive.

Your time is running out, as we will not tolerate the intolerant for much longer. You will be crushed and defeated, because in America we just don’t take crap for too long — regardless of the complicit bond you’ve found with progressive socialists — stretching from the White House to the College and University campuses — Islamic fascism will not prevail in these great United States of America.

Two words: Molon Labe!

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com.

Operation Jade Helm USA

Is the massive military training exercise a threat to freedom? I have some thoughts.

“Teachers Cannot Teach What They Do Not Know”

teacher by bes studios

PHOTO BY BES PHOTOS.

How bad is teacher education today? Consider: all states require that teachers be college graduates, but prospective teachers are passing licensure exams with skills and knowledge ranging from the seventh- to tenth-grade levels. Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise us, as colleges of education draw from the bottom two-thirds of graduating classes (and for those planning to teach at the elementary levels, it’s the bottom one-third). Much time in such schools is wasted on fashionable, politically tendentious, but ineffective pedagogy. Think Bill Ayers and Paulo Freire, among the most frequently assigned authors in education courses. Think elementary-education professors specializing in such things as gender identity and post colonialism.

In her new book, An Empty Curriculum: The Need to Reform Teacher Licensing Regulations and Tests, Sandra Stotsky, professor emerita of education at the University of Arkansas, offers a tested model of teacher knowledge, explains why it’s not being used, and describes strategies for overcoming the education establishment’s resistance. Stotsky’s credentials for this task are impressive: in her role as senior associate commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education from 1999 to 2003, she oversaw complete revisions of the state’s pre-K-12 standards as well as its teacher-licensure standards. Until these standards were replaced by the Common Core in 2010, Massachusetts ranked first among the states in educational achievement.

An entrenched education bureaucracy remains a formidable obstacle to meaningful educational reform, particularly in the area of standards. Many state education commissioners and staff “are influenced,” Stotsky says, “by the education schools they attended, teacher unions, school administrators’ needs, the interests of professional education organizations, and the pressure of political groups (especially think tanks, institutes, and policy-oriented organizations that claim expertise on educational matters).” Testing companies, educational entrepreneurs, diversity advocates, accreditation agencies, and political ideologues also have a vested interest in keeping standards low. Teacher-licensure tests, intended to protect children from incompetent teachers, set low passing requirements in order to protect teacher-preparation institutions, most of which, Stotsky points out, enjoy taxpayer funding.

Stotsky reminds readers how rigorous America’s education standards used to be. She cites a Michigan teacher-licensing exam in history from 1900, in which sample essay questions asked future grammar school teachers to, for example, “describe Ireland during the reign of Elizabeth” or “briefly state the result and effect of the Battle of Waterloo, naming the leading general.” States relaxed standards after a post-World War II teacher shortage, however, and relaxed them further after job options expanded for women, and further still after the court challenges of racial discrimination in the 1970s. Additionally, political correctness has corrupted subjects ranging from English and European languages to music and literature.

Stotsky calls on legislators and their constituents to revamp the system. To ensure teacher competency, she proposes raising college-admission standards and abolishing credits for undergraduate education coursework, replacing it with four years of academic coursework for core-subject teachers. Educationally high-achieving countries, such as Finland, South Korea, and Singapore, already take such measures. Extensive studies show that a teacher’s subject-matter knowledge is the best predictor of a student’s achievement, in line with the common-sense notion that “teachers cannot teach what they do not know,” as Stotsky puts it. Graduate-level coursework and professional-development courses should also be in the teacher’s subject areas: coursework for an M.S. or M.A. degree is far more intellectually demanding than for a M.Ed. degree. Stotsky also suggests requiring that directors, department heads, and curriculum specialists at the 5-12 grade level hold a master’s degree in their core subject and at least 18 credits of advanced graduate studies in one of the core academic subjects they supervise.

Such practical measures, however, aren’t in vogue. Much of the rhetoric surrounding the 2009 Race to the Top contest for federal stimulus funds focused on improving teacher quality, but the methods for measuring such quality can be dubious—including having students, beginning as early as kindergarten, evaluate their teachers. Georgia’s eight-year-olds assess teachers on such criteria as “my teacher cares about my learning” and “my teacher shows me how I can use what I learn at home and in the community.” The state then ties teacher bonuses to such ratings.

Stotsky’s compact and data-filled book should serve as a useful resource for pushing back against failed education policies and the bureaucrats who defend them.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the City Journal. The featured image is of a Norman Rockwell painting titled “Visit a Country School” dated 1946. Link to Sandra Stotsky’s primer for improving American educational standards: An Empty Curriculum: The Need to Reform Teacher Licensing Regulations and Tests.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar – A Warning To America, Israel and the West [Video]

mordechai_kedar

Dr. Mordechai Kedar

The United West is proud to bring you another installment of our Israel Trip Series featuring Israeli Scholar and National Security subject matter expert, Dr. Mordechai Kedar. The title of Dr. Kedar’s presentation is “A Warning To America – National Security And Understanding The Muslim Mind.”

Dr. Kedar combines his 25 years in various IDF Intelligence Units, fluency in Arabic dialects, and a stellar academic career at Bar Elon University into a National Security Briefing you must watch from beginning to end.

“We in the West often delude ourselves into believing that all cultures have exactly the same goals (peace, prosperity, freedom) and exactly the same values (human life, honesty, human rights). And although all of these goals and values are undoubtedly part of every human culture, not all cultures value them to the same degree that we do in the West.”

In this briefing Dr. Kedar will present a compelling look into understanding the Middle Eastern mind, culture, religion, and how the Muslim world sees Western culture. Only by understanding how the Muslim world sees us will we be able to properly defend our culture from The Global Jihad Movement.

In this briefing Dr. Kedar covers these topics:

  1. The Family unit and population demographics are a National Security issue.
  2. 14:43 Understanding Islamic immigration to the West and why the export or Hijra is vastly important but misunderstood by Americans and Europeans. How this works into the framework of the Greater Middle East.
  3. 45:40 Understanding the two types of threats emanating from the great Middle East and Persia.
  4. 1:03:00 The Big Picture. The West’s Geo-Strategic picture with Iran.
  5. What the Israeli message to Iran will have to be.
  6. 1:11:00 How the Iranian mind thinks and processes information using their own imagery. The Shia Iranians do not think like us politically. Dr. Kedar takes Iranian political propaganda and deconstructs what it means from their perspective. What we think is irrelevant in dealing with the Iranians.

After you watch and absorb what Dr. Kedar is telling you about the Iranian mind you will be angry at how the current U.S. administration is dealing with our Iranian adversaries geo politically and even more urgently with the Iranian Nuclear program.

This lecture should be mandatory watching for President Obama, John Kerry, and everyone at the U.S. State Department.

To follow Dr. Kedar’s body of work go to: http://mordechaikedar.com/

Go to www.TheUnitedWest.org and listen to our daily simulcast AM radio show – Enemies Of The State.

Special thanks to Dr. Bob – 00Z – CVC

Brooklyn College student thanks Allah for the growth of the Islamic State [Video]

onefinger

Last night I posted a photo of Muslim students at Pamela Geller’s talk at Brooklyn College making the raised index finger gesture that has become associated with the Islamic State, and on Twitter numerous Muslims and Leftists began ridiculing the idea that it was a gesture any different from anyone raising an index finger while making a point.

Let them explain this. Note that none of the Muslim students in the audience say a word to contradict or rebuke this student for declaring openly her support for this vicious group of “extremists.”

Pamela Geller has more here. Video thanks to David Wood.

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How Elena Kagan helped “queer” Harvard Law School

Will she now help “queer” the US Supreme Court’s decisions?

On April 28, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the “same-sex marriage” case. Federal law states: “Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

Last September, Kagan performed a same-sex “wedding”.But that’s just the latest of a long history of Kagan’s GLBT activism. The evidence presented below is overwhelming. Justice Kagan is hugely biased on GLBT issues and must recuse herself.

[Note: This was originally published shortly before Kagan’s 2010 confirmation hearing. It has been updated and expanded with new information.]

by Amy Contrada and Brian Camenker, MassResistance with Peter LaBarbera, Americans for Truth about Homosexuality (c) 2010, 2015 MassResistance

Introduction

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is committed to the radical campaign pushing acceptance of homosexuality and transgenderism as “civil rights.” Her unprecedented activism supporting that view as Dean of Harvard Law School (2003-2009) calls into question her ability to judge fairly and impartially on same-sex “marriage” and other homosexuality- or transgender-related issues that may come before the nation’s highest court.

Kagan’s record while Dean of Harvard Law School (HLS) demonstrates her agreement with the goals of the radical GLBT (gay lesbian bisexual transgender) movement and her solidarity with those activists. Working hand in hand with students to expel military recruiters in protest over the Armed Forces’ ban on homosexuals (a “moral injustice of the first order,” she wrote) is only the most obvious example of Kagan’s passionate dedication to this controversial and immoral agenda.

Kagan’s celebration and active promotion of the radical homosexualist and transgender worldview has profound implications. As a Supreme Court Justice, she could be expected to overturn traditional law and understandings of family, marriage, military order, and even our God-given sex (what transgender radicals call “gender identity or expression”). She is a most dangerous nominee who must be opposed by all who care about religious freedom, the preservation of marriage and traditional values.

There should be grave concern over Kagan’s issues advocacy concerning “sexual orientation.” Even before her nomination to the Court, her enthusiastic and committed pro-homosexuality activism at Harvard (including her recruitment to the faculty of radical “gay” activist scholars like former ACLU lawyer William Rubenstein and elevation of radical out lesbian Professor Janet Halley) was highly significant for the nation. Now, it is imperative that Senators and the U.S. public gain an accurate understanding of the radical, pro-homosexual environment that was Kagan’s home at Harvard – and the GLBT legal agenda that Kagan herself helped foster as Dean.

Kagan did her best to change a generation of Harvard-educated lawyers. Will she do the same to America?

Highlights of Elena Kagan’s Record as Dean at Harvard Law School, 2003-2009 (documentation in following section):

  • Kagan accelerated and legitimized the GLBT “rights” concept and law studies at Harvard Law School and in the larger community.
  • Kagan recruited former ACLU lawyer (and former ACT-UP activist) William Rubenstein, an expert on “queer” legal issues. Few Americans can comprehend the radical nature of “queer” academics. Rubenstein described one of his courses as taking up “newer identities (bisexuality, trans, genderfuck)” as well as “polygamy, S&M, the sexuality of minors.”
  • Kagan promoted and facilitated the “transgender” legal agenda during her tenure at Harvard. In 2007, HLS offered a Transgender Law courseby “out lesbian” Professor Janet Halley and Dean Spade, a transsexual activist attorney. (Halley’s extremism and contempt for natural gender boundaries is illustrated by calling herself a “gay man.”) Kagan also brought in Cass Sunstein (Obama’s regulatory czar, 2009-2012) who has written in support of free-for-all marriage relationships.
  • Kagan encouraged Harvard students to get involved in homosexual activist legal work. At a time when she as Dean pushed students to engage in “public interest law” and to get “clinical” legal experience, the Harvard Law School established the LGBT Law Clinic. How could a “Justice Kagan” on the Supreme Court be impartial involving cases brought by “gay” legal activists — when she so openly advocated for homosexual legal goals and integrating homosexuality into legal studies and practice at Harvard?
  • Kagan engaged in ongoing radical advocacy opposing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and demanding an end to the ban on homosexuals serving in the military. Her highly partisan actions are unbecoming of a future judge – especially one who would be called upon to adjudicate such weighty and divisive matters.
  • Even after Kagan and Harvard lost their legal campaign to ban military recruiters and Harvard Law School was forced to let them back on campus, she encouraged ongoing student protests against them — deputizing the radical Lambda group to come up with ideas of how to harass the recruiters legally. Kagan’s actions blatantly disrespected our military and exposed her as the out-of-touch, socially leftist academic that she is.
  • Kagan attended functions of radical homosexual (GLBT) groups at Harvard University, absorbing and apparently agreeing with their goals. She followed the wishes of campus homosexual organizations — within a month of meeting with a Harvard Law School GLBT student group, she was agreeing with their demand to ban military recruiters on campus. She moderated a panel on GLBT law at the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus’s 25th anniversary celebration in 2008.
  • Radical “trans” activism at Harvard: Kagan’s active promotion of the GLBT agenda at Harvard likely accelerated the campus environment so “tolerant” of homosexuality and gender confusion that there was even a campaign (during her tenure) to make the campus “trans inclusive” — using Harvard’s “gender identity” non-discrimination policy (in place since 2006). This included discussions between GLBT student activists and the law school administration (i.e., Kagan) “to make our restrooms safe and accessible for people regardless of their gender identity or expression.” (Meaning, allowing men who identify as “women” to use female restrooms and locker rooms, etc.)
  • Thanks in part to engagement by Kagan (and other administrators), Harvard has become so committed to radical transsexual activism that its health insurance policy now [2010] partially covers “sex-change” breast “treatments” for transsexuals (either men taking hormones to develop breasts, or women having their healthy breasts removed to become the “men” they believe they are).  Where does Kagan stand on transgenderism and transsexuality and the law today?  It’s very possible this question will come before the courts as trans activists make their demands on government health care.
  • Elena Kagan was a member of the Diversity Task Force of the ultra-leftist Boston Bar Association during the time of its activism in support of “gay marriage” and advocacy for “transgender rights.” Clearly, she was in agreement with its support for radical GLBT “rights.”

 

The following is a more in-depth treatment of the pro-homosexuality and pro-transgender activism that took place during Kagan’s tenure as Dean of the Harvard Law School (2003-2009):

I. Kagan accelerated and legitimized the GLBT “rights” concept and law studies at Harvard Law School — and in the larger legal community.

On February 5, 2004, Kagan moderated a “Dean’s Forum” on the Massachusetts “same-sex marriage” ruling. This was just months after the state’s Supreme Judicial Court issued its Goodridge opinion in November 2003. (A tape of the event exists in the Harvard Law School archives, but Kagan’s comments have not been publicly reported.)

In October 2004, Dean Kagan presented a HLS “public service award”to HLS alumna and GLBT activist, Sheila Kuehl, then a California State Senator. The likely reason for this award was Kuehl’s election as the first open homosexual to the California legislature, and her authorship of the law banning discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation” in California schools. (No record of Kagan’s remarks is available.)

In September 2008, Kagan moderated a panel on “LGBT law” at the gala Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus 25th anniversary event, billed as“A Celebration of LGBT Life at Harvard.” She was moderator for their panel discussion on “The State of the Law: Reflections on the Past Twenty-Five Years and Thoughts about the Future — A discussion of LGBT legal developments and trends by leading legal scholars.” Note that “trends” were discussed along with “developments” — which likely included these hot-button issues: “gay marriage,” adoption by homosexuals, overturning remaining state anti-sodomy statutes, pushing for more “anti-discrimination” statutes and ordinances, overturning the ban on homosexuals in the military, “transgender rights,” the role of federal courts in promoting LGBT “rights,” etc. (No record of her comments is publicly available.)

Among the panelists at that HGLC 25th Anniversary discussion were Georgetown Law Professor Chai Feldblum, an open lesbian and leading GLBT legal strategist, and radical queer Harvard Law Professor William Rubenstein (more on him below). Feldblum (who graduated from Harvard Law School the year before Kagan) claims advocating for homosexuality is a “moral” issue. She openly advocates legalizing polygamous households. Feldblum also ran a website devoted to overturning the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy and the ban on homosexuals in the military. President Obama appointed her to be a Commissioner on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Feldblum admits that the battle for legal rights between pro-homosexual advocates and people of faith is a zero-sum game. She has stated that she can think of few situations in which religious rights (when acting on one’s opposition to homosexuality) would triumph in the courts over homosexuals demanding their “rights” based on “sexual orientation non-discrimination.” Her outlook has been summarized as, “Gays win, Christians lose.”

Does Kagan subscribe to Feldblum’s view that homosexuality-based “rights” take precedence over the liberty of people of faith to act on their belief that homosexual practice is wrong?

Re-shaping the Law School curriculum

In her role as Dean, Kagan oversaw the HLS curriculum and new faculty appointments. Thus, she must have endorsed the following HLS offerings as legitimate subjects and viewpoints (i.e., “gay rights” and “transgender rights” are true civil rights; any disagreement or disapproval is therefore illegal discrimination). One of her major efforts as Dean was “modernizing” the curriculum including eliminating a required Constitution course, and instead requiring international law courses.

“Queer theory” legal scholar William Rubenstein

Kagan brought a pioneering GLBT legal advocate and “scholar”William B. Rubenstein, to HLS from UCLA, first as a Visiting Professor, then as atenured professor. (Both he and Kagan were HLS Class of 1986.)

In a memoir -– also the keynote speech he delivered at the September 2003 HLS GLBT reunion (with Kagan apparently in the audience), Rubenstein waxed poetical about his sexual experiences, desires, and scholarship. He describes his involvement with ACT-UP in the 1980s. (He later gave a lectureat Harvard’s Kennedy School in conjunction with a celebratory Harvard Museum exhibit on ACT-UP in 2009.) He explained how he had to alter his planned GLBT law course at HLS (Spring 2004) after the Lawrence v. Texasand Massachusetts “gay marriage” rulings:

In my new guise, I was hired on May 19, 2003 by the Harvard Law School as a visiting professor to teach a January 2004 course on sexual orientation law. … it was with mixed feelings that I reorganized my Hardwick-centric course away from its gay focus. Labeling the new product Law & Sexuality, I took up newer identities (bisexuality, trans, genderfuck), as well as the gauntlet thrown down by Justice Scalia, dissenting inLawrence (polygamy, S&M, the sexuality of minors). … And yet Harvard Law School itself has not retained many of its alienating features of old. My own classmate Elena Kagan is now Dean; another classmate, Carol Steiker, who had written her journal Note arguing for heightened scrutiny of classifications based on sexual orientation, now a professor; and one of my own students from a 1995 Yale course on Queer Theory, Ryan Goodman, now a member of the Harvard faculty. Fifty-four Harvard Law professors signed an amicus brief challenging the Solomon Amendment, Congress’s insistence that the military be permitted to recruit at the law school, recruit, that is, in direct violation of the law school’s, the university’s, the city’s, and the state’s anti-discrimination policies. No longer do gay law books represent the occasional oasis in the Saharan library. (Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, Vol. 39, 2004 pp. 330-1, emphasis added.)

More important, in his 2003 reunion speech, Rubenstein challenged the Harvard Law School to work harder to “queer” its curriculum and culture:

And so my message, to collect the lessons: our [gay] children, figuratively speaking, come to Harvard seeking a home; they bring with them a wondrous spirit that renews the life of the community regularly; but what they “go into” here at Harvard is not what it is at other institutions around the country. Whose law school is it? Why not ours?

Imagine the possibilities: student scholarships; fellowships for graduates to work on queer issues or to assist them in becoming legal scholars; funds to expand Harvard’s collection of gay materials; funds to support scholars to come to Harvard to teach and write; research and travel money to facilitate the efforts of Professor Halley and other Harvard faculty working on these issues; an endowed speaker series providing a forum for the exchange of ideas among scholars, lawyers, judges, and law students; a chair. Such programs would both make Harvard a more welcoming place and help Harvard contribute more to intellectual discourse on gay issues. Harvard should aspire to lead, and we alums should aspire to make sure that happens. After all: Aren’t we enlarged by the scale of what we’re able todesire? Still time. Still time to change…. (p. 333, emphasis added.)

Did Elena Kagan hear and accept his challenge?

Here’s the description of Rubenstein’s 2007-08 course, “Sexual Orientation and the Law.”

Janet Halley and transgender law

Professor Janet Halley (an “out” lesbian who self-identifies as a “gay man”) was elevated to a named chair professorship under Dean Kagan.Halley may have provided the inspiration to Kagan to go after the military recruiters in her 1999 book on “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”: Don’t: A Reader’s Guide to the Military’s Anti-Gay Policy. She teaches family law, discrimination, and legal theory. She has also taught a course entitled “The Poetics of Sexual Injury.”

Professor Rubenstein described Halley in his 2003 speech cited above:

Most importantly, Harvard’s faculty now includes the country’s single most interesting and provocative queer law scholar, Janet Halley, hired away from Stanford.

Professor Halley identifies herself as a member of the LGBT community in the law professors’ directory—the first full member of the Harvard faculty to do so. Professor Halley’s work, however, challenges the identity-based nature of social movements, investigating whether identity is not, ultimately, as imprisoning as it is liberating. In a unique demonstration that the personal is political, Professor Halley refers to herself as a “gay man.” (pp. 331, emphasis added.)

HLS offered a Transgender Law course (in 2006) taught by Halley andDean Spade, a transsexual activist attorney from the national Lambda Law organization:

As evidence of the increasing visibility of transgender people, Harvard Law School is offering a seminar on transgender law next spring taught by [out lesbian] Professor Janet Halley and [transsexual] Dean Spade, founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, which is dedicated to serving the needs of low-income people of color who are transgender, intersex, or gender non-conforming. (“Lambda lawyer discusses challenges facing transgendered,” Harvard Law Record, April 29, 2005; emphasis added.)

Catharine McKinnon — course on rape, lesbianism, gay rights, prostitution, transgenderism, etc.

Kagan brought radical feminist Catharine McKinnon to Harvard asVisiting Professor in 2007-8 for an “inquiry into the relationship between sex inequality in society and sex equality under law… Concrete issues—employment discrimination, family, rape, sexual harassment, lesbian and gay rights, abortion, prostitution, pornography — focus discussion through cases. Racism, class, and transsexuality are considered throughout.”

Michael Klarman, another legal scholar interested in “gay marriage” and “gay rights,” was hired in 2008 as full professor. Later, in 2012, he published From the Closet to the Altar: Courts, Backlash, and the Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage. “He is currently working on a revisionist history of the Founding.”

LGBT Law Clinic and “Career Guide”

The LGBT Law Clinic of HLS was apparently established during Kagan’s tenure as Dean. Kagan encouraged students to engage in “public interest law” and “clinical” experience.” The LGBT clinic was one recommended choice. Its director, Robert Greenwald, also taught courses at HLS including (in 2009) Family, Domestic Violence and LGBT Law”.

HLS issued its “LGBT Rights Law: A Career Guide” in 2007 during Kagan’s tenure as Dean. It lists recommended courses to take for a career in LGBT law, and organizations around the country supporting sexual radical causes.

HLS hosted forum on hate crimes and transgender issues for Democrat Mass. Governor candidates (Sept. 2006).

Mass. Governor Candidates Chris Gabrieli (L) and Deval Patrick (R) at GLBT Forum, Harvard Law School, Sept. 12, 2006 (Bay Windows photo)

Also at HLS while Kagan was Dean, Lambda (the student GLBT organization) co-sponsored a forum with the Massachusetts Democrat Governor candidates, along with InNews Weekly (a defunct radical GLBT Boston newspaper), and the Boston [GLBT] Pride Committee. It was covered by the National Association of Lesbian and Gay Journalists. The focus was “hate crimes” and transgender issues — once again demonstrating the extremism of HLS Lambda. (MassResistance blog, September 14, 2006.)

II. Kagan took part in functions and forums of radical GLBT groups at Harvard University – and apparently followed their lead on issues from banning military recruiters on campus, to increasing GLBT “visibility” in the HLS curriculum.

Kagan attended the first HLS GLBT Alumni reunion in 2003.

Kagan attended the first reunion of HLS GLBT alumni in September 2003, organized by the HLS GLBT student organization Lambda. (Note the inclusion of “T” for “transgender” alumni.) Reportedly, it was the first event of its kind in the nation.

Kagan graduated from Harvard Law School in 1986. Did she attend as a GLBT alumna, or in her role as Dean? She was, at least, at the reunion’s concluding dinner, according to the Harvard Crimson. The Crimson described the event:

Celebratory at times, solemn at others, alumni and current students marked the anniversary Saturday with anecdotes about the personal challenges they faced, the battle they continue to fight to keep military recruiters off campus and the need for classroom instruction in legal issues pertaining to homosexuality.

During the second discussion, titled “Lambda Today: Current Issues and Challenges Facing GLBT Students at HLS,” a student panel expressed their dissatisfaction with the efforts that the faculty and administration are making to address issues facing GLBT students. They highlighted the University’s decision to continue to allow military recruiters on campus, even though their presence violates Harvard’s non-discrimination policy…

At the reunion’s final event, a dinner held at the Hyatt Regency hotel, HLS Dean Elena Kagan renewed her commitment to improving student life for all students on campus … (“HLS Holds Nation’s First Ever GLBT Reunion,”Harvard Crimson, 9-22-03; emphasis added.)

What role did Kagan play at this event? (Kagan noted no recording or transcript of her formal comments in her Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire.)

Kagan at HLS LGBT reunion 2003 (source: Harvard University Gazette)

Within a month, Kagan was agreeing with the demand made by the GLBT students at that reunion: to ban military recruiters on campus.

Notably, the keynote speaker for that HLS GLBT reunion was radical queer legal scholar and Kagan’s Class of 1986 classmate, Professor William Rubenstein (then at UCLA, but about to teach a course at HLS on sexual orientation and the law as Visiting Professor). In his speech noted above, “My Harvard Law School ” (available on a Harvard Law School journal website), he challenged the school to “queer” its curriculum and culture.

In March 2005 Kagan welcomed attendees at a conference of the leftist HLS student journal, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law Review, and in April 2007 delivered “remarks” at another of their events. The journal features “gay rights” issues. (She reported to the Senate Judiciary Committee that no records of her comments exist.) The Review was founded as a “journal of revolutionary constitutional law” and is now “the nation’s leading progressive law journal.” In 2007, the journal published radical homosexual HLS professor William Rubenstein’s ramblings on queering legal education (discussed above).

Kagan attended the university-wide Harvard Gay & Lesbian Caucus’s 25th Anniversary celebration. (See also above.) Events included a panel discussion which Kagan moderated on LGBT legal developments and trends, and other diversions.

The HGLC banner notes the group is dedicated to “Organizing, Serving, and Advocating for the Harvard Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community” — which is exactly what Kagan was doing when she appeared at their event: advocating for their causes. HGLC’s 25th Anniversary Celebration listings included an LGBT Film Festival, “LGBT Highlights of the Harvard Art Museum,” “Gaydalus” after-party, and panels entitled “Jihads of Love,” “That’s Ms. Dyke to You,” “Naked and Queer,” “Trans America,” and “The Fight for Marriage.” Barney Frank gave the keynote at the gala dinner.

Just how radical is the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus (HGLC)?

  • In 2007 HGLC gave its “Respect Award” to Kevin Jennings, Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” with a long record of homosexual activism targeting schoolchildren. The group credits him with leading the fight to get the gay students’ rights bill passed in Massachusetts. He is also described as a leader in radicalizing Harvard University, organizing the first “open” reunion events specifically for GLBT alumni. “Kevin has changed the face of American education,” said the person introducing him.
  • In 2002, they gave porn promoter Frank Kameny their achievement award. The bio at HGLC refers to Kameny’s heroic past, including his arrest in Lafayette Park across from the White House, “a popular gay cruising area.” Kameny started the D.C. chapter of the Mattachine Society, founded by NAMBLA supporter Harry Hay. Kameny “was instrumental in getting the American Psychological Association to declare that homosexuality is not a mental illness.” He was a founder of the extremist National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which promotes sexual sadomasochism.

(Note: HGLC has been renamed the Harvard Gender & Sexuality Caucus,now serving the “BGLTQ” community. The use of the broader word “sexuality” — rather than specifically “lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender” — is significant as it implies the pansexual directions in which the radicals will likely move, much as Justice Antonin Scalia warned in 2003.)

Kagan attended forums held by HLS Lambda, the radical GLBT student group, on banning military recruiters. (See detail in Section III below.)

Note on the above items: Attending a dinner, moderating a panel, or delivering “remarks” to a group pushing controversial goals indicates sympathy with the viewpoint of group, and is not akin to a simple “welcome” to an uncontroversial group or eminent speaker. In fact, when Kagan fulfilled her administrative duties at a group’s event she did not approve of, here’s what happened:

At the [conservative-leaning Federalist Society] banquet in a downtown hotel, Kagan rose to speak the host institutions’ [sic] words of greeting to the thousand or so Federalists assembled from every corner of the country. She was greeted by a long and raucous ovation. With a broad grin and her unmistakable Upper West Side twang, the former Clinton White House official responded: “You are not my people.” This brought the dark-suited crowd of Federalist students to their feet in a roar of affectionate approval. [HLS Professor Charles Fried, “Everyone’s Dean,” New Republic, April 19, 2010.]

III. Kagan engaged in radical advocacy opposing the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy and demanding an end to the ban on homosexuals serving in the military.

While Dean at Harvard Law School, Kagan allied herself with the radical GLBT student organization, Lambda. Her questionnaire for the Senate Judiciary Committee and press reports reveal at least seven events where she lent her credibility to their causes and demands, including ending the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. Here is the chronology of those meetings:

  • September 2003: Kagan attended the first Harvard Law School GLBT alumni reunion organized by the HLS student organization Lambda. The event “highlighted the University’s decision to continue to allow military recruiters on campus, even though their presence violates Harvard’s non-discrimination policy.”
  • October 2003: Invites Law School students via official email to Lambda October 10-11 conference on military policy re: homosexuals. Kagan speaks at the conference (press report below).
  • 10/15/04: Kagan made “remarks” at Lambda event (press report below), and joined students in protest on steps of Law School.
  • 9/19/05: Meets with Lambda group before publicly announcing HLS policy reversal (press report below).
  • 10/12/05: Made “remarks” at Lambda event (no record); works with the group that fall to develop resistance tactics (press report below).
  • March 2006: Kagan issues statement urging students to demonstrate vs. military recruiters after Supreme Court ruling against her position on recruiters on campus (press report below).
  • 4/8/06: Kagan moderated LAMBDA student organization panel on “relationship between law schools and the military” (no record).
  • 3/3/07: Kagan moderated panel at HLS Lambda conference on “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” (transcript provided to Senate Judiciary committee).

Shortly after becoming Dean, in September 2003 Kagan dived right into the conflict over military recruiters at Harvard Law School.

The Harvard Crimson reported in September 2003:

Harvard is not among the law schools under the umbrella of FAIR [suing the federal government over the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy], according to a statement released by HLS Dean Elena Kagan on Saturday. “Harvard Law School is not a member of this organization, but I share its commitment to nondiscrimination,” Kagan said in the statement. “I look forward to the day when all Americans—regardless of sexual orientation—can serve their country with honor and distinction.”

At the first HLS reunion of gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgendered alumni on Saturday night, Kagan further addressed the issue of military recruitment on the HLS campus. “The military policy that we at the law school are overlooking is terribly wrong, terribly wrong in depriving gay men and lesbians of the opportunity to serve their country,” she said. “The need to create this exception makes me and makes almost all the members of the Harvard Law School community profoundly unhappy.”

She appeared at an October 2003 conference held by Lambda, the GLBT group at the Law School, delivering the welcoming remarks. She had evenencouraged students to attend the conference via official email. Kagan wrote on October 6, 2003:

I abhor the military’s discriminatory recruitment policy. The importance of the military to our society — and the extraordinary service that members of the military provide to all the rest of us — makes this discrimination more, not less, repugnant. The military’s policy deprives many men and women of courage and character from having the opportunity to serve their country in the greatest way possible. This is a profound wrong — a moral injustice of the first order. And it is a wrong that tears at the fabric of our own community, because some of our members cannot, while others can, devote their professional careers to their country.

The Law School remains committed to the principle of equal opportunity for all persons, without discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. As a result, the Law School remains opposed to the military’s discriminatory employment practices.

I invite all of you to email me if you have any questions or comments on this important matter. I also invite you, if you wish to learn more about these issues, to attend a conference sponsored by Lambda on the military’s recruitment policies and the Solomon amendment, to be held on October 10 and 11.

The editorial page editor of the Harvard Law Record criticized Kagan’s email as inappropriate coming from the Dean:

The text of Dean Kagan’s notice moved far beyond her role as the Dean of the Law School. Her admonition was an abuse of her position of academic (but certainly not moral) authority, and it should give students pause to consider whether their new dean is capable of understanding the difference between her, the office she occupies and the school that she leads. [Quoted inAccuracy in Academia.]

The Harvard Law Record reported on Kagan’s comments at the conference:

… much of what Kagan said was a recital of her personal abhorrence for the military discriminatory policy. She said, “I am committed to working with Lambda and others … on making progress for the elimination of” discriminatory policies in the military…. Kagan’s public statement was in fact her welcoming remarks for the two-day Lambda conference, titled: “Solomon’s Minefield: Military Discrimination after Lawrence and the Coming Fight over Forced On-Campus Recruiting.” … The conference included panel discussions on “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” in the wake of Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court decision last summer that struck down sodomy laws across the nation…

Dean Elena Kagan appears before a conference organized by HLS Lambda, October 2003. (Harvard Law Record photo.)

In October 2004, Kagan appeared at a student rally against “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and military recruiters. According to the Harvard Law Record:

The LAMBDA-sponsored rally on the steps to the library on Friday brought almost 100 students and numerous professors …”I’m very opposed to two government policies that directly violate our policy of nondiscrimination and directly impact our students,” stated Dean Kagan at the rally. “The first is ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’…. The second is the Solomon Amendment which effectively forces educational institutions to make exceptions to their nondiscrimination policy when it comes to the military and military recruitment.”

Kagan on Harvard Law School steps during Lambda rally against military recruiters, October 2004. (Harvard Law Record photo)

In September 2005, Kagan even met with the Lambda group before announcing HLS’s policy reversal (allowing recruiters back on campus) to assure them she still shared their views.  Kagan would surely have agreed with Professor Alan Dershowitz’s sign at the HLS rally in October 2005:“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Codifies Homophobia.” [Bay Windows, October 13, 2005, p. 18.] A student at the same rally holds a sign reading: “Racist Sexist Homophobic Recruiters OUT of Harvard.”

Kagan then went on to encourage ongoing disrespect for the military recruiters once HLS let them back on campus, deputizing the radical Lambda group to come up with ideas of how to harass them legally. (Clearly, she was meeting with group members outside their public events.) The groupstated it had Kagan’s support. In the fall of 2005,

… Law School Dean Elena Kagan appointed a “Solomon amelioration” task force, headed by Lambda—the school’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender student group—to examine methods in which the school could curb the effects of the statute. … In October, Lambda members staged a “sit-in” at the Law School student center, Harkness Commons, to voice their opposition to the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. And in the past … Law School students have protested recruitment by signing up for interviews with recruiters in order to waste the military officers’ time. (“Solomon Law Might Not Bar Jeering,”Harvard Crimson, December 13, 2005, emphasis added.)

In March 2006, Kagan

… encouraged students to demonstrate the presence of recruiters. Her statement came one day after Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. ’76 ruled that “law schools remain free under the [Solomon Amendment] to express whatever views they may have on the military’s congressionally mandated employment policy, all the while retaining eligibility for federal funds.” … Kagan wrote in her message that she hopes “many members of the Harvard Law School community will accept the Court’s invitation to express their views clearly and forcefully regarding the military’s discriminatory employment policy.”

… the co-president of Lambda, Jeffrey G. Paik ’03, said yesterday. “I’m also glad that she acknowledged the right of students to protest and make their views known; it says a lot to the students when the dean comes out and supports them.” (“HLS to abide by Court’s decisions,” Harvard Crimson, March 8, 2006.)

In April 2006, Kagan moderated a Lambda panel on the “relationship between law schools and the military.” (No record.)

In March 2007, Kagan doubled down on her advocacy, actually chairing a panel discussion at the HLS Lambda conference focused on “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

Saturday morning’s panel, “The Contours of Judicial Deference to Military Personnel Policies,” looked at the tradition of judicial deference to Congress, and how that deference applies in the case of military affairs. Moderated by Dean Elena Kagan, the panel included Bakken and Delery, along with Diane Mazur, Professor of Law, University of Florida College of Law; and Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Harvard University.

Discussion involved whether a court would overturn “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” considering all of the fact-finding that Congress engaged in during its codification of the policy in 1993 …

In addition to stimulating discussion of legal issues facing the LGBT community, the conference is also intended to provide a networking environment for the law students and practitioners interested in engaging in dialogue on topics in this area. The presence of HLS alumni, respected scholars and authorities in the field created a vibrant discussion in the “off times” during lunches and breaks. (“Lambda Conference Examines ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’,” Harvard Law Record, March 8, 2007; emphasis added.)

 

IV. Did Kagan’s engagement with GLBT groups help accelerate the transgender movement at the University?

“Our mission is not simply to train lawyers; more broadly, we must seek to train leaders—visionary thinkers and practitioners capable of designing new institutions to meet individual and societal needs,” Kagan wrote. (“As Harvard Law Dean…,” CNS News, May 28, 2010, emphasis added.)

Student and staff GLBT groups wanting to design “new institutions” (“gay marriage” for example) — including HLS Lambda and the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus, both of which Kagan supported publicly — pushed for the most radical transgender demands and clearly had influence with Kagan. “One of the central goals of Lambda [was] to raise the profile of out queer students at the law school and dismantle the homophobic and hyper-masculine culture of a law school that first graduated women in 1953.” (“Cleaning Out the Closet,” Harvard Crimson, September 24, 2008.) They found an ally in Kagan.

For years before the university’s 2006 inclusion of “gender identity” non-discrimination, the “Trans Task Force” had been working hard “behind the scenes” talking with administrators all over the university.

To what extent was Kagan involved as an administrator, and does she agree with these radical transgender demands?

How are these demands playing out [in 2010] at the University?

During Kagan’s tenure the movement was already gaining steam:

  • In April 2005, HLS Lambda sponsored two forums on transgender issues, one with a transsexual activist (whose group is pushing the “Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes” bill in the Massachusetts legislature), and one with an attorney from the national group Lambda Legal. [Harvard Law Record, “Lambda lawyer discusses challenges facing transgendered,” 4-29-05]
  • In April 2006, HU added “gender identity” to its non-discrimination policy, leading to granting transgender demands on bathroom and locker room use, dormitory housing, hormone treatments (beginning in 2006), and counseling supporting the individual’s chosen “gender identity.”  “2006 was a major year for trans activism, education, and visibility at Harvard, sparking much discussion both within the student body and between students and administrators,” according to the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus. (It’s notable that a 2005 Harvard Law School graduate and former HLS Lambda activist, Noah E. Lewis, has led the charge for these benefits at Harvard as staff attorney for the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund.)
  • The radical GLBT groups worked with administrators throughout the university to promote their cause (Harvard Crimson). HLS Lambda was one of those groups. What was Kagan’s involvement and position on their trans demands?
  • Professor Janet Halley’s 2007 transgender law course is noted above.
  • In early 2008, HLS Lambda hosted its third annual Harvard Lambda Legal Advocacy conference, and it focused on transgender legal issues. A conference organizer said:

“This is absolutely cutting edge in the legal world, and it’s also something that doesn’t get enough attention in LGBT advocacy” … Mara Keisling, [male-to-female transsexual] executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, will kick off the conference with a welcome lunch Feb. 29. The conference will also feature panels on everything from trans youth and family issues to healthcare to sex segregation and gender regulation in the law.  (“Harvard Lambda conference to focus on trans issues,” Bay Windows, February 21, 2008.)

    • In 2008, Lambda’s stated focus was discussions on “gender identity” and making the Law School

… campus truly trans inclusive. Building on the significant efforts of the Trans Task Force [which made a big push in 2006] and the undergraduate bathrooms campaign, Lambda has begun conversations with the law school administration [i.e., Kagan] to make our restrooms safe and accessible for people regardless of their gender identity or expression. (“Cleaning Out the Closet,” Harvard Crimson, September 24, 2008.)

So … Does Elena Kagan subscribe to the view that Americans should be granted “rights” based on gender confusion? Should transgender or transsexual persons be allowed to serve in the military?

Note: See Trannys Talk Back (2005 and later) and the Harvard trans community’s online publication, quench zine, for a taste of the juvenile, irrational and disturbing extremism of these groups’ demands. (See also MassResistance blog, “Harvard, Truth and Transgenderism,” September 15, 2006.)

Speaker at “Transgender Rights” rally at Harvard, 4-19-06. Note T-shirt message: “Fags Hate God”. (Photo: InNews Weekly.)

V. Kagan’s advocacy in the wider Massachusetts community: She noted in her Senate Judiciary questionnaire that she was a “member of Boston Bar Association Diversity Task Force.” Clearly then, she would support and promote their public positions on “gay marriage,” DOMA, “transgender rights,” etc.

This was a period of radical action by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the legislature. The Goodridge opinion (claiming the state constitution required allowing “gay marriage”) was issued in November 2003. In May 2004, the “marriages” began. In the years to follow, GLBT radicals pushed for “transgender rights” and national action to overturn DOMA.

What did the Boston Bar Association promote in the name of “diversity”?From its website:

  • 2002 “The BBA files an amicus brief (filed jointly with the Mass. Lesbian and Gay Bar Association) in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health in support of same-sex marriage as a civil rights issue, stating that discrimination against gays and lesbians is unacceptable and unconstitutional. Depriving same-sex couples the right to marry violates their equal protection under the law and denies them the rights, benefits, and privileges afforded to opposite-sex married couples.” The brief states, “The denial of the right to marry … deprives same-sex couples in Massachusetts of equal protection under the law, as a matter of statutory and constitutional law.” (p. 3)So it would seem Elena Kagan’s mind is already made up on the issue of “gay marriage.”
  • 2003 BBA adopts a diversity statement including non-discrimination re: “sexual preference.”
  • 2006-2008 The Diversity Task Force makes recommendations focused on “race, ethnicity, gender, and LGBT issues in the profession.”
  • 2007 “BBA Supports Equal Rights for Transgender Individuals.”
  • 2010 BBA institutionalizes partnership with Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association.
  • 2012 The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office and Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) receive the third annual Beacon Award (from BBA) for their work to defeat the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
  • 2013 “The BBA underscores its support for marriage equality and joins a coalition of bar associations, civil and human rights groups, and public interest and legal services organizations in signing onto amicus briefs in United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry.

You Won’t BELIEVE Who Is Behind “Killing Jews is Worship” posters on NYC Buses and Subways!!

New Yorkers are used to aggressive advertising. Banners for breast implants. Billboards for condoms. But a federal judge’s ruling has opened the door for far more controversial posters on buses and subways across the city.

“Killing Jews is Worship that draws us close to Allah,” reads one such ad next to the image of a young man in a checkered headscarf. “That’s His Jihad. What’s yours?”

The poster is at the center of heated legal debate over public safety and free speech. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John Koeltl ruled that New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) cannot stop the controversial ad from running on scores of subway cars and buses.

The MTA has argued that the ad could incite violence against Jews, but Koeltl rejected that idea.

MTA officials “underestimate the tolerant quality of New Yorkers and overestimate the potential impact of these fleeting advertisements,” he ruled. “Moreover, there is no evidence that seeing one of these advertisements on the back of a bus would be sufficient to trigger a violent reaction. Therefore, these ads — offensive as they may be — are still entitled to First Amendment protection.”

Making the case all the stranger is that the posters are not the work of an Islamist group, but rather a pro-Israel organization.

‘Killing Jews is Worship’ posters will soon appear on NYC subways and buses – The Washington Post.

AFDI free speech victory: NYC MTA must run ad about Islamic Jew-hatred: Killing Jews is Worship

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EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com.

Why Muslim persecution of Christians should concern Western people by Raymond Ibrahim

On the Ethiopians who were killed in Libya, and why we should expect more to come.

NRO note: This weekend ISIS released a new video showing some 30 Ethiopian Christian men being beheaded in Libya for refusing to convert to Islam (or to pay a tax for refusing to do so). This comes two months after 21 Egyptian Coptic Christian men were martyred at the hands of ISIS for the same reason. Christians and other religious minorities are being targeted, and their future in the Middle East is in peril. Raymond Ibrahim, author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013) and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007), and Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum, talks about what we know. — KJL

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: What do we know about the Ethiopian Christians killed by ISIS?

RAYMOND IBRAHIM: Like the 21 Copts slaughtered before them in February, they were likely impoverished migrant workers from the days of Qaddafi, trapped in post–“Arab Spring” Libya.  ISIS killed them in two sets — the first were shot execution-style in the backs of their heads, the second had their heads hacked off.  The video is horrific — the blood and gore puts Hollywood’s gory movies to shame.

By way of context: Soon after Qaddafi’s overthrow, Ansar al-Sharia — the “Supporters of Islamic Law” — offered rewards to any Muslim who finds any Christians (most being from neighboring Egypt). In the past few years, scores of Coptic Christians were randomly killed — in one instance, a family consisting of a mother, a father, and their young daughter (graphic pictures here). But since Ansar al-Sharia morphed into an affiliate of ISIS, the slaughter of Christians has been even more systematic.

LOPEZ: In the ISIS video they are described as “worshipers of the cross belonging to the hostile Ethiopian Church.” Is the Ethiopian Church hostile, or is this just propaganda?

IBRAHIM: This is pure propaganda, more “Muslim grievances” that have no grounding in reality. Here’s another example: When ISIS slaughtered the 21 Coptic Christians, it cited hackneyed grievances against the Coptic Church. The late Coptic Pope Shenouda III was portrayed as “a U.S. agent, an abductor and torturer of female Muslim converts from Christianity, who was stockpiling weapons in monasteries and churches with a view to waging war against the Muslims and dividing Egypt to create a Coptic State.”

Such is Islamic propaganda and projection — always accusing others of what Islamists habitually do.

These accusations were proven false several times — one woman even appeared on video saying she had voluntarily returned to Christianity — but, regardless, ISIS still cited it in its justification to kill the 21 Copts (as “payback”). Even the 2011 attack on Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad — the attack killed around 60 worshipers, many of them women and children — was blamed on the aforementioned allegations against the Coptic pope in Egypt (as if Iraqi Christians had anything to do with them, even if the allegations were true).

Bottom line, as shown in The Al Qaeda Reader (and in this article): The messages that these jihadi organizations send to the world at large are antithetical to the messages they send to fellow Muslims. To the former, they play the grievance card; to the latter, they say Islamic law commands that they attack, slaughter, plunder, rape, and enslave “infidels.”

LOPEZ: Why is that propaganda effective?

IBRAHIM: The effectiveness of this propaganda is simple: No matter how absurd, there are some in the West who are more than happy to leap on such “grievances” and say “Aha, that’s why Muslims are angry! It has to do with economics and politics, and grievances relating to them — not with hostile Islamic teachings.” Anyone acquainted with the “mainstream media,” Mideast academic departments, and, of course, the White House knows what I mean.

LOPEZ: Is this just like what happened with the Coptic martyrs?

IBRAHIM: Yes, the recent butchery of the Ethiopian Christians is nearly identical to what happened to the Egyptian Christians. Speaking of propaganda: There is an important but overlooked point to be made here about both groups. They had their heads hacked off because they refused to renounce the Christian Trinity and embrace Islam. Because this little fact does not sit well with ISIS — who are more interested in demoralizing Western/Christian viewers than in inspiring them through the courage of these martyrs — this aspect is not always readily apparent. But ISIS has left many conquered Christians and other non-Muslims who convert to Islam in peace. It has also let some Christians remain, as long as they pay jizya, extortion money, and live as third-class citizens, according to Koran 9:29 and the Conditions of Omar.

In the video, ISIS says that the Ethiopian Christians did not pay jizya (likely because they didn’t have any money). This means that the Ethiopians were given Islam’s classic three choices: convert to Islam, pay jizya and remain Christian, or die (according to Islamic prophet Muhammad’s teachings). If they had no money, it came down to convert to Islam or die. Their execution is proof that they refused to convert.  It’s the same with the 21 Copts before them — some of whom could be seen uttering Christ’s name in prayer seconds before being barbarously beheaded.  And it’s the same with the four Iraqi children who were beheaded for “loving Jesus” and refusing to profess Muhammad the prophet of God….  Keep reading

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Israel – Sanity in an Insane Middle East

Is there any serious thinking person who still believes that Islam is a “religion of peace?”

If there is, they cannot be watching any news reports anywhere. Islam, in particular a pure doctrinal Islam as practiced by the Islamic State, is reaping global death and destruction in the perfect model of their leader, Mohammed. As a result, the Middle East is on fire and the fire is just starting. Today, I and The United West team begin a week-long presentation of their recent national security mission in Israel and how that tiny nation is a civilized oasis in the midst of Islamic incivility.

Moreover, against this chaos, Iran through a New York Times editorial is positioning themselves as the world leader in establishing Middle East peace against the warmongering America and Israel.

WOW, watch our show for a wild ride!

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VIDEO DEBATE: Does God Exist?

Vizcaya Debate 20 April 2015 as I go up against Rabbi Barry Silver on the age-old question: DOES GOD EXIST?

Check out this insightful evening that has many humorous moments.

RELATED ARTICLE: Time to Remove Satan from the Public Square

State-level Civil Disobedience

The difference between the Article 5 convention and nullification is like the difference between a pop gun and a machine gun.

Nullification has stopping power. Article 5 is a genuflection to the federal power. It is simply writing more amendments for the Fed to ignore, absurdly pretending that the federal government is made up of sincere individuals who will obey the will of its citizens.

On the other hand, when a state nullifies a federal law, it is not asking the feds for anything or treating them as a body of sincere individuals. It is demanding, with a gun to the head of the unruly federal government. And that is the only way the fed can be made to back off.

Now some have reasoned that there are legal limits to nullification. However, if individuals have the right to civil disobedience, then so do the states. This goes further than mere nullification of a law by a state court. This is one step before insurrection, and judging by their actions in the past, particularly the way they backed off in the Bundy ranch standoff, the feds would not dare to go into a state and enforce their law at gunpoint because they know that such would lead to a new American revolution.

The Feds would then no doubt do what they are doing to Russia, ie, impose sanctions. But the state that used the “civil disobedience” approach could also fight back by withholding funds to the feds, much in the way that Russia is imposing sanctions of its own. They could, for example, temporarily release their citizens from the obligation to pay federal taxes, enjoining them to pay the funds to the states instead but reducing the overall amount.

There is no doubt that this would work, though causing some temporary hardship. It is all up to the American people. They need to wake up and realize that Washington is the enemy, by definition, and that desperate times demand desperate measures.

One very important use of civil disobedience would be for states to man up and refuse to admit anyone into their state who entered the US illegally, regardless of federal laws to the contrary. Initially, this would constitute nullification in the original sense, where the state would decide, on the basis of Article 4, Section 4, that the federal government was acting unconstitutionally to award legal residence to invaders.

The argument is straightforward and logical: The Constitution was a contract signed by the state representatives. By analogy with contract law, both parties must comply with each clause under penalty of dissolution or partial dissolution of the contract. The state could rightfully argue that it was induced at the founding of our nation to enter into a contract that provided protection but that the protection had been unlawfully withheld, thereby leading to dissolution of all or part of the contract.

Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution enjoins the federal government to protect the States against invasion. By refusing to allot sufficient funds and manpower to the protection of the southern border and by restricting the ability of the Border Patrol to arrest lawbreakers, by releasing apprehended illegal border crossers back into the US, by releasing convicted illegal alien criminals back onto the US streets after they have served their time rather than deporting them, and by rewarding lawbreakers with temporary or permanent residency using a variety of tricks such as allowing them to serve in the military in exchange for residency, the federal government has not only failed to protect the states from invasion as mandated by the Constitution, but has in fact aided and abetted the invaders and has thereby rendered itself an outlaw government that need no longer be obeyed but must in fact be resisted.

In case any reader should doubt that the massive immigration from the southern border constitutes an actual invasion, they need only read the article in Business Insider showing that of the 13 most dangerous street gangs in America, a full 10 are Hispanic. The most dangerous and violent of these is Mara Salvatrucha. To get a graphic portrayal of this gang’s behavior, you need only view the below video. But be forewarned. It is brutally violent and not for the weak hearted. And what you see there is a direct result of unconstitutional federal policies.

If the Supreme Court decided that, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary (only a smattering of which is presented at the linked sources), the massive influx of illegals does not meet the definition of an invasion, and that this was a wrong interpretation of the Constitution by the state in question, then it would be up to the state to implement “state-level civil disobedience,” averring that, in this decision, the Supreme Court represents only the federal government, a narrow interest group – thereby denying the states and their citizens equal protection under the law –  to the detriment of the states.

State borders would become sovereign again, as they should have been in the first place.

Anthem and the Meaning of the Light Bulb Ban

Humanity hangs the light bulb

Last week, I reread Anthem by Ayn Rand, an extraordinarily beautiful tribute to innovation as the life force of progress. It was published in 1937 but mostly drafted in Russia soon after World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. But get ready for chills when you realize that this dystopian future is actually coming true, right now.

After a catastrophe has erased all of civilization from the earth, humanity’s surviving descendants live in a primitive but totalitarian society. In the tale, a cruel government committee cracks down hard on a young man who has re-discovered the light bulb. They condemn him for daring to think for himself and presuming to override the planned poverty of the social order. The society ruled by the total state is perfectly happy with its candles, and no steps forward can be taken that are not explicitly approved by the ruling class.

Rand used the example of the light bulb because it is such a great symbol of the power of the human mind. It is within our power to harness the energy that comes from the heavens. “The power of the sky can be made to do men’s bidding,” observes the protagonist. “There are no limits to its secrets and its might, and it can be made to grant us anything if we but choose to ask.”

The light bulb finally freed humanity from having to defer to the earth’s rotations to determine work and leisure time. It allowed night baseball, made our highways safer, and put society on a 24/7 basis. The light bulb means much more than what it is in its physical essence: it was the dawn of humankind’s mastery of the world. Civilization is measured in lux.

I was contemplating the novel and looked up at my ceiling fan. Three glorious incandescent bulbs were lighting up the room with a warm glow. These particular bulbs lack the blue and white frosting. The glass is clear and the curved filament is burning like a miniature flame, so intense that you can’t look directly at it. And yet that flame is caged and made a servant of human dreams and aspirations.

I had the sudden thought: these are going to be difficult to replace. The last time I visited the light bulb section of the big-box hardware store, there were 30 feet of bulbs, but it was extraordinarily difficult to find one that you want. There were vast numbers of “compact fluorescent lamp” bulbs that look like curly pasta wrapped tightly to fight into a small space. There are implausibly expensive halogen bulbs that promise to last nearly lifetime but break the bank upon purchase and burn so hot they could cook an egg. There are many other choices too and often it can be hard to tell what is what.

What seems nearly missing entirely are normal light bulbs. Where are they? And why is private enterprise trying so hard to foist on us inferior products that we don’t want?

The answer is a thoroughly insidious attempt by bureaucracies together with a gaggle of politicians (they know all about light bulbs, right!) to ban the light bulb as we’ve always known it. In other words, it’s the plot of Anthem lived in real-time.

It all began in 2007 with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which called for a phase-out of the incandescent bulb by 2012 (variously amended by Congress to push out the deadline). The law banned light bulbs by wattage but not by name. In practice, it meant death for the kind of light we’ve enjoyed since the 19th century.

Gone already from the shelves are incandescent bulbs of 100 watts. Then last year, 40- and 60-watt incandescent light bulbs were killed off. Factories that once produced them were shut. You can get these bulbs so long as supplies last, but in a few years, that’s it. They’ll all be gone.

There are certain exemptions. Photographers and stage managers can continue to use them. Other specialty lights can continue to be made and sold, but you and I won’t typically bump into them at the big-box store. Oddly, 3-way bulbs survive, presumably because they save energy. If you are rich enough, you can escape the worst of it.

What is the thinking here? Ostensibly, it is all about energy efficiency, which vaguely connects to the American obsession with security and hence the name of the bill that made all this happen. If you use old-fashioned light bulbs, you are supporting energy dependence, hence foreigners, and hence terrorism. If you use incandescent bulbs, you are supporting America’s enemies, not to mention destroying the planet.

Once you dig more deeply, you find something remarkable: there was no scientific basis for this ban at all. Consider the analysis of Howard Brandston, a fellow of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America and the brains behind the refurbishment of the Statue of Liberty in the 1980s.

Brandston argues that the government’s metric of lumens-per-watt is completely bogus. It doesn’t consider the quality of light for a room. It doesn’t consider the costs of making replacements or the environmental risk of more “efficient” bulbs (fluorescent bulbs contain mercury), and it doesn’t consider the whole reason we have light bulbs to begin with: to light up a space. It focusses on one narrow metric at the expense of all these broader considerations.

“The calculations used by the government and others promulgating or promoting use of compact fluorescents,” he says, “is strictly mathematical conjecture and nothing to do with reality.”

So how can you tell which are the best bulbs? Brandston says that the consumer’s subjective judgment, tempered by a consideration of how long bulbs last, is more than enough. You don’t need bureaucrats, and you don’t need experts — just like every other basic consumer product.

But even if the new bulbs are awful, don’t they “save energy”? Brandston says: “Hoping that lighting is going to make a major contribution borders on ridiculous. . . . We’d be better off promoting occupancy sensors and dimming controls and recommending all dimmers be set to only provide 95 percent of the power to the light sources.”

The story you will not hear concerns the role of the industry: all of the major manufacturers supported the ban, the new standards, and the replacement bulbs. Profit margins were ridiculously small on old-fashioned light bulbs, which were being manufactured in China for pennies. How do you stop competition and push an expensive, highly profitable alternative? Testify before Congress and get them to force consumers to buy your expensive but poor-selling product lines.

The evidence is there for all to see. The National Electrical Manufacturers Association represents the entire industry connected with lightbulbs, every single one of the biggest players. The testimony to Congress by its president was not just about acquiesing to a ban of bulbs; the NEMA positively urged and demanded it, along with a ban on importation of incandescent bulbs. This is clearly a case of manufacturer-driven graft at work.

And it’s enough to break this capitalist’s heart. And there’s more evidence that this ban was all about money coming and going. The NEMA became very commited to Washington, doubling its lobbying expenditures around the time of the ban.

It also fits with everything else about federal policy for the last half century, which seems to have the goal of helping special interests by increasing human misery as its main policy objective. It is why our toilets, faucets, detergent, and washers have been wrecked with water-use controls — even though none of these policies make a significant difference in overall water usage.

It’s why we are pushed to recycle even though no one has ever demonstrated that the mandates help the environment. It’s why we are taxed on things we want to do like drive cars. It’s why we can no longer medicate ourselves in normal ways without a doctor’s permission. It’s why we must endure special taxes and, worse, condescending lectures from public officials about fast food, sweets, and trash generation.

What do all these policies have in common? They target things that we enjoy and that make our life better. They force on us expensive, inferior products and services. It’s the penance we must do in the interest of the common good — and never mind whether that the common good is actually enhanced in real life.

This whole ethos of modern policy is not inherent in the nature of government. There was a time when government actually sought to boost the material blessings we enjoyed. It did a terrible job of it, sure, but that was the intention, as late as the New Deal.

Now the intention is exactly the opposite. If there is something that we like, that makes our lives lovely, a product or service that increases our overall happiness — something as simple and normal and traditional as a light bulb — you can bet it is being targeted for destruction by some bureaucracy somewhere.

This gets us back to Rand. She had a prophetic way of seeing to the ugly truth about government. She grew up under a regime that promised heaven on earth but ended up making a hell for everyone not part of the ruling class.

She saw that governments could not produce imaginative goods — could not invent or create — and would eventually fall back on celebrating the poverty and destruction they cause, inventing an ethic of sacrifice as a means of covering up their crimes. (You only have to listen to the glorification of “authentic” poverty to see this meme in explicit action.) And if you don’t go along, you are an enemy of the people.

It’s rather incredible that we have come full circle. Just as in Anthem, the US government has actually banned the light bulb as we’ve known it (though unlike Anthem, it has been ironically sold as “progress.”) Just think about the awesome implications of that and ask yourself why we put up with it.


Jeffrey A. Tucker

Jeffrey Tucker is Director of Digital Development at FEE, CLO of the startup Liberty.me, and editor at Laissez Faire Books. Author of five books, he speaks at FEE summer seminars and other events. His latest book is Bit by Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World.

Time to Remove Satan from the Public Square

In June of 1962 the U.S. Supreme Court in the Engel v. Vitale case ruled:

Because of the prohibition of the First Amendment against the enactment of any law “respecting an establishment of religion,” which is made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, state officials may not compose an official state prayer and require that it be recited in the public schools of the State at the beginning of each school day — even if the prayer is denominationally neutral and pupils who wish to do so may remain silent or be excused from the room while the prayer is being recited.

This SCOTUS decision has had far reaching effects leading to: a misinterpretation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, God being removed from the public square, religious liberty being threatened and the potential for marriage to be redefined. As God was gradually removed from the public square the void was filled by Satan.

It is time to remove Satan from the public square?

real nature of religion book coverRebecca Bynum believes so. Bynam’s book “The Real Nature of Religion” believes that perhaps it is time to set public standards on religion. Bynum takes on issues such as the soul, science, morals, values, goodness, evil, mortality  and immortality in her short but compelling book.

Bynum notes, “Certainly it is a symptom of the decline of [Western] civilization that our [secular] culture is not providing people a reason to go on living, let alone a reason to cultivate our inner lives [soul] in hope that something real will live on in a future existence [life everlasting].” Bynum writes, “Moral feelings goes all the way down to the essence of what it is to be human.”

Satan takes away the “essence of what it is to be human.”

In Chapter 7: Religion and the Law Bynum asks: How should religion be defined? Bynum writes, “The time has come to robustly and honestly discuss and define the real nature of religion. All Americans must certainly admit the necessity of allowing only those religions (both new and old traditions) which are beneficial to our society to grow and flourish. Those harmful to our social unity should not be given free reign to grow in influence and power, for the day of reckoning will surely come.”

Bynum believes, “Defining true religions for First Amendment protection could be easily done in neutral language and religions and religious sects could be subject to a simple test.” Bynum’s simple test consists of five questions:

  1. Is love, the progressive experience of God, encouraged?
  2. Are the fruits of the spirit, (truthfulness, joy, peace, loyalty, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance) encouraged?
  3. Is loving service to humanity, without prejudice, encouraged?
  4. Are hatred, selfishness, intolerance, intemperance, deceit and violence discouraged?
  5. Is violent coercion employed?

Bynum believes by using this simple test U.S. Courts “[W]ould not be required to prove or disprove the validity of any set of religious beliefs [see U.S. v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78 (1943)] but it can set standards on what true religion should do for mankind and judge the fitness of different religions to come under the protection of the First Amendment…”

Bynum notes, “Just as early scientists argued that doctrine cannot deny experience (specifically, observation and experiment), neither should a scientific materialistic doctrine [liberalism, socialism] deny the plain fact of the everyday human experience of the non-material-specifically mind and soul.”

Who will lead the fight in the battle to deny Satan the public square?

The leaderhip must come from the pulpit. From the Pastors, Ministers, Priests, Bishops, the Pope and Rabbis and from those who “seek God and forsake self.”

As Bynum notes, “Religious liberty is at the heart of freedom. Men either choose to seek God and forsake self, or they choose to forsake God and elevate self. This is the very essence of freedom. No one can force another to love. Conformity is no antidote to sin and forcing conformity is a sin in itself.”

Jesus said, “Think not that I come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” Matthew 10:34

His sword is Truth!

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Liberals DO NOT believe in Freedom For All

This past week end, I spent a lot of time outside working on my landscaping.  The long, hard winter of 2014/2015 looks to be over.  And I would just like to say thank you to Global Warming advocates who are still at a loss as to why this planets climate has not lived up to the desert like conditions promised.

I guess global warming equals record cold temperatures and record snow fall.  Well if that is what global warming is, then I will jump on board because I love living in New England and I sure don’t want another Alaska type winter to befall us.  Note the sarcasm.  But I digress.

While working in my yard this past week end, I got to see some of what makes America great.  The freedom of people to be who they want to be.  I saw people walking in shorts and tank tops. Mind you, although it is warm, to me it is far from tank top weather.

I saw folks riding their motorcycles, big ones and small ones.  Some had flags on the back.

Some were the noisy type.  Some were the fast type.  And some were the big, touring grandparent type. I saw folks taking their convertibles out for a week end joy ride probably for the first time this year.  I saw and heard the younger set with all their windows down and music blaring.  Yes, we can hear you a half mile away and you are going to kill your ears by playing music that loud. But at least in most communities, those young people have the freedom to play their music in their car as loud as they want.

And there it is.  The freedom.  I saw people enjoying their freedom.  Nobody telling them they could not walk in a tank top yet.  Nobody passing a law preventing motorcycles from being ridden at this time of year.  No overreaching ordinances telling young people that in order to be legal others cannot hear your music outside of your car at all.

Now this part of the article is for all of my Liberal friends and haters out there.  This is where I point out how hypocritical you are.  Lets take gay rights for example.  Now this is America.  As some would say, ‘Murica.  And this is the land of the free.  Which, you on the left say, means that gays have the right to live as they please.  They have a right to live in peace.  They have a right to love who they please.  They have the right to have a life just like a straight person.  To which many other Americans would agree. But then you turn the tables on everyone else.  You want laws dictating how others act and react around you.  You wish to stifle or take away the freedom and rights of others just to fit your own selfish desires.  You say you want to be free, but you want big government to dictate how we all live and interact with each other.

It would be like telling the person on the fast motorcycle that he is not allowed to go 65 mph on the highway while allowing cars to do that speed.  In other words, you are not asking for freedom.  You are asking for special privileges.  Privileges in which the rest of the population is not able to avail themselves of.  You are asking to separate the people in to classes and groups. Some classes and some groups get more freedom than others.

That kind of thought is straight out of the pages of the novel Animal Farm.  In this novel there is a passage that says, “some animals are more equal than others” which means some animals are not equal at all.

This is the same thought process used to own and keep slaves.  Blacks were not thought of as being equal to whites.  Now gays want to say that straights are not equal to gays.  And thus a straight person has no right to admonish gays in any way.  However, when you ask the question of gays should they be forced to make a T-Shirt for a Muslim that says “gays are infidels and must die” the fast and quick answer is no way.

Well if you have the right to tell a straight person they must make you a t-shirt that says “being gay is fab” then the Muslim has the right to tell the gay person to make him a t-shirt of his choosing. But in order to get around this, gays would say that what the Muslim wants is hate speech.  So you want to create a law that stops hate speech.  Even though, in this country, the Muslim is free to say what he pleases just like you and I.  But you wish to live your life of freedom by taking the rights of others away simply because you don’t like it.

This is not an issue with Muslims.  I need to say it because some of you out there would point out Muslims should not have a right to say what they say.  To which I reply with a query.  Why?  Sure I find a lot of what they say offensive.  But does that give me the right to deny his free speech rights simply because I don’t agree or like his speech? Does this mean that gays should censor straights because they don’t like the fact that some straights don’t agree with homosexuality?  Does it mean that we force the motorcycle to go only 55 instead of 65 because they are not wrapped in a steal cage?

Who decides who gets special rights and who gets their rights denied?  The point is when you deny someone their rights, you are most likely starting down that slippery road process of denying your own rights.  And frankly that makes us all less free.  And less freedom has no place in ‘Murica.